Chapter Two

New Rittenhouse warehouse headquarters

It was after she took away her grandfather's empty supper tray when Carolyn Preston started to feel sick. Something hit her stomach so suddenly that she almost dropped the tray of dishes into the utility bath that was being used as a temporary sink. She caught the tray in time and sat it on the counter safely. The stomach pains shot upward into her lungs now. She began a violent stream of seemingly endless coughing. She doubled over from the force of the coughs and the sudden sickness. What could have started this?

After the coughs settled down and finally ended, she reached over to grab a paper towel from a loose roll nearby. Soon after she wiped her mouth she heard another famous sound coming from the main area of the warehouse. The Mothership. Emma was back from her current mission. Carolyn hoped she could brighten her spirits with good news. It wouldn't happen.

The first sign that something went wrong was seeing Emma climb out of the time machine alone. She had taken with her a bomb expert and another hired gun for protection. Only Emma had returned. The next sign of bad news was when Emma cursed and emptied the contents on top of a table with her arm. She then screamed.

Carolyn approached the woman carefully. Her red hair ran wildly over her face. Sometimes Carolyn believed that Emma Whitmore's red hair grew from her ferocious rage inside her. At least that rage was currently being reduced by her affair with Nicholas. Neither of them knew that Carolyn was aware of them being together. She would confront both of them when the time came. That time was not now.

She spoke to Emma in a soft tone. "I take it things did not go as planned."

She turned to stare at the leader of Rittenhouse violently and hissed, "Your princess and her merry men happened. Again! Should have killed her when I had the chance. And I've had many chances. No thanks to you."

"Be careful, Emma. Remember who is in charge here."

"Oh, you're in charge? Some leader. You keep giving me missions that fail because of your daughter and her team. You wouldn't let me solve that problem in Paris. All you do is threaten and serve that ancient man his modern food."

Carolyn edged closer to the woman and shot back, "At least I'm not sleeping with that ancient man."

Finally. The first look of horror she had seen on Emma in quite a while. In that moment, Carolyn knew she owned her. And Emma knew it, too. She continued. "What happened?"

Emma sighed and explained more calmly. "Our bomb expert placed the device on the car that Einstein and his colleagues were using. They all got in, including Lucy and her team, but they all immediately got out before the bomb detonated."

"More likely Wyatt's military background alerted him."

"Exactly what I thought. Your so-called protection fired on them prematurely, which led to a shootout with me, him, Wyatt, and Flynn. The car was hit in the process and it triggered the bomb and blew. It took out your hit man and the bomb expert. Our sleeper in 1939 was shot by Flynn. Everyone besides myself died and those who were supposed to die in the mission got away. Which, I'm assuming, means that the letters about the nuclear bomb reached FDR anyway."

Carolyn shook her head. "Sloppy."

"What would you have me do, Carolyn?" Emma snapped. "If you had any guts we could have been rid of her in 1918 France!"

"Then the world would have never known Marie Curie," Carolyn reflected absently.

Emma scoffed. "Oh, and there it is. Of course you don't have the guts. Too much sentiment. Too much compassion. You should really read your own grandfather's writings. There's a section in it about the dangers of compassion."

Emma walked past Carolyn but she didn't get far. She stopped suddenly to ask Carolyn a question that she didn't expect to ask. "Carolyn, when did you start smoking?"

"What? Emma, I stopped smoking..." And Carolyn stopped there. To her previous knowledge, she had never smoked. But she had. She could now detect the smell of nicotine on her breath. The coughing and the sickness earlier. That wasn't there earlier. Was it? "No, I don't smoke."

"Really? You smell like a smokestack."

"No, I didn't smoke before...unless..." Carolyn motioned to the laptop on the floor courtesy of Emma's tantrum. "Quick, grab that and look someone up."

Emma did so in confusion. She turned it on. "Who am I looking up?"

"Irene Dohner. Her granddaughter. Whom did she marry?"

Emma typed away and finally said, "It doesn't say."

"There's no mention of Henry Wallace?"

"No. And why does that name sound familiar?"

Carolyn sighed. "Because I married him. Again."

"Wait, no. You married Benjamin Cahill."

"Not in this timeline. It changed somehow in 1939."

"What does it mean?"

"I think you know, Emma. She is back. Amy."

Emma screamed again. "No! I made sure that could never happen. I covered all scenarios."

A male voice echoed in the warehouse as Nicholas Keynes called out, "You couldn't have, Emma"

Emma turned to Nicholas, now walking towards them in the wide area of the warehouse. Emma defended herself as usual. "I missed nothing."

"Oh, yes you did," Carolyn countered. "JFK. Robert Johnson. Alice Paul. And now Albert Einstein. Shall I go on?"

Emma corrected, "Alice Paul was killed by the sleeper."

Nicholas spoke, "But Grace Humiston took her place. History for women continued on anyway. Which brings me to my point, Emma. I didn't mean to mock you, earlier. I've read Connor Mason's theories on time travel. Though a large portion of it is full of scientific speak that I don't understand. He does bring up a valid point on a paradox. Our futures are affected by our choices but small changes can affect those choices as well. Emma, there are a million different scenarios, as you call them, to affect the full disappearance of Amy Preston from existence. You are good, Emma, but it would take a lifetime to cover every different scenario."

She seemed to accept the answer, yet she still fumed. "That's great and all, but now the princess has a new recruit."

"I'm not so sure," said Carolyn. "I know Lucy. Right now she's probably overjoyed that her sister is back from oblivion. She won't want her in harm's way."

"Like mother, like daughter," Emma mumbled.

Carolyn ignored the remark and continued to say, "You don't have to worry about Amy joining their team. She may supply Lucy with hope and confidence, but it won't affect us."

Nicholas suggested, "Perhaps we can use that hope against her and to our advantage."

"How so?" asked Emma.

"Have our insider awakened."

Emma scowled. "Isn't it too early? She's not ready."

"She's ready enough. Her reports seem to indicate it. Also, we may not have a choice. Our missions are failing because of Carolyn's daughter and her team. This plan changes all of that. It gives us the advantage. You know what I want her to do."

Emma sneered. "We don't need another pilot."

"I don't want her for her piloting skills. What I've read from the insider's reports is that their second pilot has a unique gift. One that I will want to investigate further."

Carolyn said, "That's fine, but we already have a mission set up now. We have to get the item to our sleeper."

"Yes, of course," Nicholas said. "That is important. We have to disrupt Ms. Tubman's efforts. Emma, care to go back to the Civil War?"

"As long as I don't have to live there for another ten years."

Nicholas chuckled. "No, you won't be there long. Just as long as it takes to hand our sleeper a new history book. I have it in my study. After your preparations you can pick it up."

"We'll have to let the batteries cool for at least a few hours. It's not advisable to launch this close after coming back. I highly suggest we wait until morning."

"Understood. You know best."

"I can get a message to her while tonight."

"Excellent. Get it done, Emma." He turned to leave before she could reply.

Emma uttered just loud enough for Carolyn to hear, "Maybe I'll get a chance to eliminate both Preston girls this time."

Carolyn snapped, "Those are my daughters you want to kill. And one is a true descendant of Rittenhouse. "

Emma shot back, "That one has been a thorn in our side since we began. Now Lucy has her sister back. Sorry, I don't agree with you thinking that Amy won't help them. How well do you know Amy, exactly?"

Carolyn stopped to reflect on the question. Could she remember the last time she even spoke to Amy? She remembered in that timeline that she was in bed littered with cancer. Amy took care of her while Lucy worked as a teacher of history. That seemed like a lifetime ago rather than a year. How can one measure a year when time travel was involved? Carolyn also started remembering other things about Amy in the original timeline. She remembered how close the two sisters were. She remembered how protective Lucy was over her young sister. There was the time when Lucy nearly punched the guy who dumped Amy right before her high school prom. She remembered the times they went to the movies together. They would always stop at that dairy bar up the street from their house and ruin their dinner with double milkshakes. It made Amy become independent on her own through Lucy's protection. She also became more stubborn like her big sister, too. They complemented each other. It was amazing to Carolyn how Lucy didn't go insane with Amy's absence for so long.

Carolyn uttered without realizing she was saying it, "Lucy deserves her sister."

"What was that?" asked Emma.

"They deserve each other," Carolyn Preston tried to sound resentful.

next chapter coming soon