Erica watched as he pressed a tiny button on the disc and a small window opened. He scanned the chair, then used his thumb to push several symbols that appeared on the screen. “Now watch.”
She looked at the chair and observed as it disintegrated before her eyes. “Impossible,” she whispered.
“Maybe for the science of this age. But in my time—”
“What is—Whenis your time?”
“Twenty-seven forty-three.”
A giant hole opened in her stomach. “That’s more than 700 years from now.”
He nodded. It made a strange kind of sense to Erica. He’d seemed like such a stranger to her world, so amazed by everything he saw and smelled and tasted. “We’ve made progress, Erica. Energy, technology, medicine, culture . . . Things have changed radically, and now that I’ve been here, met you, seen your world, I know that it’s not all to the good.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
“Our race is dying out,” he said. “And it’s attributable to a form of genetic manipulation that will be discovered and implemented in your time.”
“And you came to stop it?”
“Yes.”
“Won’t that cause a whole avalanche of repercussions in the future?” she asked, realizing that she had accepted his theorem. She actually believed he was a time traveller.
“We hope so. I was sent to interfere with the scientist who develops the process that causes our world to become physically and culturally sterile.”
“How?”
“Any way necessary. Even kill him.”
“Kill? As in murder?”
He nodded. “But I’m no killer, Erica. And I certainly can’t kill a child.”
“What?You’re scaring me, Sean!” she said, just as the chair reappeared. She sat down on it, hard. “What child?”
His jaw clenched and he looked away. “We had the dates wrong. We thought he would develop his devastating procedure in 2015. I came to intercept him a few years early – or so I thought - just to be on the safe side.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of stones that glittered in the light.
“Are those diamonds?” Erica asked.
“Yes.” He dropped what had to be a hundred diamonds on the table. “I didn’t know how long I would need to stay, and we knew diamonds have value in your time. I sold one the day I arrived. That’s the reason I have some money, how I was able to buy these clothes.”
The diamonds were astonishing. Erica didn’t know a lot about jewellery, but all of Sean’s were larger than any engagement diamond she’d ever seen. “These must be worth a million dollars.”
He shrugged. “When I first met Drew, I knew I’d come far too early. He probably developed Fusion XJ in 2035, not 2010.”
“Wait. Drew?Drewis the scien—”
She stood abruptly, her heart in her throat. She’d never believed the damn thing could break. But now she knew differently.“It’s Drew that you. . .Get out! Get out of my apartment, now! I can’t believe I ever—”
“Erica, wait. I’m not going to hurt Drew. I couldn’t hurt your son. I have a plan.”
Her eyes welled with tears, but she brushed them away and marched to the front door. She felt defeated inside, as though he’d just crushed every one of her newly rejuvenated emotions.
But when he came to her and embraced her, Erica found she didn’t have the power to resist. She’d been so sure they’d connected in an elemental way. She closed her eyes and tried not to feel the overpowering sense of belonging, of security, in his arms.
“Come to the future with me. You and Drew. He can grow up there and pursue his scientific career far more effectively in my century. You both can.”
