FutureImperfect (10 page)

Urk!

But Harry didn't stop. He kept going, up and into the cargo bay, where he landed with a final thud in a huge pile of brown cardboard boxes. They fell on him, burying him, tearing, spilling their contents on his head.

When the driver approached, he didn't see Harry among all the cardboard, so he just sealed the doors. Moments later the truck pulled out.

As the smell of exhaust hit his nostrils, Harry moaned. His muscles throbbed. His bones ached. He was sure he'd broken at least a rib. But at least he knew exactly where he was and where he was headed. He was in the back of a truck belonging to a local practical-joke-supply manufacturer, headed back to the city. It would stop at a novelty store near RAW High School, bringing him round full circle.

A practical-joke-supply manufacturer. Coincidence, or a little wink from the Fool?

Both
, Harry decided. Coincidence
was
the Fool. In fact, the whole fall, getting hit over and over, was like his conversation with the clown. It was also a lot like one of those old silent movies, with Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton, where they'd bounce all over the place but still come out standing.

They
were Fools, too,
Harry realized.

In any case, he'd survived. He'd changed the rules. He'd seen enough of everything else's future that he'd finally glimpsed his own. If he were in A-Time now, he might even be able to enter his own trail.

There'd be plenty of time to find out about that. He had Siara and Jeremy to worry about first. And what about the Quirk-shard? It was being awfully quiet. Was it really gone?

As he lay in the back of the truck, struggling in a mess of fake doggie doo, plastic vomit, whoopee cushions and funny foam hats, he realized that for the first time in weeks, he was alone in his own head.

It was gone. He had fallen. The Quirk had happened. It was part of his life now, part of the past. And Harry Keller was still alive.

So far.

Eight miles high, the ebon thing quivered like a wrenching wound that defiled the sky. Black globs of bile spewed from its spreading cracks, falling in a sullen rain around the base, while all the rest oozed a sickly green putrescence. The Quirks didn't dare approach. They ran like dogs with tails between legs, even when they only touched its shadow. The otherwise inscrutable Timeflys tried to flap around and away from it, moving in flocks for protection. Those who flew too slowly were drawn in, pulled by an unseen force. One, after flapping frantically, gave up. As if tugged by a string, it glanced the edge of the tower and disintegrated in a flash, like an insect hitting a bug light, its pretty ashes joining the dark, wet rain. Seeing the fate of their comrade, the other Timeflys doubled their efforts to flee.

To most, the distorted column would seem grotesque. Even those who didn't believe in such things might call it a sin, but to the Initiate, to Jeremy Gronson, it was the coolest thing ever. And he had made it all himself.

Long dark robes fluttering, he strutted around it, ducking the falling globs, scanning every inch of every surface. Then he climbed up its side to check it all again close up. This piece worked, so did that. This one fit a little too tightly, but did it matter?

No.

Siara's future tunneled dead center into the thing. At the point of contact the colors of her life trail looked frail and faded, as if they too were being sucked inside. Her life twitched constantly, like a snake trying to pull its head from a too-tight hole, but it was trapped, hopelessly, permanently—thanks to the keystone.

A keystone. What a find that had been. What power. Keller never even guessed that he couldn't stop the warehouse fire because a keystone was in place. A-B-C-D. A is the keystone. If A happens, no power on earth can stop D.

Of course, Jeremy did have to use yet another special tea to get Siara into place, but why take any more risks? That tea was Jeremy's own brew, created after much research on the proper chemicals needed to bend a broken mind to his will. While she was under its influence, he might even be able to get her to make love to him, but what would be the point of that, with him where he was, inches from the goal line and nothing to block him anywhere in sight?

He looked up, pretending again to admire his work, but really just admiring himself.

I am here, I am here, I am here!
he shouted in his mind.
Yeah!

All at once, the timeless terrain beneath his feet rumbled. Jeremy shifted so it wouldn't catch him off balance, but he still found himself stumbling a few paces.

What was that?

Probably nothing. Or maybe an echo of all the potential energy his sculpture was building up. He'd need it. Every drop. He turned away from the malleable claylike future. Anyone could change that, really. The future was always being revised, even by the most humble decisions. Instead, Jeremy looked back at the vast, stony expanse of the past, where the colors were grayer but the shapes were stronger, more abstract, jutting from the barren landscape like a bizarre sculpture garden, every piece designed as a cautionary tale.

He who does not remember the past is condemned to repeat it.

What's past is past.

Water under the bridge.

Infinity in the palm of your hand…

My hand,
Jeremy thought.
Mine.

 

Hidden behind an elephantine lump in the trails, Harry Keller watched Jeremy Gronson's strange victory dance. As predicted, the truck had deposited Harry a half mile from RAW. He could walk it in no time, but since the drugs no longer seemed to be stopping him, he figured it might be best to duck into an alley, take a quick trip into A-Time, and get the lay of the land. That was when he spotted Jeremy checking out the big ugly.

It was so strange to see him here in the trails. Sure, Harry had seen Siara and even Todd here, but they had a completely different feel to them, almost an aura that made them, to Harry's eyes, seem natural. He wondered if that was because they were here, as the Fool confirmed, on Harry's dime, using his words and thoughts to make the transcendental leap of consciousness.

Not Jeremy, though. His outline was crisp, sharp. It was almost as though he were pasted onto A-Time, like part of a collage.

Harry tensed and gritted his teeth the moment he saw him, wanting to race up and just have at him, but he held back. Being in A-Time made Harry feel more confident, but it seemed to turn Jeremy into some kind of predatory monster. He'd never looked stronger or more aggressive. A head-on fight was probably just what Jeremy wanted most, making it the one thing Harry should try hardest to avoid.

So Harry bit his tongue and watched and waited as the transcendent football captain circled the huge pillar twice more, then walked off and disappeared. Assuming the crazy man had gone back to linear time, Harry stepped from his hiding spot and looked around at the vast Salvador Dalí topography.

The first thing he noticed was that the suicide-Quirk wasn't around anymore. It'd truly become part of Harry's own trail. Oddly enough, he hoped it was happy there. The second thing he noticed was that the future sky was darker than the rest, as if a storm were gathering there.

A light, cool breeze hit Harry's face. He'd never felt wind in A-Time before, either. Somehow feeling it now didn't seem like a good thing. And then there was that weird rumble, a cross between thunder and a slight earthquake, that even seemed to take Jeremy by surprise.

Why was Gronson messing with the future? What did he want? When Harry first stumbled onto A-Time, Todd was about to fire a gun at Jeremy. Obviously that was some kind of ruse. Jeremy had expected to be shot at—but why? And Melody, climbing atop the hospital, ready to gun people down with a high-powered rifle. It had to be Jeremy who'd placed the rifle there for her to find. Again, why? Harry couldn't imagine actually wanting to kill anyone. What did it mean for someone to want to see
scores
of people dead? What was the point?

It all has to do with this.

Eye narrowing, Harry approached the base of the thing. His scalp tingled as he came closer, as if the air around him were filled with the A-Time equivalent of static electricity. A few yards away, he stopped and craned his neck, attempting to see the top.

A hundred feet above him, another helpless Timefly hit the surface and disintegrated. Harry covered his face with his arm as a small shower of rainbow-colored soot tumbled along his jacket. At least he had some clothes on in A-Time. He wiped his face, blinked, and looked again.

At first it seemed that the only visible lines on the tower's surface were the oozing cracks. As he looked closer, though, he could make out, through the shades of black, the distorted, barely visible curves of life trails.

It was made out of the terrain, then. In fact, it was kind of like the knot of trails that led to the warehouse fire. The blackness of it, the way it leeched the color out of everything around it, seemed the same. But at the fire Harry had easily been able to see the individual strands, sort the threads. This was denser, more tightly wrapped. For all practical purposes, it was just one big mass.

Remembering the Timefly, Harry gingerly put his hand to it.

“Yeow!”

It burned. He yanked his hand back and looked at it. His palm had been seared off, revealing sinew and muscle beneath. The skin grew back quickly, the redness fading as he watched. It was damn strange to see. He shouldn't be so surprised; after all, he was made of A-Time energy here, ergo, generated by his life trail. It wasn't real flesh or bone, exactly. Harry figured as long as his trail was okay, nothing here could hurt him forever, unless it affected his linear life.

But what had the sculpture done to that energy? And what was it doing to the timelines?

He circled slowly, retracing Jeremy's path, trying to sense what it was doing, or going to do. But he could get no impression from it other than a feeling of deep dread, as if he were in front of a nuclear bomb that was armed and ready to go off. As he made his way toward the part of the tower that faced the past, the dread thickened, but he didn't know why. There was something familiar, terribly familiar, nearby.

He spotted Siara's trail, stuck inside the thing, writhing, trying to free itself, and gulped.

I'm coming, Siara!

Without thinking, Harry dived atop the trail, put both hands on the surface, and tried to pull it free. No use. He tried to move his grasp closer to the section where her trail fed into the tower, but again the burning sensation came and his fingers began to melt.

This was not good, not good at all. He was breathing heavily, hyperventilating—
Can you do that in A-Time?
—scratching the side of his head as he looked. If he couldn't pull her free, maybe he could enter her trail, change something there, or at least figure out what was going to happen.

He recalled his vow not to enter her life trail, after accidentally seeing her take a shower. Then he remembered the Fool's words about changing the rules when you had to.

Sorry Siara,
he thought as he dove inside.

The sensations that surrounded him were a breath of fresh air, especially compared to the rest of A-Time. Though it had only been a day or so since he'd seen her, it seemed like ages, and everything here, everything that rose from the walls, the ceiling, and floor, felt like her, as if she were standing right beside him. The friendly familiarity comforted him, relaxed him. Siara was more than just a crush, he realized; she was his only real friend since Carlton landed in the hospital, more like family than his own aunt. So he stood there a moment and just enjoyed the feeling before reminding himself that there were more important things to do.

As images rose from the stiff, curved walls, he realized he was still in the near past. He saw her fight with her father at their too-small kitchen table, felt her longing to go to Windfree, to help him.

I should get her something nice,
he figured, moved by the scene.

When Jeremy appeared to pick her up in his Humvee, he was just a blur, his words garbled and unintelligible, just as they had been when Harry called him the Daemon. The title, Harry realized, was too dignified. He wished he'd chosen the Dick-wad or something more apropos.

He watched them drive together, saw them reach the Valis building, felt Siara try to move through the crowd. When he saw her collapse in tears, it dawned on him:

She thinks I'm dead!

Of course. Why wouldn't she? He wanted to rush back to linear time to show her he was okay, but he couldn't just yet, not until he found out what was going on. Unable to watch her grieve, he took a few quick steps toward the future. A chill filled the air and the walls grew darker. He was approaching the section of the trail that entered Jeremy's dark pillar, so he slowed and let the images rise once again.

It was that night, hours in the future. Siara was in RAW High School in the auditorium, wearing some sort of business suit, pushing a fruit cart down an aisle. The cart was topped with a huge banana.

What is this, Halloween again?

No, not quite. There was a lot of sleek equipment up on the stage. Something that looked sort of like a car engine sat on a pedestal, wires from it leading to a control panel. A few men in suits stood there, along with a woman who looked like an older version of Siara. Behind all that, almost behind the curtains, was a huge hydrogen tank.

Oh. Of course. The Peroxisome demo. Damn. I was supposed to do a paper on that.

Needing to understand more, Harry listened to the narrative voice that rose from the walls.