Chapter Twenty-Six
A couple of weeks later, after her brother
had pretty much recovered, Veronica, Lachlan, Catriona, and Victor
huddled around his AI scanner and prepared for him to turn it on.
None of them knew what to expect to see in the future.
Unfortunately, the AI scanner could only pick up frequencies that
carried so far from Victor’s underground home without someone
having on the tracking bracelet he had invented and left for
Veronica. She’d given back her wristband to him some time ago.
The AI scanner whirred to life. It showed a
wintry world—normal for this time of the year. Electric cars and
Amish buggies passed by, causing Victor and Veronica to whoop out
loud. “This is terrific!” Veronica beamed, glancing at Lachlan.
“The future has been changed.” Everyone who’d fought and killed the
infected in 1155 A.D. had a hand in that truth.
The scanner switched frequencies, showing an
LED sign that read: Welcome to Victorville. Veronica gasped.
Apple Creek was now called Victorville? “Go to your compound,” she
said. “Let’s see what the scanner picks up.”
Victor fiddled with the machine until it did
his bidding. Another LED sign, this time with an arrow pointing
down to the once hidden door in the forest ground. The sign read:
Underground Museum of Posthumous Nobel Prize Winner Sir Victor
Banks and His Sister, Veronica, the Countess Gunn.
Victor’s jaw dropped. Veronica’s eyes
widened. A sir? A countess? What?! How?
Unable to read the English of the future,
Lachlan asked what was going on. “I-I don’t know,” Victor
managed.
“Me neither,” Veronica breathed out. She
read the sign to her husband. “How could we have those titles? And
how could they already know what we’ve done and built a museum
and—”
“I can’t explain it. I don’t know that I’ll
ever be able to,” her brother broke in. “But, Nica, I won the
Nobel,” he said bemusedly. “Can you believe it?”
She was about to respond with an
enthusiastic yes when the scanner shifted on its own and
highlighted two virtual encyclopedia entries side by side.
Goosebumps formed on her arms and at the back of her neck. It was
as if—and maybe was—someone on the other side of time was sending a
message to them, letting them know what they’d accomplished.
The first entry was devoted to Countess
Veronica Gunn, herself. She read it aloud for her husband and
sister-in-law: “Born Veronica Marie Banks, the Countess Gunn was
a fierce Kalari master and warrior who traveled back in time and
helped her brother (see: Sir Victor Banks) defeat the infected dead
and save our world from the virus. She married the powerful
Highlander laird, Earl Lachlan Gunn, who was crucial to defeating
the Campbell plague. Veronica and Lachlan’s granddaughter many
times removed currently rules independent Scotland as Her Royal
Majesty, Queen Arabella VI.”
“How will I become an earl?” Lachlan
asked.
“It doesn’t say. Obviously I become a
countess whenever you become an earl though.”
There was more in the entry, but Veronica
stopped reading to gape at Lachlan. She still hadn’t told her
husband they were expecting and hadn’t planned to until she was one
hundred percent sure and therefore showing. Apparently he’d picked
up on that detail too.
Lachlan’s lips lifted into a small smile.
“You will birth my bairns,” he proudly announced.
“Sooner than you think,” she hesitantly
admitted.
His eyes widened. “You are pregnant?” he
murmured.
Her face flushed. “Yeah. I’m pretty
sure.”
Before she knew what was what, Lachlan
picked her up and twirled her around. His happiness was catching.
Veronica grinned down at him, her arms wrapping around his
neck.
“Look at this, sis,” Victor said on a
chuckle. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “My entry
basically lists my accomplishments. Guess what the last one listed
is?”
Lachlan set Veronica on her feet, but kept
his arm protectively around her. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s
your final accomplishment?”
“The invention of the bidet-toilette,” he
said with much amusement.
Veronica laughed. “Thank God. But let’s make
that one your next accomplishment rather than your last one.”
“Agreed. Well, sort of. According to the
encyclopedic entry, I do end up creating a vaccine for Clan Gunn. I
suppose that’ll come next, but the bidet-toilette will quickly
follow.”
“You create a vaccine in 1155 A.D.?
Impressive.”
“According to my entry, I do. Only for Clan
Gunn, though.”
Veronica shrugged. “You only have a limited
number of needles so that makes sense.”
“True.”
“Who is that?” Catriona interrupted, her
nose wrinkling. “Look at the screen.”
Everyone’s gazes flew back to the AI
scanner. A beautiful woman with caramel skin and green eyes
reminiscent of Veronica’s appeared on the other end of it.
Curiously, she was also wearing the emerald circlet Lachlan was so
crazy about.
The woman had left them a message or
something. It looked to have been pre-recorded. Curious, everyone
leaned in closer.
“Grandmother, Grandfather, Aunt, and
Uncle,” she began in ancient Gaelic, her accent distinctly
modern Scottish. “I am your granddaughter, Arabella VI, Queen of
all Scots. On behalf of humanity, I give you my thanks for your
fortitude and sacrifices. The year is now 2095, twenty years from
the time Grandmother and Uncle left this world for the one you now
inhabit. I wanted you to know that all you have accomplished will
never be forgotten. The war between the living and the dead will be
remembered by you as a brutal struggle, yet in our time, in our
world, it was but a blip on the screen. Lives were still lost,
unfortunately, but the virus was killed early on.”
Veronica placed her hand on Victor’s
shoulder. He paused the transmission, glanced back at her, and
smiled. They had changed the future in more ways than one.
“I wonder if mom and dad are still alive in
this new future,” Victor said, his voice emotional. “I hope
so.”
“Me too.” Her smile was soft. “I’d like to
think they know what we did and the significance it carried.”
“Anything is possible now,” Victor said
hopefully. “Literally anything.”
“We’ll likely never know,” Veronica
admitted, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t believe if we choose
to.”
Victor inclined his head. “I choose to.”
“Me too.”
Her brother unpaused the prerecorded message
sent back through time. Her granddaughter—her
granddaughter!—resumed speaking.
“This is the only transmission you will
receive from me so I pray you see it. I have recently bore my son
and heir. He was christened His Royal Majesty, Prince Lachlan of
Scotland. One day Grandfather’s namesake will rule this land as
king as wisely and just as Grandfather will soon rule the whole of
the Highlands. Whilst humanity still faces its fair share of
struggles, in Scotland at least we have hope for a remarkable
future. Thank you for all that you have done to make this our
reality. Your names will live on forevermore. With all my love and
respect, your granddaughter, Queen Arabella VI.”
Lachlan squeezed Veronica tightly. “Our
granddaughter,” he murmured, his voice thick with emotion. “She has
the look of you. So beautiful.”
Veronica smiled up to him. “With your nose
and chin. She’s gorgeous.”
He snorted at that. “I dinna think ‘twould
be a good look on a woman, yet somehow it works powerfully.”
“I love her name,” Veronica told her
husband. She rubbed her belly. “If we have a daughter…”
He grinned. “Agreed, love.”
She couldn’t stop smiling at her strong,
kind, handsome husband. God, how she loved him. He was her world
and she realized she was his. Veronica didn’t know why she’d been
chosen by fate to be so fortunate, but she knew better than to look
a gift horse in the mouth.
Their granddaughter’s message would never be
forgotten. In essence she had told them that all their lives had
held a purpose for the better. And that humanity, for better or
worse, had carried on.