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July 29th, 2000 The Bronx (on I-87)
ANYA sat in air-conditioned comfort in the back seat of the hired car as it glided serenely along the busy highway—and she was sweating. This isn’t like me. She couldn’t remember the last time a sudden crisis had caused her this kind of anxiety. Maybe because this had been building for three weeks—she’d seen it coming, dreaded it, and yet failed to do anything to stop it.
Of course, it wasn’t like Turner to call in a panic trying to explain the problem with incoherent rambling. Nye couldn’t just be gone. Her helper device couldn’t Travel on its own, and it was impossible for another leader to come and leave again so soon.
Anya would be better equipped to deal with the situation once she understood what had happened. She certainly couldn’t rely on the little she’d gathered from her flustered helper. Once she found the man, she would get Turner to make sense.
She tried finding her peace. The problem was past preventing—she needed to do what she always did in a crisis. Deal with it. She’d left Tate at home and could depend on him to take care of everything there, so she needn’t worry about that.
Staring out the window into the dark, she realized she should be grateful—that they’d gotten the phone installed before this emergency and that she had been able to find a hired car in the middle of the night to take her into the city. She should be glad to have the resources to pay for this kind of help, when she didn’t have the ID to rent a car. She ought not to be driving in the state she was in anyway.
She wondered if they were getting close. Looking up into the rearview mirror and the reflection of the driver’s impassive face, she asked. “Is the hotel much farther?”
“We’re about to cross into Harlem, so it’ll be another fifteen or twenty minutes, mam.”
“Thank you.” She sighed and sank back into the seat. If only Nye hadn’t insisted on spending almost all of her days in the city. If only Turner hadn’t been so willing to chaperone her on those trips. If only.
Anya and Tate had been happy enough to enjoy the comfort of their new home, to spend their time reading newspapers and listening to the radio, even watching terrible television in the name of research. Of course, the best part had been bicycling around their rural neighborhood and meeting the natives.
Nye, however, wasn’t interested in interviewing subjects. She wasn’t satisfied with the idea of filtering information from media sources. She wanted to make hands-on observations of the city whose ruins had always fascinated her, and she had to be there doing that to the exclusion of all else. And every day the girl spent in the city, Anya worried a little more.
She couldn’t deny the trips into the city when a chaperone was available, and Turner hadn’t hesitated to volunteer at every request. Which meant the two of them had been spending most of their time in the city. More potential for some kind of trouble.
Now that trouble had arrived.
Of course, she’d been aware of Nye’s tendency toward obsessing over her work and not acting with prudence—it was why Anya had insisted on a chaperone for the girl. But Turner had his own research and work to do for the team. He couldn’t supervise Nye every single minute. There had been reason to suspect a problem might develop, and now it had.
Absorbed in her thoughts, the time slipped by, and Anya was surprised to look out the window and see they were pulling up in front of the Hotel Ngaio—this was the place Turner and Nye were using as a base of operations in the city.
Anya was already opening the door before the vehicle had come to a complete stop. She wouldn’t wait for the driver or the doorman to open it for her.
The driver looked over his shoulder as she was sliding out. “What did you want me to do, mam?”
She paused. “This will probably only take ten or fifteen minutes. I don’t know yet where I’ll want to go after.”
The driver nodded. “Then I’ll just keep circling the block until I see you’re ready, mam.”
Anya almost ran into the hotel, where she found Turner pacing back and forth in the lobby, waiting. As soon as he noticed her, he rushed over. When he opened his mouth to start explaining, she shushed the man, grabbed his elbow, and steered him over to a sofa standing against the far wall of the lobby. So they could have some privacy.
She sat them both down and started things in a quiet voice. “Now why don’t you try and state exactly what happened, with clear details so I can actually understand you. And keep your voice low.”
He took several long, deep breaths and calmed himself before speaking. “I was working late, trying to get my website properly set up. It was getting on toward midnight when I remembered Nye.”
Anya kept from shaking her head. Turner’s supervision had been more lax than she’d realized and this was the result. “You were working here in your hotel room? Where was Nye, the last you knew?”
The man shook his head and blushed. “I wasn’t here. Ms. Dervan had volunteered to help me. She has an incredible computer workstation, and I was in her apartment while she was teaching me what I needed to know.”
“There’s no need to blush, Turner. I trust you wouldn’t be doing anything inappropriate. And I’m glad the woman is helping. Your website will be one more way the others can find their way back to us. But what about Nye?”
“She had been roaming around the city somewhere, but she’d promised to be back at the hotel before dark. She knew I’d come searching for her if she failed to return, and drag her back in the middle of her research. Because I’ve had to do that several times. But I thought she’d learned her lesson.”
Anya snorted. “This is Nye we’re talking about. It’s not that she doesn’t know what she ought to do. She always has. She just gets so absorbed she loses track, and loses her good sense.”
Turner’s face flushed deeper red. “I’m sorry. I guess I got too involved myself. Anyway, it was late, and before I headed back to the hotel I checked the locator app to see if she was in that direction.”
Anya frowned. “You must’ve gotten some kind of a bead on her.”
On their first foray into the city after the move to Little Piece, Turner and Nye had discovered that with Anya’s leader device that far away, their own helper devices had defaulted to track each other. It should have made it that much easier for Turner to supervise his charge.
Turner stared off into the distance. “It pointed to the north. Even though I was on the Upper West Side already, I assumed Nye had wandered that far and stayed out late again. So I set off to track her down, like I had before. I ended up taking a taxi to the north end of the Bronx without it ever changing direction or turning to a blip.”
Anya nodded. “At which point you must have realized that it was pointing at me up in Chickadee County.”
“I admit I panicked then. I used that cell phone I’d gotten for emergencies and woke you up and I got you to come. Then I realized it could just be a bug in the programming. The locator app might’ve returned to its normal function—stopped tracking the nearest device and gone back to pointing to the leader, like we thought it was supposed to.”
“So you came back here, to the hotel?”
“I had to wait for you, since you said you were on your way, but I also hoped to find Nye waiting.”
Anya sighed. “Because if it was just a bug in the watch programming, Nye could’ve been in the hotel all along.” And Turner would’ve been panicking at nothing. The man was overly conscious of how he’d fallen short of his responsibility. “I take it you didn’t find her here, though.”
Turner shook his head. “If the problem is with the locator app, I have no way to find out where she is. So I’m glad I called you. With your device, you can track her down, and we can discover what kind of trouble I’ve allowed her to get into.”
Anya brought up the locator screen on her own watch. Turner showed up as a blip in the middle, of course, and the red bar pointed to the north. That might be pointing at Tate or Nye. If that wasn’t the girl to the north, then the next logical assumption would be that she had Traveled, if that weren’t impossible.
Anya looked hard at Turner. “If another Traveler, a leader, had shown up in this time—had stayed around long enough for their device to recharge and leave again—wouldn’t one of you have noticed?”
Turner nodded and then exhaled in relief. “I’ve messed up, I know, but it’s not been that bad. Until tonight, I’d been checking my locator screen pretty much every hour. Except when I’m sleeping. Tonight was the first time I’d let it go longer, because I got wrapped up in my work. Just like Nye.”
Anya smiled. “Maybe it’s contagious. But the important point is—if you were checking that often, you would’ve had to notice sometime if your watch indicated a direction different from where you knew Nye to be. Another leader in the city? Today?”
Turner shook his head. “No. And you’re right, I’d have noticed. It was only for several hours late this evening, last evening now, that I got so distracted I forgot to check.”
“So Nye didn’t Travel. Presumably.”
The man was slowly getting himself back into a clear state of mind. He sat straighter and stared at Anya. “What then? How did she disappear? How are we supposed to find her if we can’t use the locator app?”
“I can only think of two reasons why her signal might have gone dark. One is if her watch had been destroyed—let’s hope it’s not that, because I don’t even want to think of what that might mean for Nye. If it’s the other, then we only have to wait for her to show up on the screen again.”
Turner’s mouth had started to gape. “What was the second possibility? I missed that.”
Anya gave him a hard look. He really was running himself ragged, to the point he couldn’t think straight. “Because I didn’t say. I’d rather not. Anyway, the car I hired to come here has been circling the block for a while, and we’d better go.”
Turner bounded off the sofa and started for the doors, then came back as Anya stood. “Shouldn’t I say here at the hotel? In case she comes back?
“If she could have, she’d have returned by now. It’s not long before dawn.” Anya shook her head. “I think you’d better stay and get some sleep, though. You clearly need to rest.”
Turner nodded and started to walk away, then he came back again. “I couldn’t possibly sleep, not until I know if she’s alright.”
So Anya walked out of the lobby to the curb with Turner following behind. It was only a few minutes before she saw the car approaching from around the corner and waved. The driver pulled up and Turner ran and opened the door for her.
After they had both settled in the back seat, the driver looked in the rearview mirror at Anya. “Now where do you want to go, mam? Back home?”
“You can drive north for a while, if you please. But I don’t think we’re going home.” She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking about all of this, but that was the least of her worries.
She kept checking her watch. If the locator was pointing at Nye, it should switch before they left the city. It was likely Tate and they’d be turning around and looking for Nye. Anya scowled at her helper. “Do you at least have some idea what area of the city she’d been working in last night?”
Turner sighed. “She’d been concentrating on Midtown and staying fairly close to the hotel, but I think that was because she was working her way out in some kind of grid pattern.”
“You’d better try to get a little nap if you can. This may take some time.”
He scrunched back into the seat and let his head flop back with his eyes wide open. If that were the best he could do for rest, it would have to be enough. After several minutes of eerie quiet in the insulation and isolation of the car interior, Anya began to fidget. She kept checking her watch and trying to keep her mind off of Nye by staring out at the city as they rode along. It didn’t help.
At some point Anya noticed the first hint of day, as a few weak rays managed to filter over the horizon and between all the buildings. She checked her locator screen for the umpteenth time and saw a red bar at the bottom. South. North had been Tate.
For the space of one unusually loud heartbeat, she froze. Then she leaned forward to speak to the driver. “We want to head back to the south. I’ll give you further directions when we get closer.”
She’d hoped to avoid waking Turner, if the man were somehow asleep like that, but he lifted up his head and looked at her. “You’ve got her?”
Anya nodded. “We’ll soon find out what kind of trouble she’s gotten herself into.”
The driver must’ve been thinking stranger and stranger things as she kept checking her watch and navigating him through the streets of the city toward an unknown destination. But he didn’t say a word. She was liking the man more and more.
She finally saw them approach an assortment of buildings, varying in size and age, but all large and institutional. She pointed them out to the driver. “We’re headed there. It’s a hospital.” Of a size and scope Anya had only read about in history books.
The driver nodded. “Yes, mam. I assume you’re just visiting?”
“Yes. A friend.”
The driver took a left into the complex and began weaving through the buildings as Anya kept a close eye on her watch. When the bar changed to a blip, she asked the man to stop in front of the nearest building. Nye was inside.
The sign on the outside said it was for ‘behavioral health’ and Anya could translate that into what it really meant—Nye had been acting her usual self.
Anya opened the door and started to slide out, then turned back to the driver. “This might take a very long time.”
The driver pointed at a big parking garage. “I’ll get something to eat and park there to wait.”
Anya nodded and finished climbing out of the car, her weary helper following. “Come on, now.”
As she stalked up to the entrance, Anya tried to imagine how difficult this could be. She glanced at Turner. “This will be tough, so don’t say anything. Just try to look handsome.”
She had to admit to herself, though, that even Turner’s most effective charm would likely be insufficient to this challenge. Maybe some camaraderie between nurses would do the trick. But I won’t hold my breath.
Inside the lobby, Anya saw a sally port leading back to the wards, but the only approach to anyone was through a thick plastic barrier, translucent with tiny holes to allow sound to penetrate. A woman sitting behind that protection looked like a clerk of some sort.
Turner put his hand on Anya’s arm to stop her. “If we’ve got the signal back, why not just Travel Nye out of this place?”
“Aside from the fact that she’s far enough away that the separation factor might land her on a boat in the Atlantic, she may have had to hide her watch. If she’s not wearing it, all we’d accomplish would be to Travel the watch where it might never be found.”
Anya walked up to speak to the woman behind the plastic. “I’m looking for a friend who ended up here, sometime last night. Her name is Nye.”
The woman didn’t even bother to look at Anya. “I’m sorry, but I can’t give out patient information.”
Anya sighed. “I don’t need information. I need my friend, and you have her.”
Now the woman looked, squinting through the thick plastic. “If she was admitted last night, that might have been for a seventy-two hour evaluation. You’d better hope that’s the case. After that period, she’d either be committed or released. You’ll have to wait to find out which it is, though.”
Anya took a deep breath to hold her peace. “I’m a retired nurse, and I can tell you Nye isn’t insane.” She tried to smile. “She’s a little scattered, and a bit obsessive, but not crazy.”
“We don’t like to use terms like that, which you should know.” The woman sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger. “Look, there’s simply nothing to be done until the doctors make their evaluation. We’ll release her if she’s not a danger to herself or others.”
Anya rubbed the back of her neck. This was going to be the start of a very long day. She glanced behind her and saw that Turner had disappeared. She looked at the empty plastic chairs bolted to the floor and turned back to the woman.
“I’ll just wait here for my friend then. They’ll realize soon enough she’s no danger.”
The woman shook her head. “You don’t understand. If she was brought in last night for a seventy-two hour eval, she’s got at least sixty hours to go.”
The woman bent her head to attend to some papers, as if that were the end of the matter.
Anya sighed. “I’m sure you’re very busy. Why not take my word that there’s nothing much wrong with Nye—take a quick look at her to be sure, and then let me get her out of your hair?”
“I’m sorry. We are busy. Two doctors have to see her and sign off on whatever determination they make. And I’m not going to try and tell them what that should be. You’ll just have to wait.”
“I’m sorry if I’m being difficult. I’ll wait.” She went to one of those empty hard plastic chairs and sat and tried to think, but it was hard in that drab, oppressive environment. Hopefully Turner would return soon and keep her company.
She didn’t think it had been long since leaning back her head to stare at the ceiling when she felt someone sit down beside her. It had to be Turner. She rolled her head a little to the side and her eyes listed over to confirm it.
“Where have you been?”
“I wanted some privacy when I talked to Verity on the phone. Ms. Dervan. This situation seemed like it might call for some extra help. So she’s sending us some.”
“Help?” Whatever kind of assistance the efficient Ms. Dervan might be sending, it would likely be effective. Hopefully it would arrive soon.
Anya let her eyes close again and let her head rest back against the brick wall behind her. “Since you can’t rest, why don’t you be helpful and phone Tate to tell him what’s going on? And tell him not to worry.”
She felt Turner lean forward and walk away and then all she could do was wait. For Turner to come back. For Ms. Dervan’s help to arrive. For the psychiatrists to hopefully realize that Nye wasn’t nuts, but that depended a lot on the girl herself.
When a hand gently shook her shoulder, Anya’s eyes popped open. She must’ve drifted off, despite the circumstances and the setting, but she’d needed it. She lifted her head, alert and ready.
She placed her hand over Turner’s on her shoulder. “Thank you.”
Then she noticed the gray-haired man in a gray suit lurking behind her helper. She stood to greet this man and noticed how expensive his attire was—it might be someone in authority. Or Ms. Dervan’s idea of assistance.
He had a salt-and-pepper mustache and a wry grin. “Excuse me. Miss Anya? My name is Crispin Hollingsworth, and I’m your attorney.”
She blinked. “I didn’t know I had a lawyer.”
“Technically I’ve been retained by the trust, but I understand you’ll be the one paying my bill, so it’s your interests I’m representing.”
Anya felt a deep relief. She didn’t know what he could or couldn’t do to help, but she couldn’t think of anything better. “Did Turner describe the situation?”
Mr. Hollingsworth gave her a slight shake of his head. “He told me a little. Very little. Not that I’d need, or even want to know, everything.” Then he gave her a meaningful look.
“I see.” At least Turner had been discreet, and apparently this lawyer wanted her to watch herself. It was nice to see her helper returning to his usual competence, and if the lawyer needed more details than she gave him, he could always ask. “I’ll try to give you the gist of the situation, but there are some things I may not be able to share with you.” Things that might get me locked up along with Nye.
The lawyer combed his mustache with a finger. “Don’t worry about that. I’m used to clients withholding. As long as you don’t lie, we’ll be fine.”
She nodded. “I won’t lie.” She explained about what they surmised had happened to Nye, without any explanation for why they thought it. “Now, is there any way to get her out of here? Soon?”
“It depends. I can see a number of difficulties. You say she didn’t have any ID on her, so it will be hard to prove you have any right to even know she’s here. But as an attorney, I can represent her interests without having to prove anything. But it would be helpful if we could establish her identity. Do you have anything that can do that?”
Anya shook her head. “I’m afraid not.”
“Can you get some, or is she illegal?” Mr. Hollingsworth must’ve seen the confusion on her face. “Is she a citizen? Was she born here?”
She chose her words with care. “If you mean to ask if she was born in a geographic area you would call United States territory, then the answer is yes. Unfortunately that can’t be proven.”
The lawyer sighed. “Well, I was told you won’t have any trouble paying my fee. And dealing with difficult problems is what I get paid for.”
“I don’t know what Ms. Dervan told you, but I and my friends are all researchers for a non-profit organization. The trust finances our operations. If you represent the trust, then by extension you also represent the organization Nye works for.”
“You’re bright. Maybe you should have my job. Of course, that was the tactic I intended to take, but it would be easier if I could prove Miss Nye’s identity. Can you at least tell me her full name?”
She shook her head. “It’s just Nye. But you’re saying there’s something you can do to get her out?”
Mr. Hollingsworth grinned. “I can. Your friend is a researcher—can you give me any more?”
Anya considered it. “She’s a graduate student of archaeology. I can’t say where.”
“Very mysterious.”
Anya continued. “She gets obsessive about her work, but she’s not nuts. But it’s probably related to how she ended up here. And when she’s absorbed in her research she can sound strange, but she should be able to convince the doctors she’s alright. Since she’ll not be engaged in her studies in here.”
The lawyer nodded as he paid close attention to everything Anya said. “I’ll know more details once I’ve talked to someone in charge, but for now I want you two to stay here. I’ll report back when I know something.”
With that he marched over to the woman sitting behind her screen and showed his identification and said something Anya couldn’t hear. Following that short discussion, he was buzzed back into the little office area.
Anya sat back down again. She’d gotten what rest she needed, but she had nothing to do now but wait. Again. Turner sat down beside her, so at least she had company in her idleness now.
She turned to him. “Your Ms. Dervan certainly came through for us with just the help we needed. Remind me to thank her.”
Turner blushed. “I’d already mentioned to her some of the problems we have encountered, lacking legal identification. She’d raised the possibility of using a lawyer as a proxy for some of those things in a similar way to how you went through the bank to buy the house. So when I called, I asked her to go ahead and retain the best attorney she could find.”
Anya smiled at him. “It’s alright. We’d have to deal with these issues at some point anyway. And I’m sure Ms. Dervan will be discreet.”
“We can trust Verity.” Her helper gave a little cough into his hand. “But there are still a number of things a lawyer can’t do for us. I think we’ll need to find a way to get some proper identification if we’re going to stay and do research.”
Verity, again. If she didn’t know any better, Anya might think Turner was getting too familiar with the woman. The man was becoming independent. Something Anya should probably be grateful for, as he had a good head on his shoulders and kept proving it. He just needed to remember how to follow her instructions.
She patted him on the shoulder and settled in for a long wait, but before she knew it, their lawyer had returned to the lobby and crossed to where they were sitting. “Let’s take matters one at a time. It’s not all bad news. First, your friend is here.”
Anya squinted at the lawyer. “We already knew that.”
“Yes, but had you gotten them to admit the fact? We needed them to do that before we could do anything else.”
“I’m sorry. You were saying?”
“Then I found out why and how she was admitted. Supposedly your friend was ‘harassing’ some workers at the New York Coliseum demolition site. The police were called, and they decided from her behavior and some comments she made that they should bring her in for a psychiatric evaluation.”
Anya rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the kind of behavior Nye had demonstrated. “It’s likely all true. But what now? Will we have to wait the full seventy-two hours? Is there any chance they might actually commit her?”
The lawyer shook his head. “Not if I can help it. They wouldn’t let me see her medical records, of course, but I’m told she was evaluated by one doctor when she was admitted. His report was equivocal, so it depends on what the second psychiatrist says. But the first doctor will rubber stamp whatever the other recommends.”
Anya didn’t need to be told that last part. She’d worked with doctors long enough. “What now?”
“I’ve had a little chat with the hospital administrator. Officially nothing’s changed—but, without saying your friend is getting any kind of preferential treatment, the second doctor will happen to review her case soon. No one is going to insist on a particular verdict, but that psychiatrist will understand the administration’s feelings.”
Anya grinned. “But how did you convince them to arrange things like that?”
Mr. Hollingsworth combed his mustache with his finger. “No one wants to be dragged into court if they can help it. And I have a certain reputation. I expect your friend will be released and returned to you shortly. Unless this Nye does something stupid, which you tell me is unlikely.”
“Thank you. This is the best I could’ve hoped for.” They certainly had gotten their money’s worth—depending on what his bill was.
“I’ve done all I can do, and it should be fine now. But you’re paying me by the hour—if you want me to sit around with you and wait...”
“No, indeed. Thank you again for what you’ve done. And we’ll contact you if it turns out we need more help.”
The lawyer grinned. “I sincerely hope you don’t, Miss Anya. I have enough money as it is.” With that he tipped an imaginary hat at her and walked out of the hospital.
Turner looked from the lawyer leaving to her. “I’m still curious why we lost Nye’s signal.”
Anya smiled to herself. “At some point she had to realize they might take her possessions, and she wouldn’t want to lose her watch, even temporarily, or let the wrong people get too close a look at it. I suspect she swallowed it.”
Turner’s eyes widened. “That would be enough to keep the locator from tracking her?”
“Probably not normally, though it would cause interference. Since the device charges off the body’s electrical field. But remember that Nye’s body has absorbed abnormally high levels of radiation.”
“So how did the signal return?”
Before Anya could decide how she’d answer his question, the sally port that led back to the wards opened and Nye came trotting out toward them.
Mr. Hollingsworth must have scared the hospital administrator good, and Anya really didn’t care how he’d done that. It was just good to see Nye.
The girl came up to them beaming, and thankfully wearing her watch. “That was interesting.”
Anya shook her head in wonder. “You enjoyed your experience, did you?”
“I wouldn’t say enjoyed. It was educational.”
“I hope your Travel device still works properly. At least it did enough for us to track you here.”
Nye shrugged. “It looked alright when I washed it off. A little worn, but it seemed to function fine.”
Anya smiled at the girl. “That would’ve been the acids in your stomach.”
Turner interjected. “Now what? Back to the hotel, or all the way back to Chickadee County?”
Anya considered. “We’ll return home, for long enough to rest a bit and get things squared away. I want to put some distance between us and this incident. Cut the summer short and go to next year.”
Turner definitely did not look happy. “I still haven’t finished getting the web site set up. At least let me leave Ms. Dervan a message.”
Nye piped up. “We’re leaving?”
Anya kept her voice low. No one was around to hear, but they were still standing in a mental hospital. “I hope you got enough of a baseline to start, because I want to skip ahead to two thousand one. We’ll make next summer extra long to make up for cutting this one short.”
She glanced at Turner. “Leave your message, but finishing the website can wait until next year.”