I sit down on the side of the bed that isn’t heaped with computers. Paul sits cross-legged on the floor, not even a foot away—there’s no room in here for us to give each other personal space. My phone buzzes in the pocket of my skirt—which, I realize, it’s been doing almost this whole time. I didn’t even notice. When I pick it up, there are a couple dozen text messages from Theo in varying states of panic. Where are What did you This isn’t Did Paul My car Why did you Meg Are you okay?
With a wince, I set my phone to Do Not Disturb. “Theo’s going to kill me,” I say, then I think more about what Theo might be doing at this moment. “Conley wouldn’t hurt him, would he?” When I dashed out of Triad, I never even wondered whether I might be putting Theo at risk.
“Probably not,” he says.
“Probably?”
“The odds are better than fifty-fifty.” Paul seems to think this is much more reassuring than it is. “Today, he’s safe. I didn’t see anything unexpected on the security cameras after you left. Theo’s confused, and Conley’s angry.”
I remember how Conley acted as though he’d run into us at random, but then fell into step with us as if the CEO of a massive global corporation had nothing else to do on New Year’s Day. He was trying to be casual while following us into Lab Eleven, where he would have done . . . what?
“Theo idolizes Wyatt Conley,” Paul says. “He’s begun to realize the situation with Triad is mixed-up, but he refuses to see the extent of it.”
“What do you mean, refuses?”
Paul shakes his head, but fondly. “Theo is—ambitious, in the best sense. He believes in the real-world applications of our work, and he wants everyone to benefit and profit from what we’ve discovered. Working with big companies, convincing people like Conley to give us more funding—I can’t do that kind of thing. I try and it’s ridiculous. Like a dog walking on its hind legs.”
“You pitched Mom and Dad’s research to Triad?”
“Basically, I stood there while Theo did,” Paul says. “He talks to them, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in R&D fall down on us like rain. But Theo’s not just making use of Conley and Triad; he’s dazzled by them. He believes in Conley because he wants to believe.”
Although I want to defend Theo, I know him well enough to see the truth of what Paul’s saying.
Paul continues, “Theo would never have brought you anywhere near Triad if he’d realized Conley’s real agenda. It goes beyond spying, into coercion—perhaps kidnapping between dimensions—and Conley’s only getting started.”
“Are we to the part where this is somehow all about me? Because that makes no sense whatsoever. Or is it only something you said to get me out of Triad?”
There’s laughter on the staircase, loud voices speaking Italian or Portuguese, some language I can almost recognize, but not quite. We both wait for their footsteps to thump downstairs and away from us, as though any overheard word could be dangerous.
Finally, silence. Paul meets my gaze and holds it. “It’s not just something I said. It’s the truth.”
“Still not making sense. What do I have to do with any of this? Mom and Dad are the geniuses behind the technology. You and Theo come next. I’m the one sitting around the rainbow table asking stupid questions.”
“Stop calling yourself stupid. You’re not.” Paul takes a deep breath. “You have your own intelligence. Your own value. But that’s not what Conley wanted from you.”
“Conley doesn’t even know me.”
“No. But he knows us—your parents, Theo and me. He needs to manipulate us; he needs to control us. And there’s only one way. Don’t you see, Marguerite? You’re the only person all four of us love.”
I feel my cheeks flush with heat. “That’s—it’s—why would Conley care about that?”
The angles of Paul’s face are carved more deeply by the flickering lights of code around us—his strong jawline, the searching quality of his gaze. “By now you’ve traveled to three parallel dimensions. What have you noticed about traveling? About your reaction to it—yours, specifically?”
“I remember things better than you guys,” I say. “I haven’t needed a single reminder.”
“Exactly. Theo and I need the reminders to know who we are. You don’t. In every dimension you can enter, you remain in total control throughout. Do you realize how valuable that is?”
I remember what Mom and Dad were talking about last night, and all their amorphous fears suddenly take shape, forming a wall around me.
Paul tilts his head, as if he’s studying me. “In this dimension, I learned—or this Paul learned—that Conley’s already sending spies into other dimensions. They’ve found ways to stabilize their spies for longer periods of time than the reminder shocks, for a day or two at a time, but their methods are still imperfect. Anyone who travels to another dimension remains vulnerable. Anyone except you.”
“There must be others,” I protest. “If I can do this, other people can too.”
“No. In our dimension, it’s only you.”