Chapter 6: The Briefing

  —September 2nd, 2158, 10:15:00—

  It was another Saturday, which meant Marty was on shift, again. No Silas. Cam had become accustomed to anticipating that coded call on weekends. The cadence was never exact, however it was getting close to when he figured it would be time again.

  As he paced the apartment, Evie, stretching as she walked down the hallway into the kitchen, yawned. “Hey dad,” she greeted him. “What’s for breakfast?”

  He pointed over at the stovetop where a simmering pot of rehydrated artificial wheat meal was waiting for her. “Your favorite. I put in some of that bacon flavoring you like.”

  “Baco Flavo?!” she gasped as she hurried over to lift the lid to give the gelatinous slop a sniff. “Aww. Dad.” Evie was breathing in the wonderful aroma of synthetic bacon and fake cream of wheat. A New Verillian teenage delicacy.

  “Are you going into the office today?” she asked, helping herself to a heaping bowl full of breakfast.

  “I’m on call.” He wasn’t, but he needed a pre-fabricated reason to leave if he got a call from Marty. He and Tina had decided that Evie shouldn’t know about their clandestine goodbye sessions. At least, not yet.

  “Bummer.” she said. “I’m going out with Lena and Cato tonight.”

  “And Cato is….?”

  “Just a friend.”

  “You mean a boy fr—”

  “Stop.” She cut him off. “You’re worse than mom…”

  Those were the words that hurt the most. The ones that just naturally flowed out of their mouths as if the world had continued on as normal. But it wasn’t normal anymore. They both did it often enough. But the pain was still there just under the surface.

  Evie sunk her spoon in her bowl and leaned against the countertop, sighing. “It was a year ago on Thursday.” she lamented.

  “I know.” It had been on Cam’s mind too. Anniversaries were a particular kind of salt in their wounds.

  “I think about her every day.” She put her bowl down, no longer hungry.

  “I do too, Evie.”

  In the silence, Cam thought about the pain his daughter was suffering through. He was getting his chances to say goodbye to her mother. She was not. It was a sharp reminder of the unfairness of that decision. He would talk with Tina about it the next time she made another jump.

  “Dad.” Evie started. Her eyes were already red. He knew the look. The tears were about to fall. He was already on the move. “Do you think Silas will let me ever go back and say goodbye?”

  And then they began to fall and roll down her cheeks. Cam was already there with his arms wrapping around her. “I don’t know Evie, but my heart says you’ll see her again.”

  –<<<>>>--

  Cam had a brief moment to meet Cato when he and Lena arrived at the apartment to pick up Evie for their night out on the town. Another young man, Mallik, had arrived with Lena with his arms wrapped possessively around her. Evie denied it, but it looked to Cam an awful lot like a double date. He wasn’t so sure he was ready to let go of his little girl. But what choice did he have?

  Alone in his apartment, he felt the weight of the loss even more. Instinctively, he drifted to the bar beside the kitchen and reached for the shaker. He held it and stroked the silver polished details with his thumb, remembering the first time she had made him a drink.

  A sound interrupted his memory. Three tones. A masked ID.

  “Marty.” Cam knew it was him.

  “Mr. Vaughn. Can you come now?”

  “Give me twenty.”

  Cam needed no time to get ready. He was anticipating this call. A jolt of electricity shot through his veins as he threw on his hat and leapt out the door. He was close to being with her again, and his heart was already beating out of his chest.

  As had become usual, Marty was there waiting for him at the loading dock. “Good to see you, Mr. Vaughn.” he said in his usual respectful manner. “Silas is waiting for us upstairs.”

  Oh no. Cam thought. He’s onto us. Cam felt he was walking into a trap. “Silas is here?”, he asked, trying to gauge Marty’s response for a clue.

  “He has something he wants to talk with us about.” Marty replied, showing no hints about the context.

  “Us?” Cam asked. “Like you and me, us?”

  “Yeah, I think so.”

  Confusion was the only feeling running through Cam. Why would Silas want to talk with Marty and him? Marty didn’t sound as if anything was wrong. It didn’t feel like he was in trouble.

  As they navigated to the mezzanine offices, through the heavy steel doors, Cam saw Silas standing atop the metal stairwell.

  “Mr. Vaughn, so good that you are able to come on short notice.” Silas greeted him. “I hope all is well with you and Evie today.”

  Cam climbed the stairwell and shook Silas’ hand and, again, sensed that his mood was nothing but positive. At ease.

  “Well, Evie’s on a date tonight, so what better plans should I have than to be at Temporal Command with you fine gentlemen.” He smiled and Silas gave a polite but genuine laugh.

  Silas motioned for them to enter the main briefing room and the three of them sat down at the mission command table together.

  “Mr. Vaughn,” Silas started. Then he paused and looked at him, squarely. “Cam. I know that you and Tina have been able to…reconnect, as it were. From time to time.” He cleared his throat.

  “Silas….we…” He wasn’t going to deny it.

  Putting up his hand and offering a reassuring smile, Silas continued. “It’s ok. Marty told me after the first time, and, as I told Tina when she told me just before her last jump.” he paused, remembering that last vision of Tina. Cam’s Tina. He looked Cam in the eyes. “I told her then that I more than approve.” He nodded to reaffirm his approval.

  Relief flooded over Cam as he realized the implications. Silas was not here to condemn their visits. It was something else. He let out a breath of air he had unknowingly been holding in his lungs.

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  “The reason, Mr. Vaughn, that I have asked you here to discuss is something much more…delicate.” Silas ran his hand through his hair–signalling his unease at how to broach a difficult subject.

  “Silas, I do believe we’ve covered just about every ‘delicate’ subject known to man.” Cam smiled, putting the old professor visibly at ease.

  “Yes,” Silas confessed. “I suppose that is so.” He looked over to Marty and gave him a signal.

  Marty tapped a few keystrokes on his display unit sitting in front of him on the briefing table and a diagram became visible in front of them near the end of the table. Silas rose and walked toward the images.

  “Mr. Vaughn, as you know, time is like a river. It is continuously flowing in a direction, but it hits forks in the stream every so often.” He pointed to the display with a retractable pointer that he had kept in his pocket. A true professor, at heart.

  “As you can see here,” he pointed toward a timeline labelled ‘Timeline A’. “The baseline timeline, here, is the one before manipulations began to occur. It led to many problems, which required careful review and restructuring.” He nodded over to Marty, who advanced the display to the next slide.

  “Here,” he gestured to a second stream labelled ‘Timeline B’. “This is where the first correction happened. This is where Temporal Command made the first attempt to course correct and offer a change in order to prevent the catastrophe that later occurred in Timeline A.” He looked at Cam. “In Timeline B, Christina Marie Townsend finds you. In Timeline A, she does not.”

  “Elliot.” Cam said.

  “That’s right. She marries Nathan Elliot Walker.” Silas confirms. “And they have a child. A son.”

  “Adam.”

  “Yes. Adam. And in later timelines, Adam…well, you know this,”

  “Adam tries to kill me.” Cam closed his eyes. “So Evie can’t be born.” He sighs. “And Tina…”

  “Travels back in time and sacrifices herself to save you so Evie can live.” Silas finishes.

  “Silas, we have known this for a long time.” Cam was not understanding where this was going. “And we understand why it all had to happen.”

  Silas took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Marty took this as his cue. “What Professor Doolittle is getting at, Mr. Vaughn, is that there is an unresolved equation here.”

  “An unresolved equation?” Cam repeated.

  “Yeah, uh,” Marty stammered. “Well, in Timeline A, Tina loses her husband in like 2153.” he strode toward the display, pointing at it with his finger. “And Adam isn’t coming back after he, uh…goes back to 2137 to, uh…”

  “Kill me?”

  “Uh, yeah.” Marty looked relieved that he didn’t have to say that part out loud. “So, Tina in Timeline A is, like, lonely, right?”

  Cam tilted his head, still listening, but not comprehending.

  “So, I guess, for, like, Evie…” Marty was searching for the right words. “Like she would probably like to see her mom, again, right?” He looked to Silas, again, for help.

  “Mr. Vaughn, we had an opportunity to bring the Christina from Timeline A to our timeline.” Silas put it bluntly.

  “To Timeline B.” Cam said.

  Marty and Silas exchanged a look. “Mr. Vaughn,” Marty replied. “We’re like in “Timeline…triple Z,” he said, grimacing slightly. “I mean, we stopped counting after a while.”

  Cam leaned back in his chair, the metal suddenly cold against his spine. “So what,” he said slowly, “you’re telling me we’re already so far from the original timeline that the labels don’t even matter anymore.”

  Silas didn’t argue the point. That alone made Cam uneasy.

  “What matters,” Silas said, folding his hands behind his back, “is that in every viable projection we’ve run, Tina—your Tina—remains displaced. She cannot return. Not without collapsing the very sequence that allows Evie to exist.”

  Cam closed his eyes. He already knew this. Knowing it didn’t make it hurt less.

  “But Christina,” Silas continued, “from Timeline A… she is untethered now. Her husband is dead. Her son is gone. Her future, as it existed, has terminated.”

  Cam opened his eyes. “You’re saying she’s expendable.”

  “No,” Silas said firmly. “I’m saying she is free.”

  The room went quiet.

  “She wouldn’t be replacing anyone,” Marty added, softer now. “Not really. She’d still be Tina. Just… one who never made the jump.”

  Cam laughed once. It came out hollow. “You’re talking about bringing my wife back from a dead timeline and asking her to live a life that isn’t hers.”

  Silas met his gaze. “I am talking about giving Evie a mother again.”

  That landed.

  Cam felt it hit him in the chest, hard and unfair.

  “And Tina?” Cam asked. “The one who did make the jump?”

  Silas hesitated. Just long enough.

  “She would understand,” Silas said. “She already does.”

  Cam stood abruptly, the chair legs screeching against the floor. “You don’t get to decide that.”

  “No,” Silas agreed. “Which is why I’m not deciding.”

  Cam stared at him.

  “I’m briefing you,” Silas said quietly. “Not ordering you.”

  The implication was worse than a command.

  “Now, I must tell you something important.” Silas looked at Cam with a solemn gaze. “About Adam...”

  –<<<>>>--

  It was just the two of them in the room. Marty attempted awkward small talk. “So, did you catch that Gladiators game last night?” Cam did not respond. “Isn’t it pretty amazing to see what we can do now that we have a strong wall?”

  "Yeah, a wall." Cam could not really focus on anything right now. Just the thought of Tina being back…but it being a different version of her. One that never knew him. How was this supposed to work?

  “Finally traded that old wash-out from the Pan-Asian Conglomerate.” Marty scoffed. “Good riddance, I say.”

  The sound of two sets of footsteps rang like a bell as Cam closed his eyes, in dread. The sight of Tina would normally send his heart through the stratosphere. Today, it was a dreaded unknown.

  They entered. Silas first. Then she emerged.

  She was her. In every way he could possibly imagine. It was Tina. Except for the normal look of recognition within her eyes. Instead, they were cold. Timid.

  “Cameron.” She said, softly. “Cameron Vaughn?”

  It was a question. She wasn’t sure. How could she not know him? Did she not even get a briefing? ‘Am I a complete stranger to her?’ He thought.

  “Tina.” He wanted to say, ‘It’s me.’ But he held back.

  She walked over to him and extended a hand.

  He almost didn’t even know what to do. He had never shook this woman’s hand in his life. From day one, it was always an intimate touch. A coy game. A penetrating gaze.

  He took her hand, lightly and bowed his head. “I’m Cam, Tina.” He sighed a heavy breath. “And it is…so nice to see you.” He gave her a warm smile.

  Silas motioned for them to all sit down together. The four of them sat together, all of them in a moment of continued awkwardness.

  “Cam,” Silas started. “Christina, as you might imagine, has an interest in reconnecting with her husband.” He paused, gauging body language. “And with your continued reunifications with your own Tina still ongoing, I suppose both of you would understand that the two of you are, um…”

  “Not compatible?” Cam offered.

  “Yes.” Silas nodded. “That is a good way to put it.”

  “However,” he continued, “Evie is a completely different story altogether, isn’t she.”

  “Evie could use her mother.” Cam agreed, nodding.

  “And Tina, you have expressed that you would very much like to know your daughter.” Silas prompted.

  She nodded. “I would like that.” She looked at Cam. “I know she helped Adam. He said she was his shield.”

  Cam had never heard that before. He concealed his shock and just pressed his lips, smiling back at this woman who resembled his wife.

  “So we are settled then.” Silas concluded. “We will work together to bring Tina up to speed so that you both can give back her family.”

  “For Evie.” Cam said.

  “For Evie.” Tina echoed.