The Eighth Guardian (22 page)

The first day of combat training at Peel, I got paired up with a girl named Jordan Magnus. It was the first Krav Maga class either of us had taken, but it turned out that Jordan was already something of a jujitsu maven. I learned this the hard way when I took a roundhouse kick square to the gut. It knocked the wind out of me and left me writhing on the ground, gasping and choking and sure I was going to die.

That’s how I feel at this moment.

“Dr. Ariel Stender,” Alpha says. I stare at the photo. I don’t breathe. I can’t breathe. I know who he is. Of course I know who he is. Alpha starts talking about his background, and I nod and nod and nod. I don’t know what else to do.

Alpha keeps saying the name. Dr. Stender. Dr. Stender. Dr. Stender. Over and over and over again. Stender. Ariel Stender. Abe Stender. And I’d be lying if I said that there wasn’t a notebook lying around somewhere from freshman year with a bunch of hearts and the name Mrs. Amanda Obermann-Stender scribbled in it.

I stare at the picture in the folder. Ariel looks so much like Abe it’s scary—it was always a big joke at the Stender dinner table. They have the same protruding brow, the same intense, heavy eyes.

According to Abe, it’s bad luck in the Jewish religion to name a baby after a living relative, so many times parents choose a name starting with the same letter as a deceased relative. Abe technically was named after a distant second cousin named Adam, but everyone kind of understands that—wink, wink, nudge, nudge—he’s named in honor of Ariel.

Alpha is still talking about Ariel’s background. Why? I already know it. He has to know that I know it. Ariel received a bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from Harvard, then a PhD in aeronautics from MIT. I’m sure it goes without saying, but the man’s wicked smart. He was in the running for a Nobel one year, although he was edged out by some guy who studied liquid crystals and polymers. He lectures all over the world and has even been on a first-name basis with the last three presidents.

Although, honestly, you’d never know that Ariel has all these amazing credentials. There aren’t any diplomas hanging in his study, no awards littering the hallways. You won’t find any of the dozens of books he’s authored shoved into his bookcases. He lives in the same modest house in Cambridge that he grew up in as a child, and he drives a Toyota that’s older than I am.

“Ariel invented time travel?” I ask.

Alpha stops midsentence. He was saying something, but I’m not sure what. I haven’t taken my eyes off the picture.

His shoulders drop, and he lets out a quick breath. “No. He invented the Annum watches.”

“Ariel,” I repeat. “Ariel Stender. He’s involved with Annum Guard?”

“He invented the Annum watches,” Alpha repeats. “I warned you that this was going to be difficult for you, but you have to focus now. It’s our only chance.”

I can’t focus. I feel as if I’ve been handcuffed and blindfolded and pitched into the deep end of a swimming pool.

“You know about Abe and me?” I ask. It’s a stupid question. Of course he does. He doesn’t even respond to it. I drop my head to look at the picture again.

Alpha gently guides my head back up with his hand. His eyes are soft. “Can you do this? I need you to look me in the eyes right this second and tell me you can do this. You’re only going to have one shot. I’ve been given orders to detain you in Annum Hall until this evening, when the proper authorities will arrive to take you and dispose of you.”

I recoil.
Dispose
of me. Like I’m trash.

Last night I was the happiest I’ve been in a really long time. Maybe the happiest I’ve ever been. What a difference a few hours can make.

“Iris,” Alpha says.

“I can do this,” I tell him, looking him right in the eyes.

It’s a lie. Maybe. I don’t know. My head is a foggy mess. I can’t think right now. Abe’s grandfather invented the Annum watches. I knew he was smart, but how else is he involved? Does he know about Annum Guard? He has to. Does
Abe
know about Annum Guard? My heart skips a beat. If Abe knows about it, then there’s a chance he’ll come looking for me when he realizes I haven’t gone CIA.

Unless he’s moved on, found another girlfriend, and doesn’t care about me anymore.

I don’t have time to think. Alpha bends down and inserts a key into a lock on his desk drawer. He pulls out a silver case, and I immediately know what it is.

“I’m not going to need a gun,” I tell him.

Alpha hands it over anyway. “Take it for protection.”

I hesitate. What does he think I’m going to do, shoot Ariel if he won’t change his design? And then I look in Alpha’s eyes, and I understand. That’s exactly what he wants me to do.

I drop the gun on the desk.

“Never mind,” I say.

But then an image of myself as an old lady pacing an eight-by-ten cell fills my head. There are track marks crisscrossing the floor. I weigh about eighty pounds. I’m hunched over with long, wiry hair and crazy eyes. I scream at the guards. I tell everyone who will hear me about Annum Guard. But no one believes me. After all, I’ve been telling the same story for the last seventy years.

I pick the gun back up.

I head upstairs to change into something period appropriate. I barely even notice what I choose but somehow wind up in black pants with a light-pink sweater. So not my color. And then I’m downstairs, with a gun holster strapped to my ankle, and Alpha is walking me toward the gravity chamber.

“One shot,” he says. “This is all up to you.”

I nod my head.

“Set your watch to go back to March 30, 1962. Stender has invented the watches but hasn’t yet added the genetic controls. He’s on the faculty at MIT. That’s where you’ll find him. You can do this.”

I don’t say anything. I just keep nodding my head like a deranged seal. And then Alpha opens the door and pushes me through it.

I fall into familiar blackness but barely feel the sensations today. The ache and confusion in my heart have blocked out everything. I land in the broom closet and hesitate. Will this be the last time I’m here? The door opens into the street. The last time I see the sun?

I shake the thought from my head and jog toward the Red Line. Charles Street is only a few blocks away, and MIT is right across the river. The gun feels heavy as I run. It’s weighing me down. I should stop and get rid of it. I’m not going to need it. But I don’t.

The Charles Street station is there, but there’s no sign directing me to the Red Line. Instead it’s telling me I’ve found a Boston Elevated stop. Whatever. There’s no time to think about it. There’s a rumbling and a screeching above that can only mean the train is approaching. Massachusetts General Hospital looms in front of me as I race up the steps. Sure enough, a train is pulling in just as I get there, and I push myself in between the mass of morning commuters squeezing themselves through the doors. The train is jam-packed, mostly with men wearing business suits and hats, holding a handle with one hand and a briefcase with the other. A lot of them have the
Globe
tucked under their arms, including the man next to me, the one I’m currently pressed right up against as the final wave of passengers boards the train. I glance at his paper.

Friday, March 30, 1962

I strain a little harder to read the headline.

VOLPE GETS HUB POLICE BILL; POWERS DARES HIM TO VETO IT

I have no idea what that means. I don’t care either. The doors slide shut behind me. I grab a handle just as the train starts rocking and swaying its way across the salt-and-pepper bridge. I don’t know what the real name of this bridge is. I’ve just always called it that because the statues on top look like salt and pepper shakers.

Will this be the last time I see this bridge? The full enormity of the situation starts to sink in. If I fail—if I don’t convince Ariel to change the design—they’re going to take me away. Part of me screams that they can’t do that. It’s unconstitutional. It’s inhumane. But another part of me knows that the rules are different here. The Constitution doesn’t apply to people like me. I’m a part of the government but outside its laws and protections. They can do whatever they want with me. After all, I’ve already given them permission to do it.

The train ducks underground and stops at Kendall station a few minutes later. I push my way through the crowd and trudge up the steps. MIT is across the street, so I hang back as a big black submarine of a car rolls through the intersection, then join a throng of students shuffling to class.

I sidle up to a young man wearing dark pants, a white shirt, and a skinny black tie. “Excuse me.”

He turns to look at me, his big blue eyes hidden behind horn-rimmed glasses. He could be a modern-day hipster.

“Where’s the physics building?” I figure that’s where I’m going to find Ariel.

The guy’s brow creases, and he pushes his glasses up on to the bridge of his nose. “Which physics building?” he asks. “There are a number of them.”

Oh. Right. Of course there are.

“Are you looking for a specific professor?” he asks.

“Stender. Dr. Ariel Stender.”

The guy nods as if he’s heard of Ariel. “Oh, okay. I had Stender for eight oh four.” And I nod as if I understood that. “His office is in Building Twenty-six.”

Wow. That’s lucky. I thank him and jog across campus, although I have to ask two more people to point me in the right direction. This campus is confusing. Finally I find a five-story rectangle with louvered windows and an orange sign telling me I’ve found Building 26.

I step into a long hallway with white linoleum floors and overhead fluorescent lights. It would be nice if there was a directory, but at least the first person I ask—a girl in a gray tweed suit with a pillbox hat—knows Ariel’s office is on the fifth floor.

I thank her, then take a deep breath and follow behind a cluster of guys heading for the stairs. His office is right off the landing.
PROF. A. STENDER
is stenciled on the door in big black letters I can’t miss. The door is shut, so I knock. My heart is hammering in my chest, and I place my hand over it like it will escape if I don’t. I think I’m more nervous than I was for the Gardner mission. There’s so much riding on this, and I’m about to plunge back into my past. And what I always hoped would be my future.

I hear footsteps inside the office, and I hold my breath. The door swings open, and a young, petite female wearing a plain, long-sleeved olive-green dress opens it. She’s holding a sandwich in her hand and is standing in stocking-clad feet. She looks vaguely familiar, but that can’t be right.

“Yes?” She holds the sandwich out to the side. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Dr. Stender.”

“He’s not here.”

I look past her into the cramped office. Its shelved walls are about to burst with books piled haphazardly on top of one another. That’s so very like Ariel. Cluttered chaos. Yet he always knows exactly where everything is.

“Where can I find him?” I tap my foot against the floor. Nervous tic.

“That depends on what you need him for.” She shoots me a raised eyebrow. I’m not sure who this girl is, but she’s clearly no-nonsense. I kind of admire that. But I don’t have time to make friends. I have to find Ariel, convince him to change the design, and then get the hell out of here. Now.

“I’m here about—” And then I stop talking. What do I say? I’m a visitor from the future here to convince him to change something about his time machine? “His funding,” I decide on. “I’m here about his funding.”

The girl’s eyes get wide. “Oh shoot.” She drops the sandwich onto a plate set on the messy desk and wipes her hands on her dress. “Are you from the Kershul Group?” But then she stops and looks me up and down. “You look so young.”

“I’m older than I look.”

The girl offers a meek smile. “I’m so sorry if I sounded cross before. I’m trying to finish these calculations for Dr. Stender, and I’m a little frazzled right now.”

I hold up a hand. “It’s perfectly all right. My name is . . . Peggy Hart.” That name sounds as if it’s from the sixties, I think. “And yes, I’m from the . . .” Dammit all, what did she say the name of that group was?

“You’re from Kershul.” The girl slips her feet into black heels. “We got your telegram yesterday. You’re early. We weren’t expecting you until next week.”

“Oh, well, I was in the neighborhood,” I lie. I’m just going to go with it.

“From San Francisco?” the girl asks as she grabs her pocketbook and pulls the door shut behind her. She sounds confused, but she smiles at me as if she’s not. “Dr. Stender is in Building Twenty. I’ll take you there.”

“I had other business to attend to on the East Coast.” We start down the stairs. I really need to stop talking now. The best lies are the simplest. They taught us that at Peel. I’m making mine far too complicated. They’re going to see through it.

The girl stops in the lobby and looks at me. “Not at Harvard?” There’s an edge to her voice now.

I clear my throat. “Where’s Building Twenty?”

The girl laughs and pushes open the door, then holds it for me. “You’re funny. Building Twenty. You know where it is. It’s where the Rad Lab used to be. Kershul helped fund it.”