Chapter Seven

HE LIKED JAMES well enough. A little too much, he feared sometimes. Like when James smiled at first seeing the fluorescent butterflies and their light reflected on his skin, on his circuitry, in his eyes. Or when he stared out at the ocean, steel in his gaze but looking for all the world as though he wanted to be able to dive in, to feel the salty wetness soaking his body without pain, without being punished for trying to escape.

But James wasn’t Mir. Peter had failed.

And no one had come out of the last vortex he’d found but not created. It had opened—Interface must have opened it—but it was empty. Interface was monitoring it while he wept and James slept, but he didn’t think anyone was coming. It had been hours.

He’d retreated down the beach to a spot near the lagoon, cut off from the rest, shielded from view by dune upon dune. He’d flown over the dunes and floated, unable to get up enough strength to fly higher and faster. He just floated in the air, hovering above the surf, right above the crashing waves. Their rhythm soothed him, even as he pulled himself into a ball and sobbed.

He was failing Mir.

More to the point, Mir had abandoned him. Chose death over him.

He focused on the easier part, where he’d failed with not one vortex, but now, with two.

Peter stayed that way, curled into a ball, his face wet from tears and the waves beneath him, until a voice jarred him out of his misery.

“Hey. Hey, kid. Boy. Why are you crying?”

The voice behind him was soft, gentle, curious, but not invasive. Still, Peter sank out of the air unceremoniously with shock, just as a wave crashed beneath him. It enveloped him, dragging him under.

His stomach scraped against the sand as the wave tugged him along, but he let it take him. He didn’t know why, but he trusted it. The dragging didn’t hurt with his binder protecting his skin underneath his shirt, and anyway, it felt, even as it took his breath from his lungs, like home.

Not the home he’d come from, but the home he’d always fantasized about.

Knowing he would surface soon, Peter hoped, more than a little bit, that he might this time catch a bit of the songs James swore he had heard when he was being shocked in the water.

Sure enough, just as his lungs started burning, an ethereal melody rose in his ears. He strained to hear more, but then the wave relented, pulling back, and Peter scrambled to his feet, gasping for breath.

“Look out!” that same voice called, and before he could brace his legs or turn around, another wave slammed into the back of Peter’s legs.

His knees buckled, but this time instead of slamming into the sand and salt, his fall was broken by a firm set of hands and a pair of thighs wrapped in an ancient blue woven material.

“This material,” Peter gasped as soon as he had some of his breath back, as he peeled his skin away from hers and looked up into her angular face, “used to be called…corduroy, right?”

“Denim. A denim miniskirt. But seriously, though. Girl shows up on island. Girl walks in on you crying. Girl practically gets you drowned, and then girl saves you from being wiped out again. And the first thing you say—before thanks, mind you—is a question about the make of my clothes?”

Peter grinned as he shoved himself up to his feet.

“Makes sense, though, doesn’t it? I’ve seen a girl before. I’ve been wiped out by waves before, but I’ve never seen something crafted like that before. Not where I come from, anyway.”

The girl just shrugged, her focus leaving his dripping face to scan the island keenly, almost hungrily.

“Tink sent me to get you. Said I should introduce myself.”

“Tink? You mean…you mean from back home, or is there someone else on the island, or—”

The girl tilted her head and furrowed her brow. “Little machine, about your height, kinda looks like…I don’t know, a fairy or something. Screen on her stomach?”

“You mean Interface.” Peter rubbed at his eyes irritably with his palms.

“Yeah, I figured she needed a better name—”

“She.”

The girl shrugged. “She seemed to like it. She did that thing where she chimes like a little laugh. Have you heard her do that? And her interface screen went a little red—do you think machines can blush?”

“What are you… Can you slow the hell down? Who are you? Interface—Tink?—sent…you?”

The girl nodded. “Just got here. That little faerie machine apparently believes in putting people to work quickly.” She stared off over her shoulder, in the direction of the portal, now disintegrated. “And apparently in seriously impressing newcomers with her dashing good looks.” She leaned into Peter unexpectedly, and he jumped back. She smirked and whispered, “Know if she’s seeing anyone?”

“She’s a machine, I don’t—wait. Wait, so Interface finally got someone to come through the portal she opened then? You came through the portal, right? It worked?”

His heart sank, and he wanted to curl back into that ball and never uncurl.

Not Mir.

“Big swirly thing came and sucked me out of my world and spit me out on some island that can’t possibly be on Earth because we destroyed it too long ago for this to be anywhere near real? Yep. That’s me. Portal girl.”

Peter laughed despite himself, but as he looked up into her face, something else registered. Something deeper, something more painful than the wave knocking him down.

Her face. Her voice. The way she’d recognized his boyness right away. The way she’d asked him why he was crying.

Why is that boy crying? a voice rang out in his head. Her voice. This girl’s voice.

“I know you,” Peter murmured, scrambling to his feet, distracted for a moment from his grief.

“I’m sorry?” she asked, backing away.

Maybe he was wrong. He didn’t want to scare her. Or, if she was scared, he didn’t want it to be of him.

“Sorry, I just thought… I came to this island—programmed it myself, actually—to…to find someone. My…my friend. My enbyfriend. To save them, really. And I… The morning I lost them, I think I saw you. In a silver speeder. With some stuffy old man. Thick mustache. You asked him why I was crying, and he told you I was a girl and that my keeper should take better care to keep us off the streets, I…I could swear it was you.”

The girl frowned at him, looked him up and down. “No,” she said. “Weird green pants like yours? I think I’d remember seeing you. But…but my uncle does have a silver speeder. And a thick mustache. And he’s stuffy and he’s old and he’s a man, so I…” The girl shivered, nodding to warn him of another wave about to crash on the backs of his knees. Peter braced. The girl did too, and for a moment, she seemed to forget Peter, losing herself in the feeling of cool, salty water crashing into her legs.

“I don’t know, kid. I don’t remember you, but hey, I guess it could have been me. Or else some weird coincidence. Lots of old stuffy white men have thick mustaches and silver speeders, right? Weird, but like…whatever. Not nearly as weird as getting sucked out of your life and into this…place. But I guess it could be better than there.”

The girl paused, frowning like she was looking at something that wasn’t in front of her; something that was behind her, and maybe, surrounding her. She shook her head like she was trying to get water out of her ears, even though Peter was the one who was sopping wet.

“I’m Gwen, by the way. You gonna show me this island while Tink rests, or am I gonna have to show myself?”