JOSIE TAKES CONLEY’S ARM, HER FACE GLOWING. “EVERYONE, this is Wyatt. And Wyatt, may I present my parents, Dr. Sophia Kovalenka and Dr. Henry Caine; plus my sister, Marguerite; and my parents’ graduate assistant, Theo Beck.”
“A pleasure to meet you, Dr. Kovalenka, Dr. Caine. And Marguerite and Theo. I’m so glad you could make it tonight.” Conley’s manners are better than usual. If I didn’t know what a manipulative, power-hungry snake he actually is, I could believe my sister had gotten engaged to a nice guy.
As my parents get through some small talk with the “happy couple,” Theo and I take our seats. I lean toward him and whisper, “What’s Conley doing?”
“From this angle, I can see what your parents can’t see, namely that he’s letting your sister grope his ass.”
Somehow I manage not to gag. “I mean, why is he going after Josie? What’s his game? And if Conley’s got such a good in with my family in this dimension, why did he send us here?”
Theo raises an eyebrow. “Now that’s a good question.”
I look carefully at Conley, studying his neck and chest in particular. He’s wearing a suit, one that’s not closely tailored, so it still fits his “Bad Boy Wonder of Silicon Valley” image—but the subtle sheen of the fabric makes it clear his jacket alone probably cost as much as some cars. What interests me most is the lack of any rumples or wrinkles along his shirt, no telltale bulge beneath his silk necktie.
He’s not wearing a Firebird.
Conley wouldn’t necessarily have to wear it at all times; once you’ve stabilized in a dimension, you can take the Firebird off and put it aside almost indefinitely. But I’ve never removed my Firebird for more than a couple of seconds when I didn’t absolutely have to, and neither would anyone else traveling through the multiverse.
Besides, he showed no flicker of recognition when he saw us. Conley loves to lord his power over people, to show off when he’s got the advantage. So my guess is that we’re sitting down to dinner with this world’s Wyatt Conley—no passengers from other dimensions involved.
That would mean his romance with Josie is for real.
Everyone settles in. I hesitate before unfolding my napkin, which has been done up into some kind of origami swan. This tablecloth is made out of better fabric than most of my clothes. And when the waiter gives us the menus—gliding in and out almost unnoticeably, like a spirit—no prices are listed.
Theo murmurs, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”
I’d laugh, but I’m too busy watching Conley and Josie.
“Well, I told you, Wyatt and I met when I agreed to help with his latest gaming system.” Josie beams. Since when did she get into programming? Her next sentence answers that question. “The company needed someone to surf in a wave pool, so they could study the body kinesthetic, the kinds of motion, all of that. They’d already had a guy come in, but when they advertised for a female surfer too, I figured, what the hell. I’d been wanting to visit the Bay Area again, and I thought I might as well get paid for doing what I’d do for fun on the weekend anyway.”
Conley cuts in. “And I was there just to see how the project was getting on.”
“You had time for that?” Dad says, amiably enough. He’s the only one of us totally at ease in these sophisticated surroundings—well, aside from Conley himself. My father’s English-nobility background is showing. “I’d think running ConTech would keep you far too busy for that sort of thing.”
I make a mental note. His company isn’t Triad here; it’s ConTech.
“I’m a busy man,” Conley admits. “But I try to look in on various projects and teams throughout my company from time to time.”
“Keeping them on their toes, huh?” Theo says.
That earns him a look from Conley, who clearly isn’t sure why the grad assistant feels free to snark at him. But Conley keeps going. “Whatever made me show up that afternoon, I’m grateful. Because the minute I saw Josie surfing—she looked so happy, so confident, like she was having the time of her life—well, I guess that’s why they call it love at first sight.”
Oh, vomit.
“You know how I am,” Josie says. She’s speaking to all of us, supposedly, but she’s looking at Mom. “I never wanted to be held back, and I never wanted to hold anyone back. Wyatt—he’s already accomplished so much. I couldn’t keep him from his goals. I’m not sure that’s even possible.”
Conley smiles as he puts one hand around her shoulders, not quite an embrace. His eyes flicker away only briefly, as he gestures to the waiter.
Josie continues, “I’m not leaving Scripps. I’m still going to get my doctorate in oceanography. And after that, Wyatt’s talked about funding an expedition to Antarctica, where I could work on the iron content research we talked about, Dad.”
“Really? What sort of methodology have you chosen?” Dad perks up. He’s never regretted leaving oceanography for pure mathematics, putting aside his own promising career to support Mom in hers—but he’s still a huge nerd about it.
The waiter arrives with champagne. With a nod of her head, Mom lets the waiter know he can pour me a glass as well. Special occasion, et cetera. She and Dad won’t touch a drop, though. They don’t drink much, and besides—despite the smile on Mom’s face, and all my father’s excited questions, I can tell they’re analyzing Wyatt Conley every single second.
I take a sip, mostly to cover my own discomfort with the situation. Under his breath, Theo says, “I think Conley means it.”
About loving Josie, he’s saying. “This one does,” I mutter. “That doesn’t mean another one wouldn’t use this to his advantage.” Theo nods.
The rest of the night has a hallucinatory quality—half dream, half nightmare. For the dream, we have the hush of the room, the cloudlike elegance of the space, and food that tastes like the stuff you get served in heaven, in most world religions. For the nightmare: Conley’s hand in Josie’s, or around her shoulder, all evening long, holding tight. Like he owns her.
Yet I can’t deny the energy they have together. Josie laughs when she tells her story about teaching him to water-ski; he lights up when he talks about how she gets him to stop thinking about business all the time and actually enjoy his life. And I notice the compliments he pays her. Conley never calls her beautiful, or sweet, or any of those generic terms that actually don’t have jack to do with my rough-and-tumble sister. He says Josie’s dynamic. That she’s filled with purpose. Above all, she is strong.
I have to admit: He knows the real Josie. Maybe he even really loves her.
Silently I decide to stop thinking of this one as “Conley” and instead think of him as “Wyatt.” That doesn’t mean I trust Wyatt—not even close—but it reminds me that he’s not the same guy as the one who’s kidnapped and traumatized my family. I have to evaluate this one on his own.
Dessert arrives in the form of sorbets in flavors I’ve never heard of before: green tea, crème brûlée, even beet-and-lime. Tentatively I sample the beet-and-lime one—which is actually pretty good—then nearly choke on it when Wyatt says, “So where are you with the Firebird project?”
Next to me, Theo coughs into his napkin, trying to pretend he didn’t just aspirate his dessert. Mom seems to think it’s a natural question. “Not yet at the point of building a prototype, but I think we’re ready to start construction soon.”
“Depending on funding,” Wyatt says, and Josie squeezes his fingers. I can tell what’s coming next—the offer, the blank check he’s ready to sign. The power he’s about to seize over my parents’ research.
Then Dad surprises me. “Josie’s been hinting about this for a couple of weeks now, but I’m pleased to say that help is unnecessary. We just found out yesterday that we’ve been approved for a grant that ought to cover our next three years of research.”
This is Wyatt’s cue to start trying to talk my parents into letting him provide the funding. Instead, he grins and shakes his head. “I can see I’m going to have to invest at the IPO, like everyone else.”
“IPO,” Mom scoffs gently. “We’re not doing this to make a profit, Wyatt. We only want to prove what’s possible. To see some fraction of the infinite dimensions layered within the multiverse.”
Josie murmurs, “Like climbing a mountain just because it’s there.”
“Do people climb mountains for any other reason?” Dad says. He gives Theo a look. “However, our assistant here thinks more like you do. His rationale is that if we can bring back advanced technology from alternate dimensions, we should—and in that case, money’s going to be made and we might as well be the ones to make it. Right, Theo?”
“Yeah. I mean, yes, that’s what I’ve always said. But lately I’ve wondered whether you and Sophia aren’t right after all.” Theo looks past us, at memories instead of the here and now. “Maybe the answer matters more than the reward.”
My mother takes Theo’s hand. “You’re getting philosophical on us.”
“Hardly.” He manages to grin. “You know the old joke—a philosophy major winds up on the street with a sign that says WILL THINK FOR FOOD.”
Everybody laughs, and the dinner tapers off into ordinary chitchat, like what everyone thinks of the sorbet, and Dad’s token attempt to wrest the check from Wyatt. When we walk out into the night, I’m struck by the halved sky above me—to my right, Central Park’s tall leafy trees are blacker than the sky above, and to the left, tall buildings reach upward, every window a sort of lantern. I think I’d like New York, if I ever got to visit for normal reasons.
My parents take it for granted that Josie’s going to the hotel suite she shares with Wyatt, which I didn’t. It’s not like I didn’t guess that if they were engaged, they’d probably had sex, but that doesn’t make me any happier to think about it. They stroll off alongside the park, enjoying a romantic evening in the big city.
Conley could get to my family here any time he wanted to, I think. All he’d have to do is travel here, take over “Wyatt” for a few hours and he’d be done. So why hasn’t he?
I begin putting together a plan.
As the four of us stand there near the front of the restaurant, my mother’s hand outstretched for a cab, Dad says, “I have to admit—she’s happy.”
“She is, and yet”—Mom shakes her head—“am I questioning it only because it seems too good to be true?”
“That’s not like you,” I say. “You should trust your instincts.”
She gives me a look—questioning, but not disapproving. “What do your instincts tell you, Marguerite?”
How do I answer this? I can’t let on how much I know; certainly I can’t tell them the truth, not when I have to sabotage their work tomorrow. “I think he really loves her, but—something about it—I guess it all seems too easy.”
“Yes, that’s it.” Mom combs her fingers through my curls, like she used to do when I was little and she helped me to go back to sleep after a bad dream. “We’ll have to see. Of course, in the end, it’s Josie’s choice to make.”
“Still, worth checking out,” Theo says. “So. I ought to get going.”
“You mean, we should get going.” I improvise as smoothly as I can. “There’s this really cool performance-art piece happening downtown tonight, in about an hour. Theo said he’d take me if I wanted to go. It’s okay with you guys, right?”
My parents exchange a look. They’ve always been pretty chill, but my heading out into the wee hours is a little over their boundary lines. Of course, I’ll have Theo with me—and apparently they’re not sure what to make of that. Does that mean we’ve never flirted in this universe?
Or does it mean that we have?
Regardless, after a moment, Mom nods. “I realize not all art hangs in galleries. But text us when you get there and when you’re leaving, and wake us up when you get in.”
“And you’ll see her all the way back to our building, Theo,” Dad chimes in.
“Absolutely.” Theo grins, hands in his pockets, like these had been his plans for the evening all along.
A bright yellow taxi finally sidles up to the curb for my mom and dad. As soon as it pulls off, Theo says, “This had better not be about real performance art. Because no.”
I give him a look. “No. We’re going to Josie and Wyatt’s hotel.”
“Thrilled as I am to hear you inviting me to a hotel, I bet you’re going in a different direction with this.”
My cheeks flush with heat as I remember Theo and me in the hotel in San Francisco, and the way he rolled me over, kissed me passionately. Thank goodness it’s too dark for Theo to see my blush. “Conley hasn’t come to this dimension. He can’t have, or else he would have taken care of the sabotage himself.”
“Sure. But this world’s Wyatt Conley isn’t going to know anything about that.”
“No, but—he’s a genius, right? In every dimension. And he might not be involved in the research about dimensional travel, but he’s smart enough to understand it. If this version really loves Josie . . .” Still so weird to think about that, but I’ve begun to believe in his feelings for her. “. . . then maybe he could help us figure out why Conley didn’t come to this world.”
Theo frowns as we begin to stroll in the same direction Josie and Wyatt went. “Wait,” he says. “You want to tell this version of Wyatt Conley the truth? Because that is risky as hell.”
“The worst that could happen is Wyatt deciding we’re nuts.”
“No, the worst thing that could happen is Conley actually showing up in this universe, finding out we’re trying to work against him, and retaliating by splintering Paul’s soul into a thousand pieces instead of only four.”
Instinctively I raise my hand to cover the two Firebirds hanging beneath my dress, next to my skin. A thousand dimensions—including some where we live on different continents, where reaching Paul would be nearly impossible—I could spend the rest of my life chasing him. Hunting for him. Reassembling the essential soul of the guy I love, bit by bit.
If I had to, then I would.
But I won’t. “No,” I insist. “If Conley were ever coming here, he would have done it already. He wouldn’t have sent us. That’s all there is to it. And if there’s something unique about this dimension that keeps him out—”
“Then it would keep us out too,” Theo says.
“Well, okay. But still, there’s something here we’re missing. Wyatt is the only person with any chance of helping us figure out what that is.” I take a deep breath as I resume walking. “Except Mom and Dad. But we can’t tell them.”
“Because we still might have to saw them off at the knees.” Theo says it dully. “Moving on. Found this dimension’s Paul yet? I went through the whole Columbia student directory, and nada. He could be at Cambridge—”
“He’s in New York. I don’t know what he’s doing besides grad school, but he’s here. I sent him a Facebook message saying mutual friends wanted to fix us up.” I take my phone out of my leather backpack to check it. But the Facebook app has nothing more to offer me than a lot of FarmVille updates. Apparently I’m really into FarmVille here. Kind of sad. “He’ll write back. Probably.” Maybe I should have put up a hotter profile pic.
But Theo says, “Of course he’ll write. He’ll be freaked out as hell, but you know Paul. He can’t stand having incomplete data.”
“You’re right. He’ll have to know.” The thought soothes my raw nerves. I’ll find Paul here; it won’t be much longer. Another day, or maybe two. I can handle that.
“So,” Theo says. “Josie and Wyatt Conley. There’s not enough WTF in the world.”
“Nope. But at least we know where Conley’s vulnerable.”
“You think that’s true at home too? I mean, come on. They hardly know each other there.”
True. Yet I can’t forget how Josie’s always joked that she thought Wyatt Conley was hot; maybe she wasn’t joking. And now that I think about it, Conley’s always managed to avoid meeting Josie face-to-face. Before it simply seemed unlucky. Now I can’t help wondering if he avoided her on purpose because he knew she was a weakness he couldn’t afford.
Slowly, I nod. “Yeah, I do.”
Theo shrugs. His hipster-tight jacket crumples a bit at his shoulders, but that’s all part of the look. “That’s going to make for some interesting investigations back home. But for tonight, we try to talk with Conley about this without coming across as total lunatics. Tomorrow—I guess we go ahead and load the virus into your parents’ data.”
Although my heart aches, I can’t think of another way to successfully fake that sabotage. “Yeah, we’d better.”
If I told my parents the truth, they might help us; probably they’d play along just to stop anyone from attempting to dominate the dimensions. But I’m still heartsick to think that we didn’t really carry out Conley’s plan in the Warverse. I offered Paul that deal because we had no other choice, which means there’s always a chance Conley will figure out the truth. If he does, God only knows what will happen to Paul.
I can’t take that chance again. No, this time we have to play by Conley’s rules.
Finally we approach the hotel Josie mentioned. Its brilliant sign glows gold in the night, at least two stories high. “Looks pretty swanky,” Theo says, gesturing at the twin waterfalls on either side of the front door.
“Like Conley would stay anywhere else,” I sigh. “Come on, let’s—”
I hear the shriek of brakes just behind me, and whirl around, expecting to see a cabdriver getting into an accident. Instead, a black van runs up onto the curb before it skids to a halt.
Two men garbed in black, including ski masks that cover their faces, jump out and run in my direction—and I realize the person in trouble here is me.
Theo doesn’t even hesitate. He charges, only to have one of the guys slam a fist into the side of Theo’s head. Instantly he crumples to the sidewalk.
I turn to run, but a hand closes around my arm as tight as a vise. Even as I twist away, trying to scramble out of his grasp, someone else hoists me over his shoulder. I scream as loud as I can, which is when a black bag covers my head.
“Help!” I shriek. Someone’s got to hear me through the bag, right? I try kicking at my captor, but he’s running—and then there’s a dizzying kind of spin as he throws me into the van. I kick out with both feet, going for the bag with my hands, but my arms are yanked down, and someone very heavy sits on my legs. Oh God, oh God, what’s happening?
I hear Theo shout, “Marguerite! What— Police! POLICE!”
The van door slams shut, and my blood turns to ice.
I’m being kidnapped. Abducted. Taken against my will.
Again I scream, wordlessly, but it does no good. We accelerate so fast that I roll over and hit the side of the van, and once again, tires squeal against asphalt. I feel a plastic zip tie tighten around my wrists, and then someone does my legs. Thrashing, I try to shake off the bag, but two large hands push my shoulders down onto the floor of the van.
“Listen to me,” says a heavily accented voice. “You get that bag off, you see our faces. You see our faces, you don’t get to go home again. Maybe you like that bag now, huh?”
I hate the bag. But I’m keeping it on.
My heart pounds so hard it feels like my chest will crack. Tears well in my eyes, and I’m so scared I think I’m going to wet my pants.
Never let them take you to a second location. That’s what all the self-defense classes say. It doesn’t matter if someone holds a gun on you, you do not let them take you to a second location, because if they’d kill you where you stand, they’ll kill you wherever you’re going, except they’ll have control of you for hours or days before you die, and you Do. Not. Want. That.
Will they rape me? Will they kill me? My mind seems to have shattered into something that can only show me the thousand horrible things that might be about to happen. That are probably going to happen. All the dangers of traveling through dimensions, and yet I never thought about how the same dangers from my own world might be the ones that killed me.
The Firebird, I remind myself. You’ve got the Firebirds. If I can manage to touch it at some point, even with my wrists bound, I might be able to leap out of here. But then that leaves this Marguerite to suffer a terrible fate—and means Wyatt Conley might decide I’d broken our deal. What would happen to Paul then?
Paul wouldn’t want me to get hurt for his sake. I know that. But I’m not leaving him behind in this universe unless I have no other choice.
It seems like we drive forever. The van bumps and jostles me constantly, even though the guys continue holding me down; they talk the whole time, in what I’m increasingly sure is Russian, but in a dialect I’m not familiar with. Maybe my weeks in St. Petersburg will kick back in, and help me to understand them a little. All I know for sure is that we go over a bridge—the rhythmic thump-and-click unmistakable—and then keep driving for a long time more.
When the van comes to a halt, my pulse intensifies to the point where my chest hurts. I might be about to throw up. I don’t want to throw up in the bag. My brain seizes on that—don’t puke, don’t puke—because it seems like the only part of this I might be able to control. Once again, I’m hauled over someone’s shoulder and carried down a short set of stairs. Metal doors swing shut behind us; I hear locks being turned.
This isn’t some random vacant lot or warehouse. This is a space designed to be secure, and secret. Oh, my God, is this human trafficking or something?
I’m dumped into a chair. The unpleasant screech of duct tape accompanies the pressure of it being wrapped around me, keeping me in place. If I knew what they wanted, I’d beg, I’d bargain—
Then it hits me. Maybe this isn’t random.
A criminal operation—a professional one—that could be run by someone with a lot of money. A lot of influence. Someone who could get others to do his dirty work.
But no, I tell myself. He’s in love with my sister—for real, I’m sure of it. Conley wouldn’t do this, unless—unless he realized I suspected him—
“We’ve got her,” says the man just by my shoulder.
Someone responds: “I see that.” Only three words, but I recognize his voice.
Because it’s Paul.