Skyline (4 page)

“Charlotte?”
Leanor asked, her pale eyes drifting sideways as her head tipped.
“Run.”

•
• • • • • • • • • • •

If
this man
had been the first time traveler Charlotte had met, maybe she would’ve taken
Leanor’s advice. Sprinted away, gotten her bearings, figured out what the hell
was going on and how to help. But a changed world had prepared her for the
worst. Had coiled her tight as a spring.

Charlotte
sprang forward, fists clenched and ready.

“You’re
running the wrong way,” the man said, then stepped back and backhanded
Charlotte’s face. Red blossomed in her vision as she went careening to the
floor, smashing against the tile. As she slid across the ground, a single
thought entered her mind.
Thank God Charlie didn’t come
.

Monroe
shouted; Bill grunted; and the man said, “Not quite as alone as I’d hoped.”

There
was a slight breeze, sucking back toward where the man was, and then silence.

When
Charlotte peeled herself from the floor, she saw Bill nearby, arms ready.
Monroe remained beside the light switch. Leanor and the man were gone. “Where?”

“Through
time,” Bill said. “That guy had an astrolabe, just like the woman at the World
Trade Center.”

“Which
cinches it, right?” Monroe said as he approached. “They’re together. Working
against Leanor for some reason.”

All
of that they could figure out later. What mattered now was Leanor. “Where did
he take her? Where
would
he take her?” She surveyed Monroe, then Bill.
Monroe simply shrugged; Bill opened his hands in apology. That man had been
right
there
. “Dammit. If only you’d grabbed him.”

But
she could.

In
an instant, the astrolabe was in Charlotte’s hands, and she spun herself back.
Only a minute would do it. While she was racing forward, while he was preparing
his backhand, she’d appear. Grab him before he could go. She released, and got
a single glance at Monroe’s and Bill’s confused faces before time rewound for
the past minute. Bill’s clenched fist swung and hit air, and then he stepped
back. Monroe cowered by the door. Charlotte’s past self sprang from the floor,
into the man’s backhand.

Time
restarted, and the man’s backhand flinched, paused. He was staring directly at
her. Not her past self.
Her
.

“You
won’t get away that easily,” she said, even though he hadn’t tried yet. He
hadn’t used his own device yet; her presence had changed that.

Neck
still clutched between the man’s fingers, Leanor moaned, “Charlotte,
no
.”

Before
Charlotte could ask why, she learned. Blood pumped through her brain, throbbing
like a spike being pounded in. “Agh!” she yelled, clutching her head and
crumpling to the ground. Her mind struggled, because in Charlotte’s memory
Leanor
hadn’t
said, “Charlotte, no.” The man had vanished. That was what
she came to stop, but with every moment, every flicker of her vision, the
headache renewed. Time was changing in front of her eyes, and her mind couldn’t
take it. As if someone were updating her memory with a hammer.

If
she squeezed her eyes shut, it helped. Not seeing the changed timeline helped.
But every moment she was there, she heard words that no one had said. A grunt
from the man who’d taken—would take—Leanor. A murmur between Monroe and Bill.
Every little difference sent pain rippling through her mind. She’d have to get
out of here, jump away, but she could barely focus on anything but what the
past had been, and how it wasn’t that anymore.

Then
Monroe’s voice, explaining, “Char, you can’t be here.”

“You
can’t cross your timeline,” came Bill’s voice.

“So?”
Her voice, from across the room.

Charlotte
plugged her ears, the pounding in her head lessening as she blocked their
voices out.

And
then relief. She felt the air pulse away as her previous self must’ve vanished.
Matching up with her memory of this moment. When Charlotte’s eyes flickered
open again, the man was gone with Leanor. It hurt that she’d failed, but at
least the headache was decreasing.

Better
still was that her brain hadn’t burst.

“Char?”
Monroe crouched beside her. “You okay? What happened?”

Bill’s
shadow stepped next to Monroe. Charlotte’s vision kept blurring. “Pretty much
everyone agrees: time travelers should never, ever cross their own path.
Because of—I guess—
that
.”

“But
you’re safe now?” Monroe asked, his hand on her arm. “You’re okay?”

Charlotte
gulped, wetted the roof of her mouth, and took one last long blink. “I’m okay.”
She exhaled. She
was
okay now. “My memory, my brain couldn’t handle all
the differences. Everything you said, everything my past self did
hurt
until it was corrected. Back to what I remembered happening.”

“And
what happened?” Monroe asked.

Her
vision clarified. “You don’t remember? I jumped away and …”

“That
was our future,” Bill said. “But when you jumped back, that future never
happened.”

“So
you don’t remember?”

“Not
at all,” Monroe said. “But you’re safe.” Charlotte let him help her up.

“But
Leanor’s gone.” Again.

“And
we can’t go back,” Bill said. “Now we know we can’t cross our timelines.”

Monroe’s
jaw tensed as he stared at her. Then his vision slid through her, his gaze not
on anything in this room. History was his specialty; maybe he’d have an idea
where the man would go.

Bill’s
eyes lit up. “What about Felix?”

Charlotte
tilted her head. It was a mercy he wasn’t here.

“We
can’t cross our own paths, can’t interact. But if we asked someone else? Felix
could come, fight the guy, prepared with all of our knowledge. Change what just
happened.”

The
idea made her heart drum. It could work. Then none of them would have to endure
the memory rewrite. But Felix … “I don’t know how I could convince him. I don’t
even know how much good he’d be.” He’d been so furious with her. How could
Charlotte possibly turn him around, show him time travel, and prepare him
without forgetting where that horrible blue-haired man stood when he
disappeared with Leanor? Never mind the fact that Felix wasn’t fast on his
feet. Like Monroe, he preferred thinking to action.

“You
had a few seconds.” Monroe’s voice was soft; he was talking to himself. His
gaze focused on Charlotte. “You had a few seconds,” he said louder. “You said a
few words, right? Before the headache or whatever started?”

“Yeah.”
Why did that matter?

“Then
I have a bit of a sketchy idea, but it could work. We’d just have to time it
right.”

Charlotte
could take care of the timing. She’d had plenty of practice with the astrolabe
over the past year. “Tell me.”

Monroe
explained his idea and, after a glance at each other, Bill nodded. There
weren’t many other options; the man could be anywhere. Reenacting Charlotte’s
earlier steps, but in a smarter way, was their only choice. They positioned
themselves around where Leanor and the man had vanished, and Charlotte spun the
lights.

She
was a bit out of it at the time, dealing with the rewrite, but it couldn’t have
been long after her last jump that the man disappeared. “I think this is
right,” she said. “Ready?”

The
men nodded, and Charlotte let go, taking them a few minutes into the past.

When
time slowed, there were three Charlottes, two Monroes, and two Bills in one
room. But before the headache came, Charlotte snatched a hand out to grab the
man’s pants. In her periphery, Monroe and Bill did the same.

As
before, her memory couldn’t take it. No one had grabbed the man’s pants. Once,
only five people had been in the room. Now there were too many. But she
clenched her eyes closed. Tried not to think about the change. If she focused
only on her hand, on the starchy black pants of this man, she would be okay.

And
at last, relief. The man must’ve leaped through time, not realizing they were
attached.

They
landed in a forest of prehistory, and the man kicked her away, pain rippling up
her side. “Idiots.”

Instead
of taking him on, Charlotte pressed her eyes closed. Concentrated on getting
back into the present. She didn’t want to rush in as she had before. The
headache had to clear before she could do anything.

“Now
to deal with
you
,” came the man’s voice. “Time for you to get what you
deserve.”

Charlotte’s
eyes fluttered open, and she saw the man dragging Leanor away toward a tree.
Bill was up, but wobbling, shaking his head. Charlotte stood, trying to regain
her balance, trying to be present. “Let her go!” she said, her voice not quite
ready to shout.

Slam
went Leanor’s head against the tree trunk, and she screamed
again.

“Leanor!”
Charlotte said. She didn’t have time to recover. She stumbled over, blinking,
trying not to hit any of the sudden roots amidst the forest ground.

“We
never should’ve left you to your own devices,” the man snarled. “But we knew,
we’ve always known. You think you’re smarter than us, Leanor, but you’ve always
been stupid. Weak.” He slammed her head against the tree again, and a flock of
birds erupted from nearby.

Charlotte
tried jumping, tried getting closer. She had to.

“Charlotte,”
Leanor whispered, freezing Charlotte in place. The older woman shook her head
as much as she could. “The Blast.”

“Don’t
say another fucking word,” the man said, his hand squeezing her throat. “And
you three, don’t come any closer.”

“Or
what?” Charlotte asked, her voice tearing at her throat. “You’ll
kill
her?”

“Don’t
you dare,” Bill said, still wobbling to Charlotte’s left. Maybe they could do
this, maybe they could surround this man.

“Don’t,”
Leanor said, but kept her eyes focused on Charlotte. In that instant, Charlotte
saw how
young
Leanor looked. Before they’d even had a first day
together. “I’m not … It’s not … Just the Blast. That woman you met. You have to
stop—”

“Shut
up, I said!” The man slammed Leanor’s head against the tree again. Charlotte
raced over, grabbed at his arm, but he kept slamming, again and again. He
didn’t seem to even feel Charlotte tugging. She could barely see through her
tears when he finally stopped. Warm spots covered Charlotte’s hand, arm, and
face.

She
shook with horror, but kept her grip on his arm, tugging him though Leanor
slumped between his hands.

Leanor
dropped to the ground when he released her and shoved Charlotte back. “Let
that
be a warning,” he said. “Don’t fuck with time.” He lofted the time-travel
device he held—his not quite like the anachronistic woman’s. This was composed
of several metal plates tied together haphazardly with wire. With a gesture, he
vanished.

“Leanor?”
Charlotte crouched to her friend.

She
felt Monroe and Bill beside her, but she didn’t turn. None of them had been
able to prevent this. Charlotte slid to her knees, pulling Leanor into her lap.
Bill pressed at Leanor’s wrist, but it didn’t matter. They could all see what
had happened. Her usually white hair was a matted, bloody mess. Her empty eyes
reflected the leafy canopy, her mouth lolling open.

Leanor
was gone.

For
the first year Charlotte worked with Leanor, they barely spoke. Leanor had
tasked Charlotte with recreating all of her earlier inventions, but better. She
wanted to see how Charlotte worked, and would only come by to inspect, to
comment, to judge.

The
second year, Charlotte was allowed to work on the astrolabe, but only the
lesser components. Touch screens, bending glass, light that shone like a
pinprick ten yards away. Necessary, but nothing that allowed her to see the
full picture of the astrolabe. Then Leanor suggested she attempt to fix a bug
in the prototype, and Charlotte was warped back in time.

After
Leanor retrieved her, they went out for their first drink at Suni’s.

That
night, Charlotte called Felix to say she’d be home late, that they’d had a
breakthrough at work. Back then, he was fine with it. The enthusiasm resounding
in his deep tone, unaware of what she would put him through for the next year.
Charlotte hadn’t realized it either. She was just ecstatic to learn what the
astrolabe did. Better yet, Leanor’s shell had melted away.

Her
pride in Charlotte’s work gushed out. She apologized for her coldness prior,
but said it was important, in case Charlotte wasn’t right for the project. And
then Leanor spoke at length about the astrolabe, quantum physics, where she’d
gotten the idea.

Maybe
it had all been lies, but Charlotte had never felt closer. As the weeks, the
months went on, they became true colleagues. Working in concert, side by side.
Trusting each other to take over an element that they were struggling with. It
was exactly what Charlotte had hoped for all her life. Exactly what she needed.
Not just a boss, but a mentor. A friend.

She
couldn’t lose that.

Gritting
her teeth, Charlotte raised her chin to stare at Bill. “We can change this,
can’t we?” Her voice felt hoarse from the yelling, but her breathing was even.
She was ready to undo what this man had done. Even if it meant enduring hours
of a painful memory rewrite.

Bill
sighed, crouching beside her, eyes on Leanor.

Charlotte
couldn’t follow his gaze. She didn’t want this version of Leanor to ever exist.

“Before
all this?” Bill lifted a hand to the air, the canopy far above shading them
from the sun. “I would’ve said of course. I agree with that woman. Time can be
changed. Obviously.” He sighed again, shaking his head. “But after feeling that
headache in your lab, there’s a lot we don’t know. Maybe our own timeline is
more fragile.”

“But
our timeline
was
changed,” Monroe said. He still stood apart from them,
arms crossed, biting his lip. “We didn’t feel a thing.”

“Why
didn’t I ask?” Charlotte asked. “This past year, through all those late nights,
all our tests, I never
asked
. All these questions about what time is,
whether it’s malleable, what the rules are. I never considered that Leanor
might have more answers.”

But
she must have. For this man to kill her, to claim she’d done something … For
Leanor to
know
about the woman they’d met in the past … She must’ve been
intimately familiar with time travel, not at all new to it.

“‘Perfect,’
she said,” Charlotte remembered. “When you suggested the World Trade Center,
September tenth. Could she …” Had Leanor known that woman would be there?

“She
knew,” Bill whispered. “How could she know that?”

“And
that guy said we should’ve been more careful,” Monroe said. Charlotte twisted
to Monroe. What was he talking about? “Remember? When it was still pitch black.
But if he found Leanor
because
we visited the World Trade Center,
because we met that woman, then why would Leanor send us there?”

Charlotte
closed her eyes, feeling only the weight of Leanor against her lap. Too many
questions. Too much confusion. Leanor had never mentioned she was a time
traveler, but that wasn’t the worst problem. Charlotte wouldn’t have believed
it until she’d tested the prototype anyway. But why not explain this?

More
and more, Charlotte wondered whether she’d gotten close to Leanor in the past
year. Maybe all of it had been nothing more than a front. Leading to this
confusing moment without any indication of where to head next.

But
then, Leanor had given
some
indication. Charlotte’s eyes snapped open.
“The Blast. Leanor told us to go to the Blast.” Even as the man was killing
her, that’s all that had mattered to her.

Monroe
and Bill were silent for a moment, until Bill asked, “And do what?”

Another
important question. “The Blast” was just a when, not a where, not a suggestion.
They could go to that day a dozen times, in a dozen different locations, and
never see whatever Leanor meant them to. They didn’t have enough information.

“I
don’t know,” Charlotte said. Gulping, she looked back to Leanor. She didn’t
want to see this version of her. She wished she’d never traveled at all. She’d
longed to get her family back and figured the truth would be the best way to
start. But her first trip with her family had inadvertently killed Leanor.

And
after all this time, Charlotte could admit that Leanor was family, too.

Charlotte
slid a hand over Leanor’s eyelids and pushed them closed. Got up and gently set
her friend’s head on the earth.

Maybe
this was what time travel meant. Dying in some time you’d never lived.

But
time travel meant something more.

Time
travel meant that nothing was set in stone.

“The
Blast,” Charlotte murmured to herself. It was too big, too vast a problem. But
then, so was making an astrolabe that could travel through time. Leanor had
never set Charlotte a task that she couldn’t handle.

That’s
why Leanor had tasked Charlotte with re-imagining her previous inventions. Then
had her work on little pieces of the astrolabe. When the big picture seemed too
big, it was best to start small. Do a little at a time. Learn about yourself,
learn about the small aspects, and then the big picture would snap into focus
all at once.

And
then she had it.

Not
any clue about what Leanor meant, who those people were, or whether she could
reverse any of this. Not yet. But she knew how she could collect a little more
data. Get some more guidance on how to start.

For
the first time since their conversation outside Suni’s, Charlotte found herself
focused. Almost
grinning
. “Why don’t we just ask her?”

•
• • • • • • • • • • •

Standing
at
one of the rare pay phones remaining in 2020, Charlotte paused. Tomorrow,
Leanor would go to her newly rented lab. Tomorrow, she would be confronted by
some blue-haired villain. But after today, none of that would happen. Leanor
wouldn’t die tomorrow.

Right
now, Charlotte could do more than ask Leanor about the Blast. She could save
her, too. “Here goes,” she said, sliding several quarters into the machine and
dialing Leanor’s number.

“Hello?”
came the fragile voice of Leanor. But her voice had been—would be—so strong
tomorrow, pushing through the pain as that man tortured her. Had the voice, the
hair, the wrinkles all be a lie?

Charlotte
shook the thoughts away. “Leanor, you’re in danger.” It didn’t matter that
Leanor had thought—would think—that the Blast was more important than her life.
Charlotte could learn about the Blast as easily as she could change tomorrow.

“Is
this—”

“Charlotte
Osqui. Look, I know you don’t know me. Not really. Not yet.” She breathed,
trying to infuse her words with wisdom that Leanor would listen to. “You can’t
rent that space you’re thinking about. Don’t even look at it. Someone is after
you. He’ll kill you. He killed you.”

“What?
What are you saying?”

“Leanor,
I
know
. We finished the astrolabe, and I took my brother on a trip, but
when we returned, everything was different. We tracked you down, tried to stop
him, but there was this memory rewrite, and I saw you die. But you can fix it.
Stay away and—”

“
Enough
,”
Leanor said. Gone was her feigned fragility. “You say the astrolabe works. I’ll
trust that you are the woman I interviewed yesterday.”

“I
am. But what’s important is—”

“Then
you know me. You know I’d have a backup plan. That I wouldn’t let someone else
stop me.”

“You
said something,” Charlotte said. “Before you died. You seemed to know that we’d
met some woman at the base of the World Trade Center. You mentioned the Blast.
Told us to stop something, but he killed you before you finished.”

“Listen.”
Leanor’s voice was sharp, commanding. So odd to know someone so well and be
treated as though they’d never met you. Charlotte never realized how much time
travel would ruin something she held dear. “This is up to you now, understand?
I can’t help. I can’t be there. I know, I mean, I’m guessing that we were
friends. That I took care of you. I saw a spark of it yesterday, with our easy
interview. But I can’t now. Like you said, I’m dead.”

“No.”
Charlotte’s voice was ragged. “You aren’t! You
answered your phone! You can stop this. You can stop him, join us.”

“This
isn’t what you should focus on,” Leanor said. “I didn’t create the astrolabe to
save myself. That was never the purpose.”

“Then
what—”

“The
Blast,” Leanor said. “That’s all that matters.”

Monroe
was watching her, mouthing something that Charlotte couldn’t understand. No
idea he had would help her convince Leanor; that much she knew. Once Leanor had
a plan, she didn’t sway. Now, for some insane reason, she had to die tomorrow.

“At
least tell me!” Charlotte shouted. A few passersby glanced at her. A cop down
the way frowned. “Tell me who they are. That woman you knew we’d meet. The man
who’ll kill you.”

“You’ll
figure it out. You’ll have to make a choice, but … Charlotte, I hired you for a
reason. Because I saw me in you. Because of your history-loving brother. I knew
you were perfect from the moment you mentioned him. Now it’s up to you; do you
understand?”

She
didn’t. Leanor wouldn’t help her. Leanor wouldn’t explain. She was clinging to
her secrets, taking them to her death. How could Charlotte ever figure any of
this out, when she had no idea what to do next?

“You
can do this, Charlotte. Go to the Blast. Everything will be okay; you hear me?
You’ll make everything okay.”

“Everything?”
Everything except reversing Leanor’s death. Charlotte gritted her teeth and
asked, “But what do we do
at
the Blast?”

The
pay phone was silent. After a few seconds, it beeped three times. Leanor had
hung up.

Just
as she had during their first year together, Leanor was leaving Charlotte to
her own devices.

Charlotte
set the phone on the cradle, clenching her teeth together. “She didn’t listen,”
she said to Monroe and Bill behind her. “Didn’t care that she was going to
die.” Charlotte couldn’t know for sure without going back in time to watch
Leanor die again, but it didn’t feel like she had succeeded. If anything, it
seemed like Leanor was resolute in rushing toward her own death.

She
felt a gentle touch on her shoulder. Monroe asked, “What did she say?”

Charlotte
turned herself away from the phone. This call should’ve confirmed that time
could be changed. But she couldn’t help feel like she’d already lost her
mentor. She’d left Leanor lying on the ground, thousands of years ago. But who
was that woman? Who was this woman that she’d just called? Not the woman she’d
known. “She said she hired me for a reason. Told me to go to the Blast. That I’d
make everything okay, but she didn’t explain what ‘everything’ meant.”

Monroe
attempted a smile. “Then maybe everything
will
be okay.”

“Sure,”
she said.

Bill
and Monroe watched her, waiting for her to speak. There was nothing more to
tell. Nothing more that Leanor had relayed, aside from confirming that she’d
been lying all this time. She’d had plans for Charlotte from the beginning.
Plans she’d never mentioned until the moment of her death.

“So,”
Bill said at last, tugging the long tendrils of his beard, “what d’we do?”

Charlotte
shook her head. “She won’t listen, even if we went to her apartment. She
wouldn’t save herself, so: the Blast. That’s all we have left.”

“Did
she answer you?” Monroe asked, eyebrows up. “What do we
do
at the
Blast?”

Charlotte
lifted her hands. It was impossible to say. But Leanor had called a visit to
the World Trade Center “perfect,” somehow knowing that they’d meet that
anachronistic woman. What was this but another vague instruction?

“We
go to the Blast,” Charlotte replied at last. “And see if anything jumps out at
us.”

Maybe
Leanor had been right that “everything” that would be better. Maybe, in her own
way, Leanor was giving them the tools to save her from certain death. Or,
knowing Leanor, she was sending them on some other errand, trusting that
Charlotte would innovate.