Skyline (30 page)

“No!”
he said, reaching for her astrolabe. But Ana stepped back, grinning ear to ear.
He was too late. “Please, you can’t. I have to find them.”

“Fair’s
fair,” she said. Her orb illuminated at her touch. “You have your sister’s
device. I have mine. Aren’t you supposed to be the clever one? Find them
yourself.”

“No,”
he whispered. He wasn’t Charlotte, who knew tech instantly. Or Bill, who was
good at maneuvering on the fly. Monroe needed time to think—time that the
approaching weather wouldn’t allow. “I don’t know anything about this world. I
can’t get there. I can’t hide from them. I don’t even
know
them. You do.
I need you.”

“Nonsense,”
Ana said with a wave. But then her face grew serious. “If I helped you, you’d
get your friends, sure. But then the three of you would rescue the Council.”

“Along
with thousands of people from New York! We’d keep them from getting trapped in
the exact place you want to escape!”

“Can’t
you fucking see?” Ana demanded. She gestured to the air. “Look at the sky! Look
at the empty streets. The Council
wanted
this. They could’ve found a way
to stop this. Retrieved our people from time before they hurt our world.”
Monroe opened his mouth, and she guffawed. “Time is like
dominoes
?
Please.
They
did this to our world so that they could stay in control.
And if you save them, if you let them? They’ll control your city. Enslave the
poor, get the rich on their side, and only ever dole out tech that can be used
for
their
purposes.”

It
didn’t sound so different from some of the people in Monroe’s time. Taking control,
only providing tech that could be tracked and traced? But the evidence of the
Council’s rule was all around. In the opulent buildings he’d seen today. In the
rundown tenements they’d raced past. In the cameras everywhere.

Worse,
they wouldn’t
belong
. Without being connected to New York—either through
blood or through love of its history—what would keep the Council from doing
more than they had here? From truly enslaving a race of people they thought
inferior?

It’d
happened before. Several times, in Monroe’s era.

Monroe
clenched his jaw. Stared directly into Ana’s eyes as he said, “We won’t let
them.”

She
laughed. “You won’t have a choice. So, no, I’m not helping you do a fucking
thing.” She spun the lights in her orb.

“No!”
Monroe yelled, and he leaped. Before she vanished, he crashed into Ana, and
together they fell to the ground. The astrolabe slid from Ana’s hands, and on
its own, the stars still twisting inside, Ana’s time-travel device disappeared
through time. She must not have built-in the same failsafe as Charlotte—or her
future self—had.

“You
goddamned
idiot
!” She shoved him off. Then she stood and kicked him in
the side. Kicked him again and again and again. He winced, clutching himself,
the pain blossoming like a rose of thorns. “You motherfucker! What the fuck is
wrong
with you!” And still she kicked him. He didn’t get up, didn’t fight her. He
curled into a ball, keeping his bowling-ball bag from Ana’s sight. “I was
saving them! Saving your precious city! I was protecting them from
this
.
Can’t you see how much better New York is? Can’t you see how, how horrible …”
She collapsed beside him, tears falling as the sky opened up with hot rain.
“I’ve lost everyone, everything I loved,” she told him in a hoarse whisper. “I
just wanted to keep them from our city.”

Monroe
looked up, blood oozing out of his mouth as he showed his teeth in a victorious
smile. “Now you have no choice but to help.”

Wincing
and groaning, Monroe stood and wiped the blood from his lips. He smeared it
onto his already ruined embroidered shirt. He pulled Charlotte’s glassy
astrolabe from his bag and drew the insignia to turn it on. Hers
could
work the same as Ana’s; both had been designed by the same person.

Now,
how had Ana said to do it? Drag a finger along the road back. But as they’d run
here, he’d been too focused on Charlotte and Bill. What route would take them
back to the Council’s spire? “Don’t get too close,” he warned Ana. “Just tell
me where to go.” He stood poised with a finger ready.

She
crossed her arms. “You expect your sister’s device to work? Have you forgotten
you’re in a different era?”

“I’m
not forgetting anything.” He widened his stance, placed a finger on the orb.
“Maybe you’re forgetting who drafted the schematics Charlotte followed? Who
perfected
this astrolabe?” He gazed directly into Ana’s pale eyes. One day, those eyes
would know and respect him. “You.” He drew a line back an inch and appeared a few
yards away from Ana.

The
sudden movement made him go cross-eyed. His stomach lurched. Monroe squeezed
his eyes shut. Good thing he hadn’t tried to go any farther. But his wooziness
proved one thing: he did need Ana.

She
clenched her jaw, glaring at him. “Fine. Like you said, I don’t have a choice.”

When
she took a couple steps closer, he shifted his finger back another inch—his
body jolting backward another few yards. This time his stomach lurched
violently. He’d better get that under control. “I’m not an idiot, Leanor. You
stranded thousands of New Yorkers in this time. Why not three more?”

She
kept glaring. “I promise I’ll be good,” she said, her voice filled with venom.

Monroe
snorted. “Well, if you
promise
.” But he didn’t have a choice. He jumped
beside her. This time, keeping his focus on her eyes and ignoring his
surroundings, his stomach only flopped once.

“I’ll
help you,” Ana said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “But not here, not now.”

“What?”
A violent wind blew down the street, tugging at Monroe’s long ponytail. The hot
rain was turning cold. The snow would come soon. “We aren’t waiting. I have to
save them now.”

“I
thought you were the
smart
one. Take us to the past. An hour or so.”

What
would being in the past accomplish?

A
sharp flake of snow bit at his cheek, and his fingers started shaking. With a
nod, Monroe spun time back with a few fingers. It would at least be a little
warmer. And they’d have time to talk. Time to catch the Council unawares.

The
snow and rain faded. The angry clouds greedily took back their moisture. The
fog had abated, leaving the air hot and sticky. “If Alek is wrong,” Monroe
said, “if time travel doesn’t pull dominoes, then how did this happen? How do a
thousand, a million—however many—people out of time ruin an era?”

“They
do
,” Ana snapped. “Time’s not a fragile flower, where you pluck enough
petals and you’re just left with the stem. It’s, it’s . . .”

“A
mountain?”

“
Yes
.”
But the fervor faded from her eyes as she searched him. He needed to know the
truth. Now. Needed this from her. Because if time was a series of dominoes,
then maybe they
should
keep the Council out. Destroy Charlotte’s
astrolabe. “Look, have you seen many time travel movies?”

“Some.”
If Bill were here, he could’ve spun circles around Ana. As it were, Monroe
would try his best to keep up. “I’ve seen Back to the Future.”

“Okay.”
Ana’s vision slid through him, then snapped back into focus. “Okay. You know
how Marty eventually plays a song from his time in the past? And everyone’s
like ‘Oh no, rock and roll!’ Or there was that weird Kid in King Arthur’s
Court, with him bringing modern sensibilities to their lives.
That’s
what happened, but on a grand scale. And imagine that, history rippling forward
faster than it should. But not once. Again and again and again, everywhere.
With people reshaping history in many different eras. Chiseling away at the
mountain to make time what
they
wanted it to be. And once the Council
trapped them all? Well, they couldn’t resist.”

With
enough chisels, an entire mountain
could
be destroyed. Not because time
was fragile, but because of
humans
. If history had taught Monroe
anything, it was that humans tended to fuck things up far more than a natural
disaster ever could. “So your history was always in flux.”

“Exactly.
Thanks to the Council’s EMP, we couldn’t fix it either. The age had already
been abandoned, and then the clouds came, the earthquakes, the lightning.”
Ana’s jaw hardened, and she shook her head. But Monroe had seen her sadness. No
wonder she fought so hard to keep New York safe from the Council. She’d already
lost not just a family, but an entire
people
. “Anyway, you seem to be
able to use the device. So take us back across the bridge. Down the road, turn
right, left, then a long line. Draw it like you would on a map.”

She
had to have some endgame, some way of stealing the astrolabe. But she wasn’t
making any sneaky moves, just lightly touching his shoulder. Gripping
Charlotte’s astrolabe tightly, Monroe followed her instructions. A straight
line, a right, a left, then a long line across the skinny bridge. And then he
released.

Mansions
sped past. The road zagged beneath their feet. The bridge appeared and they
were across it without moving a muscle. When they stopped, Monroe fell to his
knees. Now his stomach came up. His lunch spilled onto a metallic road hundreds
of thousands of years before he’d eaten his first meal. “Fuck,” he said, wiping
his mouth. Ana still hadn’t made her move. “How do you get
used
to
that?”

Crazier
still was that he’d been right: Leanor had designed the astrolabe to be used
this way. Had she known they would visit her ruined age?

Without
replying, Ana placed a hand under Monroe’s elbow. He scrambled away before she
could help him up.

“Okay,”
she said, hands held up. “Take your time. Getting back to their spire is simple
enough. Once you place a finger, the orb uses your location as the starting
point. And, just like with time, any adjustment moves you along. So make a long
straight line, then a wide curve.” She gestured with her arm. “This is one of
the major thoroughfares, so it’s easier. We’ll get close enough.”

“And
they won’t see us coming,” Monroe said, “because they haven’t even traveled
forward and back yet.” Soon the Council’s plan would fail. Their building would
leap forward, but Ana’s bombs would send it back. Then, maybe, the Council
would see Monroe and Ana running. They’d spot Charlotte and Bill and confront
them. Right now, the Council was probably distracted by their upcoming success.

Monroe
leaned his shoulder toward Ana and let her touch it. With a single finger, he
followed her instructions, drawing a long line, then a slight gentle curve.

The
city flew by. They passed the obelisk where they’d hidden—would hide—as well as
hundreds of other buildings. It was a blur until, just as suddenly, it wasn’t.
The Council’s black spire towered above, the tip hidden in the clouds.

Once
again, Monroe stumbled to a knee. He retched, but his lunch was already gone.
“Holy shit. That’s, that’s …”

“That’s
enough,” Ana said, her voice barbed. She strode away, toward the sleek black
side of the Council’s tower.

Monroe
stowed the astrolabe in the bowling-ball bag and followed. Gone were the ragged
streets of New York City. Gone were the teetering buildings and the stranded
New Yorkers. By going back just an hour, as Ana suggested, Monroe was able to
see the Council’s world before the Cornerstones moved their tower forward,
before Ana sent it back. “Do we wait out here? The Council will arrive in an
hour, right?”

Shaking
her head, Ana felt the edge of the smooth wall, looking for something that
Monroe couldn’t see. “They’ll travel directly inside. Only their orbs have
access.” Her fingers paused high above her, and she slipped them into a crack.
When she pulled, Monroe saw the outline of a door coming loose, but only an
inch at a time. Ana pulled the door open a little more, shifted her fingers in,
then pulled it open another inch.

“Is
that gonna work?” Monroe asked. No way the Council would leave a way in that
Ana knew about.

She
hissed at him to shut up, pulled the door a little farther, and flicked a catch
up. The door released and swung open.

“Nice
trick.”

Again
she shushed him. “Be quiet, okay?”

He
shrugged and followed her into the cool interior. This entrance didn’t lead to
the lobby. Instead, Monroe found himself in a tiled hallway, with a window on
one side showing the lobby beyond. This wasn’t just a back door, but a way of
spying on whoever was inside. Goose bumps ran along Monroe’s arms.

Without
a word, Ana tugged Monroe away from the glass and down the empty hallway. The
glass ended at the corner, and Ana led Monroe around it, into a part of the
hallway with only a single door facing what looked like an elevator. “Tell me
if that lights up.” Ana dipped her head toward the elevator, then stooped to
the door and slid off her boot.

From
the inside, she slid out several lock picks, laid them in a line, then got to
work. She’d slide two picks in, work a bit, then swap a new one in. Maybe this
explained why Charlotte’s astrolabe worked on these streets. Leanor hadn’t
known they’d come back, but she’d worried about it. And, like her boot filled
with lock picks, it was a way of being prepared. A just in case.

Ana
was so systematic with her tools, like she’d done it a million times. But she’d
just
escaped
, hadn’t she? In the future, Leanor hadn’t said anything
about breaking in.

She’d
lied so much, it was impossible for Monroe to keep track of what was true.

The
lock clicked, and Ana swung the door wide. “One step closer to your friends,”
she told Monroe as he came in and closed the door. He was sealed in with her
now; hopefully this wasn’t the trap.

“Where
are we?” Monroe asked. To his left was a set of lockers, one opened to show a
few hanging suits and orbs lying at the bottom. When Ana didn’t race over,
Monroe assumed either they were dead, or made prior to time travel—only useful
for navigating streets. To his right, set inside a long wall, was a thick piece
of double-sided glass beside an open metal door. Behind the door and glass sat
a chair and a metal table. Without any cork board, knick knacks, or plants, the
room had to be containment for captured criminals.

Before
him, running along the widest wall, were dozens and dozens of monitors, each
showing a different vista of the city, sometimes inside decrepit houses. But as
it had been when they ran through, the city was empty. Abandoned.

“Huh,”
Monroe said, sliding into a chair opposite the screens. One showed a view into
the plant room where Charlotte and Bill would soon appear with the brick.
Another monitor showed the bridge. Another showed the exterior of this very
building. “They should’ve seen us.”

“They
did,” Ana said. “They will. A guy, a girl running. That’s who they captured,
wasn’t it?”

The
Council must’ve been in a hurry, to mistake Charlotte’s bulky figure for Ana’s
thin one. To mistake a bald man for Monroe. More than that, it meant they’d be
here soon. “So we have to go. We can’t be here. We’ll have to hide somewhere,
then get Charlotte and Bill once the Council captures them.”

“We’ll
be fine.” Ana sat beside him. “This is where they’ll bring your loved ones. And
before they do, we can hide in there.” She pointed to the darkened containment
cell.

“Okay,”
Monroe said. If the Council was rushing that fast, if he and Ana hid against
the wall below the glass, no one would spot them. “Sure. And in the meantime,
we should get ready.” A clock ticked above, the readout of fifteen numbers
similar to those he’d read shining from Ana’s astrolabe. But even without his
understanding those numbers, the rest of the room made sense. Not just a
security measure, but more than that. A map of the city, cameras throughout. He
could guess what this room was used for. “They can redirect movement,” Monroe
said. “If someone activates their orb in the city, the Council can track it,
right? Change it?”

“Yes.”
She stared at him, but he didn’t explain.

“Then
tell me everything you know. Everything you’ve guessed about how this stuff
works.” He straightened his shoulders and put his fingers on the keys, gazing
at the monitors. “We have work to do.”

•
• • • • • • • • • • •

Monroe
paid
close attention as Ana showed him how the Council’s surveillance system worked.
He didn’t interrupt, joke, or say a word. He had to do this for Charlotte and
Bill. He couldn’t fuck this up.

The
monitors were easy enough to understand, but the map was stranger. Instead of
buildings or topography, the map was solely of this time’s twisted streets.
According to Ana, whenever anyone used an orb—which were simply to move through
space when the system was created—a red dot would appear on the map. The dot
would become a line, charting their planned path. A dial beside the grid could
slow their actual movement down. Certain screens would show their
details—weight, height, gender. A keypad could redirect them to different
coordinates. A red button locked the containment cell nearby. When the Council’s
city was a hive of activity, finding and redirecting the right person took time
and care. In this empty city the Council’s travel would stand out like a sore
thumb.