The Edge of Forever (29 page)

If I can save Alora like Dad wanted, what’s to say I can’t save him too?

I reach New Denver at sunset. They sky is pink and orange. I wish I could see the mountains in the distance. It’s hard to see them over the skyscrapers. Everything is so different from Willow Creek. I try to imagine how Alora would react if she could see all of this. She might wild out at first, but I have a feeling she’d love it.

The city buzzes with noise. People talking. The steady whirring of shuttles as they zoom overhead. Announcements blasting over the Jumbotrons. Life going on even though mine’s falling apart. I notice a nearby Jumbotron flashing pictures of people wanted by the Federation.

I’m on there.

My hands ball into fists. I’m in more trouble than I thought if they’re plastering my face everywhere. There’s also a ginormous reward—a million credits. Enough to live on for over a year. I glance around, trying to see if anyone has spotted me. It doesn’t seem like I’ve been recognized, but I don’t want to sit around and find out.

I end up at Dad’s apartment. It’s a risk, but I can’t go to Mom’s place. She’d drag me to the DTA herself. And I’m not sure Shan would help me. At least if I’m here, I can change clothes and use the TeleNet to contact Professor March.

After I clean up and dress in some regs, I stash Alora’s Jewill in the hidden desk drawer. If I’m caught at least this will be safe.

In the living room, I activate the TeleNet. I almost give the command to call Professor March, but hold off. Maybe there is someone else Dad knew who could help me. I give the command to call up his contacts list and scan through those. There are dozens and dozens of avatars displayed, mostly people he used to work with. I’m just about to close out the contacts when I notice one avi of a dark-haired woman. I’ve seen her somewhere. I swipe it and then suck in my breath when it enlarges.

She looks almost identical to the woman Alora drew.

Holy fure
.

The name flashing under it reads Adalyn Mason. I give the command to activate the file, and several digigraphs flash on the screen. I select the first one. A scene plays, showing the woman and Dad. It looks like they were in their late teens or early twenties. They’re at a party and Dad tries to get Adalyn to dance with him. She reluctantly gets up from her seat, but I can tell she’s happy. They join a few other couples already dancing. I smile as I realize Professor March is one of them.

The digigraph ends and loops back to the beginning. I watch a few more. They’re all of Dad and Adalyn. And they’re obviously in love. The last digigraph raises a lump in my throat. Dad and Adalyn are surrounded by a lot of people. Dad serenades her in an off-key voice. Then he drops down on one knee and proposes.

My legs feel weak. Watching these digigraphs surfaces a forgotten memory. The day Mom took me and Shan to Dad’s apartment to try and talk him into giving their marriage a second chance. This woman is the same one we caught hugging Dad.

And at some point, she was with Alora.

Talking to Professor March can wait. I give the command to search for Adalyn Mason’s address.

I need to talk to her. Tonight.

I hesitate outside Adalyn’s door. It didn’t take me long to get here—it turns out she lives in an apartment two blocks from Dad’s building. I wonder how she’ll react. She’ll probably know who I am. But will she help me or turn me in to the DTA? I press my thumb over the sensor.

A few moments later, Adalyn answers, wearing a plain, light green suit. Her face is ashen. “It’s you,” she whispers.

“I need to talk to you,” I say.

She peeks out in the hallway before waving me into the apartment. As I pass her, I notice a faint scar running from her hairline to her left cheek. I wonder what happened. The next thing I notice is the smell. Lavender. Just like Alora.

“I suppose you’re here looking for answers,” she says after we’re seated in her living area. So the lady knows how to get to business. I like that.

“Yes. I was at Dad’s apartment and I found some old digigraphs of the two of you.”

“Yes. We were . . . friends.” Her eyes take on a faraway look.

“It seemed like you were more than friends,” I mutter. My mind jumps back to the day Mom and I saw them together. How he gazed at Adalyn as if she meant everything to him. I can’t remember him looking at Mom like that. For a split second, I feel a stab of resentment. It doesn’t last. Mom is impossible to get along with.

Adalyn clears her throat before speaking. “We were engaged, but that was a long time ago. Right after we graduated from the Academy.”

I listen as she goes on to explain how Dad’s insistence on joining the military sector of the DTA drove them apart. She didn’t trust the military back then, and she doesn’t trust them now.

“So you work for the civilian branch now?” I ask when she’s done.

“In a way,” she says. “I program Sim Games.”

“Really? Aren’t you a Time Bender?”

“I am, but I can’t shift anymore.” She points at the scar.

“What happened?”

Adalyn takes a deep breath. “The DTA tried to take my daughter away. I resisted.”

“When did that happen?” I ask, feeling my skin grow cold.

“Ten years ago when my daughter was just six years old.”

“What’s her name?”

“Alora.”

I get this weird dizzying sensation. Alora is this woman’s daughter. I was so sure that her mother was Colonel Fairbanks. I feel like I’m watching myself as I say, “I’ve met her.”

“What? You . . . how did you do that? Is she in this time again?”

“What do you mean?” I ask, leaning forward. “Or better yet, what do you know?”

Adalyn clasps her hands together and stares at them. “A few years after I broke up with Leithan, I met Alora’s father, Nathaniel. We had this whirlwind courtship and soon after applied for a marriage contract, but it was denied. We never knew why, but we kept seeing each other in secret. But then a few months later, things began to change. Nathaniel became volatile and paranoid. He said he was being followed. He also claimed that he discovered his whole life was a lie. He said he’d been cloned.”

She pauses to let out a shaky breath. “And his temper, oh that was off the charts when I didn’t go along with what he said. I ended the relationship, but by then I was pregnant. Since I wasn’t supposed to be with Nathaniel anymore, I said I used a donor. But Nathaniel knew the truth.”

I rub my forehead. “Wait, you’re telling me Alora’s father lived in
this
time? That can’t be right. I just spent the past month living in the same house with his sister in 2013. I saw pics of him.”

“I know, but this happened seventeen years ago. I didn’t know the truth back then.”

Okay, time to shut up
, I tell myself.

“After Alora’s birth, Nathaniel came and went in our lives. He was good to her, but he still scared me. He’d go on and on about how he was really from the past. I did my best to shelter that part of him from Alora. She loved him so much.” Adalyn rakes her hands over her hair. “There’s another thing. When Alora was born, I found out she carried genes to bend space
and
time. That terrified me. I didn’t know what the DTA would do if they found out.”

“What did you do?”

“I have a friend who works in the labs, and she helped me cover up everything. But I lived in fear that the DTA would discover what we did.”

“What about Nathaniel? Did he know?”

“Yes. When I found out I was pregnant, he confessed that he could bend space and time as well. He said he was born that way. I didn’t believe him until he showed me. He also said the DTA would take Alora away if they found out, and we’d never see her again. He wanted us to flee, but I refused. The DTA would never let us just walk away.”

Adalyn is right. That’s one of the few bad parts of being a Time Bender. The government has to have access to our whereabouts at all times. And we’re never allowed to abandon our time-bending responsibilities since there aren’t many of us.

“So how did Alora end up in the past?”

“Several months after her sixth birthday, a military official showed up with two officers. They said there had been an audit of the genetics lab and they discovered something. She said Alora was special and that they needed to take her with them. I knew what she meant, but I played dumb. I just asked her why.” Adalyn’s nostrils flare and she closes her eyes for a moment. “She refused to tell me, so I tried to stop them. Then suddenly Nathaniel appeared behind me. The next thing I remember is lying on the floor and feeling nothing but pain. When I woke in the med center, they claimed Nathaniel took her.”

I give her an incredulous stare as I think back to my own childhood, hearing about a young girl who was kidnapped. So that was Alora. And I remember Alora’s sketch. I take it out of my pocket and hand it to Adalyn. “Is this the woman who tried to take Alora?”

Adalyn studies the drawing and nods. “Yes, that’s her. I’ll never forget her name. Halla Fairbanks.” She glances back up at me. “I never liked that woman, but I actually feel sorry for her now. I heard her daughter passed away recently.”

I look at the floor, my stomach clenching. “Yes. Vika was my girlfriend.”

Adalyn leans over to touch my hand. “I’m sorry. I know you still must be hurting.”

She’s right. It still hurts, but the pain isn’t sharp like when Vika first died. It’s more of a dull ache now. I wonder if it’s because of Alora. If spending time with her took the pain away. I feel traitorous. How could I develop feelings for someone else so soon after my girlfriend died? What does that say about me?

“Is there anything else you want to know?” Adalyn asks after a few seconds.

“About Vika . . . did you ever see pics of her?”

Adalyn nods. “I just have the pic from Alora’s obituary, but the resemblance between the two of them is uncanny.”

I hesitate. I’ve already asked so much, but I need to know for sure. “Are they sisters?”

Adalyn shrugs. “I don’t know. Possibly. But if Nathaniel is Vika’s father, I don’t think he was aware of it. Halla is the one who would have the answers.”

That’s true. Vika was always under the impression that she was the product of a sperm donation. She could have been, but what are the odds of her looking so much like Alora and Nate?

I wonder what Colonel Fairbanks is up to. What did she want with Alora?

And another thing.

“How did my dad get involved with all of this?”

“Toward the end of our relationship, Nathaniel talked a lot of nonsense. Not only did he say he was a clone, he also said he was from the twentieth century. I thought he was just wilding out until the DTA tried to take Alora. I’m almost glad he got to her first, but he never told me where he was taking her. I figured they were hiding out overseas. But last year I decided to look into his claims, and I found an article about a Nathaniel Walker who was killed in 1994. And then I found this.” Adalyn sweeps a finger over her DataLink and taps a few instructions. A hologram appears over it.

It’s Alora’s obituary.

Adalyn continues, “She’s using Nathaniel’s last name in the past, but in this time she went by mine. I think that’s why the DTA never found her.”

My stomach does this weird flip. “I saw that on the DataDisk Dad had at his apartment.”

“I sent it to him. I know I hurt Leithan a long time ago when I ended our engagement, but we remained friends.” Adalyn’s eyes fill with tears. She quickly brushes them away. “When I found Alora’s obituary and knew I couldn’t go back myself, I needed someone I could trust to do it for me. The only person I could think of was Leithan. He promised he’d get my baby back. She doesn’t belong in 2013. She’s not supposed to be dead. She’s supposed to be here.”

She picks up a digigraph that’s resting on a table next to us and hands it to me. It’s of Alora. She looks like she’s maybe three or four years old. She’s running through a Green Zone. She lets out a peal of laughter as she jumps into a man’s arms. He spins her around, holding her tight against his chest.

It’s the same Nate Walker I saw in Grace’s pics. Nate, whose death was supposedly faked in 1994, who abandoned his daughter to Grace in 2003. Nate in this time.

How is that possible? Time Benders can’t shift to their own future. And cloning was outlawed in 2109.

Or was it?

As I sit there, numb to the core, I try to sort through everything I’ve learned. It seems impossible, but here it is in front of me. Alora and her father in this time. And my father was going to prevent her death because she was never supposed to be in 2013.

But why did he involve me? Is he really dead or is something else going on?

I’m too jacked to go back to Dad’s apartment after I leave Adalyn. It’s late, but I need to talk to Professor March. He has to know something. I mean, he helped me escape before.

I realize how careless I’ve been just before I reach his apartment. Someone points at me. Before I can flee, I hear a familiar voice behind me.

“Well, well, we meet again, Mr. Creed.”

I whip around and find myself facing three Space Benders. They’re pointing stunners at me. The one in the middle is the one who spoke. It’s the same chick that caught me the last time in Willow Creek.

38

ALORA

JULY 3, 2013

T
he pages of Dad’s senior yearbook rustle as I flip through them, seeking one with his picture. I come to the attic at least once a day now and search through his trunk.

Since the end of May—when the scans revealed that nothing is wrong with me—Aunt Grace decided to drop the whole “remembering the past will make things worse” stance. Especially when the doctors said stress from not knowing what happened to my parents could have triggered my blackouts.

The attic door creaks, and Aunt Grace calls out, “Alora, I need you to run to town. I’m out of ketchup and brown sugar.”

I groan. The annual Fourth of July Jamboree is tomorrow, and this year Aunt Grace is determined to win the barbecue cook-off. She’s been on a tear trying to perfect a new sauce since she learned this year’s grand prize is five hundred dollars.

“I’ll be down in a minute.”