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  More shrieks. Fran looked at the exits, expecting anything and nothing all at the same time. She saw a man come through, bright blue eyes searing the compartment with a gaze like lasers. He wore a shiny, quasi-metallic suit, and a mask of some kind covered his nose and mouth.

  For a moment, all Fran’s overloaded brain could think about was the mask. Why a mask? He looked human (and in that split-second she had to admit to herself that an alien abduction was the thing she most expected to occur at this point), so why the mask?

  Then she smelled something, something sweet and citrusy, but with a faintly bitter undercurrent as of vinegar. As she smelled it, her vision began to fog. She turned her head with great effort, for it seemed to her that someone was holding her muscles, keeping her brain from communicating its wishes to her body. She turned her head slowly, ponderously, and the last sight she saw before blackness utterly claimed her as its own was little George. He was crumpled on the deck, laying on his back with his head swiveled under him like a macabre pillow.

  He was still. A moment later, so was Fran. She closed her eyes and slept.

  FAILURE LOG

  LA/LOSTON TRANSPORT

  SUBJECT A

  Adam stepped into the plane, replaying what had happened and trying to see if it could have been done any differently. The mask he wore over his face chafed at his mouth and nose, tiny fibers inside it weeding out the particles of gas that still remained in the plane.

  He looked at the wounded, the dying.

  The dead.

  He whipped around, fury rippling across his normally placid features.

  "Get Dirk down here," he said to the woman who had followed him into the plane. Like him, she was dressed in a drab outfit, a gray that was so neutral it was almost colorless. It was the color of their home, and suited them. But it did nothing to hide the display of anger that seared forth from Adam’s eyes. His fury was a terrible thing to behold, the more so because he was so rarely angry.

  "Yes, sir."

  The woman nodded to him and left. She did not salute, for that was a thing of the Past. Besides, this wasn’t exactly a military unit.

  Not exactly.

  Adam turned his eyes back to the compartment, searching. Those eyes missed nothing. He noted every passenger’s placement, divining from what he knew of the trajectory of their impact with his knowledge of their assigned seats to figure out where she would be.

  Jason, Adam’s second in command, stood beside him in the plane, his own gaze following Adam’s. Jason was shorter than Adam, and was a quiet man, seeming to keep his own counsel more than most. That was all right with Adam. When he did speak, Jason always communicated something worthy of attention. That was why he was Adam’s right hand, and why when Adam was finally killed or went mad he would take charge.

  There was always the possibility Jason would die first. It was a dangerous business they were involved in. But if not, he probably would not go crazy before Adam did, so it was right for him to be next in command. Jason had the best chance of carrying on Adam’s mission when the inevitable finally occurred.

  "She should be in 7-C, sir," said Jason.

  Adam nodded and picked his way through the debris that littered the plane’s interior. He tripped over a woman’s handbag, the straps catching at his heel and sending him stumbling. He heard a dry crack as his foot landed hard on something.

  He looked down and saw a young woman. She lay in the aisle, one hand thrown up over her face, no doubt to protect her beautiful features as she flew out of her chair. Her hair curled in a matted carpet over her face, knotted and gnarled from the cruel buffeting she had endured.

  But her indignities did not end with the mere fact of her state of dishabille. Adam had stepped on her elbow, and he could see that it was broken.

  This did nothing to improve his already bad mood. He muttered a curse, then stepped off the woman’s arm. He gently brushed her hair away from her face, combing his fingers loosely through her hair. It was probably somewhat silly of him – uncharacteristically frivolous, even – to do so. But her broken elbow would not bother her, not in her present state, and her extreme dishevelment seemed to rebuke him. You did this to me, it seemed to say, and so Adam gently combed her hair away, softly put it as right as he could, then even more gently put her back in the nearest empty seat. It probably wasn’t hers, but it didn’t matter. Adam did it more out of respect than out of a desire to put things back the way they had been.

  He respected all the people on board the plane. Some of his coworkers did not, seeing the plane’s occupants as mere window dressing, but Adam certainly held them fond in his heart. They were, after all, the future. Or rather, they guarded its safekeeping.

  He put the girl’s broken arm on the armrest. She did not moan at all, though Adam could not tell whether that was because the synaptic inhibitors had done their jobs or because she was simply dead. Either way, she would not remember that any of this had ever happened.

  Adam stood again.

  7-C.

  He found it easily. The woman had managed to stay in her seat.

  "Thank God," he whispered.

  He reached out to touch her forehead. It was smooth; cool. Unlined in spite of the horrible toll the past years must have taken on her. He traced the delicate curve of her chin, following her jaw to the point where it joined her throat. Skin so white, so pure. So real.

  He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the worst, then touched her throat with two fingers. A pulse beat at his fingertips, strong and healthy. He let his breath out, his knees growing suddenly wobbly with relief.

  She was alive. So for today, at least, the world would not end.

  I could love you, Fran, he said to himself. But that was a half-truth, at best. Because he already did. Not in the way some might think, but in the way of a father for his only child. In the way that only a man who has spent his whole life protecting a woman can feel towards her. "I do love you," he whispered.

  She simply slept, like the beauty from the Old fairy tales. No kiss would wake her, though. Indeed, very few things could.

  Someone coughed lightly.

  Adam stood upright, spinning around so hard that he almost tripped again. Dirk, the man who had been in charge of the boarding process, stood behind him. He wore an ill-fitting mask that covered a mouth no doubt puckered downward in a pious frown.

  "Idiot!" shouted Adam. The sleepers around them did not wake. "You could have killed her!"

  "I’m sorry, there was a problem syncing our ship with the plane and –"

  "I don’t care what the problem was, Dirk. You could have killed her. Do you understand what that would mean?"

  Dirk nodded. His eyes suddenly welled up and a tear streaked its way down his cheek, touching the edge of his mask and steering along the seal to his chin. Adam let up a bit. He didn’t want to be too hard, but still....

  "You are relieved of your duties as pilot. Have Abra take over," said Adam in a quiet voice. It was not meant to carry to the other men and women in the room. His decree was not meant to humiliate, but to teach. And above all, to ensure that the jobs that needed doing were done well. Dirk nodded and turned on his heel.

  Adam followed him to the front of the plane, where the Cleanup Crew waited. They were Controllers, of course, as Adam was, but their function was more specific than most. They had to turn back the clocks perfectly; make sure that what they did left no trace, either in evidence or memory.

  Adam looked at his feet. A little boy lay nearby, body smashed into a mangled ball by forces beyond his control. From the way his neck crooked, it was evident he was dead, and Adam resisted the urge to grow angry again. Anger would solve nothing and would not serve to teach any lessons, so he quelled it. He did this reflexively, subordinating the emotion almost as a matter of course. Emotions were a dangerous luxury, and one that Adam rarely indulged in.

  "You’ll have to fix that," he said to the Cleanup Crew, pointing to the child. They all nodded as one. Each ha
d the exact layout of the plane in his or her head, where each item of luggage had to go, where each passenger sat.

  They would make it right.

  Adam sighed. I’m getting too old, he thought. But it was a lie. He was only fifty-two, and more than equal to the physical aspects of the challenges that lay before him. He would never see sixty, of course, as his death was sure to come before then, but until it did he would work and protect. He was a Controller, and that was what a Controller did: service and toil until death provided a release from both.

  He looked at 7-C again, at the blonde-framed face that slept so peacefully in the midst of so many convergences of history.

  "Fran," he whispered. He touched her lightly, a quick caress that was almost too fast to be seen. Then Adam stepped out of the plane. He would leave while the Cleanup Crew made all right again, and then would watch Fran as she reached her destination, the place she must go, if humanity was to have any chance at all.

  Loston.

  DOM#67B

  LOSTON, COLORADO

  AD 1999

  9:30 AM, FRIDAY

  The bell rang.

  The kids stood immediately. They enjoyed John’s class enough to be there on time and to actually pay attention. But not even special guest appearances by a Top 40 rock band could have kept them in their seats for one second - one nanosecond - beyond class time.

  That was all right. John understood that, and was not offended. On the contrary, seeing their hurried walk as they moved out of the classroom like a well-groomed and too-fashionable plague of locusts always brought John to memories of his own childhood.

  And most of those were good.

  The new girl, Kaylie, stood last in the line of kids pushing to get out the door. John watched her move inch by inch to the exit, walking to his desk without taking his eyes off her. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd seen her before. And yet he knew he hadn't. Knew it with every fiber of his being.

  So why did he have some small, mostly-hidden part of him screaming that this girl was important? She was the most important person he'd ever met. She was....

  The answer. To everything.

  The thought jerked him into a realization of what he was thinking. It was crazy, he realized, and John had never had a crazy bone in his body. Not since he was a child, at any rate. And for a few months after Annie.

  Still, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't shake loose from feelings that had suddenly grown weird and conflicted. He wanted to call her; to talk to her. But to do that would be to admit that there was something important and strange about her. To do that would mean that there was something in his brain that mattered enough to him that he would make a decision - no matter how small - that seemed irrational, even crazy.

  I'll just call her over for a second to get to know her, he thought. I'd do that with any student. Not just her, so it's okay, right?

  Right?

  "Ms. Devorough?" he said.

  Kaylie turned, and John was surprised to see fear skate across her pale face on like cool blades on a frozen lake. She was afraid of him.

  No, it could be anything, he said. She could come from an abusive home. She could come from a place where the teachers made fun of her. All the more reason to talk to her.

  The decision was made; had been from the moment she walked into the class, he realized.

  "Could you come here for a moment, please?"

  The girl nodded, but remained where she stood. The last of the students filed out of the room, leaving John alone with her. The empty space separating them seemed to scream at him: Run, get out, get out now while there's still time!

  The silence between them stretched out, feeling more interminably desolate than the longest stretch of desert. The two stared at one another, and John felt himself becoming more and more nervous, almost to the point of nausea.

  "Where are you from?" he asked.

  Kaylie's mouth opened and shut in a semblance of speech, but nothing emerged. She was still as silent as she had been a moment before.

  John stood and approached her, moving as slowly as he could, as though the girl were a frightened dog he had met in an alley. He resisted the urge to drop to his knees and offer her some food.

  "I'm not going to bite you, you know." He smiled broadly, hoping to jolly her loose from her nervousness. "Where are you from?"

  She looked out the still-open door. Students passed it from time to time, shifting bags on their shoulders, talking to their friends as they hurried or dawdled to their next classes.

  "I'm going to be late," she said.

  "That's okay. It's your first day, and no one expects you to know where anything is. Where are you from?"

  "I really don't want to get in trouble on my first day here."

  "I'll write you a note. Is there a reason you don't want to tell me where you're from?"

  She began edging to the door. "No, I just don't want to be late."

  "Ms. Devorough, please just answer my question and you can go."

  "Sorry, I don't want to be late," she said again, and almost ran out the door. John watched her go, and wondered which was more strange: her actions or the icy fear that clutched him.

  TRANSDOM#7

  LA - LOSTON TRANSPORT LOG

  SUBJECT A

  Fran stretched her arms, feeling the bones in her forearms, shoulders, all the way down her back stretch and crackle with the contented pops of well-rested joints. The flight attendant came by, smiling as before.

  Fran could not remember the flight attendant’s name, and looked to her name tag. Her name tag was gone. But it didn’t matter. The hostess seemed just as happy without a name as she had with one. "Did you have a nice nap?"

  Fran smiled languidly, like a Siamese cat well-sated. "Oh, I did indeed."

  Other passengers were moving, too, each happy that they had arrived, each feeling particularly well-rested. Fran looked to her right.

  "Did you fall asleep?" she asked.

  George nodded, tapping his feet impatiently, waiting for his parents to get his small carry-on. "Me too. Thanks for helping me stay brave. I don’t think I could have fallen asleep without knowing you were around to watch out for me."

  George blushed, crooking his neck to one side and avoiding her gaze. But he was smiling.

  Fran winked at her little friend, and then he disappeared, whisked off the plane by yuppie parents who had never been aware of their son’s fear or what might have been a moment of great personal victory for the young boy.

  Baggage check was a flash; a breeze. She got out of the airport in under ten minutes, seated in a taxi bound for her new home.

  She was ready for her new life. The old one had been wonderful for a time. And perhaps this one would be, too. Only this time, perhaps the good life would last. Perhaps it would last forever.

  She smiled, already planning her happiness. That was what set her apart from so many others. She had seen life, and she had seen terror. But where many would see the cup half-empty, Fran saw the pitcher on the table beside it, just waiting for someone to start pouring. She would not hide in her fear, but would stand and smile in the sun as long as it lasted. And if night should come again...well, there was always another sunrise, just around the corner of the blackness.

  ***

  Fran remembered five minutes of the trip to her new place. And then she must have fallen asleep again.

  A moment after Fran’s head came to rest against the car window, the driver slumped as well. So neither saw the portal open directly in their path, the disembodied doorway that allowed the van to drive through a hole in what appeared to be the very air before them.

  The gap sealed behind them, and it was as though they had never been.

  DOM#67B LOSTON, COLORADO, AD 1999

  3:30 PM FRIDAY

  John put his key in the door of his Pathfinder. The day was over - the week was over - and the strange thoughts and concerns that gripped him during the first hour of classes abandoned him soon after, l
eaving him alone with his students and his normal thoughts. Or rather, what passed for normal thoughts in these days. Loneliness clutched him for a moment as he stood beside the door, a terrifying surge that passed through him and left him weak and nauseated. He gripped the car door and realized that he had caught himself in the act of opening the passenger side.

  For a moment, he almost believed all was right with the world. For a brief, beautiful second he thought that he could turn around and see Annie behind him, waiting as she always did for the door to be opened. He remembered that on their second date he had opened the door for her. "Why did you do that?" she had asked.

  He sensed immediately that he was engaged in some sort of test. A thousand answers passed through his thoughts as he sorted, examined, discarded possible responses before finally settling on the truth as his best answer.

  He looked Annie in the eye. "Because my mother told me that any girl I take out had better get royal treatment, or she’d come back from the grave and haunt me."

  "Royal treatment, eh?" she asked, and he sensed the warmth that flashed in her eyes like a sunbeam through a winter sky. He had passed the test.

  "Sure," he replied, heart skipping beats with every breath he took. He opened the door, bowed low, and said, "After you, my queen."

  She curtsied and got in the car, passing him in a swift cloud of sweet-smelling air. He could still smell her, on this hot day in the parking lot.

  He could almost believe she was there.

  But then the moment passed, and he knew she was not. She was not, and never would be again.

  He moved swiftly to the driver’s side, opening the door and throwing a handful of computer disks over his seat, into the back seat along with a few papers. Class work that he would grade tonight. He reflected, not for the first time, that the beautiful thing about being a computer science teacher was the dearth of huge reams of paper that had to be taken home for grading. Everything was on disk, and most of each class's work could be transferred to a single floppy for transport.