Paul shakes me awake in the morning. At first I don’t know where I am or who he is, but by the time I’ve gotten halfway up it all comes back in a heap that lands on me like a physical weight. Time travel, dead parents, evil aliens who want to eat us, other aliens here to help us.
I lie back down and pull the blankets up.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Paul says. “You’ve got to save the Earth today.” He grabs my hand and leans back as he pulls me into a reluctant standing position.
“Holy hell,” I manage to say, but I’m not sure exactly which part I’m saying it about.
Paul points at the desk, where there’s now a bottle of shampoo and some soap. “Go. Shower. Get dressed!”
Everything he says has a smile attached to it like it’s a joke that only he gets.
In the shower, I spend the time thinking about people who I don’t have anymore, and about Locusts eating the rest of everybody. By the time I’m dried off, I feel horrible.
Paul’s sitting in his desk chair playing guitar when I get back to the room.
He stands up and returns the guitar to its stand. “You ready, champ?”
“Yeah.” I drop my clothes and shampoo onto the bed.
The crumpled papers from the letter I tried to write are still on the desk. I want to throw them away, make them disappear, but Paul’s sitting right where I need to go to get to the desk.
He’s looking at me, making me feel weird, just strumming quietly. When I go past him I end up knocking the head of his guitar. I don’t mean to, but I don’t make much of an effort to avoid it, either.
“Excuse me,” he says.
I don’t reply, just gather the papers and throw them in the garbage under the desk.
When I turn around, he’s standing, the guitar laid across his bed. He’s smiling, but his eyes are street hard. “No,” he says. He shakes his head. “Uh-uh. Alex, this will not work. We are partners and roommates and I am working very hard to make you feel welcome here. If you’ve got a problem, say it now.”
I go to stare back at him, but my hair is wet and it falls straight in my face and I have to move it away with my hand and somehow having to do it takes the anger out of me and leaves me tired.
“It’s nothing,” I mutter. “I don’t have a problem with you.” Then I look at him, my face as calm as I can make it.
He squints at me. Nods his head slowly. “You sure?”
I shrug. “Yeah.” Then: “It’s just . . .”
He raises an eyebrow.
I don’t reply immediately, not even sure what I’m going to say. Eventually: “I got a lot in my head right now.”
“Yeah,” he says softly. His eyes relax. “I bet you do. Maybe don’t take it out on me, though, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. Okay.”
He waits a moment. “Alright, then. We should get breakfast—gliding on an empty stomach sucks.”
“Okay.” Food sounds alright. “Yeah.”
Together, we walk to the kitchen.
It’s just us and Calvin there while we eat. “Calvin’s always here,” Paul says.
Calvin bobs his head. “Good a place as any.” He stuffs a spoonful of cereal into his mouth, chews.
I’m just finishing my Pop-Tarts when Richard walks in. “Alex!” he sings as he walks up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. “You ready to get started?”
I shrug. “Is there a way I can get a message home first? My aunt . . .”
He shakes his head slowly. “I’m sorry, man. While you’re with us, we have to keep total control on the information that goes out.” He waves at the stuff around us. “Our only chance for success is by working under the radar until we’re ready to go public, so we have to keep the lid screwed on tight.” When he sees the look on my face, he stops smiling. “I know how much it would mean to you, though, so we’ll figure out a way to let your aunt know you’re alright, and that you didn’t . . .” He trails off. “Okay?”
I bob my head, feel myself smile a little bit even though I don’t mean it.
He pinches my shoulder, looks over at Paul, then down at me. “You’ve got a big a day ahead, Alex, so we probably should get going.” He raises his eyebrows. “You think you’re up to it?”
I bob my head again, raise my shoulder under his hand.
“Good man.” He laughs. “Let’s go.”
Paul stands with us. “You’re coming, too?” I try to keep my voice level.
He grins. “Sure am. I’m gonna train you.” He leans in over the table. “You can call me Morpheus.”
I shake my head, try not to smile, but he’s goofy as hell and he’s actually funny. “I’m not calling you Morpheus.”
“Then you shouldn’t’ve taken the red pill.”
Richard and Paul take me back to the central patio and then through the door that leads up a set of stairs and into a wide hallway that looks too big and too long to fit inside the hill. Richard opens a door about halfway down and gestures for me to go inside. It’s a doctor’s office. “Take a seat on the exam table,” he tells me. “We’ve got to get your patch attached.”
I sit on the table.
“Do you have your letter?”
I freeze. Even the memory of the panic I felt yesterday when I was trying to write it makes me sweat. I don’t respond, hoping that’ll be the end of it.
It’s not. Richard’s whole attitude changes. “You tried to change what it said? For your parents?”
“No.” It comes out like a whisper. My cheeks are starting to get hot. I can feel my eyes begin to burn.
Richard speaks softly. “Alex, there’s no way to do that.”
And that’s it. Too much. I make it out of the room and into the hallway before the tears come. I’m so mad that I’m shaking. I don’t even notice the door open until Richard’s got his hand on me.
“Alex?” His voice cuts through me.
“I’m not writing it.”
He nods his head. “You’re right. You don’t need to do it today. I should’ve been more sensitive.”
I look up. His face is right there, just above me, so close. I want to . . .
I don’t.
“I’m not ever writing that fucking letter.” I point at him. “Ever.”
He backs up, pulls himself out of range, which lets me relax a little. “Alex . . .” But then he trails off. He takes in a breath like he’s going to say something else, but instead he just lets it go.
“What?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing you need to be bothered with right now.”
“Tell me.”
He shakes his head, blows out another breath. “Look, the way these things work is that you got the letter, so somehow, someday, you will write it and it will be the exact letter you received.” He holds up his hands to slow my response. “But it doesn’t have to be now and it doesn’t have to be any time soon, so we don’t need to worry about it here and now.”
I wipe my sleeve hard across my face, push my eyes in with my thumbs, then shake my head. “I’m not writing it.”
He picks his hand off my shoulder. “I understand.”
I’m not feeling much of anything anymore, except that I don’t want to continue this conversation. I try to talk, but my throat’s full. I cough to clear it. “Does the patch hurt?”
Paul smiles, big and goofy. “Nope. And it’ll give you superpowers.”
Back in the exam room, I sit down on the bed. “How does this all work?”
“All what?” Richard sounds relieved that I’m back to business.
I don’t want to say everything. “Witnessing, I guess.”
Richard smiles like he’s truly glad I asked. “Like I mentioned yesterday, once something’s done and past, it’s locked in, it can’t ever be changed, right?”
Even hearing it reminds me of the whole letter thing and makes my stomach hurt. “Okay.”
“Well, the same thing happens if we see something that, by our way of experiencing time, hasn’t happened yet.” He gestures at Paul, who’s standing above his shoulder. “Normally the future’s wide open—picture an infinite field of bubble wrap stretching out in front of us. Every single bubble on that field is a possibility—what could happen—depending on decisions that conscious beings make and on the semi-random events of the physical universe—earthquakes, tornadoes, asteroids, that sort of thing.” He looks at me.
I nod so he knows I get it.
“But remember, the present fixes time, we experience it and it becomes unmovable and unchangeable, right? So let’s say you get to see a future—one bubble, way over here”—he points at a space between us—“that has some particular event in it. What would that mean?”
I keep thinking I get it, but as soon as I try to close my mind around the ideas, they squirt out the side. “That it’s going to happen . . .”
Richard nods. “Yes! Exactly! Seeing that small part of the future ensures that it will happen and all the future bubbles that don’t include the events in the bubble you saw are suddenly popped—we say they’re collapsed—they’re no longer possible. Do you know why?”
I don’t. But I don’t want to sit there with my mouth open, so I say something even though it’s dumb. “Because I saw it?”
“That’s it exactly!” He pats me on the knee. “Observation makes reality, Alex. The present is defined by those of us who see and think and remember. “We”— he points at me and Paul, himself too—“we are what changes time from the unformed infinite future to the locked-in, immutable past. When we witness the present, we lock things in, and when we witness a piece of future, we lock it in just the same—it’s like it becomes part of the fixed past even though it hasn’t happened yet as we stubbornly see the illusion of time. No matter what anybody does, as long as you remember it, it can’t be changed, not by Locusts or anybody else.” He smiles like he’s seen a wonder of the world. “Your knowledge of what will happen absolutely makes sure that it does—you’re going to make sure that Live-Tech spreads, that President Castle doesn’t get a chance to have it regulated, that people trust Jeff enough about Incursions that he can get Live-Tech everywhere it needs to go.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I say, “Okay.” Then: “How do we know what futures to see?”
Richard looks pleased with my question. “The Gentry’s Oracle device I told you about yesterday? It selects the desired possibilities and it’s the thing that guides you on your witness journeys.” He points to Paul’s arm. “The patch you’re going to get is Live-Tech—it’s going to act as a bridge between you and the Oracle device, except this time instead of reading your thoughts and telling the machine, it’s going to be reading the machine and translating it into thought for you.” He waits for me to catch up. I nod, but I don’t really get it.
He must see my confusion because he keeps explaining. “The patch is going to take its guidance from the Oracle device and it’s going to connect to your mind while also making some slight alterations to your DNA—the end result is that you’ll not only be able to glide into the future, but you’ll only witness the futures the Oracle chooses for you.”
The door opens, making me jump. A woman I haven’t seen before comes in. She says hi to Richard and Paul and then tells me her name is Christina and that she’s the one who maintains the witness-patches.
She steps over to the wall where a panel slides back. When she turns back around, she’s got a square of Live-Tech pod material clutched at the end of a pair of tongs. Just like the Live-Tech pod was before I activated it, this one’s streetlight green with the Live-Tech logo etched into it in black line, clutched in the end of a pair of tongs. “You ready, Alex?”
I shrug. “Sure.”
She smiles and approaches, but stops when she sees my wrist. “You’re gonna have to remove the pod first.”
I tell her I forgot the deactivation code. She tells me to repeat after her and then recites a long string of letters and numbers. When I’m done, the pod vibrates twice and falls out of my ear onto the floor. I watch as it turns red, indicating that it’s no longer in use.
“Great,” she says as Richard bends down to pick it up. “Now we can attach it, and it will connect you to the Oracle and give you the ability to witness.”
I look at the patch. It’s just a flat square flap of bright green leather. “How . . .” I want to ask the big questions about how all of this is possible, but I don’t even know how to put it, so I end up just waving my hand at the patch and looking lost.
“How does this”— she wiggles the patch with the tongs—“make it possible for you to see the future?”
I nod. Richard just told me, but as long as people are talking I don’t have to actually put the patch on. It makes me nervous.
“Well, you’ve got those genetic markers—one hundred and fifty-three of them, right?”
I shrug, nod.
“Well, think of those as being like a keyhole to a door inside you. This patch? It’s the key. It’s genetically encoded to pair with your specific markers to unlock that door and let you witness.”
“What’s behind the door?”
“The place where time lives.” Richard smiles. “And, Alex, you’re going to be very good at witnessing. Most witnesses—their ability is like a two-lane road—they can get there and they can come back, but there’s a limit to the amount of traffic—information—that the road can handle—they see and hear things, but the things they witness aren’t always clear, which makes them less completely locked in.” He gestures at me. “You, on the other hand, with your one hundred and fifty-three markers, you’re going to have a ten-lane expressway. Things will be crystal clear for you when you see them. You’ll get details that the rest of the team wouldn’t even be able to dream of.”
“Alright.”
“You need to understand.” Richard leans into me. “Once you’ve started witnessing, we have to make sure to keep you safe and protected until the futures you’ve seen have come to pass . . .” He sees my eyes widen, begins to shake his head. “We’re not talking years, Alex, we’re talking months.” He raises an eyebrow to ask if I’m comfortable with that. I don’t say anything, so he continues: “If we know what you saw, that alone won’t keep the future fixed. Only the witness’s own mind can do that. Once you’re done, though, and your patch has been removed, we’ll wipe this compound out of your memory, give you some implanted memories that’ll feel very real to you, and make sure you have the resources to make up for the lost time.” He raises his eyebrows. “Are you still willing?”
“What about . . .” I focus, try to make my voice clear. “I can’t go back, though. They want me for murder.”
Richard smiles at me. “By the time we send you back, Alex, that won’t be an issue, but you just have to trust me, okay?”
The whole idea weirds me out, and even thinking about it makes me anxious, but I’ve got nowhere else to go. I try and think it through, really turn it into a decision, but it’s just for appearances. “Okay. I’m in.”
“Good man,” Richard says and claps me on the leg before leaning back to make room for Christina.
“Here we go. It’ll feel a bit like when you put in your pod.” She brings the patch close to my skin. I wince as I feel it touch—it’s soft and cool and I get a sensation like an electric shock that vibrates up and down my arm. It sticks to me, pulls at my skin. It doesn’t hurt, but it feels weird, like my skin’s got Velcro on it and something’s being peeled off. I try and keep still but I get an overwhelming urge to shake my arm. I start to think I’m going to explode if I don’t move it.
“Done!” Christina says.
I’m about to say something, but then the patch starts to change. The Live-Tech logo fades away and the bright green fades to white before changing again to match my skin. The area of my arm around the patch feels weird, like the patch is wiggling—tickling me from the inside. I try and shake it off, but it grows worse and worse until I get a full-body shiver that starts at my head and goes all the way down to my feet. It keeps happening and just when I think it’s going to go on forever and that I’m going to shake myself to death, it stops.
When I look up at Christina, she’s smiling. “He won’t come off no matter how much you move now, Alex—he’s your new partner!” She seems to think this is a really good thing, because she’s looking at me—at us—like a priest at a wedding.