Paradox (19 page)

The underground chamber was empty when Zac
entered. He moved past the glowing pentagon and around the corner, heading
straight toward the computer. Maybe he could discover some kind of evidence
that would show him how Chen caused TEMPUS to malfunction and send them to the
wrong time period.

When Zac came to the computer, Bryce was
already there, typing at the keyboard. He looked up at Zac. “Hey,” he said.

“I think I know what’s been happening,”
Zac told him. “I need you to help me get some information from the system.”

Bryce pushed himself away from the screen,
rolling back in his chair. “I can’t right now.
Maybe after I
get back.”
He got up and started walking around the corner.

“When you get back?”

“Yeah.
I got all
the information I need. I think I’ve got it figured out.”

Zac pressed him for answers. “What
information? You know what’s going on, too?”

Bryce smiled. “I know what I need to do to
end all this.”

“What do you mean?”

Bryce continued walking toward the
pentagon. It hummed louder, and the glass door swung open.

“It’s better if you don’t know. But soon,
I’ll put everything right.” He patted Zac on the shoulder. As he turned around,
Zac noticed something. Tucked into Bryce’s pants at his waist was a gun.

“Is that…?”

“Yeah,” Bryce said solemnly. “I’m afraid
so.” It was like it didn’t even affect him, like it was totally normal to be
carrying around a gun.

“You can’t go killing anyone!” Zac said.
“We can still stop Chen without killing him. We just need to find him.”

Bryce stood near the platform. “Chen? I’m
not going after Chen.”

“What are you doing then?”

Bryce sighed as he paced back and forth in
front of the machine. “Let me ask you something, Zac.
Is it
easy knowing
that you can travel through time, and yet you can’t do
anything to save your own mother even though you know it would make your life
better?”

Zac frowned. “Of course,” he said. “I wish
I could, but it’s not possible.”

“What if it was?”

Zac stared at him, confused. “But it’s
not. I get that now.”

Bryce shook his head. “So I see you’ve
swallowed that line of bull too, huh? Can’t change the past… it’ll cause a
wound in time?” He laughed to himself. “We can’t change it, yet we can view it,
even if that means watching someone you love die over and over again.”

Zac was at a loss for words. Bryce looked
so hurt right then; Zac could hear it in his voice. “I know how hard it is to
watch your mom die.”

“You have
no idea!
” Bryce yelled,
slamming his fist against the glass. It shook from the impact. “You’ve only
seen your mom die once. Try watching it again and again.”

“But—”

“And
then
try watching it while
knowing there’s nothing you can do, nothing you can change. Try living with it
appearing in your nightmares every night, never knowing what’s real and what’s
in your head. Were those real bursts of heat you felt when the planes hit the
towers? Or was it something your mind put there? Do you have any idea what that
does to someone?”

“No, but I can guess. I already told how I
had that dream about the subway train,” Zac replied.

“That was one event,” Bryce said. “It
doesn’t get any easier. And then you start questioning it all. I mean, do you
really think the information you gave the authorities will help them stop the
terrorists? How do you know our interference isn’t paving the way for someone
or something worse?”

“I have to believe that we’re doing some
good, that eventually they’ll catch the guys who blew up that subway. Think of
all the good you’ve accomplished on past missions. I know you’re upset, Bryce,
but you can get help.”

“I don’t need help,” Bryce said. “I told
you, I figured out how to fix all this. I won’t have to worry about seeing my
mom die anymore.” He stepped into the pentagon.

“But you can’t stop what happened. You
can’t save her.”

“I’m not going to,” he said, raising his
Wand. “I’m going to save
myself
. I’m going to make sure that I
never have to witness it again. I’m going to make sure that I’ll never see it
more than once.” Anger spread across his face. It was like he had become a
different person: bitter, vengeful, destructive. “If your dad never discovers
how to build this stupid time machine, I’ll never have to worry about seeing
her die over and over.”

“But that won’t work,” Zac said. “It’s
already been built. You can’t stop it from being built because you’ll be
using
the machine to go back and stop him.”

“That’s just your dad’s worthless theory,”
he said. “I believe that I
can
change it, and the effects will
eventually trickle down through history. It’s the only chance I’ve got.” He
wiped his eyes. “If it works, then none of this will even matter. TEMPUS will
never be built, you and I will never have met, and all of the pain you and I
have gone through, knowing what we do, helpless to change things… it will all
be gone.”

“Bryce, come on,” Zac pleaded. “Come out
from there. Maybe my dad can help you work things out. You don’t even know when
he built the machine.”

“No,” Bryce said, shaking his head, “but I
have a good idea when it was. When your dad had Emilee program TEMPUS, he made
sure one specific date was blocked out so that no one could travel to it. I
think he’s protecting that date. When I abducted Emilee and took her to the
future, I only did it to get the information I needed from her, to learn how to
unblock the date. I figured if I could leave her at that hospital in the
future, there’d be no way for her to get back and stop me. They’d think she was
crazy, rambling on about being from a different time period.”

“But then why did you let me use TEMPUS to
get her?” Zac asked.

“I thought it would be a convenient way to
get you out of the picture, too. At least until I had accomplished what I
intended to. I never actually expected you to get past their security units and
to come back with her.”

Zac tried to speak but could not find the
words to say.

“I’ve got to get going,” Bryce said as the
door closed. He held out the Wand. “And Zac, please know that I’m sorry. I’m
only doing what’s best for everyone. If you have anything you want to say to
your dad, I’d go do it now. You don’t have much time left with him.”

Bryce pressed the sensor on the Wand and
disappeared in an undulating wave of blue energy.

Zac ran into the conference room and shook
Emilee. “I need your help,” he said. “Bryce is gone.”

“Huh?” Emilee said, waking up. “Yeah, I
know. He went home after bringing me here.”

“No,” Zac said, shaking his head. “It was
him. He used TEMPUS. He’s the one who abducted you.”

Emilee sat up, rubbing her eyes. “Wait a
minute. What are you talking about?”

“He’s upset,” Zac said, talking a mile a
minute. He stood and began walking back and forth. “He’s angry at not being
able to do anything. He said he doesn’t want to have to watch his mom die over
and over.”

“His mom?”

“The planes,” Zac said. “She was in one
that hit the World Trade Center towers.”

Emilee raised her hand to her mouth. “Oh,
God… I had no idea. But he…”

“Yeah, I know. He acted like he was okay
with it, but deep down it was tearing him apart. He said he was going to go
back and change things. He said you gave him a way to access a date that my dad
classified as restricted.”

Emilee furrowed her brow. “I never gave
him any information.”

“That’s not what he says. He said he got
it from you when he abducted you. You said you passed out when that happened,
right?”

Emilee thought for a moment. “Yeah, I
think so,” she said. “Do you think he did anything to drug me?”

“Maybe.
He said
he’s going to prevent my dad from creating the time machine. I think he’s going
to kill him. I need you to tell me what you told him. I need you to help me use
TEMPUS to go back and stop him.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,”
she replied. “He can’t do that, can he?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Zac said. “He’s already
left. He’s going to try. I need to stop him.”

Emilee pushed herself off the couch.
“Let’s just go tell your dad,” she said. “He’ll be able to think of something.”

“No!” Zac said. “He can’t know. In the
future, the date on the gravestone said he dies today; if he knew what was
happening, he would want to go after Bryce by himself to talk some reason into
him, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. Bryce took a gun.”

“Oh, God…”

Zac nodded. “Now will you please help me?”

Emilee walked with him down the hallway.
“I don’t know what I told him,” she said. “I think I can figure out where the
wormhole took him, though. The program always records the destination, so that
way, there’s a record of where we’ve been. It should be able to put you pretty
close to where he went.”

“Thanks,” he said. They went behind the
bookcase and down the hallway. The familiar blue glow that once beckoned him,
igniting his curiosity, now filled him with fear for his own future. If Bryce
was going to kill his dad, when would he do it? Would it be before Zac was
born? Would that eliminate him from the timeline? “So what date did my dad make
you block out?”

“I don’t remember,” Emilee said. “It
didn’t seem significant. It was more of a side note when I was doing the
programming. I was working with so many numbers back then, I just forgot about
it.”

They walked to the computer. “Hurry,” Zac
said. “I don’t know how much time we have. If he succeeded, then maybe the
changes are bleeding through right now. There’s no way to know.”

Emilee typed at the keyboard. “I’m
looking,” she said. “I’m going as fast as I can.” She stared at the screen, her
eyes moving back and forth as she examined the lines of code. Finally, she put
her finger on the screen. “That’s the log of the last time leap,” she said. “It
doesn’t tell the date, though. It just gives coordinates for space, not time. I
must have masked it somehow.” She looked up at him. “Are you absolutely
sure
you want to take a chance and go?”

“I don’t have a choice,” Zac said. “He’s
going to try to kill my dad; I just know it. I can’t sit by and let it happen.
I’ve already lost one parent. I don’t want to lose the other. If I can keep
that date on the gravestone from becoming a reality…” His voice trailed off.

Emilee stared at him for what seemed like
a long time. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it, but please be careful.” She reached
out and took his hand, giving it a little squeeze.

“I will,” he said. He stared into her eyes
for a few seconds more, looking deeper than he had ever done before. This time,
it was like she was letting him in, letting him see a piece of herself. Emilee
turned and bent down, setting the coordinates in the computer.

Zac walked to the pentagon and stepped
inside the glass enclosure. The door closed behind him. The blue lights increased
as the power built, the noise growing louder until it sounded like a loud
grinding noise.

Emilee walked up, pressing her hand to the
glass. She mouthed the words, “Good luck.”

Zac lifted his left hand, matching it up
with hers. He closed his eyes, and pressed his thumb to the Wand, activating
the time machine.

As soon as the world stopped spinning
around him, Zac tried to get his bearings. He spun around, looking for Bryce.
Instead, he saw a house that looked familiar.

It was on a small incline and had steep
concrete steps leading to the front door with painted black rails on both sides
of the steps. The house was covered in light blue siding with dark blue
shutters. Two small evergreen trees stood like sentries on either side of the
door.

Looking at the mailbox, Zac immediately
knew why he recognized this place. Painted black, its paint chipping away, the
mailbox had one word below the address:
Ryger
. It was the house he grew
up in when he was little, right before they moved.

That would mean… that would mean that this
was a time when his mom was still alive. Chills swept over him at the thought
that he might be able to see her again.

He searched for any sign of Bryce, but saw
nothing. Where could he be? A sudden thought made him sick to his stomach. What
if Bryce had already committed the act? Could he have done it so soon?

Zac shook off the thought and continued
searching. He crept around the perimeter of the house, looking behind the
bushes that guarded the basement windows, checking for any footprints or other
evidence left behind. The windows looked like they were still closed; his
family had always kept them locked, so Bryce probably had not gone inside that
way. He would have needed to use the door.

Zac came around to the other side, next to
the garage. Looking out at the point where he had first arrived, he surveyed
the scene once more.
Still no Bryce.
What if this had
all been a distraction, another trick? What if Bryce was somewhere else?

He heard the rustle of leaves and turned
just in time to see a fist swinging at his face. He dodged, but fell off
balance and rolled onto the ground. Bryce stood over him, glaring.

“So you followed me?” he said, anger
filling his voice. “What, Zac? Are you gonna try to stop me?”

Zac pushed himself up, placing his hands
on his knees, and stood up straight. “I’m not going to let you do this, Bryce.”

“Oh, you’re not going to
let
me?
You think you’ll be able to control me?” He began moving in a menacing circle
around Zac, who now stood in the middle of the yard. He
stopped,
his back to the house. “You know, one thing that I’ve learned from your dad is
that control is all about perception. There is no such thing as fate or
destiny. We control our own destiny. I’m just now realizing that, and it’s why
I’ve come here.”

“But why are you so mad at my dad?” Zac
asked. “What has he done that’s wrong?”

Bryce was incredulous. “What has he done
that’s
right
? He’s playing God, Zac. He’s letting people run around in
time. There are certain things man isn’t meant to do, certain things he
shouldn’t know.”

“What gives you the right to decide that?”
Zac said.

“What gives
him
the right to decide
on the rules of time travel? Did you ever ask yourself that? Why should he, of
all people, be able to tell us what to do? Has he had to watch your mom’s death
multiple times? He
says
he never tried to prevent it, but I’m sure he’s
tried. He probably just never told you.”

“Bryce, I agree with you, okay? It was
wrong for my dad to mess with time. It was wrong for you to have to watch your
mom’s final moments without being able to do anything.” He took a step closer,
and Bryce reached for his gun. Zac held his hands up in defense. “But don’t
compound your pain by doing something you’ll regret.”

“Regret?
The only
thing I regret is listening to him for so long. I know he’s not an evil person.
But he
is
the cause of this. You know all about cause and effect. Cause:
some maniac shoots your mom; effect: you still have trouble coping to this day.
Cause: your dad builds a device to travel through time; effect: we have to live
with the knowledge that we have the power to do something, yet can do nothing.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “See? Take away the cause, the effect goes away too.”

The garage door began to open, and Bryce
turned around. Zac tensed. They could hear voices inside the garage.

“I’m doing us both a favor, Zac,” he said.
“Trust me. If our paths cross in the future, you’d thank me, but you won’t
remember any of this. It’ll all be erased as soon as I pull the trigger.” Bryce
gripped the gun and began walking toward the garage.

Immediately, Zac lunged at him, tackling
him to the ground. Bryce struggled, trying to throw him off, but Zac got on top
of him, flattening Bryce to the ground on his stomach. Bryce struggled to lift
the gun, but Zac grabbed his hand and turned the gun to point it directly back
at Bryce.

They listened to the voices coming from
the garage. Zac could hear his dad talking to his younger self.

“Hurry, Dad! We’re going to be late!”

“Settle down, Isaac. We’ll get to there in
time. The mall’s just a mile away; it’ll only take us a few minutes to get
there. You won’t miss any of the
movie
.”

Zac watched with curiosity as the shadows
moved across the driveway in front of them. He was so little back then.

“Daniel, he’s just excited, that’s all.”
It was his mom’s voice. It felt so strange to hear it again, yet it felt like
just yesterday since he had heard it last. He wanted to let go of Bryce, run to
her, and wrap his arms around her in a giant bear hug, never letting her go. He
wanted to say all of the things he never got to say, to tell her how much he
loved her and how much he missed her.

The car began backing out of the garage.
Zac pulled Bryce back and leaned with him against the side of the house,
pinning the hand with the gun to Bryce’s chest so he couldn’t use it. Looking
to his left, Zac watched the car back out of the driveway and into the street.
He could see himself sitting in the back of the car. He tried to remember what
movie he had seen, but they had gone to the movies so often, it could’ve been
any one. The car drove away, and he felt a little bit of hope leave with it.

Bryce jerked his head back, slamming it
into Zac’s nose. Zac let out a yelp of pain and grabbed his face. He rolled
over onto his back.

Bryce pushed himself away and spun around.
He pushed himself up, the gun pointed at Zac.

“Killing me won’t fix anything,” Zac said.
“You’re better than this, Bryce.” He tried standing up, but Bryce hovered over
him.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Bryce said.
“I don’t want to kill anyone, but I don’t have a
choice
, Zac. I can’t
live like this anymore. I need the memories to go away. I have to make them
stop. This is the only way.”

“You always have a choice,” Zac said.
“That’s the one thing we do have.”

“Yeah, well,” Bryce said, hesitating, “I’m
choosing to fix my future by changing the past. I’m going after them. Don’t try
to follow me.” He turned to go, but then stopped, feeling his pocket and
looking down. He turned, staring down at the grass. His eyes fixated on
something in front of Zac.

Zac looked at the same spot and saw what
had attracted Bryce’s attention. Bryce’s Wand had fallen out of his pocket and
was just a few feet away.

Both of them stared at it, daring the
other to make a move. Zac scrambled forward, grabbing the Wand in a sweeping
motion. He backed up close to the driveway and held it up for Bryce to see.

“Give it here,” Bryce said.

“No. Come back with me.”

Bryce shook his head. “I told you, I’m not
going to do that.” He reached out. “Now give me back the Wand.”

Zac raised it high, then brought it down
with great force and slammed it onto the concrete. A bright flash shot from the
object. “Now mine’s the only one,” Zac said. “If you want to get back, it’s
gotta be with me.”

Bryce laughed. “Do you think I care? I
don’t think you get it; I never intended to go back. If it’s any consolation,
if what I do works, you won’t remember this confrontation anyway. Goodbye,
Zac.” He began walking away.

Zac tried standing up. “Bryce, wai—”

Bryce spun around, running and swinging
his foot, kicking Zac hard in the jaw. Zac crumpled to the ground. “I told you
not to try following me!” he said. Bryce kicked him in the ribs and then in the
side of the head. “I’d love to stay and chat,” he said, “but I don’t want to be
late for when the movie lets out.” He kicked Zac once more.

Zac groaned in pain, and everything faded
into blackness.

A familiar voice woke Zac. Someone was
rocking him back and forth, trying to get him to open his eyes.

“What happened?” the voice asked.
“Hey, Zac.”
A hand tapped against his face. “Wake up.”

Zac opened his eyes and peered up at the
source of the voice. Staring down at him was Chen. “What… what are you doing
here?” He sat up and clutched his side where Bryce had kicked his rib cage. It
was sore and felt tender.

“Where’s Bryce?” Chen asked.

“Huh? How long have I been out?” He rubbed
the side of his head and moved his jaw. For all he knew, he could have been out
for just seconds, or it could have been an hour. He was still on the ground next
to his old house.

“I have no idea,” Chen replied. “All I
know is that when Emilee told your dad what was going on, he sent me after you.
She told us everything.”

Zac sat up. “She told my dad? But I told
her I didn’t want him to know what I was doing.”

Chen turned and looked behind himself.
“Well, it’s too late for that. Look, all I know is that when I got here, you
were passed out. What happened? Did you see Bryce?”

“Yeah,” Zac said. “I saw him. He’s going
after my dad. My parents are taking me—well, the
younger
me—to a movie.”

“Then there’s still time to stop him.
Where are they going?”

“It’s too late. Bryce has a head start,”
Zac said. “He’ll get there before we do.”

“But they’re in a movie,” Chen said. “If
Bryce was on foot, they’ll be there before he is. He’ll probably wait to ambush
them when it’s over. Where’s the movie theater?”

Zac tried to think. “There are a few of
them, but the one we always went to was at the mall. I think I heard them
saying that’s where they were going.”

“Good. Then that’s where we’ll go,” Chen
said, extending his hand to help Zac up. “Think you can run?”

“Definitely,” he said.

“Then let’s go. We don’t have much time.”

The mall was crowded when they arrived; a
sea of people flowed past the stores like fish swimming with the current. Zac
and Chen began searching for any sign of Bryce.

“You see anything?” Chen asked.

“No,” Zac said. He was beginning to panic.
He hated being around this many people. He felt suffocated, like he was being
pressed in on all sides. He wanted to run back outside, to breathe in the fresh
air out in the open. But he had to press forward. He had to make sure Bryce
didn’t succeed.

“Where’s the movie theater entrance?” Chen
asked.

Zac racked his brain trying to remember.
All of the stores brought back so many memories; most of them had gone out of
business or moved on by now. But seeing them again, he felt like it was just
yesterday that he was here. He closed his eyes, trying to picture the entrance
to the theater. The velvet ropes that led to the box office, the movie posters
framed along the wall and surrounded by lights… he could even remember specific
movie posters he’d walked past as a child.

“Anything?”
Chen
asked. He looked around impatiently as people passed him, bumping into him.
Someone mumbled something about getting out of the way.

“I’m trying,” Zac said. “I remember it
being upstairs… yeah,” he said, nodding. “It opened up right next to an
escalator. I remember going up the escalator each time and then seeing the box
office.”

“Then let’s find an escalator,” Chen said,
and began walking.

Zac followed; they both searched the crowd
for any sign of Bryce. He’d probably gotten there earlier, but he didn’t know
where to look. It probably wouldn’t take him long to find out, though.

They wound their way through the crowd,
making their way toward the escalator. There were several of them throughout
the mall, but Zac was starting to get his bearings back. He stopped at a map
kiosk to make sure he was headed in the right direction.

The escalator was just ahead. “Wait,” Zac
said. “What do we do if we see Bryce? He has a gun. There are too many people
here who could get hurt.”

Chen sighed. “We have to neutralize him
somehow. Get him away from all these people.”

Zac thought. “I have an idea,” he said.
“He doesn’t know you’re here yet. Let
me
confront him. I’ll try to get
him to focus on me, and then you can take him from behind. He won’t expect it.”

Chen considered it. “Okay,” he said. “But
we have to be careful.”