05:03:08:12
Struz is awake but still home when I get there. He’s drinking coffee, black and probably drowned in sugar, one of the few luxuries he’s made sure we still have.
He opens his mouth, probably to ask about our newest case, but I don’t let him get that far.
“Don’t leave yet,” I say, walking past the kitchen and toward the stairs. “You and I are going to see Barclay.”
Deirdre calls after me as I run upstairs, but I don’t stop. My plan has changed slightly, but the dynamic here is still the same. I need Barclay, and I don’t need Deirdre trying to step in and stop me.
When I get to my room, I move straight for the closet and reach toward the back, grabbing my backpack from the floor. The clothes I’m wearing—jeans, T-shirt, hoodie, and sneakers—are going to have to be good enough, but I can’t walk blindly into whatever Barclay’s planning. I grab my dad’s old hunting knife, his backup gun, and all the ammo we have for it and stuff them into the backpack. And I take my leather jacket because who knows how cold it will be where I’m going.
With everything in the backpack, I put it on.
I get up and leave the room without looking back, because it would be easier to stay here and just be upset than try to do something about it. I need to hold on to my anger—I need to wrap myself up in it, in the injustice of everything that’s just happened, and keep it close. I can’t lose my resolve.
I peek into Struz and Jared’s room before I head downstairs. My brother is still asleep, tangled up in his covers like he fought them into submission, his brown hair sticking out in odd places. I think about before the quakes, when we went to Disneyland and I knew it might be our last time together if the world ended. I remember how much he smiled then—how much he still manages to smile now, despite everything.
This is my brother, the only member of my family I have left. I have to stop these abductions before they get worse, before these guys start grabbing people out of houses instead of just shelters. I have to do this to get Cecily back and to keep my brother safe, so that I don’t have to worry if he’ll be next.
I move into the room and touch his shoulder, his skin warm from the blankets. I sit carefully on the edge of the bed. His eyes flutter open and he groans a little, pulling himself tighter into a ball.
Brushing my fingers through his hair, I whisper, “I love you, Jared,” and then, because I know it’s an X-Files quote he’ll understand, I add, “‘Even when the world was falling apart, you were my constant. My touchstone.’”
A muffled, “‘And you were mine’” comes out from under the covers. From the sound of his voice, I can tell he’s smiling.
He’ll be mad when he fully wakes up and finds out that I’m gone, but if this is the last conversation we’re ever going to have, it’s a good one. One that’s true—and worth remembering.
After kissing his forehead, I get up and head downstairs.
Both tense and red-faced, Struz and Deirdre pause what is clearly an argument and turn toward me. Again, I don’t give them a chance. I just look right into Struz’s blue eyes.
“I need you to let Barclay go,” I say. “Because I need to go with him.”
05:02:57:43
Deirdre reacts first. “He can’t let Barclay go.” Her face flushes a shade slightly darker, and her voice, stern and loud, escalates as she keeps talking. “And you certainly can’t go with him. Go where? In the middle of all this?”
Struz doesn’t say anything yet, so I don’t either. I stand still and straight, with my lips pressed together in a hard line. I let my body language and facial expression tell the complete truth. I let them say that I’ve thought this through, that I can do this, that it’s the only way.
Struz takes a slow sip from his coffee mug. Then he looks at me. “You’re not going anywhere. And I can’t just let Barclay go. We need to know more about what happened this fall. And if what he’s said is true, we need to know what we can do right now. After we’ve gotten information, we could let Barclay take a team of trained agents with him if he needs help and can’t trust his own people.”
“You think we can really afford to wait that long?” I ask.
“Struz,” Deirdre says. “You can’t possibly . . . Where the hell is she going to go? We can’t trust him!”
He doesn’t answer her. “It doesn’t have to be you,” he says to me.
But he’s wrong. It does have to be me. I think of Ben and Cecily and know that it does.
It has to be me.
I don’t say a word because my face says that I am my father’s daughter. That I’ll do this with or without his help.
Because I will.
Even if Struz doesn’t want me to. I can’t sit around and wait for someone to figure out how to get Cecily back. And I can’t sit around wondering if Ben is dead because of my inaction. Doing that last night was enough.
And Barclay isn’t going to take a team of FBI agents or Marines and go through a portal into Prima and shake things up with the IA. He isn’t even going to hang out and let himself be detained very long. If they’ve still got him, it’s only temporary—maybe even because he’s waiting for me.
When Struz pours the rest of his coffee down the sink, I know I have him.
“J, come with me. Let’s talk to Barclay,” Struz says. To Deirdre he adds, “Call another meeting for an hour from now. We need people to be prepared and not panicking. We need a way to fight this.”
“Struz—”
“D, we’ve got enough shit to deal with without people disappearing right and left.” He looks at me. “Let’s go.”
05:02:03:15
When we first come in, Barclay is silent. The holding cell is cleaner and whiter than I expected. The floors, walls, ceiling, even the bars are white. There’s a small metal sink and toilet on one side and a small cot on the other. The bed is untouched, the blanket and sheets unwrinkled as if Barclay hasn’t slept. He’s sitting on the floor, his head against the wall, his eyes closed, his hands now tied together.
He doesn’t even look up when the door opens and he doesn’t acknowledge it when Struz says he’s come to talk.
When he adds, “And I brought someone with me,” that makes Barclay react. He smiles.
“I knew you’d change your mind, Tenner,” he says.
I sort of want to smack the smugness right off his face.
Struz frowns. “We need information.”
Barclay doesn’t answer.
“We need to know everything about Prima, the portals, this human-trafficking ring, and exactly what part you played in the events that happened a few months ago,” Struz says.
Again, Barclay doesn’t answer, but he looks at me like he’s a combination of annoyed and surprised that I gave up information about what happened.
“Don’t be an a*shole,” I say. “We don’t care about your problems as much as we care about ours.” It’s not necessarily true, since I care a lot about Ben and Cecily, and someone dirty in the IA has the potential to be a huge problem, but I have to say something.
“It’s against IA regulations to discuss the multiverse to persons in a world that isn’t part of the Interverse Alliance,” he says.
“Seriously, you’re going to spout that at me?” I fold my arms across my chest. “I seem to recall you’ve already broken that one.”
He knows I’m referring to the information he told me before the quakes—and what he told me yesterday.
“Look, the sad fact is that you need me,” I say, even though I’m not a hundred percent sure why yet. “I’m not going to help you for nothing. So you need to talk to us and give us answers.”
Barclay’s eyebrows draw together and I’m pretty sure he’s clenching his teeth, but he gives a quick nod and then says, “What are your terms?”
I take a deep breath. “My friend Cecily has been taken. So I’ll go with you—”
Struz clears his throat. “Actually, I’ll go with you. Janelle will stay here.”
My mouth falls open, though I’m not sure what I’m about to say. I can’t tell myself that it’s surprising that Struz would go in my place. But I just hadn’t seen it coming.
Barclay shakes his head. “No deal. I don’t need you. I need her. She knows about the IA and they know about her. I can bring her in under the guise of questioning her and no one will think it’s off. If I brought you in, it would draw attention to us.”
Struz looks like he’s about to argue, so I put a hand on his arm. I don’t know why Barclay needs me, but I believe him. And I also know I need Struz to take care of Jared while I’m gone. To make sure he’s safe.
“I’ll go with you,” I repeat. “On two conditions.”
“That we get your friend back?” he asks.
“Yes. And that you tell Struz how to fight this stuff.”
“What about Ben?” Barclay asks.
My stomach drops and I feel short of breath, like he just punched me. “What about him?” I’m not about to tell Barclay that I’ve been lying awake at night waiting for Ben Michaels to walk back into my universe while he’s been running around and getting himself in trouble with IA and who knows what else. I need to make sure he’s safe, but the most important thing is to get Cecily back. That’s what I need from Barclay right now.
“Fair enough,” he says with a shrug. The corners of his lips turn up, though. Like he doesn’t quite believe me.
The truth is there’s actually not a lot Barclay can tell us that will block the portals. If we had hydrochloradneum, we could use it. Apparently in New Prima, the capital city where Barclay lives and IA is headquartered, there are buildings with the chemical compound in their foundations, and it acts as a shield to prevent portals from opening inside those buildings.
We don’t have that, though. And even though Struz has given information to scientists, there hasn’t been much advancement in the Multiverse Project, not that anyone can blame them, given the state of the country right now.
“Can’t IA track these guys through their quantum chargers or something?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “No, that’s the problem. They’re either using black-market chargers or they’ve dismantled the tracking chips.” Barclay sighs. “If it was that easy to track them, Tenner, we’d have shut them down.”
“Well, can’t you track the activity or something?” Struz asks.
“Not likely. Every universe has soft spots. They’re spots where travel between universes is easy—or easier, at least. Those spots don’t register activity unless the portals are unstable, unless they’re creating some kind of bigger disturbances between universes.” Barclay shifts on the floor and looks directly at me. Ben’s portals were unstable. That’s why we ended up with so many problems.
“Where are the soft spots?” Struz asks.
Barclay chuckles. “We’re in a big soft spot. It’s called San Diego.”
05:01:44:59
Barclay looks at me. “You think it’s a coincidence that your boyfriend and his friends got dumped here? They opened a portal with no direction, so it chose the closest soft spot, and here they were.”
“Why the ocean, then?”
“Because that’s the thinnest part,” Barclay says. “This whole area is a soft spot, but some areas are thinner than others—some more conducive to portals.”
“So we’re looking for the thinnest soft spots where someone could portal in and do some reconnaissance, and areas that are highly populated,” Struz says. “Dammit.”
I look at him. I’m not sure what he’s on to.
“We need to break up the evac shelters. Think of how many disappearances there have been from Qualcomm alone.”
“Oh, God,” I breathe. “Even all the people in the beginning that we thought might have abandoned the shelter because it was too crowded . . .”
Struz nods. “I’ll get our people on it while you’re gone.” He looks at Barclay. “Are there any spots that are . . . whatever you’d call it, thick?”
“Downtown,” Barclay says. It’s a mess downtown, not exactly habitable. “It would be the last place I’d want to portal in if people were looking for me. The veil between the universes is thickest there, and portaling in would register a certain level of activity.”
I look at Struz. He certainly has his work cut out for him.
05:01:42:58
After Struz gives the order for the soldiers to release Barclay, he drives the two of us to where La Jolla Village Drive turned into North Torrey Pines Road. It’s what used to be the south-western tip of UCSD’s campus. Now it’s just uneven land, downed buildings, and cliffs that drop straight down into the ocean.
Between the quakes and the tsunami, the California coastline retreated anywhere between two hundred feet and a couple of miles. Here in northern La Jolla, the ocean starts about two thousand feet inland of where it used to.
According to Barclay, this is a good place for us to disappear.
When he parks and turns the engine off, Struz says, “Barclay, a word.”
The two of them get out of the car and head about ten yards away. I’m not sure what exactly Struz has to tell him, but I imagine it’s something along the lines of, Make sure she doesn’t get hurt. Not that Barclay could guarantee that—not that he would, either.
When I get out of the car, my shoes hit the dry, scorched earth and kick up some dust. The wind doesn’t help, and I have to close my eyes for a second to keep them from burning. It’s not quite sunrise yet. If I look back toward the way we came from, there are orange and pink streaks in the sky, and I imagine the sun will be up soon. But in front of me the sky is still dark, and even though I can’t see the ocean, I can hear the waves sliding out to sea, curling and cresting, then crashing against the side of the cliffs.
Apparently done with threats, Struz walks back over to me. He puts one of his giant hands on my shoulder and squeezes—almost too hard. His eyes are closed and the lines on his face are deeply etched—stress leaving its mark. When his voice comes out, it’s strained, and I appreciate how much restraint he’s capable of. I wouldn’t be able to just close my eyes and let him leave me.
And I know it’s not easy for him.
It doesn’t matter that it’s the right thing to do or that he can’t be the one to leave. It doesn’t even matter that I’m technically an adult and he’s not really related to me. We’ve been tied together by our love for my dad for a long time, and now the ever-present ache that stems from my dad’s absence and our love for each other makes us family.
It’s the two of us against the rest of the world—I can see that in the way he bites his cheek and in the tension of his body. I can feel it in the rising lump in my throat and the way my eyes burn.
There are no words of advice. He doesn’t tell me to be safe or to be careful. There are no words of encouragement—serious or comical. He doesn’t tell me to bring Cecily back, to save the day, or to stick it to the bad guys.
He just says, “Come back.”
I nod first because I can’t answer. Something’s blocking my throat. I lift my eyes to the black, cloudless sky to keep from crying, and I memorize how this feels—the cool desert breeze, the middle-of-the-night silences, the hard earth of my universe underneath my feet, the burned smell of smoke lingering everywhere, the taste of sweat on my skin. And Struz—the warmth of his fingers digging into my shoulder, and the deep breath he takes to keep his shit together.
I resolve to keep from losing this. It might be filled with problems, and it might take us years to solve them, but this is my world—my universe. I belong here.
No matter what, I promise myself I’ll come back to my family.
05:01:37:26
I touch Struz’s hand on my shoulder. I squeeze it with my own and whisper, “I will.”
I almost add something snarky—I almost tell him I’m not that easy to get rid of. But I don’t. Because I’m about to follow someone I don’t trust through a portal and into another universe. I’ll be in a different world, facing a human-trafficking ring, a potentially corrupt international agency, and technology I can’t fathom.
Nothing about this is going to be easy.
“Here,” Barclay says, handing me a necklace identical to the one he’s wearing, identical to the one I wore the last time I moved through a portal, when Ben and I were coming back here. “Put this on.”
It’s a metal necklace, the one all Interverse Agents wear. It looks like it’s just braided wire, but it has an electronic charge that allows it to travel through the activated portals without being affected by the radiation.
Barclay watches me, our eyes meet, and he holds my gaze.
I think about how it felt when he pulled me through my first portal a few months ago, when one of the quakes was about to bring Ben’s house down on us—the way it felt like fire was moving through my veins, liquefying me from the inside out, like my skin was melting off my bones. Barclay injected me with something then, to keep me from dying from the radiation.
I crack a couple of knuckles to keep my hands from shaking.
“Do I need another injection?” I ask. I’d rather take the shot first and avoid feeling like that than wait until afterward.
Barclay shakes his head. “You only need those about once every six months.”
I nod, take a deep breath, ignore the pounding of my heart, and tell myself that I’m ready.
From his pocket, Barclay pulls out what looks like a complicated cell phone—some kind of cross between an iPhone and an old Palm Pilot. It’s his quantum charger, another thing all IA agents have. They activate and open portals, like a navigation system that uses coordinates to pinpoint the exact spot in any given universe, so an agent knows where he’s going. And it stabilizes the portal when it opens.
Struz steps back and I want to turn around and say good-bye one more time. Because what if I don’t make it back? What if this is the last time that I see him? I want the moment to matter.
But I don’t look because I don’t want him to be able to see how scared I am. Instead, I just watch Barclay as he presses a few buttons on the charger. He points it at the ground in front of him.
I hear that electrical sound—the sound of something powering up.
And then the portal springs open.
It’s a perfect circle, pure black like oil, with a diameter of a little more than seven feet, and it’s in front of Barclay, backlighting him, giving his silhouette some kind of otherworldly glow.
The temperature drops, the wind picks up and moves through my hair, goose bumps spring up on my neck, and the air smells like we’re in that moment right before a storm sets in.
I shiver.
Not just because it’s cold.
Barclay turns around. His eyes look impossibly blue in this light, and I have the urge to back out. I can’t help but feel like I’m about to violate every law of the natural world.
He must know I’m struggling, because he says, “This is the right thing to do, Tenner.”
Our eyes don’t break contact as he takes a step back into the black hole that is the portal. I watch as the blackness seems to grab hold of him and pull him deeper—until it swallows him, and he’s gone.
I could leave him. I could let the portal just fade out of existence and I could stay here.
But I can’t, and Barclay knows that—he knows I’ll follow him. For Cecily.
And for Ben.
The sky is red and orange. The clouds look almost gray, with glowing white outlines. The sun is rising, a golden globe peeking over the eastern horizon, lighting up a world that almost ended.
I take one last look around my universe at the cliffs under my feet, not so different from the cliffs where Ben and I watched the sun set, where we shared burritos and our first kiss. I listen to the ocean waves beneath me and think of the cold sting of the salt water, of the way my arms and legs burned every time I swam. I memorize the feel of the sun, the way my skin warms as the light touches me and chases back the shadows.
Then I glance back at Struz, too tall and lanky, blond hair and grayish blue eyes, the lines on his face clearly giving away how helpless he feels. “Keep Jared safe,” I say.
And I follow Barclay through.