The Curiosity Killers (31 page)

Epilogue:
The Dismantled Fortress

“...for hope is always born at the same time as love...” – Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Friday, May 13, 2101, Avon, Vermont, USA

Ben closed his grade book and tossed it across the room. It landed with a soft thud on the corner of Kris’s desk. “I declare this term
done
.”

“Hey,” Kris protested.

“Send that to the records department to get final grades entered for me.”

“I don’t do clerical anymore,” Kris said. “Remember?” She plucked the lab coat off the back of her chair. “Technician.
You
promoted me.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“It’s the brain fog, you know, from changing things.” Ben stood and pushed his shoulders backward until he felt a satisfying crackle in the middle of his spine. “God, I hate sitting for that long.”

“You used to love sitting.”

“I used to love a lot of things.”

Kris grinned. “I know what you love
no-ow
,” she said, the last word coming out as taunting musical notes. “You love a certain blond woman
who likes to dress like it’s 1850, don’tcha?”

“Hey, in the original timeline, her fashion sense was what everybody was wearing,” Ben protested. He looked down at his frayed jeans and bleached T-shirt. “I used to dress a lot better, too.”

“Like how, velvet smoking jackets?” Kris giggled. “That’s what you had on when you got back last time.”

“That jacket was awesome,” Ben muttered. “Jesus, you’d think the lack of a war would
improve
aesthetics, not cause them to devolve.” A very small orange tabby kitten wandered up from the basement staircase. “There you are, Shanti.” Ben rose and plucked the kitten from the floor. “Did you get lunch?”

The front door opened. “Hey, I brought coffee.”

“Coffee? Seriously?” Ben crossed the room and greeted Violet with a quick peck on the cheek. “It used to be nothing but tea for you.”

“Yes, well.” Violet tapped the kitten on the nose. “There’s a lot of stuff I’m getting used to. Trying to go with the flow and stuff.” She handed Ben a cardboard holder with four paper coffee cups in it. “And that’s not a real kiss, mister.”

“Not now, there are children present,” Ben said.

“I’m not a child, not a secretary, not a breeder, but I’m still leaving this den of iniquity,” Kris announced. “You may grope freely, animals. Speaking of whom, let me get this baby her food.” Kris took Shanti to the kitchen. The kitten squeaked and climbed up to perch on Kris’s shoulder.

Violet giggled and pulled one of the coffees free of the holder. “You think Kris suspects what we’re up to?” she asked once the other woman left the room.

“Nah. She thinks we’re going on vacation now that my term is over.”

“And now that I don’t exist, have no job, and can just be a lazy layabout all the time?” Violet sipped her coffee. “That’s part of this whole thing I thought I’d like, but the reality is a lot more dull.”

“I know you hate not being an agent anymore.” Ben took one of the coffees out and set the rest on Kris’s desk. “But hey, when my government contract comes through, I can hire you to be part of the official historical investigation team. You’ll have a paper trail, a Social Security card, the works.”

“Sounds like nepotism,” Violet said. “Won’t they get suspicious when they find out we’re a, you know.”

“A thing? An item? A matched set of bookends? The only people on Earth who remember that this state used to belong to Great Britain not so very long ago?”

“Yes, yes, yes, and yes,” Violet replied.

“Eh, screw ’em.”

“Wow, the old you would probably not have said that.”

“The old me would also not be going on a secret mission tonight.”

“No, you’d just have sent a client and then demanded she tell you all about it, right?”

“That used to be all you were good for,” Ben said. He walked to his own desk and pulled open a drawer. “I had this made for you, by the way. Figured you might want something a little more powerful than just your fists of fury, if we were going to do some kidnapping.”

“I don’t like calling it kidnapping,” Violet said, “but I do like presents.”

“Ta da.” Ben set a small black cylinder into her hand.

“My Taser laser.” Violet beamed. “It doesn’t quite, well, it’s not…” Her voice trailed off, and she laughed. “I can’t expect it to be exact, can I?”

“Ambrose made it. I told him it was part of the grant, projecting future technology and then confirming it through travel into the future.”

“You’re the best.” Violet leaned in and kissed Ben.

“Shall we get on with the kidnapping?” he asked.

“Again, not crazy about calling it that.” Violet followed Ben downstairs to the laboratory.

“What would you call it if we’re going forty-two years in the past, tracking down a kid, and then, you know, napping him?”

“I’d call it looking up an old friend, is what I’d call it,” Violet replied. “I’d call it saving the world.”

They were downstairs now. The lab was dark, Ambrose and Michael having gone home hours earlier. Ben flipped the switch that set the room aglow. “The world seems pretty good lately,” Ben said. “How exactly are we saving it?”

“I didn’t say we were saving the whole thing,” Violet said. She wound her arms around Ben’s neck. “But this will definitely save our little corner of it.”

“They’re waiting, back there, in their pasts,” Ben said. “Eddy, Wilbur…”

Violet nodded. “We’ll get them back where they belong,” she said. She gave him a long kiss, then pressed the retrieval device into his palm. “Ready?”

About the Author

K.W. Taylor is the author of the urban fantasy Sam Brody series, about a dragonslaying disc jockey (
The Red Eye
and
The House on Concordia Drive
, both 2014 from Alliteration Ink). She has an MFA from Seton Hill University. Taylor lives in a restored Victorian home in Ohio with her tech writer husband and—unlike every other novelist in the world—an insanely photogenic kitten. She teaches college English and Women’s Studies and blogs at kwtaylorwriter.com.
The Curiosity Killers
is her first science fiction novel.