He was silent.
“Is it safe?” I demanded. “Is it over now? Or do we still have to worry about—”
But Sebastian wasn’t listening. He had gone absolutely still, staring at something behind me.
Dread zapped into me, lighting up every nerve in my body. I whirled—
And there stood Milo in the doorway, my phone clutched in one hand.
“Um,” he said in a voice that cracked over two octaves, “you dropped this.”
0 0 1 1 0 0
I was so furious I couldn’t even be scared. I grabbed Milo by the collar—he was still wearing his green polo from work—and twisted my fist up under his chin. “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “What makes you think you can just walk into my house?”
“Tori,” said Sebastian Faraday in his deep, smooth voice, but I shot him a glare and he fell silent. He had no idea what was going on here, and I was not going to let him pull that Wise Older Brother act on me.
“Your phone fell out of your pocket when you got out of the truck,” gasped Milo, his Adam’s apple bobbing against my knuckles. He had seven inches and sixty pounds on me, but it didn’t seem to have occurred to him to free himself by force. “I only noticed after we drove away. And I knew you’d want it back, so I got Jon to let me off at the corner, but when I got to your place the door was open, and I remembered how upset you’d looked before and I thought…”
He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. Reluctantly I opened my hand and let him go.
“All right,” I said, trying to regain my calm. Maybe Milo hadn’t seen anything, or at least nothing extraordinary. Maybe he just thought he’d walked in on me arguing with my secret university-aged boyfriend. The idea of me and Faraday soured my stomach, but I could fake it if I had to. “So you walked in. Then what?”
Milo blew out his breath and tugged his shirt back into shape. He glanced at Sebastian, at the relay, and a slow grin spread across his face. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. What is that thing? Some kind of teleport device?”
So he’d seen the whole thing. The relay going off, Sebastian beaming in, all of it. I sank onto the bed and put my head in my hands.
Crackers leaped up beside me, burrowing under my elbow for comfort. I was tousling his ears, wishing we’d adopted a proper guard dog instead of the sweetest miniature dachshund in the universe, when Sebastian struggled to his feet and came to join me.
“This is my fault,” he said. “I apologize. I should have double-checked the readings before I came through, but I never expected—”
“The readings,” echoed Milo, quavering with glee. “He said readings.”
I snatched up a cushion and flung it at him. “This is not funny!” I shouted.
He caught the pillow and lowered it slowly, eyes wide behind his skewed glasses. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little overexcited.”
“Of course,” Sebastian said, with a gentleness that made me want to kick him. It had taken me years to learn how to talk to strangers as though they were friends, and he made it look as natural as breathing. “It’s not every day you see somebody materialize out of nowhere, and I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming that it’s magic or some kind of hoax. But if you care about Tori even a little—”
“Niki,” I moaned. “My name’s Niki. Sebastian, shut up. Please.”
He looked slightly hurt, but he obeyed. I turned to Milo. “Look,” I said, “I’m sure you’re dying to know what this is all about. But it’s way too complicated to explain. And if I tried, you wouldn’t believe me.”
Milo’s brows lifted. “You think so?”
Never talk down to people, my mother had taught me. If you can’t make them believe that you like them, at least make them feel that you respect them. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart enough,” I added quickly. “And I know you’re a good guy. I really appreciated you running interference for me with Jon back there.”
“But?” Milo asked. His guard was up now: he was realizing that I might not be as fragile or vulnerable as he’d thought. And if I didn’t win back his sympathy fast, he might even start to resent me for it.
Time to amp up the emotional voltage, then. I got up and walked to Milo, stopping just inside his personal space so he’d feel his own vulnerability—and mine. “But I’m asking you,” I said in a low voice, “I’m begging you, to stay out of this. To walk away and forget everything you just saw. Because if anyone finds out about this, even my parents, it’s going to ruin my life all over again.”
I held Milo’s gaze as I spoke, silently counting seconds until he shifted and looked away. Good: I’d made him feel guilty. But then he said, “Why should I cover for you and this guy, whoever he is? I don’t know him, and I barely know you. And wherever the two of you got this relay thing, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to have it.”
I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell him he had it all wrong—and then, in a flash, I realized what a fool I’d been. Why bother wasting time on persuasion, when the real solution was far more simple?
“Go ahead, then,” I said coolly, stepping back. “Talk to your friends or the media or anyone you want. Tell them the girl you work with at the grocery store has a teleportation device, and you saw a guy beam right into her bedroom. Nobody’s going to believe it.”
“Not even when they see the video I took on your phone?” asked Milo.
My stomach twisted like a Mobius strip. I made a grab for the phone, but he held it out of reach. “Not yet, Niki. Or is it Tori?”
I wanted to body check him into the doorframe just for saying that, but I held myself back. “Fine,” I said between my teeth. “What do you want? Money?”
He looked startled. “No! I only meant—”
“He didn’t take any video,” said Sebastian calmly. “He was too surprised, and it happened too fast. Give her the phone, Milo.”
Milo blanched at the sound of his name. His upraised arm wilted—and I snatched the phone from his grip. A scroll through the contents assured me that Sebastian had been right: no video, no pictures, no evidence of any kind. He’d been bluffing.
“You’re still wearing your name tag, by the way,” Sebastian told him and flopped backward onto the mattress with his hands folded serenely across his chest. “Niki, can I borrow your laptop? I need to check a few things.”
Unbelievable. He had no idea what a disaster he’d caused just by showing up, and I had no idea what he was doing here, and for all I knew that relay could go off and beam us both back to Mathis any minute. Milo looked apprehensive; there was no telling what he’d do next. And yet Faraday was acting as though it was one big happy pajama party, and all we needed was a couple of movies and some popcorn to make everything perfect.
“Absolutely not,” I told him. “My parents’ll be home any minute, and if they find me talking to a couple of strange guys in my bedroom, it’s going to be awkward for everybody involved.”
“Ah. Yes, good point.” Sebastian sat up again and took his wallet out of his back pocket, thumbing past several different bank cards to peer into the empty billfold. “Well, then, we’ll go elsewhere. I just need to stop at an ATM first.”
“No, we won’t,” I said. “I have to be here when my parents get in, or they’ll panic.” I pulled my old cell phone out of the monitoring device and tossed it to him. “My number’s in there. Call me tomorrow.”
“All right,” said Faraday, putting the phone and the wallet away. “Do you want me to take the relay as well?”
The offer surprised me, but it was also reassuring: it meant he didn’t think it was dangerous, at least not at the moment. “Okay,” I said.
“What about your friend here?” Sebastian asked. “Is anyone expecting him home?”
“Not likely,” I said, before Milo could answer. “His mom works the night shift, and his brother’s at university.”
“Good. Then I’ll take care of him too.” Sebastian picked u
p the relay and headed out into the corridor. “Come on, Milo.”
“Please tell me he’s not going to snap my neck and hide my body in a Dumpster,” said Milo, and I could tell he was only half joking.
“No,” I replied, “but the last person who tried to get the relay away from him ended up beaming themselves into space. So I wouldn’t try anything, if I were you.”
He gave me an exasperated look. “I’m not a thief, okay? And I’m not an idiot either. I wasn’t trying to threaten you. I just wanted to find out what was going on.”
“Well, it looks like you’re about to,” I said. “Tell Sebastian he can borrow the green jacket out of the hall closet, if he needs one. Have a nice walk.”
Without waiting for an answer, I pushed Milo out into the corridor and slammed the door behind him. Then I pressed my forehead against the wood, closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth until I no longer felt like screaming.
0 0 1 1 0 1
It was midnight before my parents got home—they’d gone out for drinks after the movie. I could tell because my mother was giggling as the two of them came through the front door, and they both became very straight and solemn when they saw me.
“Hi, pumpkin,” said my dad. He smelled of beer, but I could tell he wasn’t drunk, only mellow. He propped my mom against the wall and stooped to peer at me, looking more like a tame bear than ever. “You all right? Something bad happen at work?”
He’d forgotten about the makerspace already—that was how little it meant to him. How little he understood. And yet I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me. He was only trying to protect me—and despite everything that had happened last summer, part of him still believed that he could.
He was wrong, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him so. If things went bad with Sebastian and the relay, he’d find out soon enough.
“It’s okay,” I said. “Just—this guy at work keeps hitting on me. Not harassing me,” I added as Dad started to bristle, “but he’s been hinting around, hoping I’ll go out with him. And I don’t want to.”
“Which one?” asked Mom, struggling out of her coat. She knew most of my regular coworkers by sight, since she shopped at Value Foods every weekend. “That Chinese boy?”
Actually, Milo’s family was Korean, but I wasn’t going to get into that now. “No, Mom. Jon. The blond guy who works the express lane.”
“The cute one?” She gave an owlish blink. “What’s wrong with him?”
She’d liked Brendan too. “I’m not interested, Mom. That’s all.”
“You’re too picky,” she told me with a shake of her head. “You’re seventeen and you’ve only had one proper boyfriend! I’ll never be a grandmother at this rate.”
She spoke lightly, smiling all the while so I’d know she was only teasing. She didn’t really expect me to be thinking about marriage and children at this age. But I knew enough Latin to remember in vino veritas, too. I wanted to tell her not to get her hopes up, but if there was ever going to be a good time for that discussion, it wasn’t now.
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t hold out for a guy like Dad?” I said, and the flush in Mom’s cheeks deepened as Dad kissed her temple.
“Oh, no,” she told me with a hiccup of laughter in her voice. “You absolutely should.”
0 0 1 1 1 0
When I woke up the next morning, there were two texts waiting for me. The first one came from my old cell number and read:
–Sunrise Café. 11 am. Pancakes?
Trust Sebastian to tell me nothing that I actually wanted to know. I texted back:
–Pancakes first. Then I kill you. WHAT HAPPENED???
While I was waiting for his answer, I opened the second message, from a number I didn’t recognize. It said:
–U OK? GET UR PHONE ALRITE?
Great. Jon had made Milo give him my number before he let him out of the truck. I was trying to think of a polite way to ask him never to text me again when Faraday’s reply came through.
–Milo says French toast is better. Also, no need for violence. It’s all fine.
Which didn’t tell me much either, except that Milo was there and that Sebastian thought he’d solved the problem somehow. Probably by telling him my entire life story and trusting to Milo’s inner goodness, which wasn’t my idea of a workable solution at all. Muttering a few swear words, I kicked off the duvet and headed for the shower.
“I’m meeting some friends downtown for breakfast,” I called over my shoulder twenty minutes later, ruffling my still-damp pixie cut with one hand. “I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?”
“Friends? You mean some of the people from—” Mom came out of the kitchen and stopped dead in dismay. “Oh, Niki. Are you really going to wear that?”
I looked down at myself automatically, though I already knew what I was wearing. Dark tights under frayed jean shorts, a long-sleeved tee with a barely visible pattern of sine waves across the chest, and a brown suede jacket I’d nabbed from Goodwill last week. Tori Beaugrand would never have worn anything like it, but that was kind of the point. “Why not?” I asked. “It’s clean, and it fits.”
She gave a little sigh. “Yes, I suppose. Never mind.”
As I headed outside, I was still puzzling over her reaction, and then it clicked. Back in my old life, I’d always left the shopping to my mom—not only because I didn’t particularly care what I wore but because she had such definite ideas about what clothes would suit me and help me fit in. But now I was Niki, the rules were different, and this outfit was all my doing.
It wasn’t that I looked bad. It was just that I didn’t look like her daughter.
A brisk walk and an eighteen-minute bus ride later, I walked into the Sunrise Café to find Milo and Faraday sitting in the booth at the back corner, building a tower out of coffee cups, cutlery, and packets of peanut butter and jam. They were so absorbed in the task that neither one looked up until I sat down next to Milo, who jumped, swore, and dropped his fork under the table.
“Good morning to you too,” I said, and he looked sheepish.
“Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you yet.” He shuffled over to give me more room and began disassembling the pyramid into its component place settings. “So, Sebastian invited me along. Hope that’s okay.”
I shot a this-had-better-be-good look at Sebastian, who met my gaze mildly and slid a menu across the table. “Milo and I had quite a talk last night,” he said. “About the top secret research facility I work for—excuse me, used to work for. A place called Meridian.”
My breath stalled in my throat. I stared at him, mouth frozen in an O of disbelief.
“Would you rather I lied?” said Sebastian.
There was no answer to that, at least not that I could think of. I pulled a serviette out of the dispenser and unfolded it with deliberate care. “Go on,” I said. “What else did you tell him?”
As it turned out, Sebastian had told Milo pretty much everything. How he’d grown restless with his employers’ restrictive policies and decided to take a sabbatical and do some research on his own. How he’d discovered that one of his fellow scientists was doing experiments with far-ranging effects on civilians—particularly a young woman named Alison Jeffries, who had ended up in a psychiatric hospital after exposure to one of their devices. How he’d talked to Alison and learned that another girl had been with her at the time—a girl named Tori Beaugrand, who had since vanished without a trace…
“Do you want me to stop?” Sebastian asked, and I realized I’d shredded the paper napkin into confetti.
“No,” I said, brushing the pieces away. “I want to know everything he knows.”
“Look,” said Milo uneasily. “We don’t have to get into this. He told me they kidnapped you with that relay thing and that they were doing experiments on you. I didn’t ask for details.”
I gave a little, dry laugh. “Did he tell you they’d been experimenting on me my whole life?” That had been one of the worst moments of the whole orde
al, when I found out who’d put the chip in my arm and what it meant. That, and realizing I was never going to see my parents or my friends again.
“Actually, no,” said Sebastian. “That’s your story, not mine. All I told Milo was that when I realized what they’d done to you, I went back to Meridian. I found where you were being held, released you, and sent you back home against my colleague’s protests. Then I stayed to make a full report of his unethical behavior to the senior staff. But … things didn’t turn out quite as planned.”
Even I hadn’t heard this part. “Why not?”
“I’d rather not go into that now. Let’s say I decided it would be prudent to get out while I still had the chance. And that I have no desire to work for Meridian or anyone associated with it ever again.” He ran a long finger down one edge of the menu and flipped it open. “Ready to order?”
Milo and I traded glances, and I could see he was as unsettled by the gaps in Sebastian’s story as I was. “So what now?” Milo asked him. “You’re just going to hide out here and let it happen? Let them go on doing to other people what they did to Niki?”
“No,” said Sebastian, not looking up from the menu. “And I have no intention of letting them do it to Niki again, either. But she’s perfectly safe at the moment, as are you. If there’s any threat of that changing, I’ll look after it.”
I had my doubts, but I wasn’t going to argue. Not in front of Milo, anyway. “So,” I said slowly, “Milo’s on board with all this? You trust him?”
“He’s also sitting right here,” said Milo, “and getting tired of being talked about in the third person.” He flicked a creamer, and it flipped 180 degrees and landed neatly in its original spot. “Anyway, I let Sebastian couch-surf at my place last night and I didn’t even touch your precious relay, so give me a little credit—oh, hi.”