Retroaction

Everyone’s talking about the nuke that popped off in Manhattan.

Sure, I get it. Big world news. Two million dead. Lotta people in this pit probably knew someone in that blast radius. It’s kinda like watching someone go into shock, only it’s everyone in this prison. I keep hearing the same few lines over and over—“Can’t fucking believe it,” and, “Think it’ll be war?”

Me, I try not to spend much time on any of it. It’s not like I could have saved any of those people—I’m just a petty thief, doing time for lifting the wrong wallet. So I keep my head down, avoid all those numb conversations, and only worry about shit that affects me.

Shit like this: I get back to my bunk for the evening, and there’s a guy poking through my stuff.

“Hey,” I bark. “Back off.”

The man doesn’t even flinch. He does pull back from where he’d been examining my CD player, and I get my first good look at him. He’s tall but not towering, fit but not jacked. Brown skin, brown hair, clean-shaven. Wearing a gen pop uniform.

I’m about to ream him out when my eye catches on the empty bunk in the room—now not-so-empty, made up with clean sheets and stacked with new belongings.

I curse under my breath. I’d gotten used to the solo cell these past few weeks. Still, there’s nothing I can do about it other than try to get along. Prison’s the same as college—your roomie can make or break your stay. With a sigh, I give New Guy a begrudging nod. “Name’s Valdez. Don’t mess with my shit, and we won’t have a problem, right?”

New Guy returns the nod. “Yeah. No problem. Uh, Chase.” He holds out a hand, and I shake it reluctantly. My eye catches on his wrist.

“Hey, kickass tattoo...”

I can only see a little of it peeking out from his jumpsuit—these weird, intricate green lines like wiring in a computer or something.

Chase gets this strange, conflicted look and pulls his hand back. “Thanks,” he mutters after a moment, but the gratitude doesn’t reach his eyes. Weird. Still, maybe this new cellmate won’t be as insufferable as my last one.

Then I see the thing he’s hung up on the wall: a full-page newspread about the Manhattan bombing, with a big ol’ mushroom cloud photograph.

I take an unconscious step away from him. “What the fuck is that?”

Chase follows my gaze, then gives me a long, searching look like he’s wondering whether or not I’ll snitch. “Motivation.”

“Motivation for what?”

Chase's mouth is a grim line. “To make a change.”

I decide this isn’t something that affects me. Head down, Valdez.

***

The concrete floor tastes the same as ever—kinda like blood and chalk. Hansen’s got his knee digging into my back while he twists my arm around. Feels like he’s trying to pop my shoulder out of its socket as slow as possible while his dumbass flunkies look on and laugh.

“Where’re my cigs, Valdez?” Hansen drawls. “Said you’d have ‘em for me yesterday.”

The pain is filling me up with red-and-black static. I gasp out something like a plea or a promise—not sure which, but it makes Hansen chuckle.

“Yeah, you always say that. Now, I’d really hate to bust your pretty—”

He chokes on his own words, and the pain in my shoulder vanishes. So does the weight on my spine. I roll over, too dazed to react to what I’m seeing.

Chase has Hansen in a chokehold. Hansen’s face is turning purple, his eyes and tongue bugged out like he’s gonna pop. It would be deeply satisfying if I wasn’t scared shitless.

Thug 1 and Thug 2 yell and lunge forward to defend Hansen. I almost close my eyes rather than see another cellmate get smeared across the floor—

But that’s not what happens. Chase drops Hansen, and in a blur of motion that’s barely human, he catches Thug 1’s wrist and redirects his punch into the side of Thug 2’s face. I watch in dumb amazement as the two absolute bruisers take swing after swing, hitting each other more often than not. Chase is completely calm the whole time, just a step here and a sway there to keep himself untouched. By the time I scramble to my feet, the fight’s over. The thugs are slumped on the ground next to their wheezing boss.

Chase meets my eyes, and from the pinch in his brows I can tell he’s more worried about me than the three lifers groaning on the floor.

I jerk my head frantically, and together we scramble for the door.

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I demand once we’re out of danger.

For the first time, I see a small smile slip across Chase’s features. “You wouldn’t have heard of it,” he says.

I want to press him, but my better sense keeps me from prying. Head down, Valdez.

Seeming grateful to move on, Chase’s usual seriousness returns. “Did I hear right? You handle contraband?”

Normally, I wouldn’t talk about it so openly, but—well, Chase did just save my ass. “Yeah. Small-time stuff. Cigs, office supplies, electronics when I can get ‘em.”

Chase’s eyes light up with a hope that borders on feverish. “Phones? Could you get a smartphone?”

“Probably.” I gnaw the inside of my cheek, considering what I’ve seen today. “You know...if you keep Hansen’s gang off my back, I can get you pretty much whatever you want.”

Chase is smiling again, and his eyes are off somewhere else. Badass killer one minute, then back to my weird, spacey cellmate the next. Eventually, he seems to return to the present, and he offers his hand. We shake on it.

***

Whatever Chase wants turns out to be a lot. Electronics, tools, writing supplies...the man has an enormous appetite for stuff that’d make the CO’s shit themselves. He takes things apart and fiddles with the pieces, then patches everything back together into some kind of Frankenmachine.

Sometimes I worry about it, but then I’ll watch Chase crack some fool’s skull out in the yard and feel better about my choices. Things’re going smoothly, until the night I wake up to find Chase crying on the opposite bunk.

He’s hunched over, half-sitting as he stifles his sobs. Still, I know it’s going to keep me awake—and maybe I’m a little curious. So instead of throwing my pillow over my head like I probably should, I roll over and face him. His eyes snap to mine, expression wracked with guilt.

“You’re fine, man,” I murmur. “What’s got you up?”

Chase takes a shaky breath. “I’m a fuck-up, Valdez.”

“You’re in prison. Everyone’s a fuck-up here.”

He stares down at his hands, and I realize he’s holding that newspaper. If I squint in the darkness, I can just make out the shape of the mushroom cloud.

I swallow hard. “Who'd you lose?”

“All of them.” He barely breathes it, like he’s scared to hear himself.

Suddenly I’m not tired anymore. “Holy shit. Holy shit. Are you the one who—?”

To my immense relief, Chase shakes his head. “I’m not with the bombers, no. I’m—” His head falls against his chest, and another broken noise escapes him. “I was supposed to stop them.”

I’m stunned silent for a long, long moment. Then, still swimming in confusion, I croak out the first question that comes to mind. “You’re a Fed?”

Chase gives a tiny, watery chuckle. “No division you’ve ever heard of.” After a moment’s hesitation, he stands and sticks the newspaper back to the wall. Gazing at it in the dim night-light glow, he says, “I was an experiment. Temporal Continuum Adjustment Division. We tried to keep a light touch, gathering intel retroactively. But two million lives... It was worth the risk of a paradox.”

It takes a moment for those words to click. “Are you telling me you’re a goddamn time traveler?”

“Did you know,” Chase says without answering, “that a nuclear detonation warps space-time? Getting anywhere close to the blast is like trying to land a helicopter in a hurricane. My team needed time—there’s never enough fucking time. Brass wouldn’t listen. Pulled the plug, had us all stand trial for fraud.”

It’s the craziest shit I’ve ever heard someone say with a straight face. I’m completely frozen, almost in awe.

Chase just sighs in the silence. “Get some sleep, Valdez. Tomorrow, this’ll be just a bad dream.”

***

I come sprinting back to our cell one night, still half-soaked from the showers. Chase looks up from where he’s been feverishly tinkering with his machine—now the size of a desktop computer. I gesture frantically at his work.

“You gotta get rid of it, man.”

He bristles with an expression of utter fury, but I cut him off before he can speak. “Hansen caught wind—he told the CO’s you’re making a bomb.”

“It’s not—” he starts to say, and I shake my head furiously.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s enough contraband to get us both sent to supermax. It’s gotta go. Now. They’re coming for it.”

Chase looks up at me, desperate. “I’m close. Really close. Ten minutes, and none of this will have ever happened.”

It’s the first reference he’s made to any of the time-bullshit he talked about the other night. A hysterical laugh bubbles in my throat. “You’re insane. Oh, my God...”

“Valdez,” he barks, and I’ve never seen his eyes burning like this. He’s got his sleeves rolled up, showing off the full extent of his tattoo. A thousand intricate lines, intersecting and intertwining. There’s a cable like an IV connecting those patterns to his mystery machine—like he’s trying to plug himself into the Matrix. Insane. All of it. I open my mouth to tell him—

“You’re more than a pickpocket,” Chase says. “More than a smuggler. This is your chance to change everything—for once in your life, Valdez, stand for something.”

—and I hesitate.

Chase’s gaze is unwavering. Full of pain and guilt and desperate, blazing hope.

“Two million lives,” he says.

I feel like all the eyes in the world are watching me. I feel like my stomach is full of lead. And I hear myself say, “I’ll buy you some time.”

***

Everyone’s talking about the nuke that almost popped off in Manhattan.

Sure, I get it. Big world news. A whole conspiracy uncovered, and a damn close call with World War 3. But nothing’s really changed, not in my locked-up corner of the world. I’m just a thief who picked the wrong pocket. So I keep my head down, avoid all those excited conversations, and only worry about shit that affects me.

Shit like this: one of the CO’s is dragging me off on my own, which is never a good sign. He steers me to one of the visitation rooms, double-checks my cuffs, then pushes me inside.

The man on the other side of the table isn’t anyone I’ve seen before. He looks sharp, dressed in a dark suit all secret-agent style. He isn’t wearing a visitor’s tag.

Mr. Suit leans forward, looking somewhere between nostalgic and relieved. “Valdez...I don’t expect you to remember me. But I made you a promise, once.”

Before I can wrap my head around that, he hits me with another bombshell.

“You’ve been fully pardoned.” He slides a document across the table, and through the maelstrom of confused thoughts in my head, I notice he’s got some kind of tattoo on his arm. Green lines, disappearing beneath the sleeve of his jacket. “On behalf of the TCAD, we thank you for your service.”

He has the wrong guy; it’s the only explanation. “Uh... What?”

The stranger gives me a warm smile, and for just a second I think I know him from somewhere. “There’s no mistake,” he assures me. “It’s...a long story.”

Whether or not he’s for real, I’ve got a gut feeling there’s change coming.

Head up, Valdez.