Inked

kids who hardly know how to hold a bayonet. But here they are, in a uniform, with power. Goes to some of their heads.”
    “What did they want?”
    “Looking for American currency. Shortwave radios. Evidence of spying. That’s their excuse, anyway, but I bet if you smelled their breath for liquor, it would set your nostrils on fire.”
    “It won’t last,” I whispered. “None of this.”
    Jean tilted her head, studying me. “How much longer?”
    I hesitated. “A year or so.”
    But you won’t be here when it ends, I almost told her. And I don’t want to think about how the experience will change you.
    Jean looked at the door and pushed herself away from the wall. “Stay here. I need to walk Ernie downstairs and make sure his parents are okay.”
    I almost told her to be careful. Instead, I went to the door, and watched her slip out of the apartment. Demons faded away with her. All of them, except the two Zees. They stepped free of the shadows and crouched in front of me, perfect twins, utterly inscrutable. I knelt, needing to look them in the eyes.
    “Well,” I said. “I hope you both know what you’re doing.”
    “Doing life,” said one Zee.
    “Fitting pieces,” added the other.
    “Right,” I muttered, wiping sweat off my brow. “But what if I make things worse? Or what if I don’t do any good at all?” I looked at my Zee. “This has already happened before, for you. More than sixty years from now you’ll remember what goes on in the next ten minutes, but for me, it hasn’t occurred yet. But Ernie’s still dead in the future we came from, so whatever I did here…it didn’t work.”
    “Think too much,” Zee rasped, tapping his forehead. “Just be.”
    “That’s crap,” I snapped. “Is the future set in stone, or isn’t it?”
    “Don’t know.” Zee held out his hands. “Nothing stays the same.”
    “Except when it does,” said the other Zee. I wanted to strangle them. Instead I curled my hands into fists and pushed them hard against the floor. I could hear faint voices below me, speaking German. No more Japanese. The soldiers had gone.
    “Whatever caused her to send that message through Ernie hasn’t happened yet. She doesn’t even want to get involved. And,” I added, tapping them both on the chests, “why is it her older self didn’t—or won’t—remember me? Care to explain that ?”
    Neither of them did, if their silence was any measure. I stripped off my right glove, holding up my armored quicksilver hand. My grandmother’s Zee flinched when he saw it, and rasped a single unintelligible word. I ignored him.
    “Am I supposed to help those children?” I asked my Zee. “Or is there another reason you sent me here?”
    His eyes narrowed. “All kinds of help.”
    The other Zee’s claws raked lightly across the floor. “Help her .”
    I stared. “Help my grandmother? In case you hadn’t noticed, that’s not the way it usually works. One dies, one goes on alone.”
    Which, I had to admit, was about as petty and selfish as anything I had ever said. Knee-jerk reaction. Of course I would help her. Of course. But for one brief moment—just a heartbeat that lasted a lifetime—I felt a prick of resentment. No one had come to help me after my mother had been murdered. No one.
    Floorboards creaked outside the door. I slid my glove back on and stood. Jean slipped inside, a faint flush in her cheeks. She glanced from me to her Zee. “I need some clean cloth and antiseptic. Cans of sardines, too, and a couple flints. Hurry.”
    “Serious injuries?” I asked.
    She shook her head and leaned back against the door, hugging herself. “But they blamed me. I could see it in their eyes. I think they were appalled that their son had gone to me for help.”
    “They don’t know you spy.”
    “But they know I’m not one of them.” Jean grimaced, bowing her head so deeply I thought she would be sick. “Does that ever get easier?”
    “No.”
    Bitterness touched her mouth. “You ever wonder what we’re doing with ourselves? You got that figured out in the future?”
    I found myself shuffling close, heart so heavy my feet would hardly move. But I had to. I had to be near her. “You want to know what the point is.”
    “One woman responsible for the world,” she breathed, her pain so palpable, so much mine , I could feel the burn of her tears in my own eyes.
    “That’s not the point,” I whispered, wanting desperately to touch her. “Just the