Twisted Fates Read online

  Roman only shook his head, snickering.

  They loaded up the SolarBeam van and drove to Beacon Hill, a neighborhood south of the city that had been hit hardest by the earthquake. Everything they stole today would’ve only been destroyed in the aftermath of the storm, so it wasn’t really stealing at all.

  It was more like . . . misplacing.

  At least, that’s what Dorothy told herself as she knocked on the door of the first house.

  An older woman with white, dandelion-puff hair and a bulbous nose answered. “Can I help you?”

  “Hello, ma’am, my associate and I are from SolarBeam. We’ve had a few complaints in the neighborhood about panel failure. Would you mind letting us in to check your units?”

  Dorothy nodded at her clipboard. Smiled. Behind her, Roman was making some very manly noises as he loaded a few large boxes into the back of the truck.

  The boxes were empty. They’d unloaded them just seconds before, figuring the whole con would seem more believable if they were already packing up a few “faulty” units in need of repair.

  Sure enough, the woman squinted at Roman and fumbled for the glasses hanging from her neck. “Oh dear. What seems to be the problem?”

  Roman had finished loading up his empty boxes. He wiped the nonexistent sweat from his brow, and said, “It’s hard to say, ma’am. If the panel’s failed in a way that still allows an electrical current to pass through, the other panels on that string won’t be negatively impacted whatsoever. But if one of its bypass diodes has been affected, well, then the current can’t flow through it, and the bad panel might actually take down its entire string.”

  It’d taken him hours to memorize the most boring section of the SolarBeam instruction manual they’d found online, but his hard work paid off.

  The woman just stared at him, blinking. “Oh?”

  “It would be best if you let us take them in to be . . . recharged,” Dorothy finished. She thought she saw Roman cast her a look—the word recharged must’ve been incorrect—but she didn’t bother meeting his gaze. The old woman noticed nothing.

  “By all means,” she said.

  She led them out back, to where the SolarBeam units were propped up in her yard. The units were very small, about the size of paperback books, and there were twelve of them in total, gathering sunlight that they would turn into enough electricity to power her small house for a month. Roman and Dorothy gathered all but two.

  “Those should keep your power running until we return,” Dorothy explained, nodding at the solar panels they’d left behind.

  “Good thinking, dear,” the woman said, too kindly. “And when do you expect to return?”

  Dorothy opened her mouth to deliver the prepared line and then closed it again, staring at the woman’s face.

  Emelda Higgens, she thought. The name had just popped into her head. She and Roman had spent the last few weeks preparing a list of the residents of this neighborhood so they’d know exactly who to hit. They had photographs and bios, but Dorothy couldn’t remember all of them.

  But Emelda . . . Dorothy remembered her. Emelda was seventy-two years old. She was going to die in eight hours, as the initial shocks of the earthquake sent her home of twenty-five years tumbling down around her. She’d be found in the debris, curled around her tiny, white dog, which she’d inexplicably named Pumpkin.

  Dorothy couldn’t breathe.

  Roman’s hand was suddenly at her back. “We’ll be back bright and early tomorrow morning, Ms. Higgens,” he said. Something in his voice had changed. He cleared his throat. “Thank you for your time.”

  Ms. Higgens smiled, vaguely, before turning around and shouting, “Pumpkin! Where are you at, boy?”

  The door closed behind her.

  Dorothy was already shaking her head as they hurried back up the street, where the delivery van was waiting. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what happened, I just thought of the earthquake and how all these people, how she—”

  Dorothy fell abruptly silent as a screen door screeched open, and a little girl raced outside.

  The girl was all knobby limbs and scabbed knees, black hair escaping from an already messy ponytail, cheeks rosy from the cold.

  The girl cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, gearhead! Mom says that if you don’t come in now we’re feeding your dinner to the cat.”

  “I’m finishing the tree house!” called a voice from the trees.

  “Mom says the tree house isn’t a priority!”

  A boy dropped from the tree a moment later and raced into the house after his sister.

  Watching them, Dorothy felt her stomach turn over. She didn’t remember seeing a single children’s photograph or bio on any of their lists but, of course, there would be plenty of them living here. Had Roman left them off deliberately? Had he thought she’d lose her nerve when she realized who they were stealing from?

  She’d been telling herself this theft wasn’t a big deal. The solar panels would’ve only been destroyed in the earthquake, after all. By taking them now, they were actually saving them, for the future.

  But . . . couldn’t they have at least tried to save the people, too? Couldn’t they have discussed it?

  “Come on,” Roman said, his voice altered. Dorothy glanced at him and saw that he was staring at the door of the house where the two kids had just disappeared, his gaze sharp. He cleared his throat, and looked away. “Next house.”

  They gathered 240 solar panels by the end of the day, enough to power a ten-block radius. It was more power than New Seattle had seen in over four years. It was, by any measure one could name, a success.

  But Dorothy didn’t feel successful. She watched Roman from the corner of her eye while they stacked the panels into neat rows at the back of the Black Crow.

  A dozen questions rose up in her throat, all some variation of What happened to the children?

  But she couldn’t ask that question because she knew the answer already. An earthquake was going to hit this city in less than eight hours. Every house in this neighborhood would be reduced to rubble. By this time tomorrow, the little girl with the braids and the boy building the tree house would most likely be dead.

  Roman slammed the door to the cargo hold shut, his eyes shifting to the horizon. “We should head back,” he said. “Before . . .”

  Dorothy nodded, following his gaze to the sky. The edges of this world had already turned orange and pink. It looked like the city was on fire and Dorothy had to remind herself that it wasn’t yet. But it would be.

  “Right,” she said, and she climbed into the time machine after him.

  LOG ENTRY—JUNE 27, 2074

  05:49 HOURS

  THE WORKSHOP

  Now that we’ve determined that humanity has free will, and that the future is not predestined, I’d like to take a look at how far that free will extends. In other words, I want to know if my personal ability to make choices different from the choices I’ve seen myself make in the future could change more than what I have for lunch tomorrow.

  I’m once again going to travel one day into the future only; this time, I’ll pull up a local news site and read about the terrible things that are going to happen today, and then I’ll attempt to use free will to see if it’s possible to change them. As always, I’ll update on my return.

  UPDATE—06:24 HOURS

  After scanning the news, I’ve decided to focus my energies on this story:

  Motorcyclist seriously injured in hit-and-run crash near Renton.

  The motorcyclist in question is an eighteen-year-old kid with his whole life ahead of him, and the crash wasn’t his fault, it was the fault of some jerk-off who didn’t even stop to make sure he was okay. He has some pretty serious injuries, too, so if I can keep this from happening, I can change this kid’s entire future. I did a quick search of the kid’s name, and it looks like he lives in Redmond, which is just a half hour drive from here.

  Here’s the plan: I’m going to stop by
this kid’s house and tell him that I’m Professor Zacharias Walker (there was a special on me last year . . . I’m fairly well-known at the moment) and that he’s going to be in a car accident today, and so he should avoid his motorcycle for the next twenty-four hours. Wish me luck!

  UPDATE—18:56 HOURS

  I’ve just returned, and I’m afraid I don’t have good news.

  The mission started out well. I got into my car and drove to this young man’s house and told him exactly what I’d planned to tell him, that I’m a time traveler and that he’s going to be in a debilitating accident if he chooses to ride his motorcycle today.

  Unfortunately, he did not believe me. Perhaps this is something I should’ve expected, but I have to admit that I was quite surprised by his reluctance to accept my story. I thought that, even if he wouldn’t admit it to my face, he would take my warning to heart and stay off the damn bike.

  I’ve been glued to the news site all afternoon, hoping that my warning had worked.

  And then, at 18:45 hours, the news story appeared. Motorcyclist seriously injured. I’d failed.

  This is the Cassandra Complex at work, I’m afraid. Cassandra was gifted with the ability to see the future, and then cursed because no one believed what she told them to be true.

  I just can’t accept that. There has to be some way to make them listen.

  That kid was planning to go to WCAAT in the fall. I feel like I’m responsible for his death.

  20

  Ash

  NOVEMBER 7, 2077, NEW SEATTLE

  One moment, the anil looked like it always looked: a glimmer of light dancing over black. A swirling mess of mist and smoke. A crack in time.

  Then, the Black Crow was there.

  Ash flinched at the ship’s sudden appearance, nearly knocking into the person crowded onto the dock behind him. The ship didn’t arrive, exactly. It was simply not there one moment and very much there the next.

  Wind blew through the screaming crowd. The ground bucked. Zora said something, her fingers clawing at the damp leather of Ash’s jacket, but Ash couldn’t hear her and, anyway, his mind was somewhere else.

  Was this how time travel looked from the other side? he wondered. He wouldn’t know. He was always inside the cockpit of the time machine when it exited the anil, hands wrapped around the yoke, heart pounding in his throat.

  The fact that he wasn’t there now caused a deep, sucking sadness to open up inside of him.

  The guy he’d noticed earlier, the one who’d seemed to recognize him, was standing closer now, watching him with a quizzical smile on his face. He’d been one of the ones shouting The past is our right! and pumping his fist at the Black Crow.

  Ash felt his muscles begin to knot. He could picture how a confrontation might go. The guy would say something rude or ignorant or both. And he—unable to help himself—would throw the first punch.

  He leaned over, speaking directly into Zora’s ear so she would hear him over the still-cheering crowd. “I’ve seen enough. Should we find the others?”

  Zora nodded distantly. She was staring very intently at the time machine, forehead creased in concern. And then she blinked, shaking her head.

  “They’re already at Dante’s,” she said, her voice sounding very far away. “Yeah, let’s go.”

  “Okay . . . so I think this number is the primary wave . . . which means this must be the secondary wave, see?” Chandra said, squinting. She had the Professor’s old textbooks and a thick pile of his notes spread out on the table before her, and she was looking back and forth between two rows of scribbled digits, pencil tapping her chin. “So you can measure the interval time of the S-P to find the distance from the seismometer to the epicenter. Hey, that makes sense.”

  “That makes sense?” Zora snorted. “Is your definition of that word different from mine?”

  “Well, it’s just how he ended up with this digit here, see? No here. Look at where I’m pointing.”

  Zora shot her a murderous look.

  They were at Dante’s, a cramped, dirty bar with mismatched chairs and tables covered in sticky layers of Dante’s famous homemade hooch. Strings of half-busted café lights hung from the ceiling above them, but Ash couldn’t remember the last time they’d actually emitted anything like light. Instead, there were drippy candles lined up against the walls, their flickering flames doing very little to illuminate the vinyl booths and wobbly café tables.

  It wasn’t much. But no one here stared at them. Ash blinked at the textbook sitting open before him. His brain felt slow and soupy, and he hadn’t been able to follow a word of what Chandra was saying. Willis seemed to have given up, too. He’d quietly closed his book ten minutes ago and was currently folding his cocktail napkin into an origami swan.

  Only Zora was still trying to follow along, and it didn’t appear to be doing anyone any good. She dug her fingers through her hair. “I’m a mechanic,” she said, teeth gritted. “I could build a time machine out of the stuff lying around this bar.”

  Chandra blinked at her, eyes monstrous behind her thick glasses.

  “What I’m trying to say is I’m not an idiot.” Zora flipped the textbook closed, irritated. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It does,” Chandra insisted. “You can learn it if you try.”

  “I really can’t.”

  “Okay.” Chandra closed her textbook, too. “Maybe it’s time for a break. Get another drink, take some of the pressure off?”

  Zora dropped her head to the table, groaning loudly. Willis quietly placed the cocktail napkin swan next to her.

  “Maybe we should try looking on the bright side,” Chandra said, sliding a glass of something thick and brown across the table. “New Seattle is going to have electricity again. Remember electricity? It powers televisions and computers and turns on lights and helps with fancy things like heat. We like electricity.”

  She lifted her thick, brown drink to her mouth, slurping loudly. Ash frowned at her for a moment before deciding he didn’t actually want to know what the drink was, or how she’d convinced Levi to make it for her.

  “We already have electricity,” Willis said. “And we didn’t have to sell ourselves to the Black Cirkus to get it.”

  “Please tell me you aren’t talking about the Professor’s old solar panels, because they’ve been acting up for weeks.” Chandra’s eyes brightened. “We could finally watch the rest of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’ve only seen the first four seasons.”

  “Come on, Chandie, Buffy?”

  Ash turned his glass with two fingers, watching the clear hooch slosh up along the sides. Back at the docks, he’d wanted to be here, surrounded by his friends, drinking Dante’s terrible liquor and going through these textbooks, finally feeling like they were accomplishing something.

  But, now, he found himself longing for the docks shifting beneath his feet and the cold bite of wind on his cheeks, the sound of the crowd chanting around him. He looked around this bar, and all he could think about was how he’d brought Dorothy here, the way her eyes had gone wide when she’d first stepped into this room.

  He wondered if she would’ve spoken to him, if she’d seen him standing on the docks just now.

  And then he hated himself for wondering.

  And then he hated himself a little more because, to be honest, he would’ve been perfectly satisfied if she’d walked past him without a word, as long as he got to see her face.

  It was kind of ironic, if he thought about it. For the last year Quinn Fox’s face had haunted him. Or, rather, the darkness under her hood had haunted him. The absence of a face. He’d scowled and turned away whenever it flashed on his television screen.

  Now, it was all he could think about.

  He wanted to laugh. Or scream. He wanted to kiss her again. His lips burned with the wanting.

  He glanced at the door, his knee jumping below the table. Could he go to her now? Would she see him?

  “What did you think of that tremor?” Zor
a had a glass of water sitting in front of her, and she was absently tracing the lip with one finger.

  Ash blinked, refocusing his attention on her. “Tremor?”

  “There was a tremor when the Black Crow entered the anil, and another one when they returned.” Zora frowned. “You didn’t notice?”

  “There are always tremors,” Ash said. “There was one when Chandie and I were coming back from Mac’s the other day.”

  “Nearly drowned us,” Chandra added, slurping.

  Willis had another cocktail napkin in front of him, and he was folding it into something that had fins. He lifted his eyes. “Did you think it was something else?”

  “No. Ugh, I don’t know.” Zora took a pencil out from behind her ear and tapped it against her bottom lip. “It just seemed weird to me.”

  Ash felt guilt twist through his gut. This was what he should be thinking about. Tremors and earthquakes and saving the world. Not Dorothy’s lips. Heat shot up the backs of his ears. What was wrong with him?

  “Another?” Willis asked, nodding at his now-empty glass.

  Ash dropped his eyes to his textbook. The numbers looked like gibberish, but he doubted another drink was going to get him any closer to understanding what they meant.

  He was feeling restless. He needed a change of scenery. He needed to go somewhere that didn’t remind him of Dorothy.

  He pushed back his chair, tucking the textbook under his arm. “I’m going to take a walk,” he told his friends. “Clear my head. I’ll see you all back at the school.”

  21

  Dorothy

  NOVEMBER 7, 2077, NEW SEATTLE

  “Friends, do not attempt to adjust your television,” Dorothy said, blinking into the glare of spotlights in the Fairmont basement. “Our broadcast has taken over every channel.

  “I’m happy to announce that our trip back in time was successful. We returned early this morning with two hundred and forty solar panels, all in working order. That’s enough to power all of downtown Seattle, more electricity than our city has seen since before the mega-quake.”