Asimov's SF, September 2010 (7 page)

Jo-jo swore under his breath. We froze, silent except for Sean's wheezing, alert for the sound of footsteps headed toward the door. After a moment Clarise's voice resumed speaking.

Chen-chi moved from between the bookshelves and laid a hand on my shoulder.

"He didn't activate, Jo-jo. The flashbacks interfered with the trigger.” Her voice was pitched low, so as not to carry into the nearby room.

Jo-jo's eyes flicked. He studied my face as though looking for something he'd lost. “I'm sorry, Chen-chi,” he said finally. It took me a moment to realize he was condoling her on the loss of her husband, not apologizing for something he'd done.

Chen-chi's face remained impassive. I don't think she realized that her grip on my shoulder had stiffened.

"So are you in on this gig?” Jo-jo asked.

I nodded.

"Good. Guard him.” He flicked his head toward Sean. “Chen-chi, a hand?"

Jo-jo was moving again, sliding metal components from pockets and hidden holsters beneath his jacket. “There's no time to brief you on the original plan,” he said as the pile of gadgetry in front of him grew. “Our window's almost up. We'll stick with the back-up."

Chen-chi and Jo-jo were working in silence, Chen-chi holding elements in place while Jo-jo screwed them together. The overall shape and materials were starting to look disturbingly volatile.

Sean had recovered his breath enough to sit up and gape at me. “You saved my life,” he said. “Why?"

I grabbed his shirt collar and shoved him to the floor. “So I can kill you myself. How'd Clarise get mixed up in this mess? Did you bring her in?"

"No!” Sean's voice was strangled, as if he were trying to shout but couldn't get the sound past the pressure on his neck. “Sharken introduced us. She's been working for him longer than me."

"You're lying. Why would she do this, except out of love for a punk like you?"

"You really don't know?” Sean's tone was incredulous. Jo-jo's angry
hsst
cut off whatever Sean might have been about to add. I glanced at the device in Jo-jo's hands, now nearly two feet tall and half as wide. It didn't look like we had much more time.

"Keep your voice down,” I told Sean. “Clarise is in that room. How would you estimate her chances in a gun fight?"

"Better than yours."

I glared at him. Then I noticed my shaking knuckles and decided Sean was more observant than I'd supposed. The old, familiar headache fuzzed at the edge of my senses. I was dangerously close to a flashback, or a mental breakdown, or both. I wondered whether Clarise had gotten any combat training from these new friends of hers.

Jo-jo clicked the last element of his device into place, examined the overall structure, and tested two of the circuits.

"We're ready,” he said. He set the device on the table, half-hidden behind the microfilm readers, and activated a timer. “We have ten minutes,” he said. He glanced at Sean. “Eugene, get that kid out of here before he can start a ruckus. Chen-chi, go up to the first level and clear out as many civilians as you can. Tell them there's a plumbing problem or something, and they need to leave the building. I'll keep watch here."

I stood, half-dragging Sean to his feet. Jo-jo's knife pressed against the fingers of my other hand. I kept it near Sean, ready to move if he tried anything. “How big will this explosion be?"

Jo-jo looked annoyed. “Big enough to change the future."

"My daughter's in that room."

"I'm sorry about that. We'd planned to divert her from being here tonight, but..."

But I didn't activate.
We kept coming back to that, didn't we?

"Wait until the meeting's over."

Chen-chi looked pained, but Jo-jo shook his head firmly. “It's not just about destroying the machine before they begin using it for high-energy experiments. The researchers at RCIA calculate that we need to kill the group's ringleader as well. Otherwise they'll just rebuild it elsewhere."

"Then wait for the next meeting.” My voice had grown icily calm. I hefted the knife, and realized with muted astonishment that it was no longer pointing at Sean.

Chen-chi tugged anxiously at my arm. “We can't afford to wait, Eugene. They've already attacked us twice. It won't take them long to realize we know where they're meeting, and once that happens..."

I shook her off without looking at her. My eyes were locked on Jo-jo's.

"The timer's already started,” Jo-jo said softly. “It can't be deactivated. Now, you and Chen-chi can go upstairs and rescue as many civilians as possible, or you can try to jump me, and we'll all explode together.” His finger toyed with a button on the device's main cylinder.

I'd seen such buttons before. It was a dead man's switch; once pressed, its release would trigger an immediate explosion.

"Stop this!” Chen-chi said. “Jo-jo, go warn the civilians. I'll hold the bomb while Eugene gets Clarise out. If anything goes wrong, I'll trigger it; you know I won't chicken out."

Jo-jo hesitated. Whatever he'd been about to say was stopped by the intensity of Chen-chi's eyes.

"Please,” she said. “For the man we once knew."

"All right,” Jo-jo said, handing the device to Chen-chi. He glanced at me. “You've got nine minutes to get your daughter out of that room. Make sure the leader doesn't escape. But Chen-chi—” and his look hardened to match her own—"Remember there's more than one memory to be honored here. Save the girl, if you can. But save the city and the world first."

She nodded. Jo-jo laid an assault rifle on the table next to her, “In case there's trouble.” He moved to grab Sean, but I stepped in front of him and pulled the thug to his feet.

"I need him."

Jo-jo gave a curt nod, then turned and strode toward the stairs. I gripped Sean by the elbow and stared into his face. “Do you love my daughter?"

He nodded.

"More than you love this fanatic group you're a part of ?"

He hesitated, then gave a firm “Yes.” His eyes told me he meant it.

"Then help me."

"No."

I nearly punched him. Maybe I would have, if his next words hadn't been so sincere:

"Clarise would never forgive me."

"Maybe not,” Chen-chi said, stepping to my side, “but if you don't help us now, she'll never forgive herself for what's about to happen, and neither will you. I've seen pictures of her funeral. You were in them. You looked like a man haunted by his own ghost."

Sean stared at her with incredulity but not, surprisingly, with suspicion. Perhaps he understood more of Clarise's equations than I'd given him credit for.

"So you're, what, some kind of time traveler?"

"In a sense."

"And this thing we won't forgive ourselves for?"

"An explosion. One so big it will wipe out half the city. More importantly: Sharken isn't the man you think he is. Watching what he does after he gains power will make you wish you'd never met him."

Sean's expression darkened. “Anyone could say that."

"Maybe they could,” Chen-chi said, unruffled. “But you're already uncomfortable with some of the decisions Sharken is making. Already, you lie awake some nights and wonder whether you're making a mistake. In a few years, you'll speak out against Sharken's new order. And a few months after that, you'll be executed."

Chen-chi spoke with such conviction, it was hard to disbelieve her.

I saw the muscles in Sean's jaw working. Slowly, deliberately, he shifted his gaze from Chen-chi to me.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Get Clarise out of the building. As fast as you can. Lie if you have to. Clonk her on the head if that doesn't work."

"She and I can't just walk out of a meeting. People would ask questions, try to stop us..."

"That's where I come in,” I said.

I grabbed Sean by the collar, strode to the conference room, and kicked the door open. As the doorknob struck the wall, I threw Sean through the doorway with enough force to send him skidding across the floor, then stepped over the threshold myself. I closed the door behind me.

Twenty pairs of eyes stared at us. Clarise stood in the middle of the room next to a whiteboard. Her mouth opened in shock as Sean slid to a stop near her feet.

"Clarise,” I said, with all the parental authority I could muster. “You've been keeping secrets."

She stared at me. For two heartbeats nothing in my world existed except those eyes: teal blue and bright as crystal. A complicated wash of emotion passed through them, settling at last on a familiar mixture of anger and fear. I knew that expression so well; it was the same one she'd worn as a girl, whenever I went on assignment.

"Daddy, what are you
doing?"
Her voice was a furious hiss.

"Saving you from yourself. You should go home. Now."

It would have been so easy if she'd obeyed me. I'd have floored anyone who tried to stop her. She'd have walked out the door, out of the building. She'd be two blocks down the street before the bomb blew. But things were never that simple, not between Clarise and me.

Clarise helped Sean to his feet. She glared at me, her free hand resting possessively against his chest. Behind them, a full wall of the conference room flickered with electronics.

This was the critical moment. Clarise was the only person in the room who had been part of the attack in the basement apartment. Had she told anyone besides Sean that I was part of an assault from the future? I suspected that she hadn't, that the kids surrounding me saw only an angry father trying to manhandle his daughter out of an unwanted situation.

I wondered what Clarise saw. An old man, perhaps. Worn out, wrung out, the ghost of the tall, strong father who had swung her over his head and chased her, giggling, across the lawn in simpler days. Did she think the trembling in my hands came from fragility? Did she know how close I was to a battle rage?

Ten years of training and twenty years of PTSD screamed at me to shoulder the man to my left (who probably thought his beneath-the-jacket groping for his gun was subtle), snatch his weapon from its holster, down five targets, roll to cover, and improvise from there. But Sean hadn't gathered his wits about him yet, so I waited, trembling.

I had the group's leader pegged now, the one Chen-chi had called Sharken. He was the low-profile type; didn't dress any different than his underlings. But everyone looked sidelong at him to know what to do. He leaned back in his chair.

"I think your daughter's old enough that she doesn't need to tell you everything she does.” He raised his hand in a casual gesture, probably intending to signal his thugs to take me down.

"That's debatable,” I said. “But I was referring to the secrets she's been keeping from
you."

The hand stopped mid-gesture.

"Or didn't Clarise tell you her father works as an undercover agent?"

I had the room's full attention now. Several thugs pulled their weapons into the open.

"Hold your fire, you morons.” Sharken's voice was calm, confident. Pitched low, but his words carried clearly in the small room. “Do you want to bring the library staff down here with the police in tow?"

Sean had pulled Clarise to the side, a few steps away from the door. He murmured something in her ear. She pulled against his arm, whispering furiously. I judged there were about seven and a half minutes left before Jo-jo's bomb exploded.

Get out, Clarise. For once in your life, do the smart thing.

Sharken ordered his thugs to tie my arms behind my back and search me. I had no weapons, and it seemed to make them nervous that they couldn't find any. With my face toward the wall as they patted me down for the third time, I could not see Clarise. I hoped that Sean had convinced her to slip out of the room with him.

Ready or not, I was out of time. I chose my moment and jerked sharply, twisting out of the sloppy hold two thugs had on my arms. I backed into the right-hand thug and made a blind grab for his gun with my bound hands.

He pulled the holster away, but I'd expected that. I grabbed his belt, bent my knees and heaved. He sailed across my back and slid, flailing, into a kid who'd been trying to grapple me around the neck.

The room erupted into motion. People shouted; chairs scooted. I put the wall at my back and worked to free my hands. Across the room, Sean was tugging on Clarise's arm, pulling her toward the doorway. She resisted. Dumb thug. Just my luck that he turned out to be a lousy liar.

Someone clubbed me with a book. I rolled my head with the blow, dodged the next two attacks, and landed a kick to a teenager's midriff. A chair cracked against my shoulders, and I fell flat on my chest.

A turquoise blur rushed to my side, knocking away a man who'd been about to throw a table lamp at my head. The lamp shattered against the wall. The blur resolved into Clarise. “Don't hurt him,” she shouted. “He's harmless. He just gets these fits."

"Enough of this,” Sharken said. He pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it at my head.

Clarise moved in front of me, a mostly futile maneuver, since she was two inches shorter than I was and only half as broad. Sharken's handling was good. He'd have no trouble hitting us both.

Time seemed to freeze. Darkness roiled at the edges of my mind. I willed my vision to focus. I couldn't afford a blackout, not now, not yet.

A gaudy wall clock ticked off seconds with my own unsteady breathing as counterpoint. I wanted to arch my back and rage at the heavens. I wanted to curl up and puke on the floorboards. Anything to ward off the gaping helplessness that had haunted me since Emmeline's death.

Her face lay before me, hair matted to the floor with her own blood. It had been a man like Sharken who'd killed her; a South American macho who thought that by threatening my wife he'd learn information that I didn't have to give.

My hands finally twisted free of the coarse rope that had bound them. My eyes locked on the barrel of the gun pointed at my daughter, then traced the path from Sharken's knuckles, along his arm, into his face. A fierce intensity, almost laughter, tightened my throat.

I was not helpless this time.

My body uncurled like a striking rattlesnake. Sharken fired. Pain flared in my shoulder, but it felt muted, gauzy. If I'd been charging him the bullet would have struck my chest, but I'd sprung sideways, pushing Clarise out of the way and diving into a thug who doubled over with my shoulder in his gut. I grabbed his gun. Didn't bother to pry it out of his hand. Just aimed for Sharken and pressed my finger against his on the trigger.