“Get up. It’s time. He’s here.”
Despite the electrical light show around the great spinning bell, Montross saw Diana arrive through the side door, and he marveled at how perfect she looked. Despite her captivity and abduction, despite the predicament and despite everything that might happen, at least here and now she wasn’t hurt.
“Diana!”
Her eyes brightened, and she tugged her arm free and ran from her escort. The guard didn’t give chase, as there was nowhere else to go. As she started to run along the narrow walkway, however, she faltered, seeing the raging storm of plasma and electrical-magnetic forces overhead, giving a dazzling show of light and energy.
Then Montross was there, in her arms and he was hugging her close. “Told you someday we’d have fireworks again.”
She pulled back and met his eyes. “I’m sorry. They found me… I couldn’t hide.”
“I know. We were outmaneuvered by a superior force.”
“Xavier,” she whispered, but needn’t have. No one could hear them, and no one was here to even watch them except one guard at the exit. Everyone else must have been up another level where all the equipment and computers and servers were. A metal staircase up the left side.
“I found something.”
Montross took her hand. “What? Where?”
“Up there, out there I mean. On the comet.” She sought his eyes. “You know it’s coming for us, right?”
“I gathered. Something of celestial or otherwise nasty and unavoidable doom.” He thought for a moment. “I was told that the people who are doing this — they’re using us for some larger goal that will ultimately save us. I didn’t believe her, but maybe it had something to do with this comet.”
“There’s more, though. Our satellite, it landed and I was in the process of resolving the images and clarifying the symbols we saw on the structure there.”
“Still baffling, but not as much, given everything else we’ve been through. What do you think it was? Who put it there?”
Momentarily letting her attention drift to the intense light show and crackling display of energy ahead, Diana spoke slowly. “Honestly, I’m leaning toward it not being the little green men variety. The symbols, the hieroglyphics… They were a little rough, and the translations I attempted… well, I gathered enough, that it was a warning.”
“Well that’s nice of them — or us in the past, or whoever did this.” He squeezed her hand, caressed her fingers, just relieved she was alive and well. For now. “So what was the warning?”
“I don’t know exactly, but I think it was saying to leave it alone.”
She squeezed his hand back hard as he met her look.
“Well, that makes sense, I think. I mean all the effort to go out there and put something on it — could have been a bomb, but they chose to leave a message that would be all but impossible to find except for…”
“Someone like you.”
Montross swallowed hard. “Ok, that unfortunately is a riddle for another day, but I think that now, whatever’s going to happen, just follow my lead.”
The spinning bell reflected in her pupils. Her hair stood up and blew in a sulfur-scented wind. “You have a plan?”
“Uh, no. But I’m sure one will present itself.” He turned and faced upward and out, gazing at the whirling, cyclonic force, the ripping tendrils of plasma that writhed like tentacles out of some Lovecraft story. “Besides, something tells me you and I are about to have company.”
26
After stepping through the door, the wind hit Caleb first, then the familiar smell of the bay: the fishy smell of the turning waters and the seaweed, tempered by the scent of marigolds — the row of bushes Lydia loved so much, but hated to trim every season. Flowers were still blooming, the air was stale but getting cooler heading into the late summer.
He looked down and found himself dressed in a Bills sweatshirt, with jeans and muddy boots. Gloves as if he’d been working in the yard. A conflicting and confusing mess of memories seemed stuck in his thoughts, vying for control. Normal stuff about what they had for breakfast, a list of scrolls to translate and material to cross-reference as the day’s fun work, once some manual labor had been accomplished out here — Lydia’s honey-do list before the season sharply changed for good.
Mixed up in all that normalcy were thoughts of Alexander and (his sister!?) Clea, and — Caleb’s heart gave a leap. Where am I?
I was going somewhere else, needing to finish something…
Intuitively he knew all about this time frame, this universe — and all its faults and perspectives. Knew that it might even be safe from Icarus for at least long enough to matter; knew that ‘here’ was a place and time defined for Caleb primarily by his one great choice. Whether to tell Lydia the truth. In this place he had trusted her. In this world he had done what he couldn’t in the other. It had made all the difference. Better in many ways, possibly worse in others, but they were together. A family, with another child. A daughter.
It was too much to process now, but at the same time, it felt right. So right.
The wind blew, the weak rays of the sun struggled to break free of their clouded chains, and somewhere gulls shrieked. The weight seemed lighter. It was all so right, and he could stay. He felt a rush of warmth, tingling up his spine, and this time when the visions came, they were welcome because they were true.
Pure memories of this world, experiences he absorbed as if he had lived them himself. And he had.
Holding Lydia’s hand during that final push in childbirth, being the first to swaddle little Clea in his arms, a joy he had missed with his firstborn. Countless hours overseeing the cataloging of the great scrolls at Alexandria, joyfully discovering knowledge with Lydia, making presentations, examining old truths and sciences and applying them to fix modern problems. So much had been achieved. A certain senator’s ambitions crushed with a combination of diligence and foresight, working together with Phoebe and a highly focused Xavier Montross, who had found his own love with Diana, much as in the other world. Watching Alexander grow, seeing him chase his sister up the lighthouse stairs, and later, jet skiing across the bay. So many adventures, with Lydia here at his side, with him every step. A lazy Sunday morning in bed, lightly tracing her features as she wakes…
This is your life.
Except it’s not.
Not yours, a voice repeated, and it sounded very familiar. A voice he was so fond of, a voice of a boy becoming a man far too soon.
A son.
The vision fluttered, and the world vibrated in an uncomfortable hum emanating from the air.
You need to come back.
“I can’t, Alexander. And besides, I am home.” He smiled, again seeing the rush of visions. So many memories: Christmases missed, birthdays together, candles and cake and a whole life… A good life, one like he had never had himself, with his sister. “You’re here, and so much more.”
It’s not yours, Dad.
And now another vision appeared among all those other shiny memories. Alexander standing in their midst, and yet…something wrong. He didn’t look happy, not confident or strong. Not the boy of this world, innocent of horrors like having to kill a man in an ancient underground torture city, or watching his mother burn.