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“Go in real time. If a week passes in her era, let a week pass for you before writing back. Like how we schedule missions to prevent aging conflicts. You can’t unsee her life. And you owe it to Penny to be more present.”
A week for a week.
He’d been home for weeks now, and yet every step forward was then met with another late night at the office, running back to Miranda and his old life rather than give Penny his all. No amount of reflecting on their past would fix that.
A week for a week.
The words sank in while they silently walked back to the main TCB building. They stepped past the sliding glass doors and looked up at the ocular scanner. A disembodied voice greeted them by name, and the security doors in front of them unlocked. “That’s what I would do. Theoretically. If it was Benjamin I was trying to reach.”
“Before long, you’ll be married. And you’ll find that you’ve outgrown the concerns of your old life.
Their excitement started and ended with themselves—because it was family.
we’re all different people all through our lives, but that’s okay, as long as you remember all the people you used to be.
From: Miranda Stewart (mirawho@messagemail.com)
To: Kin Stewart (chefkstew@messagemail.com)
Subject: RE: Brace Yourself
I miss Mom. I wish she was here to meet him. They could argue about sci-fi together. It’s not fair, you know? Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with what we have but nothing is the same without her.
Sometimes I feel like I can’t move forward with things. Because it’s not right that life is happening without her. But I keep telling myself that she would want us to change and move forward. She’d say an awesome quote and it’d make it all right.
So I’m nervous because of how I feel. But I’m also nervous because it’s like this big life thing without Mom and I wonder how can it really be me without her. But then I remember that we’re all different people all through our lives, but that’s okay, as long as you remember all the people you used to be.
The maturity in Miranda’s message felt impossible for her age, so much so that Kin checked the time stamps to make sure he didn’t mistakenly email a much older, much wiser version of his daughter. Yet it came from her teenage brain, and a surge of pride radiated through his chest. That’s a really good attitude, he wrote, and I think if you can keep up that kind of approach, you’re pretty much set for the rest of your life. I’m so proud of you. Mom is, too, I know it. Her reply came back in an instant.
From: Miranda Stewart (mirawho@messagemail.com)
To: Kin Stewart (chefkstew@messagemail.com)
Subject: RE: Brace Yourself
I wish I could tell you that I was some, like, brilliant Zen master or that it was something my counselor told me but I actually just borrowed that from a Doctor Who episode. See, I really am my mother’s daughter.
Kin thought back to that afternoon months ago when Miranda tried to convince him that he might like Doctor Who because of the supposedly fake world he’d crafted in his journal. He dodged the question then, shutting it down as quickly as possible. But maybe she knew him better than he knew himself. Well, then, he wrote, maybe you were right when you said I might like it. I already have a list of quotes like that from your mom. So in a way, she’s still with us.
“‘We’re all different people all through our lives, but that’s okay, as long as you remember all the people you used to be.’”
Smaller holograms projected on either side of the sliding doors, showcasing other elements of the MOME, a museum dedicated to the post-digital world from the mid-twentieth century and beyond.
Smaller holograms projected on either side of the sliding doors, showcasing other elements of the MOME, a museum dedicated to the post-digital world from the mid-twentieth century and beyond. Something about the virtual image tickled a dormant memory in Kin, a sense of déjà vu triggered by a three-dimensional holographic recreation of a fast-food commercial. The image flashed in his mind, and a quick sting jabbed his left temple. He winced, holding the side of his head for a short second. It came and went, though not fast enough for Penny to miss it. “You all right?”
If Markus ever found out he was using future knowledge to steer Miranda, he’d probably cite some company line about timeline corruption.
“this? That’s completely over the line. Her situation needs to be addressed.”
“We don’t need to do this dance. And you can sit down. I don’t bite. I’m not mad.” The AD gestured again to the chair, though he remained glued to where he stood. “I understand why you did what you did. I get it. We all do. But our entire organization is based on the elimination of timeline corruption, and what you’ve done is just that. ‘The cause of or passing of knowledge that significantly alters the timeline of any individual, group, or society.’ That’s what we prevent and our rules were clear—no communication. Even then, perhaps we would have let the emails slide. We understand the instinct, the needs of a parent. However,” she said, taking in a breath, “this? That’s completely over the line. Her situation needs to be addressed.”
After your message, Security Overwatch detected gravitational shifts all over the world. Timeline Monitoring picked up the changes. Incremental at first, benign, almost invisible to us. It took a deeper look to see what was really unfolding.”
“Since you sent that email, her timeline changed. This project was posted to a portfolio site on her birthday, 2030, just as she was about to finish her master’s in Game Development. Her attempt to find a job began a domino effect that puts every single field agent in danger.”
Had his fitness been at the level of a true field agent, their loose grip could have easily been torn away. Fingers dug into his shoulders, tethering him to the front end of the office. No plans came to mind. No visualizations or lists to take down everything in the room. Only white-hot fury in the form of a stare. “What have you done to her?”
“Stop bullshitting.” Security grabbed his arms. Had his fitness been at the level of a true field agent, their loose grip could have easily been torn away. Fingers dug into his shoulders, tethering him to the front end of the office. No plans came to mind. No visualizations or lists to take down everything in the room. Only white-hot fury in the form of a stare. “What have you done to her?”
“You used to be an agent. You know how we handle things. We got to work the minute after we detected the timeline change. Your damage is being undone as we speak.” She sighed and nodded to Security before looking back at her holo screens, one of the most powerful people in the world calmly returning to her duties. “Go home, Kin. Get some rest. Get married. Help Penny open her restaurant. Leave the past behind.”
Kin lost his daughter without ever finding out who she really was. And now, he never would.
“This is a backup cache from this morning. We keep a complete backup archive for redundancy. Everything refreshes hourly. Except this Miranda Stewart, her info doesn’t exist in our live data. She’s only got this one image, and it’s from this morning’s backup. The backup and the live data should be exactly the same, but they’re not.”
“It’s like something erased her digital footprint in the past hour.”
“Like it reached into history and plucked her straight out of it. Weird, huh?”
They’ll be monitoring her timeline continuously now.”
“I chased the bad guys. Miranda isn’t that. She’s just a girl.”
“She is the ‘bad guy’ in this case, Kin. No matter how smart or talented or great she is, she is the corruption. She shouldn’t even exist. They’re not going to give that type of person too many second chances. The longer this goes, the greater her sphere of influence becomes. They’ll be monitoring her timeline continuously now.” Markus hesitated, looking up as if he stood in the Mission Control war room. “She’s on the big board now.”
“They couldn’t get to her before she’s even developed it. This project would need to exist for them to detect the timeline ripples, even before it propagates onto other servers.”
Their relationship in all its forms—friends, coworkers, in-laws—was obliterated across San Bruno Mountain. A primal roar flew out, one that was meant to bend time and space itself. In reality it only caused Markus to stare up at him with wide-eyed terror.
“Killing her is not doing right by her.”
Kin recalled the AD’s words: Miranda Stewart is a variable that must be controlled. The knowledge in her mind represents the greatest threat we have ever encountered.
The field agent will put a functional sedative in her drink. We’ll activate it as soon as she gets in her car, and then we’ll commandeer her vehicle.”
Markus’s clinical description of Miranda’s murder created a nauseating dizziness, and Kin had to lean on a nearby tree to steady himself. He reminded himself that Markus wasn’t the bad guy here, and his twisted logic was a horrible yet somewhat sensible means to fight for the best in a worst-case situation.
But a partner was the least of his concerns. Getting an accelerator would mean breaking into the equipment vault of the Resources division ten floors below the TCB’s guarded roof, where a mix of motion and thermal sensors, eye-scanning door locks, and plain old Security guards remained.
One man simply couldn’t break into the most highly secured building on the West Coast. That was why he started his car and flew back to his apartment building.
At some point over the next few minutes, the racing thoughts finally subsided. At some point he tapped the flashing icon. At some point the car parked, and at some point he shuffled back to the apartment.
“I just bottle-fed them,” she whispered. “Now they’re in a food coma.”
At their feet, Akasha slithered by, sniffing the air. Penny shooed the cat away, and she obliged with a hiss.
He completed the last step of the new plan: settle into the future. Because he was supposed to. Because the past was dead, and he couldn’t do anything about it.
They remained motionless halfway up the driveway, wind from the bay rippling through their clothes. Penny turned her back to the hillside Marin house and faced a view that would have been completely unattainable for Kin and Heather in twenty-one-A. In this era, rising sea levels and migration to off-world colonies had made this type of real estate affordable, especially for a midlevel TCB retriever agent and a hologram media designer.
Kin had spent the last two days peering through archival blueprints of the TCB’s building, trying to find any conceivable plan to break in and steal a time-jump accelerator as a means of contacting Miranda.
Kin had spent the last two days peering through archival blueprints of the TCB’s building, trying to find any conceivable plan to break in and steal a time-jump accelerator as a means of contacting Miranda. For now, though, being pulled out of that anxiety and back into the passive-aggressive feuding that occupied Fernandez family events offered the strangest kind of soft landing place for his mind. At least it was familiar.
Now, where are you going to be if you’re always chasing the ball?” “Mmm.” Gears seemed to twirl and turn in his seven-year-old mind. “Behind it?” “Yup. And you can’t get the ball if you’re behind it. So what does that mean?” “Go—in front of it?” “No, not necessarily. Left or right of it. Or in front of it. As long as it’s away from the ball—because then it’ll eventually come to you, and no one will be expecting it. Go where it’s heading instead of where it’s been. It’s the first lesson you should learn about soccer. Try it.”
The strategy represented the most fundamental way to transition kids from playing the game to becoming players. Except reinterpreted in its most simplistic form by a young child, the philosophy opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. Including one idea that might save Miranda.
as he told both Miranda and Benjamin, go where the ball was heading.
Kin went on to reveal everything to Penny—that time travel was real, that he’d used it before. He explained the TCB, his role there, and finally divulged his most recent mission and how he’d become stranded in another time. He wrote about Heather and then Miranda, knowing the truth would hurt, but that he couldn’t bring himself to lie to anyone else.
I’m not choosing one life over another or Miranda over you. But because of everything that’s happened, because of bad decisions I’ve made, the TCB intends to kill her, and I can’t let that happen.
Miranda is why I’m going back.
Not because I just want to be with her, though of course I do. I’m going back to save her life. It’s my fault she’s in this predicament, and it’s my responsibility to make sure she’s safe.
Please understand, I’m not choosing one life over another or Miranda over you. But because of everything that’s happened, because of bad decisions I’ve made, the TCB intends to kill her, and I can’t let that happen.
I’m going to try to jump back to save her.
This was it. This was his moment—the moment to knock out the TCB operatives, grab their equipment, reprogram it to Miranda’s time, and see what fate had in store for him. Each muscle tensed up, burning with anticipation as they locked together into a tightly wound machine, ready to pounce. Kin leaped up and took a step toward his only hope. He got one step farther before crashing back down to earth. The ground slammed against his back, causing shock waves up and down his vertebrae. He blinked and focused from the light of the moon, only to have the silhouette of a head block his vision. Cold
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It was definitely gone. Kin’s lip curled at the thought, and the tension in his body returned tenfold. It was gone.
Kin looked into the blackness of the empty hillside. Empty. No accelerator to hijack. His vision adjusted; the vague dark of the night slowly coming into focus, and indeed, the only movement came from a slight tremble of weeds and plants blowing in the wind.
It was definitely gone. Kin’s lip curled at the thought, and the tension in his body returned tenfold. It was gone.
“Are you or are you not going to kill Kin’s daughter?”
“You never said you were going to kill her,” Penny said. “What difference does that make?” “The difference is that if you’re going there, you could come up with something.” Penny crossed her arms and glared at her brother. “I can’t. I don’t know how many times I have to repeat this. It doesn’t matter what I do, what anyone does. No one can save her.” He looked skyward in frustration and sighed. “Do you think I want to do this?” “Can’t you bring her here?”
“Convince the AD to remove her from the assignment list.”
“Think outside the rules,” Penny urged. “Kin, if we could do anything, what would it be?”
“Think outside the rules,” Penny urged. “Kin, if we could do anything, what would it be?”
“Well...” An alternative future projected out, one where things went their way and somehow covered all of their tracks and ensured a clean debriefing report. “First, we’d convince the TCB that the mission was a success. All traces would confirm that the subject was eliminated. Then someone hacks the era’s official county records to match so no one asks questions. Then the field agent has to successfully jump home without any problems, and Miranda has to escape somewhere with a new identity. No connection to her old life. And she has to agree to even do that.” Kin stopped, pausing to gaze up at the stars sprinkled above him. “You see the problem here? She can’t escape if the TCB ever discovers that the job isn’t complete. We can travel through time, but we can’t perform magic.”
“What if,” she said, words coming out at a measured rhythm that belied her excited gestures, “we substituted the ingredients?”
“There is a huge difference between running a kitchen and traveling through time.”
“close your eyes, hold on, and then take a deep breath when you get to the other side.”
Assuming he did survive, they’d use the cash to get a rental car and drive up to the city of Davis, where Miranda was finishing grad school, and then stake out the parking garage where history recorded her car’s location.
If he found her, if he connected with her, then so could the TCB. And that wasn’t a risk he was willing to take.
“Parenting,” she said after a pause. “Did it come naturally?” “Well, it’s different from being a secret agent.”
“The first year of parenting, you hold on for dear life. Nothing can prepare you for it. It’s like entering a different world. And then you adapt. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, especially the beginning. And it’s also probably the best. You know what’s funny,” he said, picking up and examining the injections, “we have it so much better here because of these. As parents, I mean. Living to two hundred. Back then you really had to choose between career and family. Even if you balance both, usually there was always one side asking for more.” Bedroom light bounced off the syringe’s chrome
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While he battled the paradox of past and future, Penny must have fought something else.
Kin remained, standing in the bedroom with only Akasha and the gravity of the situation as company. While he battled the paradox of past and future, Penny must have fought something else. Despite the brave face put forth to Markus in the name of love and justice, the weight of the past twenty-four hours crushed her enough that Kin heard muffled crying from the shower.
