Time's Mirror: A CHRONOS Files Novella (The CHRONOS Files) (9 page)

“Oh, it was neither miscommunication nor incompetence, my dear. It was revenge, pure and simple. That man’s daughter was a makeup artist at CHRONOS, and, unlike your friend Poulsen, she did not receive a message that conveniently kept her out of the building that fateful day.”

Tate’s arm tenses beneath my fingers. This is the first I’ve heard about any warning message.

Still, as furious as I was at the attendant, this puts a somewhat different light on the situation.

“I didn’t know,” I tell Campbell. “Maybe…I mean, it still wasn’t right, but maybe you should reconsider.”

Campbell laughs. “Somehow I doubt you’d be quite as magnanimous if those gorgeous curls weren’t still on your head. No, the man put his own feelings before the interests of the OC, and that’s beyond pardon.” He raises his bushy eyebrows, looking over our heads at the crowd, and then settles back into his chair with a smug look.

I find out why two seconds later. A woman walks up next to Tate and gives me a brief, scathing stare before pasting on a fake smile. Her dark red hair is stacked up in an ornate style that reminds me of a lattice piecrust. I can see through it in spots to the walls beyond and little ribbons of blue light are wound through the rows of hair. More of those very same ribbons make up her dress, except it’s skin that shows through there. A
lot
of skin.

“Surely this can’t be the child CHRONOS has you babysitting, Tate? She looks a bit old for you to be fixing her toys.”

“Hi, Dana.” Tate’s voice is tired, and I get the feeling I now know what—or rather who—he was looking around the room and hoping he didn’t find when we walked in. “This is Prudence Pierce. She’s not…as old as she looks.”

I wish I could sink into the floor.

“That’s true.” Campbell’s tone is cheerful, making it clear that he’s thoroughly enjoying our discomfort. “She’s what, sixteen? But I doubt that’s a problem for Poulsen. From what Saul told me, his taste runs toward…
younger
women.”

Campbell’s eyes slide back over to Dana as he says the last sentence. Dana is stunning, especially in that dress, but she’s also clearly older than Tate. Her mouth flops open twice, like she’s trying to think of something to say. Instead, she pivots around on her stilettos (which make my heels look like Mary Janes) and stomps off into the crowd.

Tate runs one hand through his hair and then looks down at me. “Dana’s a friend. I don’t want her to leave angry. Are you okay here for a moment, Pru?”

The very last thing I want is to stand here talking to this creepazoid while Tate goes off after his girlfriend. But I’m not going to admit it. “Sure. I’ll be fine.”

“Thanks. Just…wait here, okay?” Then he starts pushing back through the crowd.

“Poulsen should know that sex with friends is a bad idea,” Campbell says. “So many ways it can go sour. And he should also know better than to entrust Saul Rand with a secret. No offense.”

“None taken. I don’t even know Saul.”

And even though I really don’t want to ask this next question, this secret he mentioned had something to do with Tate liking younger women. I can’t resist asking, but I try to toss the question out casually, like I’m just idly curious. “What sort of secret did Saul tell you? About…Tate.”

Campbell arches one bushy brow. “Saul collected secrets. Sounds like you may have inherited his curiosity.”

I shrug. “Just making conversation.”

Silence.

“All right!” I admit. “Yes. I’m curious.”

“Very well. Poulsen was involved with a girl about your age in the past.” He chuckles. “In the very, very
distant
past, if you get my drift, in some Viking village. He’s just lucky Saul helped keep it off his official record. CHRONOS has—or I guess I should say,
had
—very strict rules on that sort of thing.”

“Oh. So, that’s why he hopes they’ll rebuild CHRONOS. So he can see her again.”

“I doubt it. Saul said it ended badly. Hardly a surprise. Long-distance relationships rarely work out.” He pauses, staring at me like he’s waiting for something, and then says, “Now it’s your turn.”

“What?”

“Your…turn. I gave you information that you can use to your advantage if you’re smart. Now you reciprocate. I’m sure that’s how the game works in your time as well.”

“But…I don’t know anything that would interest you.”

“On the contrary. Your mother went to all this trouble to strand herself in the past. I’m curious as to what she’s doing with her life in…the 1980s, right? How has she used her knowledge of the future? I suppose she’s quite wealthy by now.”

I snort. “No. She’s a history professor, like my dad. I mean, we’re not
poor
, but—”

“A shame,” Campbell says, tsking softly. “I’d hoped the speculation was wrong. That Kathy actually did it for something other than spite. Other than wanting revenge on Saul for his…wandering libido.” He waves a hand, looking over my shoulder at someone. “And on that topic, let me introduce my daughter, Alisa.”

He’s still laughing at his own joke when the woman reaches us. She doesn’t look much like Campbell. Her hair is a vivid, metallic silver, long and jagged with dozens of different layers, shot through with thin strands of black. Combined with her pale skin and wide-set light green eyes, she reminds me a little of this lynx I saw at a zoo last summer, while visiting my dad’s parents up in Massachusetts.

“Did you want something?” Although Alisa’s voice is several octaves higher than her father’s, it has the same bored, cynical note.

“Only a moment of your time, sweetest.”

Even though Alisa doesn’t seem any more pleasant than the old man, I feel a momentary twinge of sympathy. Rotten to have your father call you
sweetest
in public. Doubly rotten to have the word come out dripping with sarcasm.

Alisa tosses her silver mane over one shoulder. “Clock’s ticking, Morgen.”

“I just thought you might like to meet Saul and Kathy’s daughter.”

She gives me a quick once-over. “Kids grow up so quickly these days. Seems like only last year she was nothing more than a gleam in Saul’s eye.”

“A gleam you saw quite often, if I’m not mistaken.”

Alisa responds to Campbell’s comment with a suggestion that’s both physically impossible and entirely disrespectful to her father. I expect him to take offense, but he just laughs.

“I hear CHRONOS will have you on display at the new museum,” she says, looking back at me.

“Not exactly. I’ll be working there.”

“Well, good luck with that.” Her eyes flicker briefly with something that looks a bit like pity before she strolls off.

The champagne churns in my stomach. Alisa is probably closer to the truth about my new job at CHRONOS than I am. How many of the visitors will stop in simply to gawk at the girl from the past, like I’m a Neanderthal or something? Granted, they probably won’t put me in a cage. They’ll just pop me on a vintage beanbag chair with my newly repaired Walkman. Maybe Tate asked his buddy to repair it just so I’d have a prop to hold.

I don’t actually believe that. He seemed too happy about giving it to me for it to be work related. But it’s been much longer than the moment he promised. I scan the room, hoping to catch a glimpse of his head above the crowd.

I can feel Campbell’s eyes scrutinizing me. “Can she still use it?” he asks when I finally glance over. He must see confusion in my eyes, because he clarifies, “The key. Can Kathy still operate it?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen her with it.”

“Does she know you can use it?”

“No-o-o,” I say, although now that he has me thinking about it, I guess she might have suspected I’d be able to use it when I found the medallion in the jewelry box. “She took it away when I said I could see the color, but then I found another one.”

He shrugs. “Not too surprising. She was probably worried you’d try to undo her damage.”

I’ve definitely thought about this, but I haven’t had the nerve to discuss it with anyone.

“Do you think I could?” I ask.  “I mean, could I go back to just before the explosion and warn someone?”

As I say it, my mind is already spinning. It
would
save a lot of lives. But they’d arrest her, almost certainly. Deb and I would be born
here,
probably in prison. Dad…wouldn’t be my dad. It would be this Saul person I don’t even know. And would he even want us?

Campbell doesn’t respond for a moment. He just watches me, and I get the strangest sense that he knows everything I’m thinking.

“You certainly couldn’t do it without access to a key. And there are people here, in the government, who think it best that this disaster serve as a lesson about the so-called dangers of genetic enhancement in general and time travel in particular. I suspect you’d have a difficult time securing official permission to change
anything
.”

“Even though hundreds of people died? And…didn’t it change things, having those people stranded in the past?”

“Apparently not in any significant fashion. The official word is that it all averaged out over time, although I’m not sure I buy it.”

Campbell folds his hands over his stomach and belches. One of the little bubble things floats down just above his head, sucking up the smoke or whatever else was in the air around him, then floats upward to a large vent in the “sky” above us, where it’s sucked away with a few others. It’s like the commercial with the cartoon scrubbing bubbles, only flipped upside down.

“Of course,” Campbell continues, “they had the CHRONOS tech people who survived the attack scrambling to see if there were serious historical aberrations in the months after. If they found anything, it wasn’t reported to the rest of us. And truthfully, how would we know?” His eyes flit down to my wrist, where the bracelet Sutter gave me is concealed—barely—by the black lace of my glove. “The rest of us don’t have a device to shield us inside a CHRONOS field. The entire history of the world could change and we’d be none the wiser.”

I feel a hand on my arm and Tate says, “Sorry about that.” Then he glares at Campbell. “What the hell were you thinking? Dana didn’t deserve that.”

“Perhaps not.” Campbell picks something from between his front teeth, and stares at his finger for a moment before flicking the unseen speck onto the floor. “But you should consider your
goals
in life, Poulsen. Dana Erskine won’t help you achieve them. You’d be far better off focusing your attention elsewhere.”

Campbell looks straight at me when he says the last word. I feel the blood rushing to my cheeks.  He might as well have just come out and
told
Tate I’m interested in him.

But why is he championing my side?

Tate gives him a dirty look and tugs at my elbow. “Come on, Pru. We’ve paid our respects to the host. Let’s go eat his food and let him annoy someone else.”

He leads me over to a long buffet and heaps enough food onto a plate to feed three people. I try a few things—some cheese, fruit, a few veggies. But most of the food looks strange, more like decorations than anything I’d actually want to consume. Even the fruits are weird. For every variety I can identify, there are two or three that look like someone crossed a watermelon with a kiwi, or an apple with a blueberry. I’m not very hungry, anyway.

Tate introduces me to a half-dozen CHRONOS people over the next hour, including a younger guy and girl who will be in my cadre—whatever that means—when the museum opens. They’re both polite, but not exactly friendly. The girl studies late twentieth century history, according to Tate, and he started asking both of us about my era…easy stuff, softball questions. It was blatantly obvious that he was trying to get a conversation started, but either the girl didn’t want to talk work at a party or she’s not exactly thrilled about having me on board. Maybe both.

My mind keeps returning to Alisa’s comment about being on display. Every time someone looks in my direction, my whole body tenses up. This time when I look around, it’s Campbell staring at me as he talks to a tall, dark-haired woman. I think she’s older, maybe even older than Campbell. Not sure why I think that. She doesn’t look that much different from the other women in the room. Just something about her bearing. She’s definitely not happy with Campbell, and from the fleeting, scathing look she tosses my way, I’d guess it’s because of me.

Tate follows my eyes and groans. “Can’t believe she actually ventured out of her crypt.”

“Who is she?”

“Saul’s great aunt. Regina Rand. She’s the grande dame of the family. I haven’t seen her at a public event in years.”

The woman’s conversation with Campbell apparently over, she stalks off toward the elevator, casting one more glance in my direction as she crosses our path.

Campbell makes the same little hand motion he used earlier to wave his daughter over. When Tate doesn’t respond and trot straight to him, Campbell rolls his eyes and nudges the dog.

“Maybe we should see what he wants?” I suggest.

“He can come here if he wants to talk to us. It’ll do the fat gox good to get up off his throne.”

Campbell nudges Cyrus again. The dog eventually rouses and plods along behind him. It takes a full minute for the two of them to make their way across the room to where we’re standing, but Tate seems determined not to take a single step to bridge the gap.

“I’m turning in for the evening,” Campbell says when he finally reaches us.

“Thanks ever so much for letting us know.” Tate’s voice is bone dry.

Campbell chuckles. “Don’t flatter yourself. This conversation is merely so I can tell Queen Regina that I delivered her message. She’s not impressed with your choice of companion for the party, Poulsen. Said the girl shouldn’t be mingling.”

Tate mutters something I don’t catch and then adds, “They can’t hide Pru forever. She’ll be working with a lot of these people soon enough. Better to meet a few of them in advance.”

“I should go back to my room,” I say.

Tate starts to protest, but I suspect that’s more a result of not wanting to follow the Rand woman’s request than any real desire to stay at the party with me. And as much as I’m dreading sleeping alone in the apartment, I’m actually ready to leave.