On Through the Never

The instant I materialize in Bridger’s bedroom, I wonder if I made a mistake. I wonder if I’m even in the same room—it has the same green blanket on the bed, the same white walls, the same furniture that looks similar to my own. But what if all the rooms in the boys’ hall look like this? And if I am in the right room, then where’s Bridger? I thought he would be in here to meet me.

The sour feeling I’ve had in my stomach for most of the day intensifies. I shouldn’t have done this. What if I’m caught by whatever professor is on Warden Duty over here? Or what if Bridger’s roommates see me? How are we going to explain my being in here?

I close my eyes for a moment and tell myself to relax. My space-bending skills are strong, so I’m certain I’m in the same room I materialized in earlier today, even though I have no idea how I did that just by thinking about Bridger. I still can’t get over it. Like, I’ve been taught Space Benders can only bend by visualizing where they want to go, not who they want to go to.

Voices filter in from the outside the open door. I’m trying to decide if I should stay put or peek out to see who’s talking when an unfamiliar boy walks past the doorway. I stand still, hoping he doesn’t notice me, but I have absolutely zero luck today so of course he does.

It’s almost comical how his expression morphs from irritation to shock in a few seconds, his mouth parting in surprise. He glances over his shoulder and calls out, “Hey, Bridger, can I borrow your new blue shirt? I … think I might have a date this weekend.”

Crap, no, he can’t come in here. I close my eyes, trying frantically to get a clear mental image of my bedroom so I can shift back.

But before I can, he’s by my side, whispering, “It’s okay. I won’t say anything. But you might want to hide again so we can get rid of Bridger’s mother.”

Hide again? Jeez, he must think I came in here earlier and have been hiding this whole time. I don’t know why I get the urge to laugh. This is insane, getting myself into this mess. I smother the laugh, because I’m sure it would make me look irrational, and just nod. The boy waves me over to a tiny closet in the corner, where I squeeze in between the hanging clothes. Before leaving, he gives me an incredulous look. “I can’t wait to hear why you’re here.”

At first, all I can think about is how stupid it is for me to stay put in Bridger’s closet. There’s no telling how long it will take for him and his friends to convince his mother to leave. But oddly enough, something about being surrounded by Bridger’s clothing comforts me. It smells like him: sort of like being outdoors. It reminds me of the time we spent together back in Willow Creek. Of how close we got, in such a short time.

The voices start to get louder, and then I hear footsteps crossing the room. I try to shrink back as far as I can.

Relief floods through me as I push my way out of the closet and stumble right into him. His arms immediately wrap around me, pulling me into a strong embrace. Instinctively, I hug him back. It feels good to be here—it feels right, somehow.

“My roommates helped with that. They told her that we have a huge exam tomorrow and that we all needed to study.”

Bridger and I jump apart as if struck by an electrical current. Two boys are standing in the doorway to Bridger’s bedroom—the tall boy who hid me and a shorter, wiry guy with spiky black hair.

Bridger’s face flushes. “Don’t mind those two clowns. They’ll leave us alone.”

The shorter one—the one who spoke the first time—places his hands across his heart and says, “Aw, man, Bridger, you’re killing me.” He focuses his attention on me. “And since Bridger is clearly going to be rude, I’ll make the intros. I’m Zed Ramirez, and he’s Elijah Beckett,” he says, gesturing to the tall guy. “We’re the roommates.”

“I think she gets that,” Bridger mutters, running his hands through his hair. “Would you two mind giving us some privacy?”

“Oh, no, you’re not getting rid of us that easily,” Zed replies. He saunters into Bridger’s room and plops down on the bed. “I have some questions. And the first one is, why the hell are you hiding a chick in here who looks exactly like Vika? Don’t you think that’s … weird, to put it mildly?”

Bridger blows out a few puffs of air and stares hard at Zed, then at Elijah, as if that will make them go away. Then his shoulders slump and he shakes his head slowly. “This is so furing messed up.” His eyes seek out mine, looking so defeated. “Do you have the Mind Redeemer with you?”

“Wait, what?” Elijah asks. “You have a Mind Redeemer? How is that possible?”

Heat flares in my face and spreads through my body. Trust them? Bridger wants me trust two boys that I don’t even know? I grab his arm and pull him to a corner of the room. “Have you lost your mind? Why did you bring up the Mind Redeemer in front of them?”

He quickly explains that Zed and Elijah knew everything about his plans to save my life last year and even assisted in his escape when he was captured by the DTA. And now, while they know my name and my official story, they obviously don’t know the whole truth.

So they’ve had their memories wiped, too. God, I’m hating the DTA more and more every day that I’m here.

I glance over at Zed and Elijah, who both seeming to enjoy being in the spotlight. “I’m sorry I flew off the handle like that.”

“It’s fine,” Elijah says. “We’re strangers to you. But it doesn’t have to be that way.”

“Same here,” Zed chimes in. “We can all hang out and raise hell together.”

I find myself smiling, despite my reservations. Maybe I can learn to trust them. These guys seem loyal. Not like my last so-called friend, Sela. The one who ditched me to raise her social status at school.

“No, it’s hidden in the same place,” I reply. “But it won’t take me long to get it.”

By the time I shift to my bedroom at Mom’s apartment and return, only a few minutes have passed, but I’m sweating. While I was at Mom’s house, I overheard her talking to someone on her DataLink, which reminded me that she’ll be checking in with me close to my curfew time.

It takes five minutes to restore Zed and Elijah’s memories. The process is painful for them, but doesn’t take as long because apparently the DTA only erased their memories of helping Bridger escape and taking him to Georgia. They’d been told that Bridger officially had his nervous breakdown just prior to the camping trip in which they had covered for him.

To say that Zed and Elijah are furious at the DTA is a huge understatement. Elijah scowls and lets out a string of swear words.

“I just … I feel so violated.” Zed slams his fist against the mattress. “I’m sorry for acting like such a dick to you, Bridger. I didn’t know.”

Bridger shrugs. “None of us did,” he says. “Whoever is behind cloning our fathers and Vika did this to us. They need to pay for it.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Elijah asks. “You know, a cover up of something like that would have to come from the top of the DTA. We’re not talking about some lowly peon.”

Bridger goes to his closet, extracts his portacase, and takes it over to the bed, where he extracts two DataDisks. “Okay, this is going to sound weird, but I met a guy while I was on the camping trip with Grandma and Shan. And he told me some wild stuff. Like, that the world is about to end.”

Zed leans close to Bridger, making like he wants to feel his forehead. “You feeling okay? ’Cause that sounds completely bonkers.”

A part of me agrees with Zed and Elijah, but with everything that’s happened to me in the past year, who can say what’s crazy and what isn’t?

Scowling, Bridger says, “If you two would shut up, I could explain. So, I was going fishing and this guy just appeared in front of me in the woods. His clothes were really worn, he had a breathing apparatus, and here’s the kicker—he said he was from our future, and a bioweapon is going to detonate here sometime soon. It’s going to be bad.” Bridger looks down, his face growing pale.

Bridger lets out a shaky breath. “It’s going to kill the majority of Talents and a huge chunk of the Gen Mod population. Worldwide.”

My stomach gets a sinking sensation. That can’t be true. I didn’t survive a murder attempt just to die in a bioweapon attack. I try to laugh it off. “Are you serious? Was it somebody just pulling a prank?”

“So what?” Zed pipes up. “Lots of people have Jewills even though they’re not supposed to. That guy could have had one. Hell, he could have been a Purist just messing with you.”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Bridger says. “But then I saw the information on the DataDisks. And he kept saying he was going to try to stop it from happening, and just in case he couldn’t, he wanted my family and Alora to go to a secure location.”

Even though my stomach is still in knots, I’m not sure what to think. “How do you know he’s telling the truth?” I ask. “Something about that seems kind of off, don’t you think?”

Elijah plucks the bronze DataDisk out of Bridger’s hand and examines it. “I agree with Alora, man. That’s crazy. Did you at least check these out?”

“Of course I did.” Bridger reaches in the portacase again, this time taking out a pair of Virtual Lenses. “I had to take these from Shan when he was asleep. If I’d asked to borrow them, the little tyrant would have demanded credits.”

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know for sure if you still had them,” Bridger replies.

Zed rolls his eyes. “That’s because you haven’t wanted to be around us much lately. Ring any bells?”

Bridger looks down for a moment before handing the lenses to me. “I think you should see this first, since Ellis mentioned wanting to save you, too. And trust me, it’s really disturbing.”

I take the bronze DataDisk from Elijah and insert it into the slot on the left side of the lenses. I’m familiar with these because my tutors in Chicago used Virtual Lenses to introduce me to modern society while keeping me safely enclosed behind DTA walls.

I slip the lenses over my head, pausing to insert the ear buds, and then activate them. Bridger’s room disappears, and I’m dropped into the middle of what looks like a war zone. I’m walking down a sidewalk in a city, surrounded by destruction. Damaged skyscrapers and other buildings, many peppered with faint graffiti that looks like blue flames. Rubble everywhere, Jumbotrons full of holes or hanging askew. A few people are walking around aimlessly, looking shell-shocked. Some are crying, some are pawing through the rubble, searching for who knows what.

The worst part is the bodies. They’re everywhere. Mostly soldiers, but there are some who are clearly civilian, even children. I can’t stand it. My mind screams for me to run, to get away from the madness. I rip off the lenses, my breath coming in great gasps.

Bridger tosses the lenses to him. “Take a look for yourself. Apparently that’s what the future is going to be like, unless this Ellis fellow can stop that bioweapon from going off.”

While Zed views the apocalyptic scene, Bridger inserts the other disk into his DataLink and pulls up the contents. Elijah and I flank him to see what’s on the holographic screen, which hovers over his wrist.

I’m sure you checked out the Virtual Scene I gave you before reading this. It’s not pretty. But knowing you, Bridger, in the back of your mind you’re still doubting my sincerity. So here’s how to get the piece of the puzzle that you’re trying to figure out. You and Alora need to shift to the military division at the DTA building on August 10, 2126. Arrive at approximately oh-nine-hundred hours at room number 2505. I would tell you what happens there, but you need to witness this for yourself to fully believe that it’s real. And one more thing. Do NOT share this information with any authority figures. I can’t risk them doing anything to change the timeline. Good luck.

I back away from Bridger, stunned. This is it. This could help us figure out what the DTA is really up to—why they went through so much trouble erasing all of our memories, why they’ve been illegally cloning people.

Vaguely, I see a stunned Zed passing the Virtual Lenses to Elijah. After he views the message, he places his hand across his mouth before running it down the side of his jaw. “This is so furing insane. What have we gotten ourselves into?”

“We haven’t gotten ourselves into anything,” Bridger replies, his eyes narrowing. “All of this started with my Dad’s death. I’m going to do whatever it takes to find out what happened to him and who cloned him. The same goes for Alora’s father, too. The DTA needs to learn that they can’t just come in and mess with our lives like they’ve been doing. And they can’t keep breaking the law and cloning people.”

“So what are we going to do?” I ask. “We have a place to start, but how on Earth are we going to get into the military division of the DTA building? I mean, that place will be heavily guarded. And how are we going to get to that exact date? Free shifting is out of the question,” I say, thinking of how far off I was when I tried to visit Aunt Grace. “If we’re going to do this, there can be no room for error. So that means we have to have Chronobands.”

Elijah tears off the Virtual Lenses, his mouth curled in horror. It’s not every day that you get to see a part of your own future, especially one that’s so desolate. “That was definitely New Denver, and it has definitely never looked like that,” he says, glancing at the lenses.

“It could be, but that doesn’t make sense. Why would Ellis bother giving me fake information? Or these, for that matter?” He reaches back in his portacase and pulls out two Chronobands and two comm-sets.

“Fine, but don’t expect us to just sit here twiddling our thumbs. We’re going to help however we can. Right, Elijah?”

“You can count on me, man,” he says, placing his hand on Bridger’s shoulder. “I’ve missed being around you these past few months. I thought we were broken, you know? But it wasn’t us. It was whoever’s been pulling the strings. We’ve been puppets to them.”

“And it’s time for us to cut the strings,” I say, feeling a little better about Bridger’s decision to tell Elijah and Zed the truth. “So, what’s next?”

A slow smile spreads across Bridger’s face. “My grandmother is in the military, and her office is at DTA headquarters. I think it’s time we visit her at work.”