She’d been half-asleep in a Seattle hotel room when Cedric Cain called her. Melissa sat up in bed, still fully clothed in her lavender pantsuit and surrounded by notes from her latest investigation. She scanned the bright dawn sky through the crack in the curtains, then switched her phone to her other ear.
“I’m sorry. What did you say?”
“They’re alive,” Cain repeated. “The orphans are still alive.”
Melissa had decided some time ago to coin a universal term for her extraordinary case subjects. “Transdimensional chronokinetics” was a boulder on the tongue, and she refused to call them “freaks” like Gingold did. She’d hoped to make “orphans” the standard agency nomenclature, but only Cain indulged her. To the rest of Integrity, they were benders, mutants, chronnies, blights. Some had even taken to calling them “deadsetters,” which especially irked her. It was a racially charged term from the Cataclysm era, a catch-all word for unwelcome immigrants.
In her groggy state, Melissa assumed Cain was talking about the latest group of orphans: the seven fugitives who’d been wreaking havoc in the Pacific Northwest. Melissa had been chasing them for weeks, so why would Cain call to tell her that they were . . .
“Alive.” She launched up from the bed, spilling a dozen loose papers to the floor. “You mean my orphans. The original six.”
“Yes.”
“How do you know? Where are they?”
“Brooklyn,” Cain told her. “Gingold found them. He’s just a few hours away from taking them down. If you hurry—”
Melissa threw on her shoes, raced her Sparrow to the aerport, and used her badge to grab a seat on the next dart to Idlewild. She crossed the country in a transonic blur, her knees bouncing, her eyes dancing in rumination. She knew something wasn’t right about those corpses in the movie theater, and Gingold had been excessively cagey these past few weeks. But why did he cut Melissa out of the loop? Did he know what she was planning?
Cain arranged to have an aerovan waiting for her in New York: a black, nine-seat Griffin that had been specially tailored for government use. The shifter could accelerate to twice the legal limit, while a transponder emitted an electronic warning to all policemen in range: Integrity business. Do not pursue.
The rocket path that Melissa flew to Brooklyn would have earned anyone else a night in jail. She still didn’t get there in time.
“They split up,” Cain told her, a mere thirty seconds before she arrived at the siege site. “Most of them fled north in a lime-green Peregrine.”
“Who stayed behind?”
“It’s too late to save them. Focus on the others.”
“Who stayed behind?”
Cain sighed in her earpiece. “Theo Maranan and some boy they can’t identify. But listen—”
“See if there are other vehicles registered to the owner of that Peregrine.”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m intercepting Theo before he gets to his escape car.”
“Escape car? Melissa, he’s surrounded. He’s not getting out of there.”
“He’ll get out.”
“How do you know?”
Melissa looked out her window just in time to see Gingold and his soldiers advancing on the brownstone. “Because I know Theo.”
Six minutes later, she greeted him in a SmartFeast parking lot, her pistol pressed firmly against his back. It was lucky for her that Heath was still reeling from the agency’s solic wasp. She’d gotten a bird’s-eye view of his paranormal talent. The last thing she needed was a tempic animal in her face.
Helpless, Heath shook his head in the back of the Peregrine. “No no no no . . .”
“Calm your friend,” Melissa told Theo. “For his sake and yours.”
Theo raised a palm at Heath, then looked at Melissa’s reflection in the van window. “Let him go. He’s just a neighbor’s kid.”
“Oh? So it was you who made those wolves and elephants?”
“I’m telling you, he’s not one of us.”
“Then why does he have a Pelletier bracelet on his wrist?”
Theo gaped at her, confounded. “How do you know about those?”
“You know it wounds me, Theo, that the first thing out of your mouth is a lie.”
“You have a gun in my back. You’re expecting courtesy?”
“I’m expecting foresight.” She eyed his reflection with wonder. “You don’t see what’s coming, do you?”
“You mean the part where scientists cut up my corpse?”
“That already happened. I’m talking about your future.”
“And what is my future?”
Melissa leaned in close, smiling. She’d been mourning Theo and his people for months now, tormenting herself with notions of what might have been. Now, through some unholy magic she had yet to understand, they were back. Their second coming gave her a second chance to make everything right.
“I am,” she said. “I’m the only future you have.”
—
For Theo, the only thing crazier than fleeing the house in a herd of tempic elephants was escaping the government in a government vehicle. He and Heath crouched on the floor of the Griffin until they were five miles away from the battle zone.
Theo leaned forward in the middle row and took a good hard look at Melissa. Though she was just as lovely as he remembered, there was something off about her. Her pantsuit was wrinkled, as if she had slept in it. She looked nervous in a way Theo hadn’t seen before. Had she really turned against the U.S. government, or was this whole “rescue” just a complicated con job?
As the Griffin sailed into Manhattan through the Lower East Side, flying high to avoid traffic cameras, Melissa peeked at Heath through the rearview mirror. “Since Theo hasn’t seen fit to introduce us, my name’s Melissa Masaad. What’s yours?”
Heath only gave her the briefest of glances before looking out the window. His left hand rocked back and forth, as if he was shaking an invisible drink.
“Is he . . . all right?” She asked Theo.
“No, he’s not all right. Your people nearly killed him.”
“They’re not my people.”
“Bullshit. We know you’re with Integrity now.”
“Doesn’t mean I share their cause. Who told you that, anyway?”
“David. He saw you in that movie theater. You and those armored goons.”
“Funny. I saw him too. He was dead, just like the rest of you. Care to explain that one?”
Theo sank in his seat with a look of bitter gloom. “That wasn’t us.”
“Obviously.”
“No, I mean it wasn’t our trick. I’m pretty sure the Pelletiers did it.”
Melissa sighed out her window. “That’s what I was afraid of.”
As she flew them over the high-rises of Gramercy, Theo looked down and saw dozens of people enjoying a Sunday barbecue on a rooftop. A pair of teenage boys stood at the railing, laughing as they raced remote control saucers through a series of floating hoops.
That’s what Heath should be doing, Theo lamented. That’s the life he should be living.
He frowned at Melissa. “Last time I saw you, you warned me about Integrity. Kept saying how awful they were.”
“I said lawless, not awful. Though some of them are truly foul.”
“So why are you working with them?”
“A smarter man might notice that I’m currently working against them.”
“Why?”
“Answer my question first.”
“Which one?”
Melissa jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “Who is he?”
Theo stared out his window for a few quiet seconds before answering. “His name’s Heath.”
“And I take it he’s—”
“Yes,” Theo said. “He’s from my world.”
Melissa took another look at the boy. “Hello, Heath. On behalf of the United States government, I sincerely apologize for your ordeal today. What those men did was inexcusable. In a perfect world, they’d be brought up on charges.”
Heath stared down at his hands. Melissa heard him mutter something about a broken guitar.
Two states away, Cain watched her through a bubble cam lens in the dashboard. “Careful. The solis must have worn off by now. You might want to, uh . . .”
Melissa subtly shook her head at the camera. She had a stun chaser in her pocket. She wouldn’t use it unless she absolutely had to.
The Griffin broke out of the Manhattan skyline and flew a northern path up the Hudson. “Where are we going?” Theo asked.
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“We’re ten miles behind your friends,” she informed him. “A squadron of gunships are following them. If you have any information—”
“I don’t,” Theo said. “Peter never, uh . . . he didn’t give me an address.”
Melissa saw his bewildered distraction. “You all right?”
The fog in his foresight was finally starting to clear. Through the lingering haze, he saw a black metal saucer hanging vertically in the air, like an eclipse. Smoke billowed out of its broken windows. It was plummeting toward the earth—or at least it would be.
“We can save them,” Melissa told Theo. “But you have to trust me.”
“I’m trying. I am. I just . . . you’re committing treason for a bunch of people you barely even know. You seem like the last person on Earth who’d do that.”
Melissa stared out the windshield, her fingers tapping against the steering wheel. “When Amanda was in my custody, she was convinced that the government would kill and dissect her. I assured her it wouldn’t. Every human being in this nation has rights, even if they’re from another Earth, even if they shoot tempis from their hands.”
Her expression turned bitter. “But then Integrity took over and . . . let’s just say her fears are no longer baseless. I can’t abide by what they’re doing. They’re the ones who’ve gone rogue. Not me.”
Theo eyed her skeptically. “That’s your only reason for doing this?”
“Of course not. I haven’t slept a full night since I met you people. I want to understand where you came from, how you got here, how you do the things you do. Can you blame me?”
“No. I’m just wondering what your plan is. Even if you save us by some holy miracle, what then?”
“We’ve set up a safe house in Maine,” Melissa told him. “It’s in a dense forest, away from the prying eyes of humans and satellites. It’s comfortable, secure and, might I add, quite beautiful.”
“Back up,” said Theo.
“To which part?”
“The part where you said ‘we.’”
Melissa threw a brief look at the dashboard camera. “I have an associate. A very resourceful one.”
“Careful,” Cain muttered in her ear. “No names.”
“And you trust this person?” Theo asked.
“I do,” Melissa replied, though her assurance came with an asterisk. She knew Cain wanted the orphans alive as much as she did, that he despised what his agency had become. He’d promised her in his own coy way that Integrity was about to undergo a major change in management. Even so, Melissa had no guarantee that the new bosses would be any better than the old ones, or that Cain wouldn’t turn on her once he got his beloved Sci-Tech division back.
She looked at Theo pleadingly. “Where are your friends going?”
“I told you—”
“I mean what’s their purpose?”
Theo traded a quick, anxious look with Heath. “They’re trying to save Zack.”
“From who?”
“Gothams.”
“Jesus,” Cain uttered.
“So they do exist,” Melissa said. “Native-born chronokinetics. They’re not just a myth.”
“Of course not.” Theo cocked his head. “You work for the country’s biggest intelligence agency. How could you not know?”
“Either it’s a classified secret that I’m not privy to, or these Gothams are exceptionally good at staying hidden.”
“It’s the latter,” Cain told her. “Believe me.”
“Why would the Gothams take Zack?” Melissa asked Theo.
He hemmed a moment before shaking his head. “We’ll be in Canada before I’m done explaining it.”
“At least tell me why they left you behind.”
He chuckled bleakly. “You definitely don’t want the answer to that one.”
Melissa thumped the steering wheel. “Damn it. In all your premonitions, haven’t you once seen a future where you and I are friends?”
In point of fact, he’d seen futures that went well beyond that. Theo knew the sounds Melissa made in throes of passion, the shape of the mole on her stomach. He’d also seen her shoot him in the rain, chase him down a sewer, and swear more than once that she never meant for things to end this way. The strings extended in all directions, and Theo had every reason to be pessimistic today.
The Griffin flew in testy silence for eight more minutes, until Cain gave Melissa a new instruction. She banked a left toward Sleepy Hollow, then began a sharp descent.
Theo gripped the door handle. “What are you doing?”
“Your friends just landed.”
“How do you know?”
“I’m clairvoyant, like all Libras.”
Theo scowled at her. “Your friend’s feeding you information.”
“Why on earth would your people go to Atropos?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“It’s an abandoned aerport,” Melissa explained. “An awful place to be ambushed by armed federal—”
“They won’t be there,” Theo blurted.
Melissa and Heath both eyed him intently. Cain leaned in toward his computer.
“What do you mean?” Melissa asked Theo.
“I mean by the time we get there, they’ll be someplace else.”
“Where?”
His foresight had come back with a vengeance. He couldn’t stop seeing that smoldering black saucer, falling through the sky as it quickly fell to pieces. His friends were still on it. He was watching them die—just minutes from now.
“Up,” Theo said. “We have to go up.”
—
The Griffin began its climb six minutes before the Absence did. Melissa steered them on a 50-degree incline, stopping only to disable the altitude lock.
Unlike the aerstraunt, the van had no atmospheric protections. At sixteen thousand feet, Melissa sent Theo to the back for emergency supplies. He found four breathing masks but only two oxygen bottles.
“Give one to Heath,” she told him. “You and I can share.”
Theo sat hip-to-hip with Melissa in the front seat, their air tubes connected to the canister’s twin ports.
He jerked his head at the dashboard’s blinking red gauges. “Will this thing hold up?”
“I’m not sure,” Melissa said. “The heaters and stabilizers have gone into overdrive. It’s eating up the battery charge.”
“How long do we have?”
She checked the power meter. “We’ll have to start our descent in nine minutes. After that, there’ll be no hope for a soft landing.”
At twenty thousand feet, the Absence burst through a cloud and continued its wayward climb. Melissa straightened the Griffin to a vertical ascent, struggling to keep pace with the saucer.
“This is a bad idea,” Cain told Melissa. “I’ve known Noah Butterfield for thirty years. He’s as mean as they come. You get in his way, he won’t hesitate to kill you.”
Melissa’s gut twisted. She looked to Theo, still frantically punching numbers into her handphone. “You need to reach them.”
“I’m trying!”
He’d left his own phone in Brooklyn, along with all his friends’ contact information. Luckily, Heath had changed and tested Hannah’s ringtone enough to know her number by heart. Theo dialed it again, only to get her voice mail a seventh time.
“Goddamn it, Hannah. Call me at this number as soon as you get this. You’re running out of time!”
Cain sighed into his headset. “Melissa, I’m begging you. Cut your losses and get out of there. Two is better than none. And personally speaking, I like you better when you’re alive.”
“That’s how I feel about them,” she murmured.
Theo looked up. “What?”
“Nothing. Just keep trying.”
At twenty-five thousand feet, Hannah finally answered her phone. She and Theo spoke back and forth for a minute before he explained Melissa’s escape plan.
“We’ll have to dock with the ship,” Theo said. “There’s a delivery hatch on the staff level, not far from you. It’s locked in flight but it should have an emergency override.”
“Where?” Hannah asked.
“Where’s the override?” Theo asked Melissa.
“Not sure.” She took a closer look at the aerstraunt. “It’s a Douglas ship. Anything could be anywhere.”
“They don’t have time to go looking!”
Hannah’s voice crackled through the phone. “Jonathan says he can drop the door.”
“Is he sure?”
“Yeah. He’s dropped bigger things today. I just don’t know if it’s safe.”
“It’s not safe at all,” Theo said. “Your ship’s pressurized, so when you open that thing—”
“It’ll suck,” Hannah guessed.
“A lot. Can he drop it from a distance?”
“He goddamn better.”
“What do you mean ‘drop it’?” Melissa asked Theo.
“We have a guy who does that.”
“Does what?”
“Drops things. Just wait.”
Heath gripped Theo’s shoulder. “Tell him to be careful!”
Melissa scanned the ship’s lower levels, then pointed to a large metal hatch. “There it is.”
“Okay, we see the delivery door,” Theo told Hannah. “We’ll line up the van as best we can but this’ll be tricky. Amanda will have to use her tempis to tether us.”
“Shit!”
“What?”
“She’s not here,” Hannah said. “She and Peter are still looking for Zack.”
“Shit.” Theo covered the receiver and looked to Melissa. “They’re still split up.”
Hundreds of miles away, in the suburbs of central Maryland, Cain leaned back in his office chair and watched Melissa and Theo on his monitor. A message popped up near the top of the screen, an encrypted bitmail from one of his informants.
Butterfield’s crew almost caught up with aerstraunt. ETA 90 seconds.
Cain deleted the message, cursing. It was already too late. Even if Melissa fled right this second, the gunships would catch her and blow her out of the sky. She had gambled everything to save these orphans, and lost. There was nowhere left for any of them to go but down.