Future Lost

31

I don’t know how it’s possible to love someone so much you’d die for them, while at the same time to be so upset with them you can’t even look at their face. But it is.

I make it through class somehow, although it’s tough to listen to anything the teacher is saying. Some crusty old book that a long-dead white guy wrote seems pretty inconsequential compared to the upcoming destruction of life as we know it.

Afterward, I meet Adam at Aether’s office in downtown LA. He’s standing in the lobby, hands shoved in his pockets, staring out the window. I wonder if he’s picturing this building in the future, with all the broken windows and debris, or the Infected climbing through it to get to us.

“How was class?” he asks.

“Fine,” I mutter. “Did you go to the lab?”

“Yeah, but it was a waste of time. I’m no closer to making genicote safe than I was before I went to the future. All I did was stare at my samples and think how they’re going to bring about the end of the world. I debated destroying them, but then I thought about all the lives they could potentially save if I find a way to fix this. Except I have no idea how.” He sighs. “And so the spiral continues.”

“We’ll figure it out. But first we need to find the man in that photo.”

Adam nods, and we head to the front desk. We’re given security badges and sent to Vincent’s floor. Once there, the receptionist waves us right in, even though we don’t have an appointment.

“My two favorite time travelers,” Vincent says from behind his desk. He gestures for us to sit down in front of him. “Do you have information on who came back from the future with you?”

“No, not yet,” Adam says.

“That’s unfortunate. My security team hasn’t found anything else either, but I’m confident something will turn up soon.”

Sure, unless the person who came back was working for him in the first place. But we have bigger things to worry about right now.

“We’re here because we need your help,” I say, though it kills me to speak the words. I suppose his future self was right about us working together after all.

Vincent’s eyebrows shoot up. “Is that so?”

“We need to visit the future again,” Adam says.

Vincent stares at us for a long moment, then lets out a short laugh. “Wow. You’re serious.”

“Very,” I say. “And this time we want to go ten years into the future.”

Vincent steeples his fingers on the table. “Forgive me, but I must be having a bit of déjà vu here. Except last time when you demanded I send you to the future a second time, it resulted in my only son’s death.” His eyes rest on me, and I feel a pinch of guilt. “Sorry, but the answer is no.”

“We wouldn’t do this unless it was absolutely critical,” Adam says. “But we really need to use the accelerator again, this one last time.”

“Each time you visit the future, something terrible happens to you or the people you’re with. Now someone’s come back from the future with you, and we have no idea who they are or why they’re here. Why in the world would I send you again?”

I lean forward, palms flat on his desk. “You owe us. We’ve kept all your secrets. We rescued your other team from the future. We saved your life.”

“And despite the fact that you killed my son and destroyed my other accelerator, I allowed you both to return to the future one more time. That makes us even. But now? We’re done.”

“What if we tell you what we saw in the future?” Adam asks.

“No—” I start, but Adam’s look silences me. This is all we have to bargain with, but knowledge of the future is a powerful gift and curse. Those of us who have time traveled have an unspoken promise to never tell anyone else what we’ve seen or what might come to pass. The one exception was when I told Dr. Campbell that her husband was going to be killed and how to stop it. But she risked everything to help us, now and in the future, and she deserved to know.

Vincent leans back in his chair casually, but his eyes dance with interest. “I’m listening.”

Adam glances at me again before speaking. “In ten years, a neo-Nazi terrorist group is going to release a virus that will wipe out the world. Billions will die. Civilization will crumble. And thirty years in the future, they’re still trying to rebuild and stop the virus.”

“You saw all that?” Vincent asks. He’s wanted our knowledge of the future since the very first time he sent us there, and we’ve never given him anything. Until now.

Adam nods. “We did. And we think we can stop it. But we need to go to the day the virus was released to find out who did it.”

Vincent stands and moves to the window, looking out at the city. “And what happens to me? Do you know my fate?”

Adam hesitates. “You’re still alive. You run a survivor’s colony out of Napa.”

I wait for him to say more, but he doesn’t go on. It’s way more than I’d like Vincent to know about his future as it is.

Vincent seems to ponder this for a moment. “Did you see me while you were in the future?”

“Yes,” Adam says.

“And?”

He looks at me again, and I nod for him to continue. “You…you said you helped us try to stop the virus.”