Forty Leap (20 page)

“We were both taken into custody. I was
treated well but I doubt Samud was given the same courtesy.”

“You sold him out?”

He nodded, his white fingers growing even
whiter around the handle of the briefcase. “I’m not proud of it.
I’m not proud of a lot of my past. But the impact of our escape was
devastating on the UAN’s occupation and they knew it would be. They
needed a scapegoat.”

“Did they kill him?”

“I don’t know for sure.” Then he added,
“Probably.”

Samud was my friend. Nine years later he
would still have been my friend. When I thought of him, I saw a
loyalty that extended to his friends before his government. He had
broken the rules to help Dr. Miktoffin and he had used his last
shred of influence to help me. I remembered his struggle with Igor
as he fought to save my life. I remember Samud. I remember my
friend.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I’ve put a lot of time and money into the
study of this time jumping thing that you do. Even now, I’m
supporting a research facility in the Colorado Rockies.”

“Have you found a cure?”

He shook his head, but I could see his rat’s
eyes glittering. With the conversation now steered in the proper
direction, he had me just where he wanted me. It was true whether I
admitted or not, so I admitted it to myself then as I admit to you
now.

“We only have thirteen subjects, but there
are a few good leads on some more. You, Mat, are the best possible
subject we could have, though.”

I definitely did not like the use of the term
subject
. I had been Dr. Miktoffin’s subject and suffered
without result. I did not want to go from being Igor Grundel’s
victim twice over to being his subject.

He continued without pause. “Yours is the
most documented case in history. A lot of that has to do with you
going to the hospital and the psychiatrist. I…”

His eyes focused on the white bag which held
my journal. A bit of the corner of the book was peeking out from
where it lay on the dresser table.

“Is that your journal?” he asked.

With a look at the subject of his interest, I
nodded.

He actually licked his lips. “May I see
it?”

“It’s private.”

“Oh.” He withdrew his hand and only then did
I realize that he had been reaching for the book. I maneuvered
myself between it and him protectively. “Well, I’d like you to join
us in the Rockies. I think having your help would go a long way
toward finding a cure.”

I laughed at him then and it was a good,
natural laugh. He couldn’t possibly think that I would submit
myself as a specimen for his purposes. Perhaps he had conned
thirteen other people into giving up their lives, but I had just
spent six months as someone’s prisoner. A gilded cage is still a
cage.

“I think instead I’ll tell people who and
what you really are.”

He smiled and in that smile I saw the Igor
Grundel from nine years earlier. The confident business tycoon had
faded, replaced by the conniving little rat that had steered me
into the river so that he could murder me.

“You ruined me once, Mat and I tried to kill
you for it. This time, if you try it, you’ll just end up burying
yourself.”

I didn’t understand and he was all too happy
to explain.

“Even if anyone believes you, the publicity
will be the end of you. The problem with being the most well
documented case of time skipping is that yours is a household name
in certain circles. You don’t think that GEI is the only company
working on this, do you? We actually do it in secret. If the
government got their hands on you, they’d put you into a facility
that would be make a gulag look like a resort.”

“You’re lying.”

That very same smile. Hefting the briefcase,
he said, “May I?”

He didn’t wait for a response. He laid it on
the bed and opened it up. Inside, I could see a handful of objects,
the most prominent of which was a laptop computer. He ignored this
and reached into one of the smaller pockets, drawing out what
looked like a USB flash drive. I was not particularly computer
savvy but the things had been pretty commonly passed around at my
old office. The tip looked a bit different, but I guess the concept
was the same. He plugged it into the TV set. When he switched the
TV on, a menu came up that looked similar to a file list on any
home computer. Using the remote, he scanned through the files until
he came to one that was entitled
morrisY.mpx
. Once selected,
I was shocked to see my old friend Morty standing at the street
curb. The quality was bad and the camera angle was bad. It had been
filmed from the other side of a wide Manhattan street, probably on
someone’s cell phone.

“What is this?” I choked, knowing what I was
going to see. It happened so fast. One minute, he was standing,
checking the road for traffic and the next he was tumbling into the
path of an oncoming bus. There was no sound, but the effect was not
lost for it. He was taken so quickly, his body catapulted off
camera, that there wasn’t even the hint of blood or gore. Still it
was the most disturbing thing I had ever witnessed. I couldn’t
speak.

“Did you see it?” he asked.

I looked at him, my cheeks filled with blood,
my eyes blazing. Why would he show me this?

“Did you see it?”

“
See what?!”
I shouted.

Before I knew it he was playing it again. I
took a step toward him only to grab the remote from his hand, but
my expression must have telegraphed a much more sinister purpose.
He took a step back. His smile had faded.

“Watch,” he said quietly. “Look behind
him.”

I looked in spite of myself, deliberately
focusing not on Morty but on the people around him, behind him. And
I saw it. There was a man, a young man, dressed in a regular
business suit. He was talking on his cell phone, but casually put
it away and, with both hands, shoved Morty into the gutter at just
the right time.

“My God,” I breathed. “Where did you get
this?”

He snorted. “You don’t want to know. If they
knew that I had this, I’d be a dead man myself. This was an
accidental video in an era of accidental videos. The man who pushed
your friend into traffic is an agent of the government. Without any
real idea of what they were dealing with or any plan on how to deal
with it, they were hell bent on keeping this time skipping thing a
secret. Morris was killed because he believed you.

“There’s no video of the assassination of
your psychiatrist,” he added as an afterthought.

I was breathless and scared. In some dark
corner of my mind I knew what he was doing. Even if it was all
true, he was using it to win my friendship. He put fear into me and
stepped in front of my enemies like a shining knight. It almost
worked, too. Even the bodies and wreckage in the ruined New York
had not been more horrible than that video. Even hearing Jennie’s
story and seeing her exact retribution had been easier to witness.
What had been done to Morty had been done in an entirely different
world. That world was supposed to have been safe. Sane.

But no spinning of words could hide the
premature look of triumph on Igor’s face.

“I won’t go,” I whispered.

He breathed deeply, not defeated just yet.
Reaching into his briefcase, he pulled out his last best weapon. It
was a cell phone. I suppose that in the intervening time, the
phones with Internet capability and touch screen had become the
rule rather than the exception. Who knew how much they cost? For
what I was used to, this phone was extremely advanced and powerful.
It truly was a pocket computer. Before handing it over to me, he
tapped on the screen a few times. I looked at the screen and read
the Wisconsin address printed there. It was Jeremy’s address.

I took a moment to register what it was that
I was seeing. I knew the address was correct because I had seen it
before. Samud had given me a folder with all of my family’s
information. I had left that folder on the bookshelf in my room
when we had escaped. Frantically, although it didn’t show, I began
to try and commit the address to memory.

“You may keep the phone,” Igor offered.

I looked up at him, back down at the phone.
“I don’t want it,” I said. “You might call me.”

He laughed at that. “You may be certain of
that! Still, I can’t make you answer it.”

That was true, but who knew what went into
devices. Even back in my time there had been satellite tracking of
phones. This would give him a way to keep tabs on me wherever I
went.

He must have sensed my further trepidation.
“I’ll make you a deal. If you keep the phone, I can have you on
your brother’s doorstep in time for dinner tomorrow evening.”

I hesitated still. Even without any money or
any identity, I could still probably find my way to Wisconsin. Once
there, I could somehow track down my brothers. It was a tempting
offer, but it wasn’t enough. I shoved the phone back at him, taking
some small satisfaction at the look of astonishment on his
face.

He didn’t reach for it. “You are that
determined to put me out of your life?”

I nodded.

He nodded also. “Then I must up the offer
with the very last thing that I have.”

“You have nothing that I want.”

“I have the resources to find the girl in the
picture.”

I truly didn’t understand him. “What girl?
What picture?”

“The picture you spent your evenings staring
at when we were in the work group together. You never told me her
name.”

“Jennie,” I whispered. “Her name is
Jennie.”

“Mmmm. If you happen to know Jennie’s last
name, I would certainly be able to find her for you.”

I have never hated anyone as much as I hated
Igor Grundel at that moment. A man of opportunity, he had never
missed an observation. At that moment, he had me. And he and I both
knew it beyond the shadow of a doubt.

True to his word, Igor put me on a plane to
Wisconsin the next morning. The flight was just under three hours
and landed at a large airport in Green Bay. I was amazed at how
little airline travel had changed. I disembarked the plane stiff
and feeling as if a cold was coming on. It was early afternoon by
then and I had some lunch at the airport while I waited for a car
to collect me. I was very surprised to find that the driver was Wil
Lowenburg.

“When did they fly you out here?” I
asked.

He seemed a bit sheepish. “Well, Mr.
Cristian, to tell you the truth, I was on the same plane as you.
I’d’ve picked you up sooner, but I had a little trouble getting the
car.”

“So you’re my chaperone?”

He didn’t answer. Surprisingly enough, I
found that I didn’t mind so much. I told him so and it seemed to
brighten his day.

We drove out of the airport under a bright
early afternoon sun and I spent two more hours in the car staring
out at the glory of cheese country.

Cars weren’t so different now. I didn’t see
one gas station or a sign for one so I began to wonder. I asked Wil
about it and he confirmed that cars ran on different fuel sources.
There were pros and cons to all of them and you made your choice
when you bought the car. As far as fueling it up, pumping stations
had become a thing of the past. Electric cars were charged and the
ones that ran on corn oil ran on the same corn oil that you could
get at the store. So you just filled your car up. Most of the
changes had come about during the Arab occupation. The president at
the time figured that the country was so screwed up anyway that
putting thousands of gas stations out of business couldn’t be so
bad.

It was pretty bad.

We arrived shortly after three o’clock and I
had Wil pull the car over at the end of the community. It was a
tiny town with a population of only a few hundred people. Each of
the houses was built on a stretch of sprawling property. Jeremy and
Wyatt’s property cut through some woodland and there was a path
that had been cut through years before. Sitting in the car, I
stared up the house, the quarter mile path that led from the
mailbox to the front door, and wondered how best to approach. In
playing with the phone, I had become pretty adept with its tools.
Jeremy’s number was in there in case I wanted to call him, but I
didn’t think a phone call was the best way to introduce myself
after all of those years. I wanted to see them in person. I wanted
to see their reactions and know exactly what they felt.

And that was the source of my hesitation.
There had been some conflict between us when last we had parted.
They had never really believed in my condition and had blamed me
badly for not being there when my mother had died. Though I had
gotten my share of the inheritance, I had been completely shunned.
I had not seen them at all during my last sequence and not the
sequence before. For them it had been at least fifteen years since
our last contact.

Wil Lowenburg looked back at me and smiled
his best country boy reassuring smile. I tried something like it
back, failed, and got out of the car. Behind me, he slid down the
window and told me that I should call him if I needed anything.

I took the walk up the drive like a man
taking his final few steps down death row. I didn’t know how I
would react if I were to be shut out again. It briefly occurred to
me that if Martie answered the door she would as likely spit in my
face as alert one of my brothers to my appearance. It was Friday
and it was still the middle of the work day so I was expecting to
have to face that eventuality.

I don’t know how long I stood in front of the
door, the car at the foot of the drive, Wil Lowenburg in the
driver’s seat, probably looking at me intensely. Finally, though, I
rang the bell.

After a short time, I heard some shuffling
behind the door and an unfamiliar and gruff voice called out, “Who
is it?”