Falling Into Place

Spring wind whistled through the open skeleton of the unfinished building, carrying the echoes of two sets of rapid footsteps. Police sirens heralded flashing lights close behind. A pair of figures rounded a corner and winced as the setting sun hit them full in the face. One stopped next to a gap in the floor and turned around.

“Is this the part where you tell me I've got no place to go, Ms. Abasi, Operative R27, whatever your name is?” the man asked. He was in his 50's or 60's with pale skin, wavy gray hair, and shadows on his wrinkled face that added a sinister cast to his grin. He wore a long coat and a dark turtleneck and pants, and kept a hand in one pocket.

The young woman chasing him stopped a short distance away and tried to focus on his silhouette rather than the sun behind him. The sunset shone on her bronze skin, short black hair, and narrow eyes. Like him, she dressed simply enough: faux-leather jacket, t-shirt, and jeans. The pistol she carried was a couple years early but, she'd grimly argued, if anyone got a close enough look at it to 'break' anything she wouldn't be in a position to care.

“There's always someplace to go, Dr. Knight. I can take you back in one piece if you're willing to tell us who you've been working for.”

“That's 'whom,' my dear. And I respectfully decline.” He pulled a handheld radio out of his pocket. “Do you know what this goes to?”

“Some dramatically-placed explosives?”

“I push a button, and several containers full of explosives on the ground level vaporize enough of this building to crush us both with the rest.”

With her free hand, Bernadette — Dette to her friends — pulled a fistful of wires from a pocket. The mad doctor's face fell.

“There's a reason I said 'dramatically-placed,' not 'well-hidden.'“

“The police approach. Your team has fled and you're alone. We both lack a paper trail, but 1981 is not a good year to be a mysterious woman hypothetically from any of the CIA's favorite countries. You have more to lose from being caught than I.” His gaze flicked to her hand. “And just how many wires do you have there?”

She couldn't help it. She looked at her hand, and in that moment he vanished.

“No!” She rushed over and saw he'd dropped through the gap to the next floor down. 

Dette ran for the stairs rather than risk hurting herself. An explosion rocked the building, and she grabbed the nearest support beam. The building shook for a few moments, dust falling from the ceiling. Apparently she'd missed a bomb after all. She moved to the edge and looked down.

The space next to the building, containing Clevinger Construction's equipment, was a total mess. Utterly demolished. The structure itself trembled with a groan. Flashing lights nearby drew her attention, marking the police's presence. Dr. Knight, going along peacefully, yelled something and tried to point up at her.

Dette holstered her gun and ran to the far side. She dropped onto the roof of a surviving forklift and from there to the ground. It was easy enough to lose the cops and run to the bridge where the portal was located. Time to cut her losses and get back...

...which would have been easier if the portal were still there.

Cars drove past, rattling the pedestrian walkway. Shaky grating revealed the river beneath. She swiped with her arm through the gap in the railing between the walkway and the street. 

Nothing.

“You've been very gracious letting me stay, Jackie,” Dette said with a weary smile over a pile of sketches and notes.

“I know what it's like to be stranded with just the clothes on your back.” Jackie hung up her coat and kicked off her work shoes, still smelling like grease and coffee. “You're not the first I've brought home from the diner to sleep on the couch. Besides, you've chipped in on rent and helped watch Nicky.”

The aforementioned Nicky sat in the corner, doing middle school homework and pretending not to listen.

“Any word from your family?” Jackie asked.

“No, no, I haven't heard back since my... return ticket fell through a month ago.” Dette's genuine disappointment helped sell the lie — she'd written to one of Branch 9's offices and explained her situation. They had little reason to believe her, but she at least expected a response. Maybe they were investigating. Even with her training, she'd only know if they wanted her to.

She'd spent the weeks since Dr. Knight's capture tracing both her steps and his, trying to determine exactly what change removed the portal. She'd extensively drawn the bridge both as it was in 1981 and how it would be in 2022. It'd been rebuilt at one point, and she felt like that was a clue. She wasn't sure how the construction site explosion factored in, but it felt relevant.

Her limited supply of funds ran low. She'd pawned what she could and sold tips about the LaRocca crime family to the cops since she'd written a paper about them for college. Soon, she'd run out of intelligence that wouldn't damage the timeline.

“Bernadette?” Jackie asked.

“Huh? What?” She looked up from her notes. Jackie had changed clothes at some point.

“You zoned out. Did you want to go with Nicky and me and get some food?”

“I keep telling you, call me Dette. What's the occasion?”

“While you were off in space, I was telling you that Nicky got an 'A+' on his science test.”

“Of course he did, he's a little genius,” she said with a genuine smile. “I'd love to, but I just remembered there's something I need to do.”

“Aww, do you have to?” Nicky came over, pretending not to mind as his mother took his glasses and cleaned them.

“Yeah, 'fraid I do. There's somebody I need to talk to, and I've been putting it off. Bring me dessert or something, okay?” She ruffled his hair.

“Just be safe.” Jackie knew Dette kept secrets, and neither hid it nor asked for details.

“It's just an old friend of mine. He'll be glad to see me.”

A flash, click, and whine filled the nearly-empty room. The old man on the bench behind the bars sat quietly, eyes closed, while a sleeping drunk snored through the sound. Dr. Knight slowly opened his eyes.

“A rather low-tech solution, Operative R27,” he said calmly as Dette taped the instant photo to the front of the camera and approached the bars.

“We've got maybe a few minutes before someone realizes something's up. So start talking, what did you do?”

“What did I do? Or what did I undo, Operative?” He got up to look Dette in the eyes, teeth bared in a smug grin. “Have you figured it out yet?”

“Clevinger Construction, but I'm not sure how.”

His eyes gleamed with delight.

“In fifteen years, Clevinger Construction wins a contract to rebuild the Fort Bridge. Elements of their design give it a flux resonance that I could easily exploit for my escape plan.”

“How?”

“Run current through a lightbulb filament, it lights up. Different filament, different current.”

“And destroying their equipment?”

“One contingency plan among many. I didn't need to ruin them. Just set them back enough that a rival gets the contract. Someone else builds the bridge — no portal.”

“And that doesn't retcon you out of existence?”

“Your movies get things wrong,” he said with a smirk.

“Could you take us back if I got you out of here?”

“You have nothing to offer me.”

“So that's a 'yes.'“

“I could. But I won't.” He sat back down. “Why do you think I'm still in this cell? They're getting me committed, because I keep babbling about time travel and the future.”

“So?”

“In just over two months, Reagan tips the first domino on budget cuts that will fast-track my release once I 'recover.' I am confident I can handle things from there.”

“So I'm stuck here.”

He shrugged. “If you think you can do something that won't get the Cold War-era CIA's attention, feel free.”

With that, he closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall with that smirk as Dette clenched her jaw and slipped out.

Dette sat at Jackie's kitchen table, going over sketches of the bridge and other notes, looking for some angle that could restore things without making it worse. Unfortunately, without knowing more about the future bridge's exact structure, all she could do was just scribble 'flux resonance?' next to the drawings. Even if she could help Clevinger Construction cover what their insurance didn't, too much damage had been done to the company's trajectory to just put it right again.

“Dette, are you from the future?”

She jumped and looked over at Nicky. He was 12 and clever, and she was supposed to be watching him, rather than worrying about her own problems and delegating to the TV.

“Not saying I am, but what would you know about that?” she asked with a concerned smile. 

“TV. Also, I was looking for scratch paper and read your notes the other day.”

“Well, it was only a matter of... not gonna say it.” She ran her fingers through her hair. “You can't tell your mom, okay? Nobody can know.”

He nodded. “You're going to go back?”

“Well, I can't make it back right now. But I probably should be moving on, in any case.” She had to assume that Knight would rat her out at some point. For all she knew, he called for a detective the moment she left.

“Hey, kiddo, do me a favor? Your mom should be back in an hour. Tell her I got a call from my family and had to get to the train station.” She gathered her papers, got up, and handed Nicky an envelope. “Give her this; it's a 'thank you' note.”

Also, she thought to herself, Some stock tips and other stuff.

“Leave me one of those pictures, and it's a deal.”

“Sure, kid.” She chuckled and handed him one off the top before tucking the rest into her jacket.

A goodbye hug later, she took one last walk out to the bridge to gather her thoughts. At least she'd be able to see if anyone came after her.

A sound like a swarm of bees with reverb drew her attention over the edge. She looked down and saw a shimmer in the air. She was pretty sure that in the future, there'd be a lower walkway underneath. The sound of honking and yelling made her realize she probably looked like a jumper.

Time to become an urban legend, she thought as she went over the railing.

Everything flashed and tingled like her whole body had fallen asleep. Her shoes clanked on the walkway. The bridge wasn't exactly the same as she'd remembered, but it was certainly close enough.

“That did it!” someone yelled.

Dette was surrounded by her fellow Operators. A humming noise drew her gaze to equipment attached to the bridge structure. An older man she didn't recognize carefully shut it down before anything melted. Her handler, a blond woman in her 40's named Liz, put away her phone as she approached. 

“I just got a call from one of our facilities, saying that Walter Knight passed away in their custody twenty-seven years ago, but they got everything out of him and they're about to email it over.”

“I can explain... some of that,” Dette said, confused.

“My report will fill in the gaps, ma'am.” The older man had arrived on the lower level. He was in his 50's with fair skin and white hair, wearing a nice suit and glasses. “Operator S21. We've met before.”

Up close, Dette realized they had.

“Your 'thank you note' made my science degrees possible; I figured it was the least I could do,” he said with a familiar smile. “Sorry it took so long.”

Dette didn't know what made her laugh more, the joke itself or the thought of him waiting years to deliver it. It was worth the confused looks from the others.