If she was where she’d been before?Probably not a time traveler.But if her position had changed, that made it more likely she had traveled through time.
It had something to do with time’s persistence and consistency of human behavior.
It was enough to make his eye twitch if he thought about it too much.It was best to just go with the flow.Do as he’d been told.Take some pictures, particularly of the girl, and the people in the crowd, then find a place where no one could see him and activate his recall device.
He thought about the trip back while mopping his forehead with a handkerchief much like his grandfather had carried.He half frowned.Was the trip back as bumpy as getting here?
That felt like a significant omission in his briefing.
He wished he’d had more time to acclimate to the heat—and to the realization that he was in the past.Way in the past.The street he’d walked down, the people he’d nodded to, the food he smelled wafting out of doors existed in 1949.
He existed in 1949.
If he boarded a train and abandoned his mission, he could go meet his grandparents who were currently raising his mom.
He didn’t.He didn’t want to risk causing a grandfather paradox or get erased from time.But it was tempting to check out the “when I was young” assertions of his mom and grandparents.
This dusty, post-war town was beginning to show signs of shrugging off the restraints of war battle posture.Some of the faded “Uncle Sam Needs You” signs had been replaced with brightly colored advertisements and the girls dresses were brighter, too.
He let himself get distracted by the girl approaching, enjoying the cinched-in waist above a flaring skirt.The legs weren’t bad either.
He might have let his gaze drift up a little slowly to the face shaded by a wide brimmed hat—his thoughts jolted to a halt.
It was her, the girl from the photograph.
Wow.Only now did he realize he hadn’t quite believed it would happen.He extracted a cigarette and lighter.He slipped the cylinder between his lips, hoping no one could tell he wasn’t used to doing it.He lifted the lighter, angling it to make sure she was in the shot.
The lighter clicked but failed to light, clicked again and failed again.He gave it a look of disgust and put both it and the cigarette back in his pocket.
At least, he didn’t have to smoke the things.
Now he felt a bit let down.He’d come.He’d seen.Now what?Oh, he still had some observing to do, but it felt about as blah as his last few trips in theRay.
The only question left was, would she go to the same place as before?Would she talk to anyone?Alice had thought it interesting that she appeared to be alone in her other appearances, but that didn’t mean she was alone.
She’d been photographed with the mysterious John enough times to catch Alice’s attention.
But in the end, what did it mean?He couldn’t follow her back to where she came from.It confirmed a theory, so maybe that was progress.
It didn’t feel like progress.
While he wasn’t in on the super-secret conversations, even he could tell they weren’t sure what was the next step.It would be a victory to have found her in the past—if she was a time traveler—but how did they track her back to the future?
If he had some kind of handy-dandy tracker he could plant on her, now that would be useful.If such a thing even existed.
He stepped deeper into the shadows behind him and not just because it was cooler.It wasn’t enough to matter.No, if she’d been briefed as well as he had, she’d know the usual suspects.
He wasn’t one of them.
There were, Jack had assured him, variations in the people that it shouldn’t matter.He shouldn’t matter, but it would be better not to be spotted if he could help it.
Yeah, that was reassuring.
He let his glance drift away from the girl and found that Jack had been right.
There were some people he recognized from the old photos, a couple he didn’t, and two faces that jarred so much he almost jerked back.
A couple of feds, or his fake name wasn’t Red Henry.
