A swift and sudden exit, p.13
A Swift and Sudden Exit, page 13
“You good?” he whispered.
“Yeah. You?”
“I think everything’s still attached.”
They waited an eternity until the machinery returned. First came the air regulators, then the red lights, then finally everything else, bathing them all in harsh fluorescents. The hall stank of sweat and fear, and when Zera looked over, she saw a long crack at the junction of the wall and the ceiling.
This. This was why she had to find Katherine. Because if they didn’t figure out what she knew and fixed things fast enough, it would spell the end for them all.
Byrd’s face was nearly as pale as the white cast around his ankle, and he swayed heavily with the aftershocks of the quake. People parted around them, trying to return to their prior tasks without crashing into the walls again.
“You don’t look so good,” Zera said.
“I don’t feel so good.” He swallowed heavily and attempted to straighten on his crutches. Someone clipped his elbow and one crutch slipped out from underneath. Zera grabbed him, unwittingly pulling him onto the casted ankle in an effort to keep him upright.
“Oh fuck!” He gasped, and his pale edges tinged green.
“Oh, no,” Zera said, dragging him to the side of the hallway. “Keep it in, Byrd. There’s way too many people.”
“Trying.” He leaned his head against the wall and breathed slow and deep.
“Was it the ankle?” Zera asked. He nodded, and Zera noticed a wet spot on the wall where he left sweat. “Are you, like, going into shock?”
“You don’t know what shock looks like?” His words seemed to struggle out of his mouth.
“I’m not the one with a medic patch.”
He let out a brief laugh, followed by another difficult swallow. “That’s true. But no, I’m not going into shock.”
“Do you need me to go get someone?” The flow of people thinned now as everyone returned to their daily tasks, leaving the duo in relative peace. Byrd shook his head.
“No. I think I might need to go to the med bay though,” he said.
“C’mon, I’ll help you.” Zera ignored his protests and slipped an arm around his waist, grabbing onto his belt. He took both crutches under the opposite arm and leaned heavily on her every other step.
“You don’t have to do this,” he said, though he held onto her with a white-knuckle grip.
“No, I don’t,” she said. “But if I leave you alone you might pass out in your own sick, and that would really hurt your ankle again.”
“I think it’s already fucked again.” He let out a few choice swear words, his nausea evidently morphing into anger. “Now it’s gonna be even longer until I can go back with you.”
“You’ve got time. There’s lots of trips lined up.” Zera started sweating again. The man was deceptively dense, and despite his outrage, he had little strength to carry himself.
“I don’t want the later trips. I want to be there now.”
“Take it down a notch, bud. If you went back right now, you’d probably end up a puddle in Central Park.”
“I could handle it—”
“Byrd, chill. For real.” Zera stopped and pulled away. Without her support, Byrd tilted sharply, and she barely caught him before he hit the floor again. “See? Can’t even stand. Going right now isn’t important.”
“Yes it is.”
“You’re such an ass,” Zera said. “Why do you feel like you have to go right now? I promise, I can handle things just fine on my own until you’re back.”
“There’s just so many things that could help,” Byrd said.
“Yeah, I’ll get them. Don’t worry.” Zera was quickly becoming impatient with the argument. “I’m not incompetent.”
“I don’t think you’re incompetent,” Byrd said. “I just know two heads are better than one when deciding what resources to bring back.”
“‘Resources’? We’re not there for resources, we’re there for data.”
“See? That’s why I need to go. Data’s important, but just think, if there was one thing you could bring back, just one little thing that could make your life easier, wouldn’t you grab it?”
“Sounds like you’re thinking of something in particular.” Zera didn’t want to think about it, if she was honest. She already had another time traveler taking up extra space in her brain, she didn’t need to worry about anything else.
They rounded a corner and the med bay appeared. Zera thanked the gods; Byrd seemed to get heavier by the second, and she was ready to go back to her bunk, clean up, and pass out.
“I could help myself,” Byrd said.
“What? Walking?” Zera already forgot her previous comment.
“No.” His eyes, glassy and unfocused, rolled slightly, and Zera no longer cared about his weird rambling.
“Oh, no you don’t.” She hauled him up again and dragged him the last few feet into the med bay. To her surprise, Martin greeted them.
“What happened?” he asked, taking in Byrd’s current status.
“He fell during the quake. I think something happened to his ankle again, ‘cause he got super pale and almost threw up.”
Martin held up Byrd’s head and flashed a light in his eyes. “Byrd? Can you tell me what’s going on?”
“Help,” he murmured, then promptly lost consciousness.
Zera absorbed most of his weight, and out of the woodwork came nurses who gently pried him away, moving him to a waiting gurney. Like a well-oiled machine, they began taking vitals and assessing Byrd, leaving Zera alone, hot, and sweaty, and more than a little confused. Martin met her eyes over Byrd’s unconscious form and nodded toward the door. Looked like her job here was done.
“The fuck was he talking about?” she muttered, replaying the conversation. Byrd had been so adamant about going back, but the reasoning didn’t make any sense. They were there for data, and if Zera was going to waste any time, it wouldn’t be on some magical item to make her life easier. It would be figuring out where the hell that other time traveler came from.
The next morning, Zera woke bright and early with a buzzing in her bones. Sure, she was excited for the time travel—and also nervous for the pain, if she was honest—but she most looked forward to finding that other time traveler.
Unwilling to wake Kissi, Zera grabbed her handheld from its charger and pulled up the intranet. It was easy to find a map detailing the locations of other bases across the continent, but more difficult to find information on them. All the basics were there—how they managed to grow food, what they used to combat diseases, even instruction manuals for any car or truck they could find in order to help as wide a range of mechanics as possible. But nowhere did it have a citizen registry, or any whispers of time travel.
It wouldn’t, of course, but Zera hoped she could spot a little something.
Kissi, with her skills, could probably hack into the mainframe or whatever and find that stuff, but Zera already relied on her for most of her information, and wanted to do some digging herself. So slowly, methodically, she looked through lists of resources and accesses, trying to find a bunker that matched up with her own. In the end, she decided Alaska was the most likely place.
Armed with an idea, Zera rose and dressed for the morning. Her stomach turned too much to allow any breakfast, but she headed down to the mess anyway and downed the biggest glass of water her credits could buy. For Kissi, she grabbed a cup of coffee and a bowl of tomato soup, the breakfast an odd departure of what Zera had back in 1944. Gods, what she would give to have some fruit again, or the sweet loaf Katherine gave her. She lamented her lack of old cash and the inability to ask for some. If it weren’t for Dr. Phillips and her rules, Zera could have an absolute field day and bring back every snack imaginable.
Huh. Maybe Byrd was onto something then.
Kissi was sitting on the edge of her bunk when Zera returned, and joyfully latched onto the caffeinated drink. When she’d chugged half the hot liquid, she asked, “Ready for today?”
“As ready as I’m gonna be.” Zera dropped next to her on the bed. “You?”
“Same. It’s not easy, watching you go.”
Zera winced. “How ugly is it?”
“Oh, horrifying. Limbs flying everywhere.” Kissi grinned, and Zera wasn’t quite sure if she was serious or not.
“Well, maybe we can get them to use a different traveler next time, after this trip. I don’t mind sitting one out.” She definitely did mind sitting one out, but if it would take that look off Kissi’s face, she could take one for the team.
But Kissi shook her head. “There are no other travelers.”
Zera’s heart stuttered. “What?”
“I talked to one of the other analysts yesterday. Her traveler made it back, but he passed later in the hospital. He was the last one besides you. And Byrd, I guess.”
“Shit.” Zera ran a hand through her hair. “Shit.”
“I know. So this all really rests on you.”
The weight settled onto Zera’s shoulders. She knew this was the point to give up on finding Katherine and focus more on the mission parameters as they were given to her. Distractions wouldn’t help.
But then she thought of the quake yesterday, her eyes tracing the old cracks in their walls from previous ones. Wouldn’t tracking the other time traveler down save her time, in the end? It was easy to compute the math. High risk, high reward.
“We need more than that,” Zera said. Kissi nodded.
“You’re thinking about Katherine?” she asked.
“If we had double the resources, had any information she or her bunker might have…If we could team up, we could solve this in half the time, I bet.”
Kissi sighed. “I think you’re right. We need more brains on this.”
Zera didn’t like the way her words reflected Byrd’s earlier sentiment, but shook it off. Unless she could make friends with the other time traveler, all this waffling would be for nothing.
She stood and grabbed her new outfit for the day, a brilliant get up built for the ‘50s. Kissi followed her lead, though her clothes remained the same subdued jumpsuit.
It was time to go.
Philadelphia smelled different than New York. There was still the unmistakable scent of too many humans and cars, but when the wind shifted a metallic tang coated the air. A gust cut through Zera’s weak shirt. While she’d prepared to blend in, she hadn’t prepared for winter. Gods, when was the last time she’d even seen winter?
One of these trips, she’d get it right. In the meantime, she had a heavy coat to steal.
Zera enjoyed the freezing cold and light rain for approximately seventeen seconds before it sank into her bones and stayed there. The weak morning sun tried its best to poke through the clouds, but only succeeded in turning the world an odd shade of gray.
With her bare hands tucked into her armpits and the bill of her cap low enough to keep her face hidden, Zera walked with purpose into the rampant bustle of the city. Foot traffic wasn’t as prevalent as before, with more cars packing the streets, but pedestrians held the same attitude: stay out of their way, and they’d stay out of hers.
Normally a group of people like this would make her nervous, and while she still checked her nine, noon, three, and six at steady intervals, she was glad for the warmth the thousand extra bodies lent her. She was afraid her shirt and pants stuck out, but it was an unserved fear. Like her, everyone kept their heads down. Her round face and short haircut was just another in the mix.
Zera had never visited Philadelphia before, and she couldn’t help taking in more of the sights between her perimeter checks. Much like New York, businesses crowded the ground floors of the buildings around her, with layers and layers of apartments stacked atop them. At first, it seemed like any other city center, but then she noticed the symptoms of decay, with crumbling bricks and layers of grime seeping into the walls. Reformation would likely come soon.
A map would’ve been a great addition to her bag, no matter how conspicuous it would be. She was still getting the hang of directions, and a compass wouldn’t be reliable with the storms, but logic dictated she would run into one of the crossroads she needed eventually.
A car nearly ran over a few pedestrians in a crosswalk, and curses and fists chased it down its path. Zera, however, was grateful for the interruption because she got to stop and look up. There, in flaking white paint, she could just make the outline of 19th street.
Perfect. Now, was she supposed to go left, or right?
To the right, factories belched a mix of smoke and steam matching the gunmetal gray of the sky. The air felt thicker in that direction, so Zera ignored the sun and the compass and any advice Kissi gave her before the trip and turned left. Her gut said it was the correct way, and it hadn’t led her astray before. Not often, at least.
Left went against the flow, and it required a lot of jostling and apologizing as she headed in the opposite direction. Saplings filled the area as the buildings thinned, their trunks slender compared to the massive sentinels Zera remembered from pictures. They were young and growing, not yet the landmarks they would become.
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia was a beautiful building, much bigger than the natural sciences building of Columbia. Students dotted the front steps, waiting for the doors to open for their classes. It was easy to spot, and Zera breathed in the good luck.
“Watch it,” a man growled as his shoulder collided with Zera’s. He continued on without looking for a fight, but his voice, his aura, his life, knocked her sideways. He was so alive now, but these people were dead. Every single one was dead.
The air got too thick, the acrid stench of bodies and cars choking her. Her ears rang as the conversations bubbling under the surface swelled and crashed over her. It was so easy to see them as a conglomerate, but the sudden sense of individuals overwhelmed her. They all had hopes and dreams and plans and goals. And now they were dead—
“You.”
Except for Katherine.
Zera usually prided herself on the ability to pull herself out of a panic, but in that moment, Katherine did her the favor.
She’d lost what little weight she could spare, and Zera had the feeling it wasn’t on purpose. It turned her cheekbones to razors, accompanying the daggers she glared. Anger flushed her skin red, and the single word was enough to knock Zera right out of her anxious spiral and activate her fight-or-flight response.
The first time, she’d chosen fight. This time, she chose flight.
Her time as a digger gave her extraordinary stamina and faster than average reaction times. Normally she dodged rocks and landslides, but here she dodged people, weaving toward the museum as fast as the crowd permitted. Katherine, held back by skirts and social decorum, couldn’t hope to catch her. And Zera needed to keep it that way, at least until she could figure out a plan.
The crowd split and she booked it to the front of the building. Katherine was close enough behind that Zera could hear the leather soles of her heels clacking against the street. Zera skidded to a stop and gently opened the front door, taking a few huge gulps of air to calm her breathing before entering. Puffing like a dragon wouldn’t help her fly under the radar.
Inside was barely warmer than outside, but at least the brick walls held back the biting wind and incessant rain. Despite the rubber bottom of her boots, she nearly slipped on the smooth marble tiles, and the squeak echoed louder than any alarm might have. Zera chanced a look out the front windows, and sure enough, Katherine was storming up the drive as fast as her dress and heels would let her.
Zera stepped further into the museum, going to the first glass case and pretending to admire the artifacts inside. Two terrible stuffed monkeys sat on one side of a crumbling tree limb, and a matching skeleton—the most realistic animal of them all—posed on the other side. Black rods held the objects in place, making no attempt at subtlety.
The front door swung open, and there, in all her glory, was Katherine.
Despite her change in health, she was still beautiful, and for half a beat Zera forgot her mission objective. But then Katherine stalked over with the fires of heavens and hells in her eyes, and it came rushing back.
“You,” Katherine said again. Zera sidestepped as the woman reached her, putting the glass case between them. Katherine pointed an accusing finger. “You abandoned me.”
“Me?” Zera said. Katherine tried to circle to the same side of the display, but Zera sidestepped again. Those two and a half monkeys were the only thing keeping her alive right now. “You kicked me out to do your dirty work for you.”
“I was protecting you—”
“You were protecting yourself—”
“Where are the journals? I need those journals—”
“Absolutely not.” They moved another circle, and this time Zera kept going, putting two display cases between them. Now she had help from the monkeys and some birds. A massive elephant skeleton stood behind her, but she tried not to look at it. “Look, clearly the past couple of weeks have been tough on you—”
“‘Couple of weeks’?” Katherine seethed. “You call twelve years a ‘couple of weeks’?”
“—but I can’t…Wait, what?”
“Can I help you?”
Zera startled and whirled around to face the new threat. He had white hair and deep wrinkles, and the posture of someone who bent over books all day. Though he wore spectacles—they looked way too ancient for Zera to think of them as glasses—he squinted his cloudy brown eyes and didn’t quite focus on her face.
“Oh, uh, I’m sorry.” She tried to deepen her voice enough to trick him. A hand took her elbow and she startled again, but Katherine’s vice grip held her steady.
“I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she said sweetly, as if she hadn’t been about to throttle Zera a second before. “We took a moment’s reprieve from the rain to admire the curiosities of the museum. I do hope that’s alright?”
