39

Sean ate breakfast standing at the kitchen counter and left the loft before Dillon was even awake. For once, Sean was actually glad the school was its own enclosed world. He liked being able to transit into a place without doors or windows. It meant a minimum of distractions.

Two hours later, Dillon found him seated on the bench outside Josef’s office. “Thanks for the note.”

“I didn’t . . . Oh. Sorry.”

Dillon settled onto the bench next to him. “So what’s up?”

“Thinking.”

“Don’t sprain something. About what?”

But his response was cut off by Josef striding down the hall toward them. The giant moved with remarkable grace for a man his size. “Are you waiting to see me?”

“No, sir. I was just looking for a quiet place.”

“Ah.” Josef was followed by all the school’s instructors. He pointed them into his office, waited until they passed, then asked, “You are working on your latest tutorial assignment?”

“Trying.”

“Are you ready to discuss results?”

“They’re not results yet.”

“I see. Come with me.” Josef walked them down the hall away from his office and stopped in front of a portal that Sean had never seen open. Josef set his thumb on the fingerprint reader and the portal slid back. “This is Tirian’s office. Some might say it is an appropriate place for you to continue your efforts.”

“This is great.”

“The new Examiners arrive in an hour. Once that process begins, I am unavailable except in an extreme emergency.”

“Understood. And thanks.”

“I will inform your instructors that you are working on a special assignment.” Josef turned to the door, then offered them a final, “I am counting on you.”

When they were alone, Dillon said, “No pressure, right?”

“If you see Elenya, tell her where to find me.”

“That sounds to me like a ‘get out now.’”

Sean was already moving for the desk. “Shut the door when you leave.”

Sean regretted Elenya’s continued absence. But in a small-hearted way he was also glad. Frustration over his lack of progress grew with each passing hour. He stayed in his isolation chamber all morning. Tirian’s office did not give up many clues about the imprisoned Examiner. Even so, Sean was grateful for the chance to share the man’s space. It served as a constant reminder to push ahead. The desk, floor, walls, chairs, and shelves were all various shades of bland beige. There were no windows, no plaques, just one wall of photographs of graduating classes. Tirian did not smile in any of the pictures.

When Dillon came to fetch him for lunch, Sean confessed, “I’m seriously worried.”

“Outstanding. Long as you’re fretting I don’t need to.” He ducked Sean’s slug. “I’m serious. You squeeze and squeeze and then all of a sudden, wham. You come up with the incredible.”

“I’ve wasted an entire morning.”

“It’s not wasted.”

“I’ve got all these fragments of ideas. But I can’t put them together.” They entered the lounge used for meals. The tables were silent, the students glum, the instructors not there. “What’s going on?”

“The Examiners are going through the records of each student. From day one to now. As in, maybe they don’t get to stay, maybe they don’t pass, maybe they bring back the mind-wipe. Or so the rumors go.”

But Sean was mostly looking for a face that wasn’t there. “Have you seen Elenya?”

“She hasn’t shown up today. I asked.”

Sean got in line for a meal he didn’t feel like eating. “Her mom was so mad.”

“I can’t believe the lady got so bent out of shape over some new clothes.”

“Oh, really.” Sean filled his tray and followed Dillon to an empty table. “You have to admit this doesn’t look all that great to Elenya’s mom. Her daughter pops out to dinner with a guy she doesn’t know. This guy has only been a recruit for, like, a month and a half. And oh, by the way, he’s from some outpost free-fire zone nobody’s ever heard of. And what happens, this beautiful daughter shows up long after curfew. And hey, look at this, she’s wearing different clothes. And somehow she’s just plain forgotten that her own clothes and her mother’s jewelry are back in the bedroom of Frontier Frank.”

“Well, hey, you put it that way . . .”

“If you laugh I will scalp you.”

“Check it out, bro. This is me totally not laughing.”

Sean returned to Tirian’s office and spent another futile few hours scribbling and pacing and worrying. When the walls started closing in he went upstairs to the grand glass-walled chamber, but what he mostly saw was the carpet in front of his next step. When he grew tired of pacing he went back downstairs. Finally he gave up and went home. He took a long bike ride through the hot afternoon. A thunderstorm struck when he was midway back. He cycled through the rain and arrived home drenched. The rumbling din and fractured vision fit his mood entirely.

Dillon showed up soon after and unfroze some dinner Sean didn’t taste. His brother spent the meal watching the clearing sky beyond the balcony doors. The sunset was a lot more entertaining than Sean.

As they were clearing up, Sean finally got around to asking, “How are things with Carey?”

“Good. Better than good. I mean, she’s shook up, but . . .”

“You two are still an item.”

“Believe it or not.” Dillon grinned. “She said it’d take more than a galactic transport system to change her mind.”

“I’m glad.”

“Sean . . . thanks, man.”

“Happy to help.” Sean fit the dish towel onto the drying rack and stepped over to the balcony’s screen doors. He saw Carey and her father going through the same process, clearing up from their own meal, and had an idea. “Why don’t you invite her over? I’ll make myself scarce, give you guys some room.”

“What will you do?”

Sean was already reaching for his backpack. “See if the professor minds some company.”

John Havilland seemed to find nothing strange in having Sean take over half the dining room table. Night sounds of crickets and dripping rain filtered through the screened patio doors. John made them coffee, and within minutes both of them were surrounded by papers. Sean looked up from time to time, watching the professor write in longhand before entering whatever he worked on into his laptop. They sat at opposite ends of the long table like two friends. Adult friends.

At one point Sean glanced through the screen and across the patio, up to where light shone from the loft’s balcony. He had the impression that this was where he and Dillon had been headed for years. Struggling to fashion a new relationship around changing worlds. The gift of transit and Carey only sped things up. And Elenya. Thinking of her caused his breath to catch in his throat. He hoped with a desperate longing that she was okay, that they were still . . .

Sean forced his mind back to the work at hand. He reviewed all the items he had developed over that long, frustrating day, and everything he had jotted down before. His notes were written on everything from the blank front page of a book he’d never finish to a scrap of grocery store checkout tape to today’s lined notepaper. He laid it all out with the precision of a Vegas dealer. Studying each in turn. Switching them around. Trying to make the puzzle fit together.

This time the answer did not come in some sudden burst of insight. He did not find his mind threatened by an explosion of blistering impact. There was no lightning bolt. Instead, it grew from a conversation he’d never actually had.

What he did was start talking in his mind to the man at the other end of the table. Trying to make things clear by explaining each fragment, describing why he felt it could be important. Asking if John thought it might fit together this way, then that.

When suddenly he saw the scraps and splinters coalesce.

He pushed back his chair and took his idea out on the patio. Stared up at the stars. Wondered if one of those blinking silver lights might contain another outpost world like his own, waiting for some kid to wake up and realize he could move between planets.

Sean stayed where he was for almost an hour, giving the new idea space to grow and congeal and take hold. When it was time, he went back inside, but he did not sit down. He stood over the table and stared at the papers as they swirled and re-formed.

Then he looked up and saw that the professor was watching him. He said, “It all comes down to asking the right question.”

John nodded approval. “It usually does.”

“I need to go now.” Sean gathered up his papers. “And thanks for this.”

“This has been one of the nicest evenings I’ve had since . . .” John smiled sadly. “Take care, son.”

It was only when he was midway across the lawn that Sean realized what John had said. But when he turned back, the professor was once more intent upon his work.

Sean stopped beneath the balcony and called up, “Yo, Dillon. It’s time.”

There was a moment’s silence, then Dillon appeared. “You got it?”

“Yes.”

“No ‘I guess.’ No ‘I think.’” Dillon grinned down at him. “My brother the sage. Give me two minutes, then let’s go save the world.”