His gaze lands heavily on Heath, on his arm around my shoulders. “I want you to stop messing with my timeline.”
“Why do you care?” I ask. “You don’t even live in our universe.”
He cocks one eyebrow and walks toward the windows, leaving that luxurious armchair open for the sitting. I want to sit down so badly, tears press behind my eyes. No, I don’t want to sit down. I need to sit down.
I start toward the chair, reaching it just as Orville arrives at the windows. He speaks to them instead of us. “I don’t have to live in your reality to profit from it.”
Money. Disgust coats my mouth, and the thin film does nothing to make my stomach play nice. He really is like the Ryerson’s—especially Guy. I’m in the condition I am because of his unyielding demands for rift-walking.
Orville turns and see me sitting in his chair. His eyebrows lift toward the ceiling. “Not feeling well?”
I shake my head, because the wave of exhaustion riding through my system makes talking impossible.
“She’s fine,” Heath says from beside me. “How about we promise not to do any more rift-walking, not to change anything else in your timeline, and you agree to do the same?”
Heath’s smart. We already know that Orville made a similar deal with Harlem Ryerson. Maybe he’ll do the same for us. But even though I’m tired, so tired, my mind’s as sharp as ever. I don’t think we’ll get the same deal as Harlem.
“I can do that,” Orville says, and it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows.
“Great,” Heath says. “Then we’re done here.” He takes a step toward the hallway.
“I don’t think we are, Mister Stonesman.” Orville moves next to his son, who hasn’t moved from the mouth of room. “I’m afraid you can’t go back.”
He sounds truly sympathetic when he says it, but that doesn’t erase the terror mingling with my air. He knows who Heath is. He must know everything about us.
The tension pouring from Heath washes over me too. “What do you mean?”
Orville nods to where I’m sitting in his chair. “If she tries to go through one more rift, she’ll die.”
Heath
I STARE AT ORVILLE, WANTING TO GLANCE at Cascade and see how she’s taking the news. I knew she was in bad shape. The way she leaned on me more and more with every step testified of it. The paleness of her face, the fact that she limped to the chair and sat, all of it.
But she’s going to die?
“You’re lying,” I say.
“Do you want to find out?” Orville reaches into his pocket and withdraws something small. He clicks it and a rift roars to life in one of the window panes only inches behind him. “Go ahead. See if she makes it out alive.”
Cascade touches my arm, and I look at her. “He’s right.” Her gray eyes hold nothing but fear—and truth.
“Cas—”
“I can’t, Heath.” She lets her hand fall to her lap as she leans back in the chair and closes her eyes.
I don’t know what to say, or what to do. She’s stuck here? Does that mean I am too?
I start to shake my head and I can’t stop, can’t stop. “You did this on purpose. You brought her here knowing she wouldn’t be able to leave.”
The knowing glint in Orville’s eyes tells me I’m right.
“I have no idea if she can leave or not. I just know that my health sensors are going crazy, and she’s not well.” He aims the last part of his sentence in Cascade’s direction, and I follow his gaze. She’s fallen asleep, her skin that waxy texture, that gray color.
“Can you help her?” I ask.
“No,” Orville says. “But I know someone who might.” He nods at Payton, who turns and walks back the way we came in. Several minutes later, he returns, this time with a man with brown hair, green eyes, and a handful of freckles across his nose and cheeks.
He pauses a few feet from Orville. “What couldn’t wait until morning?”
Orville sweeps his hand toward the slumbering form of Cascade, and the man’s eyes go wide. “You bought her here?” He practically runs to Cas. “Chloe, honey, wake up.” He nudges her shoulder, but she just groans and shifts positions.
“What happened to her?” he demands.
“Prolonged rift-walking,” Orville says. “Her friend here wanted to know if I could help her. I said I couldn’t, but I believe you can, Doctor Phillips.”
The name awakens something in my head. Something I can’t quite place. But this guy… This guy looks an awful lot like Saige.
“Do you know her?” I ask him.
“Yes,” he bites out. “I’m her father.”
The next morning finds me pacing in the cubicle of a room I’ve been given. It’s near the top of the Global Initiative building, a practical maze to get out of. Orville has things right, putting his office on ground-level where the escape route is easy.
Seventy floors up is hard to escape from, at least if you want to stay alive.
And I do.
Cascade’s father had taken her last night, and I haven’t seen either one of them since. Orville tasked Payton with giving me somewhere to sleep, and if that’s all I needed to do, this room would suffice.
But I need to get out of here. I need to get back to the right dimension, and the right year, and the right family. Back to the right girl.
Soda’s face fills my mind. Her auburn hair that flowed through my fingers like water. Her bright green eyes, enhanced so no one knew their real color—brown. She’d shown me once, claiming I was the only one she trusted with her true appearance. I used to kiss the smattering of freckles across her face until she’d meet my lips with hers.
Longing pulls through me. I miss her. The thought of never seeing her again, never chatting her again, never holding her again cuts too deep, too sharp.
“I have to get out of here.” My fingers flex into a fist, and I clench my hand until the bones feel like they’re going to crack. Maybe they are. Cas said once that her bones weren’t as strong as they should be because of her rift-walking. Maybe mine are already starting to deteriorate because of my few walks through time and space.
I reach for the sorghum soda Payton brought me. He’d been surprised at my request, but said their food replicators could produce anything I wanted. And what I wanted was the magical elixir to keep my muscles from shriveling and my bones from breaking and my mind from sinking into unconsciousness.
I gulp down the sugary liquid Cedar claimed had calcium, and potassium, and iron—all vitamins and minerals my rift-affected cells apparently need. I set the empty bottle on the floor by the door, wondering if I can request more, overpower whoever brings it, and get the hella out of here.
Where I’d go, I have no idea. I don’t know anyone in this Verse, and even if I did, I’m not sure they’d go against the mighty Orville and Payton Openshaw.
I don’t know how to activate rifts, or open portals between dimensions. I don’t know if Price was ever born, if he’s living in the future without me, without Cascade, without knowing anything.
Frustration combines with misery, and the toxic mixture rises through me, drowning me, choking me. I flop onto the pathetic excuse of a mattress and will my mind to come up with a solution.
I close my eyes and concentrate the way I do at home to activate a chat. I imagine connecting to Soda, hear the sound of her voice in my head.
I wish you were here.
She’d said it so often when I was still living in the year 2073, and I’d always reassured her that I’d get to Florida to see her, that we’d be together one day soon. I just couldn’t leave my mom so soon after she lost Cooper. Soda understood—at least she said she did.
When I can’t stand lying on the bed obsessing over Soda, I get up and approach the door. It slides upward and I step into the hall without any alarms. I glance right then left, and head toward the lift Payton brought me up on.
I’d managed to keep track of a few details, and I navigate them in reverse until I’m standing in front of a pair of silve
r doors. I punch the button pointing down and wait.
The floor vibrates moments before the doors slide open to reveal and empty car on the lift. I’m almost afraid to step into it, like it might be a trap. I didn’t expect to be able to roam freely in this dimension where I don’t belong.
In the end, I step on and let the doors slide closed. I push the button with the number one, and the lift drops fast. It seems like it stops on every floor and more and more people crowd into the small space.
By the time we reach the first floor, I can’t breathe. Smashed in the back of the car, I’m forced to wait until the press of people moves away before I can exit.
I pause in the wide lobby, uncertain if I can leave the building. Payton didn’t say as much, but I’ve learned that it’s what he doesn’t say that is the most dangerous. He didn’t give me any directions at all. No “Stay in your room until I come back.” Nothing.
I square my shoulders and move like I own the building, own Orville, own this dimension. No one stops me, and I push out into the weak winter sunlight without a helmeted guard stopping me.
My skin tingles from the chill, and a shiver skates down my spine. With the ease of practice, I don’t glance over my shoulder to see who’s watching me. I already know someone is.
I move down the sidewalk, a twist of guilt pricking my conscious. I shouldn’t leave Cas here alone.
She’s with her dad, I reason. Plus, I know how rift-walking affects her, and I doubt she’s awake anyway.
I step next to a guy about my age as we enter the square I crossed last night. “Hey,” I say. “Where can I find a map of the city?”
He gives me a peculiar look. “Like the directory?”
“Yeah, like that.”
“You can access it online,” he says, scanning me from head to toe. I pay him the same favor, suddenly worried I’m not dressed the right way. But he’s wearing jeans like me. A polo like me. His hair clipped short like me.
“If you don’t have a panel, you can use the holo at the library.” He starts to move away.
“Thanks,” I call after him. He raises his hand in acknowledgment, but doesn’t turn back.
I have no idea where the library is, but I cross the square, which is packed with people. They eat bagels on low walls, hold coffee cups and chat with friends or co-workers or whoever. I catch the eye of a woman as she approaches me.
“Hey,” I say. “Can you help me? I’m trying to find the library.”
“Do you need to borrow my holo?” She reaches to her ear and releases a clip before holding it toward me.
My heart stutters. I want to use her holo, yes. I just don’t know how. And I certainly don’t need that scene in this crowded square.
I paste on my best smile. She returns it. “I’m good,” I say. “I’m just meeting a friend there, and I’m new to town, and I got turned around.” I scan the sky like an arrow will appear and point me in the right direction.
She twists back the way she’d come from. “It’s down that way. Several blocks. Look for the building with the golden sculpture out front.” She flashes me another smile, replaces the clip behind her ear, and continues on her way.
I notice that everyone in this Verse wears a clip on their ear. Several people sit alone on benches, but swipe the air in front of them, clearly seeing things no one else can.
I’m impressed. We have similar tech in the future, but we don’t need a clip, and everything happens right inside our minds. I’m about forty years in the past—and in another dimension completely—but somehow this technology soothes me. Because it means this society has technology.
I find the golden sculpture and climb the steps to the library. A dozen minutes later, I’ve managed to rent a holo clip and have found a semi-private table where I can figure out how to use it without anyone bothering me.
The inkling of an idea that’s been needling me since I left my room becomes an urgent roar in my mind.
I’m going to find Cedar’s doppelganger in this Verse. Maybe he’ll have working knowledge of how things work in this world—and info for how I can get the hella out of here.
I slide the small piece of plastic on my ear, and instantly a curved screen enters my vision.
Agree to library terms? glitters before me, and I lift my finger and tap yes beneath the question. It feels strange not to have something concrete when I tap, but I settle into the rhythm easily, having had some experience with doing things that don’t make a lot of sense.
I pull up a map first and discover that Eagle Valley is a much smaller city that Castle Pines. I’m not really sure how everyone in my dimension can have an alternate personality here. A horrifying thought strikes against my sternum.
Maybe not everyone in my dimension exists in this one. Maybe they live in another Verse somewhere.
Again, my frustration feels like a living, breathing creature. I don’t know much about the dimensions, how many there are, or anything.
I don’t know Cedar’s name in this Verse, or if he’s even here.
A sense of hopelessness engulfs me, and a future where I live in the right time, with the right girl, seems absolutely impossible.
Cascade
WARM FINGERS STROKE MY HAIR OFF MY FOREHEAD, stirring me from sleep. I keep my eyes closed as I drift toward waking, replaying the events that brought me to this bed, this level of exhaustion.
I startle when I remember that I can’t go back through the rift again. A pit opens in my stomach, one with a voice that echoes Price’s name endlessly.
Would he come here to be with me? Leave his life, his family, everything just to be with me? How can I ask him to do that?
“Chloe? Are you awake?”
My eyelids flutter open at the sound of Dad’s voice. “Dad.” I lift heavy arms to hug him, and his embrace feels as warm and welcome. The old anger and familiar distrust evaporates, and I breathe in the woodsy scent I’ve always associated with my father.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired,” I admit as I settle back against my pillows. “What time is it?”
“Nearly noon.” He checks something on a handheld device. “I’ve given you all the nutrients you need. I was worried when you didn’t wake up.”
“It’s been a pretty busy couple of days.” I sigh as I think about how long it’s been since I’ve seen Price. It’s been less than seventy-two hours, but feels like a lifetime. And I don’t even know if what Heath and I did brought Price back.
“Cedar’s right,” Dad mumbles.
“About what?”
“Hmm? What?”
I notice the way his eyes widen in innocence. “What was Cedar right about?”
Dad tucks his device into the front pocket of his lab coat and settles on the edge of my bed. “You can’t go through the rift again.” His mouth turns down in sympathetic sadness. “Your readings are worse than mine, and I wouldn’t risk it.”
His words punch me in the throat, which suddenly feels like it’s stuffed with pins. “Am I going to…?” My voice falters, and I can’t bring myself to say the word die.
Dad’s eyebrows fold in on themselves in a way I remember from my childhood. He did it when Mom asked him something he needed time to think about. “I haven’t had much of a chance to study someone with a condition like yours. The closest is Payton—” His voice cuts off mid-sentence and he spins away before I can read too much on his face.
But I’ve seen enough. Dad has no idea what he’s doing. He doesn’t know how to cure what’s happened to me—and Payton has the same condition. I tuck this information away in case I can use it later.
But I don’t know how. I can’t go through the rift and bring Price back here. The number of walks that could take boggles my mind and shoots terror to every appendage.
“Where is Payton?” I ask.
“He went back to his dimension.” Dad speaks to his device, his back still to me.
I frown and narrow my eyes at Dad’s back like that will help me det
ermine the truth. “He doesn’t live here?”
“He was born in VersA, so that’s his rightful dimension.”
“So he can’t move here?”
Dad shakes his head. “That violates the dimensional travel laws Orville instituted. He won’t break them, not even for his own son.”
“So how are you living here then?”
“Came before the law was made.”
“And me?” The two words ghost between my lips.
“You’re an…exception.” He steps toward the door. “I’ll be back in a while to see how you’re doing.”
He leaves me wondering what will be different in a while and what I’m supposed to do in the meantime. The room is bare except for the bed, a cart with medical supplies on it, and a small table in the corner.
I don’t know where I am, what floor, what building even.
But I’m not staying here, waiting for my dad—or Orville—to come see how I’m doing in a while.
I start with the computer panel above my bed. It brightens when I tap on it, and while it has charts with words I understand, like calcium, phosphorous, and sodium, I don’t really know what the readings would tell a doctor.
On the last screen of my medical file, there’s a single question: Dimension removal?
I puzzle over what that means—and why that section is blank in my file. Even as I try to reason through the questions crowding my mind— Does Dad send sick people to another dimension? If so, where? Forever?—words begin to fill in the box below the question.
Patient is unable to travel to another dimension, and so will stay in the Global Verse until her death.
I fall back a couple of steps, the threat of dying always a single breath away. Seeing it in black and white on a computer screen seems more final that when Orville said it last night, or when Dad said it a few minutes ago.
I can’t leave this dimension.
I swipe my file closed and the screen defaults back to a list of names. I select the one just below mine. Supposedly the next patient on Dad’s list, Kendra Boyd doesn’t have any charts with minerals in her file. She doesn’t seem to have anything wrong with her medically at all.