Excerpt: The Life and Life and Life of a Time Traveling Pigeon
In Which Everyone Finds the Next Step Forward
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After a pause, she turned her attention to me. “Okay, Time Traveler, you got anything to add? Why were you so fucking desperate to convince me earlier?”
Suddenly put on the spot, I floundered for an answer. Because, see, I couldn’t tell her that it was because I wanted her to escape the island before it was quarantined. Because, as it stood, Dr. Tanner was going to be coming with us, and there was no way in fuck I was going to help him get onto the mainland. No. I am not setting this bastard loose.
“Um, because, um… Manhattan is going to be kind of a dangerous place this weekend. I wanted to get us somewhere safe while we waited for it to blow over.”
“What do you mean by ‘safe?’” she asked.
“Listen, between all these armed goons running around and the sundry shootings and explosions that are going to happen over the next couple of days… I was afraid you were going to get hurt in the chaos.” I looked aside, lowering my voice. “You do get hurt in the chaos. You die in the chaos.”
Wait.
“Or… I thought you did. You might have also been captured by these BlueCell guys. All I knew is that nobody heard from you again after tonight. We all thought you’d been in Pennsylvania Station during th—”
I was going to pretend to be ignorant about the details of the attack (mostly because the man responsible was within earshot and I didn’t want him to know that I knew,) but Dr. Tanner himself provided a convenient conversation stopper in the form of another migraine… or whatever it was. It was less severe (he managed to keep his balance this time,) but it was clearly present all the same.
“Are you sure you’re okay, Morgan?”
“Maybe?” He let out one last quiet grunt. “My head just fucking hurts.”
“Might be all the lead you’ve been eating tonight,” I snarked.
Dr. Tanner’s vaguely confused look was all I needed to know that the joke had gone so far over his head you could practically hear the whoosh. I guess the amnesia knocked out his sarcasm sensors, too. Or the headaches. Really, what is up with those?
Eh, then again, maybe it just wasn’t all that funny; Riley didn’t react much, either.
Instead, she asked, “So, let me get this straight. You thought I’d died, so you went back in time to try to save me?”
“Kind of? It’s complicated. It’s also…” I leaned over to check Riley's phone clock. “Past midnight. And thanks to everything that’s happened tonight, I’m about ready to collapse. Do you guys have any ideas for somewhere a bit more, um, long-term we can go?”
I was going to suggest my hotel room (I had no idea how I’d get a wanted terrorist past reception, but we were all flying by the seat of our pants at this point.) To my surprise, though, Riley supplied an answer.
“Yeah, I think I know a place. A couple of friends of mine, they’re off on some sort of missionary work in fucking Patagonia or something, so they left me the keys to their apartment. They wanted me to check in every now and again for them. Water the plants, dust a bit, make sure the place hasn’t caught fire, that sort of shit. It’s up in Midtown, about a mile and a half from here. If we can make it there, it’ll work. There’s just one problem, though.”
“What?” he asked.
She groaned, “I don’t have the fucking key with me. It was on my keychain. We’d have to go back to my apartment to get it, if those goose-stepping fucks didn’t just steal it. Fuck, they’re probably turning the place upside down right about now, looking for evidence or whatever the fuck they can get their greasy, trigger-happy fingers on.”
I raised a hand. “Actually, I can pick locks.”
“Seriously?” she said, flatly.
I shifted nervously under their combined stares. “It’s a long story.”
Taking a deep breath, Riley pushed herself back upright. Running her hand through her hair (wincing when she accidentally brushed the bruise,) she said, “Alright. Alright… I think we have a plan. Morgan, do you think you can get us there safely? You seem to have a handle on this sneaking around shit.”
“I’ll try.”
“Not very confidence-inspiring, but we don’t have many options right now. Col, how's your ankle? You think you can walk that far?”
Gingerly, I tried putting weight on the affected leg, and found that it held. It wasn’t great, and by the time we arrived I’d likely want to beat the everloving fuck out of it, myself, and reality (not necessarily in that order.) But, point was, I could walk on it, and at a reasonable pace, from what I could tell. And since just about anything was better than being carried around by Dr. Tanner, I gave her a thumbs-up.
“Good. Okay. We can do this,” she said, pulling the hood of her jacket up over her head. (I mirrored her motion; might as well go three-for-three.) “I’ll feed you directions as we go, Morgan. If we are where I think we are, it should be almost a straight shot north.”
He nodded, then stepped back outside the room and into the tunnel, motioning for us to follow.
