Sea of Tranquility(42)

It was on one of those nights that the journalist appeared. The last journalist, as she’d always think of him, Gaspery-Jacques Roberts of Contingencies Magazine. On the night he appeared, she was under the umbrella tree, cross-legged on the grass, trying not to think of the day’s numbers—752 dead today in Colony Two, with 3,458 new cases—and trying to let go of conscious thought, when she heard soft footsteps approaching. She didn’t think it could be a patrol officer—they walked in pairs—but the fines for being outside in lockdown were steep, so she stayed very still and tried to breathe as quietly as possible.

The footsteps stopped, so close that she could see the person’s shadow angled over the sidewalk. Could they have sensed her? It didn’t seem possible. Someone else—another set of footsteps—was approaching, from the opposite direction.

“Zoey? What are you doing here?” Olive recognized the man’s voice immediately, and her breath caught in her chest.

“I could ask you the same thing,” a woman said. She had his accent.

“I told you in the travel chamber five minutes ago,” Gaspery said. “I want to interview a literary scholar who interviewed Olive Llewellyn. One more layer of confirmation.”

“I thought it was strange that you wanted to leave again after your interview with her, on an unscheduled trip,” she said.

Gaspery didn’t speak for a moment. “I thought you didn’t travel anymore,” he said finally.

“Yes, well, I felt the circumstances warranted an exception. Gaspery, how could you?”

“I was going to just talk to her,” Gaspery said. “I was going to stick to the plan, but Zoey, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t just let her die.”

There was a moment of silence, during which both of these incomprehensible people were, Olive imagined, staring directly into her living room window. She looked up, but from her angle she could see only patches of the living room ceiling, mostly obscured by leaves.

“It’s like you warned me,” he said quietly. “You said the job required a lack of humanity, and it did. It does.”

“You shouldn’t come back to the present,” Zoey said.

What?

“Of course I’ll come back to the present,” Gaspery said. “I believe in facing consequences.”

“But the consequences will be terrible,” Zoey said. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

There was silence then. Gaspery didn’t respond.

“The Night City’s beautiful in this era,” he said finally.

“I know.” She was crying, Olive could hear it in her voice. “It isn’t the Night City yet.”

“You’re right,” he said. “The dome lighting still works. Are we standing on cobblestones?”

“Yes,” she said, “I believe we are.”

“There’s a patrol coming,” Gaspery said suddenly, and they were gone, walking quickly away together.

Olive stayed there for a long time in the shadows, in the strangeness. She was supposed to die in the pandemic, as she understood it, but then Gaspery had saved her. Hadn’t he even told her what he was? If a time traveler appeared before you…



* * *



—

That night she looked up Gaspery-Jacques Roberts and the results were flooded with references to her own work, the book and the screen adaptation of Marienbad. She looked up Contingencies Magazine, and found a website with a few dozen articles, but the more she searched, the more it seemed like a front. It hadn’t been updated in a long time, and its social media accounts were dormant.

She heard a small noise and started, but it was only Sylvie, standing in the doorway in unicorn pajamas.

“Oh, sweetie,” Olive said, “it’s the middle of the night. Let me tuck you in.”

“I have an insomnia,” Sylvie said.

“I’ll sit with you for a bit.”

Olive lifted her daughter, this warm weight in her arms, and carried her back to her bedroom. Everything in the room was blue. Olive tucked her in under an indigo duvet and sat beside her. I was supposed to die in the pandemic.

“Could we play Enchanted Forest?” Sylvie asked.

“Of course,” Olive said. “Let’s play for a few minutes, till you feel sleepy.” Sylvie shivered with delight. The Enchanted Forest was a new invention: Sylvie had never gone in for imaginary friends, but in lockdown she had an entire kingdom filled with them, and she was their queen.

“When I feel sleepy we’ll stop,” Sylvie said agreeably. “We’ll stop before I fall asleep.”

“The portal door opens,” Olive said, because that was how the game always began. Sylvie’s bedroom was quieter than Olive’s office, being at the back of the building, but Olive still heard the faint wail of an ambulance siren.

“Who comes through?” Sylvie asked.

“Magic Foxy leaps through the portal. ‘Queen Sylvie,’ says Magic Foxy, ‘come quickly! There’s a problem in the Enchanted Forest!’?”

Sylvie laughed, delighted. Magic Foxy was her favorite friend. “And only I can help, Magic Foxy?”

“?‘Yes, Queen Sylvie,’ says Magic Foxy, ‘only you can help.’?”



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