Birth of the Alliance (32 page)

Hope looked at Will, her face full of light. “That means we need to make sure we get blood from one of your parents, and then…”

Will shook his head. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” But his face fell at her words, deep in thought, a memory struggling to reach the surface of his mind.

Eva looked chagrined. “I do not believe we can do that, unfortunately. We are fortunate that Hope still has a living parent, but as for Will…” Her eyes fell.

Will and Hope looked at each other and laughed. Eva’s eyes snapped back to them, confusion covering her face.

“Sorry, Eva,” Will said, smiling. “But after everything we’ve gone through, that part of the process is actually the
easiest
part to accomplish.”

Eva and Adam exchanged glances. “Are you trying to say that one of your parents is still
alive
?” Adam asked. “How would we get clean blood from them? Surely they must be using ambrosia themselves if they’re still living after so many centuries.”

“They’re both very much alive,” Hope said, chuckling. “And I assure you, their blood is quite clean.”

“But how?” Eva said. “That seems… impossible.”

Will arched an eyebrow. “We’ve had this conversation many times in the past few days, Eva. That word is meaningless.”

To his surprise, Eva smiled and bowed. "Touché, Will. But I fear still do not understand, there is clearly a piece of this puzzle I do not yet possess. Are your parents both members of the Aliomenti? If so, how is it that their blood is clean? They must be incredibly old.”

“Not exactly,” Will said. “As of this moment, my father is four years old, and my mother just celebrated her first birthday.”

Eva looked at him sharply, and Will watched her piece it all together. Her face lit up with shock when she finally realized the truth.

And then she laughed.

“I
still
don’t understand,” Adam said. “How can you explain that? How can you be nine centuries old, yet your parents are young children? What am I missing?”

"At some point in the future, the Alliance will create a machine that travels in a very different way,” Will replied. “It will not travel from one location on the planet to another. It will travel to another
time
.” Will looked Adam in the eye, making certain that the son of the man he’d known so long knew that Will was telling the truth. He felt Adam’s Energy circling him, looking for empathic messages to suggest that this was a strange joke. Adam found nothing of the sort.

Adam looked away as the meaning of the words began to sink in. “You’re telling me that you’re not even born yet?”

Will nodded. “That’s
exactly
what I’m telling you. I was born on January 7th, 1995. When I was twenty-five years old, I met a beautiful young woman named Hope.” He glanced at Hope and arched an eyebrow. “She was actually a
bit
older than she let on.”

“A woman
never
reveals her age,” Hope said, deadpan, and the room erupted in laughter.

“Four years later, our son was born,” Will continued. “Six years after that, I was attacked by the Hunters and rescued by three people with a time machine. One was my adult son. One was my adult daughter, whom I'd never met, who I never even knew to be on the way. And one of them…” He hesitated.

But Adam picked up on the cue. “One of them was… me?”

Will nodded. “I thought that man was your father. Hope and I told him the truth about my origins, and he’d worked with us to start planning the work that needs to be done to ensure everything that day occurs as it must. You see, I spent time two centuries in the future, learning about Energy and some of the technological advances of the age. And then… I was sent back to the past. Hope needed me.”

Eva stared at Will. “I never figured that out, not in all of the time we spent together. Yet it explains your advanced Energy development when we first met, and how you were able to imagine and build so many of the innovations we have seen. They were memories for you, memories you introduced into that past.”

Will nodded. “I’m not that clever. I just had the advantage of a millennium of human advancements to draw from.”

Adam looked at Hope, and then back to Will. “If you thought the third person in that group was my father… I can’t imagine how devastating his death must have been.”

Will’s head dropped. “When your father died, I believed we’d failed in our mission. But when I met you… I realized I’d had the wrong man in mind the entire time.”

Hope nodded. “It was a terrible loss, on so many levels, not the least of which was that Adam had become a great friend. But we’ve also realized that neither of us can influence events on that day in the future. Adam had agreed to oversee everything.”

Adam looked puzzled. “Why
can’t
you influence everything? More to the point, why can’t you just stop everything?”

Will sighed. “My experiences before being sent to the past were designed to answer questions like that, even though I didn’t realize it for quite some time. If I’d been sent directly to the past and told my mission, I wouldn’t have been prepared for the challenges I’d face. They needed time to prepare me, and there was no better time than their present—my future—to instruct me. But they also allowed me to make mistakes, to help me learn the lessons I needed to learn. One of those mistakes led to me meeting Arthur, the Hunters, and the Assassin, all in that future. They needed me to meet them, to see them all still alive and functioning, because if I hadn’t, I most certainly would have had no qualms about eliminating all of them. For some reason, some crazy reason I don’t yet understand, it’s critical that those men survive. I needed to see that, and I was enabled to see that they lived.”

Eva nodded. “I wondered for years why you did not kill Arthur and take Hope from the village. But now I understand. That must have been very difficult for you.”

Will nodded. “When they attacked me, they had no idea of Hope’s true identity. I suspect that if they’d known she could have eliminated the Assassin without breaking a sweat, they might have planned things differently. But they didn’t. And so we’ve made sure that none of them know who she truly is. It’s why she’s known here as the Shadow. Keeping both her original and current names out of the minds of the Hunters will keep them ill-prepared to deal with her, and will prevent Arthur from launching a massive search effort to find her. They didn’t know who she was that day. In fact, in that even more distant future, they made comments leading me to believe she'd died that day. Which means…”

“Which means that Hope must play human during that time, and likely in the time leading up to those events,” Eva concluded. “And that means that as much as she might be able to help with the planning, at some point she will need to extricate herself from everything and react to events as they happen. As a human.”

Adam glanced at Will. “You mentioned that you can’t influence anything either. Why is that?”

Will glanced at the floor. “I was sent back in time with a bit of technology that displayed messages to me at certain key points in time. It wasn’t something that operated frequently; I was meant to live this life, not simply to follow a script. The entries have made it clear to me that they have no record of me existing—in this form, as the thousand year old Energy user—starting around the time I was originally born. I don’t know if I choose to go into hiding, if something prevents one person from existing twice in the same time, or if I will die or be killed. Whatever the reason, it’s clear to me that I cannot do it all. We must assume that, starting in 1995 at the very latest, I will not be able to do
anything
.”

It was a painful statement for Will to make, and he punched the table in frustration. His childhood had taught him that he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself, and even during the years he and Hope were married, he had trouble stepping aside and letting her take control of anything. She’d been patient, though, and he smiled at the thought now. After a thousand years, she knew him well, knew how to encourage him and soothe him, knew how to show him where he could let go. He wondered how close she’d come to giving him an Energy-based push in the right direction—and how often. He certainly wouldn't blame her if she had.

Eva shook her head. “This is a lot to process, Will.”

Hope nodded. “I’ve known for centuries, and it’s still a lot to process.” She glanced at Will. “And I’ve not even lived through all of it. Not yet, anyway.” She shook her head. “We’re trying to process all of this, but it’s so much worse for Will. Think of all of the tragedies he knew would come, tragedies he could have easily prevented, and yet for the sake of making sure that world he was born into came to exist, he had to stand down. Eva, you know Will, and Adam has probably heard stories about him. You both know how difficult that’s been. Perhaps it’s better not to know the truth. But I do, and I’m committed to making sure that everything comes to be exactly as it was meant to be.”

Eva paused for a moment. “I had not considered that part just yet, but I do understand. I know from my personal experience that the world, flawed though it may be, would have been far worse had Will not arrived at the North Village when he did. If I am to understand this revelation; if we do not ensure that the two of you meet in the future, marry, and bear your children, Will arriving will not happen. Please be assured that you will have my full support in making sure that happens.”

Will inclined his head in thanks, and Hope grasped and squeezed Eva’s hand.

Eva glanced at Adam. “I am assuming that you will assist as well?”

Adam frowned. “I… I’m not sure.” He shook his head. “This sounds complicated and dangerous. I… I’m just not sure.”

Will’s jaw dropped. Hope’s hand went to her mouth as her eyes widened. Eva stared at him. “How can you be unsure, Adam? This is the proper thing to do.”

Adam glared at her. “The success or failure of this mission has a very personal effect on the rest of you. If it fails, all of you die. There’s no such motivation for me. The only outcome resulting in
my
death comes if I participate.”

“That’s not true,” Hope said, startled. “If Will didn’t succeed, the three of us would never have located ambrosia, and your father would have died centuries ago, long before you were born.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Adam replied. “All of you were born independent of Will’s actions. His failure means that each of you dies a painful death or one of old age. Me? I might never have existed, but it’s not a painful end. And my father was born independent of all of this as well; there’s no proof he, as a Traveler in the original North Village, wouldn’t have come across the ambrosia anyway. If I go forward with this, and if something goes wrong? I die at the hands of those Hunters or that Assassin. If I do nothing and you fail?” He shrugged. “I just cease to be. It’s a painless end. And isn’t that what all of us want?”

Will stared at Adam, and shook his head in disgust. “When I first saw you, I confused you for your father. You look just like him, and you sound just like him. It goes to show how meaningless appearances are, though. You’re
nothing
like him, and I’m ashamed I ever thought the man I met in the past is the same one I knew in the future. You don’t deserve to be called his son. You’re nothing but a selfish coward.” Will turned and stormed from the room.

The fury he felt in that instant surprised him. As a man so used to doing everything himself, so unwilling to leave the key decisions to others, the idea that someone was backing out and leaving more of the work and planning in Will’s hands should have been welcome news. Will’s emotions were reeling, though. Over the course of two days he’d found Eva and Adam's son; he’d learned that the cure for ambrosia was known and that Adam’s son was living proof of that; the challenging half of the process of reversing ambrosia had been done for them. The good news was almost overwhelming. Adam’s death, what had seemed the death of their future, had neatly reconciled with known historical fact.

And then he’d learned that Adam’s son was a selfish coward. He’d floated into the air on a high of positive news, and young Adam had slammed him hard to the ground.

Why could nothing be simple and straightforward?

In all of the challenges he’d faced in his life, Will had rarely questioned the fairness of what happened to him. His childhood had been a difficult challenge; he’d used it as motivation. People had responded to his successes by trying to abduct or kill him; he’d responded by helping more people than ever. He’d been attacked for reasons he couldn’t possibly understand and sent without full understanding on a mission requiring him to live a thousand years to ensure that his wife would be around to meet him, and that his children—not just his son, but his daughter as well—would come into the world. He’d faced the challenges head on and without complaint. He’d felt anger in each of those circumstances, to be sure, but the true helplessness he felt now had been absent. They were so close to that key event in history, and so well-prepared to meet the obstacles that day would bring… and the single weak spot was a man he’d thought would be their strength, the glue to bind everything together.

Will sat on the ground. He wasn’t much of a crier, but if he was, if he truly knew how, this would be the time. Instead, he closed his eyes and pounded the ground.