Rewrite Redemption (4 page)

The screen door slammed behind me as I walked out on the back deck of the new house. I was trying to escape the moving madness inside the house and wishing I could escape the madness inside my head.

Six months ago, my life had been mint. I love Seattle. I had friends that I’d had since grade school and a sweet room on the third floor, far from parental interference. I was the local track star and played bass in a kick-ass band. I did okay with chicks. I had everything a guy my age might want and more. I just needed to follow a few rules, and I had access to a future you only see in comic books and sci-fi movies. And what did I do with all that?

I blew it, that’s what.

Sure, I had alien technology zooming around in my body and brain, and sometimes that sorta creeped me out. But hey, it let me do all kinds of cool stuff. So all in all, it was a good thing. I was part of the Editor Program, a program carried out in cooperation with another planet that not even the frickin Pentagon knew about. How sci-fi was I?

I was an idiot!

I just
had
to see that M83 concert. I’d had tickets for months, eighth row, center, and I was taking Meg Davidson, a cute, little hottie from English. I even had the car lined up. And then I spaced studying for the big chem test. I decided to skip since it counted for twenty-five percent of my grade. I forged a note from my mom, saying I had a dentist appointment.

And who walked in while I was oh, so, innocently handing that note over at the front desk? My mother, my responsible to a fault, mother, thank you very much. I’d forgotten my lunch. Needless to say, I got grounded.

I gave Meg the tickets since I’d promised her a good time. And then, to make myself feel better that night, I decided to stage my own concert on the roof. I’d been doing it for years, climbing out my bedroom window up onto the roof, dragging extension cords, so I could play my guitar under the stars. It was one of my favorite pastimes. I knew it was dangerous, but I was always really careful. I had a place where I could stand and get a good grip on the shingles.

When it got really dark, I could see the lights of the city shining like some magic land in the distance. I could see the stars against the dark, night sky. I’d put on my headphones and rock out. That night, I had the brilliant idea to include my younger brother, Devon. It was a self-serving idea, I knew, since he was the only kid allowed in my grounded situation. But hey, I was also trying to be a big brother, share something with him. Roof rocking was mint, and I wanted to give it to him like a gift—some gift.

I’d told Devon about roof rocking the night before and promised to include him next time I did it. I texted him to meet me in my room. He was stoked. I dug out extension cords, and the drum machine, and we hauled everything out my window and up to the “stage.” Our headphones were linked to the computer, and we jammed away under the stars.

Suddenly, I felt a jerk on the cord, and I saw him slip. I dropped my bass and reached out for him. I grabbed his jacket just as his feet tangled up in the cords, and he started to slide down the shingles. I stabilized him long enough to regain his balance and crawl back up the roof.

My bass slipped a ways, but the cord stayed plugged in so it didn’t plunge over the edge. I rescued it and sat down to check it for damage. It was then that I noticed his stupid-ass boots, the ones he wore to be taller. I ragged on him for that and made him change. But I didn’t think much of it. I was focused on the scratches on my Fender.

Later that night, I got massive texts from friends that the concert had been off the charts. At school the next day, a friend gave me a blow-by-blow of what I’d missed. I was standing at my locker, totally bummed, when he elbowed me. I looked up to see the little hottie, walking down the hall, holding hands with the guy she took with
my
tickets. That pushed me over the edge. I know I shouldn’t have done it but I did it anyway.

It seemed so simple. They always seem so simple, these things I do before I do them. I figured that no one would know. I jump back in time, leave myself a note, telling myself to study and not skip chem. I’d return within a five-minute window. I’d talk to no one. No one would be hurt. Nothing would be changed, except I wouldn’t get grounded, and I’d get to go to the concert.

Since it was only a few days back, it would just be a blip on the Guild screen, not enough to trigger any alarms. No harm, no foul. Then I would be the guy telling everyone how sick the concert was. Meg would be beaming up at me, holding my hand. Life would be good.

Idiot!

I never even thought about Devon going up on the roof by himself. I forgot about those stupid boots. And in the time line that I’d changed, I wasn’t there to catch him when he fell. No, I was at the M83 concert. One simple moment in time…one simple little change.

One life ruining effect.

The six months after the accident were absolute hell—I won’t elaborate. Then we left Seattle, leaving behind everything I loved, including my ten-year-old sister, Claire. She stayed behind with relatives. The excuse was “to let us get acclimated.” The truth was that our home environment had become a toxic wasteland. My brother was in a wheelchair for life and mad as hell about it. Who could blame him? Certainly not me.

Devon did a lot of what the home, health worker called “acting out.” He wasn’t down with his situation or the move, and he wanted everyone to know it. And believe me; everyone knew it in surround sound. Most days and long into the evenings, he played video games on the family room TV, clutching that controller like a lifeline. Bloodcurdling screams and explosions bounced off the walls, onto the hard wood floor, and echoed down the halls 24/7. He likes it loud, and no one ever stops him, even though it drives the rest of us insane.        

It’s like living in a frickin warzone.

My whole family had one foot over the edge. My mom—mad scary. She’d become a walking zombie with a plastic smile etched on to her face like the Joker, the one played by Heath Ledger. I walked out of my room last week, bumping into her. She hit me with that whacked-out smile, and I almost jumped out of my skin.

Her hair’s gotten all stringy, she has dark circles under her eyes, and her hands twitch. I keep expecting her to break into that insane laugh and lick her lips like the Joker taunting Batman.

Talk about bizarre!

So the home scene sucked and I felt guilty as hell about it. But the chaos was killing me. Because for the cherry on my suck-sundae, I no longer had my redwood tree. The tree I was bonded with. The tree I drew power from. The tree that let me travel through time.

Our abilities come from bonding with trees linked to the planetary energy matrix. With my redwood, not only could I go back in time, I could whip across the country in the blink of an eye. All I needed was a “travel permit” and a twig off a tree from my destination. I could go somewhere, like say, the art museum in New York. I could stay for hours and then return just seconds past my original start time. That meant that my parents never had a clue I’d been gone. Come on.
Think
about the possibilities.

It wasn’t just a matter of losing my travel privileges. Even grounded, I was used to feeding off my redwood’s energy. The first thing they teach you, as an Editor, is how to bond with a tree and pull energy from it. My redwood kept me strong, healthy, and mellow. It made me better at everything. And it felt amazing—like getting high without getting stupid.

I fed off it every day and was pretty much always in a good mood. I didn’t realize how much I’d come to rely on it until it was gone. I’d been in withdrawal since I left Seattle, and it felt like I was going to crawl out of my skin.

They told me that once you bond with a tree, your body and brain come to depend on it, and it’s essential to feed regularly. They told me the heavy emotions of others could drain you, as could steel, brick, and cement, if you were surrounded for too long. They told me all kinds of things. I’d thought I was invincible. With the power my redwood gave me, I’d
felt
invincible.

Now I was just screwed.

I pulled a box under the shade of the overhang, sat down, and stared at my new backyard’s barren landscape. The Colorado sun was relentless. After the lush green of Seattle, this place seemed like a desert. Half the backyard was gravel, and the only trees were spindly little sticks. Without a tree strong enough to draw power from, how could I survive?

Lack of green was one thing. But the lack of a tree old enough to be connected to the root matrix…that just made my heart hurt. I needed to find an energy source before my parents figured out something was wrong with me and started asking questions. They had no clue about my Guild involvement. It was like being in the CIA. Not even your family was in on it.

The Guild has a front, a tree preservation organization. Basically, my parents thought I belonged to an environmental club. In reality, we edit pieces of the past that can cause disasters in the present and future. I don’t mean to sound like a comic book, but we keep the world from descending into complete chaos…emphasis on
complete.
Obviously,
we can’t fix everything. But things would be a lot worse if we weren’t around.

I used to be part of something that mattered. Now, not only had I destroyed my family, I’d blown it with the Guild. So I was double guilty, unforgivably guilty, complete loser guilty.

My mind-meltdown was interrupted, by my mom opening the slider, telling me to unpack my stuff and arrange my new room. She wanted me settled in because I had to start classes the next day at Boulder High.
New school…great…just shoot me now
.

I should have been careful what I wished for.

“A.J., wait up!” 

Lex had X-ray vision through my shield of invisibility. I slowed my pace, but didn’t turn around. That would have violated rules five and six of the code—keep flowing in the direction you’re heading and no sudden moves.

“You’ve been quiet all afternoon,” she said, sweeping around me to walk backwards through the hallway. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” I said, wondering how she could just walk backwards without even caring if she bumped into anyone.

Two seconds later, she did, dropping her books all over some skinny AV boy. He blushed and apologized as if it was his fault. She just grinned and let him pick up her books and stare at her legs. Probably the first contact he’d had with a girl since the sandbox. It didn’t faze Lex at all. Plus, she got a kick out of giving visual freebies to geeks. Nothing trampy, just stuff you could catch in the course of a normal day. She was generous that way. The geeks worshiped Lex because she was the only pretty girl who treated them as if they were human.  

She winked at him and resumed her backward walking so she could talk face to face with me. Lex didn’t care about being invisible.

“Something’s up,” she said, “spill.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Something’s different. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Lex, please turn around. You’re making me nervous.” I pulled her to the side, accomplishing rule nine—have a decoy on your flank whenever possible.

“Avoidance,” she stated, giving me that bossy, not-going-to-let-you-get-away-with-it look. Her parents stuck her in therapy so they could feel better about their own screwed-up lives. It was a condition of her very generous allowance. It was also a waste. Lex had it more together than anyone I knew.

“Stalling,” she continued.

Her latest shrink was fond of one-word commands, and she’d acquired the habit of using them on Ipod and me. Early on, Lex decided, that if she had to be in therapy an hour a week, it was going to be on her terms. She used her therapists as her own personal Psychology 101 classes, figuring out all the people in her life. She believed it when Ipod said, “knowledge is power.” Lex liked power.

She’d get everything she could out of a shrink before they’d catch on, and then she’d move on to a new one. She was now on her fifth. She referred to them by number and quoted them often. I guess when your parents are absent; you find ways to compensate. Actually, I think that was a Shrink Three observation.

Lex poked me in the arm. “Earth to A.J. Will you please get out of your head and tell me what’s going on?”

“Yeah, sorry.” I pulled my glasses down my nose so I could look her in the eyes. “It’s like—I don’t know—‘a disturbance in the force’ or something. Things feel different.
I
feel different.”