Paradigm (Travelers Series Book 3) (18 page)

I ponder that for a moment. Nothing’s set in stone until we make it happen. Our futures are intertwined with our actions and the choices that we make. Some are predicted, others are a creation of our own will.

“This future is our responsibility,” I whisper, repeating the phrase I heard only this morning.

“What was that, darlin’?”

“Something Moose said when he showed me the future. Tell me, is the future I glimpsed part of this reality?”

He shakes his head. “No. It’s a reality Thornberry traveled to years ago. He needed a world that was prime for taking over. We recruited our team and went after him.”

“Because we feel obligated to protect it,” I say, almost as if on autopilot. I’m slowly starting to understand my role in all this and I chose to take the lead in my own story. “Count me in.”

“You sure about this? We are only as strong as our leader and if you don’t –”

“It’s time to take charge of my destiny, Cooper. I’m tired of people getting in the way and meddling in what’s supposed to be
my
life. So if I say, I’m with you, I’m with you.”

“What made you change your mind?”

I take this opportunity to liven up the mood. “I’d like to say it was your endless pursuit of me, but it was actually something I saw.”

Cooper leans in closer, curious. “So it wasn’t my good looks or charm?”

I giggle. “Don’t flatter yourself. But in all seriousness, I can’t keep the images of what I’ve seen out of my mind. If everything I’ve seen is true, I want to help set things right.”

“Just where exactly did Moose take you?”

“What makes you think it was anything Moose showed me?”

He shrugs. “Moose is an empath, darlin’. He has a way of feeding off your emotions and knowing exactly what you need to hear, or see, for that matter.”

Yes, I suppose he does.

The Past / Alternate Timeline

“A
re we still in the future?” I ask Moose as I glimpse a new scene before me. We’re now standing in a dank hallway, with blank walls, and the absence of any clues as to where we are. The building is dark and uninviting, but familiar, like I’ve roamed these halls before.

“Somewhat. It’s not necessarily our future, but it’s what sets the chain reaction towards the future I just showed you. It might just put things in perspective.”

We walk along the cold barren hallway and Moose suddenly stops in front of a closed door. It has a small window towards the top, like a classroom door. It was just low enough for me to see what was behind that door.

Because of my height, and having to look up towards the window, I’m immediately drawn to the ceiling. There are bright colored balls that levitate almost as high as the room. The primary colors of blue, red, yellow, and green circle like a whirl, as it gets closer to the ceiling above. I’m so distracted by the scene that I almost don’t notice the little girl, centered in the middle of the room, staring at the rainbow above.

I know the little girl. She is me and I am her. I can’t make sense of what I’m actually seeing, but Moose can sense my trepidation.

“It’s okay, she can’t see you from here,” he says, urging me to keep looking.

Nothing happens for a moment, other that the girl watching the balls with interest. Her focus is completely fixated on them, and I realize that she’s the one making them hover around her. She’s using her power of telekinesis. In a way, it makes me jealous that I’m not able to manipulate objects with such mastery. Maybe instead of suppressing my ability, I should have figured out a way to control it.

“That’s me,” I point out.

“Keep watching.”

I stop looking at the younger version of myself long enough to notice there’s another door near the far left corner of the room. It suddenly opens and I immediately tense up, somehow expecting an adult to walk through the door—I feel like I could get in trouble for spying or something—but it’s another small child. A boy that looked to be about ten years old.

He doesn’t seem to be awed by the show the young me is putting on. In fact, he plops himself down, sitting Indian style, and instead of watching the balls reach the top of the room, he stares intently at the little girl.

He says something to her, but I can’t make out the words. The door that separates us is too thick for me to hear anything they’re saying. That and my lip reading abilities are lacking as well. The boy pauses, and then continues to speak. The odd thing is, she doesn’t seem to be talking back to him. It’s as if he’s having a conversation all by himself, with little me as his audience.

“That’s Cooper,” Moose reveals.

I’m totally confused. Then it all makes sense. The boy isn’t talking to himself, he’s listening to her and communicating telepathically. “What’s he doing there? What is this place?” Although I have a pretty good idea of what this place is.

“This place was once known as Dominion Synergy. It’s where your father and Oliver Thornberry ran their research studies.”

“The Prometheus Project.” It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together after having gone over the records in my father’s stuff. From my father’s detailed notes, I know both Cooper and I were here at the same time. “I thought Cooper was older when he became part of the project?”

Moose looks shocked for a second. “So you’re already aware of it?”

I nod. “I read about it in my dad’s files.”

“And what makes you think Cooper was older?”

“I read his file. It said he was born in 1967. Why is that he’s younger now?”

Moose smiles. “When we were recruited for this project, you father pulled children from various realities and time periods. After the experiment went corrupt, many of the kids involved returned to their proper realities, but Cooper stayed.”

“Wow. So if he’d gone back, he’d be twice the age he is now,” I say in wonderment. That explains a lot.

“I guess you can say that.”

My attention goes back to the room and while we were talking, four other children have joined me and Cooper. They range in age from about five to twelve. There is one little boy in particular that catches my attention. He’s one of the older ones, standing in the far back corner of the room near the door, and I recognize him immediately. I’d recognize his scars anywhere.

“And that’s you.”

He nods in confirmation. “We were all here.”

“Why are you hanging back?” I tilt my head towards little boy Moose.

“I was young. I had just been recruited for the study and I hadn’t yet learned how to control my powers. Being around everyone and their own abilities was just a little too much for me at the time. So I guess I kinda held myself back from everyone.”

“What happened to you?” I don’t have to elaborate. He knows I’m referring to his scars.

“My dad wasn’t a very kind man. In many ways, having an abusive father wasn’t exactly the worst thing. Because I’m an empath, not only did I feel the physical blows, but I had to endure the pure hatred that emanated through my father.”

I grasp his arm. “I’m so sorry.” For both the man standing next to me and the little boy in the room. My heart breaks for him standing there all alone in the corner. I can only imagine being able to feel other people’s emotions, especially when it’s other kids experimenting with their own powers and abilities. It must have been horrible.

He shrugs. “I’m over that now. It’s all in the past.”

I don’t have to be an empath like Moose to know he’s still hurting inside. Even beneath all his bravado, I know he’s still not over the pain he endured as a child. I’m sure taking me here, to this place, is a reminder for him. For him to bring me here shows how important all this must be.

I decide to change the subject. “Why can’t I do that anymore?”

“What? The telekinesis?”

“Yeah, I mean, I can still move stuff,” I admit. “But I can’t control it like that. Is that another version of me that’s mastered the art of moving stuff through the air?”

Moose laughs. “No. It’s not another you. And it’s like the old saying, ‘use it or lose it.’ After you left Dominion Synergy, and your father sent you here to this reality, you naturally suppressed your abilities. It’s a wonder you can even do them at all now, even on a small level.”

“What happened to the rest of you?”

“That’s not important. What’s important is that we’re together now.” He looks at me with wide open eyes. “Correction, we could be.”

Present Reality
The Past / Present / Future

C
ooper leaves me at Battle Grounds so I can contemplate my decision, one which I don’t take lightly and have to do for myself in private. We’re scheduled to meet back at my apartment in an hour so he can take me back where I belong. Actually, it’s a hell of a choice I’m faced with. But I know that it’s not about me anymore, how my life is affected. By going with Cooper, I realize I can help the lives of others.

Since I don’t have any loose ends to tie up, except maybe go see my aunt Maggie, I don’t anticipate taking long to get my affairs in order before we go. Maybe he’ll take me to go see my aunt on the way.

But there’s something I have to do first.

Everyone I’ve come into contact with has mentioned that aside from my power to move objects, I also have the ability to astral project. It’s a power I never knew I had before and in truth, it kinda freaks me out. If you had told me a few weeks ago that my life would be turned upside-down and that my freak power was actually a part of a grander scheme, I’d have insisted
you
were the freak.

If my ability of telekinesis is still active—and I know only too well that it is—perhaps my power of astral projection is still within my reach, and I’m going to use it to make a difference in this whole mess. To make things right. Not because Cooper or his friends have persuaded me, but because it’s in my power to do so.

I have no clue as to where to begin, but I have an idea of where to start looking. I can’t go to Cooper or Maggie, because I know they’ll only prevent me from doing it. Maybe that should be a clue that I should not be doing what I’m about to do, but it’s my life, right?

I glance around my efficiency apartment for what I know to be the last time. It’s small. Nothing more than a living room, a kitchenette, and bathroom with only an old clawfoot tub. But my bedroom feels like a palace of infinite possibilities. When I fall asleep in my room, it’s like I’m transported into other worlds. My dreams have always been my escape, and I have a feeling that it has something to do with this newfound ability. I realize now that they weren’t merely dreams, but snippets of other worlds, other lives that I’ve once lived. Some are memories, yet others felt real, and I suspect my body has traveled this world and beyond as I lay sleeping.

I go straight to my eStorm tablet (thanks April) and type “Wikipedia” into the search engine, my only source for information and guidance at this point. Making myself comfortable on my bed, I look up how one can astral to another plane. This time, I plan on traveling on my own conscious terms, not my subconscious.

After about an hour immersing myself with first-person accounts of those who claim to be able astral project—Wikipedia was absolutely no help at all—I decide to take bits and pieces of their experiences and go for it. The worst that can happen is that my plan doesn’t work and I’ll just have to figure out another way to make things right.

I take a deep breath as I lay flat on my back on my bed. At best guess, I figure my body, or rather my mind, has done this before, so I’m hoping I can do it again. If my hunch is correct and I’ve been astraling in my sleep these past few years, I should be able to do it now while I’m awake. At least, that’s what I’m hoping for in theory.

“Well, here goes nothing,” I mutter to myself as I close my eyes. My mind tries to focus on the person and place with which I wish to reconnect. I get a quick case of the shivers and my head feels likes it’s spinning. If this is the feeling I get when I astral, I don’t plan on doing it often. Totally feels like a bad hangover.

They say practice makes perfect, and as much as I expected to be able to jump on in—or
out
as the case might be—and have it be successful, I don’t think I’m where I want to be. In fact, I know this is not where I want to be.

Right off the bat I can tell this isn’t my reality. It’s gotta be some warped one as I’m standing in front of some private school—DOMINION HALL ACADEMY—that looks suspiciously like my old foster home. Is this building in every reality I go to? I’d bet the remaining balance in my checking account that the place Moose took me to was the same damned building.

What was I thinking? It was a dumb idea to think I can just astral project without even knowing how it works and where it would ultimately take me. And to top it all off, I manage to appear a few feet away from a parking lot where I spot another version of me getting out of a white Land Rover. I immediately duck behind a tree, hoping she doesn’t spot me. This isn’t exactly the moment I envisioned making my grand introduction.

After what seems like forever, though it was probably more like two minutes, the other me makes her way towards the building. I look both ways and go behind another tree as I follow up the quad, careful not to make my presence known.

“Ouch!”

I hear the cry not too far away from where I’m standing, and I whip around to find the source when I spot a group of girls playing lacrosse. I watch my past-self rub the back of her head where the ball made contact.

“Sooo sorry,” I hear, followed by hollow laughter.

I’d recognize that high pitched sing-song voice anywhere. Why am I not surprised to find out it was Jenny wielding that lacrosse stick? I guess there’s no escaping her wrath, even in this reality. I bet she did it on purpose—scratch that, I know she did.

I continue watching the scene as Jaime strolls up to the other me and inspects her head. Another surprise—Jaime at my side, steering me clear away from a confrontation with Jenny. This must be the version of Jaime that’s now invading my current reality. It’s funny how appearances can be deceiving. There she is, trying to protect me from mean-bad-bully Jenny, and how she claims to be protecting me now—but for all the wrong reasons.