PART FOUR: Manual Override
(The process by which an automated system is suspended, modified, or otherwise put under the operator’s direct control)
Ten
“Niki! Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
I’d come into the house quietly, hoping to wash my dirt-smeared face and put on some makeup before I talked to my parents. I hadn’t wanted them to see me like this. But Crackers burst into excited barks as soon as he caught my scent, and before I could bolt, my mother came flying out of the kitchen to meet me.
“You look like a ghost,” she breathed, catching my face between her hands. “Oh, honey! Who did this to you? Are you hurt?”
“I’ll live,” I said roughly, ducking away from her. I kicked off my shoes and went into the living room, throwing myself down on the sofa and dropping my forearm across my burning eyes. The arm with the quicksilver in it—the chip Sebastian had put there. But why had he done it? Why?
Mom took a hesitant step toward me. “Do you want me to get your father? Or—is there something we should talk about first?”
I heard the catch in her voice, and I knew what it meant: she was trying to be calm and reassuring, because she thought that was what I needed. But inside she was terrified.
“Mom,” I said hollowly, “I haven’t been assaulted.” Or at least, not in the way she thought. “Milo and I broke up this afternoon. But he didn’t even touch me. He just … left.”
“Oh.” She exhaled the word, sad and slow. “I’m sorry.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s a bigger problem.” I made myself sit up again. “Mom, I have something to tell you and Dad, and I need to say it quickly. Because…” I swallowed. “I’m going to disappear soon, the way I did last summer. And this time, I won’t be coming back.”
Nine
In the end, telling my parents wasn’t as hard as I’d thought. I was still in shock over Sebastian’s betrayal, and my initial hysteria had given way to a numb, fuzzy state where nothing seemed entirely real. Even as I talked, I felt like I was floating above myself, surveying the scene in the living room as a detached observer. Noticing odd little details like the dead fly on the coffee table and the flecks of toothpaste in my father’s beard—things I would have dismissed or overlooked in the past but which held a strange fascination for me now. Maybe because I knew that whatever I set my eyes on, I might well be seeing for the last time.
But I couldn’t forget how I’d got here or why I was telling this story. I needed my parents to know not only what was about to happen to me but what kind of person their daughter really was. All the secrets I’d kept from them, all the lies I’d told. How I’d taken my mother’s painstaking lessons in kindness and courtesy and turned them into an operating manual for the human race, treating people like machines because that was the only way I could understand them or make myself care. How every relationship I’d ever had was an illusion, including my relationship with them. Because I’d been genetically programmed to submit to whoever owned me, so the choices I’d made to respect and obey my parents hadn’t been choices at all.
“I don’t belong on this world,” I said finally. “I was never meant to be part of it. I know you wanted me to get married and have a family of my own someday. But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen, even if I could stay.” I gave a pained shrug. “I’m just too … alien.”
Tears had welled up in Mom’s eyes, and now they spilled over. She buried her face in her hands, and Dad put an arm around her. Neither one looked at me or spoke. I might as well have been dead to them already.
Well, wasn’t that how I’d wanted it? Now they knew I wasn’t Their Kind after all, they wouldn’t mourn me any more than they should. Maybe they’d even adopt another child to replace me. A nice, ordinary child who could fill the empty space I’d left in their hearts and give them the grandchildren they longed for. And in the end, they’d come to believe that my going away had been the best thing for all of us.
Or at least I hoped so, and I’d done everything I could to make that possible. Because the only thing I hadn’t told them, the one secret I’d kept to myself, was what Mathis planned to do to me when he got me back. They didn’t know—they didn’t need to know—that all I could look forward to was a few weeks or months of captivity, before even that pathetic excuse for a life was taken away.
I got up quietly and began to leave.
“Tori!” Dad sounded hoarse, and his voice broke on the second syllable. He heaved himself up from the sofa to intercept me. “Don’t. Don’t you go anywhere.”
And with that he threw his arms around me and hugged me so hard I felt like my heart would crack. I stood wooden in his embrace, too stunned to speak—and then I felt Mom reaching around me from the other side, stroking back my hair and pressing a kiss to my temple.
“You’re our daughter,” she whispered. “Always. No matter where you came from. Don’t leave us, sweetheart.”
I bowed my head against Dad’s chest, swallowing tears. I felt ashamed of myself for not giving them more credit, for not realizing that their love for me really was as deep and lasting as it seemed. That it had never been about me being Their Kind, only about me being theirs.
But knowing that only sharpened the pain inside me. Because it reminded me how much I depended on my parents and how much it would hurt to lose them.
And now, even worse, I knew how much it was going to hurt them to lose me.
Eight
Neither of my parents wanted to leave me alone that night, for fear that I’d be gone when they woke up in the morning. So we dragged pillows and blankets into the living room and made ourselves as comfortable as we could. None of us slept. We all knew that every hour we spent together could be the last.
Dad kept quizzing me about the relay, unable to believe there wasn’t some way of avoiding it, or stopping it from getting to me. I had to explain that the device flew too rapidly for me to outrun it and that it could scan through solid walls, so there was nowhere I could hide. Especially now I had this chip in my arm, telling the relay my exact coordinates at any given moment.
“And you know what happened when Dr. Bowman tried to remove the chip last time,” I said. “The seizures nearly killed me. If we try anything like that again, they probably will.”
Dad scratched his beard, mouth twisting with frustration. “Then we need to go on the offensive. Track down the relay before it can get to you, and destroy it somehow—”
“We already tried that,” I said. “It didn’t work. Just leave it, Dad. Please.”
I knew he was trying to give me a challenge, so I wouldn’t feel so helpless. I knew he thought I was giving up too easily, and it worried him. But my last hope had died with Sebastian’s inexplicable betrayal, and when I reached into the part of my mind that fixed things, I found nothing but a dull grey fog. Even the thought of working on a new project felt like a colossal burden, too miserable to even contemplate.
Maybe I’d feel better once I’d slept. But I doubted it.
By dawn we were all cross-eyed with exhaustion, but the relay hadn’t come. So Dad took the day off work, and he and Mom spent the morning sleeping in shifts. Once we were all awake again we played board games, watched a movie, and ordered in pizza for dinner. But it was all wrong—we were trying too hard to make every moment count, and that just made everything stiff and awkward and horrible. And by nightfall it was obvious that we couldn’t keep on like this much longer, or we’d all go crazy.
So at eleven o’clock I announced that I was going to bed and that I’d leave my door open and yell if anything happened. Then I turned off my light and pretended to be asleep until my parents stopped hovering and whispering to each other, and went off to sleep as well.
In the quietness of the night, I was aware of every sound. Even the background noises I usually ignored—the creaks as the floor settled, the rustling of branches outside, the soft click of Crackers’s nails as he waddled over the kitchen tile—made my nerves stand on end. Sleep was impossible and my thoughts were a tangled mess anyway, so I dragged my laptop out of its case and flipped it open. I’d never get the chance to pay Sebastian back for what he’d done to me, but it might make me feel better to demand an explanation and tell him exactly what I thought of him…
Except, I realized as I stared at the blank screen, I didn’t have the heart even for that. Partly because I felt like someone had run over my emotions with a steamroller, and anger took more energy than I had left to give. But also because the shock of Sebastian’s betrayal had been such a shock, which made me realize how much I’d trusted him, even liked him, in spite of everything. I’d pestered him about Alison not because I really believed he was being cowardly or cruel but because I’d felt sure there must be some good explanation, and I couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t tell me. And even though I’d tested his patience any number of times, challenged him and insulted him and demanded answers he obviously wasn’t ready to give, I’d never imagined he would sell me out to Mathis because of it…
A soft chime sounded from the speakers, and a message flashed up on my screen. MILO HWANG is ONLINE.
Pride told me to ignore it. But I was so relieved to see his name that my fingers moved before I could hold them back.
–Glad you got home OK. Can we talk?
Seconds passed, as I waited for his reply. Then came the sound of a door slamming and another message: MILO HWANG is OFFLINE.
Despair roared through me like a tornado, hollowing me out inside. I shoved the laptop away, not even caring if it fell, and curled up in the deep, smothering darkness beneath the blankets.
Seven
The next morning I got up early—which wasn’t hard, since I hadn’t slept all night anyway. Mom and Dad were still in bed and showed no signs of stirring. I dressed with mechanical efficiency, not bothering to brush my hair or put on makeup. I boiled some water and made myself a packet of instant oatmeal, which tasted like glue and weighed in my stomach like cement. I scrawled a note on the whiteboard telling my parents I’d gone for a walk and would be back around seven. Then I clipped Crackers’s leash onto his collar and took him outside.
The morning sky looked like a nursery ceiling, baby blue with scattered puffs of cloud. A few maple seeds helicoptered down to land on the sidewalk at my feet. As Crackers trotted happily beside me, pausing at intervals to lift a leg or sniff a fire hydrant, I tipped my head back to the sunlight and drew a slow, deliberate breath of fresh air. Relax, I told myself. Enjoy this while you can.
But it was no use. I felt estranged from the world around me, as though the flowers and the birdsong and the smell of wet grass were meant for someone else and there was no point in me even noticing them. Exhaustion pressed down on me like a giant, invisible hand, and every time I inhaled my ribs felt tighter. Soon every breath was an effort, and my feet dragged. I wasn’t walking Crackers; he was walking me.
I barely noticed when we turned away from the road and into the quiet, tree-lined paths of the cemetery. We passed the maple where Sebastian had betrayed me two nights ago, and I didn’t even break stride. I was sleepwalking through a dream that could turn in to a nightmare at any moment, and if I stopped moving, I’d fall down and never get up again.
But it wasn’t like I had anywhere to go, either. I was simply waiting for the moment when I’d be ripped apart at the subatomic level, reduced to a few quintillion bits of information, and fired back through the wormhole to Mathis. And when that agony was over, I’d have nothing but more torment and humiliation to look forward to. So what was the point of walking or breathing or even living now?
A black squirrel bounded across our path, and Crackers yipped and started pulling at his leash. I stumbled after him while he chased the squirrel up a tree. Then I leaned against the trunk and closed my eyes. Pull yourself together, I told myself. Stop being so pathetic and whiny and useless, and do something.
But what? Sebastian had put a chip in my arm, and the relay was coming. There was nothing I could do to change my fate, except—
A mournful whistle sounded in the distance. I turned my head toward the railroad tracks, running straight along the edge of the cemetery, and my stomach clenched hard, then unfolded like a flower.
Do something.
All my life I’d been fixing problems. Well, this time I was the problem. So why not fix myself? Why wait for Mathis and his fellow scientists to end my life, when I could take myself out of the equation right now?
It would take courage—all the courage I had. I’d have to measure the distance with my eyes and time my movements precisely, and then I’d have to repress every instinct that told me to run away. But my body was a machine, and I was a technician. I could do this.
The train howled again, louder now. I could hear the screech of its wheels as it braked, slowing down to prepare for the gateless road crossing at the cemetery’s far side. Down the ditch, up the gravel, and onto the rails; a moment of terror, an instant of blinding pain, and then oblivion. Even if the driver spotted me, I’d be dead long before he could stop or the relay could interfere. Let Mathis beam my body back and pick over the bones if he wanted, or leave it for Deckard and Dr. Gervais to play with. Either way, I wouldn’t be around to see it.
But first, I’d need to do something with Crackers. I led him to a nearby pine and looped his leash around one of the lower branches. Then I knelt down and tousled his soft ears one last time.
“Good doggie,” I told him. “Sit.”
He plopped down obligingly at the foot of the tree, watching me with innocent, liquid eyes. I kissed his nose, gave him a reassuring pat, and walked away.
The train’s wheels were a heavy clack in the near distance. I thrust my way into the underbrush by the edge of the cemetery, keeping low so I wouldn’t be seen. The driver would be looking ahead to the crossing, but I wasn’t about to take any chances.
And now I could see the engine emerging from beneath the Second Street bridge, the north entrance into the cemetery. My legs felt rubbery and my head thick, but I crept down into the ditch and crouched there, counting seconds and measuring speed as the long chain of boxcars and tanker cars approached. Thirty kilometers per hour. Five hundred meters per minute. Eight point three meters per second.
Three hundred meters away.
Fear not, for I am with you, Mrs. Park’s text had told me. Did that apply to someone who was committing suicide? Did it even count as suicide if you knew you were going to die anyway?
Two hundred and fifty.
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I wanted to believe that, but how could I? Whoever that verse had been written for, whatever had made Mrs. Park write it out so painstakingly and surround it with handmade flowers, it had nothing to do with me. I was a freak from another planet, a genetic mistake, and when I died that would be the end of it.
Or at least I hoped so. Because after all the lies I’d told and the people I’d hurt with them—people like Milo and Alison and Lara and even Jon—I didn’t feel ready to face any kind of judgment right now.
“Forgive me,” I whispered, to all of them. To my parents. To the universe, if anyone out there was listening.
Two hundred.
I will strengthen you.
A hundred and fifty. Eighteen seconds left.
Yes, I will help you.
“Help me,” I breathed, as my trembling hands knotted into fists. “Help me do this.”
Fifteen seconds.
Adrenaline sizzled into me. I kicked off the bottom of the ditch, flung myself onto the tracks and rolled over. The rail felt like ice on the back of my neck.
Ten seconds.
Crackers started keening, a high-pitched whine of distress. The pine branch rustled—he must be struggling with all the strength in his little sausage body. But I’d knotted his leash tight. It would hold.
The engine sounded a deafening blast, and the brakes let out another shriek. The rail was vibrating so hard my teeth rattled. I shut my eyes and tilted my head back, baring my throat to the wheels.
Seven. Six. Five—
Then came a loud crack, and my eyes snapped open. Crackers came pelting into the culvert with the snapped pine branch bouncing in his wake and launched himself at me like a caramel-colored rocket. He leaped onto my chest and began licking my face, deaf and blind to the train pounding toward us—
And with a scream of despair I grabbed Crackers, jackknifed upright, and threw myself off the rails.
We crashed into the ditch together, Crackers squirming in my too-tight grip. The engine thundered past, showering us with bits of gravel, and as dampness seeped into my sock I was dimly aware I’d lost a shoe. But the boxcars were still grinding and rattling by above me, and I didn’t dare move.
Crackers wriggled out of my arms and I cried out, afraid he’d bolt under the train. But he leapt in the opposite direction, the pine branch whipping across my body as he galloped away. He barked at me from the top of the ditch, urging me to follow, but I didn’t have the strength. I could only lie there, stunned and spent, until the last whistle sounded and the end of the train clacked away into the distance. Then I crawled up the slope, floundered through the bushes, and collapsed onto the cemetery lawn.
Only a few minutes ago I’d felt cut off from the world. Now it all came rushing in on me, sights and sounds and smells all demanding my attention. The scent of crushed grass in my nostrils, salty blood on my lips. Crackers yipping excitedly, thrilled with himself for rescuing his pet human. The shudder of footfalls on the turf as Milo raced toward me, shouting my name.
This was why I’d come here, to this place, at this time. This was why I hadn’t tied Crackers up more securely, even if I hadn’t let myself think about what I was doing. Because deep down, in spite of everything, I loved my life and didn’t want to lose it. And I’d wanted to see Milo again, even if only to say good-bye.
“Oh God,” he breathed, dropping to his knees beside me and lifting me into his arms. “Oh God, Niki. Why?”
He’d seen the train go past. He’d seen Crackers running toward him, the broken branch tangled at the end of his leash. He’d seen me crawl out of the ditch. He knew what I’d almost done, and there was no way I could deny it.
So, in broken and gasping words, I told him everything.
When I was finished, Milo bowed his head, dark hair falling over his glasses. Then he pulled me closer, into the warmth of his body. “I had no idea,” he said. “I’d never have left you alone with Sebastian if I knew—Niki, I’m sorry.”
Still, it was selfish of me, maybe, not to pull away. Not to remind him that I’d be leaving soon and we’d never see each other again, and besides, I could never want him the same way he wanted me. But it felt so good to have him hold me that I didn’t care. I dropped my face against his chest, brow pressed to the hard line of his collarbone, and closed my eyes.
“I’m not ready to die,” I whispered. “I want to stay here and live, and make things, and be free. But I don’t know how.”
Milo cupped my chin in his hand, brushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. Then he took my right arm and lifted it to the light.
“Show me,” he said.
Reluctantly I let go of him and guided his fingers to the place where the quicksilver had wormed beneath my skin. Ten centimeters above the wrist, deep in the flesh of my forearm, where no one but Alison could see it.
“And we can’t cut it out?”
I shook my head. There was a device that could dissolve quicksilver—Sebastian had used it on me last summer—but we’d left it on the other side of the wormhole. The only one who could disable the chip without killing me now was Mathis.
“Then…” He bit his lip. “Can we trick it somehow? Make it think it’s got you, when…” He trailed off, then added with sudden savagery, “Or we could kill Sebastian. How he could do that, after everything you did for him…”
“It wasn’t about me,” I said wearily. That much, at least, I’d figured out. “It was for Alison. He wanted the wormhole closed to protect her.”
“From what?” demanded Milo. “Aren’t you the one this Mathis guy wanted all along? Why would he bother with some random Earth girl who had nothing to do with his experiment in the first place?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he only threatened her to force Sebastian to betray me.” And Sebastian had pretended to give in, thinking he could double-cross Mathis and destroy the relay or close the wormhole first. Only that plan hadn’t worked, so he’d had no choice but to go through with the bargain. “Or maybe he found out about Alison’s synesthesia, which is pretty incredible. A lot of scientists would give their right hand to—”
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
My breath caught in my throat, and my heart stuttered. I froze, the rest of the sentence forgotten, as a new and terrible idea blazed like a comet across my mind.
Could I really do something so enormous, so outrageous, so utterly appalling? It would take every bit of skill and determination I possessed. I’d have to confess some of my deepest secrets to people I wasn’t even sure I could trust and put myself totally at their mercy. And even if I could get them all to cooperate, even if I had enough time to track down the necessary parts and build the device I needed, there was no guarantee my plan would work. I might end up hurting myself, traumatizing the people who loved me, and even beaming myself through the wormhole prematurely, with nothing to show for it.
But as much as the idea scared me, it was my idea. And though it might be the end of every dream I’d ever had and every ambition I’d ever treasured, it also felt like hope.
“What is it?” asked Milo. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”
“Alison,” I said, struggling to my feet. “I need to call her. Right away.”
Six
When I plunged through the front door fifteen minutes later, filthy and wild-eyed with Crackers barking hysterically at my heels, my parents nearly had a heart attack at the breakfast table. The next thirty seconds were total chaos, all of us talking at once and getting louder with every word. But eventually I got them to understand that I was okay, at least for the moment, and that I had a plan.
“But you have to let me do this on my own,” I pleaded. “I need you not to ask questions or try to get involved. Because if you interfere, I won’t be able to do it. And I have to do it. There’s no other way.”
Dad looked baffled, but Mom clapped her hands over her mouth. She’d seen it in my face—not the details of what I meant to do but the enormity of it. She knew I was about to do something that couldn’t be undone and that whether I failed or succeeded, my life would never be the same again.
“Oh, honey,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I said, and turned to my dad. “So do I have your permission? Will you trust me on this and promise you won’t try to stop me?”
Every second I had left was precious, but I didn’t dare rush him. I had to let him think it over and come to his own conclusion. But when he lifted his head and his sober brown eyes met mine, I knew the answer before he even spoke.
“You don’t have to ask,” he said. “You’re not a child anymore. Do what you think is best.”
My heart swelled. I threw my arms around him and kissed his cheek, then turned to embrace my mother. She clung tightly to me for three seconds, then kissed me and let me go.
“I love you,” I told them. “I’ll be back—I hope.”
Then I bolted downstairs for my tool kit and parts bin, grabbed my phone from my bedroom, and dashed out. I was halfway down the driveway before I realized the bus wouldn’t be fast enough and was about to drop everything and call for a taxi when Dad appeared in the doorway, holding up Mom’s car keys.
“Drive carefully,” he said. “Don’t blow up the makerspace. Or yourself.”
I hesitated. I wasn’t surprised he knew where I was going, but how could he have guessed what I was about to do? I opened my mouth to explain—but Dad shook his head.
“Don’t tell me.” His smile was sad and tender. “It’s probably better if I don’t know. Love you, pumpkin.”
Then he tossed me the keys and shut the door.
Five
I drove to the Sunrise Café, bought an enormous coffee, and spent the next hour contacting everybody I needed to help me carry out my plan. I’d already talked to Alison, but I texted to confirm that she’d caught the early bus out of Sudbury and was on her way. I touched base briefly with Milo, to see how he was getting along with the worst research project ever. I called Barry, asking him to meet me at the makerspace right away. Then, last and hardest of all, I wrote to Sebastian.
Anyone else, even my past self, would have told me I was insane. If Sebastian had betrayed me to Mathis once, what made me think he wouldn’t do it again? But right before he put the chip in my arm, he’d said that he was sorry and that he’d never wanted things to turn out this way. And when I thought back over everything that he’d done and said since the night he beamed into my bedroom, I believed him.
–This is your last chance as well as mine. If you want to help me stop Mathis, you know where to find me.
Then I packed up and drove off to meet Barry with my heart galloping all over my rib cage.
Not that our phone call had gone badly: Barry had seemed willing enough, if somewhat puzzled by my urgency. But my plan could so easily fall to pieces if even one person refused to cooperate, and I was afraid of how he’d react when I told him what I meant to do.
The answer, as it turned out, was something close to hysteria. He paced around the corridor outside the makerspace, waving his arms as he raved about unprotected electrical equipment and enclosed spaces and how he’d lose his membership if even the tiniest thing went wrong and how could I even ask—
“I’m asking you,” I said with desperate calm, “because this is the only place I know of that has all the equipment I need. And nothing that belongs to the makerspace will get damaged, I promise.”
“You’re right it won’t,” said Barry. “Because you’re not going to do it here.”
“Just listen,” I urged him. “If I wire up a timed detonator with a kill switch, the EMP bomb won’t go off until it’s well out of range of the makerspace, or else we can stop the countdown before it happens. And to make absolutely certain that I don’t wreck any of the equipment, I’ll set it up in the woodshop and take everything electronic or explosive out of the room first. But I have to do this, Barry.”
He gave a skeptical snort. “Look, there’s no question that flux compression generators are cool. A lot of makers would love to build one, me included. But it’s hardly a matter of life and death—”
“Yes, it is,” I told him.
I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to tell Barry my whole story, especially since I knew how unbelievable it would sound. But I’d sworn to myself that I’d do whatever it took.
“I know I’m just some teenage girl you just met a couple of weeks ago,” I went on quickly, before he could interrupt. “I know that right now I look like I just crawled out of an unmarked grave, and what I’m asking you to do sounds crazy. But I mean it, Barry. If I don’t get that EMP bomb built and send it off fast, I am going to die.”
For a second, Barry looked shaken. But then he folded his arms. “Why should I believe that?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense, for one thing, and you’ve lied to me before. All that stuff about having to build a transceiver for your dad’s birthday—”
“I had good reason to lie,” I retorted. “If I’d turned up at your Open House and said, ‘Hey, there’s an evil alien scientist who wants to abduct me, I need to build a deep-space radio transceiver to shut him down,’ would you have listened to me?”
And there it was, in all its bald and uncompromising glory. The truth that would set me free—or destroy everything. I held my breath and waited.
Two deep furrows grew between Barry’s caterpillar eyebrows. He stared at me for a full ten seconds, chewing his lip. Finally, he said, “So you’re saying the transceiver didn’t work?”
I shook my head.
“What’d you use for the antenna?”
“The Magnus Lake Radio Telescope,” I said. “If you don’t believe me, call Dr. Newman at the Observatory and ask if he’s ever met a girl named Niki Johnson. Ask him if there’s any chance that anomaly where we sent the signal could be an artificial wormhole.”
Barry’s scowl deepened, and I feared the worst. But then he sighed and reached into his pocket. “Len’s never going to go for this,” he said, “and Shawn’s going to have an aneurysm. But at least we can get started before they show up.”
Then he flashed his key card at the scanner, and the door clicked open.
When I first told Barry about my plan, I’d staked my life on the conviction that inside every maker, no matter how sober and responsible he or she might seem on the surface, is a big goofy kid who loves the idea of blowing stuff up. I was sure that Barry had at least some idea what a flux compression generator was and that if I could get past his initial reservations he might even enjoy helping me build one.
And I was right. As I opened up my box of tools and components and started scribbling a list of the additional parts I’d need to make an EMP bomb, he kept breaking in with comments like, “Oh, I know where to get you that capacitor,” and “I saw a reflector that size over at Steve’s last week.” And by the time I’d told him the rest of my story—or as much of it as he really needed to know—he’d stopped questioning whether I could pull this off without frying all the electronics in the makerspace and started trying to figure out how to convince the other members to let me do it.
“So you believe me now?” I asked, as I handed Barry my shopping list and the cash I’d taken out of my bank account that morning. He’d already offered to drive around town and get me the parts I needed, and I’d accepted because he knew the local electronics and hardware dealers a lot better than I did. “Or are you just keeping the crazy girl distracted until the police show up?”
It was only half a joke. That was what had happened to Alison when she’d told her mother the truth, after all.
But Barry shook his head. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said. “A bit paranoid, maybe. But I wouldn’t bet my life on that, so I’m sure as hell not going to bet yours. Back soon.” He tucked the list into his pocket and headed out.
Soon in this case turned out to be two hours and thirty-seven minutes, but I made good use of the time. Since it was the middle of the week, Shawn was at school and most of the other makerspace regulars were at their day jobs, so I was able to focus on my work without interruption. By the time Barry returned I’d finished the timer and the kill switch and was ready to start putting the main part of my EMP bomb together.
The flux compression generator. A single-use explosive device that would generate an intense electromagnetic pulse, capable of knocking out any equipment within a ten-meter range.
Like the wormhole stabilizer in Mathis’s spacelab, for instance.
“I can’t see how it’s going to work at that size,” said Barry as I squinted down the two lengths of metal pipe he’d brought me, one slightly narrower in diameter than the other. “And you’ll need some explosive for that inner tube—”
“Don’t worry,” I said, rummaging in the bag and pulling out a coil of copper wire and a large box of safety matches. “I’ve got it covered. Thanks, Barry.”
At two o’clock I was still absorbed in putting the device together, the lunch Barry had brought me sitting unheeded by my elbow, when my phone clanked. It was Milo.
–Bus from Sudbury just got in. See you soon.
–Great.
I replied, then hesitated and thumbed in another line:
–Best boyfriend ever.
Not exactly a declaration of undying love, but I couldn’t afford to get emotional right now, and I knew Milo would understand.
Then I went back to work. I could hear Barry grunting and snipping wire in the background as he built a Faraday cage around the laser cutter, the only piece of vulnerable equipment in the makerspace that was too big for us to move. More minutes passed, until a familiar deep, quiet voice snapped me out of my distraction:
“I won’t insult you by trying to justify myself. But if you still want my help, I’m here.”
He’d always had a knack for dramatic timing, but this time Sebastian had outdone himself. I pushed up my safety goggles and studied him closely, searching for any hint that I might not be able to trust him after all, that the shame in his eyes and the self-loathing twist to his mouth weren’t real. Then I put down my wire stripper and slid out of my seat.
“Come with me,” I said, and led him into the woodshop.
Four
“No,” said Sebastian faintly, when I’d finished telling him my plan. He shook his head and repeated, “Tori, no.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “I did everything you asked, when it was your plan. Don’t tell me you’re too gutless to do the same for me. Or do you think I don’t know what I’m doing?”
“Of course not.” He put a hand over his eyes. “I don’t doubt your capability. Or your courage. But there’s no way this is going to work.”
“Why not?” I asked. “When Alison broke my nose it was a good three seconds before the relay activated, so there should be enough time for you and Milo to move. And when it took me, it took my clothes and shoes as well, so if I strap the device to my arm—”
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” said Sebastian. “You’re right about how the relay operates. But you’d need an extraordinarily sophisticated device just to detect its presence, let alone the exact instant when it starts to beam you away.”
“That’s not your problem,” I said irritably. “I know all that and I’ve got it covered, so stop micromanaging me. All I want to know is, are you going to help me or not?”
Sebastian’s throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “There has to be another way.”
“Yeah, well,” I said, “I’m pretty sure that was what you were hoping when you made that devil’s bargain with Mathis. But there wasn’t, was there? Not in the end.”
He was silent.
“Let me tell you what I think,” I said, glancing at the doorway as Barry staggered past with the 3-D printer. “I think you thought you’d never have to choose between my life and Alison’s. I think that all along, you were planning to double-cross Mathis and save us both. But when I got obnoxious, there was always the temptation to just put the quicksilver in my arm and be done with it, wasn’t there? That’s why you pushed me and Milo together. So there’d be somebody to protect me and make it harder for you to give in.”
Which explained what he’d done at the gas station, on the way back from Algonquin. All Milo had wanted was a few minutes alone to get his head together, but when he’d come out of the washroom, his knapsack was sitting on the pavement and the truck was gone. Because by then, Sebastian knew he was going to have to betray me.
“It doesn’t matter what I was trying to do.” Sebastian’s voice was rough. “All that matters is that I failed. And you’re going to fail too, at a horrible cost to yourself, and I don’t want any part of it.”
“Too bad,” I said. “Whether you knew it or not, you signed up for this when you shook my hand two nights ago. You put that chip in my arm. It’s your responsibility to help me take it out.”
“You’d rather do this than take your chances with Mathis? Even if I told you he’d promised to make sure you were treated well and not terminated?”
I made a scoffing noise. “You think he’s going to keep that promise? Your so-called best friend who left you stranded for years on an alien planet? The same guy who threatened to kill Alison if you didn’t—”
“It was my fault.” Sebastian sounded tired. “I should have remembered Mathis had access to the station’s security system from his room—that he’d heard us talking about Alison’s sensitivity to exotic matter, and the effect that the wormhole and the relay had on her synesthesia. He didn’t threaten to kill her, Tori. He threatened to drive her insane.”
There was a long silence. Beyond the vinyl-strip curtain in the doorway, a shadow moved and then went still.
“Oh, I see,” I said. “So Mathis isn’t a murderer, just a sadist? That makes me feel so much better.”
“Tori—”
“Stop calling me that.” I stalked around him, deliberately not looking at the line of power tools ranged along the countertop. “I don’t want to know what lies Mathis told you or whatever excuses you made to yourself before you sold me out. I know I’m just a mongrel alien freak who was never meant to live on this planet in the first place, but there are at least two people in this world who love me and don’t want me to go. I’ve got a couple of amazing friends willing to put everything on the line for me, and even Barry has been working hard all day to help me out. If you’re too scared or squeamish to get your hands dirty, that’s your decision. But you’ll have to live with it for the rest of your life.”
He didn’t reply. I set my jaw and marched toward the door—
“Wait.”
Thank God. For a minute, I’d thought I’d lost him.
“Why me?” Sebastian asked unevenly. “Why trust me with something this important, after all I’ve done?”
Because I understood him now, better than I ever had before. In a way, I even felt sorry for him. But I wasn’t about to say so; that would be too much like letting him off the hook.
“Because you care enough to want to help me,” I said, “but not enough to let the fear of hurting me hold you back. And because you’d do anything to redeem yourself, if you only believed that you could.”
Sebastian gave a broken-sounding laugh. “This isn’t redemption,” he said. “It’s more like retribution.”
I shrugged, though inside I was anything but indifferent. “Call it whatever you want. But you may as well do it, because you’re going to hate yourself either way.”
Please, I added silently. For both our sakes.
For one last moment Sebastian stood without moving. Then he walked toward me, his dark blue eyes like bruises in the whiteness of his face. He said, “Do you forgive me, lady?”
I knew a little Elizabethan history too. Or at least I’d seen the movie. “It’s my arm we’re talking about, not my head,” I said, speaking tartly to hide my relief. “But if you want to be all melodramatic about it, then yes. I do.”
One corner of Sebastian’s long mouth turned up. Then, before I realized what he was doing, he put an arm around my shoulders and gave me a hug.
“Just one thing,” I told him, squirming out of his grip. “You have to swear to me that you’ll carry through with this, whatever happens. And that you won’t try to talk me out of my plan—any part of it—again.”
“I promise,” he said, sounding surprised. I glared at him, and he amended, “I swear.”
“Good,” I said, as I swept the vinyl strips aside and strode out into the lounge. Sebastian followed—and stopped, dismay dawning on his face. Because that was when he saw who’d been standing by the door all this time.
It hadn’t been Barry—he was down the other end of the hallway. It hadn’t been Milo, who was sitting on the sofa. It was a tall, slim girl with reddish hair spilling over her shoulders, and rain-grey eyes that looked too full of sadness to ever be happy again.
“Hello, Faraday,” said Alison quietly.
Three
I’d been anticipating this reunion for a long time. In fact, before I’d left the Parks’ house on Sunday morning, I’d asked Milo if he’d be willing to pick up Alison from the bus station while Sebastian and I were gone and bring her to meet the two of us when we returned. I’d envisioned the look on Sebastian’s face when he saw her, the guilt and shame he’d feel, and at the time it had seemed like a fair punishment for the way he’d treated her.
But that was before I’d remembered that Sebastian had a very good reason to stay away from Alison, at least while he still had the relay on him. And definitely before I’d figured out that Mathis had forced him to choose between the freedom of an alien girl he barely knew and the sanity of the human girl he loved.
“Y-you…” I’d never heard Sebastian stammer before, and only once had I seen him this angry. “You brought Alison here on purpose? She’s your relay detector?”
“It’s not her fault,” said Alison, with a tiny grimace as though she’d tasted something unpleasant. “I wanted to come. And didn’t you just promise Tori you wouldn’t argue?”
What it was costing her to stay calm with Sebastian right in front of her, I couldn’t imagine. But though she looked tired and strained, she carried herself with a quiet dignity that made her seem older than the rest of us put together. She moved forward, holding out her arms to me, and before I knew it I was clinging to her and struggling not to ugly-cry all over her shirt. I hadn’t realized until this moment how much I’d missed her.
“Is the relay close?” I choked, when I could speak. “Can you feel it?”
Alison pressed her lips together, visibly steeling herself. Then she said, “Show me your arm.”
I unzipped my hoodie and struggled out of it, baring the T-shirt underneath. Then I held out my forearm, so she could see where the quicksilver had gone in.
Her face contorted and she flinched away from me, the same way she’d reacted to me the first day we were in school together. But back then I’d thought she was being rude and judgmental, and now I knew better. It was the chip that was bothering her, needling painfully at her senses in colors only she could hear.
“It’s close,” she said. She turned, her gaze following an invisible line from my arm to the corner of the ceiling. “There.”
“What?” Milo jumped up from the sofa. “Where? I don’t see it.”
“That’s because it’s camouflaged,” said Sebastian. “It must have found Niki the same night I put the chip in her arm, and it’s been following her ever since.”
Of course it had. How could I have ever believed otherwise? That was what the relay had been doing for most of my life—bobbing invisibly after me, or floating above my head, or lurking behind the nearest wall. Monitoring my vital signs through the chip, watching for any illness or injury that might compromise the experiment. Ready to beam me back to Mathis the moment my life was in danger.
And yet I knew now that my guardian devil had a weakness, one I fully intended to exploit. Because this morning when I’d laid my neck across the railroad track, my heart slamming in my chest and every muscle in my body rigid with terror, the relay hadn’t done a thing. Mathis hadn’t programmed it to care about my mental state, and he hadn’t known enough about this planet’s various threats and dangers to teach the relay to anticipate them. So it could only register any life-threatening injuries after the fact.
Which meant I didn’t have to wait until Mathis told the relay to fetch me, or rather, until the time difference between the two ends of the wormhole sorted itself out and allowed the order he’d already given to come through. I could trigger the relay myself at a time of my own choosing and maybe—just maybe—shut down the whole experiment for good.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Let it stay there for now. I’ve got an EMP bomb to finish, and the other guys from the makerspace are going to show up any minute.”
Sebastian gave me a sharp look. “Are they? How much do they know?”
“Barry knows half of the plan,” I said. “The technical half. The others, nothing.”
“Then leave them to me,” Sebastian said. He swung his laptop bag over his shoulder and headed out into the corridor, carefully not looking at Alison as he passed.
Not that Alison noticed. She was massaging her temples, her eyes squeezed shut in pain. “The Noise,” she murmured. “It’s so loud.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it’s going to be another forty minutes at least before I’m done here. Milo, could you take Alison out for coffee? I’ll text you when I’m ready.” Without waiting for an answer, I ran up the ramp and sat down at the workbench. I was reaching for my wire stripper when I felt Milo’s hand on my shoulder.
“I’ve got the stuff you wanted,” he said. “And I talked to my mom, so I know what to do. But I’m not going to lie, I don’t feel ready for this. How are you holding up?”
All at once I was acutely aware of the tool in my hand. The slight weight of the metal, the rubbery texture of the grips, and the pressure of its handles against my palm. How I could twist it in any direction I needed, pinch it tight, and pull the plastic sheath off the wire in one easy motion. How easy it was to take such simple tasks for granted, until you couldn’t do them anymore.
I clenched my teeth and reached for another length of wire. “I can’t talk right now,” I told Milo shortly. “I have work to do.”
Two
I’d finished the main part of the flux compression generator and was wiring it up to the capacitor when Sebastian came back. “Curiously enough,” he said, slinging a hip over the corner of the workbench, “there’s been a gas leak in the building, so the makerspace is closed for the rest of the day. Or at least that’s what I told everyone on the mailing list.”
And here I’d been imagining a nightmare of liability waivers and impossible explanations. I should have known Sebastian would come up with a much more simple solution. “Thanks,” I said. “But what about Barry?”
“We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” said Sebastian. “At the moment, he’s having coffee with Milo and Alison—are you all right?”
My hands were shaking. I put down my needle-nose pliers and pressed my palms against the workbench, silently cursing my weakness. But in the back of my mind all I could hear was Milo saying, I don’t feel ready for this.
“This has to work,” I said. “I need it to work. And I’ve tested the prototype in my head and it works fine, but Barry says he’s never heard of anybody making an EMP bomb this small before, and what if I’m wrong?”
“A crisis of confidence?” Sebastian sounded surprised. “That’s not like you.”
I gave a bitter laugh. “Yeah, well, maybe this is what happens when a technician gets above herself.”
“You’re not just a technician,” said Sebastian. “You’re more than that.”
“I don’t know why you think so.” I picked up a battery pack and put it down again. “You’re the one who told me technicians were genetically programmed for obedience. And look at me. I’m seventeen years old, and I can barely even disobey my parents.”
“Maybe,” Sebastian said. “Maybe you grew up thinking of them as your masters, however subconsciously, and it’s a hard habit to unlearn. But you’re hardly a mindless drone. You stood up to Mathis, back on the station. You even stood up to me.”
I shook my head. “Talking tough is easy. But actions? My whole life I’ve dreamed of making something new and exciting, something that would change people’s lives. But the only times I’ve ever actually built anything important was when you asked me. This—” I waved a hand at the half-finished device on the workbench—“this is mine. The whole plan is mine. And nobody thinks it’s going to work, or wants me to do it.” My voice dropped to a whisper. “Even I don’t want to do it. But what choice do I have?”
Sebastian reached out and laid his hand on my arm, right where he’d put the chip. He left it there for two seconds. Then, without a word, he got up and walked away.
One
Even finished, the EMP bomb didn’t look like much—more like a twelve-year-old’s Science Fair project than a weapon. It had none of the sleek, deadly menace of a rocket or the compact muscle of bundled dynamite. But all the right parts were there, and eight seconds after I pressed the button, it was going to send out an electromagnetic pulse strong enough to fry every piece of equipment in Mathis’s control room.
Or at least I hoped so, but there were no guarantees. So many of the components I’d seen back on the space station had used metals and minerals I’d never seen before. And quicksilver was the strangest and most unpredictable element of all.
“I still don’t get how this is supposed to work,” said Barry, craning over my shoulder. “I know you’ve got a timed detonator, so you don’t have to be there when it goes off. But how are you going to trick this relay thing into beaming up the bomb instead of you?”
He said beaming up with a relish that made my skin creep—but then, I reminded myself, he only half believed the story I’d told him. He knew I was afraid of being abducted by a scientist who might or might not be an alien, but if there was actual teleportation involved, he’d believe it when he saw it.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get the chance. I glanced at Sebastian and Milo, who had just come up the ramp, and nodded.
“Hey!” Barry yelped, as Milo grabbed his arms and yanked them behind his back. “What are you doing?”
There was a loud rip as Sebastian tore off a length of duct tape and plastered it across Barry’s mouth. “Sorry about the beard,” he said. He wrapped another strip of tape around Barry’s wrists and lashed them together with a cable tie, while Milo dropped to the floor to work on Barry’s ankles.
“I’m sorry,” I said, as Barry’s eyes rolled wildly and his face turned red. “But I can’t ask you to be part of this. And trust me, you don’t want to see it.” Then I stepped back, and let Sebastian and Milo carry him out.
Alison came up to me when they had gone, forehead creased and eyes pained with the effort of ignoring my Noise. “Are you ready?”
My insides shriveled up like match-lit paper. I pressed a hand to my stomach, but it didn’t help. “No,” I blurted. “I mean, everything else is. But I’m not.”
Alison’s expression softened. “I know what that’s like.”
She did too. Because back on the station last summer, after Sebastian told her our attempt to find the right wormhole had failed, she’d volunteered to stand in for the missing long-range sensors and use her synesthesia to get us home. She’d been scared to start with, but the first wormhole she looked into had nearly broken her—the sensations were so overwhelming, so excruciating, that she’d thought she was losing her mind. I’d begged her not to give up, and in the end she hadn’t. But how she’d found the courage to put herself through that torment again and again, knowing each time how much it would hurt and what it would cost her, was something I’d never understood.
“How did you do it?” I asked her. “When you had to find our way home?”
Alison looked down at the floor. “It’s hard to explain,” she said. “I remember I got to the point where it was so bad, I couldn’t fight anymore. I felt like I’d come to the end of myself, and there was nothing left of me that was worth holding onto, even if I could. So … I let go.”
I frowned. “You mean you stopped caring what happened to you?”
“No. I mean I stopped trying to control it. Stopped thinking it was about me being strong enough or brave enough to save you and Sebastian, or even myself. Because I couldn’t do it, not on my own. And once I accepted that, it was like this enormous burden had rolled off my shoulders. I realized that everything that was happening or had happened or was going to happen next—it wasn’t about me. The universe was so much bigger than that. So everything was going to be okay, in the end.”
I stared at her. She gave an apologetic shrug. “Sorry. That probably doesn’t make much sense.”
“Yeah,” I said slowly. “It sounds like you had to be there.”
But I did understand, a little. If I hadn’t come to the end of myself this morning, I’d never have come up with a plan like this. And if I thought the whole thing depended on me, I’d never have the courage to go through with it.
Yet there was still so much that could go wrong. I couldn’t test out the EMP bomb to make sure it would work. I couldn’t be sure what range the relay’s beam would cover when it activated or whether Alison would give me the signal in time. And if Sebastian or Milo froze up, even for a second…
I shook the thought away. I couldn’t worry about those details right now. Either I was prepared to pick up this bomb and walk into the woodshop or I wasn’t, and that was all that mattered. Whether I had the courage to go through with this plan even knowing it could fail, or whether I’d rather give up than risk hurting myself for nothing.
Unless—the hope flashed into my mind, and I clung to it—I didn’t have to make that choice after all. “Are we sure the wormhole hasn’t closed already?” I asked. “I’ve been assuming the relay would go dead if there was no signal, but—”
“It’s still open,” Alison told me. “If it had closed, my synesthesia wouldn’t be this strong.” She winced and backed away. “I’m sorry. You’re just so loud.”
When I’d asked her to look at my arm, she’d known how much the Noise would hurt her. She also knew what would happen to her synesthesia when the relay went off. Yet she’d chosen to help me despite the cost, despite the danger. Because she cared about me, even after all I’d done.
And knowing that, how could I turn back now?
I picked up the EMP bomb from the workbench, hefting it in both hands. “Go ahead,” I said. “I’m right behind you.”
Zero Hour
Draped in tarpaulins and paint-speckled plastic, the wood-shop looked like an alien landscape. The smells of sawdust and grease mingled with the fumes of rubbing alcohol from Milo’s first aid kit, and as I sat by the worktop with the EMP bomb lashed to my wrist, I felt oddly light-headed, as though I’d been drugged.
I hadn’t, though. Medication didn’t always mix well with my alien biology, and it was too risky to start experimenting now. Milo was in charge of the kill switch and the timed detonator gave me a little leeway, but I didn’t want anything dulling my reflexes when I pressed that button.
I looked down at my forearm, where Alison had traced the outline of my chip—the lurking spider beneath my skin that only she could see. And it did resemble a spider, with the blob of quicksilver in the middle and sensor-tendrils branching out in all directions. But the “legs” were only a couple of centimeters long, so it shouldn’t be hard for Sebastian to avoid them. Or so I hoped, because the alternative was a massive seizure.
The marker brushed my skin again, drawing a line ten centimeters below the elbow. Not Alison this time: she’d dropped the pen and fled, tears of pain glimmering in her eyelashes. It was Milo who held the marker now, his dark head bent so low that the glasses were sliding off his nose. His hand shook, the line wobbled, and he breathed a curse.
“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s just a guideline.”
He pushed his glasses back into place and straightened up, his eyes haunted. “You’re so calm,” he said. “How can you be so calm?”
I didn’t feel calm. My stomach was seething like an active volcano, and sweat trickled down my spine. But if I didn’t keep it together, Milo and the others would fall apart too. And I couldn’t afford that. I needed him. I needed all of them.
My free hand gripped the detonator, thumb hovering over the button. The strap that bound the EMP bomb to my wrist was too tight, blood throbbing beneath my reddened skin. I concentrated on my breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth—while Sebastian worked quietly behind my back and Milo wrapped the tourniquet around my upper forearm. I was going to get through this. I was not going to panic. I was not…
A muffled clank sounded from the other room, unexpected but familiar. It took me two dazed seconds to realize that it was my phone, tucked inside my discarded hoodie. Someone had sent me a text—and since pretty much everyone else who’d ever texted me was here, it had to be one of my parents.
“I’ll get it,” said Milo. He ducked through the strip curtain and returned, frowning at the screen.
“What did they say?” I asked.
He shook his head, and set the phone aside. “Never mind. It can wait.”
“No, it can’t,” I said. “That was my dad, wasn’t it? What’s the message?”
“Look, you don’t need this right now. Let’s just—”
“Tell me!” I shouted.
Milo closed his eyes, as though I’d exhausted him. Then he picked up the phone and turned it toward me.
It wasn’t from Dad. It was my mother.
–DECKARD WAS HERE. I’VE CALLED DAD. HE’S COMING TO GET YOU.
As though running could save me now, from Deckard or anyone else. And the thought of Dad barging into the maker-space, finding me like this, was unbearable.
“Lock the door,” I said to Alison, but Sebastian spoke before she could move: “It’s locked.” He crouched in front of me, laying a steadying hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let Deckard hurt you,” he said. “Don’t worry about him.”
“I’m not,” I said thickly.
He gave me a penetrating look. Then he stood up. “I’ve taken the guides off,” he said, “and cleaned the blade. I’ll need you to lift your elbow.”
My hand felt slick on the detonator. I flexed my fingers, willing the cramped muscles to relax. “All right,” I said, and a cool metal plate slid underneath my forearm as Sebastian pushed the saw into position.
A sliding compound miter saw, to be exact—also known as a chop saw. It consisted of a large circular blade suspended vertically over a metal platform, with a slit through its center so the blade could be fully lowered. The blade was designed with a hand grip at the top, so the operator could pull it down with as much strength as necessary to make a clean cut through the wood or metal below.
Or in this case, through the flesh and bone of a scared alien girl who might or might not survive the operation but either way would never use her right hand again.
My righteous right hand, Mrs. Park’s Bible verse had said. I was fairly well ambidextrous, but even so, I depended on that hand for so many things. Without it, what kind of maker would I be? Not very righteous, I suspected. I’d be slow. Clumsy. Dependent on other people’s help. No doubt I’d learn to compensate eventually, but I’d never forget what I’d lost.
“Wait,” said Milo. “I have to tighten the tourniquet.” He bent over me, pulled the strap snug, and twisted the pin until my arm throbbed in protest. “Okay, I think it’s good.”
I looked down at the sleek, professional-looking band, clearly designed for the purpose. “You got this from your mom?” I asked.
“Yeah. I told her I had to do a presentation on emergency medicine for health class.” He straightened up, his eyes avoiding mine. “She was thrilled. Drove back to work and borrowed a whole bunch of stuff.”
“Tori.” Sebastian spoke quietly. “We’d better get started.” He looked over his shoulder at Alison. “Ready?”
Alison was breathing hard, freckles stark against the whiteness of her face. She’d pressed herself against the opposite wall, as far away from my Noise as she could get, and she looked ready to faint at any minute. But she nodded.
Milo moved behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and holding me tight. He said huskily, “I’ve got you. Try to relax.”
“Just don’t forget to let go of me afterward, okay? If it takes me, and you’re too close—”
Milo bowed his head, silky hair brushing my cheek. His lips moved softly against the nape of my neck as he whispered, “I know.”
He didn’t want to watch what Sebastian was about to do. I didn’t blame him. I clenched my right hand around the strap of the EMP bomb and poised my left thumb over the detonator. My throat ached, and my mouth felt dry. Any second now, it would begin.
“Niki!” Dad’s voice echoed from the corridor outside, muffled but frantic. He was knocking on the door—no, pounding on it, with those big bear’s paws of his. But it was a heavy steel door with a deadlock, and it wasn’t going anywhere. “Niki, open the door!”
Sebastian looked at me for confirmation. I replied in a harsh whisper:
“Do it.”
The saw buzzed to life, its whine escalating to a scream. Alison shrank back, covering her ears. Sebastian’s lips moved, inaudible but clear: “God have mercy.”
And the spinning blade came down.
The pain was white-hot, searing, breathtaking. It bit through my skin and ground straight down to the bone; it strangled the yell that had bubbled up in my throat and turned my insides to slurry. As the saw ground to a halt in mid-cut, Sebastian shaking with the effort of holding it steady, I felt darkness whirling in from the edges of my vision—
No!
I fought for consciousness with all my remaining strength, clinging to my own agony like a lifeline. I had to stay alert until the chip in my arm registered that my life was in danger, until the relay came zooming through the doorway to rescue me, until the instant I heard Alison cry out—
“NOW!”
Sebastian’s hand jerked down. The slice of hot steel through my forearm gave way to a sickening rush of cold air, and the weight of the EMP bomb dropped away. My left thumb shook and slipped around the detonator, groping for the button. Where was it? I could feel the chip in my arm vibrating, and I knew I had only nanoseconds left—
All at once I was yanked backward, breath crushed out of me by the force of Milo’s arms. The detonator tumbled out of my hand as I went flying away from the workbench, speechless with pain and the shock of failure—
I crashed to the floor with Milo beneath me. His head smacked the concrete with a sickening crack, and he went limp. Panicked, I scrabbled to get off him as my ears roared and my skin began to tingle—
“No! No, Tori, stop!”
Alison’s face swam into my vision, blurred and distorted by tears. She grabbed my shoulders, sobs breaking like mad laughter from her lips. “It’s done,” she gasped. “It’s over.”
The saw whined to a halt, leaving only a deafening silence. I was shaking uncontrollably, my right arm numb to the shoulder, and when I tried to speak, no sound came out. Weakness swept through me, and the room spun sideways as I fell—
CLANG.
It sounded like the biggest gong I’d ever heard, a deafening reverberation that shocked my mind blank and turned my muscles to water. I heard Alison scream, and then a black hole opened up in front of me and sucked me in.