Chris was
trying to drive down the narrow lanes between the trailers. It felt funny
without Mr. Vezina in the driver’s seat, coaching him. Although, strangely, he
knew that Mr. Vezina wasn’t there without looking over to see, and that made
him sad. There was a fat, old crow (although he also didn’t know how he knew
that it was old) in the middle of the lane, looking under the rails of a
trailer porch at something Chris couldn’t possibly see, and didn’t want to see.
Chris wanted to take his foot off the clutch
and inch forward, but the crow wouldn’t move. And then he was on a bike instead
of driving a car. The crow looked away from the railings, rolling its head up
to stare at him. It didn’t move, and for some reason the lane was too narrow to
cycle by it, either. And then he was standing, and the way was still too
narrow. Frustrated, Chris yelled, “Move it!”
The words
were fat and heavy in the air like nothing that came before them. That was
because, Chris realised, as he opened his eyes, he’d spoken them aloud, and he
was now awake. “No, you move it!” He
heard his sister say, muffled by the partition across their room. He heard her bare feet hit the floor, and,
after a long second, the tapestry in the doorway being pushed to the side, the
metal rasp of the hooks against the rod loud in the cold, pine-smelling
bedroom. Charlotte poked around. She was dressed, and her hair half-dried. She
had a brush in one hand, and was presumably in the middle of doing all the
things that she did to keep her hair looking the way that it did.
“Great.
You’re awake. Because if I had to wake you up one more time-“
“You would
have just dumped a bucket of water on me. Well, you haven’t done it yet.”
“You haven’t
tried sleeping in on Christmas Eve yet.
”
“Is that
today? I didn’t notice.”
Charlotte
reached around the drape. Her hands came back into view with a bucket in them.
Her eyes were gleaming. “That’s it, bro!”
Chris had to
roll out of the bed fast to miss the contents of the bucket, which turned out
to be something that smelled intensely flowery.
“What’s
that?” He asked.
“Soap and
water,” his sister said. “See. I’m streamlining your routine. You’ll smell nice
if you happen to run into any supervillains. I hear that’s an issue. You’ll have
to do your own hair, though.”
Chris
reached up to pat the crusty remains of his part. “Like you should talk!”
“I’m a girl.
Girls brush their hair once for every year they have to wait until a guy
finally asks them out. That’s a lot of strokes.”
“Is that
some kind of slam at boys?”
“Some boys.”
“Anyone I
know?”
Surprisingly,
Charlotte flushed and said, so fast he could barely make out the words, “None
of your business!”
“What?”
“You’ll tell
him!”
“Is it
Tyrell? Corey?”
Charlotte
started laughing.
“What?”
“You don’t
have a clue, bro.”
“Jameel?”
Charlotte
sucked in her breath. “Yeah, I was just wondering just how exactly I would run
my BFF over with a tank.”
“Rose has a
crush on Jameel?”
Charlotte
knelt down, propping her head on her hands, her elbows carefully resting on the
one part of Chris’s bed that wasn’t soaked, so that she could stare into his
eyes at the level. “Don’t tell him.”
“Got it.
Don’t tell anyone about anything at any time. This is just like school.”
“Maybe we
can just get some psionic to put a memory block on you so that you can’t tell
anyone. Like the way Bulldozer can’t tell anyone this address.”
“Would I
have to go to jail, like Bulldozer? I’m too pretty for jail.”
“No, Corey’s
too pretty for jail.”
Chris was
almost halfway surprised. He still didn’t have much of a handle on the way they
did things in the 21st Century. “Corey’s gay?”
“You want the
complete rundown, brother mine? Emily, Rafaella, Rebecca, Cousin David,
Tyrell’s brother, Bill…”
“No, no,
that’s okay. Say. What about Don?”
“He says not.”
“Hmm. Okay,
if I’m up, I guess I should go have a shower.”
“There’s
plant food in a little packet under the soap. Just throw a little on when
you’re done.”
“What does that mean?”
“You figure
it out.”
Was there
anything to it? Chris asked himself. Did he have a crush on Sailor Loon? Or was
it that she was just so sexy in that skirt of hers? The thought of the skirt
made for an uncomfortable shower. So did the thought of his sister breaking
with sweet, timelost little Rose over a boy. Chris knew his sister well enough
to read a lie.
Clean and
dressed, Chris walked downstairs into an unexpectedly bustling house. Of
course, he thought, as he hit the second floor landing and heard voices from
the somewhat unexpected direction of the living room. He was up early enough
that no-one had left yet. He hoped he wouldn’t have to fight for breakfast.
Jason and John could inhale a whole kitchen worth of food between them, and he
had no idea how much was going to be left.
Chris
followed the noise into the living room. All the usual suspects were there: his
cousins, the Neilsens, Rafaella, John, and Dora Guzman, too. Crushed into the
corner by the weight of all the personalities in the room was Rose. Jason
looked up at Chris. “Ready for breakfast? And lunch? We’re going to the Golden
Dynasty!”
Chris
thought about that. “We’re not going to throw away the whole day flying across
the country again, are we? I mean, the Star-Racer’s neat, but four hours is
four hours.”
“No,” May
said. “It’s Christmas Eve. Father Asplin will open the gate for us. Now can we
get a move on? I want breakfast!”
At least
Chris had enough warning to put on old jeans and proper boots. He really wanted
to check the fences on the Bench if he had a chance.
It turned
out that there were enough of them to fill the Wong’s Mazda and the Neilsen’s
SUV. May, Amy, Dora, the Neilsen girls, and Jason all loaded bags of Christmas presents
in the trunk. They were going to meet people, Chris figured. Feeling a little
left out, he outmanoeuvred Charlotte to sit to one side of Rose. He looked over
at Charlotte, and she glared at him. He could read the message: ‘What are you
doing?’
“Hey, Rose,”
Chris asked, “What have you heard about the Plague?” Actually, Chris had the
gist of it from Billy, but he wanted to hear it from the lips of the thirteen
year old girl who had been sent three centuries back in time to stop the
Apocalypse Plague, and somehow ended up in an alternate universe where it
hadn’t happened. Yet.
“In our
timeline, the Apocalypse Plague was first reported in Spokane, Washington when
three medical staff at Sacred Heart admitted themselves on November 5th,
2011. Now, first admission does not mean
ground zero. It’s only six days ahead of the Livorno outbreak, and the Plague
virus mutates spontaneously from less lethal to more lethal forms. We can model the mutation rate stochastically
and say with moderate confidence that the doctors and nurses in Spokane were
infected by Patient Zero. But we need more data. Above all, more evidence of
Pacific Northwest connections, especially since Patient Zero was probably a
sailor. Which is why, in lieu of further
Nothwest connections, investigation will revert to the Livorno case, followed
by Capetown and Singapore in that order.” Rose sounded as though she were
reciting.
Then her
voice switched to something more normal. “Dr. Vox and the CDC are awesome. They
came up with three more data points: the Greyhound driver from your bus is an asymptotic,
nonshedding carrier, who lives in Albany. Projecting the mutation rates forward,
he could be the Albany Patient Zero from the January outbreak there. So that’s
a Pacific Northwest connection.”
Then she
shrugged. “Unfortunately, so was a tissue donor from an FBI unsolved crimes
case. Which had all of its paperwork thrown out sometime during
World War II. Fortunately, we have the vial label, which says that it happened
in Washington in 1934, so at least it matches our data set.”
“What if, whoever
was killed in 1934 in our timeline lived in yours to be Patient Zero, Rose?”
John Roy asked from the back.
“Then it
took the virus population in the patient’s body eighty years to mutate in
Patient Zero, and that’s unlikely. As in, ‘more zeros in the number than there
are atoms in the universe’ unlikely. And then there’s Eve, who is an asymptomatic
non-carrier, meaning that she was exposed just before the Sentinels brought her
up to the Twenty-First Century, and that the plague was present a hundred
thousand years ago.”
Charlotte
leaned over. “But that’s possible, right? Like, it’s got other carriers.” Her
face wrinkled. “Amoeba-thingies that get into everything that lives in ditch
water. Worms, bugs, slugs-”
Rose nodded.
“Yeah, that’s why we can’t get rid of it in the future. It’s everywhere in the
ecosystem. But that happened after the
pandemic. We think. If it happened a hundred thousand years ago, we’d all be
dead by now.”
Which was
all very interesting, but wasn’t what Chris wanted to hear about. “So how did
Professor Paradigm hear about it? And why did he try to kidnap us?”
Rose seemed
to ignore the question for a moment as they watched while May carefully pulled
out and drove around Snowflake, who was riding his bike in circles in front of
his group home again, evidently tired of the endless figure 8 he rode through
the neighbourhood from the mall to Tatammy to Pemberton to the Panther Heights
Rec Centre that he mostly travelled on days when he was out of school. The
massive folds of his white jacket draped over and almost hid the banana seat of
his bicycle. At least you could see him that way. Chris wondered where you even
got one of those stick-up warning flags in bluey-green. It wasn’t the most
conspicuous colour. Although it did remind him of someone. Chris shifted in his
seat.
As they sped
up back into the flow of traffic, Rose looked at him. “Two main theories: the
first is that he’s being manipulated by your Dad. His M.O. is to get unstable
supervillains mixed up in stuff and then backstab them. Mrs. Wong says that’s
not likely, because word is that Kwan is in trouble with his boss right now.
Second is that there’s some kind of back channel from a two-bit hood named
Tuney who bought some gadgets from Paradigm and tried them out up at the Bench
last summer. If that’s so, though, Paradigm knows a lot more about what’s going
on than Tuney does.
Jason spoke
from the back seat. “Maybe his gadgets told him? We’re already having that
issue with some of the gadgets Tuney used. Ones that transmitted to goddamned
Doctor Destroyer. If you think your case isn’t scary enough.”
“Jason,” May
said over her shoulder. “I still don’t like having you Rugrats messing with
that file.”
“May,” Amy
said quietly. “Destroyer is dangerous, and we love you. You shouldn’t have to
go up against his organisation without backup.”
“If I could
go on-“
“Sorry,
Rose,” Jason apologised.
“As far as
we know, Paradigm’s instruments didn’t transmit any information to him. So how
he knows about the Plague, and what he wants with it is a bit of a mystery. War
plagues are totally alien to his M.O. He wants to change reality, not kill
everyone.”
Jason
prompted. “’A bit of a mystery?’
”
Rose paused
for a long moment, until Chris wondered if her quiet personality was
reasserting itself. “I think that it
shows that we don’t know nearly as much about the Apocalypse Plague as we
thought we did. I think that it’s no coincidence that my time machine ended up
on this timeline instead of my home
line, and six months after my target window.” And then she fell silent. Nothing
that Rose did in this timeline could change the disaster that was
happening/would happen/had happened in her home line. Chris couldn’t even
really wrap his head around the idea of changing the past, anyway. Ms.
Telmantassar said that if Rose changed things the right way, “conservation of
causality” would preserve the changes and wipe Rose out of reality. Which was
really heavy.
Evidently,
everyone in the Mazda was thinking the same thing, because the car was quiet
for long enough for it to pull into the front parking lot of a half-block
shopping strip with a Denny’s in the middle, following the Neilsen’s SUV. St.
Elizabeth’s church stood on the corner on one side, and a 7-11 with a gas
station made up the last third of the block, its lot bleeding into the strip’s.
“Oh, boy!
I’ll bet they have pancakes!” Jason shouted.
“Yeah,
that wasn’t hilarious last time, either, bro,” Amy replied.
“Practice
makes perfect! Now come on!”
“I think-“
Chris started, before realising that Jason was doing it on purpose and shutting
up. Besides, all the other kids were gathered around the back of the vehicles,
shoving each other and pulling their bags of presents out. Chris drew close to
Charlotte. This was a family thing, and he felt on the outside, looking in,
again. Rose drew in from the other side. Evidently, she was feeling the same
way.
Eventually,
everyone had their presents, and May led them into the Denny’s. “Wongs? We have
a reservation,” she said to the hostess inside, a short, smiling Black girl.
“This way,
please,” the hostess said, leading them through a dining room mostly filled
with families that looked and sounded like they’d come for a miracle cure for
their stress and somehow found it. Chris was starting to like Christmas Eve.
A big table
had been drawn up on the far wall of a long, dark meeting room at the back of
the restaurant, with blackened wood features and plush, sound-absorbing cushion
reaching halfway up the wall in the same dark hues. It looked cozy, except for
the exit door smack in the far wall, complete with the brightly lit sign
overhead. Chris started. He had thought that Uncle Henry and Auntie Ma weren’t
coming. But a second look showed that Asian man and woman at the centre of the
table weren’t his uncle and aunt at all, but much younger people. And, with a
shock, he recognised Jenny and the tall blond man next to her as the mysterious
couple who had come for them in the hospital the day after Mom died. She would
be, Chris thought, his cousin, Jenny. There were piles of Christmas presents on
the table, and it was all starting to make sense to Chris.
Quick
introductions followed. Chris and Charlotte met “their cousin the doctor,” as
Auntie Ma said, David, who was tall and skinny, and took after his mother.
Henry, the law student, was tall and massive, and took after his father. The
other giants were Dora’s elder sister, Juanita, the student, who was engaged to
Henry, and a familiar blond was the premed (even if even his sisters said that
wasn’t really a thing in first year) Brad Neilsen, similarly engaged to Jenny,
also a “student,” which Auntie Ma used in Jenny’s case to imply vast
disapproval of her daughter’s plans to become a mere veterinarian. Chris wasn’t
sure why. His uncle, Doctor Dawson, was married to a vet, and they were the
richest people in Oroville. Though that also had something to do with owning
half the west side of the Lake.
Anyway, there
were presents for everyone, including a three season “Happy Days” boxed DVD set
for Chris and a white scarf for Charlotte. As soon as she put it on, Ginger
hopped out of her hiding spot in Charlotte’s pocket onto her shoulder.
“I hope your
bird knows to make herself scarce before the waiter shows up,” Jenny Wong said.
“I’m hungry.”
“Are you still growing, Jenny?” May asked.
“Why, thank
you for noticing. I would like to
borrow your jeans.”
“Yeah. Slim
to none on that, big sis.”
But when the
waiter arrived a moment later carrying a massive tray of Waffle Platters, he
didn’t even bat an eye. The next waiter following put a plate of French Toast
and sausages in front of Chris without even asking, and a third put a steaming
urn on the table. John reached over to pour a stream of milky white fluid into
his cup.
May looked
at it, and her voice rose in question. “Milk tea? I guess if Mom can’t be here
in person…”
Henry waited
until John was done, then poured himself a cup. “Don’t complain. You can’t get
this stuff in Palo Alto.”
“You can’t
get that stuff anywhere,” May said,
making a face.
“Not true,”
Jenny said, pouring herself a cup. “There’s some good Tibetan places in San
Francisco.”
“Just don’t
mention ‘feudalism’ while you’re there.” Brad cautioned. “Like some people do.”
“What? My
Mom’s a princess. I have a very complicated relationship with feudalism,” Jenny
pointed out.
“That is
something that you may have to learn to communicate more effectively, Jen-Jen,”
her boyfriend pointed out. Jamie spat her orange juice into her cup, choking.
“And we are aware of the irony in our comments,” he continued. “You’re not
going to die on me, are you, sis?”
Breakfast
over, the entire gang put on their winter gear and left through the back exit,
walking single file. Apparently, breakfast was on the Wong’s tab. Also,
apparently, his cousins did this a lot, because for some reason (Chinese magic
blah blah) the siblings couldn’t meet around their Mom. This was a very special
Denny’s. Apparently.
It didn’t really
look special from the back. There was a tiny staff parking lot, cupped within a
low building sticking out from the back of the restaurant, presumably the
kitchen. Dr. Wong led them across the lot and then over a sagging sleeper lightly
dusted with snow onto the cracked pavement of a back alley to an even less
special lot mainly distinguished by a crumbling old stone townhouse just
slightly too big for a family today and too small for a rich person, although
its layout problems seemed irrelevant given that the boarded up windows.
That is, it
didn’t seem special until Chris realised that the townhouse was backed in by
houses and duplexes on the other side. Somehow, this house didn’t have a street
address! Dr. Wong stepped up on the front stoop and put a key into a padlock.
They walked into the cold, barren house, through a living room that spread
around a rickety staircase, and then a kitchen in the back, and then they were
outside again, in a neatly kept garden spread around a patch of burned ground
in the centre. Father Asplin was waiting for them, wearing a long but light
blue, modern jacket over his clericals, black winter gloves, and a
Russian-style fur hat. For some reason, he was still carrying his golf
umbrella. “You guys ready to go? Newbies, this isn’t complicated. Just walk into
the ashes and turn clockwise.”
Chris
followed the instructions, and was instantaneously transported to the familiar
surroundings of St. Elizabeth’s in Gennessee, Washington, eight miles from
downtown Oroville on the west side of Osoyoos Lake. He followed the crowd out
into the church yard. He looked over at the Golden Dynasty just in time to see
a battered old car with Canadian plates pull up behind the building.
More importantly,
parked in front of the church was a familiar Land Rover SUV, with a crew cab
behind it. And standing next to them were an old, old man and woman that, after
a moment, Chris recognised as his aunt and uncle.
After a second, he realised that he was crying.
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