by Damien Boyes
He squints at me then shakes his head. “I look at you and keep forgetting you’re not her.” Her who? I want to ask but he keeps on talking. “I know how nuts this all is, I felt the same way when it happened to me. Okay, so, something weird happened to you recently, right? Something … magical?”
Mom and I look at each other. The dump truck.
“I got hit by a truck,” I say.
“But you’re still here,” he replies.
I nod.
“Well, there you go.”
“The witnesses said they saw a flash of purple light,” Mom adds.
“Purple?” he says, as if this means something. “Hmm. Yeah, well, that would do it. You lit this world up like a Christmas tree, and everyone came running for presents.”
“So this really is happening because of me?”
He looks like he doesn’t want to admit it but nods. I glance at Mom. What must she be thinking of all this?
“You all act as if you know her,” Mom asks. “How is that possible?”
“Because we do know her,” he says, but his eyes are shrouded. “She was Alpha back when Alpha was still Theta.”
The frustration is so thick it’s crowding out the tugging in my head. “How is that? I’ve never met any of you ...” My throat tightens. I’ll never make sense of this.
“I know you’re confused,” Delta says, and for the first time his voice is approaching serious. “And right now I’m not sure exactly why you’re here, but it was the same for all of us at first. Boundless don’t manifest often, but when we do, these first days are the worst. You’ve touched the fabric of the universe, and the universe has touched you. Without guidance, you could get yourself in a lot of trouble. When Gibzon saw a new boundless pop up on the Matrix and sent us to help. We had no idea it would be you though.”
“Who were you expecting?”
He shrugs. “Anyone. Literally, anyone but you. No one knows how or why the universe picks who it does, but as far as I know you’re the first boundless ever to emerge twice.”
“I don’t ...” I start, but can’t find the words. I don’t think there are words to describe what I’m feeling. The layers of absurdity are too thick to find a handhold. This must be how Dad feels at the hospital when a massive car accident brings a bunch of wounded people all in at once and they have to decide who to treat first.
The problem seems enormous, but I can’t give up on it. I need to triage. And out of everything that’s happened in the past few hours—learning I have powers and the invasion and now discovering that this has all happened before—finding out the world is ending probably gets top billing. So that’s where I need to focus.
“You said these invaders are here for me. If they find me, will they take me and leave everyone else alone?”
Mom grabs my arm but Delta smiles sadly and shakes his head. “No. If they can get a hold of you that’ll be a nice bonus, but Thrane didn’t send an army across timelines just for you. They’re going to take everything. Your emergence has charged this timeline with energy, it’s easy pickings. They’ll already be erecting the entanglers.”
“Entanglers?” Mom asks. After every other incredible thing Delta just told us, this is what she wants to know?
“Yeah. Quantum resonance towers. They connect back to the other side through dimensional rifts, and once the signals are synced up they’ll throw the switch and this all goes bye-bye, as this place is converted into a version of their timeline. We probably have an hour, maybe less, to get out of here before it does.”
I don’t know what to say. What can I say? How are you supposed to react when you learn your world and everything in it has an hour left to live?
Delta’s brows narrow. “It might be best to think your life ended when you were hit by that truck, and all this is something else.”
This is all too much. I can’t do it, not even one layer at a time. I’m about to walk away from everyone and go bury my head in my pillows when there’s a shout from behind us. Someone’s coming.
Delta’s hands spike yellow energy, ready to fight, but even before I recognize the figure stumbling through the smoke my mom is crying and running toward him. Then I take off after her.
It’s Dad.
He’s alive.
12
Trapped on Earth
Mom and I get to Dad at the same time, and between us we nearly knock him over.
“I’m fine,” he says into my hair as he squeezes back. “More importantly, so are you.”
He gives me another tight hug then pulls away from me and gives Mom a kiss. They’re not exactly the most PDA kind of people, but this is like an anniversary kiss. Or from one of those mornings when they’d come down for breakfast and both be smiling and teasing each other and I pretended not to notice.
Then I get a look at him and tense up. His face and arms are scratched. He’s covered in sweat and dust, and the right leg of his scrubs is black with blood.
He sees me notice and flashes a reassuring smile. “It looks worse than it is,” he says, but then his eyes roll up in his head as he collapses. Mom and I catch him, and while he’s not much taller than we are, he’s surprisingly heavy.
“Get him to the grass,” I say, and we try to drag him out of the street but even between the two of us we can barely manage. I’m struggling, about to drop him, and then Delta takes him from us and lifts Dad up, cradled in his arms like a sick child. He carries Dad over to the little square of grass in front of the apartment building and lays him down.
“Gamma,” Delta calls out, but the woman is already sprinting toward us, determination etched on her face. I didn’t get a good look at her before, but she’s stunning—her skin a light shade of brown, her hair brilliant red, and her wide-set eyes so big and so blue they look like pools of seawater in her face.
She sees me staring and gives me a quick nod like we’re friends passing in the hallway between periods, then brushes a strand of red hair behind her ear, pulls a pack off her leg, sinks to her knees, and starts to work.
“Light,” she says, and there’s a quiet snip from somewhere and a light appears next to Gamma’s head, shining down on Dad’s leg. I get a look at it and my stomach clenches—a gash, split deep into the muscle. Dad tied it off with a tourniquet just below his groin, but still there’s blood everywhere. It looks terrible.
Mom catches her breath and I grab her hand and hold tight. Delta doesn’t seem too worried. He’s watching Gamma as she pulls a small patch from her pack and sticks it on Dad’s forearm, tears the rip in his scrubs wider and sprays the wound with a silvery foam from a small cylinder, then covers the foam with another large white patch.
Gamma shoots her hands up. “Time?”
Delta checks something on his arm. “Thirty-seven seconds. Close.”
“Ahh ...” she grumbles and swings her fist through the air. “It was the light. If the sun was up that’d be a sub-thirty, easy.” Her voice is like music. “Light out,” she says, and the light hovering next to her winks off and she reseals the pack and sticks it back to her leg.
“Is he okay?” Mom asks, concern fighting the confusion in her eyes, and Gamma seems to remember we’re here and stands, giving us a big smile.
“Oh yeah,” Gamma says. “He should come around any minute. No pain or anything but he might be a little woozy, and don’t ask him to run anywhere for an hour or so, ’kay?”
“Thank you,” I say.
She gives me an odd look and shrugs. “Just doing my job.”
Delta twists his head to the side, like he’s listening to something only he can hear. “Prep for ex-fil,” he says. “Alpha says five minutes.”
“I’m good to go now,” Gamma replies and jogs back to where the others are waiting. They’re watching us, like we’re holding everything up. Alpha’s glaring at me. For whatever reason she doesn’t seem to like me much.
“Where are you taking us?” Mom asks.
Delta licks his lips and blinks once, heavily. He lo
oks at me, then at Mom and Dad, and then back to me.
“What is it?” I say, suddenly impatient. This is a game to them. To all of them. The invaders shooting people for fun. Delta and the others quipping with each other as they fling energy from their fists. Gamma fixing my dad’s leg like she’s shooting for a high score. “People are dying and you’re treating this like it’s summer camp.”
Delta’s back snaps straight and a tremor ripples through his face. “You’re right, Ms. Parker, my apologies. Sigma,” he calls out, “toss me the loop.”
Sigma’s the tall one with the drawn face, dark eyes, turban, and a heavy black beard. Whatever a loop is, it looks like Sigma’s anticipated needing it, because he immediately underhands something across to Delta, who catches it and holds it out to me.
“Put this on,” he says.
I take the silver band from him and hold it in my palm. It’s nearly weightless.
“What is it?”
“A trans-temporal interconnect,” he says, as if that means anything. “We all wear them. You’ll need it to jump to Eternity Station.”
“A what?” I ask.
“To where?” Mom adds.
“Eternity Station,” he repeats, deciding to answer Mom first.
“Where’s that?”
“Nowhere,” he says. “Nullspace.”
“That’s not helpful,” Mom says.
“It’s the truth, ma’am. The best I can explain it anyway, given our current time constraints. Eternity Station is anchored in nullspace. It’s a dimension inside space—or outside space—depending on how you define it. Gibzon can tell you more when we get there.”
“A ‘trans-temporal interconnect?’” I ask, considering the words. “So you can, what? Jump through time?”
“Time. Space. Dimensions,” Delta says.
“But Grackle wasn’t wearing one.”
He shrugs. “He’s boundless, like the rest of us. We can jump without a loop,” he says, “but traveling through infinity is tricky, and the loops make it way easier. Plus, you’ll never make it into nullspace without one.”
“None of this makes any sense,” Mom says, and I know exactly how she feels, but I’m starting to move past it. I’ve had longer to get used to the craziness. She glances down at Dad, who’s still passed out on the grass. His breathing has returned to normal though, and he doesn’t seem restless at all. “But at this point anywhere is better than here. Let’s go.”
Delta’s jaw clenches.
“What?” I demand.
“Gibzon only sent us here for you,” he says.
I lift the loop and let the silver band dangle in his face. “Oh Gibzon did, did he? Well he may be your boss, but he isn’t mine. Plans change. You’re telling me you only came with one of these things?”
“No,” he says. “We all have them. But that’s not the issue.”
“What is?” Mom says, her voice quiet.
Delta takes a breath, but keeps talking to me, like Mom isn’t even here. “Loops can only be used by boundless. They don’t work with regular folk, and opening a door into nullspace ain’t exactly simple.” I swing my head to look at Mom, at Dad lying on the grass. Mom’s watching me, her eyes widening as she clues in to what Delta’s saying. “I’m sorry, but they can’t come with us.”
13
Absolute Refusal
“You came here expecting I’d walk away from everything I’ve ever known?” I say. “Not an option.”
It’s a phrase I’ve heard Mom use with the doctors more than once over the years. My mind is racing and the knot in my brain is throbbing, but none of that matters. Even with every amazing and terrifying thing that’s happened in the past few hours, even with my entire life turned inside out, there’s one thing I know—I’m not leaving here without Mom and Dad.
Delta’s charming mask falls and he seems to lose six inches in height. “I know this is hard.” He flicks his eyes at my parents. “For all of you. But there’s nothing we can do.”
I won’t leave them. This morning I was tired of their suffocating love, ready to run away to find my own life, but now I don’t want to be anywhere but where they are.
“There has to be some way,” I say.
He shakes his head.
“Then you’ll have to go without me,” I say, and drop the loop at his feet.
Delta’s chin scrunches up as he bends and retrieves it, then glances over his shoulder at the team—where Alpha is staring irritated daggers at us—before trying to force it back into my hands. “You can’t stay here,” he says. “And without this you’ll never find us again. You could be wandering the chronoverse forever—or worse.”
What could be worse than losing Mom and Dad?
I refuse to take it and step back beside Mom. “I’m not going without them. End of conversation.”
Delta’s shoulders slump, then his head snaps up and he looks at Mom. “Lauren,” he says, “we both know how stubborn Jasmin can be. I know she won’t listen to me, maybe she’ll hear you—there is no hope for this world and everyone in it, but she can escape before the end.”
He’s using Mom against me. No fair.
Mom’s throat catches, and I know he’s convinced her, know what she’s going to say.
“No,” I yell before she can try to persuade me to leave her and Dad to die. Tears are threatening again—dammit, I don’t want to cry in front of Delta and the rest of them. “If you can’t come, I’m not leaving either.”
“Sweetheart,” Mom says and gathers me up in her arms. I struggle for a second but let her hand stroke down my hair as I bury my head in her shoulder. She smells like patchouli and mint, a perfume she mixed up herself a few months ago.
“If there’s any chance for you, you have to take it. No matter what that means for your father and me.”
I sniffle and open my eyes to see the team watching us. Alpha’s scowling from across the pavement, and I’m filled with a sudden hate for her. My parents are about to die. My entire world is about to end, somehow swallowed up by invaders from another dimension who dropped out of slashes in the sky, and she’s irritated?
Wait a second. I sniffle and raise my head, looking back at Alpha. “All those soldiers from that other timeline,” I ask Delta, “are they all boundless too?”
They were flying, but they were also wearing armor of some kind. Yeah, they had shields, but I didn’t see any of them using any fancy powers, just guns.
Delta narrows his eyes at the question and hesitantly says, “No …”
“Then how did they get here?” I ask.
“Dimensional tunneling,” he answers, as if that’s explanation enough. But I get it.
“Can you do that?” I ask, and then he knows where I’m going with this.
“Yes,” he says, and I can hear the “but” before he says it. “But, like I said, it’s non-trivial. We don’t have a hard door on this timeline, and we don’t have the equipment or nearly the power required to—”
“Then go get it,” I say.
“What?” he asks, and for once I get to be the one confusing him. It feels good.
“Use your loops and jump back to wherever it was you came from and bring whatever it is you need back with you to get my parents out of here.”
“Jasmin, it’s not that simple—”
“Well then you better figure it out,” I answer, with a ferocity I didn’t know was inside me. Then I yell across the parking lot to where Alpha’s glaring at me, “Unless you want to go back and tell Gibzon you had to leave without me.”
14
The Rifts Between Us
Delta leaves us to go confer with the team. After a back-and-forth discussion with Alpha, full of furrowed glances in my direction, she gives in and taps her loop a few times—I imagine to check in with Gibzon.
She talks to her wrist for a moment then drops her arm to her side, and after taking a second to compose herself, strides back to the team to issue orders. Half the team bristles at whatever she’s sa
ying. And only Delta looks at all pleased by what’s going on. Alpha, Sigma, and Gamma all tap the bands on their wrists, step through invisible doors of crackling energy, and disappear.
Delta jogs back over to us while the Scottish guy with the mustache—Tau, I heard Alpha call him—grumbles to himself as he goes back to watching out for more invaders. “We’re bringing in a rift generator,” Delta says. “We’ll try to get you all out.”
I stop myself from throwing my arms around his neck, but Mom doesn’t. “Thank you,” she says, and gives him one of her smothering hugs.
He raises his eyebrows at me over the top of her head while he pats her back.
Once her shoulders stop heaving she pulls away and wipes at a wet spot on Delta’s chest. “I blubbered all over you,” she says, and laughs. She’s giddy.
Delta grins. “A little blubber never hurt anyone,” he says, and pulls a neatly folded white handkerchief from a pocket on his leg. As he hands it to Mom I see it’s embroidered with a neat “T.” Mom gives him a considering look but takes it and wipes her face. “Glad to be of service,” he says.
Mom finishes wiping her nose, and while I don’t often see Mom blush, her cheeks are pink as she tucks the handkerchief up her sleeve.
“What’s the plan?” I ask, once again hearing Mom’s voice coming from my mouth.
“The others will be back with the tunneling equipment soon. Then we’ll open a rift, and you’ll be able to walk through to Eternity Station. We’ll figure the rest out later.” He chews on his lip, gives Mom a quick look, then gets serious. “We’re doing everything we can, but time is short. I want your promise—and Jasmin, I’m serious—even if we don’t get the rift open, when the time comes, you’re coming with us.”
“What’s this all about?” Dad asks from the ground in a creaky voice.
