“So it worked?” I lick my dry lips. “Are we in the past?”
“One way to find out.” Tanner wanders to the computer terminal next to the wall screen, completely unselfconscious with his nudity.
I flush and train my eyes on the ceiling. I’m not going to look. It would be the height of hypocrisy when I asked him to promise not to look. There’s no way I’m going to—
I look. Just a tiny peek, really. Enough to see his very fine and very bare bottom.
I grab another blanket, march across the room, and hold it out. “Could you please cover yourself?”
His lips quirk. “That’s kind of you to offer. But I’m perfectly comfortable—”
“Just take it!” I squawk.
The smile widens, and he rolls into the blanket. Which brings him inches away from me. Damn the Fates. He’s covered up, all right, but now he’s standing in very close proximity. Naked. With nothing between us but a few loops of yarn.
His eyes flicker down—and I know he can’t see anything. I know that. But heat zips along my body, filling every cell and pore until I’m pretty sure even my toes are blushing.
“Jessa?”
Father of Time, even my name sounds suggestive on his lips.
“Yeah?” I mumble. What would I do if he tried to kiss me right now? Would I push him away? Or would I let his mouth linger for just one delicious moment…
“Should we go see what date it is?”
Oh. Right. Of course.
I gather up my afghan, and we shuffle to the terminal. He tucks the blanket firmly around his waist, and a few flicks of the keyball later, the wall screen changes from a waterfall to a calendar.
There it is. The date blinks out at me—ten years in the past. The date of Callie’s supposed death.
“We did it,” I whisper. “We time-traveled to yesterday.”
“More like yester-decade.” He stares at me for so long that my stomach begins to turn slow, precise somersaults.
“What is it?” I bring my free hand to my face. “Did the time travel warp my features? Am I missing a nose or an ear—”
“Not at all. You look as beautiful as always. It’s just…” He stops, and I gape at him. He’s never called me beautiful before. He did say I was “pretty” when he was talking about Olivia and the past, but the comment that stands out in my mind is when he described my looks as “atrocious” in the sewer.
But now, he glosses over the compliment as if it’s a given. “There’s something I want to show you.”
He glides his hands over the keyball, and the calendar shrinks to a corner of the screen. An instant later, a ComA-approved biography of Tanner Callahan appears on the wall.
“The Father of Future Memory,” the title proclaims.
I frown. “I don’t understand. Is this your father?”
“No, it’s me. Read the biography. You’ll understand.”
I skim the paragraphs. It summarizes Tanner’s childhood accurately, as far as I know. His birthplace of Eden City, the early and uncanny aptitude for the sciences, the demise of his parents, a list of his academic accolades. But then, the biography veers into events that have yet to occur, detailing his experiments at uni, his marriage and offspring, the significant and wide-ranging discoveries he made in his forties. The text is even accompanied by an image of a middle-aged Tanner, one with laugh lines and a squarer, fuller jaw.
“The bio talks about you as if you’re an older man.” My eyes drift to the calendar in the corner. “But you must be, what? Six years old, just like me? Did they get this information from a future memory?”
“Nah. I mean, Olivia had some foreknowledge, but even she couldn’t tell for sure what the future held. They just made up the whole thing.” He steps toward me, and his knees brush mine through the blanket. “You see, back then, er, I guess I should say right now, FuMA had a very keen interest in making everyone believe that future memory had already been invented. It was how they got their legitimacy. They needed people to believe that they couldn’t change their futures. Imagine how much chaos would ensue if people found out future memory hadn’t even been discovered yet. Thus, they needed an inventor, a Father of Future Memory.” He spreads his arms out, making the blanket shift precariously on his waist. “They picked me.”
It hits me then. Of course. His name was in the stories Callie used to tell me—in particular, the one where she got her name. I can’t believe I didn’t make the connection until now. According to Callie, our father named her after the greatest inventor of their time. Callie Ann for Callahan.
Tanner Callahan.
He gestures to the photo of his older self. “They could’ve extrapolated a better picture. I’m much handsomer in real life, don’t you think?”
I ignore his comment. “Let me get this straight. You knew from the time you were six years old that you were destined to discover future memory?”
“I knew the future legacy they had created for me,” he corrects. “The future they hoped would come true. From that moment, I was determined to fulfill their prophecy.” He takes a deep breath, and his chest brushes against my hand clutching the afghan. “Especially after what happened to my parents.”
I swallow. “Was this around the time they died?”
Instead of answering, he swipes his fingers along the keyball, and a news vid pops onto the screen. “The chairwoman made sure this was recorded. She told the reporters that my parents were important dignitaries. But really, I think she just wanted a visual reminder to hold over me. To make sure I stayed in line.”
Silently, we watch the short clip.
An older couple waves at the camera and then kisses a little boy—Tanner, I realize with a pang. I’d recognize those dark eyebrows anywhere. In the background, the TechRA building spears into the sky, majestic and imposing.
The couple climbs into a self-driving vehicle—a silver-plated spherical pod—and the car takes off. But something’s wrong. The pod veers wildly back and forth. An instant later, it slams into a building and bursts into flames.
I gasp, bringing a hand to my throat. A voice-over tells us that the FuMA-issued vehicle had malfunctioned and the inhabitants, Deacon and Brenna Callahan, special guests of Chairwoman Dresden herself, died upon impact.
The clip ends, and Tanner restores the wall screen to its placid waterfall. Still, I can see the flames licking up the sides of the pod.
“Were those…your parents?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.
He nods, pulling the blanket around his chest as if he’s suddenly cold.
“The car was FuMA-issued,” I continue. Dresden’s statement replays in my mind: You must be loyal to me…or people will die. I wondered if her words were an idle threat; I wondered if anyone actually died. But I was too distraught at the time to pay much attention.
Now, my chest feels tight, and my mouth tastes of bile. I don’t want it to be true—I can’t bear for it to be true. But the logical conclusion gets right up in my face and refuses to disappear.
“Did Dresden have anything to do with the malfunction?” I whisper.
He looks at me then, and his eyes are so empty, so bleak that the breath is squeezed from my lungs.
“She warned me,” he says in a low voice. “She said if I didn’t quit my whining about going home and seeing my parents, she would punish me. I was property of ComA now, and I had to learn that the most important priority in my life was science. If I continued to be distracted by other things, she would make sure my life was rid of all such frivolity.”