Future Threat

21

He thrusts his hand toward me, and I’m so overwhelmed by everything that’s going on that I peel off my flexi and slap it in his hand. He presses a button next to him, and a little black trash can pops out. He throws my flexi in, and the container closes up and makes a shredding sound.

I lurch forward, but it’s too late. “Wait, I need that!”

Wombat waves a dismissive hand. “Aether is tracking you on those and seeing everything you do. But don’t stress. I’ll set you up with some fresh gear that they won’t be able to trace.” The trash can finishes, and Wombat gestures for Adam and Chris to put their flexis inside. Once they do, it starts shredding again. “It turns anything you put in it into fuel. Chris designed it. Pretty spiff, eh?”

I raise an eyebrow at him, while Chris starts examining the machine he’s destined to invent. Wombat couldn’t take a second to clean up all his garbage, even with his own personal disposal system right there? Or was he saving it for a day he ran out of fuel and needed some emergency trash?

“What do you want? Imbeds? Flexis? Smartphones?” He rattles them off like they’re drugs he’s selling from the back of his car. Which is not far off, really.

“You have smartphones?” I am so done with having the Internet in my head.

“Ha-ha-ha, as if! They haven’t made those in years.”

I scowl at him. “Fine, I’ll take a flexi.”

“I figured you’d say that.” He hands me a new flexi, and when I place it on my temple, a message pops up: Hello, Elena O’Neill.

“I’m very curious about imbeds, but I’ll take a flexi,” Adam says.

“Same,” Chris says.

“It’s syncing with my profile,” I say. “How do I get it to stop?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Wombat says, while he hands the others their flexis. “Consider it a gift from your older selves. You can use their money, contacts, whatever else you need. Just don’t do anything too wild, or my ass will be on the line.”

So much information inside my head, waiting to be accessed. I want to know everything. I’m scared to find out too much. Stick to the mission, I remind myself. Get the others. Get back alive. Then get on with your life so you can live this future.

“Now what?” Chris asks, once we’re all set up with our new gear.

“The car will drop me off near Future Visions, and you can take it to find the people you’re looking for,” Wombat says.

“That’s it?” I ask. “You give us some new flexis and run?”

He shrugs. “I can’t get more involved than that. Something about possibly messing up the timeline, blah-blah-blah.”

“Do you know where the other team is?” Adam asks.

He shifts in his seat, clearly uncomfortable. “No. You never told me anything else.”

“I don’t get it,” Chris says. “Wouldn’t it be faster and easier for you to take us to the other team members so we can drag their asses back to Aether now?”

“Hey, I don’t question what Elena tells me to do. She said to pick you up, give you this stuff, then send you on your way. I’m not supposed to do anything more than that. And I know better than to argue with her.” He shoots me a quick glance as he says it, like he’s worried I might yell at him.

Chris snorts. “We have no idea what we’re doing, no clue in hell where to go, and we’re wasting time with each minute we spend trying to figure it out. Maybe we should have a chat with Future-Elena about this.”

Wombat rolls his eyes. “She won’t talk to you. All of your older selves were very clear that there should be no contact whatsoever with them. They also said you’d be stubborn about this.”

“Man, are we d***s in the future or what?” Chris asks.

“Nah, you’re actually pretty mondo. Of course, you also pay my salary, so I have to say that,” he adds with a grin. I assume mondo is a compliment, but half the stuff out of this guy’s mouth is a mystery to me.

“All right,” Adam says, glancing back and forth between the two of them. “We’ll do this on our own, but we need two more cars. We’re splitting up.”

“You’re…what?” Wombat’s grin drops. “That’s not what you told me you were going to do. Are you sure that’s a smart move?”

“We’re changing the plan,” I say. “If you have a better idea…” He holds up his hands like he’s surrendering. “Nope. If you want more cars, I’ll get you more cars.”

We zoom through the skyscrapers of downtown Los Angeles in a steady stream of traffic, passing buildings I recognize and many I don’t. One I know well is the tall, black granite skyscraper that’s home to Aether’s main headquarters, which looks identical to when we broke into it in the other timeline. Down below, I spot the distinct architecture of the Disney Concert Hall and the Central Library, while in the distance the Hollywood sign stands over the city, just as it does in the present. It’s comforting to see that even in this advanced future, some things remain the same.

But some things are all new. We approach a building that reaches high in the sky with shimmering silver walls and light-green windows. As the car circles around it, I see the words Future Visions Industries across the top.

Are our future selves inside there, watching us arrive through the windows? I try to imagine what it would be like to go inside, to get a glimpse of what my life is like in thirty years as the CEO of a powerful corporation and the wife to a Nobel Prize winner. But my excitement and curiosity fades away when we leave the building behind and instead fly down into a nearby parking lot.

“One of you can use this car,” Wombat says, as the door slides open. “I’m getting keys for two other cars now, but it’ll take a minute to get them transferred over.”

He hops out, and the three of us share a look. This is where we split up. I know it’s the right thing to do, yet I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong with this plan. Or that it should be me going after Ken and not Chris.