“So you’ll do it?”
“What choice do I have?”
The breath I didn’t realize I was holding rushes out of me. “You can’t tell Callie, okay? Say whatever you have to, but she can’t know you’re staying here to save her in the future. It will mess up everything. Please, Mom. You’ll do that, won’t you?”
“For Callie, and for you, I’ll do anything.” She holds out her arms, and I fly into them. We hug, for the last time in the next six years. I close my eyes. The wool of her sweater scratches my cheek, and the light, fresh scent of vanilla surrounds me. I know I’ll remember this moment forever. No matter what time I’m in.
“Over the next few years, I’m not going to be very nice to you,” I mumble into her neck.
“Oh dear heart, that’s to be expected.”
“It’s not just teenage brattiness, okay? The six-year-old me thought you abandoned me. And she holds it against you. I’m sorry, Mom. So sorry.”
She pulls back, wiping away my tears with her thumbs, even as the moisture springs up in her own eyes. “You don’t have to apologize. What have I always told you? I will always love you, no matter what.”
“Just remember what I said. Please. It’s never too late for love. Over the next few years, when I say terrible things to you. Remember that I don’t know.”
“I will,” she says. “I’ll know in my heart that you love me. Even if you don’t know it at the time.”
46
The building glints in the early morning sun, looking remarkably like the skyscraper of our future. The same tall spirals, the row after row of reflective windows. The only difference is FuMA was bigger and more powerful than TechRA at this time. So, even though it was already shared between the two agencies, everyone called it the FuMA building.
Tanner and I walk nonchalantly to a side door, a lightly trafficked entrance that faces the woods. We’re wearing the navy slacks and white short-sleeve shirts that constitute the FuMA uniforms. He has a mustache attached to his upper lip, and we’re both wearing wigs provided by my mom. Hopefully the disguises will suffice to let us pass as employees.
At this moment, somewhere in this very building, the seventeen-year-old Callie and Logan are walking around, searching for a precognitive to give them answers about the future. It was hard enough for my mom to sneak them in with the laundered sheets, so Tanner and I are on our own.
“Are you sure this is going to work?” I whisper, even though we’re the only two people around.
“It should.” Tanner strokes his mustache like it’s a pet. It must tickle or something. He can’t keep his hands away. “My fingerprints have been in the system from the time I was five. Yours were entered a few days ago, when FuMA processed you as a lab subject. It’s the only biometric that doesn’t change in ten years. That’s why we’re at this entrance, where there’s no voice or face recognition.”
I lick my furnace-dry lips. “And you’re sure we have security clearance to enter the building?”
“Your mom checked. Our clearance gives us access to all the upper floors.” He smooths the synthetic hair over his lip again, and I realize he’s nervous, too.
So many things could mess up. The time travel could’ve altered our fingerprints. Or maybe somebody will check the logs and realize that the six-year-old Tanner Callahan and Jessa Stone have no business wandering around the building together. But it’s the best plan we’ve got.
“You go first,” I tell Tanner.
“If anything goes wrong, run to the woods and find Potts’s cabin. He’ll let you hide until it’s safe to go back to the time machine.”
I nod. I don’t know if Potts still lives in his cabin in my present, raising his bloodhounds. But I’ve heard all about him from Logan’s stories.
Tanner squares his shoulders and presses his fingertips on the sensor. Eternal seconds pass, and an awful feeling washes over me. We’ve been here before, with his fingers on a sensor. And it did not end well.
But then, the sensor beeps, and my shoulders droop. At least one of us is in.
Holding my breath, I mimic his movements. One…two…three…four seconds. Beep. Oh, thank the Fates. I lean forward and air-kiss the sensor.
Tanner watches me with a strange expression on his face. As though he’s thinking of another time, another place. When we kissed on the shore by the river.
Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking.
Blushing, I hurry forward. He falls into step beside me, and we travel down the halls, trying to look like we know where we’re going. I thought the building would feel familiar. I thought that I would experience déjà vu or that old memories would flash across my mind. But so much has changed. I see only the skeleton of the TechRA building I know now, and any memory I have is from the future not the past.
A few employees pass us, but they do no more than glance at us as they hurry on their way. Our disguises must be working.
Following the map in my head, I stop at the apex of two hallways, at a window ledge stuffed with potted plants.
I pinch a pointy green leaf between my fingers, and a crisp, woodsy smell fills the air. Logan told me about the plants. The entire building is full of them. People in my time don’t have the same yearning for the natural. Maybe, ten years later, they’re simply accustomed to the metal sculptures.
I point down the corridor on my left. “Logan and Callie should be coming down that hallway in a few minutes. Along with a skipping Olivia.”
Tanner knows the plan, of course. He helped me form it. But it helps me to say the words out loud. To remind myself what I need to do. “A FuMA employee carrying a plant will come around the corner, crash into Olivia, and the pot will go flying. Soil, ceramic pieces, and green stems will fly everywhere.”
My throat works, but there’s nothing to swallow. “That’s my cue. In the middle of the chaos, I’ll walk by and say the jingle—our version of it. Callie might not register it, but her subconscious will. When she hears our version again in the future, she’ll remember.”
At least, we hope. But I don’t say that part out loud. No need to put my pessimism into the universe.
“She’s been primed,” Tanner says. “Your mom confirmed.”
That’s the other part of our plan. This morning, when my mom went to see Callie, she played the correct version of the jingle on her wrist com. If Callie noticed the background music at all, she would’ve just dismissed it as an advertisement from my mom’s newsfeed. But now, her subconscious will be primed to receive a jolt when it hears the tweaked version.
“After they leave us, they’ll go to William’s office. See Olivia’s vision of the genocide. And then, Callie will go see the younger me—and jab herself with the syringe.” Goose bumps erupt on my arms. I shouldn’t be this anxious. These events I am detailing are in the past. They already happened. Yet being in this time means they’ll happen all over again.
“You’re not going to try to stop her, are you?” Tanner asks.
“Of course not. We’ve been over this. I wouldn’t risk Remi.”
He nods slowly. “Keep that in mind when you actually see her.”
At that moment, little Olivia appears at the end of the hallway, her messy braids flying. And then, around the corner comes Logan…and Callie.
At the first sight of my sister, my knees turn to water. I sway forward, and all of my carefully laid plans fly out of my head. She’s here. She’s here, and she’s alive. She looks so young. So much like me.
My muscles bunch; my blood sings. Every nerve in my body urges me to spring forward and tackle her. All I have to do is move, and I can save her. I can keep her alive. She never has to go to William’s office, never has to see that vision of genocide.