27

AN EXPLOSION OF RUBIK’S CUBES

TURNS OUT VIGILANCE WAS CODE WORD for “boring.”

Gram sat at his station, reading through the numbers of their landing for the umpteenth time. All was well with math and universal order. He wasn’t sure why he kept checking them or what he feared to find. Nothing had changed since the landing he’d had trouble solving. Or so he thought… Fallible memory was something Gram’s brain was struggling to calibrate.

He was regretting his promise to keep Tetris on pause. No games meant just sitting. Just sitting meant his mind started wandering, analyzing things that were better off left alone.

1.2191 meters: the space between his chair and Imogen’s. He’d never measured it before. He’d had no reason to. Imogen was his friend. She’d always been his friend, from the very first day Far had introduced them. Four Central time months ago—one biological year past—Gram had been invited to the McCarthys’ flat to celebrate Far’s seventeenth unbirthday. Her hair had been highlighter yellow that evening, but it was her laugh that really struck him. The ease and flow of it, how often she let it out… Everything about Imogen felt bright.

It was impossible not to like her.

But did he like her?

It’d be a lie to say that Gram hadn’t thought of her in an amorous way with increasing frequency. In such close quarters, it was hard not to form attachments. 1.2191 meters was comfortable. They shared so much: jokes, near-Far-death experiences, celebratory high-score gelato. Even though Imogen’s hair color changed every twenty-four hours, the change itself was a constant clockwork rainbow. A cycle he could count on.

For all his love of patterns and predictable steps, Gram was rubbish at dancing. He could manage a formulaic waltz. He might even be able to eke out a fox-trot if the situation were dire. Not that there were many emergencies involving ballroom dancing. Club dancing was a special brand of torture—no rules, go with the flow. He’d only ventured into the fray at Caesars Palace because Imogen had called him out. Five flailing songs and two stiletto-smashed toes later, Gram had slipped back toward the cabana, certain that Imogen wouldn’t notice. She had, though. A tug on his vest and he’d turned to find her much closer than 1.2191 meters. Shiny eyes made shinier by a combination of alcohol and nuclear-green hair.

Don’t go, she’d told him. You’re the only one I want to dance with.

He’d stayed. Not for the dance, but for her.

Gram tried not to read too much into the statement. People said all sorts of shazm when they were inebriated: unfiltered truth, brazen lies, things to be regretted in the morning. Imogen certainly seemed to regret it. She’d avoided him all day, sliding out of whatever room he entered, averting her gaze. Had his dancing been that heinous?

Things had started to feel comfortable again in the wardrobe. Too comfortable…

He’d almost said something to regret of his own.

He didn’t want to upset their balance, but it was off anyway. All the weight was on Imogen’s side of the room, her presence gravitational. Gram had to fight to keep from staring at her. He studied his Rubik’s Cubes instead. Again, there were no answers there, just a mug of tea beside the green one. The drink was cold when Gram picked it up; milk had formed a skin over the top. It’d been there awhile.

“I’m starting to second-guess the toga choice.” Even Imogen’s frown was vibrant as she guided her cousin through the library. Her screen’s glow was all-encompassing, making the blues in her hair bluer. Saffron curled tight in her lap.

Gram took a sip of the tea. It was still good. Maybe even better for age. He scanned his own screens again. The numbers were steady. All systems sound.

This was fine. This was normal. This was working.

Everything was where it needed to be.

Best to let sleeping feelings lie.

“To the right.” Imogen looked up from the screen during her instructions, eyes drifting toward Gram’s chair. The glance didn’t feel intentional—it had the automatic slowness of a habit. This time, when their gazes locked, hers didn’t skitter away. She didn’t seem to realize she was looking. He hadn’t, either.

See? Gravity.

“Hold on….” The moment caught up with them. Imogen tore her stare from his, back to the screen. A chasm opened up between their chairs. “No! Sorry, I misplaced my notes….”

1.2191 meters. Exactly what it was before.

Completely different now.

Gram’s palms tightened around the mug. He looked back at his frozen Tetris game, his color-coded cubes. Not too long ago everything had fit. If Eliot hadn’t brought up how pretty Imogen was by the blackjack tables, he might not even be dwelling on this… this… imbalance. Then again, maybe he would. Gram still wasn’t sure if the newcomer was the cause or the effect. The problem or the solution.

“HOLY SHAZM!” Imogen shrieked.

Chaos ensued. Gram dropped the mug—chai went projectile when the ceramic shattered, hitting the chalk wall. 1922: Hunted down Hen With Sapphire Pendant washed down to 1946: Recovered Yamashita’s Gold from the Philippines until all thirty missions became a polychromatic soup. Saffron scattered from his owner’s lap, leaping to the closest high point he could find: Gram’s console. Paws mashed the Tetris score back to zero before landing in an explosion of Rubik’s Cubes. Green side became orange flipping over to white, which was sure to become brown after landing in the pool of tea. Gram’s stare fixed back on Imogen, and hers to her screen. Both hands were on her face, framing trembling lips.

“Oh Crux, oh Crux, oh…”

“What’s wrong?” Priya appeared in the doorway. Fear enough for all of them circled her eyes: three times pale. “What’s happening?”

Imogen seemed incapable of answering. Gram looked at the screen that swallowed her so, view via Far. He picked out shapes through the haze: shelves, the face of a woman who was not Eliot. She was staring at Far and Far stared back, meeting her eyes in a way no Recorder should.

“Who is that?” he asked.

“It’s Aunt Empra,” she gasped. “Aunt Empra is in the library.”

Empra McCarthy. Gram had never met Far’s mother but he’d heard plenty about her. She was one of the most respected Recorders of her time—fluent in Latin without translation tech, Recorder of several staple datastreams. Her career was matched by few, but most of Empra’s fame sprang from a different source: her disappearance.

If Empra McCarthy was here, the Ab Aeterno was, too. But… that didn’t make sense. No official Corps expeditions had ever been sent to this date. Gram and Imogen had checked and double-checked the Corps’ logs. They would have noticed any crossover, especially if the CTM was the Ab Aeterno.

Unless…

Unless this was the Ab Aeterno’s final mission. The one Empra and her crew had never returned from.

Click, click, click. These thoughts snapped into place, building up to a terrible realization. No one had been able to deduce where or when the Ab Aeterno had vanished—several rescue expeditions to the CTM’s last logged destination (the Giza Plateau, before it possessed such a name, some two centuries earlier than this date) had come up empty, including several ventures by the Invictus itself. Nor had anyone been able to determine what prevented Empra and her crew from jumping back to Central time eleven years ago. Something unprecedented, something catastrophic enough to keep a mother from her son… Gram had no idea how the Ab Aeterno came to be here now, but if his theory was right, something drastic was about to happen.

His gaze swung back to the Invictus’s nav systems: Vigilance! What he saw struck him to the core.

The numbers weren’t just changing this time.

They were disappearing.