Sheridan loved being out in the forest, loved seeing the sunshine lighting up the leaves, making everything glow around her. Birds chattered in the trees, and the earth smelled alive and welcoming.
They rode horses single file, and no one talked because their guide didn’t want them to draw the attention of vikers. They didn’t reach the next base—another underground one—until the forest had grown cool and shadows dimmed everything.
At dinner they were finally able to talk again. They sat at a table eating a rehydrated pasta dish that wasn’t half bad considering it had looked like beige Styrofoam until they’d poured hot water onto it. Ren and Lee mostly talked to each other, discussing things they were going to say to the council when they returned. While they ate, Taylor and Joseph told Sheridan and Echo the things that had happened in the first timestream.
“I figured out how to contact the DW?” Sheridan asked when they were done. “Not my genius sister?” She speared a forkful of pasta. “I’m not going to let you forget that, even if I don’t remember it.”
“Great,” Taylor said.
“I saw the city wreckage,” Sheridan added, suddenly remembering this fact. “I went that way in a VR program once. I thought I recognized it. Is that why—because I really had been there?”
Taylor, Joseph, and Echo all sat for a moment pondering the question, their food forgotten. Sheridan could nearly see the physics equations running through their minds.
“It doesn’t seem possible,” Taylor said, “but then, who knows why people have déjà vu or what happens to experiences when a timestream is switched. Perhaps people can experience ghost memories, just like people who’ve lost limbs can still feel ghost limbs.”
“Memories may be made of a type of matter,” Echo agreed. “Perhaps they leave an imprint in the time continuum—like light that still travels after a star is destroyed. Perhaps you experienced an echo in there.”
“Time has a curve to it,” Joseph added. “Perhaps . . .” He didn’t say more. He just looked hopeful. “Was there anything else that seemed like a memory?”
Sheridan flushed and poked at her food. “I dreamed once that I was sitting with you on a green couch. We were, um, talking.”
“Bright green?” Joseph asked. “Sort of ugly?”
“Yes,” Sheridan said.
“That’s my couch,” Joseph said happily. “Anything else?”
She shook her head. “Do you think more memories might come back?”
“I hope they will,” he said.
After that, Echo and Taylor related the things that had happened to them while they were in Traventon. Taylor grew somber when she talked about Xavier and angry when she talked about Allana. Joseph, Sheridan noticed, clenched his teeth when anyone mentioned Allana’s name. Although when the story was done, all he said about her was “I hope she has better luck with the Dakine this time around.”
“The Prometheus Project worked great,” Echo told Joseph, changing the subject. “Granted, it worked against us, but it still worked great.”
Joseph finished off a bite of pasta. “You should have made it mobile. My model saved you from the Dakine.”
“I admit your model is better,” Echo said. “If you only need to use it once. The problem is, if you’re running from the government or the Dakine—yeah, you’re going to need it more than once.”
Joseph took a sip of water and leaned back in his chair. “You just don’t want to admit mine works better.”
“Better is a subjective term,” Echo said.
Taylor’s gaze bounced between the two of them. “Are you always this competitive?”
“No,” Echo said. “Sometimes we’re worse.”
Joseph laughed, a sound of happiness without any competitiveness. He smiled at his brother, watching him for a moment. “Don’t ever die on me again.”
Echo grinned back. “I hadn’t planned on making it a habit.”
They were all so happy that it was easy for Sheridan to relax, to shed any dark thoughts that pressed in on her. She was safe. She was free. But that night, Sheridan couldn’t sleep. She couldn’t even try.
She and Taylor unfolded their thermo-blankets onto some gel mattresses in the room that they shared. Taylor lay down on her bed and adjusted her pillow. Sheridan wrapped her blanket around herself and sat on her mattress with her back resting against the wall.
“We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow,” Taylor told her. “You need your sleep.”
“I’ll be fine.” How could Sheridan explain to her that she never knew when she woke up whether she was in a VR program or not? It wasn’t rational. She had already proved to herself that this was real. She’d eaten. Taylor knew the truth about the QGP. But Sheridan was still afraid that if she went to sleep, when she woke up this would be over. She would be back in her cell. She couldn’t face it, so she couldn’t sleep. She didn’t even want to lie down.
Taylor watched her from her gel mattress. “Do you want me to stay up with you?”
“No,” Sheridan said.
Taylor didn’t hit the controls for the light. She eyed Sheridan with concern, waiting for her to say more. A minute went by. Taylor kept waiting.
“I killed Reilly,” Sheridan said. “I killed someone.”
Taylor shifted her blanket. “It was self-defense. And you didn’t actually kill him. He’s probably still alive. In the technical sense. Besides,” she went on, because Sheridan hadn’t spoken, “it was his own fault for putting you through all those VR programs. You didn’t know it was real.”
“But if I had known it was real,” Sheridan said, “I would have done the same thing. I just would have felt worse while I did it.”
“It was self-defense,” Taylor said again. “You can’t feel guilty about that. Everyone has the right to—” She paused, reconsidering. “You know, you actually saved Reilly’s life. Lee had orders to kill him. And Lee would have, if you hadn’t sent Reilly into the erasing chamber. I’m sure if Reilly still had the ability to speak and remember it, he’d want to thank you.”
“I’m not so sure he’d thank me,” Sheridan said, but she smiled at her sister’s attempt to make her feel better.
“You saved his life,” Taylor emphasized. “Think of it that way.” She watched Sheridan for another moment. “I can stay up with you if you want.”
Sheridan shook her head. “Get some sleep. I’ll be fine.”
Taylor turned off the light and settled into her bed. Sheridan stared out the window at the night sky, at the darkness that was now pierced and glowing with stars. Countless stars. Ones she couldn’t even see. Suns as bright as the one that gave Earth life.
The darkness wasn’t so bad as long as you could see the stars.
Sheridan pulled the blanket around her, tucking its edges in. Eventually she would be all right. Eventually she would feel like she was really free. She tilted her face upward and let a million points of light shine down on her.
Sometime during the middle of the night she fell asleep.