Chapter One

Traveler

I exist in the hidden spaces of the world that when seen for a moment in time, it all goes still. Today, I impatiently exist in the stagnant room #127 in front of a dying man. His cheeks are sallow and sunken. His hair is no longer black and full. His frame is brittle and weakened. Once strong and meticulous hands are now replaced with curled fingers where there is marked evidence of IV needles. His breath is quantified. He is my great grandfather…six times removed.

This man is skeletal in comparison to the handsome photograph I discovered rotting in the Heritage Repository, along with countless other artifacts of past generations. I spent days combing through files and albums, and Randall James Berkley Sr. was far from my first choice. I’m pissed. This assignment is pointless, and I have every intention of finding Arden when I return and letting him know I’m done with these. Out of the hundreds of ancestors to choose from, I get this piece of shit. I look at the clock, only three minutes left.

The information on Randall Berkley Sr. was virtually nonexistent. The man was alone in the world, like one might expect a lifelong alcoholic would be. He worked his hours quarantined in a tin-roofed shop behind a beaten-down trailer repairing cars. His friends and family grew exasperated with his addiction long before his liver did. As a result, he now lies here expiring alone. Except for me, the asshole sent here to watch him die, on assignment.

This is my fifth assignment this semester: Shift to an Ancestor’s Passing. Before I left, Arden explained that this mission is designed to “enrich the understanding of our ancestry while sharpening our manifestation and blending skills.” Being the fastest in ranks as an Observer, no one would be surprised to hear that it was a textbook execution in Time Shifting. It’s the blending I take issue with. I was told early on that I did not possess the appearance nor the demeanor to be a shifter. Though I never met her, I’ve read about my mother and her traits. I have her exotic brown skin and dark hair, her green eyes that don’t seem to match my complexion. “He has too much potential to catch the eye of those in the past,” the Diagnostic Division proclaimed. Unfortunately for them, speed and stubborn determination were qualities I did possess, and I made it my goal to prove them wrong. Well, mostly wrong. I surface with perfection, I execute the task at hand, and then somewhere between the task at hand and returning, my curiosity takes hold.

His heavy lids raise, and for a moment I think that he may speak. Instead, a mucousy bark escapes from his lips, and I cringe. His hacking is like a plague on my mood, and I’m two steps from my exit when I see the old man pawing for a lukewarm cup of water placed by his bed, just out of reach. Stay in the background. Two minutes of air left flowing through his lungs, and he’s spending it pining for stale water.

A nurse comes into the room, seemingly bothered by the intrusion on her lunch break. She smells of burnt bologna and appears indifferent to his struggle while waddling to the bedside, pressing a button next to his head, and raising him fully. With shallow, uneven breaths and shaky hands, he waves her away. The nurse fidgets with the monitors and cords, pressing fluid bags and making notes on a chart placed by the machines, avoiding all eye contact with her patient. “I’m headed to get your medication, Mr. Berkley,” she finally says to the man as she leaves the room. He fixes his eyes on the ceiling and then shuts them abruptly, as if to close himself off from the world around him. I wonder if he thinks he can hide from it.

“What do you want?” he mumbles. I smile, but it isn’t pleasant. “You just gonna stand there and stare at a man on his death bed or you have somethin’ you feel like sayin’?” He carefully opens his eyes and grazes them across my face. “You lost?” he questions.

I attempt a gentle voice, but it comes out unnatural. “I’m Traveler.” Blend in. His lips part to speak, then recognition sparks a fraction of a second before a piercing alarm rings through the sticky air. The nurses rush in as the man and I lock eyes in the shadowy corner of room #127. I like to imagine he feels relieved to know that it’s over. That he is indeed over. That some part of him is resigned to the idea of his own passing. A fleeting urge to walk over to him causes the muscles in my legs to spasm. I close the distance between myself and the dying stranger.

“Sir. Sir! You can’t be in here,” the nurse says, and she gently pushes me toward the door. Make yourself forgettable. Looking back, Randall James Berkley Sr. is dying with his face pleading for more and his mind confused about where the time has gone.

There should be more fluidity to my emotions. Some type of waver. There isn’t. I find myself not the slightest bit saddened or put off by Berkley’s death. I am, however, on the verge of anger about why it was here Arden chose for me to surface. I’m being punished. And since Arden is the executor of this punishment, it’s quite passive-aggressive. His voice echoes in my mind, “Traveler, the potential you possess as a great shifter should be cherished. Others pine for your talent.” I’m on probation for the second time, and it is with one more blending incident that I’m banished from the program entirely. If Vlad and the Shifting Authority would mind their damn business, I might be able to get more out of these assignments, as Arden requested. I lean against the wall, head back, eyes closed. “After your ancestor has expired, reflect. Take a moment in the period of time you are in to fully understand why this passing came to be. How does it make you feel?” Fucked. “What can you take away from this experience to better guide you in your future surfacing assignments?” I hate the smell of bologna. Stay away from places that serve bologna. “How do you relate to your ancestor?” I’m alone…and I could go for a drink.

“Sir.” A gentle voice pulls my attention to a kind-faced woman looking up at me from the registration desk. She has her dark hair wrapped around the crown of her head and the harsh florescent light reflects off the glasses perched on her nose. She stands, smiling at me, and with a curious expression asks, “Are you okay?” I look back at her, unable to name the alien emotion taking over. My lips twitch. “Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you. Just leaving,” I respond. She looks slightly disappointed and turns her attention back to whatever is on her desk.

I shove away from the wall, deciding to practice blending. There has to be a decent place to get a beer in this town. Glancing down at the countdown illuminated under my wrist, I know there is plenty of time before I am expected back.

There is a gaping hole in the pleasantries of this surfacing, and I’m willing to do anything I can to get back in Arden’s good graces. Otherwise, my next assignment might be to observe my uncle times eight. I’m not too fond of the idea of dying in a prison yard.

The Heritage Division decided generations ago that documenting lineage by multiples was much easier. With time shifting, small family trees quickly turned into rolling hills of orchards. When one has the ability to witness thousands of years in ancestry, it tends to get confusing. The Heritage tower is the largest in the United World Division, or as the people in this blistering Alabama summer call it…America. UWD now sits one-fourth the size of the original United States. Unforeseeable occurrences that obliterated the coastlines shaped the world we live in today. Not the today I’m currently standing in, the today of 2365. The vast population that was once spread far and wide across the nation, is now condensed into three cities so immense that combined they engulf Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska. My Division resides in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. The small southern town I’m currently standing in was saturated by the Mississippi when The Occurrence took place over three hundred years ago.

I’ve been to these forgettable towns before. The citizens breed their offspring into the world, ignorant of what’s to come. They are full of hopes and dreams for their children. “You will do great things! You will change the world.” But it’s the world that will forsake them. It’s the world that will keep its knowledge secret until it’s far too late for anyone to escape. This is why I find it difficult to blend. What does it matter? The blonde I screwed a month ago in her “paw paw’s” hayloft? Dead. All of Louisiana is under water. That three-year-old kid who saw me manifest in his backyard treehouse? Dead. His family lineage would have never proven to be useful to the UWD. This is why I am on probation. And this is why Vlad wants me out of the program. It’s understandable. The Shifting Authorities’ main purpose is to weed out guys like me. Can’t let our little secret get out. Too bad for them I’m so proficiently fast at shifting.

I push open the hospital doors, and the humid air blankets my body from head to toe. Why anyone would choose to live here in this oven is mind-boggling. The atmosphere is thick with heat. No one seems happy to be under the sun’s harsh stare as people dart from cars to buildings, evading the rays. I shed my button-down shirt and tie it around my waist. My white T-shirt underneath still feels like a heavy winter coat. My jeans stick to my thighs, and I swear my shoes are melting to the parking lot. Plain and simple clothing, nothing that stands out, blend. I pull my hat down lower, sunglasses on, stare glued to the ground.

It’s a typical southern small-town development. The only thing really standing out is the large, man-made lake that creates a peninsula out of the entire community-. A sign boasting “Bassmasters Pro 2016” stretches across the window of a local tackle and bait shop, beckoning fishermen in with the promise of fresh live bait and the latest gear. I pass a quaint farmers’ market on the Main Street corner. The smell of peaches and melon swirls in the air. The people here seem friendly enough, nodding their head or tossing a wave at the stranger as I walk along. I can’t wait to leave.

Rounding the corner, I don’t hear the pounding on the pavement immediately. What my senses pick up first is the sight of her wild brown hair flying past me. A blur. The faint sound of music trailing behind her. In an instant she’s gone, and all that is left in the muggy air is the unfamiliar smell of citrus. I turn in a complete circle. What in the hell was that? I see, whatever the tangled-headed mess was, has lost something a few yards ahead. I quicken my pace to collect it. Collecting an object during shifting isn’t in an Observer’s wheelhouse…yet.

There are three types of shifters: Observers, Collectors, and Herders. Once I graduate from Observation, I will advance to Collecting. As an Observer, my assignments are designed to sharpen my ability to take in my surroundings with all five senses. I take in the people, the events, and learn the most I can about controlling my manifestation and shifting skills. Though I am still considered a beginner, I am quicker at this than most. I’m more speedy and efficient than anyone in my class. Collecting is a little more complex. It becomes increasingly harder to shift forward when you are going back with items you didn’t come with. This includes the food in a shifter’s stomach. Therefore, we are required by the Health Division to have a large meal before traveling. It takes a large amount of advanced concentration to return home when a shifter’s weight has been altered. A collecting assignment will have its shifter gathering specific items to take back that increase with difficulty. This is mainly for practice, but they are the catalyst to get the shifter to the third and final stage in the UWD’s purpose for time travel: Herding. To bring back human life for further advancement in current civilization.

Mysterious disappearances around the nation? Us. Shocking celebrity deaths? Sometimes Us. Alien Abduction? Us. Hell, even a time shifter has a bad day and has been known to drop a human mid-shift. Immediate termination and imprisonment for that one. Most modern-day anomalies in normalcy can be blamed on shifters. Those crazy predictions from Nostradamus weren’t by coincidence. Sometimes we like to leave little clues for inhabitants of the past. Maybe it’s to guide humanity toward a certain outcome; maybe it’s just to fuck with them. Occasionally, an individual from the past catches circumstantial evidence of time travel, but it’s always ignored or explained away by mental illness or unfathomable conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists are our worst enemies, because nine times out of ten those guys are right.

I pick up a compact black and green wallet that the girl seemingly dropped. My fingers are wrapped tightly around it. Maybe instead of reporting back with a complete shit analysis of this assignment, I can report back with something no one else would dare try. After all, how difficult can it really be to bring back something this small? It might slow me down a little, but I’ll still make it back before anyone else.

Jogging toward the clearing in the woods that I manifested from earlier in the day, I’m on high alert, keeping tabs on anyone that could be watching. The shade from the branches above drops my body temperature, and the tension in my shoulders temporarily loosens. The thicket is clawing at my ankles, and I’m listening intently for any variation in the sounds the forest amplifies. I hear every scurry of a squirrel, and every bird squawking to alert timid nature of my presence. A twig snapping in the distance halts my forward motion, and my feet remain planted in the dirt. I’m met with silence. Hot air exits my lungs, and I crack my neck from side to side before taking another step.

Finally, the pines part, and the meadow welcomes me, opening her arms wide for me to enter. Light is already escaping from my palms in anticipation of the shift. A small wind is picking up in the atmosphere, and my arms begin their tingling. I can feel the cool energy sparking at my nerve endings. I envision the white walls of the Health Division, the gathering of classmates as we return one by one to our individual shifting stations, and the magic in the room with everyone speaking at once about their shifting. I’ll be the first to arrive back. I always am. I’m usually waiting hours for the others’ stopwatches to run down. Mine just never seems to get there.

An abundance of blue light is now pouring from my fingertips and palms as I double-check my back pocket for the wallet. It’s there. I can do this. The particles within my body are strengthening. My arms are outstretched, light slicing through the thick summer heat, and it’s then that I see her standing along the tree line. My body goes rigid. Her skin is damp, and her running shoes are covered with evidence of jogging on the trails. Pine needles stick to her shoelaces, and streaks of red clay stain the sides. Long brown curls catch the wind, and wild black eyes stare straight into mine. Her mouth is parted in a silent gasp.

The light is blinding and mixing in the summer air along with the evening tint of a tangerine sky, casting its glow on the field. Walking backward, like prey quietly escaping its predator, the branches swallow her into the forest. And then, as silently as she entered the meadow, she’s fleeing. “Wait!” I call to her.

Like a crack of lightning she’s into the woods. My arms are pumping and pushing my body forward, legs aching, as I’m tearing through the weeds to get to her. I fly around the pines, pausing to listen for clues indicating which direction she could have gone. I’m met with utter silence. Like an elusive creature, she has disappeared into the cover of the trees, dusk camouflaging her existence. Fuck!

The only choice I have is to return to UWD, praying that I’m still early, and praying that the Health Division isn’t alerted to the changes in my monitored vitals. I pull the wallet out from my back pocket and slide the I.D. out of the protective covering. Johanna Martin. I know who she is, and I know her address. She can’t hide forever, because my forever is longer than hers. I just need a little time to form a plan, and I have a lot of that too.