Forgotten (13 page)

Just looking down at the business park around the building shows me that it’s almost as quiet and empty as this building is, too. So maybe there aren’t even that many people in the houses I can make out in the distance. The whole place has the feel of a town that was mostly abandoned a while ago. That, or one that is still waiting for people to come to fill it up.

I’m still thinking that when a figure walks out of the adjoining room. I recognize the woman we tied up before, and she obviously recognizes us too, because she opens her mouth to scream. Jack manages to clamp a hand over her mouth just in time.

“It wouldn’t do any good,” Jack says, before removing his hand. “Now, I didn’t get your name last time.”

“Janine.”

“Hi, Janine. Now, I want to know pretty much the same things as before. Where is Johnny?”

“He went with the senator,” Janine says. There is a sofa identical to the one in the apartment we’ve just come from. She sits down on it.

“And where did the senator go?”

Janine looks around, as though trying to think of a way out of the situation, but all there is there is a slightly more opulent version of the rooms below. I step into her eye line.

“You have to tell us. There isn’t much time.”

“He took his guards and those… other people, and they all left. There’s just me and a few guards on the lower floors, and I haven’t heard anything from them since they went to deal with some kind of disturbance.”

“That will be Grayson,” Jack says. “Did the senator say where he was going, or what he was planning to do?”

“Just that I needed to be ready to take care of Johnny when he came back, because he’d probably be confused.”

“They’ve gone after the fading machine,” I say.

“Which means that they’re going after my father,” Jack points out, “because the original was destroyed with Location Six. We have to get out of here now, Celes.”

We don’t bother tying Janine up this time. There doesn’t seem to be much point, with the building so empty. Instead, we race down through it, down stairwell after stairwell until we arrive at some kind of lobby. There are doors at the end, made of what looks like tinted glass. Through them, I can see…

“It’s Grayson and the Faders,” I say. “They made it out.”

Jack nods, though he doesn’t look as happy to see Grayson as I am. We head over to the doors, which have an opening mechanism beside them. It’s locked, but that doesn’t seem to matter once I put enough heat directly through the mechanism. It whirls briefly, and then the doors slide open.

We step out and the Faders all turn to look at us. They’re heavily armed, and they half-raise their guns before they spot who we are. Grayson looks like he wants to hug me, but he looks over to Jack and he stops short.

“Celes, Jack, you made it out.”

“So did you,” Jack observes. “But you’re still here.”

“We wanted to wait for you to get out,” Grayson says. “We wanted to secure your exit, but then we found we couldn’t get back in.”

“Couldn’t you just break the glass doors?” I ask.

Grayson shakes his head. “They aren’t glass. They’re like a see through version of the stuff on the rest of the place. We couldn’t break them. We tried shooting them. We even tried the kind of entry explosives they use to blow holes in walls. Nothing worked. We were planning on waiting for someone else to come out so we could go back inside.”

“You mean you haven’t seen anyone come out other than us?” I ask. That doesn’t make sense, if the senator has left.

“Hammond must have other ways out,” Jack says. “Though this place… it’s strange. It’s so fortified, and so shielded against all kinds of energy, but it’s so luxurious inside. It’s almost like it’s designed to keep the world out while the people inside are fine.”

“It’s like that entertainment lounge,” I say. “There’s no way that’s just for Johnny. Or for us.”

Jack nods. “That’s not important now though.”

Grayson looks over to him. “Why? What’s happening?”

Jack explains. Not just what the senator is planning to do next, but also what Johnny said about us, the presence of Richard, and how the fading machine might be a lot more than we’d previously thought. He explains that we’re from the future, and about the abilities people there seem to have. When he’s done, he looks around at the Faders.

“I know none of you were expecting that, and I know that some of you might find it hard to accept, but it’s the truth. I just hope that for now, at least, you’ll keep going with this mission. I told you because I think you all deserve to know.”

The Faders don’t reply. Mostly, they’re too busy looking shocked. Even Grayson seems surprised to hear all of it.

“I guess it makes a kind of sense,” he says at last. “I mean, it explains why the three of us should end up meeting like this. It explains why… why I feel…”

He doesn’t finish that thought. There are too many people watching.
Jack’s
watching. But so am I. I know what Grayson means. He’s made it very clear how much he feels for me.

“None of that matters right now,” Jack says. “What matters is that Senator Hammond wants to fade Johnny’s memories.”

“He said that was to keep memories of something he was going to do from him,” Grayson says.

“It might be,” Jack shoots back, “but it also means that we won’t have access to the knowledge of the future in Johnny’s head. They’re trying to get to a fading machine, and we have to beat them there.”

“Location Ten,” one of the faders says. “They’re heading for Location Ten?”

Jack nods. “Which is why we need to get out of here as soon as possible.”

As soon as possible turns out to be just a few minutes. During them, Grayson slips off to the side of the group, and I follow him.

“Before, I wanted to say-”

“I know,” I say.

“I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I saw you. Now though… well, I guess it isn’t first sight after all.”

“I’m still with Jack, Grayson,” I say.

Grayson shakes his head. “I won’t give up.”

“Even if I loved Jack so much I followed him through time?”

“Well, why did I follow you?”

I don’t have an answer for that. Thankfully, I don’t need one, because our extraction helicopter arrives. It takes us up, and we fly for what seems like an impossibly long time. So long I lose track of where we’re going, except that there seem to be swamps below us. Are we in Florida?

The helicopter heads for a space in the swamp that seems like just a patch of water near some trees. It lands, and it’s only when a boat comes out of the trees to meet us that I realize that this is our destination. Jack hops down into the boat, lifting me down after him, and I can see the look on Grayson’s face as he does so, but the boat is already moving. I’m guessing it can’t take more than a few of us at a time.

We sit in the boat as it takes us over to the trees, and there, I find myself surprised. On the other side of the trees are a series of low buildings, each one obviously reinforced and camouflaged until it must be like they aren’t there from above.

“This is Location Ten?” I ask Jack.

Jack shakes his head. “This is Location Nine.”

“But why not go to Location Ten?”

“Because I asked him to bring you here when he went to rescue you.” That’s from Sebastian Cook, Jack’s father, and one of the leaders of the Underground. I’d thought that he was still hundreds of miles away, in Location Four. The surprise must show on my face, because Jack starts to explain.

“When I went back and told them what happened, and my suspicions about who might be involved he and Jonah evacuated. A compromised Location can’t be used. They went here, taking the rock we found.”

“Talking of which,” Sebastian says, “Jonah?”

Jack’s uncle comes out of one of the building, his limp as noticeable as ever. The two men don’t look much like one another apart from their graying hair and age. Jonah is much more rugged, looking like the farmer he was pretending to be at Location Four. Sebastian still dresses more like a successful businessman.

“Good,” Jonah says, “you’re back. We’ve managed to do more analysis of the rock, using what we know about the two of you. I should probably tell you what we found, Celestra. You too, Jack, if you have time.”

Jack shakes his head. “I have to go. It turns out that Senator Hammond, the presidential candidate, is working with the Others. He wants to fade his son, and that means he’ll probably be heading to Location Ten to do it. That is where we put the one fading machine that wasn’t destroyed in Location Six, right?”

Sebastian nods. “He must be desperate. I told him no. I’ve… learned my lesson when it comes to fading people that young.”

He looks away. Jack doesn’t say anything.

“But you seem desperate to stop him, Jack,” Jonah observes. “It isn’t just the boy is it? What else?”

“Johnny knows things,” I say. “Things about the future that seem very important. Thanks to Johnny, we’re convinced that me, Jack and Grayson all came back from the future, and that we did it for a very specific reason. We just aren’t sure what.”

“And if he’s faded,” Jack continues, “we never will.”

FIFTEEN

B
efore Jack can go anywhere, Jonah speaks up. “Jack, I think that we have something you need to see first. Celes and Grayson too.”

            Which means we have to wait for Grayson to arrive on the small boat, but that only takes a minute or two. Once he does, Jonah leads the way into one of the low buildings hidden in the swamp. It reminds me of Location Six, because almost the moment we get inside, there’s an elevator leading down.

            “It was hard work to keep this place from flooding,” Sebastian says as he follows his brother in, “but it was worth it.”

            The elevator comes out in a large room below, which is largely empty, with doors spaced evenly around the walls and video screens between them. Those are familiar enough, but what makes me pause is what’s on the walls. There is material there that looks identical to the stuff that was in Senator Hammond’s building. As an experiment, before I can even really think about it, I send a flicker of power into the nearest wall. Nothing happens.

            Jack obviously sees it too, because he turns to his uncle. “What’s this?” he asks. “Why do we have the same material here that the senator had?”

            “My guess would be that he somehow obtained intelligence relating to our facilities,” Sebastian says. “Though how, I’m not sure. Even among the Faders, this place is highly secret.”

            “Which should mean Lionel isn’t a problem,” Jonah adds.

            I’m glad about that, but this place still seems strange. “Why build it if no one else knows about it?” I ask. Then I ask the other obvious question. “Why are there all these secret places around? Senator Hammond has that building of his, the Others have their fortress, the Faders have all their Locations… and they’re all these big, reinforced bases. Why not just a normal house somewhere?”

            Jonah sighs. “That’s where it gets complicated,” he says. “I can only tell you about our bases, but my stepsister, Jack’s mother, had nightmares for years. They were dreams about the same thing. An explosion so big everything was destroyed. At the time we thought that it meant an explosion on whatever world she had come from.”