Convergence Point (28 page)

“It's an honor to meet you,” Sam said. “Mac has told me so much about your son. He was an amazing young man. I'm so sorry for your loss.” Of course she had the right words. Sam always did.

Alina Matthews reached out and patted Sam's face. “Thank you.

Mac shook as she walked away. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Everyone was leaving. All but the dead. He leaned his head back, letting the rain wash away the tears. Sam wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her tight, needing the warmth. And then he rested his head on hers and cried.

S
am slid down the wall until her rump hit the faux hardwood of the floor. The only sound aside from the lashing rain were the snores and occasional whimpers of Li'l Eric MacKenzie sleeping in his bedroom.

Mac sat down beside her. “How you doing?”

“I could be worse.” He offered her a can of a soda—­a brand she didn't recognize. She opened it and tasted it gingerly. It was better than the tap water, but not by much.
Was everything so sickeningly sweet back then?

“I realized today I've never been to a funeral that wasn't related to a murder investigation. I don't know what to do when I'm not looking for a killer. It's a little surreal.”

“You did fine,” Mac said. He chugged his pop, then crushed the can. “You did . . . amazing.”

She blushed slightly. She'd been hearing things like that from him for so long, but she had never really let herself listen. Now, though . . . it filled her with warmth. Warmth she wanted to share. “How are you holding up?”

He did an odd, one-­sided shoulder-­to-­ear shrug. “I'm empty. I know they say that funerals are for the living, one last chance to say good-­bye, but I never really believed it. Most funerals I've been to have been celebrations. You don't grieve someone who dies peacefully in their sleep at ninety surrounded by friends and family. You break out the old journals, read about their school-­yard crushes, and tell stories. This felt like good-­bye. Good-­bye to my friends, good-­bye to my life, good-­bye army, good-­bye everything. This is where it all fell apart.” He gestured vaguely at the molding walls. “I thought I'd die here.”

“Here in D.C.? Why?”

“That's what all the alcohol was for. I thought it was a poison, I guess. The news always had stories about someone drinking too much and getting alcohol poisoning, so I bought all the liquor I could afford.

“I was trying to drown the pain. Not the injuries. There was something inside, stabbing me and smothering me. I felt trapped in my own body.” He looked at her. “Does that make sense?”

“It doesn't have to, Mac. Don't you get it: You
didn't
kill yourself. All on your own—­for whatever reason—­you lived in order to meet me in Alabama. And look how far you came from
that
person. Do you feel better now?”

“Most days.”

“We're getting you back to therapy once we figure out where we're staying.” She took a deep breath as the enormity of the situation hit her. “We are going to find somewhere else to stay, aren't we? Somewhere not here?”

Mac nodded. “That's the plan.”

“Oh, you have a plan?” She drank some more of the carbonated sugar water and hoped it kicked her brain in gear.

He grimaced. “Part of a plan?”

“You fill me with such hope.”

He scrambled to his feet, went into the bedroom, and brought back a large black duffel, shutting the door on the sleeping Eric as he passed. “On my way up to find you at Fort Benning, I stopped at a little pawnshop to see if I could find an unregistered gun.”

Sam covered her ears. “I'm not hearing this.”

Mac pulled her hands away from her face laughing. “Who broke into a government building and stole an ID card? That was you. Don't give me a hard time. I paid for the gun.”

Mac unzipped the duffel to reveal faded green rectangles of United States currency. “My reup bonus. I took it out in cash because I thought it was better than a bank at the time.”

Sam held up a stack of twenty-­dollar bills. “Your country had really ugly money.”

“Thanks, remind me to compliment Canada sometime. What was on them? An old woman and a crazy bird?”

She made a face and stuck out her tongue.

“Right now, this currency is good, but the exchange rate after the nationhood vote was ridiculous. Five thousand USD got you thirteen cents of Commonwealth cash. The United States dollar was dead, and everyone got a check to help them start over.”

“How far away is that?”

“The vote is on November 11, but the polls will close early when it's obvious the overwhelming majority of the citizens want to join the Commonwealth.” Mac took the cash back. “The spring after we joined the Commonwealth, the online DIY sites were full of ways to use cash to decorate. ­People used them for wallpaper and covered lamps in them.”

Sam's eyes went wide with horror. “That's beyond tacky. Why didn't I hear about it?”

“Eh, it was only in style for a minute or two, and it's not like Canada had the same problems with the transition that we did.”

“Okay, so we have capital. It's a good way to make a fresh start. The question is: Where Do We Go?”

Mac pulled a piece of glossy printed paper from his back pocket. He unfolded it and passed it to Sam.

She read it aloud, “ ‘Come visit beautiful Australia and find your new dream home'?”

“Australia lost nearly eighty percent of its population in the plague.”

“Only because they were trafficking sex slaves from all over Asia,” Sam said. “They shut down the ports in time, but they didn't shut down the human traffickers.”

He pointed a finger at her. “Ancient history.”

“Nineteen years ago isn't ancient history.”

“Listen, right now, Australia is taking skilled immigrants and offering them a move-­in bonus, a job-­signing bonus, and housing. There are houses sitting empty, and we can have one.”

She narrowed her eyes. “What's the catch?”

“The offer is going to expire in four days, when several major politicians come out in favor of the nationhood vote.”

“And?”

“And I can't fly right now. The airports are using fingerprint scanners, and I'm on the no-­fly list because of my combat status. The soonest I can leave the country is when we hit the transition period between the vote and the Commonwealth government's actually taking over. All the airports will lose security, but the airlines will do big business for a few weeks while ­people try to escape. Europe is the most popular destination, but there will be flights to Australia.”

“If nothing changes.”

“If nothing changes,” Mac agreed.

“That's a really big IF.”

He shrugged. “It's a way out. And you don't have to wait: With a few bribes, we can get you on a plane by tomorrow night. You go to Australia, and you'll have a house and job before the end of the month. You'll be safe.”

 

CHAPTER 22

A strong man trusts to the strength of his arm. A wise man trusts to the wisdom of his learning. A great man trusts only that he is not yet perfect. Greatness can only come from a place of patient humility.

~ excerpt from
A Greater Fall of Man
by Indel Nazti I1—­2070

Tuesday October 28, 2064

District of Columbia

United States of America

Iteration 2

S
am's shoe stuck to a tar-­like substance embedded in the low pile carpet. “What . . .”

“Don't ask,” Mac said as he steered her forward. “This isn't our world.”

“Marble tiles are fashionable flooring because they're easy to clean.”

“And easy to break things on. Like heads.”

As if to remind her, the floor sank slightly as she stepped, like sinking into wet grass with her heels. “Is the floor padded?”

“All the government offices were given padded main floors after the suicide crisis in the thirties.” Mac led the way to a winding line filled with ­people wearing faded clothes and weary looks. He smiled at her. “That's a joke, by the way.”

“Then make it funny.” She stuck her tongue out at him, then inched closer. “Do they go out of their way to make it depressing?”

Mac looked around and shrugged. “Dunno. I had a sergeant once who said that most places like this were designed at the epicenters of evil. It was some feng shui thing. If you mapped out government offices, they were always in the worst possible place for progress and enlightenment.”

A Canadian Marine walked past, a bleach stain on his hem making her eye twitch. “The last days of the old republic.”

“Shh!”

The ­people closest to Sam and Mac turned, eyes full of questions and fear.

“The vote isn't until next week,” Mac said to her. She didn't realize how bad it was . . . how bad it was going to get. He remembered. He'd been old enough to vote. She'd still been behind the ivy-­laced walls of the all-­girls Catholic school she'd lived at most her life. Even then, she'd lived in United Territories, safely hidden away from the horrors that rocked the United States.

For twenty minutes, they waited in mute terror as the past slipped by. Everything was ever so slightly out of phase. The faces, the clothes, even the colors seemed wrong, dulled by the national despair that finally drove the States to combine with the Territories and form the Commonwealth.

“Next!” A woman with naturally blond hair rang the bell at her station and smiled as Sam approached with her passport. “How can I help you today?”

“Well, ah . . .” Mac laughed and rubbed the back of his head before hitting her with an aww-­shucks-­country-­boy smile. “My girlfriend's about to leave for this college trip, and we had to get her a new passport and um . . .” He took Sam's passport. “You can see the problem.”

The woman frowned. “Everything looks right for a Canadian passport.”

“The date,” Sam said. “There's a typo.” There wasn't. She'd gotten the passport when her Spanish one expired in 2066, but that was going to be real tough to explain to a customs agent.

“Oh my gosh!” The woman laughed. She tried scratching the date with her thumbnail. “How weird is that? I've never heard of a typo! Hey, Charlie!” she called to a coworker. “Chuck, come look at this!”

An older man with a handlebar mustache ambled over, shuffling a well-­worn groove in the threadbare carpet. His glasses slid to the end of his nose as he peered at the passport. “Says 2066? Are you a time traveler, ma'am?”

Sam froze as her worst fears came true. There was no sane way to explain this. They were going to lock her in an insane asylum. She'd be executed as a clone . . .

Mac laughed. He nudged her, and she managed a weak smile.

“There's no such thing as time travel,” Mac said with an encouraging smile.

“Exactly,” Sam said, trying to fake cheerfulness as she fought to remember how to breathe.

“It'll take us a few hours to get the new one made,” the woman said. “I can print it here, but we have a backlog right now.”

“Can you have it before you close today?” Mac asked. His hand reached across the counter, and a stack of bills dropped down out of sight. “She's got a flight to catch tomorrow night.”

The woman's eyes barely dipped to count the money before she turned a sunny smile back to them. “Sure thing! Come back by four, and they'll let you in to wait. I'll make sure this gets done by then.” She waved Sam's passport and walked away.

Mac took her hand. “Come on.”

“She has my passport,” Sam muttered, grabbing Mac's arm in a white-­knuckled grip.

“That's fine.”

“No, it most certainly isn't. I've got no ID on me!”

“So what? You'll have one in a few hours. If anyone asks, just tell them the truth.”

“That I'm from the future?”

“That you're getting a new passport made at the consulate.”

“Oh.” She looked up at him and almost fell into his glorious eyes. She caressed his face. “You'll come after me, won't you?”

“When have I not?” Mac caught her hand and pressed a kiss into her palm. “There's nowhere you can go that I won't follow.”

 

CHAPTER 23

No one can do my job and carry regrets. The temptation to misuse our control of time would be too great. Still, we are human. We long for the same things everyone wants: recognition, friendship, comfort, love.

~ private conversation with Agent 5 of the Ministry of Defense I1—­2073

Saturday November 1, 2064

Sydney

Australia

Iteration 2

A
s a girl, Sam's least favorite book from the library had been
Lost at the Park
. In it, little Ellie Sweet took a dare to enter an abandoned amusement park at midnight. There was a plot somewhere in faded pages, something about foiling a bank robbery, but what stuck with Sam was the terror of the abandoned park. Empty benches. Row upon row of derelict cars. Buildings with paint peeling off smiling faces. The book had given her nightmares for weeks afterward, and she'd suppressed it all until the trip to the carnival when she turned six. Seeing the clown castle had sent her running back to Sister Mary Peter and refusing to leave the elderly nun's side for the rest of the day for fear of being left there overnight.

Sydney reminded her of the abandoned park.

There were no clown castles or bank robbers, but the buildings were empty. Several had been torn down in the wake of the Yellow Plague, and many that survived did so with only a few floors lit at night. As the sun set, she looked out her hotel window at a stygian vista. This was the darkness that first drove mankind to find safety in fire. This was the blackness that swallowed the soul and left bleached bones in the desert.

She shivered with primal fear before securing the curtains tightly. Australia had been one of the nations hardest hit by the plagues. Seventy percent of the population was infected in the first wave. Over 50 percent of them died in 2045. A second wave in 2047, when the borders opened and another 20 percent were killed. Birth rates were down. A population that had soared past the expected 32 million was reduced very quickly to less than 9 million. Inadequate medical care over the intervening nineteen years had slowly chipped away at the population base.

The incentives offered to come and rebuild the country were tempting for many who wanted to escape the financial collapse of the northern hemisphere. Australia was at least self-­sustaining, isolated, safe from the chaos of the United States nationhood vote and the collapse of the American dollar.

Sam flipped through the folder she'd been given upon arrival. There was a choice of lovely homes, all certified plague-­free, and jobs to accompany them. She'd live tax-­free for the first five years and be paid an incentive for marrying and having a baby—­to the tune of a hundred thousand dollars per child. The woman who'd greeted Sam had talked about the joy of having families for over an hour. No amount of polite refusal could convince the Aussie woman that children just weren't in the cards. Claiming to have a fatal disease would get her booted back to the Americas, where Commonwealth surveillance would tag her as a clone within a few weeks of taking over the United States. It wouldn't matter if she told the truth, the early Commonwealth had been brutally clonephobic. Stating she was infertile was equally problematic. So she'd fallen back on the “waiting for true love” response.

That had gotten her a list of eligible Aussie bachelors in each town.

Sleep eluded her, so she packed her bags and checked out before dawn. She drove northward on the paid highway, her newly assigned, solar-­powered car zipping along the empty road at an excess of 250 kilometers an hour.

A few hours before noon, she stopped to stretch and find food in Goondiwindi. The air was baking as she pulled the car to a stop at a strip mall with a small carnival going on. A group of students was holding a car wash to fund-­raise for some vague event. One of the boutiques had rolled most their wares outside, children ran around mirrors with bright pink frames as their parents tried on sunglasses and held up shirts with the critical eyes of professional window-­shoppers.

Sam dug through her purse for the Aussie money she'd gotten just for arriving and sought out the scent of hot dogs and caramelized onions that flowed on the breeze like the perfume of the gods. “One, please,” she told the vendor as she sorted through her change.

He gave her an odd look.

She held up her pointer finger, and he nodded. Probably the accent, but it was hard to tell. She could hear at least three different languages being spoken in the plaza. English was considered the main language, but the welcoming immigration policy meant ­people from everywhere were rushing to rebuild Australia. And she was beginning to realize her Eurocentric education wasn't going to get her very far.

“Come pet a puppy! Dogs make the best pets! Come find the love of your life!” a woman shouted from somewhere in the crowd.

Sam swapped cash for lunch and went in search of puppies. She found them in the shade of the buildings romping in temporary playpens. Tiny teacup poodles, a terrier mix that looked ready to do flips on command, and . . . her heart lurched . . . a tiny tan mastiff with a black mask just like Hoss's. Suddenly, she wasn't so hungry.

“Would you like to pet one?” the woman sitting under broad white straw hat asked as she moved a braid of silver hair out of the way to reveal a name tag that proclaimed her to be Jill. “They're all adoptable.” She held a poodle up for Sam's inspection. “Microchipped, vaccinated, spayed or neutered, and they come with two weeks' worth of food and a leash!”

“Can I . . . could I pet the mastiff?” Sam asked.

“Sure thing!” Jill said. “This cute little guy is Bosco, and he won't stay small forever.”

Bosco was already a forty-­pound bundle of wiggling, wagging, licking love. He squirmed on Sam's lap, turned two circles, and collapsed in typical mastiff exhaustion.

“They get huge,” Jill said. “He's a—­”

“—­Boerboel,” Sam said. “I know. I had one.” Her heart tightened. Sorrow squeezed her chest, and she pulled Bosco closer, sobbing into his fur. “I miss him. I miss him so much!”

Jill patted her tentatively on the shoulder. “Would you like a hanky?”

She nodded, forcing herself to release her death grip on the puppy. “I'm sorry, I just . . . I can't believe he's gone.”

“I understand,” Jill said. “I was the same way when my Tofu passed away. Silly thing, she was a Yorkie, and I adored her. It was the cancer that got her in the end. I cried for weeks! What was your puppy's name?”

“Hoss.”

“Sounds like a real gentleman.”

Sam nodded reluctantly as she stroked Bosco's back. “He was a wonderful dog.”

“What happened to him?”

“There was . . .”
a serial killer who wanted me dead
“ . . . an accident. It was over very quickly, but it felt like losing a limb. Every time I turn around, Hoss is missing. I have a dog-­shaped hole in my life.”

Jill nodded.

Bosco looked up, noticed the uneaten hot dog in Sam's hand, and obviously decided the delicious gift was for him. The hot dog was gone in two bites, and Sam was smiling. “Can he come home with me?”

“Sure!” Jill said. “Do you live here?”

Sam shook her head. “I'm moving north of here, near Airlie Beach? A city called Cannonvale. There's a house waiting for me.”

“Oh . . .” The other woman frowned. “Bit brave of you to go back to a tourist destination. Half the town was burned, you know, to get rid of all the germs.”

With a weak smile, Sam nodded. “There are worse things than ghost towns.”

“I can't think of any.”

Sam hugged Bosco to her chest. He licked her chin, leaving onion-­scented drool behind. “I'm sure there's worse.” Like being cast adrift from your own time and place. Or being tortured and hideously mutilated before being dumped back in time and buried in a pauper's grave. Or being erased from history entirely. That was worse. Her gaze was drawn to the car on the other side of the crowd. No one here knew about the stability core she'd smuggled through time. They were all blissfully naive.

Bosco licked her again and gave a tiny mastiff growl of content.

“I'll have a big, drooling, lazy mastiff to protect me!” Sam said with a cheery smile. “What could possibly go wrong?”

Jill sighed sadly.

“Don't answer that,” Sam said. “Let's just sign the adoption paperwork.”

Forty minutes and three hot dogs later—­two more for Bosco, who was a growing boy, and one for Sam—­and she and the lazy puppy were back on the road. And, for the first time since arriving in 2064, Sam thought she could see a light at the end of the tunnel.