Time's Mirror: A CHRONOS Files Novella (The CHRONOS Files) (17 page)

Simon is already blurting out his next clue, about finding the kid in a Viking village. But I already know the boy is Tate’s.

Tate’s and Maya’s.

So yeah, maybe Tate didn’t tell me
everything
.

What’s really bothering me, however, is the realization that the Rat Bastard has that very same nose.

T
HE
F
ARM

E
STERO,
F
LORIDA

Day 121—May 27, 1908, 2:24 p.m.

June also has the nose. Otherwise, she looks a bit like me, or like I’ll probably look when I’m older. Assuming I never wear makeup or color my hair. And after seeing June, I’ve decided I’ll be doing both.

She’s nice, though. Smart. Seems to know her stuff, which is probably a good thing, since she’s my doctor.

“Well, you pass inspection, Pru. I’d give anything for five minutes inside the medical facility that patched you up.”

I’ve already explained the process to her in detail. She seems especially interested in the tub of goo at CHRONOS med, and a little disappointed that I didn’t ask more questions of Coralys and the rest of my med team.

“So, is that it?” I ask.

“Yes. Now I’m going to go in there once again and try to explain simple biology to Simon.”

“Good luck with that.”

She grabs a computer tablet from the counter, and says, “Pamphlet on egg donation.” When the document pops up on the screen, I follow her back into the waiting area, where Simon is sitting. I don’t know which I loathe more, him or the field extender he’s holding.

“Okay, Simon.” June hands him the tablet. “Full details are here, because I know you well enough to know you’re not going to take my word for it. But first, let’s go for a little stroll.”

“I’m afraid I need to take a rain check on the walk, June. I don’t have all morning. Places to be…”

“It won’t take long,” June says, in a tone that suggests she isn’t taking no for an answer.

We step outside and she pushes a button near the clinic door. The screen just above the button switches from
The Doctor is In
to
The Doctor is Out
.

The day is warm and humid. June sniffs the air as we walk past a grove of trees, and then pauses. “Mmm. The mangos are finally ripe.” She pulls two of them and hands them to me.

“One is for you. Take the other one back for Brother Cyrus.”

Simon huffs. I don’t know if he’s objecting to the leisurely pace or the fact that she didn’t pick one for him.

We move on toward the building on the other side of the grove. It looks like a school. There’s a swing set, a tall metal slide, and a strange-looking round disk suspended by metal wires from a tall pole. It seems to be a type of group swing. Three of the older kids are standing on the planks that make up the lower circle and holding on to the wires, leaning back and forth to make the thing move from side to side.

The children in the play area range in age from about two to nine. Three women are seated on a bench near the building, watching them. Two hold infants, and a few older babies are crawling on the grass nearby.

June waves to the women, and then leans back against the gate. “Okay. Now that we have our visual aid in place, I’ll start the lesson. Here’s the short, succinct version.
Some things can’t be accelerated
even when you have a CHRONOS key
.
Prudence here is currently, based on our best guess, sixteen years and fifty-six days old. My records indicate that she’ll conceive when she’s seventeen years, two hundred and four days. Earlier than I would have recommended, but that decision was before my time. The egg donor process will take place when she is twenty years, eighty days.”

“Yes,” Simon says. “I get when it happened in the past. What I’m saying is start it now, and we save some time. And maybe we just skip the whole pregnancy thing. Pru hated it, and Brother Cyrus kind of likes the whole virgin birth motif.”

June flashes me a look that makes it clear she knows that ship has sailed, but she doesn’t share that info with Simon. “Start it now and we don’t get the same batch of
eggs
, Simon. We might get the same sperm, assuming that nothing changes about the time of her…encounter with the male donor.”

“Yeah, June. We considered that. Brother Cyrus says he’s fine with that possibility, and I agree. We might get a few extra jumpers. No offense, but the current batch of kids in this nursery isn’t going to knock his socks off in that regard when they reach testing age. There are what, maybe seven who’ll have any ability at all. Let’s roll the dice again and see if Pru can produce a better batch.”

“That’s certainly an option.” June smiles, but it’s the smile of someone watching her opponent walk into a carefully baited trap. She nods toward the children running around. “Some of these kids are from the Koreshan Unity crowd, but there are nine or ten of yours in the mix, Pru.”

I watch them run around, and I can’t help but smile. I like little kids. They’re honest. They say what they think until they get civilized, and taught manners, and all of the stupid things their parents want them to believe. I feel a little pang, wondering exactly what these kids are being taught.

“Do they…have families?” I ask her. “Do they go home when school is over or…”

“This
is
their family,” June says. “Lots of kids to play with. Lots of parents who love them. Hold on…yeah. There.” She points to the far corner, near the back gate. “See that little kid over there on the teeter-totter? The one at the bottom. I’m not positive, but I
think
she’s me. And you should look around a bit, Simon, because according to my records, one of the others is you.”

Simon’s smirk fades.

“So…you still want to roll the dice again?” June claps him on the shoulder once and starts walking back to the clinic.

Simon stays behind, still watching the kids on the playground, probably trying to figure out which one will grow up to be the Rat Bastard.

I’d rather walk with June than him, so I jog a bit to catch up. She’s pulled another mango from the tree and bites into it, skin and all.

“Don’t feel sorry for those kids,” she says between bites. “They do okay. Every one of their mothers was honored to carry the child to term, and the men and women who live here are honored to raise them so that they might carry on the message of Brother Cyrus. They are loved. They are cherished. It may not be the same kind of family you grew up in, but it works.”

The Brother Cyrus talk is beginning to grate. I have to remind myself that June grew up in this place. She’s been drinking the Kool-Aid since she was born. I feel guilty that they’ve accepted a lie, but then I remember all of the progress Saul showed me. All of the good that Cyrist International is doing in the future. And June probably wouldn’t believe me if I told her the truth, anyway.

When we arrive back at the clinic, the sign has changed. Now, it reads
The Doctor is In
. June curses under her breath. Then she pulls out a CHRONOS key and starts rummaging through the stable points.

“What’s wrong?”

“Need to find a time when the clinic is empty.”

“Who’s in there?”

She arches an eyebrow. “Me.
I’m
in there. That’s what the sign is for. We keep a calendar, too, but it’s easy to get mixed up. This keeps me from crossing my own path too often. And if I do see her, we don’t speak…well, occasionally we have to talk briefly. But I never talk to the ones who are a lot older or a lot younger. That’s asking for trouble. Your brain will end up mush. I’d tell you to avoid it, too, but I already know you don’t listen. Or they don’t let you listen, and I guess that amounts to the same thing.”

7

T
HE
F
ARM

E
STERO,
F
LORIDA

Day 267—May 27, 2030

When I hear the rustling noise in the corner, I don’t open my eyes. I just sneak my hand slowly toward the nightstand to grab my weapon. Gizmo, who you’d think would be an early alarm system considering the noise he makes during the day, just snorts and presses his cold puppy nose against my shoulder.

This is the third night in a row the woman has paid me a visit.

The first night, I assumed that this was simply my intermittently scheduled nightmare—just older and unusually vivid. I screamed, which finally woke up Gizmo. By then, she was gone. I might have convinced myself it really was the nightmare, except…it wasn’t like I was waking up from a dream. And she wasn’t
exactly
like me, the way she always is in the nightmare. She wasn’t wearing that same outfit. She was older. Thinner. And she didn’t tumble down into some dream version of that hole in the floor at CHRONOS. She disappeared using a key.

The next night, when I opened my eyes once again to see this older version of me sitting in the chair near my window, watching me, I hurled the first thing I could find—the hand lotion I keep on the nightstand—straight at her head. She stepped back and it hit her in the chest. Then she scooped it off the floor and hurled it right back at me.

Apparently my aim has improved with age, or maybe she was just more awake, because the tube connected right between my eyes. She gave me a satisfied little smile right before blinking out again.

Gizmo didn’t even budge that time until I plopped back onto my pillow. In retrospect, the lotion was a piss-poor weapon. Only a tiny red spot remained on my forehead when I looked in the mirror the next morning.

Tonight, however, I’m prepared. I know exactly where the stone mortar is, because I stubbed a cigarette out inside of it just before falling asleep. It was the closest thing to a decent weapon I could find in this place, although I suspect the Rat Bastard has a sizable arsenal stashed somewhere. I know for certain he still has Tate’s masher-basher.

But when my hand reaches the nightstand, the mortar is gone. I open my eyes slightly, peering through my lashes to see if I’ve just missed it, but no. It’s gone.

When I flip over onto my back, I draw my arms around my head instinctively, certain that I’ll see the heavy stone bowl crashing down toward me. Instead, I see only my room, dark except for a faint lime-green glow near the window.

Gizmo finally stirs when I sit up, crawling out from under the quilt and onto my lap, where he’ll fit for another month, tops. His head cocks to one side for a moment, and he snarls, the way he always does when someone has a CHRONOS key out in the open. But he doesn’t bark at her, which is weird. June came into my room last month when I had the flu, just to check my temperature, and Gizmo raised holy hell.

The woman in the chair raises her hands, palms up. She has a CHRONOS key strapped to her left arm. “No jagged rock,” she says, glancing at each of her hands in turn. “I’m unarmed, with the exception of your little bowl here.”