“Do we need to evacuate?” Allyn asks.
“I mean, not immediately,” he says. “It’s a problem for people who are in more progressive stages of being Unstuck. But we need to find the source.”
That’s right.
We need to find the source.
And I know what it is.
* * *
—
Atwood 527. The room that shouldn’t exist.
I stand there, staring at the keypad of the storage closet.
“In the garden of memory, in the palace of dreams, that is where you and I shall meet,” I say to Ruby. “Simms and Fairbanks were in love.”
“That seems to be…”
“Ruby, what year was Through the Looking-Glass published?”
“Eighteen seventy-one.”
1-8-7-1.
The pad lights up red and gives an angry buzz.
“The edition we had downstairs. It was a reproduction of the original?”
“Published in two thousand twenty-two.”
2-0-2-2.
Red.
The frustration gets to me. I start punching in combinations, wondering if I can just smash the keypad and if that’ll do it.
Then Ruby floats a little closer and says, “Try one-one-oh-four.”
1-1-0-4.
Still nothing.
“What’s that?”
“I’ve been running possible number combinations related to significant instances in the book since I realized what you were doing,” Ruby says. “The book opens on the fourth of November. So it seemed like the most logical but not too obscure…”
“Okay, it’s not correct but you’re on the right track. It’s going to be something personal. Something between the two of them.”
I think back. Dates. Times.
Fairbanks’s journal, which I’ve flipped through. I haven’t read all of it. Neither have I read the book about Simms. As I’m about to ask, Ruby says, “I am currently scanning the writings of both Fairbanks and Simms to see if I come across anything significant.”
Anything significant.
The photo on the desk. The groundbreaking. And what did Simms say in that interview? It’s when they first met.
“What was the date of the groundbreaking?” I ask. “Month and day?”
“October fourteenth.”
I punch in 1-0-1-4.
And the buzzer goes green.
“Hey, Ruby, power down rotors,” I say.
It does, and I catch it just before it loses its buoyancy in the air. I forget how heavy this thing is.
“What are you…”
I look deep into its circuitry and give it a little kiss on its right lens.
“My vision is now partially obscured,” it says. “Again.”
I use my thumb to wipe it off.
“You’re making it worse.”
“You’re making it worse. Engines on,” I say, letting go, and it drops a few inches before hovering back up to its usual eye-level position.
I take a deep breath, turn to the door, grasp the handle, and push it open.
EMERGENCE
Static electricity buzzes across the folds of my brain, moving in waves that are not unpleasant, but are still persistent in a way that troubles me. It feels like this when I slip, but never for more than a couple of seconds. Now it’s like I can’t turn it off.
The storage closet is empty. The shelves and supplies that are normally here are gone, replaced with nothing but four gray walls. I take a step inside it and turn back toward the hallway, and there’s a keypad on the inside now. Was that there before? Blocked by a shelf and I didn’t notice?
I step to the threshold. The air feels…wrong. When I move my arm it’s like being in a pool, that little bit of drag as you move it through the water. Like when I touched Westin’s body.
“Ruby, run a scan,” I say.
No answer.
Ruby is suspended in the air in front of me, frozen. The sight of which freezes me. The individual blades of the rotors that keep it aloft are completely still. I reach up to touch it but then pull my hand back, unsure if I should even do that.
“What the Cincinnati fuck is this?” I ask, like Ruby is going to respond.
The waves in my head grow in intensity. Not painful, not yet, but what started off like a massage now feels like the masseuse is getting a little too deep, sliding sharp fingertips between the muscles.
I look down at my watch. The TEA watch. The second hand isn’t moving.
And the pressure in my brain is increasing.
The room next door. I should check the room next door. My gut is pulling me there, but after a few steps, there’s a throbbing through the roof of my mouth, like a shuddering blood vessel. Then I feel something wet on my nose and reach up.
Blood.
The pressure of the hotel’s gravity increases. Pulling me down. Or maybe that’s me just passing out? I don’t know. But I need to not be here.
Another burst of pain. Getting worse.
Am I trapped in here? How do I get out?
The keypad.
I pull myself across the wall, back to the storage closet, past the frozen Ruby. Inside the room now, I try to remember the code, but my brain is sparking, not making connections. Like when you mean to do something, and forget what it is, and then your whole mind goes blank.
Worse than that, there’s a sound behind me. A shuffling. Something is moving now, and it’s moving toward me. As much as I want to look back, I can’t. There’s something deep and primal telling me: don’t turn, don’t look.
Don’t.
What was the code? And how screwed am I if the code to turn it off is different from the one that turns it on?
Focus.
1-1-0-4.
Red. No.
Whatever’s behind me gets closer. I can almost feel the air behind me moving now, like it’s reaching for me.
The day they met. What was the day they met?
1-0-1-4.
The keypad turns green.
The door opens and I nearly collapse into the hallway, the pressure coming off my brain immediately, like a clenched hand letting go. I look up and Ruby is still suspended above me, but its rotors are moving. I can hear the dull electronic hum of them. I check my watch and the second hand is skipping, but at least it’s moving.
“January, what just happened?” Ruby asks.
I breathe deep, collect myself. Ask, “How long was I gone?”
“You weren’t,” Ruby says. “You stepped into the room and immediately fell out with a nosebleed.”
That must have been three or four minutes for me. Maybe a little more. Hard to tell with my brain puttering back to life.
“January, I suspect you may need medical attention,” Ruby says.
“No, I’m good, let me just…” I push myself onto my elbow and before I can even register the rumble in my stomach, I vomit on the carpet.
“You were saying?” Ruby asks.
“Fine, okay, get housekeeping here but don’t tell them it was me,” I say. “And have Brandon meet me in Fairbanks’s office. Right now.”
* * *
—
By the time Brandon shows up, my stomach and brain are both settled. Ducking into a bathroom to douse my face and gargle with some water helped, but my mouth still tastes like the bottom of a dumpster. I need to brush my teeth. At least a breath mint.
Brandon sits across the desk from me and folds his hands in his lap, looking at me like he has no idea if I’m going to hug him or strangle him.
“I need your help.”