Motion(Laws of Physics #1)
Penny Reid
For nerds who aren’t a Bohr.
Author’s Note
If you have read the Elements of Chemistry trilogy (Hypothesis Trilogies #1), the action of this book (Laws of Physics: MOTION) occurs one year prior to the action of Elements of Chemistry: CAPTURE
If you have read Knitting in the City series, the action of this book occurs the summer between Love Hacked and Beauty and the Mustache (and one year prior to the action of Dating-ish) If you have read the Dear Professor series, the action of this book occurs two years prior to Kissing Tolstoy If you have read none of these books, ignore this note.
1
Physics in a Personal and Social Context
"You are receiving a collect call from ACCEPT THE CHARGES, MONA! at Cretin County Jail. If you accept the charges, press one. If not, disconnect,” the robot—apparently the love child between Alexa and Baymax—announced via my cell phone, the sound an odd amalgamation of her voice and his cadence.
No. Strike that. Inaccurate.
Most of the words were announced by the robot. But the words “ACCEPT THE CHARGES, MONA!” and the voice that whisper-shouted them belonged to my twin sister, Lisa. I didn’t press one and I didn’t disconnect. But I did stare at nothing, probably making my about-to-sneeze face, and attempted to parse through what I’d just heard.
“Is everything okay?”
Dr. Payton’s perfectly reasonable question hijacked my attention and reminded me that I wasn’t alone. I was in a restaurant. The planetary astrophysicist’s eyebrows inched upward as we stared at each other, his last bite of steak left forgotten on the tip of his fork.
Fraught and feeling illogically harassed, I sputtered, “I don’t know.”
This was one of the very few times in my nineteen years that I’d said I don’t know. I didn’t like not knowing. I preferred I’ll find out, I’ll figure it out, or I’ll know soon.
If he’d asked me the same question just thirty seconds ago, I would’ve known how to answer. Prior to my cell ringing seconds ago, today had been a great day. I’d meditated as soon as I’d awoken. I’d journaled. I’d located and eaten a perfectly ripe avocado for breakfast. The best. Avocados in Chicago and Cambridge, Mass were so seldom perfectly ripe, or they were ripe for only 4.4 seconds. Whereas California had all the ripe avocados.
Traffic on the I-5 had been light while my driver transported me from the Pasadena Marriott to the Palomar Observatory. I’d spent most of my day elbows deep with my best friends: the gorgeous symmetry and chaos of relativistic equations, infrared array imaging, spectroscopy data.
Late afternoon, I’d gone to the dentist for a teeth cleaning, X-rays, and exam where I’d been told that my home regimen of flossing and brushing was exemplary. Praise from the dentist always put me in a good mood.
Presently, I was having dinner with Dr. Poe Payton, a second-year fellow in planetary astrophysics who was as intelligent as he was handsome and charming, which was considerably. Not that his handsomeness or ability to charm was relevant. As with all my prospective colleagues, nothing was relevant about Dr. Payton other than his ability to keep up.
Afterward, my plans included swimming in the hotel pool, showering, and finally an hour of scheduled fiction reading before bed. Although, now that I was living on my own, and finally free of Dr. Steward’s daily oversight, I sometimes read for an hour and a half.
"You are receiving a collect call from ACCEPT THE CHARGES, MONA! at Cretin County Jail. If you accept the charges, press one. If not, disconnect,” the Alexa-Baymax hybrid announced again, startling me a second time.
Flustered, I pressed one and brought the phone back to my ear. “Uh, hello? Hello?”
“Thank God!” My twin sounded far away, like the connection was bad or she was speaking in a tunnel.
“Lisa?” I whisper-asked, my eyes darting to Dr. Payton’s curious and concerned expression.
“First, don’t freak out. Second, I don’t have a lot of time, so don’t ask questions. Just do what I say, okay? I’ve been arrested.”
Arrested.
Oh God. Oh my God! Okay . . . OH MY GOD!
Clutching my forehead, heart racing, I dropped my gaze to the napkin on my lap. “Are you okay? I-what? Where are—”
“Listen,” she said firmly, “I need you to listen to me.”
“Should I call—”
“No! Don’t call anyone. I already have a lawyer, and—if everything goes according to plan—I should be released by next week.”
What? “What?”
My eyes darted up, snagging on Dr. Payton, who was now looking at me with some alarm.
He asked, “What can I do?” But this time he mouthed his question.
I didn’t answer, I couldn’t. Lisa was still talking in my ear, my mind accelerating to a million miles per second.
“. . . so I need you to go home and pretend to be me. Otherwise, they’ll know what happened and I’ll be so, so screwed.”
I lifted a finger, motioning for Dr. Payton to give me a minute, and turned my body toward the window on my right. “Uh, pardon?”
“Mona, focus.” My typically imperturbable sister’s voice trembled. “You have to get to Chicago—tonight if possible—and be me.”
Go to Chicago? Impossible. But one thing at a time.
Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and asked the most pertinent question. “First, tell me if you’re okay. Are you hurt?”
Lisa heaved a watery-sounding sigh. “I’m not hurt. But, no. I’m not okay.”
Lisa. My lungs constricted, I rubbed my sternum with my fingertips. We weren’t particularly close, not anymore, but right now that didn’t matter. This was my sister, my twin. There’d been a time when I’d thought we shared one-half of the same heart. Our brother Leo used to tell us this story and we’d believed him.
No. Strike that. Inaccurate. I’d believed him. Lisa had never been as na?ve or gullible or susceptible to fictions and romanticism as me.
“What can I do?” I asked, opening my eyes.
“Get to Chicago. Pretend to be me for a week. And—”
“I can’t. I’m in California for my visit with Caltech. I’m interviewing for their PhD program.”
“Oh please. You mean you’re interviewing them. Everyone wants you. They wouldn’t care if you left, they wouldn’t care if you did a striptease on the dean’s desk while snorting coke off his letter opener. Hell, he’d probably love it.”
“The dean is a heterosexual female.”
Lisa grunted. “Whatever! Please, please, please listen, Mona. This is serious. This is life and death for me. You have to wear my clothes, my makeup, sleep in my room, act like me. Mom and Dad can’t know I’m in . . . shit. I can’t believe this happened.”
I shook my head. “Lisa, no. No. Listen to yourself. This is crazy, even for you. Mom and Dad will know I’m me.”
“Obviously, Mona!” she whispered harshly. “But you don’t have to fool Mom and Dad. They’re still in Greece. Abram is watching the house. You just have to fool him until I get there.”
She was talking so fast, I was having trouble keeping up. “Who is Abram?”
“Abram. You know, Abram, Leo’s friend? You don’t know Abram? Oh, good”—she sounded relieved—“in fact, that’s great! I’ve only sorta met Abram once, so this’ll be super easy. Pretend like you don’t remember him or anything about the night we met, which is actually pretty accurate, because I don’t remember much. We’ll switch places before your BFF Dr. Steward arrives, and no one will know about this nightmare.”