YesterWorld (Book 2 of the Down World Series)

Original Edition: Chapter Forty-Five

The first part of our problem was solved for us: the MP escorted us in a jeep back to Fort Pryman Shard for questioning by a senior official. "Just a formality," he insisted as the jeep jostled its way down the pockmarked road between the hospital and the fort. "You should be cleared for leave after a few routine questions."

Adam nodded and I offered a halfhearted smile. Only the slightest brush of Adam's hand against my thigh in the back of the jeep informed me that he was thinking the same thing I was: At least we'll be on the grounds.

Now we just had to get down to the new portals somehow.

The same guard who had flirted with me in the morning was still on duty, and I saw a quizzical look pass over his bright freckled face when he noticed me in the back of the car while waving us in. Adam had yet to see the school in this condition, of course, and the shock was evident in the way his mouth fell open slightly while looking out the window.

"We'll be in here," the guard called over his shoulder, pulling into a parking spot at the building called Y12. It was the exact entrance I had used earlier, which relieved me if only because it meant I would be in a place that was somehow familiar. Yet once inside, the click-clacking of the typewriters filling the halls seemed somehow incongruous with the dramatic events of the past few hours. It was as though nothing here had changed at all.

Of course, for the secretaries behind the desks, nothing had changed. The world was exactly as it had been this morning for them: America on the brink of winning the worst war in world history; Germany on the brink of defeat. They were part of a winning team, these secretaries, and you could hear it in the decisiveness of their undulating fingers.

We really had succeeded, Adam and I. Alexei didn't have the plutonium; the Russians wouldn't get the bomb.

Everything in this reality would now continue on the same path as it had in the one I grew up in, the one where America got the bomb first, where we then dropped the bombs on Japan. And while I knew it was a good thing that the world under the lake had been prevented, I couldn't help but feel that it was the bitterest victory of all.

The bombs would still fall. The people would still die. What had we really accomplished?

The officer who had been escorting us dropped us in one of the offices—a clean, nondescript room painted in the same shade of greenish beige as the rest of the building. It could have been anyplace, and I guess that was the idea. It looked innocent and boring. It didn't look like what it really was: a factory. A factory that only made one thing.

"He'll be in in just a minute," the officer informed us, depositing us in our chairs like we were packages he had to deliver before he could get back to work. He left the room, and the knob clicked behind him as he locked us in.

We didn't speak for a moment, but a glance at Adam revealed a sea of thoughts overtaking his brain.

"Adam?"

"Yeah."

"How many people die in Japan?"

"Don't think about that."

"I have to."

He nodded, taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out. "A lot."

"Thousands?"

"Over a hundred thousand. Two hundred with the radiation poisoning."

The words floated from his mouth and hung over my head. They expanded into the room like helium, filling every crevice.

My body began to shake beneath me, and before I knew it I was sobbing. "We didn't stop it."

"We weren't supposed to stop it. They were going to die anyway, Marina."