Authors: Julie Cross
“When you do these half-jumps, I think you’re very close to doing what Thomas does,”
he said quietly, almost like he didn’t believe it himself. “It’s possible your abilities
are evolving and these timelines you’ve made are merging.”
“Does that mean my brain is going to explode or the world is gonna end or something?”
“I don’t think so and it’s possible nothing more will happen … That little snippet
of 2007 I saw, and Stewart’s behavior this morning, may be related to the fact that
we have well above average intelligence. Our minds are trained to be alert to even
the smallest detail or vision. I doubt that it would affect a normal person, and there’s
a good chance that’s all we’ll see.”
“Are you just saying that so I don’t completely flip out?”
“No, but that’s what I would tell you either way.” He shook his head a little.
If there was ever a good time to ask Dr. Melvin some of the questions I’d had ever
since Heidelberg, it was now. I hopped off the table and scrambled for a piece of
paper and a pen from the desk.
I drew the timeline diagram I had put in my journal.
Dr. Melvin rolled his chair over and watched me. “World A? World B?”
“It’s just names I made for the different timelines I’ve been to.”
He laughed under his breath. “Reminds me of that video game you and Courtney used
to play all the time … what was that called?” He moved his thumbs as if playing a
handheld game.
“Super Mario Brothers.” I slid the paper toward him. “Okay, so … if I left World A
and created World B … then returned to World A, but not on the exact date I left …
instead it was a couple months before October thirtieth, 2009 … then I’ve technically
altered the future, right?”
He nodded slowly. “Yes, that’s true. Even the slightest change in the date you landed
in in World A the second time would forever change the future.”
I pulled the extra chair over and sank into it. The answers were already falling into
place …
Thomas-jumps aren’t the only way to alter things
… The EOT guy in Heidelberg wasn’t lying. “Let’s say, hypothetically, at this very
moment I decided to do a full jump back to World B … maybe to October 2007 … then
I come right back to here—”
“World C,” Dr. Melvin said, humoring me.
“Except it’s two hours ago and instead of coming to your office I decide to go to…”
I paused for a second. “I don’t know … Starbucks … and this conversation never happened.
I’ve changed the future, right? It’s not that much different than a Thomas-jump. The
full jump in the same timeline.”
The weary expression that consumed him now made it more urgent to push him for answers.
“Jackson—”
“And then, if I wanted to get back to where I left … I jump back to World B … for
a few seconds … then I can come back to World C, but two hours further in the future
from the last time I left, so it would be this exact second—”
“You can’t,” he said firmly.
“It’s just hypothetical … I know Marshall said not to—”
“I mean you
can’t
.” He pulled the pen from my hand and flipped the paper over to the blank side, drawing
his own diagram. “Let’s go back to what you’ve actually done … leaving World A, jumping
to World B, and then returning to World A, but not to October thirtieth … to August
thirteenth. Once you make that mark, coming from the other timeline, there’s only
one way to go further forward … no matter how many times you bounce off World B, August
thirteenth will be the present for you. I think you might refer to that as your home
base?”
I let out a breath, sinking back into the chair. “I have to live it … stay … September
and October would be different from the first time around but the change isn’t instant.”
“Correct.”
“Thomas-jumps work like that, too? Complete jumps, I mean.”
“Correct. Think of it like half-jumps … you return at almost the exact moment you
left. But of course alterations aren’t possible with half-jumps.”
“Wait … then how did Thomas take me—” I stopped abruptly, realizing I’d just told
him about my jump to that freakishly perfect future with Thomas. I hadn’t told anyone
about that. Not even Dad, because it would have meant telling him about Emily, and
I couldn’t do that.
Dr. Melvin’s eyebrows lifted. “Take you where? When did Thomas jump with you, Jackson?”
My heart pounded so fast. “Before … the last timeline I left … World A … it was way,
way far ahead … it had to be…” Another answer also came to me, and it completely blew
my mind. “If he was from
that
year … if he’d lived it, then he could do it, right?”
“Right.” Dr. Melvin held perfectly still, waiting for me to draw the conclusion out
loud. Based on her recent slipups, I could almost guarantee that this was what Kendrick
spent all her time studying in her specialty. It appeared that Biological Advancements
was a very loose term in Tempest. “The EOTs are from the future? Marshall was lying
when he told me … in World B, in 2007 … that the Tempus gene evolved naturally over
time … and it’s been traced throughout history or whatever bullshit he fed me that
day?”
“He wasn’t lying. The Tempus gene does evolve naturally over time. It just hasn’t
started yet. And for someone like Thomas, the Tempus gene can be traced throughout
history.
His
history is
your
future.”
“So the EOTs are up there.” For some reason, I’d always envisioned the future as above
me, like Canada. “Teleporting, taking vitamins, and having babies that climb around
like mini-superheroes, and then they just decide it might be fun to do this time-travel
thing and kill the … chancellor of Germany or someone equally as important so they
can legally make clones or super babies or something two hundred years from now?”
I was fully aware of how ridiculous my examples were, but dumbing it down for myself
was how I came up with these answers in the first place. And two hundred years? I
just made that up, and honestly, I wasn’t really sure all that crazy future stuff
Thomas had shown me could happen in just two hundred years.
“It’s not quite that simple—”
“That’s why you couldn’t really give me a straight answer … the other you … when I
asked if someone was going to stop Dr. Ludwig and his clone-making habit. He’s probably
not even born yet. Won’t be for who knows how long. I could be his great-great-great-grandfather,
for all we know.”
I wasn’t sure why, but these revelations about Enemies from the very distant future
was actually somewhat reassuring. Sure, it made the world seem much bigger … like
way higher up than Canada … but all this crazy shit like time travel and cloning wasn’t
naturally part of my world, or at least it wasn’t supposed to be. I could believe
it and accept it as something that happens around the same time cars start flying
and driving themselves.
“Jackson!”
My mind forced itself back to Dr. Melvin’s office after the impulsive diversion my
imagination had just taken. He had his hands on my shoulders, shaking me gently.
“Jackson? We test agents … CIA, FBI … We take them through a battery of testing to
see who is mentally capable of handling this information … knowledge about the future
and what is to come.” Dr. Melvin dropped his hands from my shoulders and continued
to watch my face carefully, maybe looking for signs of insanity. “Obviously, every
agent in Tempest is able to deal with the concept of time travel, but not everyone
can work properly and effectively knowing too many details. You’re one of those.”
I laughed even though it really wasn’t funny. “I can
actually
time-travel, therefore I’m totally capable of dealing with it.”
He shook his head immediately. “It’s not just insanity we’re concerned with. We need
individuals who we’re certain won’t get impulsive or power-hungry, knowing what is
to come. You aren’t supposed to know any of this, Jackson.” He rubbed his temples,
briefly closing his eyes. “I’m not sure what to tell your father or Marshall. If I
were following the rules, I’d tell Healy and Freeman right away. They’d pull you from
this mission. But perhaps that’s for the best. At least until we can be sure—”
“Sure of what?” Blood pumped furiously through my veins. “Sure I’ll do what I’m told
without asking questions? Sure I won’t suddenly decide that I really
need
to take over the world?”
“Jackson, calm down. This isn’t your fault.”
I shoved the chair back and headed for the door. I’d already heard enough of this
bullshit for one day. “No test will ever tell you what a person can and can’t deal
with. And you …
you
have no idea what I’m capable of handling.”
I left him sitting there, stunned to silence. I knew he wasn’t going to tell Senator
Healy about Stewart, because Dr. Melvin had looked just as surprised as the rest of
us about Senator Healy’s sudden appearance as a Tempest leader. He’d never throw something
like this at him without running it by Marshall or Dad first. Plus, he hadn’t told
Healy about his own weird, merging timeline déjà vu. And now I knew I was right when
I assumed Marshall had me specialize in Advanced Defense because he was afraid of
me turning against Tempest … getting power-hungry, as Dr. Melvin had said.
Dad withholding information like this didn’t really bother me in the same infuriating
way. I knew his intentions were always to make my life easier. He didn’t want me to
have too much responsibility or be forced into anything. But on the other hand, his
choice to keep stuff from me also proved he didn’t know what I was capable of, either.
If I could deal with my girlfriend getting thrown from a roof, I could easily absorb—without
going crazy—the fact that the EOTs are from the future and that some of them, if their
abilities were strong enough, might be able to alter time by bouncing off another
world and coming back. Maybe more of them could “Thomas-jump,” but I wasn’t allowed
to know that.
Maybe I can Thomas-jump?
* * *
Because of my chat with Dr. Melvin all the way across town, and my wandering through
Central Park for nearly an hour trying to fill in the dozens of holes that this morning’s
information had created, I was late meeting Kendrick at the Plaza for our assigned
observation hours.
Kendrick eyed me up and down with a look of disgust. “That’s classic. Showing up late
in yesterday’s clothes.”
“Sorry. I had a crazy morning and didn’t have time to go home.”
“Yeah, spare me the details.”
Kendrick didn’t say another word to me all morning other than work-related exchanges
when she needed my data to record.
When our four hours were up, we walked together without speaking and I could tell
she was trying to keep up her silent treatment, but eventually she gave in and blurted
out, “I can’t believe you spent the night with Stewart! Weren’t you afraid of being
attacked in your sleep or something?”
“It was no big deal, seriously. We didn’t even—”
She spun around to face me in the middle of the sidewalk. “No big deal? Are you really
that dense? She’s got issues. You can’t take advantage of people like that!”
She thought I was taking advantage of Stewart? The tiny little possibility that she
might be right made me angry enough to redirect the conversation. “What about you?
You’re stringing Michael along … for what? He doesn’t even know you.”
Her face took on this horrible mixture of hurt and rage. She ground her teeth together
and turned around and continued walking toward the bus stop. On the ride home, I tried
to figure out my motivation for lashing out at her. I think the idea that I may be
as impersonal as Stewart bothered me more than I cared to admit.
And then I remembered Kendrick’s face yesterday when I asked her where she lived before
moving to New York. Her secrets lay in that answer. I just knew they did.
When we got back to our building, I followed Kendrick into her apartment and closed
the door behind us. “Tell me what happened to your parents … your family.”
She brushed the hair off her face and stood in front of me, arms crossed. “What happened
to
your
parents?”
I must have looked confused, because she rolled her eyes and elaborated on her question.
“One of my first tests, when I got to France, was to analyze the DNA of every member
of Tempest without their knowledge. I know your dad isn’t your dad … in a biological
sense.”
I held my breath for a second as theories spun through my brain.
Does she know that I’m half EOT?
Marshall never would have let her test me if he thought she could figure it out.
And another thought occurred to me … She told me confidential information related
to her specialty … again. We were fighting … again. What did this mean? Sharing secrets,
getting pissed off at each other, her suddenly protecting Stewart. Was Lily Kendrick
becoming my
friend
? That was never part of the plan.
“I just found out about my dad not too long before you did,” I admitted, finally.
Some of the anger immediately faded from her expression. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s still my dad. It doesn’t really change much.”
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second. “My parents and my younger
brother died two years ago, and it’s the reason I’m here, in the CIA … more specifically,
the reason I’m in this division. That’s all you’re going to get from me, okay?”
“Okay,” I said quietly.
“You and Stewart … that’s just none of my business. I won’t mention it again.”
“Great.”
“So, did you and Stewart really—”
I put a hand over her mouth. “You just said it wasn’t any of your business. You’re
such a hypocrite.”
She barely cracked a smile and then moved so fast. She had my arm twisted behind my
back in half a second. “I take name-calling very seriously. You better say something
nice to make up for it.”
Kendrick tugged harder on my arm and I faked a moan. “I think you dislocated my shoulder …
seriously, let go!”