when he was programming the destination for our next meeting into my key. Whatever’s in there must be fairly important for Max to risk going behind her back.
I put on a pot of coffee and pour myself a Connor-sized bowl of Cheerios, then head out to the patio to catch some of the rays that woke me up. When I open the diary, a folded scrap of paper flutters out, landing in my cereal bowl. I fish it out and open it. It’s a handwritten note, two sentences. Don’t watch this in the house. Delete when finished and return diary to me only. The last two words are underlined, and it’s signed with the letter M.
I wad up the note and focus on the diary. It looks like the others—a computer disguised as a book, although it wouldn’t be likely to fool anyone, even from an earlier century, if closely inspected. The spot inside the cover where the historian’s name usually appears has been marked through with blue ink.
Thumbing through, I see that all of the pages are blank except the first, where there’s just one link with the standard CHRONOS format for dates: 09192009 .
That’s odd. I expected to see pages of text entries or a list of links like the ones at the back of Other-Kate’s diary. I spent days clicking those links and watching entries recorded by the me from the other timeline. Kiernan’s Kate, the alter-me who was erased by one of the time shifts that propelled the Cyrists from a sick idea in my grandfather’s head into the largest, most powerful religion in the world.
I’m outside the house, so I’ve met the requirements in Max’s note. I doubt surveillance equipment would pick up a CHRONOS video entry anyway. People without the gene can’t operate the diaries at all, and even with the gene, I still need the tiny clear disk behind my ear to pull up video entries. But I decide to put a little more distance between myself and Big Brother. I carry my cereal and the diary out to the swinging bench in the backyard.
After I click the link, a holographic display of an elderly woman in a wheelchair appears in front of me. There are trees all around and heavy ground cover, which strikes me as strange. The terrain doesn’t look like it would be accessible to someone in a wheelchair.
Also, there’s something different about this video compared to the others I’ve seen, although I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, at first. Then the woman adjusts her hands in her lap, and it hits me. All of Other-Kate’s entries, and all of those I watched in Katherine’s diaries, began with a close-up view of the hand or the body of the person recording the entry, until they moved away from the device. This time, however, there’s just a glimpse of fingertip and then I see the woman, seated a few yards away from the camera.
Whoever’s recording the video takes several steps toward the wheelchair, and I recognize the woman as Delia. Her eyes are still the same deep blue, but they’re now set in a face that’s lost the distinct lines of youth. The jaw is softer, and her hair is white and much thinner than before. I do the math quickly—if she was in her early thirties when they were stranded in 1938, then Delia is over a hundred years old here. She looks very good for a centenarian, and that has me wondering if she’s still alive. Unlikely, I guess, but what’s the average life expectancy for someone born at the end of the twenty-third century, with who knows how many genetic alterations?
A voice says, “It’s recording.” Then Delia clears her throat and begins speaking.
Hello, Kate. If Max here does as I’ve asked, you’ll be the first and only person to see this. I hoped I might still be around to talk to you in person. Doctor June says I might have made it if I’d eaten more broccoli and drank less bourbon, but as you may recall, I never was a fan of doctors or their advice. Anyway, I tire quickly these past few months and I decided I couldn’t risk putting this off any longer. So I had Max bring
The Dark Wind (v1.1) [html]