them to whimpers, then a voiceless suctioning of air. The cups over my eyes were gone, but I seriously doubted whether I would ever open my eyes again.
. . . color that color that sound that smell . . .
When I did, I saw a square of light above, the doorway at the top of the staircase.
Was I still in the project basement? All the equipment was gone. I lay on a mattress in the middle of the floor, placed where the gurney had been. A bare light bulb hung overhead; the staircase that led up and out was wood, rather than steel, and my chalk timeline, naturally, was gone.
Just within reach was a milk jug full of water. A bucket waited in the corner.
A woman—not the nurse from before—waited at the top of the staircase. She had a blanket in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“How do you feel?” She sounded wary.
I covered my groin with one hand and felt for the bit in my mouth. The handful of leather was almost too much to lift; I was that weak.
I prodded my nose: not quite broken.
She waited.
What I managed was a thready: “Skinned. I feel skinned.”
She nodded, pocketed the weapon, and brought the sheet, restoring my modesty with a brisk snap of linen. Everything it touched ached, as if bruised.
Vanishing upstairs, she returned with a pillow, a proper blanket, and a tray containing broth, aspirin, and a tiny soda biscuit.
“Keep your hands under the bedclothes,” she ordered, feeding me extremely small sips of the soup.
“Who are you?”
“Constance Wills. Willie.”
“You’re Agent Sixteen?”
“Thought I was a chap?” she said. “The Major loves his little joke.”
The Major had told me they’d pressed Willie in 1937, seven weeks before the first time the world ended. Somehow she’d made it back to 1916 and pushed the devastation off nine years. If not for her, I’d have died at age nine.
She was the first of us to survive the timepress.
“Do whatever Willie says,” they told me. “You’ll be fine.”
It was a bit of a dirty trick to be expecting some war-ragged captain and to find, instead, a girl with cornflower eyes, hair the color of a strawberry roan, and delicate, freckled hands. Her face was stronger than I liked, her gaze more direct. No lipstick, either. Pity. I like a girl who tries.
“I’m—” I began, and she dumped lukewarm soup in my mouth.
“I don’t want to know your name unless you make it.”
With the spoon caught between my teeth, I could hardly tell her how I knew I would survive.
It was days before my body agreed, and conceded to feeling as though I might not, as Willie expected, simply die.
I took what she gave me—pills, pale suggestions of food—and shivered on the mattress. The thing I’d seen raked at my dreams, even though I couldn’t properly recall that awful color, or the exact timbre of that chorus of screams.
I dreamed incomprehensible, awful things: men suckling the intestines of disembowelled soldiers, window glass turning to liquid and forcing itself into the ear canals of soft, white-fleeced sheep, a robed worker running a girl’s body through an industrial steam press.
The dark and quiet of the basement were soothing. The walls were close and plain, offering tight, restful concrete horizons. The crawl to the bucket in the corner was as much as I could manage physically, and as far as I wanted to go.
Willie nursed but otherwise ignored me until I finally got bored enough to ask for a newspaper. She brought me the
Post-Intelligencer
and there was almost more information in it than I could bear: I threw it aside after two pages of Volstead Act enforcement and reminisces of a snowstorm the previous year.
The next day she brought the paper again and the world was easier to face. That afternoon, I was allowed a little more solid food: two bites of chicken and a mash of turnips.
“The paper,” I said. “It’s current?”
She nodded.
“I’ve just had my appendix out—at home, I mean.”
“They press us down into the
. . . color that color that sound that smell . . .
When I did, I saw a square of light above, the doorway at the top of the staircase.
Was I still in the project basement? All the equipment was gone. I lay on a mattress in the middle of the floor, placed where the gurney had been. A bare light bulb hung overhead; the staircase that led up and out was wood, rather than steel, and my chalk timeline, naturally, was gone.
Just within reach was a milk jug full of water. A bucket waited in the corner.
A woman—not the nurse from before—waited at the top of the staircase. She had a blanket in one hand and a pistol in the other.
“How do you feel?” She sounded wary.
I covered my groin with one hand and felt for the bit in my mouth. The handful of leather was almost too much to lift; I was that weak.
I prodded my nose: not quite broken.
She waited.
What I managed was a thready: “Skinned. I feel skinned.”
She nodded, pocketed the weapon, and brought the sheet, restoring my modesty with a brisk snap of linen. Everything it touched ached, as if bruised.
Vanishing upstairs, she returned with a pillow, a proper blanket, and a tray containing broth, aspirin, and a tiny soda biscuit.
“Keep your hands under the bedclothes,” she ordered, feeding me extremely small sips of the soup.
“Who are you?”
“Constance Wills. Willie.”
“You’re Agent Sixteen?”
“Thought I was a chap?” she said. “The Major loves his little joke.”
The Major had told me they’d pressed Willie in 1937, seven weeks before the first time the world ended. Somehow she’d made it back to 1916 and pushed the devastation off nine years. If not for her, I’d have died at age nine.
She was the first of us to survive the timepress.
“Do whatever Willie says,” they told me. “You’ll be fine.”
It was a bit of a dirty trick to be expecting some war-ragged captain and to find, instead, a girl with cornflower eyes, hair the color of a strawberry roan, and delicate, freckled hands. Her face was stronger than I liked, her gaze more direct. No lipstick, either. Pity. I like a girl who tries.
“I’m—” I began, and she dumped lukewarm soup in my mouth.
“I don’t want to know your name unless you make it.”
With the spoon caught between my teeth, I could hardly tell her how I knew I would survive.
It was days before my body agreed, and conceded to feeling as though I might not, as Willie expected, simply die.
I took what she gave me—pills, pale suggestions of food—and shivered on the mattress. The thing I’d seen raked at my dreams, even though I couldn’t properly recall that awful color, or the exact timbre of that chorus of screams.
I dreamed incomprehensible, awful things: men suckling the intestines of disembowelled soldiers, window glass turning to liquid and forcing itself into the ear canals of soft, white-fleeced sheep, a robed worker running a girl’s body through an industrial steam press.
The dark and quiet of the basement were soothing. The walls were close and plain, offering tight, restful concrete horizons. The crawl to the bucket in the corner was as much as I could manage physically, and as far as I wanted to go.
Willie nursed but otherwise ignored me until I finally got bored enough to ask for a newspaper. She brought me the
Post-Intelligencer
and there was almost more information in it than I could bear: I threw it aside after two pages of Volstead Act enforcement and reminisces of a snowstorm the previous year.
The next day she brought the paper again and the world was easier to face. That afternoon, I was allowed a little more solid food: two bites of chicken and a mash of turnips.
“The paper,” I said. “It’s current?”
She nodded.
“I’ve just had my appendix out—at home, I mean.”
“They press us down into the
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