Ch.16 Timebomb
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Parker

Tomorrow 7:30 A.M.

I woke up in the morning with something flashing in my eyes. As I blearily came to, I recalled that I was no longer in my bed and probably never would be again. It was a harsh reality that I had only barely prepared myself for. What I hadn’t anticipated, was waking up to a cavalcade of police cars and four ominous looking black sedans surrounding the Jeep.

As soon as I could see out of the window, I noticed a man standing next to a police car with a radio in his hand and a voice boomed out. “Please exit the vehicle. You are all under arrest for suspicion of the use of magic. Any resistance will be met with force.”

“Fuck.” Rosalind said, rubbing her own eyes awake. The other two followed shortly thereafter and with a shared shrug, we all seemed to come to the conclusion that we wouldn’t try to put up a fight. There were cops and agents all around us and I didn’t think that the combined might of Olivia and Vera would be enough to take out enough of them to even have a chance of making it out alive.

“I’m sorry you guys. Say whatever you need to in order to stay alive. Throw me under the bus. It’s okay” Rosalind said as she slowly stepped out of the car with her hands up. The rest of us did likewise and the man with the radio told us to put our hands on the vehicle. Cops closed on us with weapons drawn and started cuffing each of us in turn.

I could barely see through the tears as we were split up and placed in different cars. Everyone seemed to conduct themselves with dignity though; none of us wailed and screamed. We all knew it was over before it had even begun.

The car I was put into had two agents in it though one of them seemed a little less official than the others. He wasn’t wearing the same suit and earpiece as the others. When the car started up and got onto the road, I tried to ask where I was being taken, what I was being charged with and so on. I was told to shut my mouth.

After about 15 minutes the squirrely looking guy who wasn’t dressed like an agent started talking to the man driving the car. “I found ‘em like I said I would, right? So, you guys are going to start giving me some privileges, right? I’m talking tv, good food, all that stuff. And a nicer bedroom I think too, if you want me to keep tracking for you. “

“We’ll see about that, Walter. You did good so that does come with some perks.” The agent seemed reluctant to be giving anything to this Walter fellow, but wanted to make nice since this guy was apparently integral to the search effort.

“What should I do with these?” He held up a bag with some random items in them. It looked like it had a necklace and a sock and a toothbrush.

“I don’t know, Walter. Just leave it in the car. We don’t need that junk anymore.”

My curiosity won out over my caution and I couldn’t help but ask “What is all of that?”

The twitchy guy turned back to me “I used their possessions to track ‘em, always got a good idea of their direction. Just a matter of getting close enough to pinp…”

“Walter, shut your damn mouth. Don’t be telling this girl all about it.” The other agent said and looked very annoyed with Walter. 'What a weird time to get validation from a stranger', I thought.

“Who cares? She’s going to the farm anyway, right?”

The other agent looked back at me for a moment and gave me an inscrutable look. “Just shut up, alright.”

We drove the rest of the way mostly in silence. Walter did try to get the agent to stop for tacos but this idea was shot down as soon as it was spoken. We arrived after a couple hours at a facility that looked like everything that I ever pictured a shady government black site to be. An ugly building sat squat on a road by itself in the middle of nowhere and surrounded by a high wall topped with razor wire.

I didn’t even see the others when I was ushered in and put in a small room with some recording equipment and a couple chairs. I was left alone for about an hour when two new agents came in with a black case and a basket of coffees. “Coffee, Mr. Connors?”

So much for all that nice validation. “Yeah, sure. Cream and sugar, please.” I couldn’t help being polite even in the face of these two jerks. They handed me a cup with all the accessories to the side for me to use at my leisure. My hands were still cuffed in front of me, but I could manage.

As I was doing this, the first agent said “Mr. Connors, you are aware that you were traveling with known mages in a stolen vehicle, is that right?”

I didn’t know what to say, but everything I’d read online about interactions with the police boiled down to one thing. “I’m exercising my right to remain silent until such time as I am afforded an attorney.” The second agent made a gesture to the first as if to say, ‘get a load of this guy’.

“Oh, don’t worry about that Mr. Connors. Since the crime in question involves the use of magic, we don’t have to concern ourselves with all that Miranda bullshit. And you can’t deny it; look at you. Judging from your driver’s license photo, I doubt your own mother would recognize you. You’ve obviously been affected by magic in some way”

He paused here for me to say something but I continued to keep silent. “Well, it doesn’t matter. We don’t really need a deposition just yet. First, we have to make sure you weren’t affected. Cole and his friends did have two shards on them when we brought them in and while we’re pretty sure that all the charges were used, we do need to cross our T’s and dot our I’s.

The second agent was pulling a tripod out of the black case that they had entered with. He set it up and placed a real-life shard on the top, exactly like Rosalind’s description of the Test. Vera and them hadn’t even had the chance to show me theirs and I hadn’t known that they still had one much less two. The agent pushed a button on the side of the device.

Present Day

10:30 A.M.

I woke up with that fucking song in my head again. ‘Wait, what?’ I thought as I nearly fell out of my bed. My bed in my room in Denver. “What the fuck?” I actually said this time. I grabbed the phone from my bedside table and checked the time. It was the morning before everything happened. I was also saddened to notice that I had been returned to my old body.

Had the government tried to wipe my mind with that device? But then why would it be yesterday? Wait, if it’s yesterday, then Vera and her friends will be here in a couple hours. That is, assuming the government hasn’t somehow put me in some elaborate VR sim in order to trick me into incriminating my friends? No, that doesn’t make sense. They were already caught and had definitely been using magic.

I didn’t know what to do with myself while I waited for them to arrive. I knew I had a few hours, but I was an anxious mess trying to wrack my brain trying to figure out what exactly had happened. I decided though, that I should get them away from my house as soon as they showed up.

I spent the intervening hours mostly drinking coffee and pacing around the living room. And as much as I was expecting it; I still nearly jumped out of my skin when the doorbell rang. I rushed to the door, and opened it to see Vera standing there just as she had been the day before. “Vera, good. You’re okay. We have to go.” I said and started off for the car parked at the curb.

“Hi Park.. hey, what?” Vera said, trailing off as she jogged to catch up with me.

“Come on, there’s a good burger joint down the road. I know you guys are hungry.” I slid into the car next to a very confused Olivia.

“What’s happening now?” Olivia said.

“Look, I’ll explain it all when we get there, but the cops are a lot closer on your heels than you think. Just go.” When Vera got back into her seat, Rosalind took off so fast that the car nearly peeled out.

Vera turned around in her seat, she hadn’t even buckled up. “Parker, what the hell?”

“Take a right here.” I directed Rosalind. And then said to Vera “Trust me, it’ll make sen… no, it won’t make sense, but I assure you that I’m trying to help you guys out, and you are in more danger than you know.”

We filed out of the car and into the burger place. I asked for a booth in a back corner and as soon as we were seated, I started in on what I knew. “This already happened. I met you guys yesterday and left with you. We got a new car and left the city and when we woke up in the morning, we were surrounded by police and arrested.”

“None of us have weird time powers, Parker. Oh, this is my cousin, Parker by the way. I guess I don’t need to introduce Rosalind and Olivia to you though.” Vera said gesturing at each of us in turn.

“I know your abilities can’t do that. But I have no idea how that happened. There’s more I need to tell you.” Rosalind was being uncharacteristically quiet from what I had seen of her the day before. This information had obviously rattled all of them.

“They have a tracker. Another magic user who is using items that you guys once owned to find you.” At this, Olivia sank her face into her hands, and Rosalind looked like she wanted to hit something.

“But it’s not that precise. If I understood him correctly, he can always sense your direction, but not exactly how far you are in that direction.” The conversation came to a natural lull then and the waiter came to our table to take our orders. Everybody seemed to be thinking about what I had told them.

“So, they could show up right now?” Vera asked, still a little confused.

“I don’t know. They didn’t catch up to you until tomorrow morning, and we had all slept in the Jeep you stole overnight.”

Olivia lifted her head up and gave me a curious look. “Parker, what happened when we were arrested?”

“Umm… we were separated and then I was brought to an interrogation room and they used the Test on me. That’s the last thing I remember.”

Olivia clapped her hands softly in triumph. “You were the one who got the time powers!” Olivia whispered loud enough for the rest of us to hear, but hopefully no one else.

“What?” I and the other two seemed to ask at once.

“Sometimes these things have more than three charges. And Parker stayed the night with us all cooped up in a Jeep with all our luggage.” Olivia was grinning ear to ear, thrilled with her own insight.

“Then, when they gave her the Test, it triggered her power.”

“So, do I still have them?” I wondered idly to myself more than the others.

“I have no idea. I mean, you didn’t have them when you did this day the first time. But still, it might not be the best time to experiment.” Olivia suggested.

Rosalind seemed to want to veer us back on track. “So how do we deal with this tracker guy?”

“Walter.” I offered. “I don’t think he was an agent himself. He seemed like he was some mage that they arrested and then used for their own purposes.”

“Well, if he knows direction but not distance, then we should get on a plane.” Vera said.

“That’s easier said than done, even with our abilities” Rosalind thought for a moment and then added “And there’s really only one place we can go now. I don’t think that even leaving the country would be safe if they could find us as soon as we settled down anywhere.” Everything Rosalind said seemed to have a weight of authority since she was still dressed and formed into an older white lady, it was hard not to treat her as a maternal figure or at the very least, someone who might ask to speak to my manager.

I knew the place that they were alluding to though, and it was where I assumed that we were going yesterday when we headed east. “But they’ll be expecting you to go that way?” I half-asked, curious about how they planned to get there and through the blockade around the dome.

“There’s something else we need to settle first” Vera said. “After what happened in your timeline, Parker, do you still want to come with us?”

I’d been thinking this question over in my head during the hours I spent waiting for them this morning. I didn’t want to look like a coward, but they had been caught so fast. My parents were horrible, but better the devil you know. “No, I think I’ll stay this time. That’s why I brought you guys here. I didn’t want there to be so much as a strand of hair or a fingerprint to connect us when the government comes calling.” I made a mental note to take a cleaning rag to the doorknob when I got back.

“But Rosalind, there is something I was wondering if you could do for me?” I asked. I felt like an ass for abandoning them and then asking for favors.

“Of course, that is ostensibly what we’re here for. Wow, I’d almost forgotten.”

“Just a few alterations after we finish lunch is all.”

We dug into our food and the others argued about their plans. Whether or not to try to get on a plane here in Denver or drive elsewhere to try to throw them off and then board a plane. When we were finished, Rosalind and I headed into the ladies.

The restroom was a single person sort of deal, so we didn’t have to worry about anyone else. I locked the door behind us and told Rosalind “Okay, so when we did this yesterday, I mean… the other today, you were able to turn my testes into partially functional ovaries.”

“I did?”

“Yeah, but you had to feel your own first, I guess. I don’t know.  It was weird. You stuck your hand inside yourself.”

“Oh, I have those, huh. Guess I hadn’t thought about that.” And she did just as she had the day before feeling around to figure out how everything worked. “Okay, I guess you know how this goes. Get naked.”

“Right.” And I disrobed, a little more uncomfortable since Rosalind wasn’t nearly as cute today as she had been the last time. She got to work and I directed her to do smaller alterations than before. I couldn’t look like a different person this time, but I had been on hormones so there was plausible deniability. I just had her soften things up a bit, get rid of my brow ridge, taper my hands a little. And since I now had my own custom hormone factories installed, I would change more as those did their thing.

It probably didn’t take more than 10 minutes altogether. The four of us gathered by the minivan in the parking lot. I told them that I would walk home and wished them luck. I couldn’t thank Rosalind enough for what she had done… again.

I hugged Vera and wished her well. It was so bittersweet to get to have her in my life for such a short time and now I might never see her again. The fact that the three of them had been on the run for their lives and still came to help out a person they barely knew meant more than I could say with words, but I promised them whatever help I could offer in the future.

I watched them drive away through tear-stained eyes. I spent the rest of the day worrying that I had asked Rosalind for too many alterations. That my parents or the government agents would know that I had been in contact with them. At Rosalind’s request I made sure to delete all correspondence with Vera from my phone and PC from the last year.

Two Days Later

In the evening after classes, there came a knock on the door downstairs. A few minutes later, my dad’s bellowing voice called for me to come down. When I did so, I saw two agents, but neither of them were the ones I interacted with in what I was beginning to think of as the failed timeline.

The eyebrows of both agents seemed to rise in unison when they saw me and they gave each other knowing looks. We sat at the kitchen table and they began to interrogate me about Rosalind and her friends to which I played as stupid as I could. When they asked about my appearance, I told them that I had been taking female hormones and my father gruffly backed up my claim. He might hate everything about that, but he did at least, care enough for me to not want to see me scooped up by federal agents.

They remarked at what a coincidence it was that both I and Rosalind “struggle with our identity” as they put it. But I merely acquiesced that, “Yes, that is odd.”

I started to get worried when I saw the black case come out, but I tried to act as though I had no idea what it was. When the button was pushed this time, nothing happened. I just continued to give them an affable smile.

After my interview, they took a few fingerprints and hair samples from the living room and said that they would be in contact if they found anything and to be sure and let them know if any of us hear anything from Rosalind, Vera, or Olivia.

I wished them a good evening, and saw them to the door. I think my parents might have suspected something. They had reacted, if only a little, when they saw me after the changes Rosalind had made. My room and the rest of the house was again searched for contraband. With my transition being more or less where I wanted it; I felt much more able to deal with the other problems in my life. My parents would always be horrible and I would still need to live with them for a while. But there was no longer anything that they could do to stop me. And when I graduated college, I would put as much distance between myself, them and their beliefs as I could.

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