Tomorrow (18 page)

“What about the virus?” I probe.
“Is it still a danger to us all? Was Isaac working alone or are there others out there who could unleash it?”

Elizabeth’s
cheeks colour, suggesting the news won’t be good. “We had a difficult time with Monroe. He obviously had access to brand new grounded technology that helped him resist our methods.” Probably a drug hidden somewhere on his body, something he ingested when they dragged him out of the barn. “We’d only begun to break through his defenses,” she continues. “It was such a thorny undertaking, we were in danger of irreparably harming his mind, which would prevent us from obtaining all the information we needed. We discovered his desire to release the virus but not the details. We were forced to temporarily stop mining for information. To give him a chance to stabilize.”

Stabilize and escape.
With my help.

“Why would he want to
decimate the current population?” I ask. “He wasn’t like that, he respected human life.” Guilt pierces my skin as Isaac’s image shimmers behind my eyes, the feeling instantly driven away by his plotted massacre.

Elizabeth
remains silent. We’ve crossed into forbidden territory. Isaac’s reasons come from the future.

When I asked him
out on the Lower East Side how he could stop a 2071 nuclear disaster from 1986, Minnow told me he wasn’t trying to prevent it, simply helping people evacuate. But maybe he
was
trying to stop it, in some way I can’t fathom. I’m feverish at the thought, my mind twisting and turning, sliding down a chute that never ends. Maybe humanity would be better off if no one had ever discovered the chute. Otherwise people might never stop insisting on second chances, constantly trying to revise the past and creating new dangers in the process.

“He couldn’t have come through the chute alone,” I continue, thinking
aloud. “Not if he killed—or somehow got past—the people the U.N.A. must have stationed in Lake Mackay. He said he came with a team.”

Elizabeth
’s face is stony. “We know he wasn’t alone at the outset; we’re not sure what became of any others. We believe he had the most important role in potentially spreading the virus but he wasn’t in possession of it when we picked him up. I can’t say more on the subject of the lake. You have to understand, my mind is a minefield.”

She must not be
capable of discussing U.N.A. forces in Lake Mackay and therefore can’t tell me what happened there, but someone out in Australia would have informed their people in North America about what happened with Isaac and his crew. Otherwise they wouldn’t have thrown him into the van with me.

“
So you don’t really know if we’re safe from the virus,” I surmise.

“
No. We thought we’d break through Monroe’s defences in the end, that there’d be time to uncover his entire plan. There wasn’t. But I would’ve shot him myself, in the field, if you hadn’t done it first. We couldn’t let him follow through with his intentions.”

There’s
little room for regret over my actions. It had to be done. Everything happened so fast back there. I didn’t know if I could rely on Elizabeth to do the job. Minnow had proven he was good with a gun—he might have taken her out first instead. She’s a scientist, not used to armed altercations.

And then
it hits me, the realization descending with deceptive softness, like the first snowflakes of the season. My feelings of necessity are Minnow’s feelings about the virus. He wouldn’t do it unless he didn’t see any option. The things he told me about 2071 were the cruel truth. Widespread nuclear destruction that would make the planet uninhabitable for years to come. It happened once already and in 2065 we were travelling down that same path to annihilation.

Isaac couldn’t expect to kill the Doomsday Cultists in France who launched the bombs
; they wouldn’t be born yet in 1986. And preventing the birth of any single person responsible for the attack probably wouldn’t change what happened on September 19, 2071, either. But killing many, many people—billions of them—would alter human history. Losing sixty percent of the population would cripple nations. There wouldn’t be enough people to keep basic services running. Infrastructure would crumble.

T
here’d be no place for an arms race in a world like that. People would be too busy trying to survive and take the first steps to putting civilization back on its feet. Carbon dioxide emissions would drop as a result of the culling, slowing global warming. I can’t know for sure this scenario is what would have fuelled Minnow’s decision, but there’s a horrifying logic to it. Killing sixty percent of the population might well keep the planet clean, preventing animal extinctions and possibly our own, for years to come.

Ultimately we could end up making
similar or drastically different mistakes regarding the earth, but there’s no way a virus of the scale Elizabeth described could fail to make a dent in humanity’s path. Minnow’s virus would bring rapid change, causing ripples that would be felt all the way to 2071 and beyond. Killing people now could save the future.

But there’s no guarantee of that, and why should the people of today be sacrificed on a gamble? Maybe the U.N.A
.’s efforts to alter the future would have generated enough change to prevent the disaster of 2071. Minnow should’ve given their plans a chance to succeed.

He was wrong to
attempt to wipe out the majority of humanity with a virus, even if his goal was to save the planet. Most of the population of 1986 would agree with me. And yet, I shot Minnow for the same reason. Does that mean only the vast number of people who would be affected by Isaac’s virus make his actions wrong?

My eye sockets and forehead twinge
, cobwebs of pain spinning out along my skull. It would be better not to know these things, not to carry these questions in my mind. I feel it trying to expand with the weight of them, and failing.

“There’s nothing we can do about the virus
either way now,” Elizabeth says, surprisingly stoic. “It will happen or it won’t. I was thinking about what you said—how you asked me what they’d expect you to do.”

I nod bewilderedly,
one of my eyelids pulsing again.

“Maybe Monroe’s dead body will convince them you hadn’t joined forces with him. If they believe you killed him, they couldn’t believe you were involved
in his plans for the virus. In that case they might leave us alone and concentrate on looking for others who are more dangerous.”

The ones who came with him from the future, ones who might
still have access to the virus.

I don’t know how much the director saw and I say,
“They might think Isaac was shot by one of your people in the house and that he bled to death in the field trying to get away.”

Elizabeth
sighs, her hands tightening on the wheel. “They could. We have no way of knowing how they’ll regard the shooting or what resources they’ll dedicate to coming after us. We need to get as far away as possible, leave the continent. We could drive across the border and fly out from the United States somewhere. They wouldn’t expect that, I don’t think. They’d be more likely to look for us at the Vancouver airport.”

Freya and I were led
to believe there are more U.N.A. personnel south of the border than there are in Canada, making it a riskier place to hide. We travelled across the entire country rather than slipping into the United States the last time they came after us. So Elizabeth could be right that crossing the border isn’t something they’d expect of us, but considering Freya’s state, what she’s proposing is just as impossible as catching the ferry to Vancouver Island. We’re only about twenty minutes from the Peace Arch crossing in Washington State, but it may as well be a thousand miles away.

“I’m not leaving her
if that’s what you’re suggesting,” I say angrily, my gaze whipping into the backseat. A lock of Freya’s hair has fallen between her lips and one of her hands is folded under her head, acting as a cushion against the window. I didn’t position it that way and my heart revs in my chest.

Catching
my expression, Elizabeth glances over her shoulder at Freya. “I know you wouldn’t leave her.” Elizabeth flips her gaze back to the road, unaware of the change in Freya.

“She’
s moved.” My skin tingles as I repeat myself. “She moved her hand. That has to be a good sign, right?”

Elizabeth
nods slowly, her eyes springing back to Freya. “I hope so.” But Elizabeth’s tone isn’t as optimistic as I’d expect. I’m on the verge of cross-examining her when a horn blares from the car in front of us. There’s minimal traffic on the road and no disturbances that I can see, but for a moment the sound shakes me free of any deeper questions and sends my eyes scanning the area for the source of the driver’s irritation.

I’m no wiser
about what pissed him off when I watch him ease off his horn and push a cigarette between his lips. A body should know better than to yearn for poison but mine doesn’t. I inhale deeply as the driver flicks a lighter in front of his face, my lungs filling with imaginary nicotine and smoke.

When
I return my attention to Freya, her head’s still settled sleepily against her hand and she’s staring steadily back at me, her blue eyes pale and infinite in the early morning sunshine. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen Freya wake up in the past fifteen months. Sometimes with a yawn or bleary eyes and sometimes with the energy of a child. In all those months I’ve never once seen this strangely detached expression in her face.

“Freya?”
Joy and urgency coil in my voice. “Freya?”

Her eyelashes flutter shut
, the invisible divide between us falling into place and sealing me out of her existence.

Elizabeth whips around to look at Freya, too late to catch her moment of consciousness.

“Her eyes were open,” I
say breathlessly. “What’s going on—why is she asleep again?”

Elizabeth
purses her lips and fretfully adjusts her headband. “She must be starting to come out of it, but that could be gradual. Listen, Garren, I just want to warn you not to expect too much. Pulling her out of the process before completion could’ve caused some unpredictable results.”

“You said stopping the wipe was better than continuing
.” The desire to hurt Elizabeth rages through me again, pumping out from my heart and into every part of my body. Anger with myself charges in after it—I shouldn’t have left Freya alone when she was least able to protect herself. It was stupid to think they’d forgotten about us.

“I believe that. But I can’t say how what’s been done so far will affect her.”
The remorse in Elizabeth’s face has no impact on me. “I’m sorry. Just have some patience with her.”

I have endless patience for
Freya, if that’s what she’ll need. But the injustice of the U.N.A.’s actions burns. Reading someone’s mind is invasive but butchering it with a wipe and cover is barbaric. Especially when we’re talking about Freya, and the scientists don’t have the technology to make a clean job of it. “You’re the one who suggested driving across the border,” I snap. “How can we do that when she can’t keep her eyes open?”

“
We can’t.” Elizabeth’s mouth sours around the disappointing syllables. “We have to wait.”

But we can’t stop
moving—that would give them a better chance to hunt us down. We’ll have to keep going until Freya’s fully conscious. “How much cash do you have?” I ask. The eight hundred dollars in my pocket could keep me and Freya going for a while but it won’t be enough to buy us international plane tickets and fake passports.

“Only what’s in my wallet
. About ninety dollars.” Elizabeth bites her lip as she slaps her cardigan pocket. I watch the realization sink in that her bank account and credit cards will soon be inaccessible to her; if she uses them the well-connected U.N.A. could track her through the information. “I saw a bank machine a few minutes ago,” she adds hastily. “I could withdraw more before we leave the area.”

My own ATM card is either being devoured by feeders back at the farmhouse o
r in the hands of the director, and the banks themselves won’t be open for hours yet. Even if they were, my Robert Clark ID is gone. The only person I can pass for now is Chris Henderson, the name on my fake driver’s license and social insurance number. And Chris Henderson has no bank account.

“I’m guess
ing you don’t have secret ID under a different name they don’t know about,” I say. “Which means it’s possible they could find out if we cross the border anyway.”

“I didn’t prepare for this
; I didn’t expect it.” Elizabeth’s look of exasperation makes me roll my eyes. “What about you—do you have any money or identification?”

She couldn’t know that Minnow
returned the eight hundred dollars U.N.A. security had stolen from me, and I lie. “Isaac gave me two hundred dollars back in the barn along with the fake IDs for me and Freya that your people had taken.”

I don’t owe
Elizabeth the truth and I have to protect the money Freya and I have left. Besides, admitting to less might inspire Elizabeth to get creative about putting her hands on extra cash. I’m not going to carry her—she needs to pull her own weight.

Because the U.N.A.
have seen my emergency ID the three of us will need new identities as soon as possible. I know a guy just outside of Chinatown that puts together convincing documents, but heading into Vancouver now would be lunacy. Maybe hopping over the border is our best option after all. Even if the U.N.A. discovers we’ve crossed into the United States they won’t know where we’re going. A population of 240 million should give us a fair opportunity to blend into the background in the short term, until we can get enough money together to book a flight.

I tell
Elizabeth to head for the ATM and we pull off the Fraser Highway and double back to the bank. Ten minutes later we’re in an otherwise empty Surrey parking lot and Elizabeth’s climbing out of the car. She trudges to the bank machine wearing the expression of a moving target while I hop into the backseat with Freya.

I know she’s not exactly in a coma
and that Elizabeth said I shouldn’t force her to wake up, but maybe her subconscious can hear me and needs encouragement. “Remember all those horror books we used to read when we first got here?” I ask, my voice hushed.

A quote from
The Picture of Dorian Gray
springs into my head: “The basis of optimism is sheer terror.” What I’m feeling now is too complicated to be only one thing, but sheer terror is part of it. I have to believe she’s reachable—that the Freya I knew is still in there.

“I don’t know what we were thinking
,” I continue. “We should’ve been reading happy, hopeful things. Stuff like
A Christmas Carol
and Jane Austen novels.
The Lord of the Rings
books even—at least they would’ve had a positive ending.” I wish I had a book with me so I could read to her. Hearing something familiar could help bring her back.

Something like
Hendris maybe. As much as Kinnari loved her, Freya was a bigger fan. I only know the lyrics to one Hendris tune, her biggest hit, “Shade.” I stumble over the verses as I sing aloud, fishing for some words and peppering my rendition with mistakes. But I know the chorus as well as anyone and that part I croon with quiet certainty:

We could live in the shade forever

I will take you there tonight

But first you have to learn how to let go

of the difference between darkness and light

The truth is a silence

The truth is a shadow

The truth is a memory

The truth is our right

The rhythm of Freya’s breathing doesn’t alter. Her brow is furrowed in her sleep, her posture unchanged. When Elizabeth yanks the car door open and gets in, I sigh to myself.

“I could only
take out two hundred dollars,” Elizabeth explains as she glances at me in the backseat. “It would’ve been less but I raised the limit this past winter.” Anxiety carves into her cheeks. “We’ll need more.”

I slide out of the backseat and take my place next to
Elizabeth in the front. “It’ll have to come from somewhere else then.”

Elizabeth
nods unhappily and starts the engine. We turn out of the parking lot and onto the street. The day looks golden, like one that will draw people to the beaches although officially, summer is weeks away. I squint as I stare towards the sun. Out of nowhere a crow crashes into the windscreen, its body bouncing against the hood of the car and into the roadway.

A savage shriek
rings out from directly behind me. Flinching, I twist to see Freya sitting bolt upright in the backseat, her hands on her thighs and her eyes drilling into the spot the crow collided with our windscreen. The sound spilling from Freya’s mouth is raw and forlorn, almost alien. I didn’t know a person could sound like that in real life and the shock delays my reaction.

“Freya!” I have to shout at her to be heard over the unending scream. “Freya. It’s
okay. It was just a bird.”

But she won’t stop
shrieking. Elizabeth pulls over to the curb, an angry brown Chevette on our tail honking in complaint, and then whipping around us to zoom past.

“Freya,”
Elizabeth intones gently as she peers into the backseat. “Freya, dear, don’t worry. It’s done. It’s over and done.” Her tone is reminiscent of a mother addressing a child with a skinned knee and Freya presses her lips together and stares, wide-eyed and silent, at Elizabeth.

My own eyes
interpret Freya’s expression as fascination and now that she’s quiet, her harrowing screams fading into the upholstery, I lower my voice and say, “She helped us get away from them.” I cock my head to indicate Elizabeth. “But we have to keep going to stay safe.”

The intensity of Freya’s
gaze unnerves me. The relief I want to feel at seeing her awake is halved. “Freya, are you all right?”

Elizabeth
rejoins the flow of traffic as I wait for Freya’s answer.

Her eyes don’t leave mine but she
remains quiet. “Freya?” I repeat. “Say something. I need to know you’re okay.”

With Freya s
itting behind me in a stranger’s clothes—the pink miniskirt that couldn’t be more unlike her—and staring at me from familiar eyes that suddenly seem unknowable, I feel frantic. My instincts tell me to leap into the backseat with her again, but the more cautious side of me warns that any sudden movements might scare her, that after all she’s been through I shouldn’t violate her personal space.

“Hey,” I say softly, deciding
Elizabeth’s approach was right. “It’s okay. Are you thirsty? Is there anything you need?” I thought I saw some orange juice in the trunk among the groceries.

Freya
won’t even nod or shake her head for me and I stare accusingly at Elizabeth, who avoids my eyes. Have they turned Freya’s mind into a wasteland? My heart crumbles, but I try again. “Freya, listen, can you just…will you raise one of your hands for me?”

Freya glances down at
the back of her hands, her face long. Then she lifts both her hands into the air and holds them about a foot from her face, gazing out at me from between them like she’s awaiting further instructions.

My face explodes into a smile. She understood me. Her mind wasn’t shredded like the boy with the brain tumour.

“Thanks,” I tell her, my body filling with gratitude. Tears form behind my eyes. I want to say so much more but I remember what Elizabeth said about giving Freya time.

I watch Freya fit her hands back into her lap, her eyes darting between me and
Elizabeth before settling on her own window. Riveted, she stares out at the British Columbia sunshine.

“What
about the border then?” Elizabeth asks quietly. “Should we try?”

Break for the border.
Like in a western movie. The smile’s stuck on my cheeks like it was etched into them with a laser beam. But Freya’s silence is a barrier to successfully crossing into the United States. If she refuses to speak to the border guard, he or she will have the car searched and question us in depth. “You know we’re less than half an hour away,” I warn. “She’s not ready.”

Elizabeth
bobs her head and glances into the backseat. “Freya? How are you doing there?”

Freya
switches her attention from the window to Elizabeth. I watch Freya’s long lashes blink slowly, her posture frozen as though every bit of her concentration is centred on the sound of Elizabeth’s voice.

No reply comes
, though. Freya sees me staring and returns my gaze. There’s a self-consciousness in her face that makes me feel I should look away.

“Freya,”
Elizabeth says, her tone as gentle as it was when the crow crashed into the car. “We’re going to need you to do something for us soon.” Elizabeth glances my way. “Do you have her identification?”

I fish Freya’s fake driver’s license and social insurance
card out of my jeans. The day before our driver’s license photos were taken we went white water rafting on the Elaho River. The valley was so unspoiled that time vanished. The effort of paddling was distracting in itself but it was the old growth forests, hanging glaciers, and water that ran wild, rough, and pure, that made me forget—for hours at a time—that I’d ever lived in another time and place. Later that night, as I was thinking back on the day, I remembered how Freya’s expression in Elaho had reflected feelings identical to mine. In the middle of that ageless landscape we had nothing to hide. For once, we felt like exactly who we appeared to be.

Looking at her now, I have no idea what Freya’s thinking
or feeling. I peer at the girl in the photo and am flooded with memories. The real birthdays we celebrated in private because they didn’t match up with Robbie and Holly’s paperwork. Freya repeating Spanish phrases from the tapes she’d take out of the library.
No hay de que. Lo siento. Te extraño mucho.
Any smattering of Spanish I know is what I picked up listening
to Freya.

Last October
. When Freya won tickets to see The Cure at the Coliseum and she was so excited the feeling was contagious. I wrapped my arms around her as we danced to “In Between Days,” her hands reaching back to grasp my legs and the voices of thousands of Cure fans ringing in my ears: “Come back come back come back to me.”

In the present I
glance at Elizabeth, wondering what she wants me to do with Freya’s ID. “Give it to her,” Elizabeth instructs. I reach into the backseat with it, Freya staring at my fingers for ponderous seconds before she lifts one of her own hands to take the driver’s license and social insurance card.

“That’s who we need you to be, Freya,”
Elizabeth explains. “If the border guard ask for your name and birthday, that’s what you tell them. Can you do that?”