Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) (42 page)

He stumbled inside, slapping bare wall where there should have been a light switch. What the hell? He stopped, patted around, up, down, to the corner. No switch. Cars that drive themselves. No keys, everything biometrically secured instead. The wave of the fut—

Oh God.
A chill swept through him. Had he somehow returned not to his present, but to the future?

By the dim light filtering through the patio door from the parking lot, he made his way through the apartment and collapsed onto the couch. It wasn’t possible to warp into the future. At least it wasn’t according to the Saturn Society.

The TV remote wasn’t on the coffee table where he always left it. He dug between the couch cushions in case it had slipped down there, when the knowledge seeped into his mind why there was no remote. And no light switch. “Lights,” he said. The floor lamp behind him illuminated the room. “TV.” The screen flared to life. 4:43 AM, and the current date, the ticker at the bottom of the screen on the news channel read.

He closed his eyes, and the tension flowed out of his body. He hadn’t warped into the future, just...

A changed present. But how?

He’d worry about this brave, new present later. First, he needed a shower.

He slipped inside the stall and turned the tap. The warm water sluicing over him felt wonderful after a week’s worth of bathing in the river.

His gut clenched. Bathing in the river. With Charlotte. The woman who’d sold him out. The woman whose betrayal made Dora’s a joke. How could he have been so naïve to trust her, once he’d learned of her relationship with Pippin?

Fool.
He scrubbed his eyes with a fist, and set his mind to washing.

Maybe she lied to that Caruthers guy.

If only.
But she’d sounded too damn convincing.

No, she’d sold him out. He might have saved her life, but it was Pippin who’d taught her to deal with it. Pippin who’d earned her loyalty.

Pippin who’d no doubt taught her
whatever it takes
.

Tony concentrated on working his way up his feet, his legs, his chest, as if mere soap and water could soothe the sting of her betrayal. Then he reached his neck, and a chill trickled down him despite the warm water.

No familiar, raised line. He felt around. Nothing. The scar was gone. He patted down his chest. To his surprise, that scar was still there. But hadn’t it been bigger?

Had his sacrifice at the hands of the ancient Mayans not happened? His memories had dimmed. He touched the scar on his chest again. It had happened. But maybe he’d died sooner, been whisked back to the present before they could chop his head off. He didn’t want to think about that. He got out, dried and threw on some clothes, and returned to the living room.

He settled into the couch. A quick glance at the news assured him that the world in general had changed little. There was still war in the Middle East, politicians were still crooked, food prices were still going up.

He flipped to the local news channel. A reporter stood in front of a familiar sight—the Seventh Street parking garage. “...Dayton sniper claimed another life, the third in three weeks...”

Tony gripped the arm of the couch as the picture switched to a clip taken earlier that day, with a familiar face in a photo inset. “...victim has been identified as Robert Standley, of...”

Bob Standley? No way.

Ice twisted in Tony’s gut. Standley worked for a law office next door to the LCT building, and also frequented Bernie’s before work. He was the same height as Tony, had the same build the same spiked, black hair, and even wore glasses. Sometimes people mistook them for each other.

It could’ve been him.

Police milled around behind the reporter. “...pursued the sniper to the roof, but the man was nowhere to be found.” She turned to a woman who was on the top floor during the shooting.

“I’d just gotten out of my car when I heard the gunshots,” the woman said. “He came up the stairs, and I saw his gun—one of those big machine gun types-and I thought, oh,
(bleep)
. Then the cops got here and he ducked behind a car, and... he was gone. Vanished into thin air.”

Like Pippin in the bathroom.
Tony sat transfixed, his mouth open.

The TV returned to the reporters in the studio. “Police are considering the possibility that these shootings aren’t random.”

Tony’s skin was clammy. What if the shooter was with the Saturn Society? Could he have been their real target?

The next big story diverted his worries. In southern California, a drunk driver operating a high-end SUV with the manual control option
(a steering wheel—optional!)
had struck an oncoming car and killed three people. Traffic had been too heavy for the other car’s navigational system to avoid collision.

Automated control had nearly made DUIs a thing of the past. Few vehicles besides historical autos and racecars had steering wheels. “Put the bastard away,” Tony snarled at the television. The dirtbags that had killed Bethany had driven a similar vehicle.

He mindlessly stared at the television until daylight seeped through the patio blinds. What would he do with himself until it was time to warp?

A rumble in his stomach reminded him he hadn’t eaten for three days while he recovered in Bernie’s storeroom. He wasn’t hungry
(She lied. Everything, a lie)
, but he wandered into the kitchen anyway. He yanked open the refrigerator. Nothing in there but condiments, a congealed gallon of milk and four bottles of Miller Lite.

He glanced at the clock. 7:13 a.m. Might as well go to Bernie’s, kill a little time. Just like he always did—or had, before all this crazy shit started. He slammed the refrigerator door shut and headed outside.

His car’s black-tinted glass roof shone in the sunlight. A removable T-top? He hadn’t noticed in the dark. Before his trip to 1933 it had been blue like the rest of the car. Strange.

Different license plate, too. Instead of the “Beautiful Ohio” image, a slogan above an American flag and a sun read S
pa
S
tar
– America Remembers. Like the t-shirt Bernie’d left him. What was S
pa
S
tar
anyway?

He thumbed the door lock and climbed inside. “Good morning, Tony,” the car’s electronic female voice greeted him. He settled into the driver’s seat—or rather, the seat on the left, since no one actually drove any more. “Please specify a destination.”

“Bernie’s,” he commanded. The inside of the roof was gray cloth. Not removable. As the car drove out of the apartment complex, he gazed out the window. White, louvered panels covered the roofs of the buildings. It dawned on him what was up with the roof on his car and every other one in the parking lot. And why there wasn’t a carport.

Those white panels on the apartments and the black glass roofs of cars were solar collectors. His home drew on reserve power from the electric company only when a succession of cloudy days depleted the storage cells.

He stretched out in his seat and watched the countryside go by as the Buick silently zoomed toward downtown Dayton. Silent, because it was solar powered, all-electric. When he said “Help,” the computer offered an interesting array of options: Select music. Adjust seat back. Adjust interior temperature. Select aromatherapy.

“Aromatherapy?”

“Aromatherapy currently unavailable,” the car computer informed him. “Please replace fragrance canister, available from your favorite Buick dealer, or online.”

Of course. He’d forgotten to buy one for the past year. Didn’t use it much anyway. A pang of regret struck him as he folded his hands across his lap and closed his eyes. Charlotte would love this super car. She’d love his time.

But she’d chosen the Saturn Society over him. His eyes burned. He focused on the scenery.

Which wasn’t very scenic. Hadn’t there been a wood along this road before? Facts filtered into his brain. When he was a kid, there had been woods, then open fields full of fine, brown grasses blowing in the wind like a girl’s hair.

But now all he could see were solar collectors, rows upon rows of big, white panels, the length of football fields, and taller than a man. Acres and acres of them, all belonging either to South Central Ohio Power or the military.

“Left front window down, fifty percent.” The computer obliged, and fresh air rushed into the car. A little warm, but its tang of recent rain smelled refreshing.

Less pollution. Change could be good.

He was getting the hang of this technology. The more he thought about it, the more that other life—the one where cars had steering wheels and everyone paid for all their electricity—seemed like a dream.

Bernie’s deli was mercifully unchanged. “Hey, Tony! Where you been?” Bernie called as Tony approached the counter. “I was startin’ to think you’d wandered off again. Man, were you messed up the other night. That must’ve been some cruise.”

Cruise? Oh right, the line he’d given everyone about why he’d be gone for three weeks. The only story he’d been able to concoct that gave him an excuse not to call his mother while he was gone. The lie had ground through his teeth like sandpaper, even though the truth would have been impossible to accept. “It was nice. Saw some gorgeous places. But yeah, it wore me out.” That, at least, wasn’t a lie. “I need a vacation from my vacation.”

“Ain’t that how it always is?” Bernie grabbed a large foam cup. “You want the usual?”

“Yeah.” Oh God, yes. Anything familiar in this weird world. “Oh, and I transferred the money into your account.” Unable to find a checkbook, he’d gone online and made an electronic funds transfer. He thanked Bernie again.

“No problem, man. Glad you had a good time on your trip.”

Tony let out a breath of relief when more customers entered, saving him from having to answer any more questions—and tell any more lies—about a cruise he hadn’t taken.

The sesame-with-veggie, Bernie’s shouted orders at the help, and reading the
Dayton Daily News
at his usual table almost made Tony feel normal again. Never mind that the paper had stopped being printed years ago, and he now read it on a solar-powered, handheld computer tablet. He might have gone a whole ten minutes without thinking of Charlotte.

When he walked out of the deli, he didn’t know where he was going until he stopped in front of the LCT building.

Though he was on leave of absence, he could drop in and say hello. Cheered, he pushed open the big double doors.

His feet froze in place, as if something glued them to the floor.

There was no receptionist’s desk with a smiling Sarah. No gold-plated LCT logo on the wall. The lobby was empty save a few potted plants and a security station, complete with a bored-looking guard.

What the hell? Tony walked to the security desk, where a directory hung on the wall behind the guard. The man didn’t look up from his computer tablet, where he was watching a rerun of some lame old sitcom. Tony scanned the list of resident businesses. A list that shouldn’t be there—didn’t LCT occupy the entire building?

A wad of concrete dread swelled in his stomach and grew larger the further he read. He squeezed the change in his pocket. LCT wasn’t on the list at all.

T
ONY STOPPED TO FIGHT OFF A WAVE
of nausea, then walked toward the exit, his footsteps ringing hollowly on the marble floor. “Have a nice day,” the security guard said.

Outside, Tony turned a quarter over in his pocket and stared up at the building. What happened? LCT—gone? There was no way. LCT was huge. Keith Lynch had spent two decades building his empire. Had Tony’s trip to 1933 somehow changed—

Sure, that was it. Relief settled over him. With all the advances in technology in this timeline, LCT was probably bigger, too. Too big for the building on Seventh Street.

Feeling slightly better, Tony returned to his car and ordered it to take him home.

He watched the scenery go by, some different, most of it unchanged from that other timeline, the one he could now barely remember. The one without all the solar collectors, where he’d had to steer his car himself.

As soon as he got home, Tony grabbed a beer and instructed the TV—in this timeline, also his computer—to turn on. “Favorites, LCT web site.

“Entry not found,” the television replied in a neutral, male voice.

What? He spoke the site’s web address and got the same result. A chill built within him.

“People search... Lynch, Keith.”

Long list of results. Of course, Keith Lynch wasn’t an unusual name. Tony checked some of the links.

None were the Keith Lynch he knew.

He searched for other coworkers. He found Sarah, the receptionist at LCT, but she wasn’t a receptionist; she was a daycare teacher. Charlie was a financial advisor with his own firm, and Dora was his business partner.

“People search... Sinclair, Violet,” Tony commanded the computer, though he wasn’t sure why.

No results came up for the Dayton area, so he took the computer’s suggestion to switch to a national search.

There were only a few results, and none were the Violet he knew.

Like she’d never existed.

Tony gulped his beer. Had all of this been his doing? He rummaged through his mind for pieces of the past few years that were unfamiliar to him in this new, changed present.