CHAPTER TWO: April 15, 2016

The spinning slows. Suddenly, everything stops.

The office we’ve landed in is every bit Dr. Wells’s, from the antique desk taking up the center of the room—covered with every kind of paper and writing utensil imaginable—to the one-of-a-kind artwork on the walls. I land in front of one depicting some long-ago battle and know that all I’d have to do is ask and Dr. Wells would give me a full graduate-level lecture on the event, as well as each of the historical figures depicted.

“You quite all right down there?” Dr. Wells’s face appears over the pile of papers, a hint of concern tugging at his oversized brows and a bead of sweat lingering on his mustache.

“Just a little disoriented.” I pull myself up to a nearby chair and take a deep breath. My head throbs and my body feels off-balanced, as if somehow the world beneath me is spinning just slightly off-kilter from how it does a hundred years later. “Home, sweet 21st century.”

I’d never been to the Place in Time Travel Agency before, but I knew it was in New York City—a fact made all too clear as the hum and buzz of the city leaks through the office’s single window. Cars rumble by, horns honk, and somewhere nearby, a large vehicle backs up with an incessant beep, beep, beep, beep. I’d forgotten how noisy this era was, with its combustion engines and constant construction, the incessant chatter of cell phones and machines. It makes me want to press my hands to my ears.

“Tea?” Dr. Wells asks, offering me a steaming mug that he seems to have pulled out of nowhere. Either that, or he prepared it before jumping to the future, knowing I’d need something to calm my nerves upon my return. Either way, I appreciate the gesture.

“I’m usually a coffee-drinker, you know,” I say as I sip from the mug. It’s some flavor I haven’t tasted or smelled in a long time; I can’t even remember what it’s called anymore. Were the herbs it’s made from lost in the last century? Or did they just go out of style? “Good stuff, though, this.”

Dr. Wells nods absently as he flits around the office, gathering up a collection of items in front of me. A suit, pressed and black. A bowler hat. A billfold, stuffed with paper dollars. A pocket watch.

“Looks like I’m either going back further,” I say, “or vintage clothing has circled back into style since I’ve been gone.”

Dr. Wells looks up as if he’d forgotten I’m here. “Oh! Yes, that’s right. You need a debriefing. Where to begin?” He sighs and collapses back into his chair. “How much do you know about what we do here?”

“Just what Elise told me. Your clients pay the big bucks for you to send them into the past on little vacations or getaways or research trips or whatever. All very hush-hush, referrals only.”

“Yes, yes.” Dr. Wells nods. “I suppose that does sum it up nicely. Now, as you might imagine, being in this sort of business does have its own particular… hazards.”

“Clients getting in over their heads, you mean?”

“Well, that too. Though that’s what we have our Retrievers, like Elise, for.” He sighs. “It’s been difficult to find a replacement for her. She really was one of the most skilled time travelers I’ve worked with. There’s one girl I believe is showing promise, but— Never mind that. No, I was referring to the dangers here in the present. People who have discovered what we do and wish to exploit my technology for their own purposes.”

“Right.” I shift in my chair. That’s precisely what the Trial Undertaking Bureau, or TUB, had done back when I still worked for them. I was lucky I’d gotten out when I did, before things got too messy. Yet something about Dr. Wells’s expression makes me wonder. “TUB isn’t causing trouble for you again, are they?”

“I’m afraid so. Or at least, I assume it’s them. See, their interest in the future revolved solely around the Continuum.”

I nod. That was the name of the space colony TUB sent me to assess. They’d wanted to evaluate the outcome of their investment—their legacy.

“So they found out about the disaster? That couldn’t have been welcome news.”

“Yes, and unfortunately, they’ve come to entirely the wrong conclusion. Shortly after Elise’s return, TUB sent another of my Retrievers into the future and the information he brought back led them to believe that, instead of Retrieving you, Elise sabotaged the colony to ensure its destruction.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would anyone think she’d do something like that?”

“Tell me—what’s being reported in your time, a year after the disaster?”

“Not much,” I admit. “It’s still under investigation.”

“When the Continuum’s Governing Board finally releases its report, it will include testimony from a security guard who claims he pursued an unidentified, unauthorized woman through the colony’s restricted areas just before the order to evacuate. The Governing Board—desperate to defend themselves against charges of neglect and mismanagement—will latch onto this idea and within days of this announcement, this unknown woman will be the most-wanted terrorist of the 22nd century. I contacted you before this all went public so that you wouldn’t be alarmed.”

I curse beneath my breath. “Is she in danger?”

“I’ve sent her into the past,” Dr. Wells says, “where she’s living under another name as a contemporary. No one, not even TUB, should be able to trace her. However…”

Here, he holds out a folder. Inside are copies of census records, birth records, marriage certificates, and a few faded black-and-white photos.

“What’s all this?” I ask, turning over an image of a young girl with a pug on her lap.

“That,” Dr. Wells says. “Is Elise’s great-great-grandmother. She was born in 1875. She is the most vulnerable of her direct ancestors.”

My head jerks upward. “What do you mean, most vulnerable? What is TUB planning?”

“I don’t know,” Dr. Wells admits. “They’ve gone dark. I haven’t been contacted since my Retriever brought back that report. However, I have friends in genealogical libraries and research centers around the world, as well as those who work with all the major search engines. It’s important, you see, that Retrievers not cross paths with their direct ancestors. That sort of entanglement can cause all sorts of trouble. Perhaps you’ve heard of a Grandfather Paradox?”

It sounds vaguely familiar, but Dr. Wells doesn’t give me time to respond before continuing.

“It deals with the matter of what would happen if a time traveler were to kill his own grandfather before his father was conceived. There could be no time traveler then, could there? Would the traveler cease to exist and therefore be unable to kill his grandfather? Or would time splinter into an alternate path, leaving the traveler no present to return to in which he exists? Some hypothesize that a paradox like that would unravel the universe. You see what trouble that might cause?”

I nod mutely, still staring down at the image.

“I am concerned that TUB may want to test that theory. If they cannot get their hands on Elise herself, they may simply attempt to eliminate one of her direct ancestors instead.” He grabs one of the pages from my hands, upon which is a family tree. Slowly, he tears the sheet in half, severing the names on the top from those on the bottom. “Thus, destroying her family line and preventing her existence.”

“And this is the ancestor they plan to go after?” I hold up the photograph. “How do you know?”

“I told you, I have well-connected friends. When TUB broke off communication with me, I asked them to keep an eye on Elise’s family tree. Fortunately, one of them alerted me when she noticed a suspicious number of searches coming up for a particular young woman in the late 18th century. She was an only child, orphaned at a young age, and spent one summer in her early adult years on the road as a magician’s assistant. I’m sure you can see the potential there. A young woman with no family, no roots, always a stranger in town, with no one to look out for her… It would be a golden opportunity for them, a time when she would be incredibly vulnerable.”

“Yes, I see, “ I say, frowning. “But what do you need me for? What could I do?”

“Haven’t you been listening?” Dr. Wells says, pushing his glasses up farther on his nose. “I suspect they mean to kill her, and I need you to go back there and stop them.”