Chapter 58
YEAR: 2097
Mitch waited outside the open doors of B Hangar in the same location the three teams had departed from little more than twenty-four hours previous. Waiting at his side was a team of medical staff. Anxiety pressed in on him with each second that passed. He looked at his watch. Less than one minute. He had no idea what to expect. Would anyone be hurt? Would anyone return at all? His thoughts were interrupted as Team Three materialized in front of him. There were intakes of breath and shocked expressions from the medical staff as the team appeared.
The crowd of people surrounding the brothers upon their arrival startled Spencer. Medical staff pounced on them, scanning them and checking for injuries. Relief flooded over him to know his feet were firmly planted back in 2097. The solace was short-lived and worry overtook him as he wondered what his life would be like, now that it had been rewritten.
Once the support team determined the brothers to be in relatively good health, the men were whisked into a debriefing room. Mitch listened in awe for nearly two hours as Team Three reported on their success, and he barely made it back to the hangar in time for the arrival of Teams One and Two. As Mitch waited for their arrival, Spencer’s report on Ian’s erratic behaviour played again and again in his mind.
The frenzied arrival of the two remaining teams startled Mitch and the medical stuff. Confusion broke out among support staff, unable to make sense of the frantic scene before them. Maya screamed for a medic and fell to her knees beside Ben. She took his hand and felt his forehead. Lexi cried out when she looked over to where Jake should have been and saw only his jacket lying on the concrete. She ran over to it and picked it up. Finn grabbed her and held her while she sobbed uncontrollably in his arms. Two medics raced to Ben’s side and slid a bodyboard beneath him while Maya summarized his past injuries and showed them his most recent scan. Maya jumped in the back of the ambulance with the medics and the flashing red vehicle shot into the air and rocketed toward the hospital.
Mitch saw Ian tied down to the bodyboard. “What the hell? Ian?” The sight of the ordinarily composed and cool Ian—dirty, dishevelled, gagged and bound—surprised him like nothing yet had.
“Oh, we’ve got some stories for you,” said Clint. He looked from Mitch to Ian and his eyes narrowed. “Lock this guy up. I think we all want to ask him a few questions.”
Mitch nodded to two guards who led Ian away as he bucked at the restraints. He laughed awkwardly through the gag. Tyler and Darren took off their backpacks and held their arms out as two medics scanned them. Clint saw Mitch eyeing Lexi with curiosity.
“Jake didn’t make it back,” Clint said, quietly to Mitch.
Mitch was stunned as he did a quick head count. “What do you mean he didn’t make it back?” he hissed.
Riley looked up, mortified with what she saw. Owen stood next to her. In the frenzy to get back, she had given Owen her pack. She had made the biggest error of her career and now he would have to pay for it with the rest of his life. If time travel no longer existed, he would be trapped in 2097, never able to return to 2016. He was not an Orphan of Time, more like a Hostage of Time. She looked at him, unsure of what words were appropriate for an error of such enormous proportions.
“Owen,” she said, shaking her head, bewildered by her error. Her voice was barely audible. “I’m so sorry. I promised you I’d return you and I didn’t. You must hate me.”
Owen took her face in his hands and lifted her head up. Her eyes swam with tears that threatened to spill over. He smiled at her and shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, accidents happen.”
Riley smiled weakly and wiped her eyes. He pulled her close and they touched foreheads. “It’ll be alright. Don’t worry,” he said, softly. She laughed quietly through her tears. “Looks like Finn needs you.” Riley looked over and saw Finn’s eyes silently pleading with her to help with the inconsolable Lexi.
Owen walked up to the man who seemed to be in charge and extended his hand. He introduced himself and Mitch nearly choked on his tongue.
“Jesus Christ, Riley. You were supposed to send this guy back.” Mitch looked over at Riley who was too busy helping Finn console Lexi to have heard. Owen brought Mitch up to speed on the turmoil by explaining the minutes leading up to the leap back.
Mitch took the team to the debriefing room, and after two hours they had barely scratched the surface of the previous six months. In the end, the only topic of discussion that interested the team was figuring out a way to get Jake back. With the concept of time travel still in the R&D stage in this new version of 2097, the only way to retrieve Jake would be through the use of an existing backpack. Unfortunately, as Riley predicted, all of the packs went offline when they arrived and could not sync up with the time travel control centre. All hope had been lost until Finn brought up how Jake’s backpack had been broken and, therefore, had not yet tried to sync. If the pack was disabled, repaired, turned on and sent before it timed out after not being able to sync, a chance existed that they may be able to get it back to him. The hypothetical suggestion fuelled the group with hope. Finn swiftly swapped out the pieces of the broken control interface with one from an unbroken pack and the team paraded outside.
Lexi took the pack from Finn, knelt down on the ground and breathed carefully. She knew she only had one shot. She turned the pack on and a small yellow dot in the top right corner of the screen blinked with a warning beside it that read, “Attempting to Sync.” Lexi quickly punched in the time and coordinates then pressed the white button on the control watch, looped around one of the pack’s straps. The pack disappeared.
No one in the group moved. All eyes stared where the bag lay just moments ago, waiting for Jake to appear. Riley’s heart ached at the sight of the hopeful, expectant expressions around her, but she knew better. She knew that the only part of Jake that would be returning to the future would be his jacket. If Jake had gotten the pack, he would have appeared when they did at eleven in the morning because he knew that was the time they were supposed to reappear. Even if he had found the pack a year later, he still would have appeared at the same time.
Mitch kept the members of the three teams in an isolation room until each individual underwent a more rigorous medical and psychological evaluation. The comprehensive debriefing also bought Mitch much needed time. He had dispatched teams to probe into the newly-rewritten lives of each team member to discover any changes, in hopes of giving each team member a head start for the integration into their new lives.
One by one, Mitch brought each team member up to speed with the changes in their lives. Darren was equally pleased and disappointed to find out that for him, nothing had changed. He still lived in the same place and he was still single as far as the discovery team had been able to learn. Ben was engaged to his girlfriend. Maya’s father had passed away when she was three. Someone had gone to the hospital to bring them up to speed. Tyler had met a woman through the mentorship work he did with children. They had recently bought a house together and had an adoption pending for a six-year-old boy who currently lived on the streets. Clint was still divorced but had a much more amicable relationship with his ex-wife. He also learned his son lived with him half of the time, instead of only two, one-hour supervised visits per week. Lexi had just started dating someone and lived in a different condo than she had before. Also, her youngest brother had never been born. She never returned to the room with the others after the briefing.
Finn hyperventilated when he learned he had a fiancée. He returned to the briefing room to find it loud with conversation as the members shared the details of their new lives with each other. Owen and Riley sat apart from the group, Riley anxiously waiting to hear about her grandfather.
Seeing Finn’s colourless expression, Riley could not help but laugh. “I can’t wait to meet the woman who’s tamed this lady’s man.”
Finn looked sheepish. “Remember that op a few years back where we paired up with the Brits?”
Riley’s
eyes widened. “No! That girl in artillery?”
Finn’s face broke into a grin as he reminisced dreamily. “Do you remember how in love with her I was? The way my name rolled off her tongue when she told me to get bent? How amazing her hair smelled when she dropped me to the ground when I tried helping her into her armour?”
The briefing room door opened, distracting Finn from his trip down memory lane. Mitch waved Riley over. Owen watched the pair speak quietly for a moment. Riley’s expression hardened then she followed Mitch from the room without looking back.
As Owen listened to the others talk animatedly about their lives, a wave of loneliness washed over him unlike anything he had experienced since his father died. His life, as he knew it, had ended. He was stranded in a foreign place with no identity. His only consolation lay in knowing that had he gone back to 2016 without Riley, he would have felt immeasurably worse.
Owen looked up when he heard the door open again. Surprised, he saw Riley smiling. She waved him over. He joined her in the hallway and his confusion disappeared when she explained that her grandfather had been brought in and briefed on the op and her involvement in it. Being a retired Level Seven Black Ops Field Operations Director had its privileges. Owen shook the hand of Riley’s sole parental figure, who barely looked a day over sixty.
Spencer, Logan and Asher watched in silence as everyone around them was dismissed. Everyone’s lives had been explained except theirs.
“This can’t be good,” said Asher, watching the door close. The three waited in silence, preparing themselves for the worst. The door opened again and Mitch walked in.
“You guys have some visitors,” said Mitch. He held the door open and Jason and Lacy Grayson walked in and all three men greeted their parents with hugs and handshakes. Lacy hugged and cried when she saw her boys.
“Mom, Dad? What are you guys doing here?” asked Spencer.
“I guess he’s got no clue, eh?” laughed Jason, looking at Mitch. Mitch smiled and shook his head. “Well, your mom and I are in town for a very special occasion but I’ll let someone else tell you about that. We got a call from Mitch this morning. He called us down to the base and explained the operation. He filled us in on what you boys did. I’m so proud of all three of you.”
“I wouldn’t be standing her today if it hadn’t been for your father,” said Mitch. All three brothers looked at Mitch, their expressions confused. He explained how their father brought the teams of soldiers from the prairies and the prototype shield belts that saved Mitch’s life several times. The brothers looked from Mitch to their father in admiration.
“Don’t look at me like that,” laughed Jason. “I have no recollection of this whatsoever.”
The door opened again and Delaney walked in. Logan had run this moment over in his mind every second since his return. While he had only been away from Delaney for five or six hours, the ache in his heart felt like years. To see her at all exceeded his expectations. Delaney ran to him, threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. He held her so tight he worried he may crush her. They broke apart and he saw the necklace with the silver clock that he had given her just hours previous. He also noticed a large diamond on her left hand. Eyes bulging, he grabbed her hand and looked at it.
“I see you’re engaged.” He let go of her hand and pulled her close, kissing her forehead.
“I am, as it turns out,” she said, smiling.
“Wait, to me, right?”
She buried her head into his chest and laughed. “Yes, to you. You should ask me about it sometime. It was very sweet. The wedding is in a few months. We decided that, well, that is… the other you and I, decided that we should wait until you were back so you could be present at your own wedding, if that makes any sense. That is, if you want to marry me?”
Logan could only nod. He felt happier than he had ever been in his entire life and began to think about how he was going to re-ask her to marry him. In hindsight, he wished he had paid more attention because he missed the look on Spencer’s face when Kalen walked in. She was glowing and extremely pregnant. Spencer’s face lit up and tears streamed down his face as he ran to her.
“Omigod Kalen!” he said, caressing her cheek. “You are so beautiful!” Kalen slid her hand over her ballooning stomach. He saw a wedding band on her hand. “I know. You tell me every day. I don’t believe you these days, but it’s nice to hear.”
Spencer pulled her as close as he could and kissed her. After they broke apart, he looked down at her protruding belly. She took his hand and placed it on the side. He felt a little foot kicking his hand. “Who’s this?”
“The better question is, who are they?”
Spencer met her eyes. “You’re kidding me, right?” She shook her head and the twins burst into laughter seeing the panicked look of terror on their little brother’s face.
Kalen smiled and held up two fingers. “Girls.”