Meredith McCardle - The Eighth Guardian

“Hold on to them carefully,” Zeta says. “Otherwise you’re going to be hitchhiking your way home.”

The three of us get through the security line in record time. The plane is boarding as we walk up, and it’s not until we’re on the plane that I realize we’re sitting in first class. I stop in my tracks in front of Row 2. Indigo comes up behind me and leans down so close that I can feel his breath blow on my neck. It sends shivers down my arms.

“Aisle or window?” he asks.

“Window,” I say.

“Then get in there and quit holding up the line.” He’s smiling at me, so I playfully punch him in the arm and climb in. Zeta takes the seat across the aisle and instantly pulls out his phone and starts typing an e-mail. Or maybe he’s changing national security codes. I have no idea really.

“I’ve never flown first class,” I say, settling into the roomy leather seat. I could get used to this.

“We always fly first class,” Indigo says. “Although don’t get too excited. This flight is barely more than an hour, and you’re not going to be happy when we land.”

I’m about to ask him what he means when a man comes around and offers us bottles of water. I reach up to the seat in front of me to unhook the tray table, but there isn’t one.

Indigo chuckles behind me and taps the armrest of my seat. “It’s in here.”

I stare out the window as we take off, then close my eyes and lean the seat back. I’m starting to think I was too quick to judge Annum Guard before. I’d always thought I’d live a high-pressure life where I was constantly all over the world, putting my life in danger almost daily, never having a permanent address. But now I imagine myself jetting across the country, maybe even the world, traveling back in time and enhancing our history, then making it home all in time for dinner.

Of course, there is no Abe in my future with Annum Guard.

Before I know it, the pilot announces our initial descent. I straighten my chair and fold up the tray before tucking it back into the armrest.

When we deplane, there’s a driver dressed in a black suit outside the airport, holding a handwritten sign that says SMITH. Zeta walks up to him and shakes his hand, then we all pile into another black Town Car and head into the city. No one says a word the entire trip, which only takes about twenty minutes. The driver drops us off on the corner of Potomac and N Street. We’re in a residential zone, and there are a bunch of brownstones lining the street.

Zeta stops us at a house on the corner as a college-age guy wearing black plastic glasses and a yellow-and-green plaid shirt tucked into black skinny jeans slows to a halt in front of us. He turns to Indigo. “Cool tie, bro. Urban Outfitters?”

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing as Indigo flashes a coy smile. “It’s vintage.”

“Going for legit cred. I like it.” And then he nods his head and keeps walking. I look at Indigo and can’t help but smile.

“Can we focus, please?” Zeta asks in a clipped voice. I wipe the smile off my face and turn to see him gesturing toward a brick three-story with a bright-red front door and a little herb garden planted out front. “This is it,” he says.

“Annum Guard headquarters?” I guess. It makes sense that a government organization would have its headquarters in the nation’s capital, but Zeta shakes his head.

“You live in Annum Guard headquarters. We don’t have an official presence in DC. They don’t mention our name in public, our funding is hidden in miscellaneous Title 10 projects, and only those persons with the highest level of clearance know about our existence. Anonymity keeps us safe, Iris.”

I don’t know what it is about Zeta, but he has a way of making me feel as if I’m being scolded every time he speaks to me.

He clears his throat. “Training mission number Iris-Two,” he says as he points to the house we’re standing in front of. “In the fall of 1960, this brownstone was home to one Eugene McCarthy, a Democratic senator out of Minnesota. Do you know anything about Senator McCarthy?”

Senator McCarthy. That name sounds familiar. And then it hits me.

“Communism!” I practically shout. “Senate hearings to determine whether there were any communists living in America. He organized it. Led to a lot of Hollywood people being blacklisted.”

Zeta shakes his head. “Wrong McCarthy. You’re about ten years too late. And that was Joseph McCarthy. We’re dealing with Eugene McCarthy.”

“Oh,” I say. “Then I know nothing about Senator McCarthy.”

“Nor do you need to. Your mission is a simple one. At precisely 8:53, Senator McCarthy is going to walk down those steps, hail a cab, and head to the Capitol building just in time for an important vote, which takes place at 9:08. You are going to make him miss that cab and miss that vote, thereby freeing up funds that your modern-day commerce secretary has decided would have been better spent on . . . other projects. Understand?”

This is just like Alpha’s first example to me. The smallest feeling of disappointment creeps in. Making someone miss a cab? Ho-hum. But I nod my head.

“You get one try,” Zeta says in a hushed whisper as he walks a few yards down Potomac and stops in front of a black gate leading into the backyard. He takes a black leather pouch from his inside suit pocket, jiggles the padlock on the gate, and pulls a tension wrench and hook lock pick from the pouch. The lock clicks open in about three seconds. “If you fail, you fail. No going back in time again to correct your mistakes. We can project back here without being seen. Now set your watch. October 25, 1960.”

I look over at Indigo, who’s already turning the knobs on his watch as he steps through the gate into someone’s backyard. I do the same. I start to shut the lid, but Zeta reaches out and grabs my hand before I can.

“One word of caution. This is your first time projecting outside of Annum Hall. The gravity chamber spares us some of the stresses that projection can wreak on our bodies.” Beside him, Indigo nods his head with his lips pursed. “Traveling this way is rough, I won’t lie to you. Most times we opt to travel from Annum Hall and commute to our location in the past. Sometimes this is impractical, say if I needed to get from Boston to San Francisco in 1849. Much easier to hop a flight to San Francisco in present day than to travel three thousand miles in a covered wagon.”

“They had air travel in 1960,” I point out. At least I think they did.

“I know. But I wanted you to experience this. To know how it used to be for all of us.”

“So this is like hazing?” I clutch the watch in my hand and squeeze.

Zeta doesn’t respond. He turns to Indigo. “Are you ready?”

Indigo swallows what I can only assume is the lump in his throat and gives one quick nod of the head. “Ready, sir.”

And then Zeta looks down at me. “Iris?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” It’s the truth.

Zeta stares straight ahead. “Watches shut, on the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!”

I slam my watch face lid shut, and instantly I know something is wrong. I’m falling too fast. My body can’t keep up. My limbs are straining, stretching, and I can’t breathe. Can’t talk. My eyes are bulging out of their sockets as wind whips through them, threatening to yank them free. My limbs are being stretched too far. They’re going to pop off. Every muscle in my body shrieks in pain. I try to scream but make no sound. I want this to stop. I want this to stop now.

And just like that I slam hard into the ground. I gasp for breath and look up. I’m on my hands and knees in Senator McCarthy’s backyard.

Indigo and Zeta stand over me, and Indigo bends a knee and comes down to the ground. “Are you all right?”