Forty Leap (38 page)

I considered his words. The progression of my
leaps had altered since it had all begun. But they hadn’t all come
at times of stress or during
adrenaline rushes
. It didn’t
make sense. I said as much.

“I can field that one,” said one of the men I
didn’t know. His name was Raphael. I put him somewhere in his early
fifties but it was hard to tell. Around that table we were all
Forty Leapers which made us both aged and ageless. He’d been
trained as a biologist and worked in a lab before his leaps had
started. He was still in the early stages of the disease. His last
leap had been three days.

“The leaping itself is caused by an enzyme
that your body secretes. We still don’t know all of the properties
of the enzyme or what about it makes us leap. Adrenaline does cause
the body to manufacture it, but in the early stages of the
condition, so little of it is created during each rush that it
takes a lot of adrenaline to build up enough of the enzyme for a
leap. As our condition progresses, the manufacture of the enzyme
becomes more refined. We make it quicker and we make it stronger.
Our leaps come closer on the heels of stressful incidents and they
are
always
longer leaps.”

Rogers nodded. “Dr. Moneto, here, worked in
the complex where I was being held. He was one of the assistants to
Dr. Anton Kung.” There was a familiar name. “He and Dr. Kung and
others were smuggling us out of the complex by faking our leaps.
They got me out three weeks after I’d been sent there. We set up
this whole thing about me getting excited and primed for a leap.
When was that, Raphael?”

“It was in March, some time.”

“Yeah.” Rogers smiled. “March of 2176.”

“What year is it again?” I asked, forgetting
what Rupert had told me. It’s funny that I hadn’t thought about it
up until that point. Prior to then, it had always been the most
important piece of information I could get. But now it didn’t
really matter to me personally. Everyone I knew was gone
regardless. I did remember that I’d jumped almost a hundred
years.

“It’s 2189 now. November.”

I did some quick arithmetic. “So you haven’t
leaped for thirteen years?”

He shrugged. “You know me, Little Mat. I was
always too bored to jump.”

I shook my head.

“It’s not so hard, you know. Anton gave me
pills, downers. They help, but they kill your focus. I spent a year
or so practicing different meditation techniques. Anton would come
with news of other Leapers and we’d work on tracking them through
time. That’s how we started The Map. It began with a couple of
sheets of paper. Then it expanded. We began going through the
journals of his father and grandfather and great-grandfather, all
down the line. Your name came up a lot.

“There were other Leapers, too. Anton had a
pretty good network running, something that kept us out of trouble.
He said that it had been in place for a hundred and fifty years,
since Lewis Kung. You met him, right? Well, it had saved my life
but I was still stewing about what had happened in the Rockies.
When they moved on us out there, I knew that we were never going to
have peace. I don’t guess it would have all lasted this long if it
wasn’t for the nature of the leaps in the first place.

“One day, Anton came home with a grisly story
about a leaper who’d popped right into one of their cages. It
happened and they had their protocols. What they did with me was
what they should have done with her. But there were some pretty
nasty folks on duty that day and I won’t repeat the story Anton
told me. But I burned with anger. I could have leaped right then
and there if I hadn’t been on the heels of a pretty good session.
The next day, I began to go out and speak with some of the other
Leapers that I knew, other men and women under Anton’s protection.
I told them the story and they were scared. I told them that this
would always happen to us unless we did something about it. So we
did something about it.

“Anton was against it. His philosophy was the
same as the Kung philosophy since your buddy Lewis. If we got the
Leapers out of harm’s way and then jumped them from unknown points,
the government would never be able to trace them.
That
would
make us safe, he said. But I didn’t believe it. I’ve been doubly
oppressed in my life and
I
know what’s needed. My new
friends and I went out there and smashed up one of their cages and
killed their guards. It was ugly and it was violent. Julius
Lancaster leaped in the middle of the fight. His last leap before
that was 5 years so we’re hoping he’ll pop back in soon. I’ve had a
team on his location for a while but they haven’t seen him,
though.

“After that, we began organizing more raids.
We put it to these bastards that we weren’t their guinea pigs. We
gave them exactly what they asked for, a reason to fear us. Anton
was against it and we argued a lot. Eventually, he told me that I
was interfering with his work and that I should leave. So I left.
And they all followed me. Not just a few of them.
All
of
them. With the help of some of the contemporaries, we were able to
find a place to set up a headquarters. It wasn’t this place. This
is our…sixteenth place I think. We move a lot. I used the
information Anton and I compiled to figure out who would appear
where and when and I set other Forty Leapers up to manning the
spots. All of this took place over the course of two years. We
learned that there’s a mathematical pattern to the leaps, but we
can’t figure out what it is. There are a finite number of
individual leaps. Some people skip a leap of one length and
progress to the next one, but we’ve worked out about forty of
them.”

“Fifty,” a young woman to my left corrected.
This was Myalee Sincere.

“Fifty,” Rogers repeated with a smile. “Ever
since, every Leaper we’ve pulled and some that we haven’t have
joined the movement. We’re strong, Little Mat, but with you we’ll
be stronger than ever.”

There was a chorus of nods and murmurs of
assent from around the table. Everyone except Natalie was in
agreement with Rogers Clinton’s assessment. Apparently, I was
expected to say something because they were all staring at me
now.

“Why me?” I asked.

Rogers’ booming laugh filled the room. The
others joined in after a moment. All but Natalie. “You’re
it
, Little Mat. You’re the Fortieth Leaper.
The
Forty
Leaper. You freed the first Forty Leapers from the Rocky Mountains
and led them all to safety. “

I was shaking my head. “I didn’t do that. I
didn’t do any of that.”

“I told you,” Natalie said.

Rogers passed her a sour look.

“Mr. Cristian,” said a small girl sitting
next to Raphael. Her name was Jeannette Umbungus. “Of course it was
you. It’s in all of the histories.”

“The histories?” I asked. She sounded like a
member of a primitive tribe talking about sacred parchment. “It’s
wrong, though.”

“There’s video, Mat.” There was an edge to
Rogers Clinton’s voice and I didn’t like it. Some men are born
great. Some men have greatness thrust upon them. “It’s you freeing
the prisoners.”

I nodded. “I did that. But it was Neville who
told me what to do. It was Neville who led the revolt. You remember
Neville MacTavish?”

“Neville is dead,” Rogers said.

I had seen that on The Map. I was saddened
once again. But it didn’t change any of the facts.

“I told you,” Natalie repeated. “He doesn’t
care about us. He’s a coward. He won’t fight.”

“
Fight?!
” I shouted at her. “What are
you fighting for?”

“We’re fighting for our lives,” she shouted
back.

“What lives?” I was arguing with Natalie now
and I felt myself becoming more and more angry. At least I didn’t
have to worry about leaping. With only hours between me and my last
jump, my body wouldn’t be nearly strong enough. “What do you get
when this is all over?”

“Freedom,” Rogers said calmly.

I laughed the laugh of the mad. I saw Rogers
Clinton again for the first time. “Freedom,” I repeated. “The
freedom to be what you are, right Rogers? The freedom to be a Forty
Leaper. The freedom to leap from year to year, century to century,
millennium to millennium. The freedom to skip huge portions of the
Earth’s history until you’ve reached the end of humanity or the end
of the world. One day, Rogers, you’ll leap out of an Earth that can
support your life and into one that’s too hot or too cold or has no
air. What will happen to you then?”

I saw Natalie go white as a ghost then.
Typical. When I had met her she was a teenage girl. Forty Leaping
had robbed her of the opportunity to properly grow up. She had been
swept up in Rogers Clinton’s righteous fight for freedom without
ever even thinking about the fact that Earth’s distant future was
not so distant for her. Or for any of us.

But not Rogers. He was already an old man. He
was tough as nails, but old just the same. And his purpose was
clear in his mind. “I haven’t leaped in thirteen years, Mat. There
are ways to control it.”

“Control it? I don’t want to control it. I
want to cure it. That’s what Phillip Kung wanted to do? It’s been
two hundred years, Rogers. Where’s the cure?”

The room fell silent while Rogers composed
himself. I could see that he was doing something to keep back his
anger. I know I had never given him any indication that I was a
fighter or a revolutionary. For the space of a Forty Leaper’s
friendship we had spent a considerable amount of time together. He
should have been able to read me well enough back then to know what
I was about. But by that same token I’m sure he never expected
defiance. When I flip back through the pages of my journal, I know
that I have changed. I am not a fighter. I have used a weapon on
another and I did not like the taste of it. You may very well call
me a coward, but I will run from a fight every time.

“There’s no cure,” Rogers admitted. “There
was never any cure.”

“And there never will be. Why don’t you say
that, Rogers?”

Did these people have any idea, I wondered?
When you’re chased through time it’s easy to get caught up in a
movement that allows you to go on the offensive. My last four leaps
had seen me intercepted or almost intercepted by people who knew
where I was going to arrive. My last three leaps had set me on the
run almost instantly. We arrived disoriented and under fire. It was
a wonder so many of us had survived. We
were
oppressed. And
it’s easy to fire up the oppressed into revolt. All that’s needed
is the right leadership. But how long does it take for the
revolutionaries to realize that they’re fighting for nothing.
Achieving their goals won’t improve their lives.

Rogers met my gaze. Whatever could be said
about Rogers’ actions and motives, he at least believed them
righteous.

But it was Rupert Oderick who spoke. “What
would you have us do then, Mathew?”

I looked at him and liked him. It suddenly
transcended the enjoyment I’d gotten from reading his books. I saw
a man who was generally good natured. Despite a tendency to be a
bit goofy, he was smart and keen of wit. He was also open minded.
As it occurred to me that I might very well have made a room full
of enemies by both dashing their image of me and defying Rogers,
Rupert was still willing to listen. But he was putting me on the
spot, albeit unintentionally. I should have realized it would
happen. You can’t shoot down someone else’s vision without having a
better one of your own.

I shook my head.

“I’ve known men like you,” Rogers said. “Men
who are embarrassed by what they are, men who would be the
oppressors rather than the oppressed.”

“Never forget that what we are is
diseased
, Rogers. This is not about the color of our skin or
the god we pray to. We may not be spies and we may not be carriers
of a terrible virus. There’s no reason for them to hate us the way
that they do, but that doesn’t mean I
want
to be this way.
Do you?”

He steepled his fingers in front of him like
a monk and replied, “I am the way I am, Little Mat.”

I waited but there was no more to his
response. For the others, it seemed satisfactory. I think I wanted
it to be so for me as well, but as I went over it in my head, stuck
in a loop, I could not make sense of it. If I had cancer, I
wouldn’t be very complacent about it. I would seek treatment. I
said so. I said, “Rogers, if they aren’t looking for a cure, why
aren’t we? You’ve obviously got the resources and the people. Why
can’t we find a solution for ourselves?”

This enraged him. “You want to just give them
the war? If we change who we are, if we
conform
, then they
win.”

“Win? Haven’t you been listening to me?
There’s no winning. There’s…” I stopped, understanding hitting me.
“You already know that, though. Don’t you?”

Rogers kept his gaze steadily on me, but I
could swear that I saw just a momentary flicker of doubt pass from
eye to eye. I became unaware of the others in the room, their
reactions to our conversation no longer important. It was Rogers
who was suddenly laid bare before me and it was the truth therein
which had been driving my argument.

“Rogers, this cannot be about you. You send
people off to die just so that you can be regarded as a great man?
My God, Rogers, you manufactured a war for your own ego?”

“Now see here, mate,” Rupert cut in. “You’re
well out of line.”

But I didn’t hear him. I spoke still to
Rogers. “You were going to lead the slaves to freedom but leaping
through time stole that from you. So now you’re using leaping to
capture that glory that was denied to you. Tell me I’m wrong,
Rogers.”

But Rogers said nothing. He was a good
general and he let his officers defend him. Raphael Moneto came
first to his aid. “You’re wrong. They’ve been trying to kill us for
decades.”