Table of Contents

1. Title Page

2. This Afternoon

3. Yesterday

4. The Day Before Yesterday

5. Last Night

6. The Night Before Last

7. Today

8. This Morning

9. This Afternoon

10. Four Decades Into the Future

\bloodborn

A Novella in the Battle For Forever Nexus

Edward Savio

“A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on.”

― Carl Sandburg

This Afternoon

The body floats. Face down.

In contrast to the clear turquoise water, the dark, lifeless shape stands out.

The receding tide draws the seeping blood out to sea, leaving the shallows pristine. It really is a beautiful color, the water off Sands Key. A shade of blue that causes every muscle in my body to relax, calming me.

I’m dressed for a fight. A one-piece. If I’d have known it would go down like it did, I’d have slipped on that new bikini. Would’ve made things a lot less painful—and probably more enjoyable—for everyone. Including the man floating face down a few feet away.

And the truth is, I’m not going to have a twenty-year-old’s body forever. I feel like I need to take every moment I can of the next century to enjoy it.

Even…at a time like this.

The last three days have been a blur. I’ve done my duty. I have changed history. I killed a man who posed a threat, brought down a plane looking too closely at things that needed to stay hidden, which meant I killed another man, the pilot, and urged yet another—tall, wiry, with slicked-back hair and a strangely thin mustache—in another plane to locate his mysterious “Florida Project” along a swath of swampy, undeveloped land the size of San Francisco ten miles north of more swampy, undeveloped land with something else that needed to stay hidden, buried in the alligator-infested mud.

But the doctor’s body in the blue water, it doesn’t want to hide.

It’s odd that bodies don’t sink when they stop moving. It’s the air in the lungs. It can take time for the hundreds of millions of bronchioles and alveoli to fill with water. After a few days, gasses form that can pop a body back to the surface if it’s not weighed down. But I’m not worried about later. I’m worried about now—it drawing attention.

If he remained undiscovered for a few days, that would be great. Ten minutes is all I really need.

I don’t regret taking the man’s life. Although I do feel bad about it. I like them to have it coming to them more than this one did. Vlad the Impaler. He had it coming. Don’t get me wrong. The man floating in front of me was dangerous. But it’s not like taking out Hitler. That was clear cut. We should have done that a lot sooner than we did. This guy wasn’t anywhere near Hitler-level. Not even close.

No, this man, in his absolutely-not-meaning-to-way, was much worse.

Yesterday

“What’s the date tomorrow?”

“The twenty-second,” I said, turning over the newspaper on the frosted glass table beside my chaise without looking up.

“Twwwwenty-second.” Odebo tapped the dateline on the nameplate with a long finger. November 21, 1963. “Something’s supposed to happen on the twenty-second, right? Something big.”

He stood over me. He was big. His eyes. His smile. The way he said the word ‘big.’

I glanced over my sunglasses at the front page. The U-2 spy plane that had gone missing from radar the day before was above the fold next to a gossipy story about a local Miami official.

It didn’t feel like late November. But then Miami has terrible newspapers and great winters. Technically, it wasn’t winter, but it was seven days before Thanksgiving and I was in a bikini, so…

“I hate nineteen sixty-three,” he said. “Nineteen sixty-two was terrible, but nineteen sixty-three has been the worst. I mean I hated eighteen sixty-three more. But not by much.”

Odebo’s skin was a deep, dark mahogany. I imagine there were hundreds of years he didn’t like in America.

What I hate…is small talk.

“Why are you here, OD?”

“He wants to talk to you.”

“He?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t say his name?”

He smiled. “We both know who I’m talking about.”

“He can’t come himself? It’s a beautiful day, OD. I’m trying to relax. I had a very busy day yesterday. I’ve got a very busy day tomorrow. He has to interrupt my relaxation?”

“You know how he is.”

I let out a sigh that started as the word “yeah.”

“I suppose you’re going to stand there, blocking my sun until I agree to go?”

He stepped out of the way and I felt the pleasing warmth again. “That wasn’t my intention.” Like I said, Odebo is big. Blocking things is sort of his SOP. “But yes. I’m standing here until you come with me.”

Lingering here with him rooted like a redwood was just going to be annoying. I got to my feet, pulled on the sheer wrap and tied it around my waist. Odebo did his best not to stare. But his peripheral vision was working overtime.

“Did you get to see the President when he was here a couple of days ago?” he asked so he could look at me directly.

Kennedy had come in, made a speech, smoked a cigarette that got caught on camera by a local press photographer, and left. Big news, JFK behind a cloud of tobacco smoke.

“I wasn’t in Miami a couple of days ago, OD.”

“Right. Cuba,” he replied, saying it like they say it there. Cooo-ba.

“Lead the way,” I said, irritated.

“I am…uncomfortable, Berenecia,” said Elam Khai, using my full name, which is another thing I hate. So, small talk. Full name.

‘Uncomfortable’ didn’t seem resilient enough to hold the weight of his discontent. We were anchored in Maloy Channel just beyond the Miami Beach Marina at the southwest tip of the island. The deck swayed gently under my feet.

“These planes are an inconvenience.” Another word straining under his disappointment. “The photographs they take. They make it more difficult to keep things unseen.”

“They’re talking about putting surveillance cameras into space.”

“Yes, orbiting the earth like little moons.” Elam Khai stared out at the water, his hands squeezing the oak cap rail as the ship rocked. “We’re not going to be able to shoot down every inconvenience.” He turned to look at me. “That was impressive yesterday.”

Plucking an object going nearly five hundred miles an hour, seventy thousand feet above the ground out of the sky is harder than it sounds.

I nodded.

I had known Elam Khai for as long as I could remember. Marcus says he took an interest in me the moment he found out who my mother was. That my father was Julius Caesar, made no difference to him. It didn’t make much difference to me, either. The man never knew I existed. And by the time I was old enough to remember things, he’d been dead a couple of hundred years.

I don’t look like him. I don’t look much like her either. Except the eyes. Marcus says looking into mine is like gazing into hers. I’ll take his word for it, he was married to her.

My relationship with Marcus is complicated.

The water off the starboard side glistened in the sun. I watched it shimmer for a moment, taken in by its hypnotic lure. The land changes. The buildings, the streets. But the sea, the ocean, it looks pretty much the same as it did a hundred or a thousand years ago.

“What are we calling ourselves these days?” I asked.

“Does it really matter?” said Elam Khai.

“No, I guess not.”

Whatever name he used throughout history—famous or not—did not alter the man behind it. Although choosing the right name has always been important. It’s hard to imagine an army of Greek and Macedonian warriors following someone named Todd across Persia and the Indus Valley.

“A forgettable name in history to be sure,” he grumbled.

Elam Khai looked good. But then, he always commanded attention. Strong. Powerful. He had long ago given up the six bottles of wine a night, which made his eyes brighter. I wonder how many tens of thousands of people over the millennia are alive because of that change. And…his hair was much shorter than the last time I’d seen him. It made his features appear even sharper.

He gazed out over Biscayne Bay toward the mainland, his head turned slightly to the left as if he was always worrying someone was coming up behind him from that direction. He couldn’t help it. A deformity in his neck. Still, I kept turning my head, scanning the dock for unfriendlies.

Habit. Multiplied by his affliction.

“We’re trying to duplicate the nuclear setting,” he said. “But it’s difficult when we have to keep moving locations.”

I found his wording odd at times. How many languages does he think in? Ten? Twenty? For me, it’s really just two. Appropriate and foul.

“It was a fucking shit show. It’s not like we can’t afford to deal with this issue better than that.”

“Money isn’t a problem. Spend whatever you have to,” said Elam Khai, encouragingly. “What we’re talking about is radioactive.”

“I don’t want to be responsible for this.”

“We are all responsible for this.”

“Reeeeally? No! This isn’t my doing. I did what I did because someone had to.” I capped my anger. This was not the place. Not the time. I took in a breath, held it. “We decamped the location. Left no traces. A cargo ship has been arranged to take care of transport.”

“Good. I will let everyone know this should be handled better in the future.”

“We should be doing a lot better than just better.”

Elam Khai made a sound in his throat. A grunt, a grumble, maybe an acknowledgment or a stifled laugh.

As I stood next to him on the quarterdeck, a faint breath of air blew across the channel. My sheer wrap fluttered in the wind. The breeze felt good on my skin.

The silence between us lingered.

I scanned the deck of the ship. Hoping to cut the tension, I said, “This seems a bit retro, don’t you think? Even for us?”

He stared up at the mizzenmast, his eyes darting between the rigging and the sails furled and secured. “I’ve never loved boats. They maneuver too slowly for my taste. The tactics are less adaptable. Horses, planes, these I understand. Although, the first time I saw a battle from above completely changed the way I view an engagement.”

“Yes, but a seventeenth-century galleon?” I eyed him skeptically. “No backup engine? No power?”

“I have a crew to provide power if needed.”

Men flowed back and forth, across the decks and down into the holds, their movements a ballet. The ship was old, but the ropes were bright and barely weathered. Same with the sails, what I could see of them wrapped tightly as they were. The masts seemed as if they had been cut from the forest only weeks earlier.

“How you get people to willingly do what others a few hundred years ago were beaten to do is not the issue here.”

“I pay well. And I offer excellent benefits.”

“Still doesn’t answer my question.”

Elam Khai shouted through a laugh to a man fighting to unknot a coil of rope on the deck below. “Ragar! What are you doing?”

The man’s long hair flew up behind him like Superman’s cape as a much stronger gust of wind washed over the ship. “I have never loved boats, Hegemon,” he yelled to Elam Khai. An honorific from almost twenty-five hundred years ago.

Elam Khai let out a pleasing, hearty laugh as Ragar solved the knot problem by repeatedly slashing at the rope with a giant ax. He turned to me, suddenly serious, “We have never loved boats.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Ragar, Prince of a Hundred Lands, Lord of a Thousand More, Slayer of Rope!” Elam Khai was enjoying himself.

Ragar responded with several mockingly deferential yet salacious titles for Elam Khai. There was a pleasure in their sparring that came from centuries of familiarity. An ease that I found both attractive and alien.

“But this is an old boat,” I said after the banter had ended.

“That’s a relative term, isn’t it?”

“No. Not when it comes to this. This isn’t just old. It’s a relic from an old world. You’ve always been on the leading edge. Quick to incorporate innovation. Is this what a midlife crisis looks like? You hit forty-five hundred, you start dreaming about the good ol’ centuries?”

I’d seen him punish others who spoke to him this way, but in the passage of those good ol’ centuries he’d grown more deeply confident. He has to beat you. He has to win. That hasn’t changed. But his power, it simply projects now.

Which…is even more unnerving.

But I didn’t care. He needed me. For my skills. For my body—not for his personal pleasure, but for what my body could give to our kind.

“I have newer boats. Sometimes I even use them. But I’m restoring ships like this all over the world. Building others in the style of the old. It pleases Historians so much. You should see them,” he said. “But as much as I’ve never cared for them, boats move people and supplies. That will always be a priority. Ships like this don’t need oil from the ground.”

“Neither do nuclear-powered ones.”

“Yes, but having a fleet of those—having even one—would draw a bit too much attention, don’t you think?”

“I guess. But it’s not like we don’t have other things we shouldn’t have.”

“But they aren’t quite as large. And besides, that particular material has other uses that may come in handy. Remember last summer in Hawaii?”

He was talking about the high-altitude nuclear test over the Pacific sixteen months ago and the effects it had on electronics nine hundred miles away, taking down the Aloha State’s communications systems, traffic lights, and other electronics within minutes. Not to mention that the blast disabled a third of the satellites in low Earth orbit.

He put a hand on my shoulder. “I won a war by cutting my enemy off from fresh water. What happens when someone cuts the power? I don’t know about you, but I plan on being around for a few thousand more years. I’m fairly certain the wind will still be here. I’m not so sure about their oil or their electricity.”

“So, you’re just planning ahead. ‘Be prepared.’” I gave him a three-fingered salute.

“Always be prepared,” he said, not getting the irony of my Boy Scouts reference at all.

He was quiet for a moment. The creaking of the ropes, the seabirds, the murmur of the water filled the void until he cut into it.

“What is Braeden doing here?”

I didn’t blink. I wanted to tell him it was none of his business. “Spending time in my bed.”

He glanced at me, eyebrow raised. “Good.”

“Not like that.”

The brow went up higher, and his head turned a little more to the left as if his muscles were tightening from the deliberation.

“I mean, it is like that. But not the way you want it to be. I’m not expecting what you’re expecting.”

He hummed his disappointment.

I’ve always felt that instead of being a liability, my being a woman—educated, unafraid—gave me power. In almost every way this was true, but one. I didn’t like that he and the others wanted to control my body. But even this desire of theirs for me to have a baby added value, whether I agreed to it now or not. Because someday I would. And that gave me leverage. But I was going to choose when and with whom. Not them.

“I’m not Elle,” I said. “I wasn’t born to birth a nation.” The words came out of me, angry. Sharp.

He didn’t respond. There were few things that could get to Elam Khai, but slighting Eleni Baal-Eser was flirting with danger.

He chose to ignore my outrage. Powerful leaders do that. Disregard you. It’s sometimes the best you can hope for. “Marcus sent him?”

I glanced in the direction of the hotel, which was on the other side of the island. I couldn’t see it, which meant Braeden couldn’t see us. “You know, I really hate playing messenger for you and your brother.”

He waited. Silently.

I didn’t have time to waste playing who-would-blink-first.

“Yes,” I sighed. “We’re trying to contain a situation. The Mickey Mouse guy.”

“Walt Disney?” he said, slowly pulling the name from somewhere deep in his memory. “What are we concerned about with him?”

“He’s planned a flyover of several huge parcels of land outside Orlando.”

“For what?”

“We don’t know. Movie studio, maybe. East Coast version of that amusement park of his. Whatever it is, it’s huge—forty-plus square miles. He doesn’t want anyone to know about it. He’s formed several shell corporations we got wind of. And he’s lined up straw men to buy bits and pieces of the swamp. But bits and pieces of that swamp…”

“Should’ve been dealt with a century ago.”

“Three centuries ago.”

“Which is why we now address the problem proactively.”

“Proactively,” I snorted. “This is all a foreseeable consequence of your pushing for more of us. You understand that, right? And I don’t see why we want more of us. We have enough trouble controlling the ones we already have. If it wasn’t against ‘the rules,’ if it wouldn’t get me killed, there’re a number of us I’d like to take out. Another consequence of your wanting more babies.”

“Is there something I should know? Someone that needs to be taught a lesson? Tell me.”

I put up my hand. “I don’t need you to protect me. I can handle myself. I’m just saying, more of us, isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

His instinct to be protector eventually subsided.

“I understand how you feel,” he began. “I was once like you. I didn’t think about the future. I was concerned about what was directly in front of me. I want this kingdom. I’m going to take this kingdom. But we have to plan for what’s coming. There are fewer and fewer of us, and those who are left are not producing as many offspring with our gifts.”

“You mean our genetic defect?”

“Just because some scientists put a name to a thing that’s existed for millions of years doesn’t mean they know what they’re talking about. Who’s to say they aren’t the defective ones? Do you feel like a defect?”

“I’m just saying, it’s what, maybe a thousand of us? Versus three billion of them.”

“Exactly. Their numbers have grown where ours have stayed the same. Even dropped. Which is why I believe we need more of them. Scientists. The best of them working for us. I want answers. My father and mother had three children like us. In all the years, in all the women—even Eternal women, even with Eleni—I’ve had none. Marcus has had only one. And that child died as a youngling. Our sister has had none.”

I kept my face as blank as I could. I didn’t want to betray Marcus or his secret. Didn’t want to expose the boy I’d played with as a girl. A boy who was almost a man the last time I’d seen him.

“There are others,” he continued, “some we know, some who have remained unknown. Some who have slipped from history. These others have not been idle. What you did yesterday is part of the fight for the present, but it does nothing to help us a thousand years from now. You will start to see that a thousand years comes more quickly than you think.” He massaged the muscles in his neck with his hand, breathing deeply through his nose. “There are rumors of a repository with evidence that many of these others have born the next wave. I will find that cache of information. But having it means only so much. A leader is only as good as the leaders around him. And few are as competent or as loyal as our own.” He grabbed at the ratlines, the sinews in his forearms visible through his skin as he twisted the rope. “We have lost people. Life happens. We need every one of our women who is still capable—to bear those leaders. To create our future. Because the odds of having an Eternal child are exponentially higher when both parents are Eternal.” His eyes bore into mine. “Every one of them, Berenecia.”

“Stop calling me that!”

I wanted to lash out at him. For using that name. For the pressure he was exerting on me. But instead, I blew out a long, frustrated breath. Because I knew…I had to choose between a world with Marcus and Elam Khai as our most powerful forces or a world where other Eternals gained the upper hand. It was the conquerers you knew versus the overlords you didn’t know.

“I need to get back to the hotel. Braeden is waiting for me.”

Elam Khai stopped me as I turned away. “He is a good boy, Braeden.” His eyes narrowed. “You could do better…”

The past few decades, he had been suggesting prospective suitors to me, “This one was the king of blank,” “This one was a prince of whatever.” I did not respond well then or now.

“You’re not my father.”

“I’m the closest thing you have to a father.”

I stared down at the fingers wrapped around my upper arm, then up at him, letting my fury burn into him even after he released his grip. “I will choose when. And with whom.”

As the muscles along his jaw tensed, he gave the tiniest nod. “Of course, Renika.”

Him saying my name right didn’t make up for the rest of it.

I left the ship, and within minutes, the galleon was heading away from Miami Beach, its sails unfurled.

The Day Before Yesterday

I’m inserted four clicks to the south just off the beach.

I hit the water, using the buoyancy of the pack strapped across my chest to make the swim into shore less taxing. The waves are one to two feet. There’s no undertow, and I quickly reach the sand, which is gnarled with exposed tree roots.

I strip out of my one-piece, the breeze and the evaporating moisture cooling my exposed skin. I slip into a set of tailored-to-fit-me OG fatigues. I go from swimsuit pinup to olive green warrior in moments.

The fishing boat disappears around the edge of the cove. I have only one way off this island. And I have a lot of obstacles between me and the exit.

I check the gun. It’s dry. I screw on the silencer. Tighten it. Confirm the safety is on.

I turn on the radio. It’s bulky. I slip it into a side pocket on my fatigues. It’s going to be aggravating and maddening to run with. I’d like to hold it, but can’t afford to lose it when I’m cutting my way through the dense foliage. I jog in place to test it out. The transceiver cracks into my knee, joggles against my thigh, gives me an unbalanced gate. I remove the radio from my pocket. It’s going back into the pack. I turn the volume up so I can hear it. If I’m not in position when the signal comes, the squawk will give me away. But if I’m not in position by then, I’ll have bigger problems than someone hearing me.

I’m on the move again. Across the inlet, then into the woods, disappearing into the dark cover of palms and brush and creeping plants of every kind. It’s impossible to run through this jungle thicket, so I make my way back to the edges of a dry creek where the vegetation thins. It’s a better route, but it’s still a slog, and my legs are cramping by the time I reach the fence. It’s the middle of the day. Sunny. Bright. There is no darkness to cover my assault.

At the perimeter of the compound, I let my muscles recover. It’s a little after ten in the morning. The heat of the day hasn’t arrived, but the air is thick. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind, a picture of me on a beach flashes. I save it for later. A reward. It’s already a pleasant memory. My focus is locked. Here. Now.

There is risk in what I am doing. It is my duty, my mission, my every conscious thought to minimize it. There have been those who have questioned how we can possibly live so long? This is how. It’s not simply inherited attributes. It is the details.

I turn to survey the airfield. About a dozen guards are standing watch at various points around the property. Two are up high, the rest are on the ground. There may be more roaming about.

I hit the fence and pop over. One foot. Hand grab. Other foot. Crossbar. The razor wire at the top is easy to manage when you simply somersault above it.

Inside the compound, I alternate between jogging and walking, sliding behind transformers, metal boxes, and military vehicles in the motor pool. The trucks are at least twenty years old. The paint is new, but you can’t camouflage the fact that they are ancient. And not in the same way U.S. Army trucks can chug along after decades of service. These are dilapidated and run-down. Cuba’s got a lot of paint. Perhaps not so many spare parts.

I dive under one of the 6x6s, holding onto the undercarriage as a group of soldiers march by. Adrenaline courses through my body. I feel my pulse quicken.

I use a small knife to puncture the fuel tank—one, two, three, four—matching the soldiers’ footfalls. I wrinkle my nose to keep out the pungent odor.

I pull out a spotting lens and gaze through it, using my feet and one hand to keep me aloft and out of sight. I’m forty yards from the launcher array—six hydraulic trailers each carrying a V-750VN missile—arranged in a semicircle. It’s a relatively straight line from here to there if you don’t count the three men with rifles. I tuck the sight into my pocket. There are a thousand things that can go wrong in the next sixty seconds.

Within a dozen ticks, four of those thousand things have befallen me. I find myself dazed, face in the dirt.

After I rolled out from under the truck and punctured the fuel tanks of two additional aging trucks, a soldier—not one of the three between me and the launchers—came out of nowhere and slammed into me. He was running without paying attention after he realized his unauthorized cig break was taking place in a puddle of combustible liquid that wasn’t there a few seconds ago. This caught me off guard. Fast forward several seconds and he’s lying on the ground motionless. His wild, flailing attempted escape has caused me to lose my gun—knocked into a row of jeeps, my knife—knocked beyond the row of jeeps. And I’m cut. Which happened as the knife was sent flying.

I still have the radio and my Zippo, thankfully. I flick the lighter and drop into the spreading pool of diesel. The Zippo lands on its side, its wick continuing to burn. A tiny island in the middle of the ocean.

I’m moving again.

The ground is barren. Flat. Being this out in the open makes me feel trapped. I want to be in the shadows or up on a roof or squeezing between buildings or crawling the impossible spaces beneath them. Out here, the only thing moving quickly enough to catch the eye is me. I’m an intruder. And everyone is going to see me coming.

I have no choice but to keep going.

Twenty yards out, the packed dirt turns to gravel and my footsteps sound like an avalanche.

I take out the first of the three soldiers I had initially spotted. Tire iron to the side of the head. The motor pool is swimming in them. If your car is missing a tire iron, it’s probably migrated to Cuba.

Two more men to get past. That’s what the silencer was for. A quiet approach. Instead, I’ve got a pilfered rifle.

I’m going to be ringing the dinner bell when I fire the first shot.

I’d prefer not to kill these men unless it’s absolutely necessary because killing soldiers gives other soldiers license to try and kill me.

I need only seconds, not their entire lives.

Ten yards out, I start to hear shouting.

I raise the weapon. “Fuera de camino!” I take aim at the men, but keep the barrel lowered just enough to let them know I’m not readying for a kill shot.

As long as they comply.

I can see the guards in the towers trying to get a bead on me. But I’m in close and the angle is tough.

As I race toward the soldiers, I feel a sudden warmth at my back. Diesel isn’t flammable at air temperature, but by now, my Zippo’s burning wick has heated the fuel, releasing enough fumes for it to ignite, starting a chain reaction that has grown into a rolling wave of flames.

Instead of running at them with only a rifle, it looks to the soldiers like I’ve stepped out of the fires of Hell.

It’s effective as one of them turns and runs. And then:

Boom!

The ground shakes. One of the fuel tanks explodes.

Heads turn toward the inferno.

Before the blast echo fades, I’ve knocked the last soldier out—my feet planted, my back twisting, my fist bundled tightly—a shot to the jaw. His body sways, his legs buckle. He folds over on himself like a waffle iron, then slumps to the ground. The pieces of the blown apart truck come crashing down, sending shockwaves through the camp. It’s as if just outside the gates a giant is throwing a tantrum.

I drop the rifle and sprint the last few feet, push off my right foot, then slide under the closest missile carrier like I’m stealing second base. Popping up on the other side, I find myself within the S-75 battery.

I’m dwarfed by the half dozen high-altitude missiles and their transportable launchers. The weapons loom over me, huge cylinders of doom, the fingers of Death's hand.

I check the wound. It’s superficial. I wipe the blood into the dirt.

Boom! Another truck goes up. And then another.

I hear the radio crackle from inside the pack. Pops come in a pattern, mic clicks without anyone talking. It’s the spotter letting me know the spy plane is coming.

I have maybe thirty seconds.

I take in a deep breath and blow it out sharply.

The control panel is in Russian. I scan the Cyrillic letters.

Power.

I start the system. Switch launchers to live mode. Radar to antenna. Turn the radar on, tilting the dish up. I hear the motors whine as it locks into place. Looking for the targeting options, I see the alarm switch. I throw it. A loud, menacing whoooop, whoooop, whoooop bellows from the six launchers. It draws attention away from the explosions and back to me, but it also warns the soldiers to stay clear of the blast wash. I speed through prepping the missiles. Switch to high altitude mode. I set one to robot mode. Another to radar target mode. The third to TT, the least vulnerable to target maneuvers. Two screens on either side of the panel flash. I read off the numbers written in ink on my arm. They are, at best, estimations. The radar, telemetry, and onboard sensors will have to do the rest. I dial in elevation. Azimuth. Distance. I sync the launchers and the missiles with radar. The hydraulics kick in, raising the launch pads.

The Americans are not expecting this. The Soviets have backed down. My actions are a clear provocation. There isn’t supposed to be any apocalyptic risks left on Cuba since the nuclear standoff a year ago. The SS-4 and R-14 offensive missiles and the Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers are gone, withdrawn last November after the Missile Crisis was resolved. But not every doomsday weapon the Soviets brought to the island on those ships has been removed.

The Americans are carrying out their due diligence. Verifying compliance. Scouring the island band by band looking for threats. Today this plane is flying directly over a troublesome secret we’ve been hiding for a year.

But I’ll be hitting reconnaissance jet from behind if successful. After it has already passed over the island. After it has taken its photos. If I miss, the unknown becomes known. If it works, the U2 will break up over the Gulf of Mexico and present a great deal of uncertainty for the Americans and a measure of plausible deniability for both sides.

The soldiers keep their distance. They’re shouting for orders. Should they shoot me? Before they get an answer, I press the black button marked with the Roman numeral one.

The ground is transformed, painted black as flames burst from the rear of the missile. The earth under my feet rattles. Smoke chokes me. I pull the top of my shirt over my nose and mouth as a shower of burning embers is cast off the blast deflector, falling around me like a thousand dying fireflies. A blast wall protects me, just barely enough. The thick metal plate has another benefit. It makes it impossible for the soldiers to get a clean shot.

There is more yelling, more gesticulating, more frantic confusion about what to do. They want to put an end to this, but to get to me, they have to cross the exhaust path of the missiles. With two more armed and ready to fire—alarms blaring—they hesitate.

I can’t launch the next missile until the red light on the panel goes black. When it does, I fire a second rocket. Black button II. The three different targeting methods require different evasive maneuvers. Utilizing multiple acquisition strategies will make it difficult for the U-2 to escape cleanly.

The instant the red light goes black, I push button III, sending a third missile hurtling toward the edge of space. I’ve armed a fourth, but this is for my personal safety. A feint to keep the soldiers from crossing the divide for just a moment longer.

My task is complete. All that’s left is the waiting. To hit something that high, the timing has to be nearly perfect. The simple radar screens are telling me my shots remain on target even though one of the missiles is drifting far to the right. In training, I was told to expect this. It’s a function of the chosen targeting method. If the pilot recognizes I’ve launched an attack—he has perhaps twenty seconds to do so—he’ll evade. If number one misses, missile two will get him. If those don’t, number three will.

If I’ve done everything right, the U-2 has less than a twenty percent chance to get away clean.

The soldiers are beginning to question whether or not I’m going to launch the fourth missile. They’re leaning forward, tense, ready to pounce.

The wait is excruciating.

I hear nothing. I see no explosion. There is the tiniest spread of green-white on the radar screens. The needles on the meters tell the story. Target velocity drops. Target altitude drops.

I reach into my pack, feel the backup pistol and ignore it for the more powerful weapon.

“Ostanovis' nemedlenno. Opusti oruzhiye,” I shout, holding up the creased document. The soldiers stare at me, blankly. I sigh. Loudly. The control panel has got me thinking in Russian. I wave the fake Soviet ID again. “Detente inmediatamente. Suelta el arma.”

In practical terms, the lowest Soviet military officer would outrank any Cuban, except maybe the Castro brothers. And even they, despite a bit of bluster, would think twice about countermanding me.

“Tengo autorización de Kruschev. Exijo un pasaje seguro.”

I back away from the targeting control panel and feel the residual heat coming off the ground from the rocket flames. It’s like blazing hot sand on bare feet even through my boots. Emerging from the launcher array, hands up, papers visible, I shake the olive green cap off my head and my hair comes tumbling out. It’s a bit of a Hollywood movie move, but it has its desired effect. Fingers come off triggers. None of the soldiers wants to be the one to shoot a woman.

I have a few words with the base coronel, where I show him that according to official—and very real—documents, those three missiles were never here. He has exactly the number he’s supposed to. He has four fewer trucks than he thinks per the legitimate paperwork. I’ve only blown up three, so I tell him to sell the other one after giving it a new paint job.

And since there is nothing to report, there is nothing to report. By the time the whispers become rumors, it won’t matter. No one wants a war. Another flyover in a few days will find nothing.

I hand him a fistful of twenty peso banknotes for him and his men. The Cuban bills are from Czechoslovakia. The very same presses that print for the Castro regime. They are as real as paper money can ever be.

Seventeen minutes later, I ditch the “borrowed” GAZ-69 and climb into a yellow 1953 Plymouth Cranbrook that’s been left for me on a side road, making sure I leave no drops of blood behind in the Russian jeep.

Last Night

I take pleasure in the sound that a martini glass makes when you flick it with your finger. The man talking to me gets distracted every time I do it. Which is an added benefit.

“So what do you think?” he says.

“I think I’m waiting for someone.”

“You’ve been sitting at the bar alone for almost an hour.”

I ting the glass several more times. Like a game show when the contestant gets the right answer.

“You didn’t answer my question—”

“Actually, I have. You’re just not paying attention to my response.”

He’s barely thirty. Tailored suit. Tie. A conventioneer. He broke off from a pack of them who’ve set up operations at a booth in the corner after a hard day of attending lectures in the Americana’s banquet rooms. He thinks he’s attractive. Actually would be if he shut his mouth.

I feel the brush of lips next to my ear. A clear violation of my personal space. “That dress is making me a little jealous,” he says in a voice that is deep and smooth. It’s not the suit’s voice, but the voice I’ve been waiting for.

I make an involuntary, mmmmm.

My would-be suitor is still standing there. A little dumbfounded. Tactically, his best move is a full retreat. Just turn around and march back to his friends. But, apparently, I’m worth the risk of complete embarrassment. A couple of hundred years ago, I might have found it flattering. Now, it just seems tiresome. But I’m not in the mood to humiliate him. Braeden’s breath on my neck is sending shivers down my arm. It softens my outlook. I ignore the man and shoulder into Braeden. The suit will leave eventually. Or we will.

I’ve ignored far worse things.

“This old dress?” My voice is a whisper.

“That old dress.”

“You don’t look too bad yourself, by the way,” I tell him.

“I know. I got picked up on by three women on the way over here. Women being forward. I very much like nineteen sixty-three.”

“Funny you say that.”

“Why’s that?”

“Someone was just expressing the opposite to me this morning.” I shift on the stool, spinning to look at him. “Just remember, I don’t get jealous. But I can get even.”

“Yes. I’ve seen your work.” He smiles. I feel something whenever he does that. “I love your eyes by the way,” he says, his eyes going back and forth between mine.

“You need to really stop that.”

“What?”

“Just, the whole—” I circle my hand in front of his face as if I am cleaning a window. “I have no problem pulling you into bed with me.”

“I don’t believe either of us have a problem with that.”

“But…let’s not use words like…” I put my hand on his chest. “Can we…get out of here?”

I throw three bills on the bar, and we turn and walk out. The suit is still standing there dumbfounded when we exit.

“They are pushing you, Aren’t they?”

“Yes. Like I’m some fucking baby factory. I don’t like it. They started on this a few decades ago. But it’s really gotten intense lately.”

“I know, I mean I hear some of the same things.”

“It’s not the same, Braeden. Not the same at all. The rest of them could go out and sleep with an extra hundred women apiece, take care of your share. How many women do you think some of these guys have slept with over the past thousand years? I have no idea. How many people has Marcus slept with?”

“You get a little jealous when you talk about my father like that.”

“I am not jealous, first of all, and second, I don’t know him as your father.”

“And I don’t know anything about you.”

“Which is how it should be.”

“Do you have a problem with this?”

“No,” I felt my body lean into his like I did in the bar, but now we were in my room on top of the bedspread, heads propped on elbows. Still fully clothed. “I like it. A lot. I mean, I’m not going to spend the next thousand years with you—that would be crazy—but for right this minute, it’s enjoyable, pleasant, satisfying.”

I could tell he was hurt by my words. But a part of me thought that he was relieved as well. I’m easier to take in small doses. I wanted to love him. Even though the thought of that alarmed me. And there was definitely something I felt whenever we were together. The way he touched me. The feeling. The pleasure. But we aren’t the kind to settle down. Especially not when there’s two of us like this. We know the future is long. It’s easier being with a regular person. Their scale of time is entirely different. Give them a decade or two, and it feels like a serious relationship to them.

“This is just too hard, Braeden. Let’s just—”

I started to get up, but he put a hand on my hip to gently, firmly keep me next to him. I instinctively slid a little closer in response.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s not make this about the future. Whatever happens. Let’s enjoy this. You and me. Here. Now.”

He moved in closer and kissed me.

“There’s things I can’t tell you. I don’t like it, but it’s a reality. And it’s the same for you.”

“I want to tell you everything.”

“That would be supremely stupid, Braeden.”

“Well, you already know most of it.”

He didn’t know the half of it when it came to me. And that more than anything put a barrier between us.

“I thought we were doing this moment,” I said. “Here. Now.”

“We are.” He could feel me slipping away again, and he was going to do anything in his power to avoid that. “I don’t need to know anything. I have no history. No past. I am this moment alone. See?”

He ran his hand over my hip and up beyond my waist, pushing me slightly away, then pulling me closer.

“I definitely don’t have a problem with this,” I breathed. “I mean, you’re a little young for me.”

He laughed. An uncomfortable chuckle. “Yeah, I know. I’m only a couple of centuries older than you.”

“Exactly. You hardly have any scruff to you. Look at you. You’re a little perfect. I don’t know, go out, get some scars or something.”

“Yes, tomorrow when we’re done, I’ll go find someone to take out the broadsword with. And I’ve got scars.” He lifted up his shirt and showed me some pitiful scratches on the side of his body.

“Put your shirt back down,” I said, hoping he would take it off.

He made a little noise next to my ear, and the feeling went all the way down that side of my body. “Mmmmm. Okay, you can definitely not do that.” Even though I wanted him to never stop doing that. Then something snapped. “Stop.”

“What is it?”

“I—I don’t want to do this right now.”

I knew my tone was harsh. My voice can get that way sometimes. First time I heard a recording of myself, I had lived nineteen hundred years. People had told me I sounded a certain way, but I’d never heard it before. I didn’t speak for two days afterward.

“Just—”

“Nika, it’s okay.”

I didn’t want my time with Braeden to be associated with the earlier conversation I’d had with Elam Khai, didn’t want to poison the pleasure we both took from each other. But all I felt at the moment was anger. Because as polite as those discussions about my need to bear children for the cause have been, it still made me feel like a broodmare.

I slid off the bed.

Going out onto the balcony, I let the ocean breeze calm me. Not too soon, not too late, I felt a light hand on my back at my waist.

“It isn’t you,” I said.

He let the words breathe.

“I know that.”

“I have so much anger inside me. Sometimes I don’t even know where it comes from.”

“Two thousand years of defending yourself, maybe?”

I sighed. “Even when I was a girl. It never ever stopped.”

Braeden held my hip, his grip tighter. “Listen…I can’t say that every time I see you, I don’t have this shock. Like I’ve never seen you before. Like I’ve somehow forgotten how you look. Even the elevated image of you in my mind can’t compete with the vision of you in front of me. That face. The beautiful, stunning everything. And I know that makes me no different than any other man who looks at you. But it’s not the only thing I see.”

“Yeah? What else do you see? A blunt instrument? A weapon?”

“Someone who thinks for herself. Who refuses to conform. Or accept less. Someone who does the hard things because they need to be done. Because if they’re not, it will be worse. I see whatever the opposite of a blunt instrument is.”

“There are only two types of men who have the audacity to pursue me. Idiots…” I stared at him. “And assholes.”

“I don’t think—” He scrunched up one side of his face in thought. “—I’m an asshole.”

I didn’t expect to, but I laughed.

I caught him smiling as he enjoyed the sound of my laughter. After a moment, he pressed his lips together, the corners of his mouth turning down slightly.

“I guess that makes me an idiot.”

“You are definitely an idiot.”

He stared out at the black void that was the ocean. “How many people do you think there are like us? Not all of us, but give or take five hundred years? A dozen? Two? There aren’t that many appropriately-aged women out there for me. That are like us.” He added the last part a second later.

“Oh, there are some thirty-five hundred-year-olds you would definitely like.”

He emptied his lungs forcefully. His palm came down hard on the balcony railing, his fingers curling into a fist.

I thought I was being funny. I was just making him more frustrated.

“You know what I mean.”

“That isn’t a very compelling reason for us to be together, Braeden. At least, not for me. You’re basically saying, ‘we’re all we’ve got.’”

“I’m not saying that,” he muttered. “Okay…how about that I like you better than anyone I’ve ever met?”

“That’s a little more compelling.” I breathed a muted sigh out my nose.

“It’s true.”

I believed him.

His hand ran across my shoulder blades and he squeezed the muscles on my back. “Is this,” he asked, feeling my tenseness, “about tomorrow?”

“No.”

After what I did yesterday, tomorrow was going to be a cakewalk.

As if reading my mind, he said, “I missed you yesterday.”

“I missed you. I just had a couple of things to take care of.”

The Night Before Last

I steer the Plymouth off the main road and travel down a long drive that’s nothing more than two tracks in the high grass. The sun has set, and the palm trees silhouetted against the sky remind me of other lands long ago and far away. I’m drawn to places at this latitude. This broad band of earth that is not the equator but on either side of it. A little above, a little below. It feels like home even when it’s nothing like it.

I have two more turns to make. Easy-to-miss unmarked gates, guarded by soldiers hidden in blinds that even though I know are there, I can’t spot.

After several more minutes of driving, the palms thin and get taller, and the first sign of life comes into view. A manned checkpoint that I slow down and pull up to.

My identification is as fake as the one I showed to the Cuban soldiers a few hours ago, but these men know my papers are forged. That I am not who this says I am. It’s more for their protection they don’t know me. All they care about is that the name on my documents matches the one they are expecting.

They let me through.

The land continues to open up, and an encampment that is only visible from above appears as I crest a small hill.

Amassed in this hidden compound is the radioactive material Elam Khai wants protected. The byproduct of a plan he has been devising for many years. My job was to keep this place from being discovered. I shot a plane out of the sky to do it. But there are always more planes.

I pass by people wearing rubberized suits and full-face masks with two goggled eyes that make them look like aliens or insects. A regulator near where the mouth should be hooks to air-tanks on their backs. I figure at this distance they’re breathing filtered air and saving the tanks for when they come in close contact with what’s concealed here.

Even slight exposure can be deadly.

We have learned from the past.

I stop the car in front of a trailer with communication jamming equipment surrounding it. I throw the keys on the dash and walk inside the cramped command center. The three people inside are wearing the rubber suits, but their masks are on desks or chairs within reach.

I tell them what needs to be done. They don’t immediately jump into action, which pisses me off.

I am three paragraphs into an explicit, obscenity-laced tirade when Lassiter walks into the trailer. I know him only from the name on his suit. I was given a photo of the man, but he looks the same as everyone else enveloped in the protective gear. He isn’t the one I’m angry at. But he is the only one in close proximity to me that has any responsibility for this. And so I take it out on him.

He claps his hand down on my shoulder, and I fight the urge to rip his arm out of its socket.

It’s not an easy urge to fight.

Once he understands I’m serious, that this is really happening, he hands me one of the suits and a mask.

“I don’t need those,” I say as I burst out the door.

Calling after me, his voice is muffled and eerie through the mask. I’m still pumped from earlier and I mark the people between me and my objective, unconsciously readying my body for combat. Edgy, antsy, my body tenses as I approach each bug-eyed, faceless suit, gritting my teeth, suppressing instinct, until my mind takes over and shuts it down, screaming at me to relax.

Palm trees.

Beach.

My feet in the sand.

Lassiter chases me down the slope toward a row of white tents and finally catches up as I peek inside one.

The room’s attention turns towards the tent flap as I stand framed in the doorway.

“She is beautiful,” a girl says with a bit of wonder and a gasp.

Several children—six or so—between the ages of four and ten years old are studying languages and working on math problems. I smile at them.

They are already getting up from their seats as I disappear from the entrance.

Moving toward the flat part of the camp, I am followed by the children like seagulls chasing a treat. Others who are playing outside, kicking balls and running around in the dusky, dying light see the scene and curious, come toward the snaking group of their friends. I am surrounded by little faces. They run to me. Hug me. Envelop me. They are touching my arms, my legs, my hair as if they have never seen an adult before.

And in a way, they haven’t. At least not adults without masks and suits and gloves. I’m sure—at least I hope—other Eternals have checked in on these children over the years, but my reception tells me that if it’s happened at all, it is a rare occurrence.

They are all colors. From every corner of the globe.

They are the radioactive material Elam Khai was talking about.

I look at the microscopic marks on their forearms. They’re hard to make out against the hyperpigmentation on their wrists—the lingering effect from the rash gives an early warning, allowing us to keep these children from being a catastrophic danger to others. You can see the tiny speckles in the reddish skin if you’re looking, but only if you are. Six dots in an identical pattern. It’s possible to have seven. But no one here has that many. These are markers that would be filled in later, connected to form a shield that would give them privilege and protection. But only if their bodies allow it. They are Bloodborn. Three-quarters of them will outgrow their affliction. They will hit puberty, and the danger that their blood, sweat, and tears pose to others will fade away. Hormones do not descend on everyone equally or at the same age, and the cleansing process can take place at any time, usually between the ages of eleven and fifteen. For the rest, a quarter or so, four or five of these kids, the danger to others would never go away.

Eventually—after every opportunity has been given to that unfortunate minority—a final act is performed.

There are no adult Bloodborn.

But for now, these tiny pinpricks are faint stars on virgin skin. A fervent hope that they might become something else.

Fear is stamped on their faces, tears flow as they are told they must leave this place that has been their home for more than a year. There is nothing I can do but lead them out of the darkness toward yet another unknown.

The children stuff bags with their possessions. They are piled in the clearing, not more than two duffles for each. It seems like nothing. I travel light, but I have pockets of belongings around the world. This is all they have.

Far more quickly than I anticipated, the camp has been broken down. All the tents are rolled and stowed, the medicine, the books, the food, the lights, the few comforts, and all the necessities are crammed into vehicles.

When we are finished, the compound is stripped clean, a carcass, nothing but outlines, a rough idea of what once was.

Two men in silvery suits march slowly, methodically through the camp, their dueling flamethrowers sweeping the ground with long streams of liquid fire.

The children are drawn to the light show and watch with audible gasps and wide eyes. The adults stare in wonder as well, the flames reflecting off the glass goggles in their masks. But it is time to leave.

Putting them into the trucks, the children coalesce around me again, touching me and hugging me. They want to stay with me. Or at least, want me to stay with them. Nearly a dozen languages are spoken, and I answer what I can to them in each tongue. I count twenty-one in all. It is more than I expected.

The girl with eyes the color of mine, greenish-blue, light, with tan skin like mine, stares back at me. She says, “She is sooo beautiful” like she did earlier, with added emphasis this time. She doesn’t say it to me, but about me to the others.

I reply, “You are more beautiful.”

She smiles. But I only see her grin for an instant because the rear gate on the truck is lifted and a rubber-gloved hand slapped on the metal siding causes the driver to shift the vehicle into gear and pull away.

Today

The clock in the room clicked past midnight.

It would be hours before the faintest hint of morning light would make itself known along the distant horizon.

“Come inside. It’s warmer,” Braeden said, even though I didn’t feel cold at all.

I breathed in the salty air, nodded, and went in with him.

I couldn’t get that girl out of my mind. I remembered being shuttled from location to location as a child. But I was never a danger to others, and I was rarely kept apart from the locals.

I didn’t age. Not like everyone else did. And soon, too soon, I would be moved again.

I still felt their hands on me, felt the yearning in their touches, and I needed Braeden to break the pattern by having his hands on my body.

“Lie with me,” I said as I sat back on the bed.

He joined me, and in minutes, I had slipped out of my clothes and gotten him out of his.

We caressed each other’s bare skin with our fingertips, the light touch leaving a trail of goosebumps behind. His skin was warm. I traced the contours of his shoulder, his bicep, the side of his torso, slow and softly.

Then I put my hand to his chest and pushed him. Pressed him down on the bed as I rolled over and climbed on top of him, his body burning beneath me. I sat back, my legs folded under me and stared down at him. His eyes alight, his mouth turned up at the corners in a confident grin.

My words came out of nowhere. “I don’t want to.”

He laughed. “This is a funny way to show that you don’t want to.” He took my hips in his hands and pulled me tighter against him.

“Have a child,” I said.

“Ah, that.” He went quiet. “I get it.”

“Do you?”

He slid out from under me and brought me back down beside him.

“I do. I know you think it’s different for me, and maybe it is, but if it is, it’s in a different way than you think. Our biological ages are not that far apart. But those few hundred years, they’ve been centuries of unbelievable change. A few hundred years ago, we’d be well past this conversation.” He stared at me for a long moment. I didn’t speak because I could tell he had more to say. “I’ve already fathered children, Nika.”

I took in a deep breath, not meaning to.

He nodded. “I was about your age. They were normal. I had to watch them grow old.”

I swallowed and finally found my voice. “Did they know?”

“No. Not really.” I could see the pain in his face. “I was there. And then I wasn’t. And then I came as someone else and was there again for a while. I think my last little girl knew.” He ran his fingers along my thigh, pausing when he got to my hip. “It didn’t seem too early. I seemed normal. Not the watching them get older part. But the having them at that age. It’s different now. The world is different. New ideas. Tectonic shifts in society. It makes you think—maybe we are too young to have children.”

I snorted. I hate when I snort. He likes it when I do. So, small talk. Full name. Snorting like a pig.

“I know that sounds ridiculous—too young—but…you’ve enjoyed more power than most women.”

“Because I demanded it.”

“I don’t doubt that. But now regular women are demanding power. The vote. Control over their own bodies.”

“That’s what it’s always been for me. My body, my rules.”

“Yeah. It’s different for you than me. You have to have the baby, carry it. If the child’s like us, it would be an enormous commitment. It would be centuries before you’d have a functioning human you can have a conversation with. If it’s not like us, are you angry? Resentful?”

“Maybe if I was ready, maybe if I really wanted a child, I don’t think I would be.”

“But if you’re feeling forced into this…”

“Then I think that disappointment would be impossible for me to hide.”

“And they would know it,” he said. “Even if you gave the child up, it’s still carrying a baby for nine months.”

I nodded. And kept nodding longer than was necessary. “I never knew my mother. Or my father.” I was treading carefully. Braeden knew very little about me. Nothing, really. It was important for me to share a piece of myself without telling him anything. “You had a mother.”

“Still do.”

“And you’ve had Marcus. Marcus didn’t know about me for centuries. And even when he found me, it took him another hundred years to be convinced of who I was.”

“And who are you?”

I looked at him.

“I’m the woman in bed with you right now,” I said. “Anything else doesn’t matter.”

My body warmed and I touched Braeden’s face. I did have feelings for him, this man I’ve known off and on for less than a decade. His stubble scratched against my palm, making me bite my lip.

Then the heat I was feeling dissipated.

He felt me tense again. I didn’t want to, but the face of that girl haunted me.

“What is it?”

“What if—what if a child I had was Bloodborn?”

“Nika, that’s a one in a thousand chance. When was the last time you heard about that happening?” he asked. “It’s just on your mind because of tomorrow. Because of what’s in that swamp.”

“I guess.” I envied his not knowing the truth.

One in a thousand. There were twenty-one. If Braeden was anywhere close about what the chances were, that meant ten, fifteen, twenty thousand children had been born of us.

This Morning

Leaving the hotel room, I stepped over a newspaper on the threshold that screamed: WRECKAGE OF U-2 FOUND IN GULF OF MEXICO. PILOT STILL MISSING. Braeden picked it up and began reading the details as we walked to the car.

“‘A Defense Department spokesman said the incident was, quote, most likely caused by a mechanical problem. Unquote.’ Ten-to-one some ‘Cubans’ with Russian last names blasted it out of the sky. ‘There is no evidence that the plane was shot down,’ annnnnd more bullshit follows. You want to read about a Teamster strike?”

“No, I’m good,” I said.

We arrived in Tampa just before eight a.m.

It was an eerie feeling getting into a plane the morning after shooting one down. I doubted anyone was looking to take out the head Mouseketeer. Although immediately after the introductions, he tried to convince me he wasn’t who he appeared to be.

“I’m not Walt Disney,” he said as we were walking to the plane.

“You look like Walt Disney.”

“I do, don’t I?”

“You do.”

“It’s uncanny, isn’t it? An improbable doppelgänger.”

“Almost implausible.”

“Yes, but it’s true. I am not him. I do a lot of things Walt Disney would never do.”

“Such as?”

“Walt Disney does not drink. I drink. Walt Disney does not smoke. I smoke.” He lit a cigarette just to prove the point.

“What else don’t you do that you do?”

He grinned as he blew out a thick cloud. “Implausibly beautiful and clever. You should be an actress.”

I gave him a practiced smile.

I didn’t feel like explaining to him I’ve already played enough roles in my life.

By nine o’clock, we were airborne with Braeden at the controls. It felt a little like we were house hunting. But the house was the size of San Francisco.

Walt was sitting in front, excitedly pointing at things out the cockpit windows like a child on one of his rides. His brother was seated across from me, gazing over the landscape in a more business-like manner but still with a hint of delight.

“Look at all this land. I think this is it. All of this.” Walt waved his hand from one side of the windshield to the other.

“It’s huge, Walt,” said his brother.

“I know, Roy, it’s magnificent.”

“A huge risk! Disneyland is a hundred and sixty acres.”

“Yes, and I’m angry every single day that what was once surrounded by orange groves is now surrounded by cheap motels and crappy food. We’re not building Disneyland, Roy. We’re building something much bigger. I want twenty thousand acres. Thirty!”

“It’s not even land, it’s a swamp. I like Palm Beach.”

“I like Palm Beach, too, but I don’t like hurricanes. This’s inland. It’s got an airport nearby. A highway expansion planned. And roooooom! Lots of room to spread out. It’s perfect.”

The pasture and swamp land Disney was pointing at, the spot we were flying over, was the exact location we couldn’t allow him to own.

“Why don’t we just buy the land?” This was Braeden when we first heard rumors a year ago of Disney using proxies to inquire about real estate in several Florida locations, including Palm Beach.

“We already own the land, Braeden. In fact, we own this up here, too.” I pointed to a large parcel by Bay Lake eighteen miles away. “And we’ll sell it to him at a loss to encourage him to shift the project north. But the state owns this down here. Right at the edge of our little problem.”

“Not so little.”

“No. And the state plans to put in a highway. Which is fine. But if Disney wants to build in this area.” I drew my finger over the tracts on either side of the proposed roadway. “And it seems like he does, then he’s going to want the state to deed him the right of way to connect the two swaths. Then the state, who’s been very vocal about making concessions to corporations wanting to expand into Florida, could shift their planned highway south and eminent domain the land we own.”

“Ahhhhh,” Braeden said. Both back then and just now as Disney told him how he was going to build canals to drain the swamps. “I’m sure you’ll find some interesting things at the bottom of those bogs.”

“Crocodiles,” Disney said.

“Alligators,” said Roy.

Braeden glanced furtively at me.

What they would find in addition to alligators would be bodies. Hundreds and hundreds of bodies piled together. It would look like the Black Death or the Plague of Justinian or the Third Plague Pandemic that erupted only a hundred years ago. But it wouldn’t exactly be that. It would be an offshoot of an ancient ill. One that has been with us from the beginning. And is, in a way, responsible for us being the way we are.

Something we now call a virus that affects human DNA in ways we still don’t understand.

The nightmare hidden in the mud began with a Bloodborn who was able to escape his protection and isolation. He was older than the children I helped decamp. We didn’t automatically eliminate Bloodborns after a certain age then. He was in his late teens, old enough to get work aboard a ship sailing to the New World. He had been told since he was a young child what would happen if he came in contact with others. He didn’t believe it.

Every settler, every crewman on that ship perished. He infected traders and merchants along the shipping routes. By the time we located him, he had wiped out an entire tribe in central Florida without picking up a blade or a bow or a musket. Just by his presence.

It took over a year to contain the outbreak, long after he’d been caught and punished and buried in the quag with his victims.

I was not part of the team that hunted him down. But I did have to deal with the aftermath. Burning entire villages to the ground, which we blamed on enemy attacks, to keep the pathogen from spreading. Thousands more would have died if I hadn’t. That knowledge didn’t make it any less unpleasant a task.

I stared down at the expanse of green spread out below. Flickering, glimmering flashes blazed between the vegetation, reflections of the late morning sun rising ever higher toward noon.

Part of me wanted us to fail. Or at least not immediately convince Disney outright. Because if we couldn’t resolve this issue today, couldn’t wrap it up with a pretty little bow, Braeden wouldn’t be able to leave. He’d have to stay until we could devise some other way to get Disney to change his mind. Or make sure the state refused to reroute the highway.

Part of me wanted that…so much.

For us to fail.

For him to stay.

“You know what that looks like to me?” I said as we flew over Bay Lake. “That looks like a magnificent place to put a steamship.”

“A steamship,” Disney said, mostly to himself.

“Yes. And I can get you that land cheap.” I knew instantly I had spoken the magic word.

Duty eclipsed desire.

Disney beamed. His grin broad. “Which means that,” he pointed to a cloister of dry land surrounded by water, “is Tom Sawyer Island.”

Braeden and I stood on the tarmac as the plane was being refueled. “I have to fly him to New Orleans. But another crew is taking him from there to Burbank in the company plane. I’ll be back in Miami this evening.”

He didn’t say that he was coming back to get his stuff so he could leave tomorrow. But the strain of his leaving was etched on his face.

“I’d like to spend tonight with you,” he said.

“I’d like that,” I whispered.

I started to walk away.

“Nika!”

I spun around to see what he wanted. He shook his head and shrugged.

“I…just wanted to have you turn around one more time, so I could see your face.”

I raised my eyebrow. “Go fly the Mouseketeer, Braeden. And then come back to me.”

The way he looked at me, eyes level, jaw set, a slight upturn at the edges of his mouth, sent a warmth through the center of me that made me take in a deep breath.

That moment remained suspended in time until it was shattered when one of the ground crew ran up to the plane and delivered the news: President John F. Kennedy was dead.

This Afternoon

The mood in the bar in the Americana Hotel is somber. The scientists who have gathered in Miami have come from all over the world, but the majority are Americans and they mill about dazed and bewildered. This transcends nationality, however, and the foreign scientists are just as shocked by the day’s events.

And so this afternoon feels unlike the normal tenor of post-conference socializing, the drinking, the laughing, the awkward pickup attempts. Mostly, everyone is quiet. They are listening to the news on portable radios. A small television has been rolled into the lobby, its desaturated images allow the viewers crowding around it to have some detachment from the horrifying reality. The scenes are playing out live and in color. The blood. The tearful, red faces. But on the television, they are merely striated shades of gray.

There are tearful, red faces in the hotel, and a lot of hands patting backs.

I have drawn Dr. Richard Sampson out, peeled him off from the protection of the herd. That’s what lionesses do to their prey.

It has taken me some time to ease our conversation away from the dead president. I think he is relieved when I make it okay for him to occupy his mind with something else. Hard science and me in a fitted dress.

“I have to tell you,” I say, “the ‘Mitochondrial Nature Of Genetic Susceptibility To A Virus’ was a fascinating article.”

“You…” he looks at me curiously. “…read that?”

“Of course, I read that, silly.” I can’t remember the last time I used the word ‘silly.’ I feel my stomach turn. “I hope you’re not one of those men who think women aren’t smart enough to understand these things. Especially not a man who has written so eloquently about Marie Curie and radioactivity’s dangerous effects.”

“Her death, unfortunately, proved the point.”

Dr. Richard Sampson is not in the least unattractive. He has kind eyes. He is awkward and shy. He’s single. Married to his work.

“So, is it true that some viral diseases can be directly affected by the genetic makeup of the host?”

“Yes…that is correct.” He cocks his head. “You’re just…”

“What?” I say, making sure the afternoon sunlight reflects off the lightness of my pupils, bringing out the sparkling, vivid color.

“We don’t have a lot of females in really any facet of scientific research.”

“That is going to change!” I say. “Harvard degrees were awarded to female students for the first time this year.”

“Things are changing. Biology’s got a fair number. Physics less so. But in genetics, there’s just Barbara McClintock…” He trails off. “I think I would have heard about you.” He says motioning awkwardly toward me.

“Because I’m a woman.”

“Not just that.” He is having trouble looking me in the eye.

“Well, I’m not in the field. Which is why you don’t know me. I just find it fascinating. Like how some people can be asymptomatic carriers. That in some people virus resistance is dominant,” I lean forward as I say this, “and in other people, susceptibility is dominant.”

“That’s—that’s true, but it’s not the most fascinating thing about viruses. In humans, as a—” He shifts in his seat, loosening his tie that seems to be cutting off his air supply. “As a…fetus is growing, DNA is turned on and off according to the recipe passed along by the RNA, reshuffling the parental coding. Further changes can happen during other times of our life. Puberty, etcetera. But the recipe of who we are is, generally speaking, set early on in the womb. We now know, unfortunately, because of what happened to Marie Curie and atomic bomb survivors that radiation can alter DNA. Break it down really. But a virus is different. They are unique in the world. A virus can—after our birth, after our coding is set—rewrite the DNA of the host. There is real excitement within the community that perhaps someday we could harness that behavior to deliver change to human cells intra corpus via our DNA. Allowing the body to be, essentially, reprogrammed for…whatever reason. To cure a disease. To repair tissue damage. We might even someday use a virus to give a person perfect eyesight.” He pulls off his glasses, waves them, then quickly puts them back on because he obviously can’t see a thing without them. “Or give them stunning blue-green eyes.” He gazes into my eyes with surprising confidence. “Viruses…are the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.” He is self-conscious again but does not look away. “Perhaps, present company excepted.”

I blush. It’s fucking hard to fake blushing. I have to convince my body that I’m angry in order to do it. While smiling. It’s really a hassle.

I slipped the drug into his drink moments earlier. I am willing it to take effect. Because if I have to talk about whether peritoneal microphages from a susceptible host are susceptible, I am going to have to kill someone. Which I realize is what I am going to do, so I guess my current level of rage will not be wasted.

He is talking more than drinking. I ting his glass, playfully, to draw his attention to the drink. He suddenly remembers he desperately needs alcohol to help him through this.

“I find this extremely fascinating,” I say. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“And go where?”

Oh, boy, this is going to be harder than I thought.

“Someplace more private.”

“You know, I was thinking the same thing.”

“You were?” I say coyly.

“Yes, we shouldn’t be talking in the open. I am turning in an article tomorrow that after being peer-reviewed and published will change the landscape of—well, until it’s out, I need to keep my discovery under wraps. Somewhere else, we could talk a little more freely.”

“I was thinking that maybe we could be done with the talking. I have a place at the beach.”

He stammers. “I—I have a room right here. In the Americana.”

“My place is much more private. And it’s right on the water.”

I encourage him to finish his drink.

“I might need another,” he says, his hand shaking a bit.

“There’s plenty to drink where we’re going.”

I get Dr. Sampson to the parking garage. I open the trunk of my car. The lid is huge and completely blocks the view from the front.

Dr. Sampson is by the door, waiting for me to climb in first. I come around to the passenger side until I’m even with the rear window. I hold out a large towel, letting it hang down like a matador’s cape, drawing him closer. “Can you hold this up for me?”

“Ah, sure,” he says, pinching the towel between his fingertips and fidgeting with it.

“Like I said, where we’re going is right on the beach. I don’t want to be weighed down by a sopping wet dress.”

I look over the side into the trunk at the bikini and decide to slip into the one-piece instead. He turns his head, but there is no way he doesn’t see me out of the corner of his eye.

“I don’t have a bathing suit,” he says.

“It’ll be fine. It’s very private. You can do whatever you want. Roll up your pants. Take them off. I just want to be comfortable.”

“Comfortable,” he says, mostly under his breath in a way that makes me sure he is not feeling that way at the moment.

The towel drops just as I pull the straps over my shoulders. The good doctor is on the ground, pretty much unconscious. I shake my head. Thirty more seconds and I would’ve told him to get in the car. Instead, I’m out here looking like an idiot, dragging a rag doll toward the rear and lifting him into the trunk.

I park next to the Miami City Hall on Dinner Key. It’s one of the things I like about Miami. That their seat of government isn’t some staid building downtown, but the old Pan American seaplane terminal right on the water.

I open the trunk. A glassy-eyed Dr. Sampson stares up at me. The drug was supposed to make him woozy and pliant. Not knock him out. Lightweight.

“C’mon. Get out.”

“I…can’t…”

“Yes, you can. C’mon.” I grab him by the collar and help him to his feet.

Last thing I want to be doing is dragging a body along the docks a hundred yards from the mayor’s office. I thought this transfer from the car to the boat would be the most tense and problematic moment of the afternoon. But Kennedy’s assassination has made it easy. Everyone is glued to their radios and televisions. No one is paying attention to the stumbling, whining, half-comatose man being led toward open water. The United States is, collectively, in shock. I’ve lived through too many violent overthrows and regicides to be surprised. But I’ve been impressed at the stability of the United States government through assassinations, political upheaval, even civil war.

We enter the marina. Make our way down the docks. A few moments later, I’m piloting the Chris-Craft toward Sands Key with the twin 283s at full throttle.

I think the main reason Elam Khai doesn’t love boats is because he doesn’t spend enough time in one of these. With its engines wide open. Nothing but water ahead.

I’m thoroughly enjoying myself when about halfway there, Dr. Sampson—I don’t know what he was thinking, trying to make a break for it, maybe?—he totters to his feet, still woozy, and he goes to jump over the side. Now, let’s be clear. I am not stopping him. Even if I could get to him in time, I wouldn’t try. Because there is no way I want to get pulled overboard by some genius who’s an idiot.

I guess the idiot genius realizes that we’re skimming over the water at more than forty knots, and as a scientist, he probably understands that’s baaaaad. But in his drugged, barely-half-there state, he can’t stop himself from going overboard without grabbing the back of my one piece. I’m slammed hard into the gunwale and as I’m falling off the back, I manage to get my hand on the stern pole, clutching it in my grip to stay in the boat. Dr. Sampson tumbles into the water. Luckily, for the doctor, I had backed-off the throttle as soon as I saw him make his move. So, not only is the boat slowing quickly, he wasn’t turned into chum by the propellers.

Now, if I had worn the bikini—I should have gone with my instincts—there would have been nothing for him to grab onto and I could have avoided the bruises to my ribs. The contusions will heal quickly. Another benefit of my condition. But still, it hurt. And I’m annoyed I’ll look like I got run over by a motorcycle when I lie out by the pool tomorrow.

I circle around and pull Dr. Sampson into the boat, but not without first punching the good doctor in the nose.

Our twenty-five-minute trip resumes without further incident.

We’re standing in the shallow blue water. Dr. Sampson is squinting as the sun lowers in the west behind me. His hands are up.

“Put your hands down. This isn’t a stick-up. I don’t want your wallet.”

He puts his arms down but keeps them above the water. I don’t know why he insists on doing this. It looks uncomfortable.

He keeps asking me the same thing. “Why are you doing this? Why?” And I keep telling him, “To keep you from publishing the article you’re publishing.” And he says, “But I have to publish it. It’s a scientific breakthrough.” And I keep saying, “Which is why we are here.” Which gets him starting up again with the “Why are you doing this? Why?”

That’s another thing I hate. Repetitive conversations.

And I don’t owe him an explanation about anything. I hate explaining. But I’m doing it because it serves a greater purpose.

So, small talk. Full name. Snorting like a pig. Repetitive conversations. Explaining things.

I finally raised the pistol to put an end to the conversation loop, which is what made him raise his arms a few moments ago. Like I’m a stagecoach bandit.

“I’m expected back at the hotel,” he says, his body shaking, hands still hovering an inch above the water, which…seems exhausting. “Colleagues are going to wonder where I am.”

“No one is going to be looking for you. The American president just got assassinated. People are in shock, they’re dazed, they’re distracted. With all that going on, people might not notice you’re gone for days. You don’t have a girlfriend, your work isn’t expecting you back until Tuesday—”

He starts crying. But I realize his anguish is not about his situation. His tears are for a dead president.

“They killed him,” he said, weeping.

It’s the drug.

I sigh.

“Can we get back to the human remains you found that caused you to write the article that is the reason I’m aiming a gun at you?”

He swallows with difficulty. “We—we found two naturally mummified human corpses in the area around Cane Island. They’re planning a power plant there, I guess. It’s not really an island.”

“Yeah, I get it. It’s just the least swampy part of the swamp.” Cane Island was well east of the area we were worried about and outside even our expanded map of possible hot spots and the property we owned, which concerned me. “Continue.”

“Anyway, the corpses were old. Three centuries maybe. Most likely from one of the local tribes. They were mostly intact and well-preserved by the mud. When we did testing, we found…anomalies.”

I laugh. “Anomalies. You’re lucky you’re not dead.”

“Yes. We initially used hazardous material protocols, which probably saved us, but we took much more stringent precautions after the results.”

“Why were you there in the first place?”

“We were interested in extremely old crocodiles. We thought maybe they might give us clues to biological longevity.”

“Crocodiles live in salty water. Not swamps.”

“That’s true. Brackish water is good enough.”

“But those swamps are fresh water.”

“Right. Anyway, crocodiles…they are capable of living for seventy to a hundred years. Sometimes even longer. But Alligators who are a close relative usually live no more than fifty.”

“I’m losing my patience,” I say squeezing the grip of the pistol.

Dr. Sampson’s hands jut forward, palms out, like he is pushing against an invisible wall. “Okay, yes.” He breathes out slowly. “A game officer, aware of our research alerted us to a pair of alligators that appeared to be much, much older than fifty. With his help, we captured the reptiles, brought them back to the lab, and determined they were well over a hundred and fifty years old. Which as far as we know, isn’t even possible. We performed necropsies on the alligators and found human remains in the stomach of one. We went looking for the source of those remains.” His hands lower again, as do his shoulders, his eyes. “We found them. And then…we got the anomalous viral result.”

“Which made you experiment with the isolated virus on mice. Which made you experiment on monkeys. Which made you test it in humans.”

“No! It’ll be decades. At least, before any human trials,” he says.

I shake my head. “It’ll be one decade.”

His surprise causes him to drop his hands into the water. “I’ve had thoughts that perhaps we could do it in a decade.”

“And you will.”

He looks at me. Like he did in the bar when I spoke his scientific jargon.

“You see, I know exactly what happens.” I narrow my gaze. “I know how this turns out. You create your little virus that can reprogram DNA in a controlled manner. You get the Nobel prize. You show a remarkable inherited increase in life expectancy of your G-One and G-Two mice. By G-Three, the effect is diminishing, but this work wins you another Nobel prize. By late 1973, you are trialing a delivery system on human subjects. Unfortunately, this is where you kill thousands of people.”

“What?”

“You don’t mean to. You’re a good man. Just a scientist. But you will. You. Will. Kill. Thousands.”

“How?”

“I just told you how.”

“How—how do you know all this? How can you possibly know what’s going to happen? Are you…” He looks around, suddenly more scared of something unseen than the pistol aimed at him. “…are you from the future?”

“No. I’m from the past. And unfortunately for you…we’ve learned from it.”

The crack echoes off the tiny island’s high ground as I put a bullet into Dr. Richard Sampson’s brain.

His body pitches backwards, his mouth twisted as if he’s about to say something pithy. He splashes into the surf and rolls over.

And now, his body will not sink. That air in the lungs thing.

I hear whimpering from behind me.

I turn away from the dead man in the water and find the face of the guy who was trying to pick me up last night. His tailored suit is rumpled, he is quite a good looking man now that he’s less talkative.

I slowly wade through the water, taking my time, dragging my fingers as I approach him. When I’m less than a foot away, I say, “So, you asked me a question at the bar.”

“Listen, I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t, I—”

“Shhhh. Relax.”

“I—I—”

He stares down at the pistol in my hand. I hold it up.

“See? No one aiming a gun at you. We’re just having a conversation. Like you had with me last night.”

“I was just asking you—”

“Yes. You were asking me if I wanted to leave, about you and me, getting out of there, going out for some fun. And I told you I’m waiting for someone. More than once. A lot more than once. But you kept asking.”

“I am very, very sorry about that.”

“So, let me ask you a question. You and me, we’re out. How are you enjoying it so far? You having fun?”

“I—” He breaks down.

“You’re not answering the young lady’s question,” Odebo says in a rather booming voice. I always get the soft, Teddy bear Odebo. This is the one you don’t want to come across on a battlefield. Or if he catches you mistreating a woman. Or if you’re an authoritarian dictator. I guarantee the disheveled nature of the man’s suit is due almost entirely to Odebo’s preferred method of transporting people from Point A to Point B. Dragging them by the back of their shirt.

“What do you want to hear?” the man says. “That I’m not happy? Well, I’m not happy.” He hyperventilates for a moment.

“I don’t want you to be unhappy. I want you to learn to listen better. Less talking. More listening.”

He finally calms his breathing only to lose it again. As he gasps for air, he barks out, “What are you going to do with me?”

“See, this is what I’m talking about. You need to listen. I had a very good idea, an unambiguous indication of what you wanted to do with me last night from just one stupid pickup line. You heard the whole conversation the good doctor and I had.” I motion toward the floating body. The man stares at it. The reality fully hitting him. This jolts him and suddenly he’s completely focused on his situation and on me. Okay, maybe the body still being here is a net positive. “You don’t have any idea what’s going on? Why you’re here?”

“No,” he whimpers.

He does, but he thinks denying it might save his life.

“He,” I gently pat the dead man’s back, “had an idealistic view of the world. An integrity that made it impossible for him to compromise ethically. Which normally is a good thing and would have been fine, had he not planned on publishing his article. You. Your moral compass is—shall we say—less true.” I let the words hang in the air. “Now, you’re going to go with my friend here. Your family—you remember you have a family, right? You kind of forgot about them last night.”

“Please, leave my family out of—”

“No!” I startle him. “I will not leave them out of it.” I take a breath. “We’re going to take care of your family.”

His face turns pale, the blood draining from his cheeks.

“Money. Resources. They are not going to want for anything. As long as you cooperate. See, you’re the type of man who can compromise his principles to get something he wants.” I put my hands to my chest. “Aren’t you?”

In that moment, we understand each other. He gives the faintest nod.

“What he was working on—it was breakthrough. Life extension of thirty to fifty percent in the test animals.”

“We know,” I say. “We also know you were instrumental in moving things along.”

“He had been looking at the problem too long. He was too close to it. It was his baby—” He puts his hand to his mouth and swallows hard. “My family…”

“You do what we ask, and I promise you’ll get constant updates about your family. Photos. Home movies from holidays, graduations. They will miss you terribly. But not as much…if, you do what we say. We’re giving you the opportunity to do something great. And someday, the world will know it. But while you do that great thing that my friends want you to do, you’re going to do something for me.” I hand him a vial of blood. “Carriers are asymptomatic. The virus completely clears the systems of most of the carriers around the time they hit puberty. For a quarter, it never does. And because adults are much more difficult than children to control, they end up like your colleague here. Well, burned usually. Safer for everyone that way. You are going to solve that problem.”

“Carriers of what?” he says, holding the vial up to the light.

“Think of it like a plague.”

He no longer wants the vial in his possession and holds it as far away from his body as he can as I wade toward the Chris-Craft.

“Who are you people?”

I don’t answer.

“Who are you? You can’t do this.”

I lift the gun. He shuts up. Again, much more attractive.

“I will personally kill your family if you don’t take this opportunity and do something with it. You have no idea what’s in store for you. And it’s not pain or torture. It is greatness.” I am close to him again. I lean in. “Great—ness. You will have the kind of resources you never dreamed of having. You will work with the greatest minds. Be smart and avail yourself of this chance. And you will be rewarded.” I rest my hand on his chest, slowly sliding it down. “Not from me,” I add. “But it will be better than you ever imagined.”

I climb into the Chris-Craft and start the motor.

I can see the giant sails emerging from behind the Key on the eastern side of the island where the galleon is invisible from the mainland. I can just make out Elam Khai pacing the quarterdeck. Not anxious, but expectant.

Odebo grabs the man and drags him toward the shore where they will wait for one of the galleon’s ship’s boats to pick them up.

“I’ll be seeing you again, Dr. Vroman,” I shout over the din of the motor. “I hope you have an answer for that problem in your hand by then.”

Odebo gives a single wave of his arm from the beach. I push the throttle and curve the boat back toward the mainland, the power of the engines and the water vibrating under my feet.

I feel a warmth spread over me. It is not the warmth of the setting sun on my skin. It is deeper. My body always tells me when the time comes. When I’m ovulating. It happens so rarely. Every three or four years. And each time, across eight centuries since it first came, I have locked myself away for a couple of weeks. Someplace no one could get to me. There have been Eternals who’ve tried to take me during these times. One got far enough that I had to nearly break our rule and kill him. He survived. But he limps a little now.

My body is screaming at me, telling me to go somewhere very far away. It is a call I have always heeded.

I reach the marina. And maneuver the boat into the slip.

Before I jump out, I check the stern pole. It’s done for. Someone will have to come out and replace it. I drop the fenders and tie off the lines with quick figure-eight cleat hitches.

Marching on the floating docks, my feet make a satisfying clatter. As if I’m a giant, five times my size.

I climb into the red Impala and turn the key. I undo the latches and lower the retractable roof. I let the engine idle for a moment as I lean my head back and gaze up at the darkening sky. I can see the first stars peeking through the deepening blue. Then I pull down on the shifter column and put the car into gear.

Far away. Where no man can touch me. That is what eight hundred years is compelling me to do.

I drive past City Hall and off Dinner Key.

To the north and west, all of America lies before me. Far away. There are so many places in that vast expanse of country that fit that description. So many places to conceal myself, to be alone, to disappear. Until my body tells me it is safe to return.

Instead, I turn east in a place where there is only a few hundred yards of east left and drive over the MacArthur Causeway toward the hotel where, by now, Braeden is waiting for me.

Four Decades Into the Future

I’m wearing that bikini. The one I got some time in the early 1960s. It’s not like I haven’t bought a thousand bikinis since then. There is just something about this one that makes me take it out every few years. The style is still fresh, the cut, flattering, but most of all, it vividly brings back that time for me. The parts I want to remember. The parts I want to forget. And, like I said, I’m not going to have a twenty-year-old’s body forever. Okay, twenty-one-and-a-half-year-old’s body if you want to get super technical about it. Whatever my exact physical age is, I need to take advantage of these remaining decades.

I’m laying out in the sun, which I know I’m not supposed to do, skin damage and all, but my coloring and genetic disposition give me an unfair advantage. I feel better after an hour in the sun. Like I’m part chrysanthemum. Vitamin D, they say. Who knows?

The sand is soft. And I play with it absently, letting it sift through my fingers. If only every beach in the world was like this. Pristine. Deserted.

I’m alone. There’s no one within miles of me. At least, until he shows up. I don’t have to open my eyes to know he’s there.

“Marcus, why is that you and your brother always seem to want to ruin relaxing in the sun for me?”

“It’s good to see you, too, Renika. You’re a difficult woman to find. Nice beach you got here all to yourself.”

We’re not really on a beach. We are on a sand dune in the middle of a desert. But I happened to be taking care of something nearby. And this is about as secluded as anywhere.

I reach inside my bikini top, then with my arm up, hold out a memory card. It’s maybe an inch wide. I’ve been expecting him.

“It’s all on there,” I say. “The Iranians are still creating weapons-grade nuclear material, but it’s far less in quantity than before. I don’t know why we’re bothering with them. We should be worrying about the North Koreans. And the Chinese and the Russians and the Indians and the Pakistanis and the Americans.”

“Who says I’m not.”

He hands me a different memory card, identical to the one I’ve given him.

“Same password on the encryption?”

“No.” He pauses for a moment, holding his breath on the inhale. “If Alexander comes to you—”

“Your little one?” I say too brightly.

“He isn’t little anymore.” His tone is slightly annoyed.

I know this, of course, but I like to say that because when I first met Alexander, the tenth of his name, early in my teenage centuries, he was little more than eight hundred.

“If he comes to you…in trouble, needing your help. Give him that. He’ll know how to access it. Not the next time you see him. Only if he’s in trouble.”

“Okaaaaay, that doesn’t make me curious at all what’s on this.”

“Don’t be curious. Trust me on this.”

“Whatever you say.”

He’s never been great at small talk—one of the things I love about Marcus. He asks me if I need anything. I tell him I don’t. He leaves, the tires of the dune buggy spinning a small sandstorm into existence as he speeds off.

As soon as he is out of sight, I retire to the twenty-by-twenty tent in the middle of nowhere that will be my home the next two weeks because it is that once-in-every-three-or-four-years time again. When my body screams at me, telling me to go somewhere very far away. The call that I have always heeded. Except the two times I didn’t. The first, that day a President was killed.

I flick on the work lights, and immediately, I start trying to hack into the data card.

I have no idea it will take me more than a decade to see the existential threat contained inside.

###

BABELFISH PRESS

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Copyright © 2019 by Edward Savio

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Table of Contents

Title Page

This Afternoon

Yesterday

The Day Before Yesterday

Last Night

The Night Before Last

Today

This Morning

This Afternoon

Four Decades Into the Future