Preserving Will Read online

  “When we build, we’ll include space in the basement for the cloning machines,” Judith added. “The basement will serve as a safe house location for the Alliance as well.”

  “Good,” Adam replied. “We’re in agreement that we’ll limit cloning to just the two guards. We have no way of knowing who or what family members the Hunters might target, but our suspicion is that they’ll want to leave quickly in the face of what they’ll see as evidence of an Alliance offensive and trap. That’s their likely assessment once Will is rescued from their assault. We can’t clone others because we simply won’t have the time, and as I said, we have absolutely no evidence that anyone else was harmed during the day’s events.”

  Eva nodded. “Aaron and I will submit our application for residence in the next week or two. Once our home is built, we will construct an office at the end of a hallway in our basement that Adam can use during his future interaction with Millard Howe.”

  The involvement of Millard Howe, the Starks’ future estate lawyer, had been difficult to uncover. Hope would recommend that they store a copy of their will in one of their secure data centers. But Adam had scoffed at this statement in recent years; they’d never agree to use such a facility to store a personal document, or allow an outsider access to retrieve it. It had to be some type of misdirection. They decided to have Howe visit an Alliance safe house a moderate distance from Pleasanton, and Adam would meet Howe there. That led to concerns about an outsider actually entering an Alliance safe house, which could compromise the location. Eva had noted that they did not yet have a safe house in the proposed region of the country. They decided the new location would restrict Alliance activity to the basement and boast a dilapidated house aboveground as a cosmetic deterrent to the curious. Archie noted that such a setup offered an opportunity: Howe could enter the house and be teleported someplace else to conduct his business with Adam. Aaron and Eva had volunteered to build a conference room in their basement for just that purpose. A nanoparticle-based mist would be used to disorient Howe, preventing him from noticing the physical sense of displacement marking a teleportation hop. They’d need to be certain that the mist was in a scutarium-lined room so that Adam’s Energy burst from the teleportation couldn’t be detected.

  With all status updates delivered, Hope terminated the connection and teleported the tablet down to the bunker for storage. There was no point in leaving it sitting around where Will might find it. He’d never seen her use it, and while they could certainly afford a new tablet, he might wonder why she’d never before mentioned its purchase.

  Her phone rang, startling her. She glanced down at the screen, surprised to see that Will was calling. He’d been meeting with the Pleasanton city council today, and she suspected he wouldn’t be in a good mood. The city, deeply in debt and running near-eternal deficits, had voted to raise certain types of taxes to unprecedented levels to help resolve the fiscal crisis. Though council members denied the accusations, the rate hikes had one thing in common: only the Starks, or Stark Enterprises, would be affected by the new rates. In essence, they were looking to force Will to balance their budget and even pay off the debt accumulated long before Will had arrived.

  Hope answered the phone. “Hi, honey. I just finished my meeting with the board. How did your meeting go?”

  “It was… strange,” Will replied. She savored his voice; even knowing he wasn’t yet the Will she’d met a thousand years ago, the voice, the compassion, the intelligence… those traits were present even now, without the life experiences to come in the next decade and future centuries in the past. “I noted that the taxes and fees were written so that they fell unilaterally upon our house and our businesses, and that the amounts of money in question would close not just the budget deficit but wipe out the city’s entire debt load.”

  Hope let out a low whistle. “It’s that much?”

  “It is,” Will replied. “I hadn’t understood just how aggressive they’d been until my accountant ran all of the numbers this morning before our meeting. The body language when confronted with this fact told me all I needed to know. Though they might continue to deny it, the fact remains that they’re looking to make us, and us alone, fix their budget problems.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “I told them that in business, if you’re providing so much money that you’re paying off another company’s debt obligations and eliminating their negative cash flow, it means you own that business. The check is written and control is transferred.”

  Hope gasped, and then laughed. “I can’t imagine anyone liked that comment.”

  Will snorted. “One of them became rather belligerent. He asked me if I was suggesting that the city could be bought out like a company. And I told him I thought that was a great idea.”

  Hope forced herself to pause, to act like she’d never heard this idea before. “Wait… he asked if you were proposing to buy the city… and you said… yes?”

  “I did.”

  “We should probably talk this over, you know…”

  He chuckled lightly. “That’s why I called. I wanted to run the idea by the person who suggested it in the first place.”

  When they’d moved in and learned about the city’s dire financial situation, Hope had told Will that he just should buy the city and fire the incompetents who’d run it so poorly. “I was joking, you know.”

  “I know you were. But I’m asking if you’re joking now, now that the idea’s been raised by the council.”

  “I suspect they’re joking as well.”

  “Perhaps not. After the initial righteous indignation, the group took thirty minutes to ask a simple question: what would such a deal mean for them?”

  “Immunity from prosecution?”

  “That’s about the only thing I wouldn’t agree to. I think we can actually make this work, Hope. Clear the debt, use our technological prowess to rebuild the city infrastructure and the decaying buildings, and turn it into a model of efficiency and sound planning. If we do that, I think we’ll need to turn away businesses and people wanting to move in.”

  “Well, maybe. How can you do that if you have to follow all of their regulations, pay taxes to the state…”

  “We agreed to write up the proposal as a ninety-nine year lease on the lands of the incorporated city of Pleasanton, which cedes all control and responsibility for executing and maintaining the laws, regulations, and tax policy of those lands to a city corporation. Naturally, said corporation will choose to maintain a lot of those laws out of existence.”

  “What’s to stop them from taking the money and then ruling that we can’t do what we’re proposing?”

  “The contract will state that no money changes hands until the council votes to approve, resigns en masse, and the state provides written guarantees that it will honor the terms.”

  “They can’t like the idea of not getting tax revenue and still having to provide services like police and fire and schools and…”

  Will chuckled. “Yeah, we agree with them on that. It’s not fair. So the draft of the lease states that the corporation is responsible for providing a specific set of existing services. Not all of them, mind you, but definitely those you mentioned.” He paused. “I think they’re seriously considering it, Hope. And I think this is a chance to do something very powerful, something that can give the people in this country something positive to motivate and inspire them. We’d turn a crumbling, bankrupt city into a clean, modern, well-run and fiscally sound city quickly, make it a place where business and workers want to move and live.” He paused once more. “What do you say?”

  Hope paused. She knew what her answer would be, had known it since centuries before this version of the man she loved had ever been born. Yet the ramifications were enormous. Will was correct. People were used to seeing failure and excuses, whether from politicians, from business and union leaders, from students and teachers, from parents and children. But if they watched someone invest billions of dollars of their o
wn money into a colossal project like this, and that effort succeeded? Their example might well be the inspiration that thousands or even millions needed to pursue their own big dreams. If this experiment worked, they’d enhance the Stark Foundation to provide grants and investments to the people they trained, and others, to build those dreams into a more prosperous life for themselves and others.

  Pleasanton, Inc., might be their most ambitious means ever of being the change they wanted in the world. And that meant her answer was obvious.

  “I say we go for it, Will. And that we don’t just go for it, either. I say we succeed in so spectacular a manner that the whole world will take notice, and never be the same.”

  Even over the phone, she could feel his effusive smile.

  XI

  Life

  2023 A.D.

  The on-duty guard had called moments earlier, letting them know that the limousine had been granted entry to De Gray Estates. Will stood at the front window, waiting, looking at the remnants of a recent light snowfall dusting the lawn. The bitter cold hardened the glinting ice sheets on the massive trees that covered much of the acreage.

  Hope watched Will, recognizing that he was looking without seeing. She could feel his powerful sense of anguish and guilt, feel it more deeply than he could possibly imagine at this moment.

  The pain he felt was nothing compared to her own. She knew the awful truth, knew that she perpetuated the lie at the heart of the pain her husband suffered.

  Both Will and Hope were eager to begin growing their family, and when results on that front failed to materialize at a pace commensurate with their impatience on the matter, they sought out specialists to understand why they weren’t able to conceive. In the distant past, as he’d begun to share his memories of the future in words, Will had recalled this time, and even then she could sense the pain he’d felt when the doctors all reported the same thing. They didn’t know about the ambrosia Hope had consumed since before the signing of the Magna Carta, and weren’t permitted to recognize that Will was perfectly capable of fathering a child at any time. Instead, every one of them told Will the lie he’d live with for decades: that Hope had no issues becoming pregnant. Their lack of success, the experts said, was entirely due to Will.

  They delivered this message, not because their data showed it to be true, but because Hope, a master Energy user, forced each specialist they visited to report that conclusion.

  She thus had to watch as the man she loved bore the burden privately, suffering in silence, believing he was a failure to the woman he loved so deeply. The only sign of his inner turmoil visible to the outside world was the gradual graying of his hair, something Old Will had told her would continue to progress until Josh’s birth.

  She could end his torment with a few simple words, merely by telling him the truth. She could do as he had done so long ago in telling her the truth of his origins, of this very moment in time. The trust he’d displayed in her so long ago, knowing that she’d not lose her cool or think he’d lost his mind as he told her what must seem impossible, was one the man before her would expect her to reciprocate.

  But the man he would become, the man she’d come to know in the past, had told her, with a quiet reserve, that no matter the pain he might suffer in this era, she must allow it to happen. Nothing, not even his mental health, should derail her from ensuring that what had unfolded before in the future would happen once again.

  Hope realized that too much knowledge of the future could be painful. It was something the Will before her now would learn in due time.

  Will turned away from the window, finally noticing that she’d been watching him. His face was pained, and the glint of the sunlight off the snow provided all the illumination necessary to show the moisture on his cheek. Her heart wept in a silent grief she’d never let him see.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” he whispered.

  She titled her head. “For what?”

  “That I need to leave you for something like… this.”

  “The doctors could be wrong, you know.” At least she could hint at the truth.

  He shook his head. “All of them? I can’t believe that. But I promise you, Hope, no matter how long I have to search for the answer to this… I will find it.”

  He’d tried to find the cure for ambrosia’s sterility ailment for centuries, tried even though he knew that to test a possible cure meant risking that they’d actually succeed in becoming pregnant before their time. If they did, they might well end any chance of becoming pregnant in the future with Josh and Angel—and in the paradox of the time loop in which they lived, prevent themselves from ever meeting. “I know that, Will. Trust me, I do. And know this: I’d wait a thousand years, if necessary, to resolve this.” She smiled with every bit of energy she could muster. “I feel quite positive about this option.”

  His face, still seared with pain, brightened slightly. “I’ll be positive too, then.” His head snapped around as the horn sounded out front, signifying the arrival of the limousine and driver, and he moved to her. They embraced for an eternal moment, and then Will stepped away, took a deep breath, and headed out to the waiting limousine with his small carry-on bag. The trip was expected to take only a day or two.

  The limousine vanished from sight. Hope knew they’d pass by the reconstruction efforts underway in the city of Pleasanton on the way to the airport. They’d found a section of the city completely abandoned, and had begun the reconstruction process there, burrowing into the underground infrastructure for a desperately needed replacement of crumbling pipes and tunnels. Today, the first set of fresh new buildings was erupting onto the streets of the city. As store owners and office workers abandoned existing addresses to move to new real estate, they’d repeat the process, gradually razing and then replacing the entirety of the city’s infrastructure and skyline. Construction was incredibly rapid, the buildings creative, and the enthusiasm within the city contagious. Their efforts used the nanoparticle-based panels built and continually improved upon by the Nanoscience team, panels which were prefabricated and shipped to each site. The particles now had sufficient intelligence to “lean” as necessary to square and level themselves, and to “stretch” to ensure panels all connected. Perfect cuts and sizing weren’t necessary, and the technology would let the buildings sway in an unlikely earthquake or explosion before snapping back into place.

  Will wouldn’t notice the amazing transformation today. He’d leave it all behind to meet a doctor who wasn’t a doctor for a cure he didn’t need to atone to his wife for a failure he’d never committed. Hope had hacked his computer to direct his web searches to an Alliance-fronted think tank specializing in cases like theirs, touting an experimental drug cocktail found to have extraordinary levels of success in curing sterility. He’d be tended to by centuries-old Alliance members he didn’t recognize, men and women who revered him and who would feed him a placebo of sugar water, food coloring, and zirple.

  She allowed herself a chance to cry, saddened at what he’d go through due to his love for her, letting the tears flow for several minutes. Once the tears ended, she stood, smiled, and teleported to the bunker.

  Today, she’d end ambrosia’s curse upon their lives. Uncertain of the effects of long-term ambrosia withdrawal, she’d waited until the last possible moment to nudge Will to visit the miracle-working doctor. The date was chosen because it was the day she’d determined she needed her body ready to become pregnant.

  Pregnant. She’d lived a thousand years, had seen countless generations of people born, live their lives, and die in every possible manner. She’d seen the world progress from a time when a small village possessing running water was an incredible advancement, from a time when buildings were constructed solely of lumber and stone, to a twenty-first century where electricity, the Internet, instant communication, and nanoparticle-based construction panels were appearing in the world. She’d nearly died on one occasion, and had suffered through more close calls than she cared to remember du
ring her long life.

  None of that terrified her like becoming a mother.

  The physical aspect of pregnancy didn’t frighten her. No, it was the responsibility she’d bear, often alone, that scared her. In less than seven years, she’d be raising two children, while her husband lived in another time. Multiple other times, actually. Could she raise her children successfully, helping them become the people who’d risk their lives to travel through time in an untested machine for the chance to save their very human father from certain death?

  Would the elimination of ambrosia cause her to age more rapidly at some point? She wouldn’t take another dose of the sweet berry until comfortably after Angel’s birth. The idea that she might show her millennium-plus years of living, that her body might falter, that she might perish of old age—and that she wouldn’t then be there for her children… all of those potentialities had started to generate nightmares. Nightmares in which her young children looked around, lost and frightened, crying out for her, wondering why she didn’t appear, wondering what the big stone with Mommy’s name carved in it meant.

  She wouldn’t allow that, not after all that Will and others had gone through to get her to this point. She’d survive and thrive, for her children, for Will, and for everyone in Will’s future—her past—whose lives would be lost if she failed.

  The safe in the bunker was purely cosmetic. No one who knew of the existence of the bunker would remove the contents, and others who might gain access via teleportation—like the Hunters—wouldn’t know the significance. She dialed up the combination and opened the door, jumping slightly as the total silence was shattered with squeaking of the hinges. She removed four items and set them on the table before closing and locking the safe.

  Two syringes. Two vials, one labeled “E,” written in the hand of a man who’d died—unnecessarily—to save her life. The other, labeled “W,” had been provided by the son of that same man. Within each was blood untainted by ambrosia, and the infusion she’d take would flush ambrosia’s effects from her systems, ending her centuries-long sterility while reintroducing aging to her body. “E” stood for “Elizabeth,” her birth name, the name by which the elder Adam had first known her, back when she was a mere child. How he’d gotten Arthur’s blood, and how he’d cleared that blood of ambrosia’s contamination… those were secrets the elder Adam had taken to the grave. The younger Adam, aware of Will’s true date of birth, had made an appearance in the hospital on that day, and had extracted—with permission—the blood of Will’s parents. Hope had no doubt that Will’s vial would work, but would hers?