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“I know how you like science fiction,” Dani said. “In general, I think you get the time travel stories better than I do.”
“I like my science fiction as fiction.”
Dani pressed her lips together with a look of disappointment, but she continued. “They told me I couldn’t come back here permanently. I don’t understand the science of it, but when I went into the future, I was erased from this time. That’s why nobody knows me here. I was a police officer. I was your wife. But, now, it’s like I was never born. My mother…” Dani stopped, choking on her words, then put her hand over her eyes and sniffed before looking back at Gemma with actual tears in her eyes. “She didn’t recognize me either.” She swallowed hard. “My life here is over. If I stay, I’ll disintegrate atom by atom until I die. They said I have only two weeks total. So I have to return to the future after I kill Darius.”
“Kill him?” Gemma blurted, alarmed. “You mean you’re really planning on killing a man?”
Dani nodded. “If I don’t kill him, he’ll go on to become one of the worst monster maniacs in history. That’s the reason they sent me back. But I also wanted to see you, to have a chance to say good-bye.” Dani looked down at her hands. “I thought I could make you fall in love with me all over again, so when I leave, you wouldn’t be saying good-bye to a stranger. So you’d remember me.” She looked up, her expression open, honest and full of raw emotion. “So that’s it. That’s my reality, and it’s killing me that it’s not yours.”
Everything in Dani’s voice and face told Gemma she was telling the truth. But there was no way she could be telling the truth. “That’s quite a story,” she finally said.
“Do you believe me?”
Gemma shook her head sadly. “How can I possibly believe you?”
“Gem, if I’m lying, how do I know so much about you? Your favorite flower.” She pointed to the African violets in the windowsill. “Your favorite pasta. I could name all your favorite books and movies.”
“I don’t know how you found out about those things. Crazy people are very good at that sort of thing.”
“You can ask me anything. I know everything there is to know about you, your childhood, your family. Your mother is in Room 47 at River Gardens. Her roommate is a woman named Grace who calls everybody Poopsie.”
Gemma felt a chill run up her spine. “Clearly you’ve gone to a lot of effort to learn about me, and apparently you’ve been stalking me for quite a while. That’s bad enough, but you’d better never go near my mother or I’ll have you arrested.”
Dani stood and faced her. “Please, Gem, just for a minute, can’t you try to believe me? Tuesday night, when we were together, didn’t it seem really right to you?”
Gemma felt like crying. “It was very special, Dani, which is why I was so disappointed to find out the truth about you.”
“Okay, look,” Dani said. “I can show you the thing…the transporter thing.” She reached into her front pocket, then looked startled. “I was sure I put it there.”
Gemma sat with her arms crossed over her chest while Dani searched all of her pockets and came up empty.
“Why don’t you try saying abracadabra?” suggested Gemma.
“Not funny. I can’t lose that. It’s my ticket back. Like I said, if I don’t go back, I’ll die.”
Gemma sighed. “Look, Dani, I heard you out, so please go now. It’s after six.”
“You don’t believe any of it, do you?”
“This always happens. Women seem perfectly normal for about thirty-six hours before their sanity dam breaks.”
“Gem, you have to believe me! I know it’s hard, but, darling, I love you so much. We’re so good together. I wish you could remember.”
“I’m sorry, Dani,” she said. “I wish you the best, I really do. But I want you to leave and I don’t want to see you again.”
“Wait, wait. I have this.” Dani held up her wrist. “This is the thing I told you about, the thing that’s coded for Darius’s DNA, to let me know when he’s nearby.”
Gemma peered at a plastic watch-like device, the kind they put in the claw machine at the arcade. She felt a great pall of sadness descend over her like a heavy gray blanket.
“What do you think of this?” Dani asked optimistically.
“It looks like a miniature radar screen,” Gemma replied. “A cheap, plastic gadget for kids. A couple of LEDs under a plastic lens, one blue, one green. It proves nothing…except that you’re out of touch with reality.”
“One green?” Dani repeated. She pulled her wrist back to look at the watch. “Oh, God! He’s here! He’s somewhere in the neighborhood!” She grabbed Gemma by both shoulders, startling her. “You stay inside and lock the door after I leave.”
I’ll do that, believe me, Gemma thought, wriggling free of Dani’s grasp.
“This is serious, Gem,” Dani said, her eyes flashing. “This guy is dangerous. But it’s me he wants. He’s not interested in you. You’ll be okay as long as you stay put.”
She dashed through the length of the apartment to the front door, looked out the window, and pulled a gun from a holster under her jacket. She had a gun on her the whole time? Gemma shrank against the kitchen counter, realizing that Dani’s delusions might lead to violence. If it wasn’t all a hoax, if she truly believed her story, that she was on a mission to kill somebody, she might actually do it. Like so many other murderous loons with voices in their heads. Only in her case, she would not say God told her to do it. She’d say somebody from the future told her to do it. What was the difference, really? Not every lunatic is a religious nut.
Dani gave her a reassuring nod before exiting the apartment. Gemma froze, terrified, then she ran to the door and bolted it shut. Pressing her face against the windowpane, she saw Dani cautiously creeping past the garage, leading the way with her gun.
Chapter Eighteen
Dani searched the neighborhood for several minutes without finding any sign of Darius. She began to think the device on her wrist might be faulty. Or maybe he was simply well hidden, watching her. At some point, he would have to contact her if he wanted the seeds. She decided to return to her car and stake out the street until he either showed himself or the green dot disappeared. One thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t leave Gemma unprotected with Darius nearby.
On the short walk to her car, she kept picturing Gemma’s cynical expression. She hadn’t believed a word of it. Maybe even worse, she seemed to think Dani was a genuine nutjob, and Dani couldn’t think of a way to persuade her that the story was true. Gemma did not take anything on faith. It had been a mistake to tell her. It had only made things worse. And now she had another problem to worry about. What had she done with that transporter thingy? She just couldn’t remember when she’d had it last. She decided it was probably back at her room in her utility belt.
Standing beside the car, she took one more look up and down the street. Nothing. She holstered her weapon and got into the driver’s seat. She’d stake out the street all night if she had to. Sooner or later, Darius would make a move.
She put the key in the ignition and turned it to the accessory position. Then she reached for the radio tuner, but her hand froze as the blinking green light on her wrist caught her attention. If it’s blinking, he’s within fifty feet, they had told her. Adrenaline shot through her body and she bolted to attention. He’s here! she realized, peering out the windshield, then both side windows. He could be watching her, hiding behind a fence, a tree, another car.
As she reached for the door handle, she felt the cold, hard prod of metal at the base of her skull.
“No sudden moves,” said a soft male voice close behind her. “Do not reach for your weapon. Put both hands on the steering wheel.”
Oh, God, how did I let this happen? What a rookie mistake!
He must have been in the neighborhood all along. He must have seen her arrive. She hadn’t locked the car. With all the distractions, he could have easily slipped into the backseat to wait.
She put her hands on the steering wheel and looked in the rearview mirror at the pale face and dark-circled blue eyes that met hers. His face was unshaven, his beard at least a week old. As Gail Littleton had said, he looked sick. He also looked scared, wary, maybe unhinged. He’s a maniac, she reminded herself. He will become a maniac, at least. She’d been hoping he wasn’t one yet.
In his right hand was a semiautomatic pistol held close to the back of her head.
“Keep your hands where they are,” he instructed, then reached between the seats and under her jacket to lift the gun from its holster. When he had moved back again, he asked, “What’s your name?”
“Officer Daniella Barsetti.”
“Your real name!”
“That is my real name.”
“I know you’re lying. You’re not a real police officer. You recognized me the other day at Genepac. That’s why you came after me. And you’re wearing a time phase detector.” He held his wrist up for her to see in the mirror, an identical device. Totally identical in every way, including one steady blue and one blinking green dot. “You show up on mine,” he said, “so obviously you’re from the future.”
“I don’t understand. Time phase detector? That’s not what they called it.”
“Your employers, you mean? It doesn’t matter what they called it. It’s a time phase detector. It detects anyone who’s out of phase with present time. You, in other words, and me.”
“They said it was programmed to detect your unique DNA, a genome signature detector or something like that. So I would know when you were nearby.”
He shook his head. “Ridiculous! I ought to know this is a time phase detector because I invented it.”
Dani’s mind spun, making the headache worse. “You? No, that’s impossible. You must have gotten that from Agent Bryan. He was wearing it when you killed him. He was from the future. You, you’re from this time. That’s why they sent me back, to find you here in our time before you…” She wasn’t sure how much to say. She didn’t want to give him any valuable information. “Obviously you got that thing off Bryan after you shot him, and now you’ve made up some story about how it works.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said, sounding weary. “Give me the beetle beans and you will be free to go. That’s all I want.”
“I don’t have them with me.”
“Where are they?”
“At my hotel.”
“Which is where?”
“Mission District.”
“Can you drive this vehicle?”
Puzzled, Dani said, “Of course.”
“Then drive us to your hotel. If you try anything, I will kill you.” He pushed the barrel of his pistol deeper into her neck to convince her.
She started the car and eased away from the curb, driving carefully so as not to alarm him.
“Don’t break any laws,” he said, withdrawing the weapon and leaning back in the seat. “Don’t do anything to attract attention. Do you understand?”
She nodded. Like him, she didn’t want to attract the attention of the police. If they arrested him, he’d be out of her reach, and there was no guarantee he’d be convicted of any crime. She was the closest thing there was to a witness that he’d killed Bryan, but there was no way she could testify in court. There was no evidence linking him to the bombing either. They had nothing but Bryan’s word for that, and he wasn’t talking. No, she couldn’t count on the law this time. She had to deal with Darius herself.
She chose Divisidero Street to take them through town. Less conspicuous and less busy than Van Ness. She wasn’t overly worried about him pulling the trigger. He didn’t know where her hotel was. Without her, he’d never find the beans. She didn’t know why he wanted them, but it was clear he wanted them badly. She drove at a moderate pace, making the trip last longer than necessary as she tried to think of a way to disarm him. Periodically, he succumbed to a coughing fit, and it sounded serious, deep-in-the-lungs serious.
At Castro and Market, the rainbow flags were flying. Dani turned left onto Market, then jogged off onto 16th to head into the Mission District.
“How do you know the streets so well?” Darius asked. “You’re driving like everything’s familiar.”
“It is familiar. I live here. I’ve lived here all my life. I could drive a cab if I wanted to.” She glanced in the mirror to see the bewildered look on his face.
“How is that possible? You’re from the future. The city’s changed so much.”
“I don’t think I’m supposed to talk about that.”
He stared at her in the mirror, holding his gun loosely beside him. “You do sound like someone from the twenty-first century. Is that training? So you’ll fit in? But why would they bother for a couple of weeks? Why waste the time? The police uniform is enough to get past most people. Swenson would know that.”
“Swenson? You know about Dr. Swenson?”
“Of course. She’s the one who hired you, I assume. Hired you to kill me, right? You’re to finish what Frank Bryan started. I’ve got to admit I didn’t see this coming, that they’d travel into the past to murder me. That’s actually very clever.”
Dani had to keep reminding herself that Darius would become a ruthless mass murderer someday because right now he seemed extremely mild mannered. Those soft-spoken intellectuals are the worst, she reminded herself. Nobody could go more nuts than they could. He coughed again, rough wracking coughs. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see blood.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked, hoping it wasn’t a contagious disease.
“I’ve had some interference, delays I hadn’t planned on. I’ve been here a week and a half.”
That was a weird non sequitur. Maybe he was hard of hearing. She spoke more loudly. “I said, are you sick? What’s wrong with you?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What year were you born?” he asked.
“Nineteen eighty-eight.”
He scrutinized her from the backseat. Every few seconds she caught his gaze in the mirror. He seemed to be trying to figure her out.
“What is that?” he asked, pointing to a plastic bag on the dash.
“Beef jerky.”
“Is that something you eat?”
“Sure. Hey, I know it’s full of chemicals and salt, but I like it. Threaten to kill me if you want, but lay off the snacks. You’re not my wife.”
After a moment of silence, he said, “You really are from here, aren’t you? You’re an actual twenty-first century police officer.”
“I said I was.”
“But then why are you showing up on my detector?” She stopped at a light and caught his gaze in the rearview mirror. His eyes penetrated deeply into hers and he seemed to come to an understanding, nodding. “You’re the same police officer from the other day. The officer with Bryan on the roof.” He scratched his head. “You used his transporter beacon. That’s how this happened, isn’t it? It was an accident. Then they sent you back, telling you to finish the job.”
This guy was a good guesser. How did he know all this stuff about the future and Swenson? Maybe he had gotten something out of Bryan somehow. There had obviously been more to the Darius story than Bryan had told her. These two might have had some history. Bryan might not have been on his first trip back to take out Darius. He might have already tried numerous times. Happens all the time in time travel movies. They keep coming back to the same place until they get it right. Darius might have gotten to know Bryan pretty well by the time he shot him on that roof. Whatever the explanation, Darius knew a lot more about Swenson’s plan than Dani had imagined.
“Yeah, that’s basically what happened,” she confirmed. “I accidentally activated his beacon. They said it had never happened before. Nobody from the past had ever traveled forward in time.”
“No, it never has.” He looked thoughtful, calmly speculative. “You would have gotten a temporal signature when you went through, a twenty-third century time stamp. That’s why you show up on my detector. So they sent you back…back home. You can’t stay here, you know? You can’t survive here. You’ll die.” For a split second, he actually seemed concerned about her.
“That’s what they said. Two weeks max.” Suddenly she remembered his statement that he’d been here a week and a half. She looked at his sunken eyes, his sickly skin, and the truth suddenly dawned on her. Darius is from the future! That’s how he knows all this stuff. That’s why he’s got a time phase detector or whatever that thing is. Wow, she thought. That puts a new spin on things.
Swenson and company had kept this interesting news to themselves. Maybe they didn’t want her to know that the guy who tried to destroy humanity was from the future. Maybe they felt guilty. Dani didn’t like it that she’d been lied to, whatever the reason. She was putting her life on the line for those geeks. They had an obligation to be straight with her.
“That’s the way it’s supposed to work,” Darius said, seemingly to himself. “When you leave your timeline, you sync up with the timeline in the future. We brought back a cat from ancient Egypt and the same thing happened to it. So we couldn’t send it back to die. It’s living very contentedly now in Gavin’s quarters, and I suspect the British Museum may be missing a cat mummy.” He smiled, distracted by his thoughts. “For all anyone knows, we can go back as far as the earth was inhabitable, but the Egypt of the pharaohs is as far as we’ve gone. We could go back to the Jurassic if we wanted to and bring a dinosaur into the future. That’s what Gavin wanted to do. He’s sort of obsessed with dinosaurs. A hadrosaur, that’s what he wants to get. Now how would we carry that, I asked him. You start thinking about what’s possible with time travel…it gets intoxicating.” Their eyes met in the mirror and he seemed to remember what was happening in the here and now. He abruptly quit talking.
