Deviation (16 page)

"Good god," he said. "Who are you?"

Reesa kept her gaze on his face and tried not to flinch again. She should not have written Matthew Borden to look like Jake. It was hard to distinguish the two in her mind, hard to guess at what he might be thinking. What she knew of Jake Mersin was all surface information; a good man shrouded with complication. Matthew Borden was the same, or at least she thought. He was a good man hidden under the ruthlessness of his own business.

"Let's start with your name," Borden gestured toward a large, maroon colored chair.

Reesa moved to sit in it, feeling absolutely naked without the robes and doing a mental scramble to determine what to say. He would undoubtedly have a team of researchers study her name. She wondered for a moment if any information would exist in this timeline. When the Mavirus took out all of the women the world broke into war. Cities, states, nations were blown away as men attempted to gain control of the last surviving females. Information was fragmented, lost, thrown into obscurity as the desperate hunt for survival began. Technology took a back seat to making certain people were fed, which led to a regression from the sleek, pretty styles of her native time period. When she'd been writing, she'd done it all on purpose, wanting to put rust on top of what the world at large considered new and exciting.

"Caresse Zimmerman," she said at last. "But friends call me Reesa Zimms."

"Miss Zimms," Borden sat in the chair across from her. His lean, capable form relaxed against the maroon upholstery and he flashed a lazy smile. "My name is ... "

"Matthew Borden. Yes, I know."

"Ah, so Hedric has told you about me."

She watched him for a moment and tried to decide how much information was too much. This was, in some aspects, a familiar struggle for her. As though she were writing again, feeding plot bits into a scene, creating tension and suspense and a reason for her readers to keep reading.

Only she wasn't writing and she knew it.

Matthew Borden sat across from her, real flesh and blood, suave and handsome in that overwhelming way that made her heart ache. Jake had caused a similar reaction in her, she remembered. From the moment she'd met Jake there had been a palpable attraction. One she knew he reciprocated but never allowed to come to fruition. Not even when she'd held his bleeding shoulder as they waited for the paramedics.

Her mind rebuilt that day vividly; the beige carpet and polite people surrounding the autographing table. But mostly she just saw the gun, black and cold in the feminine hand holding it.

"
There won't be another book
," Tattoo had said.

She didn't have a hard time believing the woman now. Either she had gone super-nova crazy and was rocking herself back and forth in an institute somewhere, or this was real. And if this was real and Tattoo was telling the truth, the odds were that Reesa would never get home. Her heart pinched at the thought of Kate, still at the mercy of Hedric. She could remember the way Kate had looked at her, standing on that pier in the early morning, tired and scared and too stubborn to go home.

Kate didn't deserve this. Kate was a good mother, a happy wife. Her only failing was being friends with Reesa. Somehow, some way, Reesa had to get Kate home.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Reesa brought her attention back to Matthew Borden. Her hero had abandoned her on Oahu, threatened her life and kidnapped her best friend. If she played things right, it was just possible that her villain could save the day.

"I know everything there is to know about you, Matthew. But I did not learn it from Hedric Prosser."

"An interesting statement. Do you care to elaborate?"

Reesa gripped the armrests of her chair and nodded. "I know that your great-great grandfather built the Borden Company. That you strive every day to see its continued success out of some automatic compulsion you've never cared to define."

She saw his eyebrow hike upward but he made no other movement or sign of shock. Reesa knew it was going to take more than history to convince this man of who she was and where she came from. She had to get to his heart, his core, his motivations. She had to share things that he had never uttered out loud.

"Most of that can be found in a database somewhere," he watched her closely. "The other could be speculation."

"You love the ocean," Reesa countered. "The beach at Scotland Bay because you remember your father best there. Everywhere else he was Borden, business man and somewhat tyrannical but on the beach he was someone else. Someone human. On the beach he was just your father."

"That could also be speculation," Matthew shifted in his chair. There was a cautious curiosity in his features that gave her some hope. "It was no secret that Jason Borden took weekly walks on the beach at Scotland Bay."

Feeling slightly defeated, Reesa tried another tactic. The true defining factor of Matthew Borden wasn't his father, she realized. The last scene she had written about Matthew was a memory of the day his father had taken him away from his mother. Jason Borden was angry with David for choosing science over the family business and thought Carmine Borden was to blame. Carmine Borden was neither Makeem nor Novo Femina, she was a Christian, and she had instilled in both her children the strength and willpower to choose their own path in life.

But how much of that could Reesa safely say out loud? Just the discussion of another religion could earn the Borden family a considerable amount of scorn.

"How is your mother?" Reesa finally asked.

Matthew's entire body tensed and she could see a flicker of surprise in his eyes.

Bingo
, she thought.

They stared at each other in silence. He couldn't believe her, but he couldn't discount her, either. She had trouble keeping her heart at a steady pace. She'd written him completely wrong. Matthew Borden was a driven, focused man, but he had a purpose behind it. He had been eight years old when his father took him away. From that moment on, Matthew had been groomed to place the company first and the family second. "Have you ever done something just for yourself?" She asked him.

"I beg your pardon?" She had taken him off guard, she could hear it in his voice.

"Everything you do is for your family or the company," Reesa said, though she was mostly musing out loud, her mind capturing all of those scenes she had written incorrectly about him. "Even training with the Fomorri is a business strategy because the Scientists you bargain with are intimidated by you."

"I walk the beach when I am home."

"That is more a homage to your father, I think," she frowned at him. "You live only to work the business for your family. You must be so lonely."

"Speculation again."

"But is it true?"

He frowned back at her, "Does it matter?"

Reesa took another breath and looked at the window. "My name really is Reesa Zimms," she said at last. "I am an author. A science fiction novelist best known for the Lothogy Series."

"A novelist. So you are saying that you created all of this?" He asked slowly.

"Yes. And no. Sort of." Reesa shook her head at the amusement in his face.

How was she supposed to convince this man that he was a work of fiction? Could she really believe they were in fiction? Wasn't it more likely that she had been taken through some kind of time-travel? She hadn't written about time-travel before but she knew there was some kind of link with the space-time continuum. In truth, she'd avoided that plot-trap because it was used so often. And yet, here she was, fully aware of her surroundings and obviously not in Kansas anymore.

But this wasn't just any future. This was the future she had created, the timeline she had written about. Unless she was some unwitting Nostradamus, then this had to be fiction and she had to be insane.

Oh yes
, she thought, slumping deeper into her chair
, life has truly gotten unbearable when I have to choose between being a bizarre time-traveler and just being crazy
.

***

"Put yourself in my shoes for a moment," Matt said, watching her over steepled fingers. She was either the most talented actress he had ever met, or she really believed the crazy story she'd just told. "How would you react if someone tried to convince you that you were a work of fiction?"

Reesa frowned at her feet, clearly digesting his question. She didn't act insane. On the contrary, Reesa Zimms seemed to be quite reasonable. She reminded him of the frost crystals on a window pane, delicately pretty but fleeting at the same time. He imagined that any moment she might just vanish from sight, fade away under the harshness of sunlight.

"I don't believe I would take it very well," she said eventually. "I certainly wouldn't believe you."

"It is safe to assume that you would continue to look for other explanations?"

"Explanations to what?"

"To who you really are and why you're here." Matt paused, taking special note of her conflicted frown. "Did Hedric leave you on Oahu in the hopes I would find you?"

"Hedric hates me." Reesa flinched as she said it. "He blames me for Mesa's death."

Matt fought to control his momentary panic. "How do you know of Mesa?"

She blinked at him. "I wrote it."

By God, she was the most bizarre woman he had ever met. Trying a different route, Matthew squinted over at her. "All right. Assuming I believed you and that you wrote everything into existence, tell me why a woman would choose to subjugate the entire female race."

"Dramatic tension," she said, but he could tell it was an automatic answer. Someone had asked her that question before. "Insurmountable odds make for a better story."

"But, and correct me if I'm wrong, there are no substantial female roles here. Mesa was the only female I have met in a long time to have anything significant to add and, if you wrote the books and Hedric is right, then you killed her off." A dark voice inside him corrected his own words;
no, you're the one who had Mesa killed, don't you ever forget.
"Do you hate women?"

Reesa scowled at him. "No. I do not hate women. My best friend Kate is still stuck on the Lothogy with Hedric."

He could sense that there was something else here, something buried, so Matthew persisted. "Why would Hedric keep Kate?"

"Because she looks like Mesa."

He faltered for a moment. Frowning he asked; "And you killed Mesa off?"

Reesa turned an unhealthy shade of white. Her eyes widened as the implications hit home. If Kate really was her friend, how could she kill the woman off in her fiction? That was not an easy expression to fake, he thought.

"I can't help but see a pattern here," he said. "If I am to believe that you wrote everything here, then I have to believe you wrote certain things for a purpose. Did you force women into the robes out of your own desire to hide? And if so, why are you hiding?"

She seemed to shrink into her chair, hugging herself and drawing inward in a recognizably defensive move. His business instincts screamed for him to go in for the kill, to take her past the breaking point, but he stopped himself. For all the years he had spent making businessmen crack, this just felt different.
Reesa
was different. She was beautiful and creative, all elegant lines and gossamer hair, with sharp blue eyes like the edges of a broken glass. If she was a spy for Hedric, then his adversary had picked a perfect weapon.

Reesa was an intoxicating blend of mystery, beauty, and crazy.

Deciding they were at a stalemate, Matthew rose and moved to her. Taking her hand, he helped her to her feet and gave her his most charming smile. "I can't say that I believe you, Miss Zimms, but I can offer you dinner and protection for the night."

"A mishap on Mars leaves three dead and two injured. Specifics on the incident are currently being withheld. Despite the loss, the remaining seven of the Eden I project have reported a desire to stay on Mars. The Community is scheduled to meet today to make a decision on whether or not to let the project proceed."
- A.P. May 15, 2264

"What is that?" Kate half-whispered the words as she stared through the pilot window.

A blue-tinted planet made its slow twirl through space, poised near enough to the sun that she knew it should be Mars. As they drew nearer to the planet the blue color became more explainable. Circling the entire planet were checkered plates of some form of clear plastic or hardened glass, like the curve of a windshield with faded tinting. Somewhere in the back of her mind she thought she remembered that the glass was a cultivation project.

There was something about ultraviolet radiation saturating the surface, and the oxidizing nature of the soil chemistry. Kate knew Reesa had talked about bombing the planet's core because she could remember the woman wiggling in excitement when she'd told her. Reesa always got enthusiastic when she could feasibly add science to her fiction. Personally, Kate had always hated astronomy. Reesa was the only reason she knew anything remotely scientific and all of that was fiction.

Kate gripped the back of Myron's pilot chair and watched as three of the checkered plates slid open and the real planet came into full view. But instead of the rusted orange that Kate had been expecting, there was a smattering of colors that bombarded her vision. Great curls of indigo veined across the planet's surface, surrounded by vivid purple and shadowy brown.

Hedric must have sensed her reaction because he began to explain, "When the planet was seed-bombed, the chemicals and nutrients mixed with a toxin called per chlorate that was already prominent on the planet. Each of the bombs had been designed to anticipate life on Mars, so they were chemically altered and the reaction between toxin and seed-bomb resulted in a color change."

"They all turned purple." Kate frowned. "There's just so much of it."

"Mars was riddled with carbon dioxide ice. When it melted off it left a lot of gas for the plants to convert. The Community did too well with cultivating Mars. They haven't been able to mimic their success on any of the other planets."