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.
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.
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.