by Amie Kaufman
Jules’s lips press together, hard enough to thin them into a line, and then release. “Mia’s right,” he says softly. “We’re out of time—let’s go.”
“Maybe they’re time travelers.” Neal speaks in a low voice, but not a whisper. Jules is used to following my instructions when it comes to acting like you belong, but Neal’s a novice, and it’s taken him twenty minutes to stop acting like a conspirator in a spy thriller. “Like maybe they’re coming back from the future to get revenge on us for sending their ancestors to Centauri in the first place.”
“Time travel’s not possible,” Jules mutters. “It breaks all the laws of physics, it’s just a fantasy.” But just now, in the face of all we’ve seen, that denial is sounding a little thin. And from the look in his eye, he knows it.
“Even if it were possible, why wouldn’t they just travel back to a point before the mission left, and warn someone not to send them?” I reach up to smooth back a lock of hair. I’m still not used to its color, and I keep seeing my bangs out of the corner of my eye. But what with the surprisingly decent haircut, and our pilfered IA jacket, I look like a professional—albeit rather short—IA security officer.
The boys, whose clothes aren’t quite as informal as mine, can pass for wearing business casual, and Jules has the stolen IA badge clipped to his pocket. Together we look like coworkers strolling through the underground corridors.
I hope.
Still, my skin prickles at every sound, every shift of the still, heavy air around us. I haven’t forgotten that Atlanta and Dex are here too. Dex just told us he won’t be able to stop Atlanta killing Dr. Addison if they get there first. If we meet, I don’t know if he could stop her from trying to kill us too.
Neal sighs. “And if they could travel in time, why would they even need the Lyon disease? They’d be basically gods, they could wipe out the IA and all our planetary defenses just by going back in time to before they existed.” Frustrated at disproving his own theory, he shoves his hands into his pockets.
“Heads up.” My voice is low and casual, but it stops all conversation—a woman in a navy blue suit emerges from an intersecting corridor, nods absently at us, and continues on her way.
The secured part of the castle had enough entrances that we could use Dex’s code breaker out of sight. Which was good, considering it took us a good ten minutes to figure out how to operate it. But once inside, it’s been surprisingly easy to pass unnoticed. People see what they expect to see, and most of the rooms we’ve passed since we got down beneath the exhibit floor have been offices. These people aren’t highly trained operatives or security agents, they’re just office workers.
“We’ve got to figure out where they’d be holding my dad,” Jules says, once the woman’s out of earshot again. “We can’t wander around here forever, we’ll get caught.”
My pulse hitches up a notch as a thought comes to me. “Hang on. I’ve got an idea. Stay here.”
I turn and jog back toward the woman in the suit, calling out, “Hey, excuse me!” I can almost feel the twin expressions of horror Neal and Jules must be wearing, but neither of them try to chase me down.
The woman pauses, looking over her shoulder, and then turns when she sees me approaching. “Is everything okay, ma’am?” She has big, luminous brown eyes and a moderate accent, consonants and vowels pronounced with care.
Remembering I’m wearing the jacket of a security officer, I flash her a reassuring smile. “Yeah, I just need to ask—do you know where they’re actually holding Addison? I just transferred from the Catalan branch, and I’m completely lost.”
The woman’s eyes warm, amusement in her face. “It is a maze, right? I started last year and I still get lost. But I’m just an accountant, I don’t know anything about the Addison thing, and I don’t have clearance to discuss it anyway.”
I skate past that, sighing and making a frustrated sound in my throat. “Even just a general direction would be a big help.”
The woman’s brows draw in. “Why are you looking for Addison anyway? Aren’t his guards part of a separate unit?”
I step to the side and gesture behind me. One glance shows me that Neal looks absolutely panicked, already halfway around the corner—but Jules is still where I left him, watching and listening. Tense, but waiting.
“See that kid?” I’ve found that being dismissive of people my own age sometimes makes others see me as older. Hopefully between that and my uniform, this woman won’t realize I’m no older than the “kid” I’m talking about. “That’s his son.”
The woman’s eyes widen. “Dr. Addison’s son? He does look like him. Isn’t he wanted for arrest?”
I grin at her. “How do you think he got here? We scooped him up yesterday, the plan is to use him as leverage against his dad. De Luca sent me to escort him down here.”
Her eyes narrow again. “You report to De Luca?” Suspicion clouds her features, and she looks me over a second time.
“Sure do,” I reply. “I’m just in my first year, but I was the only one with clearance for this level close at hand.” The woman glances over my shoulder again at Jules, hesitant. In a low, conspiratorial voice, I add, “Look, between you and me, I’m in way over my head. I’m terrified to ask someone in charge, because they’ll just tell De Luca I couldn’t do my job. I need this promotion.”
The woman sighs. “Well, I don’t know exactly,” she says finally. “But there’s a wing beyond the situation room at the end of the hall whose doors use a different code—none of us ever go in there. If I had to guess where they’re keeping Dr. Addison, that’s where I’d look.”
I flash her a smile. “Thank you so much. Seriously—what’s your name? If I get this promotion maybe I can return the favor.”
“Iveta,” she replies after a pause. “Iveta Nováková.”
“Got it.” I nod firmly, despite the fact that I’m not sure I could repeat that name a second time. “Thanks again. Take care!”
I turn and hurry back toward the others. Jules’s lips are twitching, and he meets my eyes with an approving grin.
Neal, watching from the corner, is wide-eyed. “Bloody hell, she’s got ovaries of steel.” He reemerges from the corridor after checking that Iveta’s moved on.
“Told you.” Jules reaches out as if to take my hand, then thinks better of it, given the cover story I’ve just laid out. “Let’s go.”
The coded door Iveta mentioned leads to another hallway, although there’s a muffling quiet in this area that immediately puts me on edge. There’s a security room just inside, and while there aren’t any monitors—clearly, they’re not foolish enough to put all their secrets on display—there are duty shift rosters in a folder, and a fire exit map on the back of the door. Between these, we can trace a route to what can only be Dr. Addison’s cell, although he’s never referred to by name in the duty rosters.
This time we get more than a few looks as we make our way down the corridor. No one stops us, but I can feel their suspicion the way a seasoned detective can detect deceit, and by the time we’re at the cell, my skin is crawling.
Neal’s got the code breaker, and he doesn’t wait for prompting to start it working on the code to the door.
“Hurry,” I hiss, before I can stop myself—there’s nothing Neal can do to go any faster, after all. But here, in a wing full of guards who’ve probably interacted with Addison on a daily basis, the odds they’ll recognize Jules have skyrocketed. And these guys will know I’m not here to add Jules to their list of prisoners.
Jules is still, standing at my side and staring blankly at the door with his face gone ashen. He hasn’t seen his father since his arrest, and I can’t imagine what’s going through his mind. Evie and I were taken from our parents so young that she doesn’t even remember them, and to me they’re just distant figures of warmth and safety. I can’t imagine what it’s like to have a parent you love as much as Jules loves his dad.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity and a half,
the numbers on the display of Dex’s code breaker stabilize, and the door gives a click and a little whoosh of air. The door slides open a crack, and Jules’s steadfastness shatters instantly.
Bolting forward, he shoves the door aside with a gulping gasp for air, blurting, “Dad?”
Neal and I hurry after him, but I’m only a few steps inside before I come to an abrupt halt. Something’s wrong.
The cell is covered with books and papers. Complex calculations are taped up along the walls, along with diagrams and sketches, and long pages of text. Some of the walls have even been written on directly, black magic marker in a slanted scrawl that reminds me eerily of Jules’s handwriting.
But though it looks more like the hideout of a conspiracy theorist madman than the prison cell of a brilliant scholar, that’s not what stops me.
What stops me is that the cell is empty.
Addison’s not here.
“WHAT?” NEAL’S VOICE IS PRETTY MUCH A PANICKED SHRIEK. “WHERE is he?”
“Dex and Atlanta?” Mia’s spinning in a quick circle, as if we might’ve missed my dad on first glance. “They got here before us and …” She trails off, not looking at me.
“No.” I barely recognize my own voice, hoarse and harsh, the words choking out as my throat tightens. “No, no, they can’t …”
I drop to a crouch as my legs seem to give out, planting one hand against the floor to support myself. I can feel my father here, his presence as strong as if he were beside me. This is his place—with all the work he’s pinned up to the walls, the equations, the signs of a creative frenzy.
I might almost be back at Oxford, standing in his study, and with an overwhelming wave of homesickness, I desperately wish I were. Surrounded by his things, I could be in a tent on an archaeological dig, or a wide-eyed visitor to any one of the shabby apartments he’s used as makeshift offices around the world. In this instant, I’m a thousand versions of me, all staring up at the boards of evidence, artifacts, and equations he’s built over the years.
But he’s not here. Maybe he’s not anywhere anymore. A roaring rises in my ears.
Then Mia’s crouching in front of me, fingers under my chin, lifting my gaze to meet hers. “Hey,” she says quietly. “Jules, I know. I know. I’m so sorry, and I wish I could tell you he’s okay, and I wish we had time to stop and think about this, but we don’t. And I’m so sorry for that.”
I try for a slower breath, keeping my gaze locked on hers, willing the rest of the world away as I let her anchor me.
“We have to keep going,” she says quietly. “I need you to look around. He’s covered every centimeter of this place, but maybe he’s left a sign, some way for us to know which part of it’s important.”
Then there’s a big hand squeezing my shoulder, and Neal’s crouching beside me, his own voice shaky when he speaks. “Jules, mate, I don’t want to sound morbid, but there’s no reason Atlanta and Dex would escort Uncle Elliott out of here and kill him somewhere else. Someone would notice them moving him. They’d kill him and leave his body in this room, and it’s not here. So maybe …”
They’re both right. Maybe the Undying got to him ahead of us, and maybe he’s dead. Maybe he’s not. Either way, we have to keep going. So, legs shaking, I push to my feet and make myself look at the walls. Pretend I’m just in the study back at home, and there’s a lesson here for me somewhere.
In my mind, I can hear my own, younger voice asking, What does it all mean, Dad?
In response, I hear his gentle answer. Well, what do you see, Jules?
And then … I see.
My birthday jumps out at me from among a series of frequency notations tacked up on the wall. It’s a call to me, of that I’m sure.
My heart speeds up to hummingbird levels.
It’s not over yet. My father did leave something for me. I just have to find it.
My eyes fly around the room, searching for the message I know will be there. It only takes a few moments to find one word, written in capital letters and underlined twice, scrawled up on the wall above the door frame.
VEGAS, it says. Nobody else would know what that means.
Over the years, my father and I have been away on plenty of digs my mother never would have approved of, chasing half-baked clues her scientific mind told her weren’t viable. So whenever we needed to talk about one of those trips, we’d joke about going to Las Vegas. It was silly, because it was one place neither my father nor I could ever imagine ourselves. It is an archaeological site these days, the ruins of gold and neon lying abandoned in the middle of a desert where the water finally ran out, but it’s not the sort of place we focus on, even if it was fun to kid about finding a lost jackpot that would fund our next expedition.
Now, I know that one word is code for this is a plan I can’t speak out loud.
Whatever he wants me to know, it will be here, but it will be encoded. I might not know where he is, or if he’s okay, but I’m absolutely certain he’s left me what I need.
“Here,” I say, staring up at the strings of figures above the door. “This is the bit that matters.”
Neal parks himself beside me, softly whispering to himself as he searches for meaning in the equations. “Are you sure?” he says, after half a minute. “These don’t make sense, and they don’t follow any of the codes he used with me on our phone calls.”
I know the answer almost before I say it. “Use my birthday. That’s the cipher. Push every letter and number forward twelve, then take the four for the month, April, and—”
“Got it,” he says, completely locked on to the scribblings in front of him now.
“Do you recognize anything from the work you were doing with him?” Mia joins Neal, gazing up at the message, her voice barely daring to hope. “Could this be a way to shut down the portals?”
“Think it through,” I say, willing him silently to hurry, but trying to keep my voice calm. “Make sure you have it right.”
“I think …” I can hear the strain in his voice, and I can only imagine the mental calculations he’s performing. “I think it’s a frequency. It’s a microwave frequency. This would fit with our idea that the portals needed an activation signal. The ship will broadcast it via a satellite relay around Earth.”
“Great, so we need to get back to the ship?” Mia’s voice is like lead.
“No, we just need to stop the portals receiving the signal. A frequency jammer. Or maybe jammers, all around the world, in each city where there’s a portal.”
“So we jam the signal,” Mia says, “and the portals don’t open? No toxin. No flu. No invasion.”
Then a new voice speaks from the doorway. “Beno,” says Atlanta, her tone subzero. “You’re not so dumb.”
My veins turn to ice as I drop my gaze, to find Atlanta and Dex standing side by side in the open doorway. She’s holding an IA pistol, hefting it in her grip.
But though I freeze in place, Mia’s instincts are completely different.
She darts forward, making a grab for the gun, wrapping her hand around Atlanta’s as she tries to get her finger on the trigger, already twisting it around to point it at the Undying girl.
Seeming to almost flow, moving with impossible speed, Atlanta wrests it away from Mia, turning the weapon to point it straight at her head, forcing her to stumble back to join Neal and me.
“You protos,” she says, her voice rich with disdain. “You protos and your weapons. You think they’ll keep you safe, but look how easy they’re turned yourways. Where is Elliott Addison?”
Despite the sheer terror that comes with having a gun pointed at your face, something in me releases just a fraction. They didn’t kill him.
Quietly, Dex rests a hand on his partner’s shoulder. “Easy, Peaches,” he says softly. All his love for her is in those two words. Just as it was every moment I listened to them in their quarters, through the wall of their ship. I know that wherever they grew up, these two grew up together. Their ties go deeper than I can possibly
understand.
“Enough,” she snaps. “It’s one thing to feel sorry for them, Dex, but they keep popping up—if there’s any chance they’ll interfere, it’s better to just kill them now.”
Mia’s breath hitches sharply, but I’m watching Dex, whose eyes go from the three of us beyond the barrel of Atlanta’s gun, to her profile. In that moment he looks so stricken, so sad, that my heart gives a sympathetic lurch.
Only too human after all.
“No,” he says finally, taking a step past Atlanta to put himself between us and the gun.
“What?” Atlanta snaps, jerking her gun away and taking a step back, as if even pointing the gun in his direction is unthinkable. “You fooling? It’s so not the time.”
But Dex’s face is grave, no sign of humor there. “Our people—we were wrong to come here like this,” he says quietly. “Our home has been the stars for centuries now—not this planet, not if it means genocide. Tell me you see that, A, deep down. That none of this is right.”
“Of course it’s right,” Atlanta retorts with confusion. “They’ve had their chance with this planet—we’re the ones who can save it from them.”
“Maybe.” Dex’s voice is still quiet. “But not like this.”
“Nothing has changed.” Atlanta’s lips quiver, her eyes anguished. “Dex, we grew up training for this, our whole lives. This one big push, and then all our people can come home.”
Dex draws a long breath, and though his features are calm, there’s a fight going on behind his eyes. “You’re right,” he says softly. “I have been training for this my whole life. I’m not who you think, Peaches.”
“Stop calling me that!” Atlanta gestures with the gun, swinging it briefly toward Dex, who lifts his hands. For a long moment, she stares at him, uncomprehending. Then the barrel of the gun lowers, and her eyes widen. “You mean—all those stories. Dissenters, traitors among us working against us, to help these protos? Those stories—they’re true?”
