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“I traded it,” I admit in a low voice, but inwardly I gather up strength and stand to face him.
“For what?” he says. His voice is soft, but it isn’t kind.
“A book,” I say. “More than one actually. Who knows what we might find out.”
Jost grabs the books and slams them down on the shelf, and as he does he knocks a stack of papers to the floor. “Have some respect,” I hiss as I snatch the brittle pages, but they aren’t just paper. They’re Bulletins full of old news.
He starts in on respect and scaring him to death and throwing away resources, but I only hear snatches of what he says because I’m reading the headline neatly printed in block letters on faded, yellow paper:
HOPE AGAINST TYRANNY:
SCIENCE
OFFERS AN
END TO WAR
May 1, 1943—Preliminary studies termed the Cypress Project indicate the end of World War II is in sight. According to sources within the project, investors visited the laboratories for a presentation on the viability of the looms, which have been funded by twelve allied nations in cooperation with generous contributions from individuals in the private sector. The visit was necessary to secure permission to proceed to human trials of the project.
The war departments of all twelve nations involved with the Cypress Project have issued a call for healthy young women between the ages of sixteen and thirty years to serve as test pilots on the looms. For the first time in American history, chosen women will be considered as enlisted troops in the U.S. Army.
But it’s the photograph that I can’t process: a scientist demonstrating on a loom for a group of men who wear ties and horn-rimmed glasses. Hardly anyone in Arras wears glasses these days, thanks to renewal tech, but aside from the spectacles, most of the men in the clipping could pass as current officials in Arras. One in particular. Maybe Jost is right, and I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I’m seeing ghosts.
Jost shakes me, abandoning his rant to get my attention. “Ad!”
I don’t know what to say, so I hold the paper out to him. He takes it and the color drains from his face.
I’m not the only one seeing ghosts.
“How can that be possible?” he asks me.
“A coincidence?” I offer, but no part of me believes it.
“A family member?”
I nod, because even if I can’t accept these explanations, I can’t comprehend what Cormac Patton’s picture is doing in a Bulletin clipping from Earth that has to be almost two hundred years old. The man looks like him th
ough, right down to his smooth jaw and dark eyes.
“Find anything?” the shop owner asks, hobbling toward us. She bobs her head in greeting at Jost but doesn’t seem excited to see another poor young person.
“Can you tell us about this?” Jost asks, passing her the paper to inspect. Her eyes slit in concentration but then familiarity dawns in her expression and she leans back on her cane.
“The Cypress Project,” she says with a sigh. “That’s all.”
“That’s all?” I repeat. The Cypress Project. I’ve never heard of it, although I know of Cypress, Arras’s capital metro. The name sends a tingle slithering through my skin.
“Your parents taught you to read,” she says, annoyance seeping into her gravelly voice, “but they didn’t bother to tell you how it happened?”
“You remember it, though?” I ask. “The Cypress Project?”
“Of course,” she says. “You don’t forget that. You don’t forget being left behind.”
“Tell us,” I say, taking her hand gently. “I want to know too.”
Her eyes soften, but then they fall to our hands, clasped tenuously together.
“Get out!” she howls, wrenching her hand from mine like I’ve bitten her.
