C.26

August 2029

The Grottoes

Daniel could still feel himself in two places and see out of two sets of eyes, but now he made no effort to interact with the past. He was content to be a passenger. He watched, tired and idle, as Danny and Linda made their way through an eighth of a mile of underbrush, got to their truck, and peeled rubber on the way to 58. They reached it and turned toward the east well before any backup Air Force vehicles reached their turnoff.

“They’re clear,” he said.

“Can you break off now?” Mike asked. “Before Tamara has a cow about your blood pressure?”

“I want to see Tamara have a cow. And I want to see the father.” Daniel ignored Lake’s half-hearted scowl. “Yes, I can break it off now.”

“For good,” Mike added.

He nodded. “For good. Just give me a few minutes to say good-bye to them.”

“All right.”

It may have been just a result of the exhaustion he felt, of the odd, drifting sensation that came of occupying two bodies at once, but at last he felt optimistic again.

It wasn’t for his younger self. He knew that Danny was soon to experience something that would destroy his memory. Danny was going to begin decades of confusion and uncertainty.

But at the end, Linda would be there. And so would a son who did not bear his family name but who carried his genes, his skills.

He drifted back into the past.

July, Present Day—Saturday Morning

Judgment Day
Kern County, California

“We’ve got to get rid of this truck,” Danny said. “Find something that the Air Force isn’t looking for.”

“They must have figured out that we swapped the plates.” Linda seem too tired, too drained to be disturbed.

“Let’s visit that used car lot in Tehachapi again. I’m sure they like repeat business.”

Linda laughed. There was a slight edge of hysteria to it.

Hey, Danny, you listening?

“Oh, hi. I thought you’d left.”

No, but I’m about to.

“Sounds like you’re pretty tired.”

Yeah. But I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not going to be back once I’m rested up. I think this is the last time I can talk to you.

“Oh.” Danny felt suddenly deflated.

But not crushed. He was losing his future friends … but not forever. And since the last time he was really separated from them, he’d found another reason to do all he’d done. Not for their praise, not for their thanks … just to make sure they got as good a set of breaks as he could provide for them. “Sorry to hear it.”

Me, too. Listen, you need to treat Linda really nicely.

“Tell me about it.”

He heard Daniel laugh.Thanks, kid. Thanks for showing me what I was like all those years ago. What the world was like.

“You’re welcome. I can’t exactly say thanks for showing me what the world will be like … but I’m glad I’m going to be there.”

Yeah. ’Bye.

“Good-bye.”

Daniel’s presence faded, but not completely. Danny knew the connection was still present, though it would have to fade eventually. He was ready for it. He thought so, anyway.

“Are they gone?” Linda asked.

“Yeah. Probably forever.”

“I’m sorry. Sort of sorry.”

“Sorry for me, but you won’t miss them.”

“That’s pretty much it.” She heaved a sigh. “Is that okay?”

“That’s okay.”

She kept a close eye on the surrounding traffic, on the rearview mirrors. “I still haven’t gotten through to my family in Texas. And we’ve got about eleven hours left. That’s until everything hits the fan. The more time I can give them ahead of that deadline, the better.”

“You’re right. I think you need to drop me off.”

She gave him a look suggesting that he was crazy. “What, now?”

“Right now. Forget finding a new vehicle, that’ll cost us too much time. You need to find a working phone, radio, Internet connection, whatever, and warn your family. Get them to buy up a store’s worth of supplies, head out into the country somewhere.”

“I know.”

“I know how you can do it. You drop me off here and drive to near your substation. Park and hide the truck. Put your cuffs on in front—”

“I, uh, sort of lost those.”

“Oh. Anyway, go wandering in to talk to the other deputies. Tell a story about how I kidnapped you and you escaped, how you hitchhiked there. Send them and the Air Force off looking for me in some irrelevant direction, like toward Bakersfield. You stay there as long as you need to, as long as it takes to get word through to your family, and then you escape. Get back to the truck and get back to me.”

“That might work. That would work. But I’m not going to leave you alone like that.”

“I can look after myself for a few hours. Just make sure you’re back to pick me up well in advance of six P.M. We need to get up into the mountains as fast as we can.” He looked around. “Let’s find a landmark around here. Drop me off. Go do this thing for your family and then come back for me.”

She looked stricken but gave up the argument. “There’s a gas station ahead with a patch of trees just behind it. If you were to hide out there—”

“Perfect.”

She dropped him off there. He leaned back in the truck’s window for a last kiss and Linda touched his face. “You will be here when I get back,” she said. “However long it takes.” It was not a question.

He chuckled over her determined tone of voice. “You know I will,” he said.

Then she was gone.

He went to the filling station’s restroom, then wandered around the back into the tree line ten yards away. He moved among the trees, far enough in that he was hidden from sight, and sat down with his back against a strong-looking tree trunk.

A little shaft of light, sliding between branches and leaves, fell across his face, warming him. It wasn’t late enough in the day to be uncomfortable.

He felt weariness creep through him. He could, at last, relax just a little.

He’d wait. He’d be here.

And somehow, in the weeks or years to come, he’d find a way to make sure that he wasn’t ever separated from Linda, that she’d be there all the way into the future his distant friends occupied.

August 2029

The Grottoes

“Heart rate dropping back into the normal range,” Lake said. She returned her attention from the beeping and the flickering lights of the heart rate monitor to Daniel’s face. “How do you feel?”

“Good.” Daniel shrugged. “Well, the kind of ‘good’ you get after running your last marathon and realizing you never have to do it again.”

“Uh-huh.” She checked his eyes, shining her penlight into them despite his feeble protests and swats. “Do you think you’re going to be able to prevent yourself from visiting yourself in the past?”

“I’m pretty sure I can.”

“How can you be sure?”

Daniel looked between her and Mike. “I don’t think it’s a question of choice or willpower. See, whatever happens to Danny in the next few hours, whatever creates the extinction boundary for my memory, I do remember what comes later. Sure, it’s a little fuzzy in the early days after Judgment Day. I kind of became aware of myself not long after J-Day, in the mountains, but I definitely would remember if I’d been visited by voices in my head, by a future me in all that time. Therefore the future me didn’t come back anymore. Therefore I’m going to be successful at not dreaming my way back to him. Q.E.D.”

Lake nodded as if convinced. “Let’s hope you’re right. Okay. Doctor’s prescription. Rest.”

“That’s always my doctor’s prescription.”

“And then we get started on the really painful therapy tomorrow.”

Daniel rolled his eyes. “Oh, great.” He saw Lake making a shooing motion toward Mike, saw Mike rising. “Wait a minute. Don’t send her away. I’m going to talk to her before I pass out.”

Lake scowled at him, but there was no genuine reproach to it. “Five minutes,” she said.

“Five minutes,” he promised.

After Lake left, he held up his hand to Mike and she took it. “We did it,” he said. “Whatever it was.”

“Now we get to see how many of those resources you hid away from Skynet are really out there.” She sat on the edge of the bed and ran her free hand over his cheek.

“Your family in Texas—on Judgment Day, were you able to reach them?”

“Yes.” For a moment, she looked through him, back into the past. “I got through to my sister Angela. I’m pretty sure I persuaded her. I just don’t know whether she was able to persuade her husband, my brothers, my parents. In the years since Judgment Day, whenever we’ve had contact with the Texas compounds, I’ve asked after them. But there’s never been any word.” She shook her head. “I don’t think any of them made it. I think Mark is the last of the Herreras.”

“He’ll make more.”

“Daniel, I’m so sorry about what all this has cost you.”

“Don’t be sorry. I’ll get some of it back again. Maybe all of it. And I have—well, not the memories I lost, but replacements for some of them. Sights and sounds of the world before J-Day. Memories of you. I’m happy about that.”

She smiled at him, and a single tear spilled down her cheek.

“There you go again, crying at the drop of a hat.”

“Too damned many dropped hats around here,” she said.

“Linda, listen, everything’s changed, switched around. My brain is almost fixed and now my body’s busted up. My old comrade-in-arms turns out to be my one-time lover and the mother of my son. I guess I’m not the same guy I’ve been for the last twenty years.”

“What’s your point?”

“My point, Deputy, is that I’d like another chance with you. If you’re willing to risk it.”

“Maybe.” She leaned down to kiss him. “If you’ll promise to train that mouth up until it works right again.”

“Promise.”

She sighed. “I need to go. John will want to know the results of your last session.”

“Yeah, he will. But you’ll come back.”

“You know I will.”

She left him alone, and he let himself drift toward sleep. Toward a real sleep, not one where he would force himself to go traveling in search of his younger self.

He smiled. Here he was with a malfunctioning body in a world that could sometimes without exaggeration be described as a hell on earth, and for this moment he was happy. When you love, he decided, there’s always a chance for a happy ending.