Dinner was free and unlimited, so Eddie loaded his plate with macaroni and cheese and mashed potatoes and maybe a pound of bacon and two pieces of cherry pie. By the time he got through the line, there seemed to be a guys’ table and a girls’ table. Fine with him. He slid his tray onto the end of the guys’, across from a skinny kid with a shock of mousy hair and a face like a bone chip. He looked like he was designed to slip into crevices. In a previous life he might have been a railroad spike, or a piton.
Eddie picked up a couple slices of bacon and ate them together. My god, that’s good stuff, all salty and fatty and crisp.
“People should exchange bacon at weddings,” he said. “Who gives a crap about rings? But if you’re willing to share your bacon—that marriage is gonna last.”
“If our test tomorrow morning involves cholesterol,” the skinny guy said, “you’re going to wash out.”
“Worth it,” Eddie said around a mouthful of food.
The kid grinned and extended his hand. “Trevor Clayborn.”
Eddie wiped his hand on his napkin and shook. “Eddie Toivonen.”
“You going to study this evening?” he said.
“No,” Eddie said. “I know this stuff. You think I don’t?”
Trevor put his hands up. “A couple of us are going to work together after dinner, if you want to join us.”
Eddie took a drink of root beer to cover his hesitation. He’d intended to study, but he could do it on his own. “Thanks, but I’m good.”
They spent the rest of dinner talking about the crazy things IA had done to them that day, and speculating on what they might do tomorrow. Guessing was pointless and they all knew it, but it passed the time.
Eddie went back to his room. He couldn’t concentrate and didn’t know what to study, anyway. How did you prepare for people who made you fly remote control helicopters?
So he wandered around the IA compound looking for a basketball hoop. It was a perfect night—the air still held a hint of warmth and carried the smells of the surrounding fields. Early summer in corn country, and full of possibilities. He found a rec building, but it was locked. The equipment these people must have, and they didn’t have an accessible basket? NASA needed to prioritize better.
He went back to the dorm. The place had a no-frills bunker feel, a stairwell with a locked door at each end of the hallway, and bathrooms in the middle. It was a small building and most of the rooms were full. A few guys stood in doorways, talking quietly, but most of the doors were shut. Trevor’s door was open and he was alone, sitting at the desk. His study partners had gone.
“How did you even prep for tomorrow?” Eddie said, on the off chance he hadn’t been entirely polite earlier.
Trevor smiled. “We just reviewed formulas for a while—anything we could think of.” Eddie nodded. It was as good a strategy as any. “I’m just reading a novel now.” He lifted the book as proof. “What did you do?”
Eddie twisted his mouth ruefully. “Mostly look for a basketball court, but the rec center was locked. On another world, I could have gotten in,” he said. “Hey, let’s develop the means of interworld travel and go there.”
“Sounds good. But what if it has weird diseases or something?”
“What? Another Earth?”
“Yeah,” Trevor said.
Eddie shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe they’ll have weird antibiotics to go with them.”
“Would you still do it? If you knew there were weird diseases?”
“Probably.” But Eddie knew he would. There was nothing he wouldn’t risk, nothing he wouldn’t do to get on here. He had to get a job, one way or another. And right now it was either exploring the cosmos for the Interworlds Agency or handing people fries back in Oolitic.
Well, not in Oolitic. They didn’t have a fast-food place—you had to go to Bedford for that. God, that’s depressing.
“I’m in third,” Trevor said.
“What?”
“They taped the standings to the bathroom mirror.”
“Yeah? What did you say in the elevator?”
Trevor flushed. “I talked about gravitational acceleration. I punctuated my discussion by beating on the doors.”
Eddie laughed, and it turned into a yawn. He gave Trevor’s door frame a double fist tap. “I gotta get to bed. It was a long day.”
“Yeah.”
Eddie unlocked his room, grabbed his toothbrush, and walked down the hall, brushing. By the time he got to the bathroom, he’d be ready to spit. A few guys watched him from doorways and open rooms, and it wasn’t entirely friendly. Ms. Bauer had really stuck a bull’s-eye on his back, announcing that he was in line for one of the spots. He spat and peed, and when he got to his room he flipped his dead bolt.
Eddie stripped down to his boxers. Then he set his phone alarm and lay on his back in bed, hands folded behind his head, and thought about things. He wished his grandma could see him now.
It was past midnight when he dreamed that he was back in Oolitic, working at a drive-through, and a fire truck pulled up to the window. He wasn’t fast enough with the order and the driver blared the siren in his face, and what even the heck, because those guys are usually okay. Then he sat up in bed and the wail didn’t stop. Doors banged open in the hall, and people shouted.
A fire, in the middle of the night, on a night they all needed sleep. What were the chances? Eddie jumped up and felt the door—cool. And then he thought about his own question. What were the chances? He picked up the trash can, and when he opened the door he led with it. Just in case some melonhead in the hall was waiting for him.
It didn’t connect—no one was lying in wait for him, and he felt like an idiot running down the hall carrying a trash can.
“Holy crap!” Trevor shouted at him as he ran by in astronaut pajamas. Trevor was never going to live those things down.
Eddie thought about yelling that they should do a head count. Could anyone sleep through this? Somebody might have brought earplugs or a white noise machine—it wasn’t out of the question. And there weren’t any adults around. But another danger struck him as a lot more likely.
A guy was standing at the far end of the hall, shouting and waving everyone away toward the other end. Eddie ran at him.
“Other way!” he shouted. “Fire’s in the stairwell! Exit the other way!”
“No,” Eddie said.
The guy stared at him for a second as Eddie ran the last yards toward him, gripping a trash can. He took a step forward to block the door.
“You have to exit the other way.”
Pretty calm, really, for a guy with a fire at his back. Eddie reached for the handle with his left hand and brought the trash can up with his right. The guy went for his hand, which meant that technically he walked into the blow. He pulled back, hands over his nose, swearing, and Eddie ran into the stairwell—which was going to be a major mistake if it was filled with flames.
The door handle was cool, though, and the stairwell was clear. For a moment Eddie thought he’d miscalculated and trash-canned an innocent do-gooder. He had to check, though—Ms. Bauer had told everyone that if they wanted a spot, they had to eliminate him or Rosa. Some people would do that with a dirty trick in the night. Eddie was six-two and one-ninety. If they were smart, they’d aim for Rosa. And everyone here was smart.
Then he heard scuffling on the floor below. Eddie swung down the steps, fingers playing on the rolled edge of the trash can. Rosa was in the first floor stairwell, and there were two guys there—one of whom had her arms pinned together and was hoisting her over his shoulder. Eddie could see the white spots on her wrists where his fingers pressed in. Rosa was kicking like crazy. The guy at the bottom of the stairs plastered himself against the door, avoiding her heels. The one holding her turned to carry her up the stairs and saw Eddie on the landing, and his face darkened.
“Put her down.”
“She hurt her ankle. I’m helping her.”
“Eddie!” Rosa screamed.
Eddie was going to reason with him, to point out that eliminating her probably didn’t get them much closer to securing a spot. It seemed like the safest thing to do for everybody.
Then she screamed his name again, and the guy put his hand on her neck.
Eddie vaulted down the stairs and brought the can up and smashed him full in the face—he couldn’t get his hands in front of him in time. The second the guy loosened his grip, Rosa twisted free, landed on the stairs, and shot past him, heading up. Eddie could kick this guy’s ass, or follow Rosa. He really wanted to kick his ass.
He followed Rosa.
She was fumbling with her key on the third floor landing when she heard him and looked, panicked, over her shoulder. The key scraped in and she jerked the door open. Eddie hesitated in the hall.
“I’d like to hide out in your room for a little while,” he said. “That okay?”
“We have to get out,” she said. “There’s …” She looked at him. “There’s no fire, is there?”
He shook his head.
“God, those jerks. Do we have to go out and get counted?”
“I don’t see why,” he said. “I think we should sit tight till the firefighters come through to clear the building. And I think we should stick together.”
She unlocked her room door and stood in her door frame, staring him dead in the eye. “Am I safer with you than without you?”
He met her eye. “Yes,” he said, and he meant it. “Yes, you are.”
She thought about it for a moment, then motioned him in and locked the door behind her.