Flyday, Page 2

  A mob of photographers stood at the gates, but Zoë only had to give her name before the guards allowed her in with her guest. A white pergola arched over the cement walkway that led to the house. When they reached the door and knocked, there was no reply.

  “That’s odd,” said Zoë. “He said he’d be here.”

  Thomas turned and looked to the street, and saw someone running up to the gates. The young man wore tinted sunglasses, had a five-o’-clock shadow, and carried a guitar on his back. Jamie Parsons moved past the flash of cameras as if they didn’t exist, then slipped through the gates and dashed toward the porch.

  “Zoë!” the musician called, tossing up his arms as if he’d scored a goal. He hugged her. “Zo, my dear, how have you been?”

  “Oh, you know—same as always.”

  “And this is Huxley, right? We’ve met.” Jamie shook Thomas’s hand. “Saw you on the news the other day, by the way. Brilliant work, good sir, very nice.” He turned to Zoë. “What brings you to Tenokte?”

  “The king’s speech tonight. Do you want to come with us? We don’t know many celebrities.”

  He unlocked the door, considering. “Hm ... I’d love to, but I can’t. I think I’m on the government watch list by now. And I’m waiting for someone.” He opened the door wide, then glanced at Thomas and grinned. “But it looks like you have company.”

  Zoë smiled. She looked absolutely enamored with the charming musician, and Thomas suddenly changed his mind: he didn’t like Jamie very much. The singer had known Zoë since she was seventeen, and Thomas had known her for a year.

  Jamie stepped into the house. “How long has it been, now?” he said, sliding off his guitar case. “Six years since we started the band, do you think?”

  “Six years,” said Zoë, considering. “Wow.”

  “Can I get you two anything to drink?” He slipped into the kitchen.

  “Just water for me,” called Zoë.

  “Something stronger for you, Huxley? Pinot noir?”

  “You read my mind,” said Thomas, astonished.

  The rock star’s living room was uncluttered and generally unexciting: gray carpet, framed black-and-white photos on the walls, a sofa and a coffee table. Zoë sat down.

  Jamie reappeared a moment later with three glasses, one filled with water. He handed it to Zoë, and filled the others with red wine.

  “You know,” he said to Thomas, “Zoë’s the only reason the group got started. She introduced me to Damien and Kyle, and wham, we had a band.”

  Zoë smiled politely. “Oh, they were looking for a singer all summer. They were going to find him eventually.” Her cell phone started to ring. “Excuse me,” she said, and slipped out of the room.

  Jamie put his glass down and grabbed his guitar from its case. He clipped a capo to the fret board, then sat on the couch, strumming. “So, what’s life like for you, Thomas Huxley?”

  “Good. No complaints.” He looked at the photos on the wall: close-ups of a keyboard, saxophones, and a page of sheet music. It was a wonder Jamie didn’t try to talk in 4/4 time.

  “So, you and Zoë are getting married this summer?” said Jamie, strumming the strings.

  “Yeah. We’re really excited.”

  “Hm.” Jamie seemed absorbed by the notes. “Your accent’s breaking.”

  Thomas’s eyes narrowed.

  Zoë walked back in the room a moment later, her phone in hand. “Damien’s going to the king’s speech, and we can meet him there. No one else can make it; they all have plans. Are you sure you don’t want to come with us, Jamie?”

  “Go on, have fun,” said Jamie, who was still strumming. “I’ll be fine.”

  They left at nearly three o’clock, and the sky’s golden hue had faded into a clear day.

  “Jamie Parsons, the greatest singer of the century,” Thomas murmured, as they walked out of the gate.

  “I know. He seems so normal, doesn’t he?”

  It took Thomas a few seconds to realize she wasn’t joking.

  Tenokte, pronounced “Teh-nock-tay,” received its name from a 500-year-old license plate: TNOKTE.

  The actual meaning behind the city’s name had been lost to history. The plate, and the car it identified, belonged to the great leader Dimitri Reynolds. He founded the Celestial Federation, a world government dedicated to peace and security, in the middle of the twenty-first century.

  The current leader, King Richard Montag II, traced his lineage back to Dimitri. His white-uniformed police, known as “Celestials,” protected citizens in countries within the Federation, and waged war against those few still resisting.

  The residents of the Federation enjoyed their prosperity, their safe neighborhoods, their ability to travel from New York to Paris to Sydney without ever needing a passport or a change of currency. They were citizens of the world, and they viewed their king as a symbol of their future. Which is why what happened came as such a surprise.

  At nearly eight o’clock, Thomas and Zoë made their way to the Capitol Building, which housed many of the world leaders’ offices. A wide crowd of people had gathered in the grassy field in front of the building’s marble façade. The king’s speech was a long-standing tradition, and would commemorate the second day of a week-long celebration before the summer solstice.

  Cameras pointed toward the empty podium, waiting for the young man to appear. The speech would be televised all over the world.

  Thomas flashed a press pass, and guards led the couple to the front, where he had a better view. Photographers from various networks and Internet news sites had already set up their cameras.

  “Damien should be here by now,” said Zoë. She glanced around at the crowd, looking for her brother. She pulled out her cell phone to check her text messages, and soon reported that he was on his way.

  The sun slid toward the horizon, throwing the buildings into silhouette. Thomas put a hand up to shield his eyes, and they waited.

  At eight-thirty, it was nearly dark. Fireworks shot up toward the sky, whistling, then exploded into sparks of blue and silver. The crowd oohed and aahed, watching the display for a few minutes.

  “Look,” Zoë whispered. “It’s the princess.”

  Sixteen-year-old Emily Montag sat off to the side, flanked by her guards.

  “Have you ever interviewed her?” Zoë asked her fiancé.

  “No. She doesn’t really talk to the press.”

  The fireworks ended to thunderous applause, and the doors to the Capitol Building opened. The young king walked up to the podium, smiling and waving at the crowd, which gave him a standing ovation. He waited for the applause to subside before he began.

  “Welcome,” he said. “I’d like to thank you all for coming here today. In a few nights, we will be celebrating the Flyday!”

  The crowd cheered.

  “Hundreds of years ago, Dimitri Reynolds united a group of warring countries and founded a new world order, dedicated to peace and prosperity. And today, we gather as one global force, to show—”

  A loud crack sounded, then another. At first Thomas thought it was thunder or another ostentatious display, but the king had stopped speaking.

  “To—to show—” the young king stammered. He put a hand to his chest; a red stain had appeared on his shirt.

  Guards were rushing to the king’s side, and the young man collapsed. As people realized what happened, they screamed and started to panic.

  Thomas felt more confused and astounded than anything else. This couldn’t be happening. How could the king be shot, and on such a lovely night, when people were supposed to be celebrating…?

  Zoë gasped, clutching him tightly. “Thomas, is he going to die?”

  “I don’t know.” Everything he knew was now up in the air.

  Paramedics put the king on a stretcher and then into an ambulance, which whisked him into the sky. Before long, someone shouted that a shooter had been found.

  Thomas saw everything before Zoë, but he couldn’t react fas
t enough to block her view. Celestial police were pulling a handcuffed man out of the building to the left.

  Zoë looked devastated. “No—it can’t be—”

  Thomas’s heart sank. He recognized the young man instantly, but the image didn’t fit in his mind with that of an assassin. The man was a drummer, not exactly known for revolutionary thoughts or a history of violence.

  He was Damien Martínez, Zoë’s brother.

  Chapter Two

  August, A.D. 79

  Ariel Midori was no stranger to death. People seemed to be dying all the time, and for any reason: diseases, hurricanes and floods, boats sinking and cars crashing. She had first heard about the volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius as a marginal note in a history class, and was fascinated by it. An entire town dead, smothered under ash, buried for thousands of years…

  It wasn’t the deaths that interested her, of course, but the life. As she strode through the open-air marketplace of Pompeii, the streets bustled with activity. Storekeepers stood alongside the road, hawking their wares, and shoppers stopped to inquire prices or haggle. When they spoke, Ariel was reminded of high school classes: vocabulary, declensions. Only now, a certain language was alive and well.

  “Salve!” someone called to a friend, waving.

  Ariel Midori smiled. That’s Latin, she thought. You’re in ancient Rome, and people are speaking Latin. She could understand most of the words, but didn’t bother to start any conversations: she would only speak with an American accent.

  People passed her by, and many of the men were wearing togas, but she saw other garments as well: of all shapes, colors, and cuts. This was a trading town, with a busy port and merchants from all over the Mediterranean. But she stuck to the classic look: a white dress and period-perfect jewelry, with her reddish hair loose. No one gave her a second glance. And if under the roar of the crowd, people close to her happened to hear a ticking noise, they didn’t attribute it to a clock: such a device hadn’t been invented yet.

  Ariel was a time traveler.

  Mt. Vesuvius loomed in the distance. It didn’t yet have its trademark two-peak shape, but of course not: its famous eruption, which would bury Herculaneum and Pompeii, would not occur for five days. She stopped to look at the volcano a moment, marveling.

  I wish Jamie could see this, Ariel thought. Then she stopped. How long had it been since he left? Two days, and she already missed him.

  She’d intended to visit him in his own time, trying to give a few weeks’ leeway since he last saw her, but she had messed up the date: the year 2507 instead of 2501. Ariel peered down at her copper watch. Whatever happened in 2501, besides the formation of a rock band? The other year was far more interesting, from a historical perspective. Someone had been shot, some sort of world leader…

  She turned to look back at the street, and something caught her attention. She squinted. Not far behind her, a man wearing a sky-blue helmet and white uniform pushed his way through the crowd.

  Gladiator? she thought. No, they didn’t have riot gear. The man carried a clear plastic shield, emblazoned with the word POLICE. In English.

  So definitely not Roman. Ariel might have been from another time, but at least she had the good sense to blend in.

  The oddly-dressed invader, who was garnering a lot of strange looks, noticed Ariel and started running toward her. She took a quick breath and slipped through the crowd, saying an instinctive “Excuse me, excuse me,” even though no one knew what the words meant.

  She darted into a side street with two tall buildings on either side, then pressed herself against a wall, trying to think.

  Someone had followed her through time. How? It didn’t matter. She had seen that gear once before, but when?

  Celestial, she thought suddenly. He’s called a Celestial.

  They were from her old partner’s time, which she’d just left. She pulled out her copper pocket watch, her time machine. It let out some sort of signal; perhaps it could be tracked?

  Heavy footfalls sounded nearby, and after a moment, the Celestial walked into sight.

  “Ariel,” he said.

  She didn’t move. She was eyeing his blaster, still in its holster at his belt. “How do you know that name?”

  “We’ve been tracking you for awhile. You have a teleportation device.”

  “Oh, do you think?” she snapped. “We’re only speaking English in first-century Pompeii. Why are you here?”

  “My lieutenant wishes to speak with you.”

  “Uh-huh. Not gonna happen. How did you follow me?”

  He held up a silver pocket watch.

  Her eyes widened. “That’s—” She shook her head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re thousands of years behind where you should be. Doesn’t that scare you? That thing behind us isn’t a mountain. It’s a volcano, and in a week it’s going to blow.”

  He seemed startled by that, and for the first time looked around, to the buildings on either side of the narrow street, to the gray volcano in the distance behind her. Then he pulled off his helmet, ran a hand through his light hair. He looked remarkably young. The uniform connected with the images of Celestials she’d seen, but the shoes didn’t: Converse low-tops. Not much of a police officer.

  “I’m Agent Six,” he said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. We don’t mean any harm; we’re just really curious about you.”

  “Uh-huh. Why are you following me?”

  “You have a time machine! My lieutenant thinks it’s just a teleportation device, but this…” He shook his head at the volcano, smiling. “Always there in times of death and destruction, huh? You removed a prisoner from a cell four years ago.”

  “Four years … relative to your time.” She squinted, looking up at the sun. She hadn’t broken anyone out of prison, as far as she could recall. “Okay, listen. I’m a time traveler. If I’m going to do that, I haven’t even done yet.” She pulled out her pocket watch. “But I’m looking forward to it.”

  He fired his blaster, but she dodged it. The hologram showing her Roman clothing flickered and then vanished, revealing a black jacket, jeans, and green-tinted sunglasses. A sheathed sword was slung over her back. Was it her stress or some action of her timepiece that killed the hologram? She had no idea, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t need her disguise now.

  He was momentarily confused by her change of form, and she took the opportunity to run. She darted around a corner as he fired again, sending off sparks.

  She hid in the doorway of a building, listening for his footfalls.

  “Ariel,” he called. “My lieutenant just wants to meet with you. You could work for us.”

  Ariel glanced down at her watch. She had to get him out of Rome—but how? She suddenly had an idea.

  He turned the corner and came into view, holding the blaster steady at her. “I only ever wondered one thing,” he said. “Of everyone on the ship, why did you go to Thomas Huxley?”

  Ariel, perplexed, didn’t answer.

  The agent pressed the fob of his pocket watch, intending to take her back to his own time. The silver cover, etched with an image of crescent moon, popped open—but nothing happened.

  Ariel grinned at the agent’s confusion. “You don’t know how to set it, do you?”

  He didn’t reply, just held the blaster steady.

  “Agent Six, huh? What are you … special ops? Secret police?” She stepped closer, pulling out her own watch. “Here’s a hint: they’re telepathic.”

  She pressed the fob, opening her watch’s face; it let out a golden glow. He yelled and reached out to stop her, but too late; her watch’s cover closed with a click. The light cleared, and he was gone.

  Ariel took a step back, and her hologram flickered back on. A warm breeze swept through the street, then drifted away.

  “Wow. I’ve always thought the watches could communicate with each other, but I’ve never actually tried it. Don’t you think that’s…”

  She turned her head, and realized she was alone.
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br />   People walked by the narrow opening of the alley, unaware of the brief stand-off under the shadow of a volcano. In a matter of days, everyone who had seen the oddly-dressed invader would be dead, their knowledge erased from history.

  The sky darkened to a deep blue, with the sun a gold disk lowering in the sky. Ariel held up her watch: on the cover, it had a raised image of either a sunrise or a sunset.

  A voice buzzed in her ear. “Ariel, report. I’m getting a strange reading. What just happened?”

  She tapped her earpiece. “You will not believe this, Bailey. I’ll be right there.”

  The hands of her clock moved to show the correct time for what she needed. The inner dials showing the day, week, and month spun quickly, and she closed her eyes.

  After a moment, anyone walking past saw only an empty street.

  2.

  Bailey Tyler was the leader of the Saturnine Order, a pretentious name for a tiny group of time travelers. Now that Ariel’s partner had left, it had only three members.

  Ariel didn’t know much about the Order, beyond that the base was hidden underground somewhere in the future. Its founders had lived in the third millennium, and started the group secretly to continue travels in time. How long the group had existed, Ariel had no idea. The founders started choosing partners from earlier times, and then left or died long before she arrived.

  Bailey wore a white lab coat, and sat at a desk in her laboratory. A clock ticked overhead as Bailey looked through a microscope.

  “Studying ancient microbes?” Ariel asked, leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed. “I wouldn’t be any help. I got a B- in biology. A+ in history, but—”

  Bailey pushed away the microscope. “Did you see anything unusual?”

  “You … could say that, yeah.”

  “I traced a signal.” Bailey slid off the stool and walked over to a computer. “It originated in June of 2507, and went straight to A.D. 79. It was another time machine.”

  “I gathered that, thank you. He had a silver watch.”