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June 30th, 2000 Midtown Manhattan
ANYA’s first mistake had been not calling Ralph to come and pick her up. Not wanting to disturb Tate, she’d risen early and left a note on the kitchen table saying she’d gone into the city on unspecified business—which was true enough. Given that the hired car arriving would surely wake him, and she hadn’t wanted to answer any of his questions about where she was going or what she would be doing, she’d bicycled into town and taken the commuter train in—with multiple delays it had pulled into Penn Station over an hour late. And time was of the essence.
Her second mistake had been choosing to walk instead of take a taxi, thinking that would be faster. But while the streets had been clogged with traffic, it still would’ve been faster riding than having to push her way through the rush-hour crowds.
Anya ought to have remembered how difficult it was to move swiftly through Midtown at this time of day. Especially since these crowded conditions had been why she wouldn’t come into the city more than necessary—which had been often enough. She had needed to spend considerable time and effort in the city to determine the precise location and the exact minute of the professor’s accident. Eventually she’d been able to ascertain both.
At the time, the professor’s death had upset her too much to notice details like street signs or building addresses. But that one horrible scene had been burned into her brain. She could see it playing over and over again in her mind, and by walking around the general area where they’d landed and matching what she could see to the background of those images, she’d been able to find the spot.
As for the time of the accident, she couldn’t ask the police, who surely knew. And she couldn’t learn it from Mr. Hollingsworth, not without arousing his curiosity—at least she hadn’t been able to think of a credible reason to offer him. So she had ended up at the public library, combing through the old editions of different newspapers, until she’d finally found an article specifying the time of the accident—and that time was approaching fast. It had also given the location, meaning Anya had wasted a lot of effort.
She’d planned to wait until she was closer to the scene of the accident to Travel. But worried she was falling far behind schedule, in spite of leaving plenty of room for error, she’d darted into an alley and set her watch to the maximum three years into the past. Arriving on the morning of the professor’s accident, she had found the sidewalks even more packed with pedestrians. The traffic was flowing faster, but that only made it more difficult to catch a cab. And now she was in a hurry.
Having Traveled back into her own past, if Anya didn’t get to the scene of the professor’s death prior to its occurrence, she’d end up spoiling her one and only chance to prevent it. She was not about to give up though. I’m not too late yet.
She wasn’t very far from her destination, so she ground her teeth in frustration and pushed through the throngs, feeling as if she were swimming against the current as everyone seemed to be headed in the opposite direction. Anya had no other option but to soldier on block after block.
She told herself it had been a hopeless cause to begin with, because as much as she understood the practical application of the time-travel devices, she had always been somewhat fuzzy on the theory—but the professor had clearly said that what she was trying to do now was something that simply couldn’t be done. Even so, John had been her mentor. She had to make the attempt.
Memorizing the map for this section of the city was one way she’d prepared, and it was helping her shave a few minutes off her time as she struggled to reach the scene. She came to an intersection just as the light changed and took advantage of it, crossing Columbia before turning north again. John had appeared in the northbound lanes right before he was struck and killed. So her plan required her to be on that side of the road.
When Anya had first dreamed of Traveling back to save the professor, she’d envisaged herself rushing out into traffic to push him out of the way, but it had not taken her long to realize that wouldn’t work. It would all happen too fast.
If she waited to act until the professor had actually materialized, it would already be too late. Anya needed to act first. Knowing the minute of the accident, she could try running out into the road a little beforehand, but she doubted she could time it precisely enough to be sure, and she would only get the one shot. And she might just push him into the path of a different vehicle. Whatever she ended up doing might get her killed. If that was all she managed to do, it would be a horrible waste, but if she died saving the professor’s life, it would be worth it.
The others might miss her if she died instead of John, but he would’ve done such a better job of taking care of them than Anya had. So finding a way to rescue him, even at the risk of her own life, was what she had focused on.
Looking at what had actually happened, she realized that rather than removing the professor from danger, she needed to mitigate the threat he would face in the first place. So her rushing out into traffic just before he appeared was the right idea—but not in order to get to John in time. Her aim was to stop traffic.
When the professor had been struck and killed, so many vehicles had screeched to a stop that Anya remembered the street seeming almost like a parking lot. It had created the opportunity for her to go running out to John, where his body had lain across the back windshield of a taxi. She meant to reverse that dynamic. If she darted out into traffic right before he materialized, it should bring everything to a standstill and provide the professor with the chance he needed to orient himself and get out of danger. If only she could get close enough in time.
She glanced down at her watch. Three minutes. And she was still a block and a half away. Her skirt swirling around her legs, she began shoving her way more forcefully through the crowds, but to little effect. Time was running out.
Having made her way down most of one block, Anya still needed to cross the next intersection. But when she glanced at her watch again, she saw she’d only two minutes remaining, more or less. It would have to do.
She darted out between two parked cars and into the paused traffic waiting for the light to change. Working her way around those vehicles she tried to run ahead into the intersection, but a barreling cab honked its horn and almost ran her down. It was a jolt. And she found she could no longer force herself to consciously run recklessly out into the path of the oncoming cars. So waving her hands in front of her, she waded out a bit at a time.
More horns blared and drivers raised their fists in anger, swearing at her, but most barely bothered to slow down. A taxi swerved around her, scraping the side of another. But Anya was looking ahead to where the professor would soon appear and almost made it across before the light changed and the cars in the northbound lane surged forward, toward and around her.
She ran forward, veering to the left and the right and trying to force the oncoming cars to slow down. Then a strange feeling swept over her, a kind of off-kilter déjà vu—and suddenly Professor John stood there, up ahead of her. Instinctively she called out. “Professor!”
At the same time she heard the echo of her past self yelling the same thing from the other side of the street. No wonder the professor had looked so confused. And then history repeated as a big black SUV braked hard, slamming into John and sending him flying forward into a cab that was coming to a sudden stop further ahead.
Anya watched in horror as her past self ran out between slowing and stopping vehicles to reach the professor’s body. The same scene she’d replayed in her head so many times. Only now she was watching it all from a different angle—one from which she herself was the cause of the accident.
The next minute her past self was running away from the scene of the accident, through the crowd of onlookers that had immediately formed. And Anya already knew what happened after that—or she had thought she did.
As she had stood there, a frozen obstacle in the middle of the street, the black SUV that had struck and killed John had lurched into motion. With tires squealing it jumped into the next lane over, cutting off a slow-moving cab. As it forced its way into moving traffic, Anya realized that the driver who had hit the professor was running from the scene.
While she had not been able to prevent the professor’s death—perhaps had been inadvertently responsible for causing it—there was still a wrong she could right. Seeing it was available, she ran forward to the cab that SUV had just cut off, pulling a hundred dollar bill from her pocket as she went. Anya had tried to prepare for every eventuality. She had even taken the battery from Tate’s watch in case she needed to Travel again in a hurry. Not that she expected she’d have to do that.
She pounded on the window, pressing the money against the glass and smiling. And as soon as the cabbie had unlocked the door, she slid into the back seat and handed him the cash. “You saw that black SUV hit and kill that man? And run? I need you to follow it.”
The driver, an old man with gray crew-cut hair, took her hundred dollars and began racing forward even before he had turned back to see where he was going. “You ought to leave it to the cops, lady. But I want to earn the fare.”
Anya winced as the taxi darted through a brief gap that had opened between a bus and a limousine. “Can you see him?”
“Sure I can, lady. In this traffic I would have to be blind to lose him.”
Leaning forward, it wasn’t long before Anya had caught sight of the hit-and-run driver for herself, at least saw a black SUV up ahead that the cabbie was clearly following. She hoped it was the right one. It didn’t seem to be trying to lose them, but maybe its driver didn’t realize he was being pursued—the traffic was not only thick, but thick with cabs that mostly looked alike.
She decided to risk questioning the cabbie. “Is that the same black SUV? Are you sure? I’m afraid I didn’t notice any distinguishing characteristics.”
He didn’t bother to look back at her. “I’ve been keeping my eye on it ever since he cut me off, so yes I’m sure. As for any ‘distinguishing characteristics’, I think you’ll find that on the front end—the blood of the guy he hit.”
Anya grimaced upon hearing the professor’s accident referred to in that way, but she said nothing. What she did was try to think where the hit-and-run driver might be going, and what she would do once she caught up to him. If she did.
Where that SUV actually headed for was a nondescript parking garage. “Follow him in, driver, and get as close as you can. Otherwise he might lose us in there.”
The cabbie shook his head but turned in to follow. “He may not know we’ve been tailing him, but he’ll figure it out if we get too close.”
“I’m more concerned about what he might do in here if we lost track of him. There might be dozens of black SUVs parked in here, and if we had to check out each one, he could be long gone by the time we found the right one.”
He might leave his vehicle to escape on foot, or he might circle up and around and down again and leave them examining every black SUV in the place—which was a dark and claustrophobic block of gray concrete. And as it happened, when they’d entered the parking structure, she’d already lost sight of the SUV ahead of them. “Can you see him anywhere?”
The cabbie shook his head. “I think I hear him up ahead, but that could be anybody. But I’m keeping my eyes peeled in case I get a glimpse.”
Anya nodded, though the man wasn’t watching her. “You do that, and I’ll look for black SUVs that might’ve just parked.” Except she wasn’t sure how she could tell, other than getting out and feeling the hood to see if it was still hot. She’d do better to look and see if there was evidence of the accident on the front grill. “He has to stop somewhere.”
“He may have come here just to dump the SUV. Likely it was stolen in the first place, and the police won’t be able to trace it back to him.”
“But if we find the right one, you will call to let the authorities know where they can find it? Even if the driver stole the vehicle, there must be evidence inside to identify him—fingerprints or DNA.”
The cabbie shook his head. “I wouldn’t expect the cops to go to that much trouble. Run the fingerprints to see if the guy’s in the system, maybe, but I doubt they’ll do any more than that.”
“If that’s not enough to catch the culprit, I’ll see to it myself.” Surely the resources she had could be put to no better use than bringing this hit-and-run driver to justice. Not only for the professor. Others might be in danger if such a reckless and irresponsible person wasn’t stopped. “But I hope we’ll be able to follow him wherever he’s headed, and then we’ll call the police to arrest him.”
They had wound their way up to the fourth level and were speeding between rows of parked vehicles when Anya spotted him. It has to be. A short, thin man was just walking away from a black SUV, walking with his head down and a suspiciously slow gait. Then he stopped in his tracks and looked up.
Anya cried to the cabbie. “That’s him. Stop and let me out.”
The taxi rolled to a halt, and the driver glanced back at her. “I don’t think that’s such a smart idea, lady. This guy might be dangerous.”
“I could at least get a good picture of him.” And before the cabbie could reply, she opened the door and hopped out.
Standing between the taxi’s open door and this man, who’d stopped to stare at her, Anya raised her watch to capture an image before he could get away. Then she noticed his eyes—cold and hard, and still staring at her. She’d seen dead, empty eyes like that before, and she felt a shiver run up her spine.
The otherwise nondescript man smiled and lifted his arm to look at his own watch and then back at her. With a shock, Anya realized he was confirming her as the blip on a locator screen.
He’s got one of our watches. Turning, she dove back into the back seat of the cab. “Go. Now. Get us out of here.” The driver hit the gas and the taxi flew forward.
Almost numb with shock, Anya yanked the door closed as the taxi rounded a corner, making for the exit. Three floors below. She heard a squeal of tires and glanced back. She couldn’t see the black SUV, but she knew that had to have been the sound of it pulling out to come after them. Then she thought to look down at her watch and check her own locator app—which indicated another Travel device still in range behind her.
She checked the picture she’d taken of him, the picture of a killer. Not someone she recognized. It didn’t take her long to run through the possibilities—of course, one of the others might have lost their Travel devices in the future or the past, but she only knew of one of their watches that was definitely unaccounted for. Kirin’s.
According to Sam’s letter, which had been awfully short on details, she didn’t know what had become of Kirin’s helper device when she died. Anya hoped that was the only watch on the loose. With it being unable to Travel on its own, the only problem was its ability to track other, similar devices—a big problem right now, though, considering who might be using it to track Anya.
With eyes like those, he had to be some kind of violent criminal, and she had no doubt he’d learned enough to use the locator screen. She needed to get away from him. That meant putting some distance between them, enough so she could Travel without taking him back to the future with her. But how am I going to do that?
The cabbie pulled out of the parking garage and into the street. “Where to now?”
Anya looked down at her locator screen to confirm that her pursuer was still in range. Then she looked up and saw the thick traffic. “I don’t know. Let me think.”
The man was too close behind her to shake easily, unless they could get to open highway, and even then it would be difficult. Getting to a train station or airport wouldn’t help. He would probably still be close enough to board the same train or plane as she did, and how would she stop him? Somehow she’d have to figure out how to put over a hundred meters between them in a very short period. Then she had a brainwave.
“Drop me off in front of the Whitaker building, please. And then forget all about this.”
The cabbie glanced back with a frown. “Lady, I don’t like to say I told you so, but I said it was a bad idea, what you were doing.”
“Indeed. I should’ve left it to the police.”
It was only as the taxi wound its way toward the Whitaker building that Anya wondered why she was being pursued. Whoever that man might be, clearly he knew enough about the watch he was wearing to track Anya—she thought she could safely assume he wanted to lay his hands either on Anya herself or on her device. Can he possibly have guessed my watch can Travel? Had he already been tracking me?
He’d been right there to run into the professor, and Anya couldn’t consider that a coincidence. If he had been tracking anyone, it couldn’t have been the professor or any of the others, because they’d come through just a moment before the accident. He had to have been following her.
Rather than worry about that, she needed to be concerned with getting away from the man, and the Whitaker building was just a little further down this street full of skyscrapers.
Exactly what she needed. Most, if not all, of the tall buildings had express elevators—to take people past the lower levels to the upper floors. She hoped her familiarity with the Whitaker would help her go quickly to one of the right elevators and get on, and without her pursuer getting on with her.
The cab screeched to a halt on the other side of two parked cars in front of the main entrance to the Whitaker, and Anya popped out and ran for the big glass doors. She darted through a closing door and sprinted across the lobby’s marble floor to the bank of express elevators. Making sure every call button had been pushed, she waited on her tiptoes.
As soon as she heard the ding and saw the light come on above one set of doors, she went straight to stand in front of them and pushed her way in as the doors opened and people started filing out. Pushing the button for the top floor, Anya relaxed.
This elevator only stopped at the highest floors, so even as she watched a few other people getting on and hitting other buttons, she didn’t worry. None of them was the man with the eyes.
The last woman in hit the button for the forty-ninth floor and the doors closed. The elevator rose with a lurch and accelerated so fast Anya could feel her stomach dropping as they zoomed upward. The first forty-eight floors would be bypassed before she knew it. And since twenty floors would put about a hundred meters distance between her and the man chasing her, then she should be safe to Travel by the time it reached the forty-ninth. Or the forty-fifth.
This express elevator wouldn’t stop at any floor below that, but if someone pushed one of those call buttons, it might stop before the forty-ninth, so she excused her way through the other occupants of the car to stand right before the doors. She had to wait until she could get off the elevator before she could safely Travel, but she didn’t want to wait a moment longer than she had to.
Not wanting to waste any time, Anya set the coordinates on her watch to Travel the full three years into the future. Then she remembered to switch her used battery for Tate’s fresh one.
Once Anya could Travel without taking this other watchbearer along to the future, he’d only be able to track the earlier version of Anya—and she hadn’t had any problems with him in the past—so that was alright. And none of the others had mentioned having to deal with this sinister man, so everything was alright. And it would remain that way, because you couldn’t change your own past. Though apparently you could cause it.
Her efforts to save the professor had been a disaster from start to finish. Once she was back in two thousand three, Anya could consider her failure and what, if anything, she could or would do next.
The bell dinged and the car settled on the forty-ninth floor, and the second the doors opened, Anya was stepping off onto plush carpet and into a large lobby. And then she Traveled.