Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

“I need your help,” I say. “I came here with a friend. You know him—or at least you know him as he was in this time. His name is Tanner Callahan, and he lives in these buildings. FuMA is training him to be a scientist.”

“Of course I know Tanner,” she says primly. “But I don’t play with him ’cause he’s a boy.”

“Can you…take me to him?”

“Sure. I know exactly where he is. He spends all his mornings in one place.”

I help her out of the lounge chair and, thank the Fates, she seems steady enough on her feet. We stop by the room next door, the other half of William’s office.

He’s picking helmet contraptions off the floor, from where they must’ve been knocked down. “Are you taking Olivia? I don’t want her going anywhere unless it’s back to MK. You and Logan better get out of here. Especially now that we know what the future holds.” He shakes his head, his face almost translucent next to his red hair. “That vision was damn scary. Jeesh. No wonder the chairwoman wants to keep it under wraps.”

“You have my word I’ll get Olivia back to MK.” I cross to him and take his hand. I don’t know him, but he helped my sister. For that, I’ll always be grateful. “Things are about to get…crazy. You’ve helped us enough. I don’t want to get you in more trouble by telling you anything else.”

He nods, and I know this is nothing new for him. As an Underground sympathizer and a FuMA employee, he’s used to operating on a need-to-know basis.

We leave. Olivia walks next to me sedately. No jumping. No skipping. A completely different girl than the one who ran down these halls earlier.

“Olivia, are you okay?” I ask softly. She might be the most powerful precognitive of our time, but she’s still a little girl. One who just saw a vision of her mother condemning her to death.

“My mother doesn’t love me.”

“I’m sure she does,” I say automatically and then wince. I know no such thing. I don’t know if Dresden is capable of loving anyone, even her own daughter. “I mean, in her own way, she must.” Fike. Am I making things better or worse?

“That vision…” Her voice is so young, but the knowledge in her tone is beyond her years. Fates, it’s beyond my years. “It doesn’t have to be the future, you know. It’s only one of many possible paths. We still have time to change it.”

“I know.” The words are heavy with all the tears I still have left to shed. “When Callie left you, she came to my room and injected the syringe into her own heart. She thought it would save our world from genocide.”

“No. I’ve seen the future. I saw the girl who changes everything. And it’s not Callie. At first, I thought it was, since you two look so much alike. But I was wrong. You’re the one who saves our world.”

My mouth goes dry. “You mean because I came back here to the past? Am I successful? Does Callie wake up ten years from now?”

“I don’t know. That wasn’t part of my memory. That’s not what I saw.”

I’m almost afraid to ask. “What did you see?”

She turns to me, her eyes as luminous as the stars, as the galaxy, as time itself. If I look closely enough, I’m certain I’ll be able to see my future. Everyone’s future.

“I can’t tell you much,” she says. “When you know too much, too early, the future has a way of not coming true. But I’ll say this much: I see you next to me. We are fighting.”

Every cell in my body goes still. This is what the future Olivia told me as well. “Who are we fighting? And why?”

She presses her lips together, and I know it’s useless to pry. She’s already told me everything she’s willing to say. We walk the next two corridors in silence, and then Olivia stops at a closed door.

“Here we are,” she says. “Tanner should be inside, playing with his mazes and mice. That’s all he ever does.”

“Thank you. Do you know how to get back to MK?”

She nods.

“Will you promise to go straight there?”

She nods again.

And that’s it. Any moment now, she’ll leave, and I won’t see her for the next ten years. But I don’t want to let her go like this. Knowing her mother doesn’t love her. Believing she’s alone in the world.

I take her arm. It’s so skinny, so frail. Once upon a time, I had arms like this. “Olivia, wait. I’m your friend. You know that, right? No matter what time or place I’m in, I’ll always be your friend.”

She nods a third time, her eyes wider than usual, and scurries down the hallway.

I take a deep breath and face the door. Whatever the older Tanner Callahan is doing, I’m about to find out.

I open the door—and not a moment too soon. The older Tanner has a little boy in his arms, and he’s half carrying, half dragging him toward a spinning spherical blade. The kind used to cut through wood. A tool you would need to construct mazes out of planks of varying sizes. A whine fills my ears as the blade slashes through the air. Just as easily as it would slice through human skin.

The boy kicks and screams as though his life depended on it—and maybe it does.

I run up to them and grab Tanner’s arm. “Tanner! What are you doing?”

He flicks my hand away like it’s an insect. “This kid is stronger than I remember being,” he pants.

“I don’t care who you are,” the boy screams. “I don’t care if you are me. You could be Father Time himself, and I still wouldn’t let you hurt me.”

“Pay attention, you little brat,” Tanner says, his voice strained. “This is for your own good. It’s a bit of pain for a lifetime of remembrance.”

He grabs the boy’s hand—his younger self’s hand—and tries to force it toward the spinning blade.

My heart lurches. Dear Fates. I step between them and the spinning blade. “Tanner, stop! Explain to me what you’re doing.”

He looks up, his eyes so wild I almost don’t recognize him. “If anyone would approve, it should be you. I’m giving myself a reminder of what’s important.”

He pushes his younger self to the floor and digs his elbows into the boy’s back. “I’m the cause of future genocide. I invented future memory. I take full responsibility, and that’s why I’m going to fix it.” He sucks in a breath, winces as if it hurts, and then sucks in another one. “If I cut off some of my fingers, then I’ll change the course of our future. When I grow up and see that severed mouse’s leg, I’ll know not to do what I did. Not to invent future memory. We’ll shift to another path. The riot won’t happen. Callie’s life won’t be in danger. Chairwoman Dresden will continue to be stymied.”

“We can’t change the past.” I grip his shoulders. “You’re the one who keeps reminding me. Remi—”

“Will still be born,” he interrupts. “If you saved Callie, the ripples would extend to everyone close to her, which includes Mikey and Angela. But my ripples will die long before it touches any of you. None of you even know me at this time. We won’t even live in the same city for six more years. Whether or not I’m missing a few fingers won’t affect any of your lives one iota.”

“You don’t know that,” I whisper.

His jaw tightens. “The payoff is too great. I have to risk it.” He gets off the boy and, with renewed energy, hauls him up and once more tries to force his hand to the blade.

My mind spins, working through his logic.

If he’s right, future memory wouldn’t be invented. Callie would still be bonded to me. Dresden would have to find another way.

And Tanner…Tanner would be missing a few fingers. He’ll bear the scars for the rest of his life. Add to this the torture that’s about to come, and it will rock him to his very core. It will change him.