“Yeah,” Troll said, “it’s something, isn’t it? It’s too bad the aliens that built the city were long gone before we got here. It would have been interesting to meet them.”
“Aliens?”
“Yep.” Instead of explaining, his hand pressed lightly against her back, urging her forwards. “The mess hall closes in less than half an hour, so we need to move.”
Lia walked. “This planet is outside Earth’s solar system?”
“It is. I could give you coordinates, but no one from your era would get it unless they were an astronomer.” He shrugged. “Most of the people in this time don’t get it either and it’s taught in school.”
Two things occurred to her simultaneously. First, the colonel from hell, or one of his minions of darkness, must have filled Troll in on what she’d said. Second, Sgt Gorgeous was talking as if he thought she had time travelled – or at least he was going along with it. Lia pulled him to a halt and, looking into his eyes, she asked, “You believe me?”
“Yes.” He didn’t need to ask what she was talking about.
There was nothing flirty in his gaze now and nothing shifty either. That didn’t mean he wasn’t lying, of course, but she needed someone to believe her and she wanted it to be him. “I want to go home. Will you help me?”
“I don’t know how I can help you.”
“I need a wormhole or an atom smasher.” Lia rapidly filled him in on what she thought had happened last night and he listened to her. Really listened.
“We don’t have either thing here, but even if we did, have you considered that it might take you somewhere else besides your own time?”
No, she hadn’t, but . . . “The odds against the first one opening were astronomical, and the chances of a second one appearing that went somewhere else must be next to impossible.” That was logical, wasn’t it? “To be honest, I was kind of hoping that in this time you’d mastered how to summon and use wormholes, but since you haven’t, I guess I’m stuck here.”
She thought she’d done a good job of concealing her emotions, but Troll’s response told her she was wrong.
“I know you’re scared – who wouldn’t be? – and I know it’s tough to leave your family behind, but I’ve never heard anything about wormholes being created or used.”
“I don’t have any family left,” Lia told him and ignored the stab around her heart. The loss still hurt years later, but she’d become used to the hollow feeling.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. After a pause, he added, “You know, if you give it a chance, you might like 2050 and I’ll do what I can to help you adjust.” He winked at her again, and, inclining his head, said, “Come on. I’m starving and don’t want to miss mess.”
Lia didn’t move. “Why do you believe me when your colonel doesn’t?”
Troll shrugged. “Maybe I’m more open-minded than the Big Chill, or maybe I have more imagination. Or maybe I have some sixth sense that he doesn’t.”
“Sixth sense?” Something about the way he’d said that caught her attention. “Do you mean you’re psychic?”
His lips curved slightly. “If that were the case, don’t you think my nickname would be the Prophet? That isn’t something my team would let slide.” Troll took her hand and, lacing their fingers, began to walk.
“If they were aware of it,” she murmured, but when he simply raised his brows and smirked, Lia had to laugh at herself. She was grasping at shadows, probably because her leap forwards was fresh in her thoughts.
She pushed the idea aside and relished the warmth of his calloused palm against hers. He was a stranger, but he treated her in a way that was almost casually intimate. That wasn’t what made her uneasy. The part that unnerved her was how natural it felt, as if it would be wrong if he wasn’t touching her. She needed to get her mind off this before she started dreaming up really stupid ideas. Lia tugged free, trying to dispel the weird sense of rightness, and said, “This place is like a ghost town. Where is everybody?”
“Around somewhere. There’re only about five hundred people inside a city that once held up to fifty thousand. It always looks like this. You’ll get used to it.”
Lia didn’t want to get used to it. She wanted to glance up and see aeroplanes leaving contrails; she wanted to go into Starbucks and grab a cup of coffee; she wanted to deal with crowds and traffic. But she didn’t say anything. It wasn’t like she could change anything, and Troll couldn’t either. He took her hand again and this time she hung on, needing the connection as they continued through a nearly empty alien city.
They turned a corner into a square. Smack dab in the middle was an unsightly corrugated metal building with a flagpole in front of it. Now she saw a few other people and she expected Troll to release her. He didn’t. “Let me guess,” Lia said, “we brought that monstrosity from Earth.”
“You know it.”
Something else caught her eye. “That isn’t the US flag.”
He gazed at her for a moment before he said, “It belongs to the Western Alliance. There are a lot of Americans here, but this is an Alliance outpost.”
“Western Alliance?”
“You had the European Union in your time, right?” When she nodded, he said, “It’s like that – mostly – except with more countries involved. The history is convoluted and it evolved throughout the years and with each of the wars.”
