Death Thieves (39 page)

“No. I don’t need to go in.” I thought about crazy people and crazy wars. No one would let a stranger in their home under the best circumstances. “I definitely don’t need to go up, but I would be willing to pay you if you would go up while I sit here on the porch waiting. If you could look for me and see if it’s there, I’d be grateful.” I smiled, hoping I looked in some small way sweet and trustworthy.

She let my request hang between us before saying, “Pay me how much? If the item’s valuable, it’s in my house which makes me the owner.”

Why did people always play hardball? Why couldn’t someone say, “Oh hey, let me be nice and do you this tiny favor that will take me less than two minutes?”

I kept the smile pasted on my face. At least I hoped I did. “The item is an old broken down watch. I’ll pay whatever you think it’s worth. You name the price.” If I named a price and she felt the price was too low after finding it, she might lie to me and say it wasn’t there.

She shrugged, shifted the baby again, and said, “Where is it?”

I told her and then sat on the porch to wait. I heard the door lock engage and sighed. So the world wasn’t sunshine and roses in the future, but it wasn’t crazy wars and dead toddlers, either. I could live with that.

Less than two minutes later, the woman was back. “This what you’re looking for?” She held out the Orbital.

I sucked in my breath. “So it was there.” I tried not to look too excited. “How much do you want for it?”

She looked skeptically at it. “It doesn’t look like it’s worth much.”

“No. It doesn’t.” I agreed.

“Eh. Take it. I don’t know what I’d do with it.” She handed it to me.

Not believing my luck, I accepted her offering. I pulled a few bills from Tag’s wallet and held them out for the woman anyway. “Buy your baby something special—something that’ll last for a few years, past his third birthday.”

***

I laid the Orbital out in the sun, letting it soak in power for the rest of the day. Once it had charged, it was time to go. I finally bound the Orbital to my arm and pressed the screen to make it show me where, and when, Tag had hidden himself.

He wasn’t very original. He’d only moved a few years into the future from when he’d left me. I hired a car to travel to his location in my current time, took a deep breath and pressed my screen.

Then, the tug at my stomach, the tightness in my chest, the blur of the world spinning around me.

When the world snapped into vision again in the same place only a few years later—, it was 2121. He was in the park, sitting on a bench just down the street from the diner he’d left me in. I smiled at Tag’s surprise. He shook his head as if trying to clear his head from this “mirage” he had in front of him. He jumped to his feet. “What are you do—”

He was going to ask me, yet again, what I was doing there. Honestly, the man could never just be glad to see me. I shut him up by throwing my arms around him and planting my mouth firmly over his. He tried to break away at first, but the attempt was feeble, and after the initial moment, he was kissing me back, his mouth tracing kiss after kiss over my lips. The heat between us felt desperate, melting all the pain of the years away until it was just us. Us in time—any time—it didn’t matter
when
so long as we were together. His hand went to the back of my head, his fingers lacing through my hair, pulling me closer.

His warmth and energy filled me with life; the waiting seemed to unload itself into that one moment of heat—like a flash fire—brilliant, beautiful.

It was almost physically painful when he came to his senses and broke away, sticking out his arm to put me at a distance and trying to fumble with the Orbital at his wrist, trying to run away from me again. “No.” He mumbled that several times while trying to make his hands work at the Orbital. “I won’t . . . I can’t.”

I grabbed his hand firmly and shoved him back down onto the bench. I scooted next to him, making certain to keep hold of his hand in mine so he couldn’t jump away to somewhen else. “I’ve seen the future,” I said. “I’ve seen our child.
Our
child, Tag. And he’s beautiful! And he eats like a horse. I hope we make good money, because he’s going to be one expensive kid. And he’s beautiful!” My voice cracked. “That means that we find a cure for you. That means we have a future together. But we have to
stay
together to make that future happen. Between the two of us, you with your brains and me with my research, it probably won’t even take too long. I love you, Tag. And this is our sliver of midnight—this very moment we’re standing in. This is the sliver of time when we make the right decisions for our lives. The first time you spoke to me, you told me I was dead. Now, I’ve got a message for you—”

I gripped his hand tighter. “You’re alive, Taggert Shaw. And it’s time for us to live.”