TWENTY-TWO

The Piranda Five Towers was a sparkling jewel of the Midwest, a gleam in the “I” of Indiana. Amanda found a brochure at a chargery kiosk and fell in love with the photos. A quintet of tall glass spires loomed like fingers around a great palm grotto. At night, each building glowed with heavenly lumis while a great floating ghostbox provided a kaleidoscopic light show for anyone willing to crane their neck. The rooms were gorgeous and the resort had enough amenities to keep guests busy around the clock.

As the sun set on Saturday, the Silvers entered their new accommodations on the tenth floor of Tower Five. The Baronessa Suite was a 3,800-square-foot palace with two levels, three bathrooms, a full-size kitchen, and a hot tub veranda.

Hannah dropped her knapsack and forged a gawking path into the living room. She was the only one who’d taken issue with Amanda’s choice of hotel, only because it was located in the ominously named city of Evansville. She was glad no one listened to her.

“Oh my God. This is . . .”

“Incredible,” Mia finished. “How much did this cost for the week?”

“A fraction of what we have,” Zack told her. “No worries.”

Giddy with pleasure, Amanda threw her arms around Zack’s neck. “Say it.”

“Smugness doesn’t become you, Given.”

“Say it!”

“Fine. Yes. This was a brilliant idea. You’re the goddess of gratification. I bow to you.”

David returned from his walk-around inspection. “There are six beds, but only three bedrooms. If no one has a problem with a coed arrangement—”

“Theo and I can share,” said Hannah, with an arch grin. “Easy breezy. Problem solved.”

Mia wasn’t sure whether to thank or slap Hannah for cutting off David’s thought. Theo nodded in shaky accord.

“That’s fine. Whatever works.”

Zack flipped through the elaborate room service menu and stopped at the page of lobster options.

“Oh, this works. This really, really works.”

—

Their stay in the Baronessa Suite was one of the nicest weeks of their lives, with an asterisk. The events of checkout morning would forever mar their recollection, though the healing distance of time would eventually allow them to catalog the week as “mostly lovely,” or “perfect until. . . .”

When stored in their own bottle, the first six and a half days shined from every angle. The Silvers enjoyed a level of carefree comfort that had eluded them on two worlds. They lived without worrying about finances or federal agents, sword-wielding killers or citywide Cataclysms. For 156 hours, they existed in the sweet haze of the moment. They coddled themselves in manners both shallow and deep, conventional and strange.

It was on their first morning that Amanda Given, the goddess of gratification herself, stretched the definition of leisure to the snapping point.

“I’m going to church,” she announced at breakfast. “Anyone care to join me?”

She’d aimed the question at Zack in droll jest, and was stunned when David leapt at her offer. He’d always wanted to experience a Christian worship service, just to see how the pious majority lived.

Following the directions of the concierge, they attended mass at a Roman Catholic church in downtown Evansville. Amanda dreaded all the daft adjustments to her old and familiar liturgy, but she was soon amazed by the wonderful sameness of it all. There were no tempic altars, no speed knobs on the pews, no peculiar rites or parallel-Earth prayers. For a brief time, two worlds converged and Amanda was back in the Chula Vista parish. She could almost feel Derek sitting next to her, a sensation bittersweet enough to draw quiet tears.

David sat through the ceremony like an overcaffeinated tourist, launching his fascinated smile in all directions. It was only during the penitential rite that Amanda noticed him staring at the floor with a grim and heavy expression. Like her, he’d injured two policemen on Monday, when his ghosted truck sent their cruiser into a rough collision. By outward appearances, the boy had written off his actions as a necessary evil. Now Amanda wasn’t so sure.

At noon, she parked the van in the hotel garage, then aimed a pensive stare at David.

“I think I want to find the names of those cops we hurt and send them some of our money.”

“That’s a horrible idea,” he said.

“Why?”

“Because the Deps will know who sent the cash and why. They’ll determine our general location from postmarks. And they’ll seize your gift as evidence. Those policemen will likely never see a dime of it.”

She stared ahead in busy contemplation. “Crap.”

“If you’re looking for absolution, why didn’t you stay to make a confession?”

Amanda debated it, but then realized that she’d either have to suppress the details of her tempic transgression or tell the priest the whole truth. She didn’t want to think how he’d react to her ungodly white monstrosity.

“I just want to do it to feel good,” she said. “I mean, that’s what this week is for, right?”

David bit his lip in churning thought. “I suppose we could give a portion of our money to local charities. People in need. I mean if we’re careful—”

“We?”

He gave her a shrug and a soft grin, then admitted he was never one for hot tubs.

To the bewilderment of their four companions, Amanda and David spent their week as wild roaming philanthropists, a bizarro Bonnie and Clyde. They rode the streets of Evansville with fifty thousand dollars of goodwill and a marked-up city map. They weren’t choosy in their targets—churches, temples, children’s centers, animal shelters. They even donated eight hundred dollas to the Natural Life Foundation, a group that was starkly opposed to all uses of temporis.

For discretion’s sake, they never contributed more than a thousand dollars to a single charity, never gave their names, and never stayed too long to receive gratitude. David even swapped his native Australian accent for a flawless American dialect. “Your sister’s not the only actor in the group,” he told Amanda, with an impish grin.

It wasn’t until their weeklong venture together that Amanda dropped her last thread of unease about David. Unlike Hannah and Mia, who’d both been smitten from the start, Amanda had always sensed something slightly off about the boy. She routinely detected a spark of effort behind his deep blue eyes, as if he were perpetually flexing a muscle or censoring a thought. By their second cozy lunch, she realized she’d been overjudging him, punishing him for the fleeting way he reminded her of Derek. When unfettered by those chains, David was a delight to be around. He dazzled her with knowledge on virtually every subject, amused her with anecdotes from his time among the Dutch and Japanese. He broke her heart with descriptions of his mother, a geneticist who fell to ovarian cancer when he was nine.

“She’s the one who gave me this wristwatch,” he told her, brandishing his vintage silver timepiece. “Her dying wish was that every time I wind it, I find one reason to be thankful. I honor her request each time. Like clockwork, as they say.”

On Friday afternoon, they donated the last of their cash to a fledgling theater company that was performing Titus Andronicus. Amanda was depressed to reach the end of her charity run. If she didn’t think Zack would blow a gasket, she’d ask for another week and fifty grand.

As their elevator climbed the side of Tower Five, David clutched Amanda’s arm and shined a tender smile.

“Thank you. This was a wonderful way to spend a week.”

“Thank you. It was your idea.”

“Yes, well, even I didn’t know how therapeutic it would be,” he admitted. “I come from a ‘big picture’ family. Big thinkers, with our heads always high in the clouds. Sometimes I forget the pleasures of small endeavors.”

Amanda squeezed his hand. She couldn’t have loved him more.

“So do you think you have it now?” David asked her.

“Have what?”

“Absolution.”

The elevator opened. Amanda didn’t find her answer until they reached the door of their suite.

“I can’t speak for God, but I think I can say I’ve forgiven myself.”

“Well, that’s something.”

“What about you?”

David pulled back from the door, shooting her a look that was harsh enough to unnerve her.

“I never said I was seeking forgiveness.”

“I saw you at church, during the penitential rite. You looked upset. I assumed—”

“Amanda, I would hurt a dozen more policemen to keep us from being incarcerated. I would kill a hundred to keep us alive. We can argue the ethics until we’re both old and gray. This is the new reality. I’m sleeping just fine.”

As she cast her silent prayers that night, Amanda forced herself to stay positive. She thanked God for David Dormer—his strength, his insight, his kindness to his friends. All the same, she found herself grateful that he could only throw sound and light at his enemies. She shuddered to think what a boy like that could do with tempis.

—

Zack never thought he’d get tired of lounging in luxury. And yet by Monday morning his liquid daze congealed into a hard and restless boredom.

While Hannah and Theo canoodled in their room and Amanda and David embarked on their mad giving spree, the cartoonist dropped his sketch pad and idly flipped through a dictionary of modern American slang. Ten minutes of baffling word study was all he could take before he jumped to his feet and plucked the history book from Mia’s hands.

“Come on. We’re out of here.”

They hailed a cab to Evansville and caught a big-budget suspense film, a tale of a killer shark that was uncreatively called The Killer Shark. The theater was shifted at 12×, allowing Zack and Mia to suffer two hours of atrocious cinema while ten minutes passed in the outside world. Sadly, there was no escaping once the movie began. The best they could do was dawdle at the concession stand until the building de-shifted and the front doors unlocked.

They recuperated at a quiet seafood restaurant. Zack brought Mia to teary-eyed laughter with his tirade about the film, which he called a “cranial crucifixion” and a “developmentally disabled children’s production of Jaws.” She nearly choked on her soda when he went on to explain the new-world jargon he’d learned from Mia’s slang book.

“Okay, so the act of cloning objects through temporis is called ‘tooping.’ We already knew that. But when you take tooped food and toop it again, it makes a noxious, smelly goo that people call ‘threep.’ You with me?”

Mia bit her lip in quivering suppression and nodded.

“Now, in addition to being a prime element of pranks and hazings, ‘threep’ is the all-purpose word for anything awful. It could be used as a noun, as in, ‘Hey, who cooked this threep?’ Or an adjective, such as, ‘Man, this job is truly threeped.’ If you’re looking for something stronger, ‘fourp’ is . . .”

Mia burst into another fit of giggles. With a droll smirk, Zack proceeded.

“‘Fourp’ is mostly used for emphasis, as in, ‘Wow, that movie was a fourping torture fest,’ or—”

“There’s not a ‘fivep,’ is there?”

“See, now you’re just being silly.”

Mia realized now that Zack was the crucial ingredient in her feel-good week. On the cab ride home, she rested her head on his shoulder and told him that, like it or not, she’d be glued to his side for the next five days. He breathed a furtive whisper through her hair, a sneaky proposition that they break the leisure accord and research the fourp out of Peter.

She squeezed his arm and told him she loved him.

Their work began on Tuesday, in the hotel business center. Sitting side by side at a rented computer, they spent half the morning teaching themselves the gruesomely hostile operating system, which Zack likened to an eight-bit horror from Soviet Minsk. They tabbed their way through an endless maze of text menus until they found the door to Eaglenet, a web that was anything but worldwide. A digital wall had been erected around the borders of the nation, ensuring purely American data for purely American eyes. Despite its rigid structure, the network allowed free public access to fifty years of news archives.

A keyword search for “Peter Pendergen” generated 1,206 articles. When he wasn’t a sound bite in someone else’s story, he was the author in the byline. Mia was surprised to learn that her pen pal (of sorts) was a freelance journalist who’d written for forty different publications. The subject of his stories was always the same: people who professed to have amazing temporal abilities. In some pieces, he called them “temporics.” In others, they were “chronokinetics.” Mostly he referred to them as Gothams, a term that deeply intrigued Zack and Mia.

A keyword search for Gothams generated 1,014,353 articles.

Zack tossed his partner a bleary stare. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

The topic consumed them for the rest of the week. For twelve hours a day, they sat at adjacent workstations, catching up on decades of Altamerican legend. In the 1950s, at the dawn of temporis, new rumors swirled of people who could innately bend time in one manner or another. The explanations ranged from the scientific to the mystical to the purely divine.

Thirty-six years ago, a former Dep named Alexander Wingo breathed new life into the myth. He dubbed these people Gothams after the Halo of Gotham, the miraculous ring of land where more than sixty thousand souls survived the Cataclysm of 1912. Though they’d stood mere feet from the edge of the blast, the damage they suffered was purely emotional. The only exceptions were the pregnant women, many of whom birthed children with crippling defects. If Wingo was to be believed, a fraction of the infants had mutated in more interesting ways. Some developed strange talents. Some grew up to find one another and bear talented offspring of their own.

In his book, Children of the Halo, Wingo claimed to have discovered a clandestine community of third- and fourth-generation Gothams. Though normal citizens in public, they secretly operated under their own arcane laws and rituals. Their strict mating customs made each generation stronger than the last. Wingo feared it was just a matter of time before they began birthing gods.

The book created a huge stir among starry-eyed believers, spawning novels and movies and one long-running lumivision series. It also sparked an endless chain of incredible claims and sightings. At least once a month, some bold attention-seeker would come forward with nebulous proof of Gotham activity, only to get exposed as a fraud or dupe. Usually the one exposing them was Peter Pendergen. The man clearly had a taste for irony.

On Friday evening, while the Silvers digested their dinner on the balcony, Zack and Mia shared the fruits of their labor.

“He’s thirty-seven and widowed with one son,” Zack told them. “When he’s not out disproving the existence of his own people, he likes to write fiction. He has two published novels, both set in medieval Ireland. He claims he can trace his ancestry all the way back to King Arthur’s father.”

“Yes, and I’m related to Beowulf,” David mocked.

Zack laughed. “We didn’t buy it either. From his age, I assume he’s a fourth-generation Gotham, which is pretty mind-blowing when you think about it. I mean we’re nouveau weird. These people have been carrying it in their genes since 1912.”

“They sound like interesting people,” Theo offered. “Shame they want us dead.”

Amanda forked a piece of Zack’s cheesecake. “I don’t understand what Peter’s trying to accomplish with his articles. Why write about fake Gothams?”

“Misdirection,” Mia explained. “The more he highlights the phonies and crazies, the less people believe in the real thing.”

“Oh. Well, I guess we didn’t help his cause when we fought those policemen.”

Zack vented a heavy sigh. “No. We made a bunch of new believers on Monday. I’m sure that’s another reason Rebel wants us dead.”

Hannah stewed in the bubbling hot tub, scowling with ill temper. This was supposed to be a week of luxurious self-indulgence, and yet two of her people blew it all on research while another two went wild with charity. Stranger still, they all seemed happier for their efforts. Obviously she and Theo screwed up somehow. They had devoted their week to more intimate pleasures. Now they both felt perfectly wretched.

—

They’d spent their first night in separate beds. Once the lights went out, the actress and the augur blew airy topics of chatter back and forth—favorite songs, pet peeves, complaints about their mutual companions. They moved on to discuss past loves, though Theo confessed to having just one. Hannah noticed he wasn’t particularly eager to talk about her.

At 2 A.M., she bid Theo good night, and then offered him the prospect of a great night.

“Let me know when you want me to come over there,” she said.

Five seconds passed before Theo turned on the lamp. He stared at her with tense, bulging eyes.

“Uh, what exactly are you proposing?”

She opened the drawer on the nightstand, revealing a box of Admiral John condoms. Beneath the stylized logo, a bearded man in eighteenth-century naval garb smirked at Theo.

“Wow. Jesus, Hannah. I . . . don’t even know what to say.”

“Did you honestly not see this coming? I’ve been hanging all over you. I practically insisted we share a room.”

“I don’t know. I thought it was just flirting. I certainly never expected . . . What’s this supposed to be, anyway? A one-night stand? A weeklong fling?”

“It can be whatever we want it to be. And I’m sorry if my directness bothered you. I know we’re attracted to each other. I’m just trying to save time.”

Theo couldn’t get over her sudden transformation. Hannah was normally a rickety construct, perpetually unsure and unsettled. Now she propositioned him without a speck of doubt or worry.

“I really don’t think it’s a good idea, Hannah. I mean if things go bad—”

“Okay. Suit yourself.”

She turned off the lamp. Theo continued to stare at her in the dark. “Look, I’m really sorry. It has nothing to do—”

“Theo, it’s fine. Seriously. I’ve been at both ends of this process. I get it.”

“So you’re not mad.”

Hannah aimed a sly grin at the ceiling. She didn’t get mad in these situations. She got ruthless.

On Sunday, the actress began her formal assault on Theo’s better judgment. She hit the boutiques for a sleek haircut and a bag full of seduction supplies. That afternoon, she entered the hot tub in her new swimsuit: a shiny silver one-piece with a neckline plunge that derailed even David’s train of thought. At dinner, she reached past Theo for the salt shaker, filling his nose with a strawberry scent that pushed him another step closer to madness. At midnight, she showered with the door slightly open, singing a rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” that was beautiful enough to make Theo wince. She emerged from the bathroom in a chest-hugging half shirt and boy shorts, then asked him if there was anything he felt like doing.

Theo now understood why she’d been so cavalier last night. She saw the inevitability of his surrender long before he did. She wasn’t just the confident one in this duo, she was the augur.

“You sure know how to make a guy feel stupid for turning you down.”

“I haven’t said a word about it,” she coyly replied.

“You think I wasn’t already tempted?”

“I have no idea what’s going on in your head, Theo.”

Frustrated, he dropped his book on the nightstand. “Convince me that a fling won’t end with us hating each other.”

“Convince me that it will.”

“I could spend an hour listing all the dark possibilities.”

“I could spend a week listing all the better things we can do with that hour.”

After a few silent moments, their tight faces cracked away in laughter. Theo shook his head at himself. “I’m trying to talk a beautiful woman out of sleeping with me. It’s come to this.”

Hannah turned off the overhead light and sat at Theo’s side. In the soft haze of the night lamp, she held her palm against his cheek.

“Look, I’m sorry for the way I offered myself to you last night. I shouldn’t have been so cold about it. If I wanted a meaningless encounter, I’d go to the bar and pick up a stranger. I’m coming to you because I want intimacy with a man I know and trust. We’re both adults, Theo. We can be affectionate without falling in love or hating each other later. We can make each other feel good on every level. But in order to do that, you need to stop worrying about the future, just for a little while. Can you do that? Can you put it all aside and just be with me?”

Caught between his doubts and desires, the inevitable regrets of his yes and no answers, Theo ran a cautious hand down her arm.

“When you are in your element, Hannah Given, you’re a force to behold.”

Smiling in victory, she reached for the lamp. “Sweetie, I haven’t even started.”

Sunday was a great night for both of them. At 5:23 and four Admiral Johns, they finally agreed to rest their elated bodies. Hannah pressed against Theo’s side as he drifted off to sleep, enjoying the rhythmic sound of his heartbeat. The thump thump thump—

(of a brand-new chump)

—was hypnotic, almost enough to clear the turmoil in her thoughts. She wanted to burrow a hole in Theo and hide inside him until everything was right with the universe again.

They spent the next four days like newlyweds, devouring each other at every turn. In daylight hours, when the others embarked on their missions, they frolicked through the suite—kissing in the kitchen, spooning on the sofas, basking in the balcony hot tub. It was only during their evenings of mixed company that they kept their hands off each other. They agreed to keep their arrangement hidden, if only to spare themselves from Zack’s jokes, Amanda’s concerns, and David’s awkwardly intrusive questions.

With each secret act of pleasure, their emotional cords became tangled in ways that were both subtle and obvious. By Wednesday, their conversations had become as intimate as their lovemaking.

“I don’t miss my parents,” Theo confessed. “I was only their son when they could brag about me. The moment I stopped being the glowing prodigy, I simply stopped existing. They never even visited me in the hospital after I tried to kill myself.”

Hannah held him in bed, somberly staring at the wall as she traced a finger across his chest. “That might be a blessing. Amanda visited me and it only made things worse.”

“How so?”

“She sat next to my mother and looked at me like I was some kind of criminal, like I’d tried to kill some other girl. It made me want to die all over again. I mean I still love her but . . . I don’t know. If she hadn’t gotten a silver bracelet, I’d probably be telling you now in all honesty that I don’t miss her.”

In the predawn hours of Friday, they reached the peak of their union. Their fifth encounter of the night had turned so passionate that all they could do was stare at each other in astonishment as they fought to catch their breath.

“Hannah . . .”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say anything that’s going to change things.”

He eyed her with hot resentment. “I wasn’t going to tell you I love you.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I was just going to say things may have changed.”

“Well . . . don’t.”

Theo rolled off her, then shot a dark gaze at the ceiling.

“I haven’t had any bad dreams since Saturday. They stopped when we started.”

He checked her expression. “Is that okay for me to say? Or does that freak you out too?”

“That doesn’t freak me out, Theo.”

“So, any response to that?”

Hannah turned away from him, grim-faced.

“I guess our friendship comes with all sorts of benefits.”

That morning, Theo’s handphone beeped. The display announced nine new texts from a person only listed as A. Fact. Each message was fifteen characters or shorter. Theo couldn’t delete them without being forced to read Evan’s whole nasty dispatch.

She will never

Love you, Theo.

She simply

Isn’t capable.

Save yourself.

Get out now.

If you won’t

End it,

Azral will. :(

After lunch, they soaked in the hot tub. Theo rolled drops of water down Hannah’s shoulders. He didn’t need Evan to cast a cloud of doom over their relationship. With each passing hour, he felt a cold wall of grief drawing toward them like a tidal wave. He wasn’t sure if he was suffering premonitions or merely jitters.

“What was your longest relationship?” he asked her, out of the blue.

“Nine weeks, more or less. Why?”

“How did it end?”

“I mostly dated actors,” Hannah replied. “Typically I’d lose them to another woman, another man, or Los Angeles. As it stood, I lost Nine Week Boy to a woman in Los Angeles. Why are you asking?”

“Just being nosy.”

“Okay. Fine. My turn. How did you and your girlfriend—what was her name?”

“Rachel.”

“How did you and Rachel break up?”

After a brief silence, Hannah slid off his lap and faced him from the other side of the tub. “You’re not going to tell me?”

“We didn’t break up,” he replied.

“So she died.”

“Yes.”

“When everyone else did?”

“No.”

Hannah chucked her wet hands. “This is turning into Twenty Questions.”

“I’d rather it turn into No Questions.”

“So you get to delve into my past, but I can’t delve into yours.”

“I’m choosing not to answer. You could have done the same. It’s not like we need to know everything about each other. We’re not a couple.”

Hannah could have frozen the whole tub with her stare.

“Are you just venting right now? Or are you trying to sink the whole ship?”

“We’ve been sinking from the start, Hannah. I’m just putting on a life vest.”

She climbed out of the water and wrapped a towel around her waist. “I’ll let you stew for a while. If you have any interest in preserving what we have—”

“We can’t preserve it. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“We have weeks, Theo! We could enjoy each other for weeks!”

“Until what? I become discouraged enough to leave you for another woman? Another man? Los Angeles? Aren’t you getting sick of this pattern?”

She glared at him in hot exasperation. “Are you trying to make me hate you?”

“No.”

“Then look to the future and see where this gets you.”

She slammed the patio door behind her. Theo looked out to the other four towers. He could only imagine that Evan was sitting on one of those balconies, grinning as he watched their bubbling troubles through binoculars.

They kept their distance from each other for the rest of the afternoon, and avoided eye contact during dinner. While the Silvers ate their desserts on the balcony table, Hannah crawled back into the hot tub. Her companions spent most of the evening talking about Gothams and Peter Pendergen, as sure a sign as any that the vacation was over.

Once the others retired for the night, Theo finally dared to face Hannah alone. He saw her through the crack in the bedroom door, staring somberly at a small item in her hand, the driver’s license of Ernesto Curado. She spotted Theo and quickly hid the card behind her.

“So. Is this going to be a reconciliation or another fight?”

He took a weary perch on the cedar desk. “In the spirit of you and me, I think it’s going to be something in between.”

“I never lied to you, Theo. I told you from the start what I wanted.”

“Yes. You did. It’s my fault for not being able to handle it. But in retrospect, it was silly for us to think we could have something casual in the middle of uncasual circumstances.”

“That’s exactly why I wanted it casual! I thought it’d be easier to enjoy each other without all the emotional baggage that comes with relationships. Why do I keep finding the few men on Earth who can’t grasp that concept?”

“I don’t know. Why do you keep resenting the fact that we want more than sex from you?”

She shook a brusque finger at him. “Don’t turn this into a head-shrink session. It won’t end well.”

“Then tell me what I can say right now.”

“To do what?”

“To end this well.”

She looked at him with pained surprise, then flicked a hand in surrender. “You want out? Fine. Abracadabra. We’re friends again. Frankly, I think this was a problem that needed a wrench, not a chainsaw. But I guess you have your own way of doing things.”

“I’m trying to avoid a bad situation for everyone,” he insisted. “The six of us are going to have to rely on each other, probably for the rest of our—”

She threw her book to the floor. “Look, you wanted an exit, you got one. But don’t pretend you’re leaving for noble reasons. You got scared. You bolted at the first sign of trouble. You don’t get to wear that as a feather in your cap!”

Her eyes began to moisten. Her entire face quivered. She was no longer Hannah in Her Element. She wasn’t even the rickety Hannah that Theo had known before. She was falling apart.

“We could have had weeks, you asshole. We could have healed each other.”

“That wouldn’t have happened.”

“Oh, just get the hell out of here already. You’re such a coward, I can’t even look at you.”

“Hannah . . .”

The tears flowed freely down her face. “Theo, I swear to God you have three seconds to get out of this room before you see the real and awful me.”

He took her at her word and left. He sat motionless on the living room sofa for over an hour before stretching out for sleep.

At 1 A.M., Hannah emerged with a folded blanket and pillow, then dropped them on his stomach. Theo saw his phone in her hand. A tiny bulb flashed green in announcement of new text messages.

“Don’t read that. It’s—”

“I know who it is.”

She stepped outside to the balcony, hurled the phone over the railing, and then raised her middle fingers high in the night. It was her own message to Evan Rander, in whatever patio he’d chosen as his spying perch.

Theo watched her cautiously as she marched back through the living room.

“Give me one night to hate you,” she said.

“Okay.”

He wrapped himself in the blanket, steeling himself for the return of bad dreams. On the plus side, he knew he had only one night to spend on the sofa. Their feel-good week would finally end in the morning. At long last, the Silvers were checking out.

—

As the sun rose on Saturday, September 18, a tiny breach of time opened above Mia and spat an urgent message. The note rose and fell with her sleeping breaths for ninety-five minutes, until a waking turn rolled it into a blanket crevasse. She yawned her way to the bathroom, unaware.

Hannah woke up five minutes later, dark eyed and unrested. She shook Theo awake in the living room and pulled him back to bed. She didn’t want the others to see him sleeping on the couch like a punished husband. The less they knew about the whole debacle, the better.

While Hannah showered, Theo lay awake on the mattress, lamenting the loss of access to her ravishing body and suffering a vague new sense of dread. There was a bad wind blowing from the future, and it was centered around the sisters. Theo relaxed when he spotted Amanda in the living room, as cheery as he’d ever seen her. A week of rest and charity had done wonders for the widow’s state of mind.

By ten o’clock, everyone was dressed, packed, and waiting at the balcony table. In light of the beautiful morning weather, Amanda insisted on having a final patio brunch. Zack led a sardonic round of applause when she wheeled in the food cart. Room service had taken over an hour to deliver their order.

“They’re having some kind of bellhop crisis,” Amanda explained. “A hotel manager had to bring this. He gave us free mimosas as an apology.”

David leered at the six flute glasses. “That’s strange. He didn’t ask to see your wet card?”

Zack scowled in mock outrage. “Can we go one morning without your crude euphemisms?”

The boy ignored him. “They have laws against serving alcohol to people without proper ID. The manager’s putting the hotel at serious risk.”

Amanda shrugged. “Well, it was a young guy. He’s probably new. And who cares? Is anyone here planning on reporting them?”

“I am.”

“Shut up,” she said to Zack. “You’re having a drink with me. Who else wants?”

Amanda turned sheepish when she saw Theo’s heavy expression. “There’s probably an ounce of champagne in these things. Not even enough for a buzz.”

“It’s okay. I’ll pass.”

Amanda wasn’t surprised when the teenagers abstained, but Hannah’s refusal threw her. “Are you sure? You used to love these.”

“I said I don’t want any.”

Raising her palms in surrender, Amanda backed away. Soon everyone took turns at the kitchen juve, reversing their food to a piping-hot state. Amanda passed Zack a glass and a whisper.

“There are at least three of us here in bad moods. Please save me before I become the fourth.”

“I can do that.”

The two of them quickly dominated the meal with their boisterous celebration, trading silly quips and toasts between each sip of mimosa.

“To happy fugitives,” said Amanda.

“To well-rested fugitives,” said Zack.

“To tall and skinny atheist fugitives who can be somewhat cute when they’re not obnoxious.”

Zack retracted his glass. “Sorry. Can’t drink to that without correcting you.”

“You’re not cute?”

“I’m not an atheist. I have no idea if God exists or not.”

“Then why do you make fun of the people who do?”

“Because I’m obnoxious,” Zack replied. “That part of the toast was accurate.”

“I see. You’re an obnoxious agnostic. You’re agnoxious.”

“I’m antaganostic.”

Amanda roared with laughter. “How could you think you’re not cute?”

“I never said I wasn’t!”

Though Mia giggled at their goofy banter, the other three Silvers remained grim and humorless. Halfway through Amanda’s second drink, her fingers turned shiny and white. When Mia awkwardly told her that her weirdness was showing, Amanda laughed, shook her hands pink, and then raised a toast to tempis fugitives. The pun launched Zack into bellowing guffaws.

“I’m thinking those drinks are stronger than you realized,” David mused.

Zack waved him off. “We’re not hammered.”

“We’re just having fun,” Amanda insisted, with a pointed glare at Hannah.

It had taken only five minutes of her sister’s excruciating revelry to make Hannah swallow down the three spare mimosas. But instead of joining Zack and Amanda in tipsy exuberance, the actress felt worse than ever. Her skin burned. Her legs bounced uncontrollably. Angry notions exploded in her mind like popcorn.

Once Amanda propped her feet on Zack’s thighs, Hannah stood up fast enough to wobble.

Theo grabbed her. “Whoa. You okay?”

Hannah yanked her arm away. “I’m fine.”

She washed her face in the bathroom, gritting her teeth as a sneering inner voice taunted her. Hey, Hannah Banana, Always Needs-a-Man-a. Funny how you can’t keep them while your sister can’t keep them away. Shame Jury’s not here to balance things out. Oh well. That’s just the way it goes here in Evansville.

She returned to the balcony with forced poise, determined to ignore Theo’s patronizing look of concern and the escalating flirtations between her sister and Zack.

“It’s true!” Amanda insisted. “You have physical contact issues. You don’t like hugging.”

“That is bull-pucky of the highest order. I hug everyone. Even my enemies.”

“Remember that time we hugged in Ramona? You were awkward about it.”

“That’s because we were in an alley. I could feel the hobos judging us.”

“There were no hobos, Zachary. You have issues that need fixing. Stand up.”

“No.”

“Fine. We’ll do it sitting down.”

Amanda planted herself on Zack’s lap, fastening his arms around her slender waist.

“And what is this supposed to accomplish?” he asked.

“Immersion therapy. You need to get over your resistance.”

“Boy, the charity never stops with you.”

She leaned back against him and blew him a frisky whisper. “This isn’t charity, you clueless man. I want more hugs.”

Hannah jumped to her feet, rocking the table. As drinks spilled onto plates and laps, the actress threw an empty glass to the floor. It exploded all around her shoes.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!”

Shocked into sobriety, Amanda climbed off Zack’s lap. She raised her taut fingers.

“Okay, take it easy . . .”

“Do you even see how pathetic you’re being right now? You’ve been a widow for eight weeks! Eight weeks, and this is how you act!”

David held Mia’s arm. “Let’s get the bags ready.”

Mia gave him a shaky nod. They disappeared inside. Amanda fought to stay calm.

“Look, I don’t know what’s really bothering you . . .”

“You think it isn’t upsetting enough to watch you disrespect Derek?”

“You barely even knew him!”

“I know he’d hate to see you give a lap dance to some other guy!”

Zack shook his head in seething pique. “Hannah, you’re way off base and way out of line.”

“Well then let me be the second one to call you clueless. I swear to God, there isn’t a single man in this group who knows a single thing about women.”

“Look, you’re angry at me,” Amanda said. “Don’t take it out on him.”

Hannah laughed bitterly. “Oh, you just love being noble. The great and noble Amanda Given. Oops. Sorry. I meant Amanda Ambridge. Hey, Zack, I hope you’re not intent on having her take your name. She’ll just drop it the minute you die. That’s how noble she is.”

Amanda gritted her teeth. Her eyes filled with tears. “You sad little child . . .”

“Yeah, the child. Your other favorite meme. You just love being better than me.”

“Well, you make it so easy!”

“Oh, go to hell!”

“You go to hell! We did this for you! We took this whole week so you could feel better! Of course you’d do everything in your power to stay miserable! That’s all you know how to do!”

“Shut up!”

Theo reached for her. “Hannah, don’t—”

She turned to him, red-faced. “You do not say a word to me. You do not say a word!”

Amanda eyed the two of them with dark revelation. She burst into a caustic chuckle.

“Oh, I get it now. I see why you’re so pissed.”

“Shut up! You don’t know a thing!”

“And you call me the pathetic one? Amazing. You never learn.”

Theo and Zack both yelled as Hannah hurled a second glass. This one hit Amanda in the face.

—

Mia gathered her bags from her room, her stomach churning with bitter acids. For all she knew, this latest fight would plague them for months. Worse, it could split them up forever. What would happen then? Who’d go with who?

As she adjusted her bedspread, she noticed a rolled-up note. She read it with growing fear, then fled back to the living room.

—

The flute glass cracked in two against Amanda’s forehead, leaving a pair of gashes along her brow. She touched her new wounds, then stared in trembling rage at the blood on her fingers.

Hannah covered her mouth in white-eyed horror. “Oh my God . . .”

Zack made a furious beeline for Hannah. “What the hell’s wrong with you?!”

The cartoonist could suddenly feel every molecule in Hannah’s body. It scared him to think that he could rift her dead with a single thought. Scarier still, a part of him wanted to.

Mia ran to the door. “Zack, stop! The drinks were drugged! You’re all drugged!”

Though her future self hadn’t elaborated, the chemical that affected them was called pergnesticin. It was initially developed as a mood enhancer, as it did a fine job turning good feelings into great ones. Unfortunately, it also had a tendency to turn bad moods into violence. The drug was illegal in the United States but remained wildly popular as contraband. In dermal patch form, it was appropriately known as a leopard spot.

Theo could suddenly see the shape of the problem ahead. He knew now that Evan wasn’t content to return a middle-finger gesture at Hannah. He was going to give her the whole hand.

“Hannah, you need to get out of here . . .”

“I’m sorry, Amanda! I didn’t mean to do that!”

The widow’s world fell hot and silent as chemical rage overtook her. There was no sister, nurse, or Christian inside her anymore. There was only the tempis.

The whiteness exploded from her left palm, a spray of solid force that toppled everything in its path. A wooden chair fell while another snapped to pieces. The dining table flipped over, spilling drinks and dishes everywhere. By the time the tempis reached the other end of the balcony, it took form as a six-foot hand. It shoved away the two men who had the unfortunate luck of standing near Hannah. Theo toppled to the right, colliding painfully with the hot tub. Zack flew to the left, flipping over the side of the balcony railing. He caught a loose hold of the edge.

The tempic palm barreled into Hannah, shoving her six feet through the air. Amanda retracted her hand in time to see Hannah crack her head against the far brick wall. She spilled to the floor in a lifeless heap.

David lunged toward the railing, rushing to grab Zack before he lost his grip. Between the blood in her eyes and the many alarms in her head, Amanda processed the simple but devastating notion that the boy wouldn’t make it in time.

Indeed, just inches before David could reach him, Zack’s fingers lost their hold. He dropped from the side of Tower Five.

—

Ten days ago, as he floated over Kansas in a giant teacup, Zack wondered what it would be like to plummet to his death. He debated how much time his mind would give him to process the sad and messy end of his tale.

The answer, he now knew, was “quite a bit.”

For the second time in his life, the cartoonist fell into a state of breathless suspension, an almost supernatural acuity that allowed him to register dozens of details in the span of a blink. He could count the number of balcony railings between him and the ground (eight). He could scan the unforgiving elements of his future impact zone (wood and concrete). He could envision the reactions of his surviving friends and enemies (Oh God, Amanda . . .).

As he passed the fifth-floor balcony, something odd happened. The shift in his momentum was so abrupt and painful that he feared he’d already hit the pavement. A cold, hard pressure immobilized Zack’s body, as if he’d been packed in dense snow. When he opened his eyes, he could see the ground fifty feet below him. It wasn’t getting any closer.

He turned his head and caught his reflection in a patio door. A giant tempic fist had seized him, snatching him from above like the hand of God itself.

She caught me, he thought. Jesus Christ, she caught me.

Zack once again gazed down at the grotto, where dozens of bystanders began to gather in a messy clump. They pointed up at him, gawking and shouting, snapping photos.

His last thought before blacking out was of Peter Pendergen, a man who’d worked so tirelessly to keep the public cynical about chronokinetics. Zack cast him a weary apology for the unwitting countereffort. All the minds they changed today. All the new believers.