“Ha!” Imogen grinned as she hung the dress in the wardrobe. “Punny!”
“What’s the Multiverse Bureau?” the Engineer asked. “How do you travel between worlds? Is there an interdimensional equivalent to a TM?”
“Like I stated, it’s easier to show you,” Eliot said. “The answers are inside the chip, which is in a blue velvet box.”
Annoyance worked Far’s jaw back and forth. Had everyone already forgotten Eliot’s transgression, still sizzling a hole in the couch? Perhaps forgiven was the better word, because the Fade sure as Hades hadn’t snatched that moment yet: Eliot nearly knocking him out of this life, not even lifting a scribbly eyebrow about it.
“Blue box, blue box…”
Priya’s hand kept dipping through the floor, producing a new item each time. There were powdered wigs, fishnet stockings, muddy trousers—more clothes than the wardrobe above them. A case stamped with a blue serpent twining around an orange cross contained curiously labeled silver packets. Medicine, Priya declared, though she looked uncertain when she read the names. There were gadgets, too—near as silver, just as strange.
“Careful,” Eliot warned when a metallic cylinder was drawn out. “That’s—”
A scarlet bright light leaped from the instrument, stopping short of Priya’s jaw. The burning smell of the room went threefold; a generous swoop of raven hair fell to the floor.
“A laser knife.”
The beam retracted when Priya let go of the hilt. Hair that had flowed past her shoulders was chopped in a ruthless line far too close to her neck. She brushed the loss with fluttering fingers, unable to reconcile where hair ended and air began. “Well. Guess there’s no need to worry about split ends for a while.”
Imogen was considerably more distraught. She tugged her own locks back, making a noise that could only be attributed to a robot-roadrunner: “Meeeeeeep.”
“Any more lethal surprises hidden in there?” Far remembered he was holding a gun, remembered it was aimed in Eliot’s general direction. He nudged it at her. “Speak now.”
“No. Just the laser knife.” Light bounced off Eliot’s head as she shook it. The welts from Saffron’s claws were a bloody tiara, finely scrawled. “Trust me. I don’t want to hurt any of you.”
“This from the mouth of the girl who claims she has to kill me.” His hand ached against the blaster. Did he even know how to shoot this alternate-universe tech, if it came down to it? “I’m sure you understand why I’m not terribly trusting at the moment.”
“Aha!” Priya had recovered the box. It was blue—the shade’s truest version, found on primary color wheels—and small enough to fit in her palm. The chip inside was translucent, with the dimensions of a pinkie nail. When held up to the light, it resembled a snowflake on the verge of melting, patterned with a delicate labyrinth of circuits. Dropped, it would take hours to find, minutes to step on.
Gram squinted from across the room. “Is it compatible with our tech?”
“Not without modifications,” Eliot told him. “There’s a shortcut hologram function that responds to voice command, though.”
“This is a hologram platform?” Priya asked. “But—it’s so tiny.”
“They get smaller every year. If you put it on the table, we can get started.”
The box was set down first, the chip placed back inside, where it was least likely to vanish into the common area’s knickknack landscape. One word from Eliot lit the air above it; files appeared in the form of several more boxes, each a different color, most bearing a Roman numeral. 0 through VII. White through black.
“Zero.” The lid to the white box opened at Eliot’s command. “Start at the beginning.”
A scene unfurled from the container, blooming before the group. It looked as solid as the Sims, but everything had a miniature quality—doll-sized people sat at aluminum tables the length of Far’s arm. Some held forks. Others chopsticks. Both utensils looked elementary in the hands of the fresh cadets, who’d grown up on meal blocks. Far did a double take at the uniforms. These kids were being groomed for the Corps. They were eating lunch inside the Academy.
The mess hall looked the same as the one from Far’s schooling, but also different. Its checkered floor was a red-white pattern instead of navy-gray. The security camera this footage had been lifted from was in the wrong bird’s-eye corner—facing the grub line instead of the stage where Instructor Marin rattled off his list of don’ts at the beginning of every term. Some of the people were the same. Mrs. Benucci was running the kitchen— harried curls sticking out of her hairnet, dishing out the pasta she claimed was an ancient family recipe. Ekstone Elba sat where he always did, picking tomatoes out of his sauce. Instructor Lee—who taught the wildly popular Pop Culture Through the Centuries class—sported his acerbic lime hair.
Far’s eyes skipped to his usual seat: second table, far end. Logic told him what—who—he should expect there, but the sight jarred him anyway. Eliot didn’t look like Eliot. Cap off, hair gone, she sat in a ring of friends, laughing so much she couldn’t get a bite in edgewise. Her smile was… real.
Everything was familiar. All of it strange.
could’ve been could’ve been could’ve been
This was his life.
This was another’s.
An announcement poked through the mess hall speakers: “Cadet McCarthy, please report to Headmaster Marin’s office.”
“Marin’s headmaster in this universe?” Far spluttered. “What is this? The darkest timeline?”
“It gets darker. Marin’s the least of our worries from here on out.” Eliot’s hologram grin quivered; by the time she replaced her cap and stood, it had vanished. Something about the way now-Eliot regarded the scene made Far doubt the expression would return anytime soon. “You guys might want to get comfortable. Grab a seat, make a snack. This will take a while.”
33
WHAT THE HASH/HAZE IS GOING ON
THEY ENDED UP CUFFING ELIOT TO one of the wardrobe pipes—though there was no need. Her exhaustion had scraped through to her soul, her resolve as fleeting as the blaster’s laser. The Multiverse Bureau’s directive haunted her interface, reminding Eliot she could take back the gun, quite easily, but her limbs refused to move. She just didn’t have this killing in her.
Not anymore.
Not yet.
Eliot almost didn’t recognize her hologram self; the girl in the datastream had a bounce to her steps as she walked to Headmaster Marin’s office—unaware that life as she knew it would soon be over, in five steps, four, three, two, one….
SUBJECT ZERO
MAY 8, 2371 AD
Security footage switches from the Academy’s hallway to Headmaster Marin’s office. The door opens and Eliot McCarthy enters. At the sight of her mother seated by the desk, she halts. A shadow settles on her face.
Eliot: Mom? What are you doing here?