And there were bars.
Acacia moved me through one set of bars, into a small room. I became aware of the air on my skin again; it was a neutral temperature, not hot or cold. I could turn my head and flex my fingers. I saw Acacia as she walked back through the bars the same way we’d entered, like a ghost. I saw the green light on her fingernails fade as she gripped the bars—which seemed quite solid—for a moment. “I’m sorry, Joe,” she said, and walked away.
I could move again. And I was a prisoner of TimeWatch.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“SHE’S TRYING TO HELP you.”
My guard was a man who didn’t look like me at all, which had taken some getting used to. Actually, he looked like a normal guy, the kind I might’ve seen walking down the street in my world, the kind who may have been a policeman or a businessman. He stood up tall, and hadn’t looked at me even once since he’d planted himself as an immovable object in front of my cell.
I didn’t say “door” because there wasn’t one, from what I could tell. The bars were simple, went from the floor to the ceiling, and I didn’t see anything resembling hinges anywhere. When I’d first entered, the cell had seemed quite complex; I’d felt my passage through it like a moment of cold fog, and when Acacia had left me I’d seen the bars ripple for an instant, like disturbed water.
I’d been stuck here for hours, unable to do anything but pace, and my guard had—until now—not lent himself very well to conversation.
“Why do you say that?” At his silence, I felt my temper—which was precarious to begin with—slip a notch. “Oh, come on. You’ve been doing that statue routine for hours; now that you’ve started talking, you don’t get to just stop again. Why do you think she’s trying to help me?”
“She said so.”
I gestured at my surroundings. “How is this helping, exactly?”
“You’re safe here.”
“I didn’t ask to be kept safe!”
“It’s her job.”
I couldn’t help thinking of what Jay had told me through Hue, and I took a deep breath before asking. “Which is, exactly?”
“To protect you.”
“It’s her job to protect the future,” I snapped. “Where does that include electrocuting me and shoving me in a cell?”
He turned to face me at that, meeting my gaze for the first time since he’d come down here. “You are the future, Joseph Harker.”
Something in my stomach knotted into a hard ball, and my tongue suddenly felt too big for my mouth. I was just one in an army—an army of me, yes, but that was just the point. They were all me. He had to mean all of us. He had to mean InterWorld, right?
I have no idea what I would have said to that, if I’d gotten the chance to respond. Right at that moment, however, a large man in a black suit came up behind the guard, clapping a hand on his shoulder. The guard jumped—for a moment I thought, from his expression, that he was under attack. He took a single step back, turning and bowing his head, then left without another word to me.
The man in the suit was tall and well muscled, wearing black sunglasses with reflective lenses and some kind of earpiece. Honestly, he looked so much like a stereotypical bodyguard that I expected to see someone else with him, maybe a small, important-looking man or a woman in a jeweled tiara. He was alone, though, and I could tell he was looking at me as he made a gesture, and a door-sized portion of the bars simply evaporated.
“You are to come with me, Joseph Harker.” His mouth hadn’t moved, but I knew the words had come from him. How, I wasn’t sure, but I’d seen far stranger things in my time at InterWorld.
“Where’s Acacia?”
“You will not find her here if you attempt to run. Do not bother.”
I nodded my acquiescence. As he raised his hand to make another gesture toward the bars, I ducked around him, darting through. I put my hand to the shield disk at my belt, activating it in case he attempted to stop me with a blaster or something even as I wondered why Acacia had let me keep it—and then I was on my back, staring up at him. He’d just suddenly been there, in front of me, with no indication of how he’d gotten there. Almost like he’d Walked, though I hadn’t sensed a portal…
“Do not bother attempting to run,” he said again, in the exact same tone he’d used before. He sounded bored.
He reached toward me. I rolled sideways, only to feel his fingers close about the back of my tunic—and he lifted me, as though I weighed nothing. I wasn’t even surrounded by the green light this time; it wasn’t a gravity repulsor field, or whatever Acacia had used. I kicked at him, not sure what I was expecting this time. I figured he’d have some fancy trick to counter it, but why not give it a shot anyway?
My foot struck what should have been a nerve bundle on his thigh, but he simply…didn’t react. At all. I felt flesh beneath his clothing, but there was not a flinch, not a wince, not an exhalation of breath in response to my attack. Finally, figuring I should do the smart thing and give up for real this time, I spread my hands in surrender.
He set me down but did not release my shirt. I didn’t much care; I wasn’t really interested in attempting to run again. Not if I were likely to run into more like him, which I imagined I was. Best to gather information about where I was first.
“Where am I going?” At his silence, I persisted. “You said I was to come with you. Where are we going?”
“InterWorld Base Town.” His tone still had no emotion at all.
“Oh. You could have told me that when you let me out of the cell. I wouldn’t have run.” He remained silent yet again, so I committed myself to learning my surroundings as we walked through the halls.
As before, the hallways were gray and colorless, floor-to-ceiling bars lining them at intervals. At first, all the cells looked empty; then I noticed odd shadows within them, some of them humanoid and others not, some moving and some sitting (or otherwise being still; some of them were so shapeless it was impossible to tell). I listened, but heard nothing. It was more than a little unnerving.
We walked through several hallways like that, my escort immediately behind me with his hand gripping my shirt, until we were once again beneath the pastel “sky.” There was no elevator this time. We simply walked through halls until we came to a larger room, better lit with that sky crawling across the ceiling. As far as I could tell, we’d walked in a straight line, yet somehow arrived in one of the upper floors. Unless the roof-window-sky-whatever was on the lower floors, too. I wasn’t sure.
The room was empty, and I took this opportunity to look around as we walked. I’d only been able to look in one direction the last time I was here, if it was even the same area. The walls looked almost like those of a nice hotel lobby; the room was circular, the walls a rosy beige color. Artwork hung on them, abstractly pretty scenes of ships at sea, lighthouses, birds in flight. I looked down, tracing the gold lines etched into the floor until I recognized the pattern as a nautical star. The theme seemed to make perfect sense, somehow—just as something else didn’t.
“Why send me back home, if Acacia told me it isn’t safe?”
“The council decided.”
“Are you on the council?”
“No.”
“Who is?”
“Councilors.”
His tone was still completely emotionless, the words somehow delivered from that impassive face, but I was pretty well certain he was being snide.
“So who are you?”
“Your guide. Watch your step.”
I glanced down; there was, in fact, a step into the next room, if it even was a room. The floor was completely black, to the point where I doubted my foot would come into contact with anything. It did, though, and it seemed somehow firmer than the marble I’d been standing on previously.
“Good luck, Joseph Harker.” His hand released my shirt, and I turned to look at him—and encountered only blackness. I put a hand out, and it brushed against a firm wall that had the texture of static. The room was compl
etely black, yet I could see my hand and arm as clearly as if it was broad daylight. I saw all the way to my shoes when I looked down, though nothing but sheer blackness surrounded me.
Sample acquired.
I wasn’t sure anyone had spoken, yet somehow the words hung in the silence.
Timestream found. Path mapping.
A small light appeared in my peripheral vision, then another, and another, until I was surrounded by a field of stars. Stars I recognized. Constellations I hadn’t seen in I didn’t even know how long. The Little and Big Dippers, Orion, Cassiopeia, the Lion. The North Star.
I didn’t realize I was smiling until they shifted, whirling and swirling around me until it was a constant stream of light, and then—and the feeling was familiar enough now that I recognized it—I fell through time.
The landing wasn’t as easy as before.
I mean, it hadn’t really been easy, what with the vomiting the first time and the dizziness and being held captive the second. Thing is, I’d stayed conscious for all that.
I don’t know how long I was out, or even why I was out in the first place. I just knew that my bed consisted of rocks, pebbles, and shards of glass, and I tasted blood in my mouth as I came to. My head ached like someone had it in a vise, and my vision was so blurry I could hardly see anything.
I slowly pushed myself to my hands and knees, then my feet. The smell of smoke hung in the air, and wherever I was was silent as the grave.
This wasn’t right. My guard hadn’t spoken all that much, but I did remember him saying I was going back to InterWorld. Was I not there yet? Did I have to Walk somewhere else first?
My vision was clearing, allowing me little details here and there. The sun was bright above me, which was not only unhelpful to both my headache and the watering of my eyes, it was outright betraying my mental image of the place when I’d smelled the smoke. I’d assumed it would be overcast, dark. There was no smoke anywhere, nor fire, but I felt ash covering my hands as I rubbed them together. I was in what must have once been a garden, a path of pebbles and sand (and ash and glass…) moving precisely through the twisted, blackened remains of bushes and trees.
Gravel crunched beneath my feet as I walked, slowly, taking everything in. Peering between the scorched limbs lining the path afforded me glimpses of long, rectangular boxes, sitting silently in the gardens. Long, silver boxes. The kind Jay had been sent away in, and Jerzy.
I started to run.
There was a structure up ahead, an entrance, just where I knew it would be. Where I’d walked in alongside Jo after Jerzy’s funeral, berating myself for not having taken her hand.
The door didn’t slide open as I approached—there wasn’t one, just a twisted scrap of metal half blocking the entryway. I climbed over it, waiting for that maddeningly calm voice to recognize and greet me. I was met with silence.
The halls didn’t look familiar, yet I knew exactly where to go. Some of the doors were still sealed, but it took no strength at all to pry them open. The computer was off-line, the mechanisms just ordinary gears and wheels with nothing to lock them down. No power. There was no power in the entire base—I could see only by the light filtering in shafts from the holes in the walls and roof, motes of ash and dust stirring frantically as I passed. When the sun went down, I’d be left in darkness.
I found a blaster halfway down a hall, and took it; I was immensely grateful for the feel of it in my hand, until it fell apart. Literally. It broke in two. The metal at the grip was rusted almost through. I stood there for a few moments in the hallway, the noise seeming impossibly loud in the silence, but nothing stirred. Nothing at all.
I ran faster, bolting through the hallways and leaping over debris, through doors and around corners. Even though everything looked different, things were still naggingly similar; I knew where everything was. I found the Old Man’s office with not a single wrong turn.
The scorch marks were the worst, here. The furniture was overturned, obviously having been used as a barricade at some point. The huge silver desk Josetta always sat behind was on its side, laser burns marring the smooth finish. The plush chairs and patterned oval rug were nothing but ash and dust. The door to the Old Man’s office was caved in, rusted and splattered with a dried, flaky substance I didn’t want to inspect more closely.
Everyone was gone.
InterWorld was destroyed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I WAS REMINDED OF the time I’d sat upon the surface of an unknown planet, Jay’s body at my side, and wept. I’d cried for the loss of someone I’d just met, someone who’d nevertheless saved my life a dozen times by then. I’d cried for myself, for the loneliness of knowing I was changed forever. For the family I doubted I’d ever see again. For how everything was different. I’d cried until a shadow passed over me, and InterWorld came to pick me up and take Jay home.
This time, I cried for the loss of my home, the second one I’d had to say good-bye to. For the loss of my second family, even the ones I hadn’t known as well. For the fact that I’d been too late.
For how Acacia had betrayed me.
After a while I stood, brushing the ash off my hands so I could wipe the tears from my face. I climbed over the door, into the Old Man’s office. It was ransacked: his desk overturned, papers scattered everywhere. I gave a thought to going through them, then decided I didn’t care. It was too dim in here to read, probably even too dim to find what I wanted, but I looked anyway. I looked for the picture I’d seen before, of him and Acacia. I wanted it to tell me why I’d trusted her, why he’d trusted her.
The picture didn’t tell me anything—I never found it. Instead, when I put a hand on the Old Man’s desk, it flashed a bright blue, so bright I had to look away. A jolt of adrenaline went through me; it was the first thing that had reacted to my presence since I arrived. I was on my feet and back against the wall in a second, racking my mind for any memory of the Old Man’s security systems.
The light was condensing, forming into sections, then squiggles, then letters, then words.
Joey Harker, they said. Do not panic.
The Old Man’s desk was talking to me.
Traced your signal, it said. Same world, same plane—in the future. Thousands of years.
I felt my knees go weak with relief. I was in the future—it still wasn’t ideal, I didn’t want this to be InterWorld’s future, this crumbling ruin housing nothing but ashes and echoes, but it was better than it happening in my lifetime. For me, anyway. I kept reading.
Placing a trigger on this message—if you are reading it, you’ve found Captain Harker’s office. Don’t know what IW will be like in the future. Get to the port room if you can. Sending something to help. Can only guess your location in time. Don’t touch anything else!
Good luck,
Josetta
I took a breath, waiting, but nothing else happened. After a moment, the letters faded; I touched the desk again, with the exact same result, the exact same words. So it wasn’t “real time,” as it were—it was literally a prerecorded script. Josetta must have used the tracer when I didn’t come back, and set up the message and trigger for me. My only real concern was how long it had been until she decided to look for me….
I looked down at the papers again, still tempted to try finding that picture…but Josetta had said not to touch anything, and I wasn’t entirely sure she’d have a way of knowing whether I had or not. I left the room the way it was.
The port room was, as mentioned, all the way to the left of InterWorld. The Old Man’s office was at the center, just about; I could make it there in ten minutes, four if I ran. I wondered what she was sending me. Walkers couldn’t time travel, and neither could InterWorld itself—and even if it could, it certainly couldn’t travel to itself in the future. I couldn’t use the port room to warp back from here to there, could I?
“Even if I could, the ship is powered down,” I muttered to myself, feeling a little better as the silence was broken. I wasn’t too worr
ied about anything finding me; the entire base was silent and still, and I’d been trained nine ways from Sunday on the importance of heightened senses and being aware of your surroundings. I was alone on a dead world, one that used to be my home.
I couldn’t help wondering if there were other messages for me, scattered throughout the world or on the other ships. Probably not, now that I thought of it. Josetta would have known the first place I’d go was the Old Man’s office. Not only was it instinct, it was protocol. Still, I was curious about what had happened here—and as an agent of InterWorld, wasn’t it my duty to find out? Maybe we could put precautions in place, something to stop this…
“But she said not to touch anything.” I was picking my way through a hall that must have been used as a choke point for whatever had attacked them—us—though there were no bodies of any kind. Despite all the signs of struggle and Josetta’s message, I hadn’t encountered a single piece of evidence that anything living had ever been here. I didn’t know how to feel about that.
I thought of all the coffins outside, all those silver boxes that carried us home when we died, wherever home was. Maybe I should have looked inside. The thought gave me chills.
I was still a hall or two over from the port room when I stopped, my hand brushing against something tacked to the wall. I squinted; the light was dim here, only one crack letting the red sunset through, but I was able to make out the words I’m sorry written in big, bold letters. I stared at them, at the paper taped haphazardly to the wall, and as my eyes adjusted I saw another. It said nothing, but had an artistic drawing of a redheaded, freckle-faced girl. A necklace hung next to it, dangling half over an embroidered napkin.
The red light from outside hit a bit of reflective metal, brightening the hallway just slightly. More notes, scraps of fabric, and other miscellaneous items dotted this wall, and I realized it wasn’t a wall but the Wall, still being added to all these years—centuries—later.