04:10:01:45
Later, after the tea has made my arms and chest feel heavy, I leave Barclay on the couch and get back into bed.
I think of Ben and Cecily and how different things were when the three of us and Alex were a tetrarchy in AP Physics. After that first lab where Cecily made Ben carry everything out to the field and answer all her questions to make sure he was smart enough to work with us, we sat at our back table, ate Cecily’s candy, and listened to the science that’s the foundation for what I’m living through right now. Science that brought Ben and me together.
I picture Cecily, her blond ponytail swinging with the breeze, her hands on her hips. “Okay, I have one more question, and it’s the most important one.”
Ben, rubbing his hands together like he’s getting ready. “Hit me.”
“Who’s your favorite superhero?”
“That’s easy. Wonder Woman. A girl saving a guy is hot.”
I saved him when we were ten. Last fall we saved each other. I wonder who’s going to do the saving this time around. I say a silent prayer for both of us, and then I lie back and close my eyes.
In less than ten hours, I’ll be at IA headquarters, and they’ll take me to prison.
In less than twenty-four, I’ll be trying to break out.
04:01:00:00
When the clock radio comes on in the morning, I get up and turn it off without hesitation. I pull on my clothes and pack my backpack.
In the living room, Barclay is waiting for me. He has a fire going in the fireplace, and when he sees me, he hands me some kind of protein bar. “It’s gross, but it will keep you from getting hungry.”
I nod and hand him my backpack. He’s warned me against eating any of the food they give me once I’m in the prison. He doesn’t think they’ll actually lace my food with drugs, but he knows they’ve done it before to try to get people talking or even just to keep them subdued.
I carefully open the protein bar, tearing the wrapper down the seam.
Barclay is going to leave my backpack here. He’ll take me in to IA headquarters and stay with me as long as he can. At some point, he’ll be dismissed and head to the office. He’ll file some paperwork about where he found me and what deal we made.
It will all be lies.
When the day is over he’ll come back here, pick up my backpack and the portable EMP that he has. He’ll go to eat at a diner near the prison. He’s already paid off the prison doctor so she’ll make herself scarce when the time comes. Then he’ll drive to our rendezvous point to wait for us.
Because of the watch, he’ll be able to track my location in the prison. He’ll hack into the prison mainframe and unlock my door just before the EMP goes off.
And the rest will be left to me.
He’s set everything up, and he’ll be waiting for me. But on the inside, I’ll be alone.
“Are you afraid?” he asks.
I am.
I would be an idiot if I wasn’t. I know how much is at stake: Ben and his family’s lives and Cecily’s freedom and the freedom of who knows how many other people who, like Renee Adams, have gotten pulled from their world. And I know this is the hardest thing I might ever have to do.
When we needed to stop Wave Function Collapse, it was just one thing. Sure it would have ended the world, but it was just one person who was opening unstable portals. That’s what we had to stop.
This is different. There are so many variables.
But I don’t say any of that.
Instead I think about the time when I was a little girl, maybe four or five, and my parents took us to visit my dad’s parents in Ohio. They had a basement that was only partially finished where they did the laundry. It was dark and damp, and it smelled weird. It terrified me. I didn’t ever want to go down there. I was too afraid.
My dad told me fear was just an emotion, something we felt when we thought someone or something was dangerous. He said it was as empty as the air, and the only way to deal with it was to confront the danger with a plan to minimize it.
He asked me what about the basement I thought was dangerous. Like any other five-year-old I was afraid there was some kind of monster down there, and I told him that. He gave me his dad’s old baseball bat and told me that one good swing would take down even the worst monster. I took a few practice swings, and then he made me walk every inch of that basement, bat in hand, until I wasn’t afraid anymore.
Later, when I was older, Alex asked him what kind of parenting philosophy he subscribed to, sending his daughter into the basement with a baseball bat to fight off anything dangerous.
Dad told us it was the same thing he told guys on the job. He’d been with the Bureau a long time, and he’d seen too many guys get injured or lose their lives. And he chalked most of those incidents up to a guy’s inability to control his fears.
I find Barclay’s blue eyes, and as much as he pisses me off sometimes, I know why he’s a good agent. I know why I like him—and I do like him despite whatever I thought before. He doesn’t get scared. Things might scare him initially, sure, but he comes up with a plan, and he gets the job done. It makes me wish he did work for my dad.
And because he’ll get it, I tell him the truth. “Fear kills swifter than bullets. My dad said that.”
“I liked your dad,” Barclay says with a nod.
I can’t help but smile. Everyone liked my dad, but the more I get to know Barclay, the more I think my dad would have liked him, too.
“Let’s go,” Barclay says.
I take one last look at the blueprints burning in the fireplace, and I follow him out to the backyard.
I hold my hands in front of me, and Barclay fastens the plastic restraints around my wrists. Then he pulls out his quantum charger and I hear the electronic sound of the portal powering up.
And there it is—a huge pool of black ink standing in front of me. The smell of salt water, open space, and endless possibility emanates from it, and cool air moves over my skin. I wonder if I’ll ever get to a point where these things lose their magic and just seem mundane.
“Try to relax this time,” Barclay says. He holds on to my restraints with one hand and puts the other on my back, and together we step through the portal.
This time I don’t hold my breath. Cool air moves through my lungs, and I can feel it move through my body. For a second, I feel frozen from the inside out, then heat replaces the cold, and my extremities tingle with the sensation.
And then we’re stepping out of the portal on concrete. I start to lose my balance, but Barclay pulls me next to him and keeps me on my feet.
“Here we are,” he says. “IA headquarters.”
In front of us are a dozen concrete steps, leading up to a tall glass skyscraper. This one is simpler—a big glass rectangle rather than the intricate designs I’ve seen on the others—yet it’s more impressive. Rather than having a cool crystalline finish, the glass looks like someone painted it in oil. From one angle, it makes the building look dark, but when the sun hits it a certain way, it’s a rainbow of color.
Barclay must sense what I’m looking at. “That’s the hydrochloradneum that shields the building,” he says. “It’s in the foundation and the glass so that no one can portal inside.”
Which means once I’m inside, there’s no one who can save me.
I take the first two stairs, Barclay at my side, and I glance back at what I’m leaving behind. The crystalline city of upscale Prima life, and below that the dark smog clouds hiding the underground beneath us.
I remember what Barclay said—about people living their whole lives a hundred feet off the ground.
He tugs on me a little, and I know it’s time to go. We head up the stairs, Barclay pulling me by my restraints for effect. Right before we reach the doors, he whispers: “Try not to trip the alarm.”
He doesn’t have to specify that he’s talking about tonight. I roll my eyes. “Obviously.”
“No, I forgot to tell you. If you trip the alarm and they know you’re headed for the sewers, they can use the flush system.”
“Fantastic,” I hiss. One more thing to worry about. “So we’ll be flooded and drown.”
Barclay shakes his head. “No. The flush system is fire.”
04:00:43:06
With its marble floors and granite surfaces, the lobby of IA looks like we could be in any upscale corporate building. The only difference is the airport-style security complete with body scans, metal detectors, X-ray machines, and armed guards.
The watch is supposed to be undetectable by a body scan, but Barclay isn’t a hundred percent sure if it actually will be. We’re hoping someone in IA wants me bad enough that no one will make me wait in line.
Barclay pulls me past the civilians waiting to get through security and we approach one of the guards. “I have a code eleven nineteen,” he says.
I keep my head down, and I imagine what this was like for Ben and Cecily—someone restraining them and taking them somewhere they didn’t belong.
The security guard hesitates. “The director is out of the office for an emergency meeting.”
“Surely someone can handle an eleven-nineteen.” The condescension practically drips off Barclay’s voice. If I didn’t know the plan, I wouldn’t know that we’d hit a snag. He was expecting the director—and looking forward to it. The director’s reaction to me might tell us a little about where his loyalties lie.
The guard radios to someone, repeating the code.
We’re in the enemy’s headquarters. Any of these people could want Ben dead, or at least be involved in the human-trafficking ring. Any of these people could know where Cecily is. As a result, I’m hyperaware of my blood as my heart pumps it through my veins.
“The deputy director will see you,” the guard says, and he lets Barclay pull me under the security rope, and two armed guards accompany us to the elevator.
I glance at Barclay to gauge whether that’s good or bad for us, but his attention is somewhere else. On a tall blonde walking toward us. She’s attractive, probably in her thirties, and for a split second I want to elbow him—it’s not exactly like we have time for him to take a mental detour and stare at some hot woman. But then I see she’s flanked by several broad-shouldered men in matching black suits and black ties. At first they look like they could be businessmen who work out, but as they get closer to us, I can see the clear earpieces they’re wearing, and the way their left pant legs bulge over the backup guns strapped to their ankles. They’re security guards disguised as suits.
Whoever she is, she’s obviously worth paying attention to.
“Taylor,” the blonde says, her voice husky, like she smokes too much or works as a lounge singer. “I heard you were out of the office. How are you?”
Barclay smiles as she approaches us. “Governor, it’s lovely to see you as always.”
I stifle the urge to start coughing. She’s the governor? I examine her a little more closely. With long hair, smooth skin, and perfectly sculpted facial features, she looks more like a distinguished supermodel.
“What are your plans for lunch?” the governor asks. “You must let me take you to the new café at the top of the tower. It’s supposed to be the best air in the city.”
“I would be honored, Governor,” Barclay says, and I can tell he means it. I’m not sure if it’s because he respects her or if he just thinks she’s hot. Either way, I’m annoyed. I’m going to be in prison and he’ll be on a lunch date enjoying the “best air in the city”—how is that fair?
“Splendid,” she says, reaching out to grasp his free hand. That’s when I notice her hands. They’re thin, wrinkled, and bony with loose skin—hands that belong to a sixty-, seventy-, maybe even eighty-year-old woman. Hands that don’t match the rest of her. She’s either had extensive plastic surgery or she’s some kind of ageless vampire, and let’s just say I know which is the more likely possibility.
She’s like some creepy old cougar.
And she’s hitting on Barclay.
She leans into him and lowers her voice, but I still manage to hear her. “I’d like to do something for Eric’s family, and I was hoping to run it by you.”
I resist the urge to roll my eyes as Barclay nods. Clearly, he respects her. Creepy old hands aside, she must deserve it.
“Gentlemen,” she says as she pulls back. “Keep up the good work as always. We appreciate everything you do for our fine city.”
And then she’s gone.
I bite my lip and watch as the glowing numbers above the elevator descend toward the lobby floor. The elevator dings and opens, and all four of us crowd inside.
04:00:42:03
Once the doors close, one of the security guards claps Barclay on the shoulder. “Damn, Wonder Boy, lunch with the governor.”
Barclay shrugs, and each guard offers his two cents about Barclay and the governor’s lunch plans. It’s obvious they’re jealous and trying to make him uncomfortable. I don’t think it’s working—after all, we have a lot more to worry about.
Suddenly Barclay clears his throat. “She introduced herself to me after my first mission.” And here I thought he was going to be typical Barclay, just shrug and be silent and let everyone come to their own conclusion. I think this is for my benefit. “She and Eric used to have lunch periodically . . .”
His voice trails off, and the guards each add their condolences about Agent Eric Brandt and fall silent.
The elevator climbs and no one says a word. Like a weight, the gravity of the moment sinks deep into my bones. This is life or death. Everything that comes next depends on what happens right now.
The higher we rise, the more afraid I feel.
I think of my dad. I picture the strong lines in his face, the wrinkles in his forehead and at the corners of his eyes, his hair starting to thin and speckled with gray, his five o’clock shadow. I remember how serious he was when he looked up, his eyes meeting mine.
Fear kills swifter than bullets.
I repeat it to myself like some kind of mantra. Because I need to stay strong to get through this. We have so many plans riding on what happens right now.
The elevator dings again at the twenty-seventh floor and the doors open. The armed guards exit first and wait for us, then the four of us walk down the hallway.
I can do this. Not just because I have to but because I am my father’s daughter, and I’m not going to give up on the people I care about.
We pass three offices before we reach the double doors at the end. One of the guards opens them, and all four of us move inside. The carpet is gray and looks relatively new, maybe only a year old.
I look up.
And say out loud, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Barclay coughs and then says, “Deputy Director, I have an eleven-nineteen. This is Janelle Tenner, subject 2348739 from Earth 23984. She’s surrendered herself to IA custody in connection with case BM132.”
That’s not really who I am, subject whatever from Earth 23984, but we’re still playing the game that’s supposed to keep my family safe.
“Also,” Barclay adds, “she’s familiar with your double in her world.”
I look at Barclay—I don’t care where we are. I can’t believe he managed to leave out this detail. But he’s looking straight ahead, eyes on the deputy director.
Who is none other than Struz.
04:00:39:53
I’ve known Ryan Struzinski, aka Struz, for as long as I can remember. He grew up in Orange County, went to school at USC, then put in for the FBI as soon as he graduated. He passed the tests with flying colors and went to work as an analyst for my dad in San Diego.
I think it took a week before my dad brought him home and adopted him as part of the family.
When I was fourteen Struz and my dad were part of a Joint Terrorism Task Force going after a group of extremists who were suspected of terrorist activity. I only know some of the details because Struz took a bullet and was laid up and out of the field for a few weeks. He spent those weeks on my living-room couch babysitting Jared and me while our dad was undercover. We ate ice cream for dinner, watched R-rated movies, and stayed up until two in the morning debating who was the best supervillain.
In the end, my dad got the bad guy, came home, and told Struz he was a terrible babysitter, then we all went out for pizza.
Struz is six feet seven and lanky, with a superhero complex. He’s the kind of guy who dresses up as Superman for Halloween every year and wears the costume with the foam stomach muscles built in. He’s also the kind of guy who can manage to hold the world together when earthquakes, a tsunami, and a rash of wildfires take out electricity, running water, and any semblance of civilization.
He’s the best guy I know.
04:00:39:52
Struz 2.0, the Prima version, is apparently the deputy director of IA, and after listening to Barclay, he nods at the armed guards. As they leave, he points to the chairs and gestures for us to sit down. There’s a suaveness to the gesture that’s completely alien on his body.
I can’t take my eyes off him. His hair is shorter. He obviously cuts it himself or has someone keep up with it regularly. He’s clean-shaven, and his clothes fit. The shoulders are the right width, the arms the right length, the material something expensive. He looks really good.
If I get home, I’m making it a mission to buy my Struz some nice clothes. We might manage to find him a girlfriend yet.
“Good to see you, Barclay,” he says as soon as the door shuts and we’re alone. He smiles as I sit down in my chair. It’s a smile that’s a little too big for his face, and it’s never looked so good on him. “Glad you’re back.”
“Thank you, sir,” Barclay says with a polite smile.
I feel a little like I just fell into Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
“Now, forgive me, but how is Miss Tenner connected to case BM132?” Struz 2.0 asks. He’s all business, which shouldn’t surprise me. But this guy is so important to me in my life, it’s hard to process and accept that I’m so absent in his.
Barclay gives a rundown of my involvement with Ben. It’s weird to hear someone reduce the intensity of what I feel to just a few sentences. Where we met, the days and times we interacted, the things we told each other—it sounds sterile.
There’s nothing in his report that’s wrong, it’s just that there’s nothing in there that’s right either, nothing that suggests he’s talking about my Ben, the guy who fixed my schedule, pressed his finger to mine and healed a paper cut, inserted himself in two of my classes, brought my favorite food to a picnic dinner at Sunset Cliffs—the guy who saved me from death. Nothing that says since the day he left, I’ve been daydreaming about his face, his dark brown eyes, his lips, the way his hair falls in his face, the way he reached out, touched my cheek, and pulled me into one last kiss, the way he took slow steps backward toward the portal, as if he didn’t really want to leave, the way he said my name and told me he loved me, and the way the portal swallowed him up and he disappeared. The way he said, I’ll come back for you.
When Barclay finishes, Struz 2.0 looks at me and then touches his computer screen. “Good work bringing her in, Barclay.” He frowns, and the emotion that flickers over his face suggests he’s not happy about something. “It looks like the director wants her questioned and detained.”
Maybe he doesn’t want to send me to prison to await my execution. Or maybe that’s me and my wishful thinking again.
“Yes, sir,” Barclay says.
“I can take it from here. You’ll file your report?”
“Yes, sir,” Barclay says, then gets up and leaves the room without so much as looking at me. As he’s leaving I have a moment of panic. What if this has all been some elaborate trick and there isn’t going to be any escape? What if this is it—if I just turned myself in to the enemy?
But I swallow any hysteria down and remind myself that Barclay didn’t need to convince me to come, insert a microchip in my arm, make me memorize prison blueprints—he could have just portaled in and grabbed me when I was sleeping.
It’s not exactly comforting, but it’s all I’ve got right now.
I’m alone with Struz 2.0. When I look at him straight on, that’s when I realize deep down that this isn’t Struz at all There’s something about Struz 2.0, the fact that he’s so similar, yet just slightly different, that’s alarming. He has the same face, the same eyes, the same voice, the same everything. But there’s so much that feels different. And it’s more than just the way he’s sitting with his legs crossed, the matching socks, the polished shoes.
It’s like whatever made the Ryan Struzinski in my world into a guy that would go by “Struz,” this guy doesn’t have it. And I don’t know what that means.
The realization has a sinking effect on my heart, my eyes get a little watery, and an overwhelming feeling of desperation wells up inside me. More than anything I just want to go home—I want to hug my brother and tell Struz I’m sorry for all the stress I cause him. I want to see them again before it’s too late.
“This should go relatively quickly, Miss Tenner,” this guy who’s not Struz says. “We just have a few questions.”
I look around the room, at the wall behind him, the door, the ceiling, anywhere but at the man in front of me, and I try to concentrate on my breathing. I take long, decisive breaths, inhale for a full five seconds, exhale for another five.
“I’ve met a few doubles in my time,” he says, his voice even and soft, and I can’t help looking at him. “It’s unnerving at first, but you just have to keep reminding yourself I’m not the man you know. We might look a lot alike, and we maybe have a lot of similarities, but we are completely different people with different experiences that caused us to lead different lives.”
I nod as my eyes fall on a picture frame on his desk. It’s next to his monitor, a thick silver frame, well polished and dust free. Inside it are two smiling faces, a boy and a girl with bright blond hair, deep blue eyes, fair skin, and wide smiles. The resemblance is undeniable.
They must be his children.
I shift my eyes to this Ryan Struzinski, and he’s looking at me expectantly.
I think about what Barclay told me—I should answer truthfully as much as I can. Short, concise answers.
My breathing has slowed, and I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.
“Okay,” I say, keeping it brief.
“Excellent. Now, when’s the last time you had contact with Ben Michaels?” he says, sliding a picture of Ben in my direction.
04:00:32:46
For a second, I can’t breathe. I just stare at the picture.
It’s a candid shot, taken without Ben’s knowledge. He’s wearing a faded blue grease-stained button-down shirt that says WAKEFIELD AUTO over one breast pocket and BEN over the other. He’s not looking at the camera, he’s looking somewhere off to the side, his eyes down, his mouth parted slightly as if he’s talking to someone. His hair is slightly longer than when he lived in my world, and it flops over his face, partially obscuring his expression.
“Miss Tenner?”
I look up. Deputy Director Ryan Struzinski is sitting with some kind of clear glass iPad and pen. He’s not looking at me.
This man is not the Struz I know. And it’s not just that he’s more put together. Despite the fact that he seems to have wayward morals, he works for the IA and they are threatening people’s lives—Ben’s, his family’s, and mine. He’s either okay with that or he’s okay with the fact that it’s just the way things are done.
I breathe out. “About four months ago, that’s the last time I saw him.”
He nods and presumably jots down what I just said. “And what was the circumstance?”
“We drove to an abandoned house and confronted two of his friends,” I say. “We knew one of them was opening unstable portals. Agents Barclay and Brandt arrived shortly after us. They sent Ben back to his world.”
“And by his friends, you mean Reid Suitor, now deceased, and Elijah Palma,” he says.
I answer, even though it’s not a question. “Yes.”
His eyes flick toward mine. “And you haven’t seen Ben Michaels since that day?”
I hate that this answer is the truth. “No.”
“Have you had any contact with him?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“No emails, letters, texts, nothing?”
“Is that even possible?” I ask, because if it is, I’d like to know for future reference.
He leans back. “I just need you to answer the questions.”
I roll my eyes. So much for trying to be nervous and diminutive. “No, I haven’t heard from him at all.”
“Well, thank you for answering my questions. We’re going to need to detain you until this matter is settled,” he says, looking down at his paperwork, and I don’t know why I can’t follow directions, but something in this moment makes me have to say it. Because it’s the truth, and this man right here, wearing the same face as the man I trust and love more than anyone, he should believe me.
“Whatever you think he’s done, Ben is innocent. He would never hurt anyone.”
Deputy Director Struzinski looks at me, with the corners of his mouth downturned, his chin tucked in, and his eyes soft—full of pity. And he says, “There’s a lot of evidence against him, but when we bring him in, we’ll make sure he gets the chance to prove himself innocent.”
I almost say, “What about me?”
Because I’m innocent—though I won’t be at this time tomorrow. But right now I am, and yet he’s willing to detain me and file the paperwork for my execution in less than four days.
03:22:56:02
Two armed security guards pick me up from the deputy director’s office and take me to a back exit where a van is waiting. They load me in and strap me down. If there’s paperwork to be done or any kind of processing for prisoner transfer, it doesn’t require my involvement.
The windows are blacked out, and I can’t tell if it’s night or day.
I think about Ben. Wherever he is, he must have some sort of plan—to save his family, to prove his innocence. I just hope we can find him in time.
And I think about Cecily and where she might be. If it’s somewhere without any light, if she’s been bound with restraints this whole time, if she had to be sedated after going through the portal, if she cursed and screamed at whoever took her, if she’s hurt and scared.
I try not to question if she’s already a slave—or if she’s still alive.
My breaths are shaky and my eyes burn. None of this is right. Cecily should be at Qualcomm, planning the next movie night and organizing more team-building exercises. And IA should be trying to find her. Instead they’re threatening my life, locking me in prison, and throwing away the key.
This isn’t just about the traffickers anymore. Because there’s a deeper problem in the fabric of IA, and we need to fix it.
I understand that people in law enforcement sometimes make hard decisions in order to get the bad guy and save the day. I understand that sometimes the greater good requires sacrifices. I even understood four months ago why Barclay’s orders were to sacrifice my entire world—to blow it up, demolish it—before Wave Function Collapse destroyed two worlds and adversely affected a number of others.
I didn’t like it, but it made sense.
But what the IA is doing right now—detaining people Ben cares about and planning to execute them if he doesn’t turn himself in—it’s not right.
Even if Ben really was the bad guy, it still wouldn’t be right.
And it doesn’t necessarily mean everyone in the IA is evil, or that everyone there is involved in the trafficking ring. It takes a different kind of corruption to actually get involved with a criminal organization as opposed to going along with something that’s not a good policy. But it means the underlying morals of the IA, as an organization, have gone astray.
Somewhere in its history, someone crossed a line and other people went along with it. And now, instead of using resources to find the bad guy, they’re threatening him to get him to come to them. And they’re willing to throw away innocent lives to do it.
My dad and I watched the first few seasons of 24 when it came out. I loved the show. Jack Bauer was like a superhero for the modern world, but eventually my dad stopped recording it, and it became one of those shows we just didn’t watch anymore. When I asked him why he said he didn’t like the message the show sent. I pressed and found out it was specifically the torture that bothered him.
What I loved about Jack Bauer was that he would do anything to save the city. He would torture the bad guys if he needed to. He would get the job done. But that was exactly what bothered my dad, because if the good guys are going to cross that line and torture someone, what is it that separates them from the bad guys?
I didn’t have an answer then, and I don’t have one now. But the question I’m asking myself, as the armed security guards unload me from the van and walk me through the prison’s front doors, is this—if IA is willing to execute me to draw out Ben, what separates it from terrorists?