04:19:32:58
We’ve barely gone a block and a half when a siren goes off.
The screech of it is almost deafening.
But Barclay’s reaction is worse.
He grabs my arm, fingers biting into my skin, and his voice comes out low but urgent. Above him, I hear something that sounds like a helicopter in the distance. “I need you to run,” Barclay says.
And I do. We both take off, Barclay with his death grip still on my arm as he pulls me to keep up with him. I match him step for step, running at full speed, my lungs and muscles burning from the strain, as the sirens wail and spotlights flood the alleyways around us.
I don’t know what I’m running from—what we’re running from—but I can guess. Either someone has seen us, which is unlikely, or someone has reported something else. It doesn’t matter, though—if we’re caught by law enforcement, we’ll be turned over to IA and we’re as good as dead.
But I’ll be damned if we’re going to get caught by accident. Not when so many people need us.
We take a left, then a right, and then two more lefts in a row. We run behind a building and across a lawn. I’m concentrating so hard on keeping up with Barclay that I can’t be sure at all where we’re going. I’m just hoping we can get somewhere before I collapse from exhaustion.
When we’re about to turn down an alley, Barclay grabs me and pulls me against him, and we crouch behind a Dumpster. A split second later, a floodlight shines down on the alley in front of us. We’re still surrounded by the darkness, but only an inch or two separates us from the light.
I scrunch my knees closer to my body, and my chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, to rest while I have the chance. I count the seconds as the light moves up the alley and then back toward us. Next to me, Barclay’s breaths are as heavy as mine, and he’s close enough that I can feel the pumping of his heart through the warmth of his skin.
Barclay leans into my ear, his lips tickling my skin. “There’s a diner with good coffee two streets over,” he says, and I manage to hear him despite the continued wailing of the sirens and the motor of the helicopter.
04:18:47:12
We wait almost fifteen more seconds, then the spotlight moves on. Barclay darts up and runs down the alley. I follow on his heels.
When we make it into the diner, we slow down like two normal people. There’s a handful of patrons inside. None of them look over when we come in. As the door jingles shut, I’ve never been so happy to be inside a crumbling diner in a shady part of town. Barclay heads up to the counter to order and I hang back.
Standing still, with the sirens muffled, all I can feel is my pulse pounding through my body. I’ve never run from the cops before, not even because a party got busted up or anything. It’s not exactly something I want to ever experience again.
But I can’t help feeling like this is what I have to look forward to.
It makes me wonder where Ben is, what he’s doing right now, if he’s running constantly, if he’s hiding in the shadows, breathing quietly and looking over his shoulder to make sure that no one’s behind him.
I think of how we held each other the night Elijah got shot—the night it rained and Ben came to my house with blood on his clothes. The world might have been ending, but it didn’t feel that bad because we had each other. It doesn’t feel right that this time we’re alone. It almost makes me mad, not at Ben, but just . . . mad at the world. Ben, my dad, Alex—it isn’t fair how much I miss them or that they’ve left me here to carry this burden alone.
Dizziness makes me sway. If I don’t sit down soon, my legs are going to give out.
“That was good,” Barclay says as we slide into a booth to sit and wait. “I didn’t think you’d be able to keep up,” he says, gesturing outside.
“I’m pretty fast, for a girl.” I ignore the way the sweat is cooling on my skin.
He smiles, and I laugh a little, though I don’t know how I’m able to. The adrenaline running through my body makes me feel light and a little giddy now that I don’t need it.
It’s not like we’re out of danger—I know that—but for the moment we’re safe.
“No, I’m serious, Tenner,” Barclay says. He’s stone-faced, his skin shiny with sweat, his eyes ocean blue. But it’s his voice that makes me shiver. It sounds like truth. “You’re good at this.”
I think of what my dad would say about that, and smile. Barclay and I both know we have to be good at this. We know what the stakes are. If we aren’t good, people will die.
“What is this?” I say, even though I know.
“I’m trying to compliment you,” Barclay says. “Can’t you just say thanks?”
I shake my head. “Too stubborn to accept compliments.”
The waitress comes and brings us two cups of coffee and a slice of the pumpkin pie to share, on the house. Her eyes are on Barclay the entire time she talks, and I’m pretty sure the pie is for him.
I’m about to comment on it once she’s gone, but Barclay’s face loses its humor and he leans closer to me. “After this is over, you should think about joining IA.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just stare back at him.
“You wouldn’t necessarily have to live here,” he says, cracking a smile. “IA has a presence in almost every universe.”
I bite my lip. It isn’t about moving to Prima, not that I have any desire to do that, either. But joining IA is something I’ve never thought about. I didn’t realize it was an option, but I can’t think of a single reason I’d want to. The IA is threatening Ben, and me, pretty violently. Why would I ever want to be a part of that?
I don’t say that out loud. Because for whatever reason, IA means something to Barclay.
But he’s waiting for me to say something. “It’s just, with all the corruption,” I say, carefully. “How can you even want to be part of IA anymore?”
“It wasn’t always corrupt, and that’s why we’re doing this,” he says, taking a sip of his coffee. “Just think about it. You’d make a good agent. I’d help you.”
I stare into the black abyss that is my coffee, and I wonder what Alex would say about this—if he’d jump at the chance to run around the multiverse and fight the worst kind of bad guys. With how smart he was and how hard he worked, Alex would have made a great agent.
“One of the first things I learned was observational survival,” Barclay says.
I dump a packet of sugar into my coffee. “Care to elaborate?”
His eyes don’t leave mine, not even for a second, and he says, “There are twelve people in this place, counting us. Six are other diners, then there’s the waitress, two line cooks, and a manager in the back office. He’s probably got a gun tucked in a safe, but the biggest threat is the guy alone in the booth behind me. He’s not much bigger than I am, but his worn-out boots are military issue and he’s still sporting the standard army haircut. He’s probably not a soldier anymore, but he looks like he wishes he was.
“But no one in this place is even close to being as dangerous as you and me. We could take everyone out without a problem if we needed to.” He pauses, searching for something in my face. “You do it sometimes too. You analyze the situation and calculate the best escape routes and chances of survival. I don’t know if your dad taught you or if it’s some kind of instinct, but being aware of your surroundings is the most important thing anyone can ever teach you in this line of work.”
Barclay leans back against his seat as I think about his words. I can’t actually remember my dad ever specifically telling me to analyze a room, but I know he used to do it all the time. And I know I do it—especially when I think there’s going to be trouble.
But I didn’t do it when we walked in here. I skimmed the patrons to see if there were any cops, but that was it. If we did have trouble, it would be too late.
Barclay nods. “Tomorrow, when we’re separated, analyze every situation you’re in. Always know who else is around you, who’s likely to be the biggest threat, what your escape route would be if you needed one.”
I nod. I’m not exactly looking forward to being anywhere without him right now.
“Think of it like a chess game.”
“Stay at least one step ahead of my opponent?” I ask with a smile. Even though it’s not funny.
“Absolutely,” Barclay says. “We have to win.”
I’m not as confident as he is, mostly because I wasn’t a very good chess player.
But also because this isn’t a game, and I have a lot to lose.
04:18:12:49
After we leave the diner, I follow Barclay to the subway. The sirens are off, and there are no helicopters or spotlights to worry about.
I look back. In the window, the pink lights that read HOT COFFEE flicker. For a moment, surrounded by coffee, Barclay, and the illusion of normalcy, I had felt almost calm, like I wasn’t wanted by IA or in a strange different world—like I wasn’t alone.
Then it hits me that this is it. I need to find Ben.
It’s not that he can bring me back from the dead and heal my scars, it’s not that he can hack into a computer system and change my class schedule, and it’s not even that he can kiss me breathless.
It’s that I want to go to another diner. I want to go inside, slide into an uncomfortable booth, grab a cup of bad coffee, and split a piece of pie. I want to watch the waitress flirt with the guy I’m with and then laugh about it when she leaves.
And I want that guy to be Ben.
I turn to Barclay. He’s got his hat on and his hands shoved in his pockets, and he hasn’t noticed yet that I’m not right behind him. I could probably add up the minutes we’ve been forced to spend together and it would be less than a full day, and here I’ve thrown my future and my life into his hands.
And right now, it’s possible that this moment is the one that says there’s no turning back—the one that changes everything forever.
Because I know exactly what I’m fighting for.
04:18:11:20
I keep close to Barclay as we walk underneath the bridge and past a row of bars and restaurants. The graffiti isn’t as bad, and neither is the smell, but I still wouldn’t want to be alone.
There’s a bodega on the corner and some store called Kings Superhero Supply, and Barclay turns down a dark and sleepy side street where there are rows of old townhouses. He leads me to the last building on the block, and I follow him around it to a side door.
“Whose house is this?” I ask when he reaches under the mat and grabs a key.
“Relax, Tenner.” Barclay chuckles as he slides the key into the back door. He jiggles it a little and the door pops open. “This is my mother’s old house. No one will be here.”
He holds the door open for me and I follow him inside.
The house looks lived in, but it’s quiet. In the living room, the tan rug is plush and soft and the light-blue couches look comfortable. There’s a flat-screen TV on one wall, like the one Barclay has in his apartment, and a row of bookshelves on another. I’m surprised by how normal it all seems. This is a house I could have grown up in.
I’m just about to sit down on one of the couches and rest my legs when I hear something. It sounds like the ceiling just creaked, the way it would if someone were upstairs.
I freeze and look at Barclay, who holds up one finger and signals for me to follow him. We move through the living room to the kitchen. Barclay grabs a stainless-steel pan from the counter and we crouch behind the island in the center of the kitchen. He holds the pan at an angle where we can see a distorted image of the stairs.
We’ll be able to see whoever it is before they come down.
We wait in silence, and I have a moment to wonder if we actually heard anything at all, when I spot something reflected in the pan. I see the sneakers and the black leggings first, and I’m sure it’s a woman.
And she has a gun.
04:18:09:04
I suck in a breath and wonder what could possibly go wrong next when Barclay leans in to get a better look and then shakes his head.
“Hayley,” Barclay says, standing up. “You scared the crap out of me.”
I stand up as well, because the last thing we need to do is startle her while she’s holding a gun. Better to lay our cards on the table up front.
“I scared you?” she says, not lowering her gun. “You just broke into my house!”
“You’re not supposed to be here,” Barclay says. “I thought you were on assignment.”
“I got back this morning. What’s your excuse?” Then she looks at me. She’s pretty, with dark caramel skin, dark eyes with long eyelashes, and shoulder-length black hair. Whatever she sees in my face, she forms some kind of opinion because she adds, “Never mind.”
Barclay doesn’t tell her who I am.
But we might not need an introduction because she looks at him and says, “I can’t believe you’re trying to bring this down on me.”
“Hayley, I—”
“I don’t even want to hear any of your sorry-ass excuses,” she says, holding up a hand. “Let me pack a bag. I’ll spend the night at the office. I don’t want any part of whatever this is.”
When she disappears upstairs, Barclay relaxes. “Don’t worry, we can trust her.”
I don’t say anything, and he must not think I’m convinced.
“Hayley was a year ahead of me at North Point. Right now she’s still stuck doing a lot of analyst work, and some shadowing with a mentor.”
I don’t ask him who she is to him, but he tells me anyway.
“We dated a few times, but you know, it just didn’t work.” He sounds a little embarrassed about it, and I wonder if he’s still carrying a torch for her, especially if she’s living in his mother’s house. But it’s not really my business, and we’ve got more important things going on than trying to fix Barclay’s nonexistent love life. It’s not like Ben and I are ever going to go out with Barclay and his girlfriend on some kind of double date.
“How much does she know?” I ask instead, since that’s the important question.
Barclay shakes his head. “Not much. I told her about some of it, about Eric and about Ben and the human trafficking. About you.”
“That sounds like all of it,” I say.
“No, I mean, she knows the backstory, but she doesn’t know anything about what we’re planning.” He opens the fridge. “It’s not that I don’t trust her, it’s more that I don’t want her to go down if . . .”
He doesn’t finish the thought, but he doesn’t need to. He’s protecting her in case we don’t make it.
He offers me a beer, but I shake my head. That’s the last thing I need tonight.
Hayley comes downstairs again, this time with a duffel bag slung over her shoulder. She looks at Barclay, her mouth open to speak, but then turns to me. “Make sure he calls me if he gets into a jam.”
I don’t know what constitutes a jam—I mean, a couple of guys from IA were searching his house today. Does that count? But I just nod. There may come a time when we need her help whether Barclay wants her involved or not.
She seems satisfied with our girl moment and looks back to Barclay. “Return Tomas’s calls, will you? He’s harassing me about it.”
She doesn’t wait for a response, she just heads out through the kitchen.
“I’ve got nothing to say to him,” Barclay says. Then he adds, “Don’t work yourself too hard,” and Hayley is out the door.
“You don’t talk to your brother?” I ask.
Barclay shrugs, but the way his body tenses and the corners of his mouth turn down a little, I can tell there are some serious bad feelings there. “If Tomas had his way, we’d shut down interverse travel completely, heal up the soft spots, and destroy anything that can be used to open a portal.”
“Shut down IA? Why?” I ask, before the second half of what he just said hits me. “Wait, you can heal up the soft spots? How?”
“I’m not a scientist, Tenner,” he says, taking a deep swig from his beer. “I don’t exactly know how he plans to heal all the soft spots, but he thinks there’s a way to do it.” He gestures to the kitchen. “Come here.”
I do, but I’m not about to let this line of questioning drop. “But if we could heal the soft spot in San Diego, we could keep people from being abducted.”
Barclay shakes his head. “As I understand it, it’s not that simple. It wouldn’t be a viable long-term solution for anyone unless we completely stopped interverse travel.”
I don’t care if we stop interverse travel, but I say, “If we get through this thing, I want to talk to your brother. I want to know what we can do to protect ourselves.”
Barclay opens his mouth, and from the look on his face I know he’s about to say something snarky that’s going to piss me off, but then he surprises me, and his face changes a little. It softens, like he’s actually thinking about what it’s like to be in my shoes for once.
“You help me get through this, and I’ll make sure you meet and talk to anyone you want to,” he says. “You know, there have got to be people who can help with all the rebuilding and the resources. All that.”
My shoulders relax, and I feel so much lighter, I’m almost dizzy with relief. With Prima’s help, my world could eventually go back to normal. We could have food and medication and clean water. We could get electricity back up and the roads paved. Jared could go back to school and polo practice. Cecily could go back to cheerleading and asking obscure questions in science class. The enormity of hope that swells inside me makes my eyes water, and I look down at the wood floor to keep my emotions to myself.
After a deep breath, I look up to see Barclay sitting at the kitchen table. He lays out the medical supplies in front of him, then looks up and nods toward a chair. “Here.”
I don’t have a good feeling about this.
I sit across from him and he takes my left wrist in his hand and swabs it with rubbing alcohol. “I promise to make this as painless as possible, but it’s going to hurt. Probably a lot.”
I swallow the urge to pull my hand back. “Please tell me I’m going to get a better explanation than that.”
He smirks. “You and the humor.” He pulls something small out of his pocket. At first glance it looks like a transparent piece of paper, but on closer inspection, I can see something in it, something like digital code, and that’s when I realize it’s a microchip. He opens up the plastic casing and holds it close enough so I can see it. “This is a watch. It’s high tech, undetectable without an MRI or a body scan, and it can be programmed with multiple alarms and even a countdown.”
I don’t ask what he’s going to program it with. I know the answer. If I want to avoid the cameras in prison, it’s going to be infinitely easier if I have a watch or some kind of stopwatch to keep track of the time.
I also know the answer to the question I do ask. I’m hoping I’m wrong. “And where does it go?”
“I have to insert it underneath your skin.”
Not wrong at all.
I look at the microchip again. This little thing is how I’ll be able to time everything. How I’ll be able to keep track of things. This might be the difference between getting out alive and getting killed. Which I guess is why I can stand to let Barclay perform minor surgery and insert it under my skin.
“I’ve programmed it so it will beep once at the minute mark and the numbers will light up five seconds before the EMP is scheduled to go off,” Barclay continues. I swallow hard. The EMP—an electromagnetic pulse—will shut off the power, which will turn off all the security cameras and give me a good head start. “Then it’ll convert to a stopwatch. It’ll look like you have green glowing numbers under your skin.”
“That sounds awesome,” I say. I do need a way to keep track of time, but I don’t exactly want some microchip inserted under my skin. “And the EMP won’t affect it?”
“Nope. EMP-proof.”
I didn’t know that was possible, but Prima is obviously doing some pretty amazing things where technology is concerned. “Why does something like this even exist?”
“Back when IA first started, you couldn’t take metal through the portals. The hydrochloradneum shots hadn’t been perfected, and skin exposed to metal would have a bad reaction. But a watch was a must-have. No one had a quantum charger, and the portals were opened and closed through IA headquarters in New Prima. Anyone who went through had to be back at the extraction point by the deadline or they were assumed lost.”
It makes sense, then, why this is important, although I can’t imagine I’d be about to have it surgically put under my skin if it was just for the sake of adventuring into the unknown multiverse.
I tilt my head to the side until my neck cracks and I grit my teeth. I’m going to need all the help I can get. I look at Barclay and the metal instrument in his hand—it looks like a laser pen.
Somehow, I’m sure this is going to be pretty awful.
I conjure up an image of Cecily the time she dragged me out to Scripps Pier. I’d been in one of my “moods,” as she calls them—basically I was pissed off at the world and maybe even a little depressed. So she made me get up at sunrise and drove me to the beach to try to brainwash me with her positive thinking. She went on about the golden sky, the smell of salt water, the sound of the waves, and the magic in the air. The sunlight lit up her hair like some kind of strange white halo, and she screamed out into the ocean, yelling at the universe like it might change something. Then she made me do it too.
She was right in the way that only Cecily could be. Maybe the world was still the same after I screamed my problems away, but when we walked off the pier, I was slightly different—lighter, somehow.
And then I think of Ben. He sat next to me in those few weeks of APEL, close enough that sometimes our arms brushed against each other. Whenever I looked at his face, those dark eyes were glancing back at me from behind his brown curls, and he’d offer me a sly sort of half smile, like we were both in on a secret. And I suppose we were.
I need to save them.
And that’s what I hold on to when I brace myself and say to Barclay, “Do it.”
04:11:47:08
Barclay makes me spend most of the evening reciting prison-break plans back to him. Every time I make a mistake, he has me start over.
It’s a little like when my dad quizzed me on spelling words when I was in third grade, only a lot more intense. Barclay would make a tyrannical parent.
When I finally get it all right, I’m dismissed for bed. Wearing a pair of Barclay’s sweatpants and an oversize T-shirt, I lie in his childhood bed and stare at the ceiling.
I try to sleep, but instead, my mind wanders and I think of Ben.
I think of how he walked into my AP English class, sat down next to me, and turned out to be a lot smarter than I thought he was.
“So your perfect proposal, what would it be?”
“I don’t know. It would just be the two of us, and I guess I’d want him to say something honest, not overly romantic, not something that would make a great story to tell his friends. I’d just want him to lean over . . .” As I say it, I lean slightly toward Ben, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body radiating into the empty space between us, and drop the volume of my voice. “. . . and say, ‘Janelle Tenner, f*cking marry me.’”
I wonder what he’s doing right at this moment—if he’s lying in bed and remembering APEL and Charles Dickens and me dropping the F-bomb in the middle of class. I wonder if he’s scared like I am.
But mostly, I wonder where he is.
I know that’s not going to get me anywhere except feeling sorry for myself, so I shut my eyes and will myself to fall asleep. It’s dark, cool, comfortable, and quiet, the noise from the streets below blocked out by the thrum of the fan. And I’m exhausted. Even my hips hurt.
But the minutes just tick by and I can’t make myself lose consciousness.
When I can’t stand it anymore, I get out of bed and head to the living room. From the doorway, I can see Barclay on the couch, wrapped up in a comforter, his eyes on the TV.
“What are you watching?” I ask.
He flinches and there’s a harsh intake of breath. Apparently, I surprised him.
“What’s wrong?” Barclay asks, sitting up. His blanket slips and reveals his bare chest. I can see the curve of each of his muscles. It makes me think of when I was pressed against him, and heat floods my face.
“Nothing,” I say, looking away. I’m not sure why I’m so embarrassed. “I just feel restless.”
He nods and leans back. “I always get that way before a big mission.”
“Really?” It’s not easy for me to see him as nervous or sleepless.
“How about some tea?” he asks, turning off the TV. “That always helps me.”
“Sure,” I say, even though it’s hard to imagine Barclay drinking tea. He seems more like the sports drink kind of guy.
But he heads into the kitchen like hot tea is a normal thing.
For the millionth time I wonder what I’m doing here and how so much has managed to change in my life since that day I died on Highway 101 next to Torrey Pines Beach. How did I go from being just an average teenager with messed-up parents, scheduling issues, and a mean-girl problem to who I am now? I’m someone else now—someone who’s traveled through portals, watched people disappear, seen worlds that aren’t my own—someone who has four days to break open a human-trafficking ring that spans multiple universes, or die trying.
It doesn’t feel like it should be possible.
“Did I ever tell you about my first assignment with IA?” Barclay asks when he comes out of the kitchen with two mugs. He hands me one and I can smell the cinnamon from the tea. It’s amazing.
“I was just a newbie,” Barclay says. “I’d just graduated top of my class from North Point—which is like your West Point. My assignment was supposed to essentially just be research.”
Barclay takes a sip of his tea. I take a sip of mine. It’s like drinking warm liquid cinnamon. I smile at him.
“This assignment, my first mission,” Barclay says. “It was essentially a test. I had to research an area that had reported interversal disturbances—”
“English, please?” My tone comes out a little sharper than I intended. So I add, “You know, since I don’t know a lot of this stuff.”
“You know a lot more than you give yourself credit for,” he says, but he explains anyway. “Basically it’s a natural phenomenon that could be caused by instability in another universe. I had to research events that had been reported, find one I wanted to take on, go in and investigate what was happening, decide what might be causing it, and then write up a report proposing the action that needed to be taken. If I did well, I’d be given a mentor and be inducted into the IA training program. If I sucked, then they’d tell me to go find a different career path. Everyone who falls in the middle gets stuck with desk duty and paper pushing.
“I wasn’t about to blow my chance in IA or end up as a paper pusher.”
“Shocking,” I say. Clearly anyone who’s ever met Barclay knows he’s an ambitious guy.
He smirks. “Right, so when I was researching, I found that on Earth 16942 there were rips in the fabric of the universe—”
“Rips?” I don’t ask about Earth 16942, because that will just open up a million other questions I have about how many earths there are and how Barclay seems to know so much about each of them. I’ll never sleep if we get on that topic.
Barclay adjusts his position. “Okay, so with this,” he says as he picks up his quantum charger, “I can program a destination and open a portal. Portals are like wormholes that allow people or objects to pass through from one world to another. It doesn’t matter how far apart the universes are, people can move through a portal easily.”
I think of Ben and how not easy it was for him to get home.
“Some universes have soft spots like the one in San Diego,” he explains. “But other universes have what we call pressure points, which are areas where the veil between two worlds is so thin that sometimes it overlaps. Which can cause disturbances.”
“Disturbances?” I ask. I’m assuming the distance between universes is based on the fact that they started as parallel and separated when people in the different universes made different decisions. A “close” universe would be one that was really similar.
“It could be anything like weird weather or earthquakes, or there have even been cases where someone or something accidentally slipped through the veil and ended up in another universe,” Barclay says.
“Like some poor guy could be driving his car and suddenly be in a completely other universe and not know it?” I can’t imagine how scary that would be. At least Ben knew he went through a portal.
“Like some poor guy could drive home for dinner, show up at his house, and he’s got two sons instead of three daughters, and another version of himself is sitting at the table.”
I raise my eyebrows, and Barclay nods. “It was a case I read about at North Point. The veil had gotten so thin that there was a very small point where it actually intersected and sometimes people would just slip right through.
“Anyway, in my case, the disturbances were bad electrical storms, and witnesses had reported that the storms had a magnetic pull. Like this one woman was washing dishes when the storm rolled in. She had her kitchen window open, and the magnetic pull was so strong that all of her metal silverware was yanked from the sink, through the window, and up into the storm.”
“Creepy.” I have a talent for understatement, but it makes Barclay smile.
As he talks about the intricacies of electrical storms and a lot of science that goes over my head, I drink my tea and study the way his face has changed. He’s still smiling, and his eyes are alive with the excitement of the story. This is the first conversation we’ve ever had where I haven’t wanted to punch him and he hasn’t been arguing with me about something.
“So what was causing the storms?” I ask when I can get a word in.
“Well, that’s just the thing. The magnetism was being caused by field distortions between universes, which always means some powerful science at work.”
I don’t exactly grasp what Barclay is talking about. I probably won’t ever grasp it. His understanding of the natural world is just way different than mine. But I get the important thing—this was a man-made event, not something that was just happening on its own.
“So who was the bad guy?” I ask. Because isn’t it always about a bad guy?
“I did some research and a lot of math to trace the magnetism back to this man who was essentially a reclusive mad scientist working out of his garage,” Barclay says. “He was trying to contact his doubles in all the other universes. We think he had some kind of plan for them all to work on together, but he never got that far.”
I can’t help laughing at the image of Barclay apprehending this guy without a gun or credentials. “What did IA say? I mean, they essentially let you take on a real case rather than just some research assignment.”
He nods. “That’s how I am where I am, baby.”
Oh yeah, the smugness is back and it’s bad. “Seriously, what did they do?”
The smile falls a little. “They gave me Eric as a mentor and let me tag along on all his assignments. With him I was in the middle of all the biggest cases.”
“He was a big agent?” I ask, trying—and failing—not to think about the fact that he had a lot more experience than we do, that he’d been trained to handle people like human traffickers and I’m not. And now he’s dead and we might be next.
“The biggest,” Barclay says, running a hand through his hair. “He was a legend, the kind of guy who gets a monument named after him for all the shit he’s accomplished.”
“So IA has high hopes for you then?” I’m trying to get him in a better mood. Smug Barclay is slightly better than depressed Barclay.
But he doesn’t bite. “They might have had at one point. I doubt now.”
I roll my eyes. “I didn’t realize this was a pity party.” Please, like I’m not in a worse position than he is. I’m the one on the hit list.
Barclay is quiet for a second. He sets his empty mug on the coffee table, and while he’s looking down, he says in a quiet voice, “There’s a monument built for Clyde Tolson. He’s the guy who founded IA. It’s near here. I used to walk by it every day on my way to school when I was a little kid.
“He accomplished so much, Tenner. For the world, not just Prima. I mean, the whole multiverse is different because of what he discovered and because of the legacy he left behind. Eric was on track for that. He’d made an impact.”
“I get it,” I say. And I do. I don’t exactly have dreams like Barclay—I don’t even know what I want to do with my life. But I want to have an impact, and I get that.
I reach for Barclay’s hand and give it a squeeze. “You’re doing the right thing right now. It’s hard, and it sucks—it’s even dangerous—but you’re doing it anyway. That counts for something. Remember that.”
He nods, and I feel him squeeze my hand back. Slowly, a devilish smile spreads across his face. Then he glances up at me. “Think if we pull this off, it’ll get me a monument?”
I don’t say my first thought. Instead, I smile back and say, “This is epic monument-style shit we’re in.”
But what I think is, I just want to make it out alive.