“It was an accident! I swear,” Nolan said, studying his own hand, perplexed.
Isaiah drifted to the perimeter of the room, rubbing his eyes until his vision cleared. He hadn’t actually made Nolan drop the tuba, had he? No. Ridiculous, impossible. That would require an act of telekinesis, and even he didn’t believe in that. Still, something felt … different. He wondered whether, if he spent some time training, he might be able to harness the feeling. He shook his head. That was just plain silly. It’s not like he’d been bitten by some mutant spider and suddenly acquired a superpower. Although that would be pretty cool …
“Gage, follow Miss Panos. She’ll take you to the infirmary.” Mrs. Minuzzi smoothed her floral blouse. “We haven’t even begun the official tour, and I feel the need to remind you all of our earlier conversation. You are ambassadors. Please act accordingly.”
Coach Diaz scanned the crowd. “As for my band kids, I expect a flawless performance, if you catch my drift. Keep a tight grip on those ‘dorkwhistles,’ folks.” His mustache twitched as he tried to keep a straight face. “Now let’s get moving. Aten-hut! For the non-band members among us, that means, let’s go!”
One by one, the students moved through security, emptying their pockets of loose change and electronics. Backpacks and instrument cases slid through the X-ray scanners.
“All phones must be left in secure cubbies during the tour. Not only are these devices distracting, but they can disrupt our network transmissions. And we can’t have you sharing photos of our top secret technology,” Ari said half-jokingly. She eyed Nolan’s footflattening tuba. “There’s an unoccupied lab down the hall where you can store your instruments for the duration of the visit.”
“Awesome,” Dev said, eager to ditch his saxophone as quickly as possible.
Ari waved them to the left. “This way.”
She led the band kids down a corridor. She entered a code and an unmarked gray door swung open. Half of the room was crowded with cardboard boxes and overstuffed file cabinets. Rolls of yellowed mechanical diagrams and elaborately detailed blueprints were strewn haphazardly across stainless steel tables. The other half of the room was cordoned off with sliding white panels, behind which some defunct machines were likely gathering dust. Ari motioned to an empty table. “You can leave your instruments there.”
“What was this lab used for?” Isaiah asked, setting down his trumpet.
“Quantum collision experiments.” Ari paused, like she couldn’t decide if she should share more. Then she spotted a big, red Declassified stamp on the cardboard boxes and shrugged. “A team of scientists wanted to construct a collider that could smash tiny particles together, in order to transform and relocate them.”
“As in … teleportation?” Isaiah asked, his voice cracking embarrassingly.
“I suppose you could say that. But I heard it was a total dead end,” Ari said dismissively. She tapped her watch. “Let’s hurry and rejoin the group so we can get to the more interesting parts of the tour!”
The cadets exited, but Isaiah lingered. He found this room plenty interesting. His uncle had mentioned a quantum collider once, a few months before he disappeared. He reached into his backpack to retrieve his Journal of Strange Occurrences, but it wasn’t there.
“Huh?” He spilled the contents of his backpack onto a nearby table. “Aw, man!” He must have left the journal on the bus. He kicked the table leg angrily. Pasted to the back cover of his journal was a large envelope were Isaiah kept Ming’s postcards and letters.
They were all he had left of his uncle. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the curve of his uncle’s handwriting, the numbers and diagrams. But he couldn’t recall the specifics. The thought of the journal getting lost, or falling into the hands of someone like Gage, made his stomach ache.
He had turned to leave when something caught his eye. Printed in blue ink on the side of a cardboard box was a thirteen-pointed symbol with an inner weaving of geometric shapes and curved lines. His eyes traveled across the room, landing on a wall-mounted plaque. The same symbol was etched onto the metal surface.
His breath hitched. He might not be able to remember any specific details about colliders from Ming’s letters, but he had seen that before. A few times, in fact. On the back of a postcard from Manila. Hand-drawn on an index card with burned edges, postmarked from the Iberian Peninsula. His head swam. This was the sort of connection he had been searching for, hoping for—a single bread crumb in a trail of clues he believed, now more than ever, that his uncle had left for him.
“Isaiah!” Maeve called from the hallway. “What are you doing in there? Stop dawdling!”
“Coming,” he replied, stealing one last look at the room. He needed more time. He had to find his way back to this place.
“Eye-say-yah!” Maeve said, chopping his name into three parts.
He followed the group back to the lobby, but not before discreetly lodging a pencil into the door hinge of the storage room, preventing it from locking behind him.
9
STATION LIMINUS
Dearest Mother,
I have arrived safely on Station Liminus. As you instructed, I remain hidden. Kor cares for me as much as she can, sharing her rations and offering refuge inside her collapsible capsule. I am able to escape the holding cell thanks to my climbing and camouflage skills, but Kor is not.
Using items in Kor’s bag or tools I could acquire from the Station’s repairworks, I could probably help break her out, but she says we must wait until the moment is right. I don’t always understand her logic. I think she should come and hide with me in the ducts, but she says she learns valuable intel from hanging around with criminals in the Station’s main holding cell.
Not sure what she plans to learn from them, other than how to curse in about fifty-nine different languages and the need for more potent interdimensional deodorants. Have you ever smelled an angry Oolg? I hope you never have to! My sensory ports are still recovering.
Whenever I doubt Kor or question her, she gets this glint in her eyes. She says, “You never know who might wander in. Or what they might be willing to trade.” You told me to trust her, so I do. But I’m not always sure that’s a good idea. Sometimes when I hide deep inside her capsule bag, I find things that don’t belong in there. Things that should maybe be returned to their rightful owners.
Speaking of trust, thank you, Mother, for entrusting me with this task. I will not let you or the people of Klapproth down. I think I have found a potential ally that I can trust, a young delegate from Mertanya, the orange-skied planet of many moons. I will approach this delegate when the time seems right. Until then, I wait …
A galaxy of love,
Virri
Virri stared at the note, written with cryo ink in looping Klapprothi script. She crumpled up the pixel paper. Why did she even bother to write? There was no way to send the message back to her home planet.
She had broken into the Station’s mainframe, but all of the communication channels with her dimension were blocked. All of Klapproth had been placed under a seemingly impenetrable interdiction.
She walked in circles around the robotics vault, tapping her carapace with her three long fingers, trying to come up with a solution. There had to be some way to transmit a message home. She just had to figure out how …
10
STATION LIMINUS
“An intruder has been detected!” the station’s central AI announced loudly.
Quirg hurried down the hall. As he rounded the bend, he groaned, “Not again.”
“MOOOOOO!” said a black-and-white four-legged creature.
Shro appeared, looking anxiously from side to side. When he spotted the creature, he threw his hands up. “For goodness’ sake, Quirg! What is that beast doing here?”
Quirg clenched his spiked teeth. “I don’t know how it got in, but I will deal with it.”
“You’d better. If the secretary finds out …”
As if on cue, Ignatia�
�s voice echoed down the hall, her boots clacking as she hurried in their direction. She stopped, stared. “Oh, my!”
“MOOOOOO!”
“Your Eminence.” Shro moved beside her. “Please. You should return to the judicial chambers. I know how busy you are in these times of discord. So many criminals compromising the security and prosperity of the multiverse.”
Quirg nodded. “Yes, I will reroute this creature, which seems to have strayed from—”
“From Dimension7,” Shro interrupted, his voice sharp.
Ignatia frowned, her horns changing color. “I’ve traveled to Dim7 multiple times and never encountered one of these. What is it?” She stepped closer.
“I haven’t the slightest clue.” Quirg feigned ignorance.
“I believe it’s a bovinius lactosis. I implore you to distance yourself, Your Eminence. I hear they are quite dangerous. Vicious temper, infrared eye beams, or some such. See that hanging sack of poison?” Shro pointed at the cow’s udder. “I’ve heard it explodes when the beast is agitated, releasing a lethal toxin.”
Ignatia gasped. “How awful!”
“Indeed. Best to let Quirg handle this. As custodian, it is his job after all.” Shro shot Quirg a loaded look.
“Right.” Ignatia paused. “Although … do you think we should maybe … keep it? In the Menagerie, perhaps?”
“Absolutely not. We already have two of them.”
“We do? I hadn’t noticed. In that case, maybe we should move them into a more visible enclosure. There’s an empty habitat next to the colossadon. It howls all day long. Poor thing must be lonely.”
“Of course the colossadon is lonely! It ate every last one of its kind!”
“Well, yes. But even deadly beasts require some company, I’d imagine.” Ignatia stared at the cow. The cow stared back, blinking chocolate-brown eyes sweetly. “This one doesn’t look too threatening to me.”
“Looks can be deceiving, Your Eminence. You haven’t forgotten about the floofling incident, have you?” Flooflings looked like bunnies with soft lavender fur but bit like vipers. A litter had once devoured half the commissary’s fuelcell rations and chewed through some highly valuable data cables before anyone recognized what a menace they were.
“Such a shame. They were cute though, weren’t they?” Ignatia didn’t mention that she had kept a pair in her private chamber—carefully secured within a gnaw-proof tank. She fed them old electronics.
“You can never trust the cute ones, I say,” said Quirg. “They skew your judgment.” The cow batted her long lashes. Her tail swished from side to side. “See what I mean? Calculated manipulation!”
In reality, he knew that the creature was a harmless dairy cow that had slipped through a bothersome dimensional rip he hadn’t yet mended. But admitting that to the secretary could cost him his job. And he had thirty-nine children back on his home planet of Quomo to feed.
Ignatia’s wristlet buzzed. She glanced down. “I’m needed in the courtroom.”
“Go,” said Shro. “We have everything under control.”
“Thank you both. I appreciate your help.” She departed, leaving Quirg and Shro alone in Gate Hall.
“Was she serious about the Menagerie?” Quirg asked.
“Does it really matter? Get rid of that thing as quickly as possible,” Shro hissed, before marching away, the muscles in his hunched back rippling beneath his rust-colored suiting.
Quirg scowled. He led the cow toward a large barn door. He slid the red painted panel aside, revealing a lush green landscape with rolling hills covered in sweet, fragrant clover. Eight moons winked in the tangerine sky. “Off you go. I hear Mertanya is lovely this time of year. Safe travels,” he said, giving the cow a pat on the rump.
“MOOOOO!” the cow replied, trotting happily across the Threshold, her bell clanging softly as she disappeared.
11
EARTH
Glittering constellations danced across a simulated night sky. Chins tilted upward, mouths agape, the students of Conroy Middle School gazed at the auditorium’s curved ceiling as galaxies materialized, swirling and bursting with color and light. A recording narrated a cosmic journey, zipping between solar systems, orbiting burning balls of gas, dodging errant asteroids. The projection slowed, zoomed in.
A single planet came into focus: green and blue, capped with white poles and downy cloud wisps. Earth, the way it had looked before. Now, of course, the sapphire blues were muddled, the ice mostly gone, the clouds polluted and gray, the emerald greens pale and anemic, replaced in many places by barren browns. Maeve felt a pang in her chest; she wanted to know that version of Earth. She wanted to live there.
The lights came on; the nostalgic image disappeared. A microphone crackled and hummed over the speaker system.
“Greetings, Earthlings!”
Dev cringed. He knew that voice. To his horror, his father appeared, entering the stage backward, wiggling and shuffling, attempting the world’s most awkward moonwalk. Everyone cracked up. Everyone except Dev.
“Hello! Hello! What better way to enter NASA than with a moonwalk, am I right?” His eyebrows waggled. “My name is Dr. Mohan Khatri, head of the Quantum Studies department here at the Gwen Research Center. I’m happy to report that I am a much better physicist than dancer.” He busted a goofy move, making the kids laugh again.
Wait, were his classmates actually enjoying this? Dev sat up, listening carefully. The laughter sounded good-natured, not cruel or taunting. He’d heard the latter version enough times to recognize the difference. He started to relax. Maybe this wouldn’t be such an awful day after all.
“Since that animation was made, our planet has undergone major changes at a rapid pace,” Dr. Khatri said. “Sort of like puberty, which most of you are probably familiar with.”
Dev cringed. Had his dad really just said puberty? Gross.
“While unwelcome blemishes and funky body odor can be unpleasant, they are nothing compared to the challenges currently facing our planet. Here at NASA, our work is more critical than ever. We send probes into space to study far-reaching solar systems, and we develop innovative solutions to improve life here on Earth. Our satellites track weather patterns, tectonic activity, and more. We’ve sent humans to the moon and Mars. Although that last trip didn’t end according to plan, but that’s a story for another day …”
Dev shifted uncomfortably in his chair.
“So, are you an astronaut, or what?” Thaddeus asked, growing bored.
“Alas, I am not. My work focuses on a very unique field called catastro-physics, which means I study the way space, time, and matter react under calamitous or catastrophic conditions.”
“That sounds doomy,” Isaiah said quietly, wishing he could take notes in his journal.
“Do you get to blow stuff up?” Gage asked.
“As a general rule, I try not to,” Dr. Khatri replied. “In fact, I aim to do the opposite. Currently, my team is developing a range of exciting prototypes, including a Syntropitron.”
“A what?” Isaiah asked, perking up.
“Imagine reverse dynamite.”
“I hear that stuff is the bomb,” Lewis mused.
“Exactly!” Dr. Khatri said. “Instead of entropy—the chaos and disorder that occur when energy pushes particles apart—our patented syntropification process pulls mass, time, and space together. In theory, we could use the Syntropitron to rebuild and reconfigure individual atoms, repairing planetary damage at various scales.” An image appeared on the screen behind him.
“Here’s a demo video to illustrate the concept.” A glass vase sat on a table. A scientist wearing safety goggles smashed the vase with a hammer. Then, the scientist returned with a tubular contraption. She aimed the tapered edge at the broken vase. The machine shook, and a burst of fluorescent light leaped out in a searing arc. In the blink of an eye, shards of shattered glass re-composed themselves, as though someone had pressed rewind. The scientist stepped back and revealed the vase, wholly
intact, sitting on the table in its original location.
Maeve clapped enthusiastically from the front row.
“Thank you,” Dr. Khatri said. “My goal is to make our world better for future generations—which means you.” He gazed out at the crowd. “Because we are all stewards of this special place we call home.”
“Give me a break! That video was just a magic trick with some crummy special effects,” Gage said skeptically.
“You may think so, but what you witnessed was real. At this stage, our prototype is only capable of minor syntropification, but we hope to expand and improve the invention. Imagine if we could repair holes in the ozone, rebuild eroded shorelines, restore rainforest habitats. The possibilities are infinite.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Our biggest challenge is finding a sustainable fuel source capable of powering larger prototypes,” Dr. Khatri replied.
“Are you sure you’re not an astronaut?” Jamila asked hopefully.
“Again, I am not an astronaut.” Dr. Khatri sighed. “My jobs here at NASA include physicist, inventor, team leader, and occasional late-night tea-brewer. However, my favorite job is being a father. And, lucky me, my firstborn is here today! You may know him as Dev, but he’ll always be my little Dev-i-doodle.”
Dev froze. His mouth went dry. Everyone turned to stare. He wondered if it was scientifically possible to die from embarrassment. Like actually drop dead. Because he was feeling pretty close. He spotted Zoey looking at him across the auditorium. His face flushed Mars red. His skin felt approximately the same temperature as the surface of the sun. He ducked his head, wishing with all his might that a portal to an alternate dimension would suddenly open, offering an escape from this torture.
Thankfully, before his dad could do more damage, a woman in a charcoal suit and crisp white lab coat strode onto the stage, drawing everyone’s gaze. Her dark brown hair was swept into an elegant chignon. Her smile dazzled.
Mission Multiverse Page 6
