Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You) (13 page)

She looks away. “You have to think of the bigger picture.”

I sit down on the bed, the mattress like stone beneath me. “Wes dies, doesn’t he?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Tell me. Please.”

When she speaks her voice is as blank as it was in the meeting. “Eleven makes it a few more years before his body gives out. But that was in my time line. Things could be different now.”

“You mean he could already be dead.”

“I don’t know.”

“Let me go back and save him.” My voice is higher, pleading. “Don’t let Wes and Tim die like this.”

“I can’t.” She still won’t look at me. “This is happening during Walker’s command, so it’s his choice. If I fight too hard for you, then they’ll think I’m attached, and I won’t be able to do any good in the future. It’s important that Walker believes I’m like them.”

“Then why are you even here talking to me? What’s the point?”

She comes forward until she’s right in front of me, and then she kneels, her beige dress molding to her body as it stretches across her legs. Our faces are only inches apart.

“I want to give you what I didn’t have, Lydia. I want to give you a choice.”

Chapter 14

A
gent
Bentley sits back on her heels, watching me. I want to turn away, but I force myself to meet her eyes. “Is this like the choice General Walker gave me in that cell months ago? My grandfather’s life in exchange for my cooperation? Because I’m not interested in another deal like that.”

“No.” She frowns, and I wonder if she’s angry that I don’t immediately trust her. “I’m giving you a real choice.”

“How?”

She sighs and pushes to her feet in one fluid movement. “I know you’re skeptical, but we don’t have much time, so I’ll lay out your options. You can stay here and give in to the destiny the Project has planned for us, or you can leave. It’s Friday afternoon, which means you still have time to find out if the Bentley’s Hardware advertisement meant anything.”

I sit up a little straighter. “You’re saying the Project didn’t send the message?”

She shakes her head. “I never found out who did send it, though I have my guesses.”

“Who?”

But she doesn’t answer. “It might seem simple to you—if you leave, you have a chance to escape the Project and maybe even save Wes. If you stay, then you’ll become like me. But this life isn’t all bad, Lydia. I’m not unhappy.”

“You’ve lost everything and everyone you love. How can you even be a little happy?”

“Not everyone. Grandpa survived.”

“What?” I stand up and reach out, curling my fingers around her wrist. “Grandpa makes it? Is he still alive?”

She smiles slightly and rests her hand on my fingers. At her touch I pull away. “It would be impossible for him to still be alive in this time period. But I made sure he was safe. As soon as I had enough authority, I sent someone back in time to have him released, in the nineteen eighties. He lived a normal life.”

“Grandpa,” I whisper. “He’s all I’ve been fighting for.”

“I know.”

She steps toward me, but I step back again until I’m pressed to the side of the bed. “If you choose this life, you won’t be helpless anymore,” she says. “You’ll create a better system, where time is treated as sacred, and the butterfly effect is risked only in extreme circumstances.”

I think of her face in that meeting, emotionless and stark. It may not have been real, she may have been acting, but isn’t that just another form of helplessness, hiding her true self from everyone around her?

“Why?” I ask. “Why are you giving me a choice at all, if you think this destiny is the best option?”

I watch her shoulders grow stiff under the thin silk of her dress. “Eleven . . .” She takes a long, slow breath. “Wes and I had a few good years together, even in hiding. You remember that moment you saw in the hallway. Those memories have kept me going, even though he’s gone now. But he was supposed to come back with you, and I know Colonel Walker will never allow us to rescue Wes. And that means that Wes and you won’t have the life that he and I had together. You won’t have any of those memories.” She lifts her hand and touches my shoulder. In her heels she is taller than me, and I have to look up to meet her eyes. “I’m not saying which life you should choose. And I’m not doing this because of Wes, not really. I don’t even know what will happen to me if you choose to leave here. Maybe I’ll disappear when the time line changes. Or I might still be alive, but the world I know won’t exist anymore. But I can live with that. I made the most of a life that was handed to me because I never had any other options. I want you to decide your own fate.”

I bite my lip but don’t respond.

She squeezes my arm lightly. “I know you see the Project as evil, but just a few days ago you were a part of preventing an all-out nuclear war. That’s noble, regardless of how it happened. And there’s more good that can be done. Remember that.”

She steps back, dropping her hand. I can still feel her fingers pressed into my skin. “If you’re going to leave, then go out through the elevators where you entered. I’ve made sure that you have clearance to leave for the next half hour, so decide quickly.”

She starts walking toward the door. I lean forward before she can reach it. “Don’t you already know what I’m going to do?”

She stops, turns. “Maybe.” When she smiles it makes her cheeks fuller, the lines around her eyes softer. “But the point is that it’s your decision. I trust you, Lydia.”

The door makes almost no sound as it opens and shuts.

I move toward the door, then back to the bed, thinking of everything the future me just said. I want to walk, to run from this room, but something makes me hesitate.

I have been living with the unknown for months—worrying about my grandfather and wondering what my future might hold. There is a strange comfort in seeing how your life plays out, even if it’s not what you dreamed of.

In my mind, the Montauk Project represents evil. Logically, I know it is more complicated than that. But they stole my life from me. By choosing this future, I could prevent them from doing that to someone else.

But the cost will be Wes, and any hope I have left of breaking free from the Project.

This future me said that my grandfather will be safe. Everything I’ve done has been for him. But how far am I willing to go? There must be some way to ensure that we can both have the future we want.

How can I make this decision? How can I not?

I turn and take a step toward the door. And then another one. And another. Before I know what is happening, I am in the hallway, the mirrors glittering all around me, light and my own image reflected over and over.

The future me may have accepted the Project’s destiny, but I can’t bring myself to do the same. I do not want to live a life that’s already laid out in front of me. If I go to the address on Eleventh Avenue, then I know I will have tried everything. I will not have accepted a preordained path where Wes is meant to die, where Tim will never have another chance, where I am meant to be in charge of the Montauk Project.

And now I know the ad wasn’t planted by the Project, which means someone else is trying to contact me. I have no idea who it could be, but maybe they can help me save Wes.

I do not pass anyone as I move through the hallways, go down the elevator, and walk out into the lobby. The blond-haired girl looks up at me with her vacant expression, but she doesn’t say a word, and I silently thank the older Lydia for giving me clearance. As soon as I’m out of the building, I start walking south, counting as the street numbers slowly descend.

It takes me over an hour to walk the sixty blocks to 167 Eleventh Avenue. Every once in a while I think I feel someone watching me, but I keep my face turned down. It helps that I’m wearing all black, that I’m no longer caked in dirt and blood.

The address brings me to the edge of the city where the Westside Highway runs parallel with the Hudson. The new wall is in between them, blocking the river and the view of New Jersey. In my time, the strip of land by the waterfront held buildings, harbors with boats docked in the Hudson, and sometimes a park or a bike path. Now it is all gone, the thick wall almost reaching the edge of the highway.

In Times Square I was in a cave of buildings, unable to see the water’s edge. In the Center, we were high enough that the city below appeared spread out and open. But now, with the wall towering over me, the concrete already faded and rough, I feel like a rat in a maze, bumping against the sides as I try to find my way out.

I stare at the descending numbers on the buildings and realize that 167 would be across the street, between the highway and the wall. But there are no buildings now, only a thin length of sidewalk.

How can it not exist? Is this a dead end, or even more of a clue that someone was trying to reach me?

I cross the highway when the cars on the grid glide to a smooth stop and stare at where the address should be. All that’s left is the remnant of a small park that was cut in half by the seawall. Now there is only a tiny patch of green with a rusted bench. An older black man is sitting on it reading a book.

When I get closer, he lifts his head. He looks right at me and I quickly turn, hoping he didn’t have time to scan me. But I hear his book shut as he sets it aside, hear him get to his feet. I start to walk in the opposite direction, wondering if I should run, or if that will give me away too quickly. He clears his throat loudly. “Nikki says hi.”

I stop moving. How does he know that name?

“So does LJ. He wanted to come, but we thought it would be best if it was just me.”

The cars on the highway rush past. They are right next to us, but the sound cannot drown out my heartbeat, ringing in my ears. I slowly turn. He grins and I recognize him then, his wide smile, his broad, blunt features. “Tag?” I whisper.

The last time I saw him—only nine months ago—he was a skinny eighteen-year-old orphan who loved to paint. But this person is a man, his chest is filled out, his hair mostly gray.

“How did you find me?”

“It wasn’t easy. You’re a hard girl to track down.” He turns his head, taking in the busy streets. “It’s not safe here. Will you come with me?”

I do not hesitate. “Yes.”

Chapter 15

I
sit
up on the narrow bed. Above me is a single naked bulb hanging on a swinging cord. Tag brought me into this room before he took off the blindfold that he asked me to wear. “It’s not because we don’t trust you,” he said as he tied it around my head in his car. “We just need to keep this place a secret from everyone. It’s safer that way.” In the blackness it was impossible to tell where we were going, but we couldn’t have traveled for more than half an hour.

There is a knock on the door, and it opens before I can respond.

“Lydia. You’re here.”

A man enters the room, his honey-colored skin glowing even in the faint light. Like Tag, he looks to be in his sixties. But that doesn’t keep me from recognizing him.

He smiles, and I remember that day in my father’s hardware store when this man came looking for me, how my hand hovered over the plastic phone, ready to call for help.

He sits down in a chair next to the bed. The walls in here are gray concrete, and there are no windows. The room reminds me of the cells in the Montauk Facility, though it isn’t as clean. There is dirt and dust collecting in the corners, and the metal bed frame is chipped and creaking underneath me.

We are silent for a minute, watching each other. From somewhere outside the room I hear a banging noise, then muted voices. Finally I say, “I know who you are.”

“Jay? Or maybe you remember the Resistor?”

But I shake my head. “Jay. Little Jesse. LJ. The Resistor. It all makes sense now.”

“You were always quick, Lydia.” His smile widens.

“That day in the hardware store. Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”

He shrugs his thin shoulders. Unlike Tag, LJ has not filled out as much, and I can see the fourteen-year-old boy in his round face, his large brown eyes. “You didn’t know me yet. I thought you had already been back to the eighties, that you had already met me in the past. But you were confused and scared. I figured it was best to leave it.”

“I can’t believe it was always you.” I shake my head. “You contacted us from the future, fed us information when we needed it. Warned us both that we were meant to become recruits. You started a
resistance
.” I push forward on the bed, but my arm buckles under me as pain radiates up my wrist. I lift my hand and stare down at it. The skin near my wrist is red and puffy.

“We used an EMP device to short-circuit your tracker.”

“What?”

“Didn’t you feel it, in the car?”

I remember Tag taking my arm as he led me down the street. I thought I felt the sting of something, but I couldn’t be sure, not with all the other cuts and scrapes all over my body.

I flex my wrist. Without my tracking chip, the Project will never know where I am again. The future Lydia told me to make my own choice, but there is something very final about deactivating my chip. I can’t go back now, and I’m not sure what that decision means for me, Wes, or my grandfather.

“You should have asked me first,” I say.

The smile fades from his face and he runs his hand over his head, his buzz cut not quite hiding his balding head. “Don’t you want to be free from the Project, Lydia? It’s time their hold was officially broken. Not just over you, but over everyone.”

I clutch my wrist to my chest. My skin feels raw, heavy and irritating. “What does that mean?”

But he just slaps his hands against his knees and pushes up from his chair. “Let’s talk after you’ve had a minute to process all this. There’s a bathroom through there, if you want to splash cold water on your face.”

I see the battered metal door across from the bed, the edge of a chipped sink visible through the opening.

“I’m glad you’re here, Lydia. We have a lot to discuss, when you’re ready.”

I stare into the cracked mirror above the sink. It is lined with green and black mold, and the basin below is rusted brown. I turn on the faucet and hear the pipes whine. A thin trickle of water comes out and I cup it in my hands, splashing it onto my face.

I step back and stare down at my body. The wound on my leg has scabbed over, but I have new injuries—the scrape on my arm where a bullet grazed me, the raw bruise on my wrist. My eyes have purple smudges underneath, and my cheekbones are even sharper, too thin after almost a week with constant hiking and little food.

The resistance movement is real. It wasn’t a fantasy, a lost hope. And now the sacrifices I made to leave the Center—not knowing what would happen to my grandfather, a future where I might have done good—feel less scary. A resistance could have resources. They could help me.

A knock on the bathroom door interrupts my thoughts. “Come in.”

The door opens to reveal a middle-aged woman with dark curly hair and a round, plump face. “Oh, Lydia,” she whispers. “You look exactly the same as I remember.”

“Nikki.” I breathe her name and then I am in her arms and she is laughing into my hair.

“We didn’t think we’d see you again. LJ tried to find you years ago, but we couldn’t pin down your location, and we figured the Project had you. But then we saw your face plastered all over the news, and we knew we had to find a way to bring you in. I’m so glad you heard the radio message. It was the only way we could think of to contact you.”

She smells like soap and freshly baked bread. I slowly, tentatively lift my hands and press them to her back. This is the first time anyone has embraced me in months, and somehow it means even more coming from Nikki, the tough girl from the streets of New York who used to call me Princess. She tightens her hold and I feel the tears threatening to spill over. I could handle it—fearing for my grandfather, Tim’s death, abandoning Wes in the dark field—if I didn’t have comfort, if I could force myself to stay strong. But being held by her is making me come undone.

I pull away, staring up at the harsh bulb overhead until my eyes are dry and itchy.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like hell.”

She laughs, the sound high and bright. “I can imagine. Come out of this bathroom. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

We enter the bedroom. A teenage girl with Nikki’s sharp features and Tag’s dark skin is standing near the door. “This is my daughter, Angela,” Nikki says.

“Hi,” the girl whispers. She can’t be more than thirteen, and her legs and arms look too long for her body.

“I’m Lydia.”

“I know. Mom talks about you a lot.”

“Stop it.” Nikki moves to hook her arm over Angela’s bony shoulder. “She’ll think I’ve gotten all soft in my old age.”

I study Nikki’s face, trying to match this older woman with the teenager I knew a few months ago. She still has the same squeaky voice, the pointed nose, but she
is
softer, less rough and abrasive. “I can’t believe you have a kid.”

“I have two kids. Chris, our son, is with Tag right now.” She pulls Angela in closer and I turn away from the easy affection between them. I haven’t seen my mom in so long, and I am afraid that soon I will start to forget how her blond hair felt after she brushed it, or how her pancakes tasted like almonds and butter.

“I thought we’d never see you again, after you left the squat that day,” Nikki says.

I sit down on the mattress, the iron frame squeaking under me as I stare up at them. “How did you end up here? What happened to the three of you?”

“LJ told Tag and me about the Montauk Project as soon as we realized you were missing. We didn’t believe LJ at first, but he convinced us it was real. I knew we needed to leave, and luckily Tag wanted to come with us.” She squeezes Angela’s side and smiles down at her. The girl has clearly heard the story before and lifts her hand to pick at her cuticles as we talk. “We went to Mexico and stayed with some family for about five years, but then LJ wanted to come back. He had a lead online that he thought could help him learn more about the Project. He was tired of running and decided to fight instead. The three of us changed our names and hopped cities for a few years. LJ was always into computers, you remember?”

I nod.

“He created a few safe places online where people could share information. A lot of them were just conspiracy theorists, but a few former soldiers stepped forward with their stories. At first the Project didn’t seem to notice, but then LJ realized he had a ghost tracing his message boards. That’s when we went off-line. It took a few more years to create all this.” She waves her free hand through the air at the room around us. “We were the first base of operations. But the resistance is spreading. There are two other organizations across the country doing the same thing now.”

When I imagined the resistance, it was one man in a room with a computer. Maybe two. This is more than I could have hoped for.

“What exactly does the resistance do?” I ask.

She frowns, and I wonder if she has told me more than she was supposed to. “LJ should tell you the rest. We’ll show you the control center. It’s just outside.”

She pushes open the bedroom door. The windowless space beyond has high ceilings and rusted pipes that run from corner to corner in crisscrossing lines. There are computers on tables crowded in the center of the room, though none of them are the modern, holographic kinds. Some are even old desktops with wide frames.

Tag is sitting in front of one, with a younger version of him leaning over his shoulder. The boy looks so much like eighteen-year-old Tag that I jerk back when I see him. Nikki smiles. “It’s uncanny, right?”

There are maybe twenty other people here, some bent over desks, some sitting on battered couches that line the water-stained cement walls or clustered in groups, in quiet conversations.

“Are you underground here?” I ask.

Tag and Nikki exchange a look, but it is LJ who answers, stepping out from a connecting hallway. “Yes. But we can’t tell you anything else.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“We don’t trust the Project.”

I don’t like the way he is lumping me in with them, but before I can protest, he motions me forward. “There’s something I want to show you.”

I follow him into a dark hallway. The ceilings are lower, the walls narrow. It feels like a tunnel, and even the lights are dimmer, as if the hallway was designed to conserve energy for the main spaces.

“How did you find this place?”

I don’t expect him to answer, but he says, “I built it not long after I started the resistance.”

“I thought it was just chat rooms and secret messages.”

He looks over his shoulder at me, raising his dark eyebrows. “It’s a little more than that.”

He stops and opens a door on the left. Inside an older woman is sitting in a rocking chair. In her arms is a small baby, its pink face scrunched up in sleep, a fist pressed to its tiny mouth. I glance around the brightly lit room. It is filled with cribs and cots, and dozens of children are sleeping or playing quietly in the corners.

“You have a nursery?” I ask.

The woman makes a shushing noise and LJ shuts the door again.

“We’ve been hacking into the Project’s mainframe to get updated copies of The List.”

“Those kids are supposed to become recruits,” I realize. “You’re getting them before the Project can.”

He nods. “We’ve been rescuing prospective recruits for years, as early as we can. It’s become the core of what the resistance does. Those people you saw out in the main room were all once targeted by the Project, too.”

The resistance is saving these kids from the short, brutal life of a recruit, but he’s still kidnapping them, stealing them away from whatever families they may have.

“Aren’t you worried you’re doing the same thing the Project is, taking them from the only lives they know?”

He starts walking down the hallway again. “What life did they have if we just let the Project take them? Most of them were abandoned, homeless, or about to be swallowed up by the system. We’re rescuing them.”

I think of Tim, who lived for years with his family before the Project came for him. Would he have been better off if someone like LJ had taken him as a child?

We have reached the end of the twisting corridor. “This is what I really wanted to show you, Lydia.”

He pushes the door open, and I feel myself go white, the blood draining from my cheeks.

There, in the middle of the room, gleaming silver under fluorescent light, is a TM.