Run (The Tesla Effect #2)

by Julie Drew

  “Wait, when did she go—exactly what time was it?” Finn asked suddenly.

  Sam considered. “I’m not sure…probably around one thirty or so this morning.”

  Finn thought back to his restless night, the agitation he’d assumed was due to the kiss he’d witnessed between Sam and Tesla, the unpleasant surprise he felt over how much he cared that they’d kissed at all. But he’d managed to settle down after a while, had been listening to Miles Davis, was almost asleep in fact, when he’d suddenly felt a surge of such extreme, mixed emotions, with absolutely no source for any of it that he could identify, that he’d been thrown wide awake again and left utterly confused. His heart had pounded in inexplicable anticipation, he’d felt fear in his gut, nervous tension in his muscles, worry, and, bizarrely, a sense of triumph, happiness even. And all of it jumbled up—tangled up, he realized suddenly.

  He’d felt what Tesla felt, just as she’d made the jump back in time.

  “What is it?” Jane asked, watching his face.

  “There’s been a…development,” said Finn, aware from his peripheral vision that Sam was paying very careful attention.

  “What sort of development?” Jane asked, her tone brisk, but wary.

  “Bizzy will have to fill you in on the particulars, but it seems as though something happened to Tesla and I when we made the jump together last summer. We’re entangled—that’s the quantum physics term, not mine,” he added hastily when Jane frowned. He didn’t even look at Sam.

  “It seems as though we are bound together, connected in some way that causes us each to experience what the other one experiences, physically and emotionally, at the same exact moment.”

  “This is a real thing?” asked Jane, who already had her phone out, her finger poised over the touchscreen.

  “Yes, according to Bizzy,” said Finn.

  “I’ll get back to you,” she said, already turning and walking out of the room. “I have to make some calls, find out what this means.”

  “Entangled,” said Sam, and it was a statement, not a question.

  “So it seems.”

  “You feel what she feels?”

  “Can’t say I know very much about it at this point.”

  Sam couldn’t help himself. “So you know, then, how our date went last night. And when we—well, you must already be aware.”

  Finn looked at him for a moment, dread giving way to amusement and then relief, relief that he could feel amused, did feel amused. Sam, clearly trying to make Finn think the worst, had just told him exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

  “Oh, you guys went out last night? Funny, I didn’t feel a thing.”

  “Okay, you two are seriously getting on my last nerve,” said Keisha thirty minutes later, arms crossed over her chest as she frowned at Finn and Sam.

  “Much as this pains me, I have to agree with her,” said Beckett, one slim, perfect leg draped over the arm of the overstuffed club chair she sat in as she ignored the glare Keisha sent her way.

  “Sorry if we’re annoying you,” said Sam in a somewhat peevish tone.

  “You don’t have to be here, Keish,” Finn pointed out. “Why are you here, anyway?”

  “I texted her. Don’t let it go to your head,” said Beckett, turning briefly to Keisha.

  “And Keisha texted me,” Malcolm added. “Though why I wasn’t included in the original text is unclear. I’ll just send you my contact info now, Beckett. In case you don’t have it.” He was already busy with his phone.

  “As I was saying, your cousin is right, Finn. Let’s just try to stick to the issue at hand rather than devolving into some testosterone-laden death match, mm-kay? It’s gross.” Beckett had apparently decided that pretending she didn’t know Keisha’s name would prove annoying and, as usual, she was right.

  “Finn does have a point, Beckett,” Bizzy said. “This is Sam’s fault.”

  Sam had had enough. “How many times do I have to explain that this already happened?” He turned to Finn. “We agreed to let things unfold the way we know they did, to not interfere with the past and change things. You agreed.”

  “That’s true.” Finn met Sam’s eyes without flinching, his head tipped just slightly as he considered this.

  Everyone waited. All eyes were on Finn, anticipating the come-back, the ruthless verbal cut, the witty deathblow, the resulting argument—it’s what Finn and Sam had been doing for the last half hour.

  “What?” Finn said, looking around in surprise. “He’s right. That’s what we all agreed to do. Or, rather, not to do.”

  “So we can move on, then?” asked Keisha, doubting her cousin’s ability to leave it at that. “Or do you have some feats of strength you two want to demonstrate only to be ultimately humiliated, because I’m pretty sure I’m stronger than both of you.”

  Gratified by Joley’s muffled laughter and Bizzy’s inability to stifle her grin, Keisha took control of the meeting. “So what do we know, my little spylettes?”

  Finn spoke immediately. “We know that Tesla jumped back about twelve hours ago, and we know from the time machine settings that she is, just like us, in—on—November seventh. Sam, you were the last one to see her, anything you want to add?”

  Sam cleared his throat before he spoke. “She said she’d had an awful day, and even though she didn’t jump because of that, I think it added to her general frame of mind. The main thing was that she was worried and upset because she thought Dr. Abbott knew something about her mom’s death. Something he was hiding. She said she needed information. That’s why she went back.”

  “Why doesn’t she just talk to her dad?” said Beckett, incredulous. “Dr. Abbot is a sweetheart.”

  “I don’t know, but she said she heard her dad say something himself that made her think he’s not telling her everything—she didn’t say what she heard, but whatever it was, it really shook her.”

  “Hm. Well, she might just be a little melodramatic. Hard to imagine Dr. Abbott harboring important info about his dead wife. Though I guess protocol is protocol, and it’s a possible lead. Should we talk to Max?” asked Beckett, turning to Finn.

  “I don’t think so,” said Finn. “It doesn’t strike me that Tes would want us to involve him, and we have no reason to think he knows anything.”

  “What about Jane, then?” asked Joley. He had been standing in the doorway the whole time, leaning against the frame and listening.

  “What do you mean?” asked Bizzy. “She already knows about the entanglement, and she knows Tesla jumped.”

  “Right, but this little meeting was called for a reason. Is there a decision that needs to be taken? Something we should do? Let’s be honest, at least, or we’ll make a cock-up of this whole thing. It can’t be a bloody accident that we’ve gathered only after Jane left, can it? Let’s have it then.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment, and then Finn spoke up. “I don’t think we need to consult Jane, at least at the moment. She knows the facts, just like Bizzy said, and if she had a job for us to do related to this, she’d be the one calling the meeting. Seems obvious that she’s not acting on this in any way that involves us.”

  Joley looked at him, considering. “Okay. True enough, as far as you go, but don’t be a prat, mate. What else?”

  Finn looked right back, and neither of them blinked. Finally, Finn surprised everyone but Joley by laughing. “You win,” he conceded. “I think Jane is too close to this—we haven’t come together to have this conversation because Tesla has used the time machine again. We’re here because of why Tesla jumped back, because there seems to be some mystery as to how Tasya Petrova Abbott died.”

  Joley’s obsidian eyes glittered suspiciously, though there was no trace of laughter about his mouth or in his voice when he said, “And?”

  “And,” Finn continued. “Tesla is suspicious of the role her father might have played in her mother’s death—and we all know that where Tasya and Greg Abbott were, Jane Doane was, as well.”

  Fi
nally, Joley grinned. “That wasn’t so sodding hard, now, was it?”

  “Yes, where the Abbotts were, Jane was,” said Beckett slowly. “And, where Sebastian Nilsen was—and is again.”

  And there it was, now that Beckett had voiced the one thing they had all tried to avoid thinking, let alone saying out loud, the fact that Nilsen was alive eight years ago, skulking around the Abbott’s lab and their research into time travel, and the very confusing—and disturbing—fact that the older version of Nilsen had, just last summer, escaped from Jane Doane and her agents by jumping back in the time machine to that very time and place. So they understood, as much as they were able to, that there were two Nilsens at large doing who knew what, exactly when and where Tesla had arrived the night before.

  “So what are we saying?” asked Malcolm. “What can we possibly do about all this from eight years in the future?”

  “Research,” said Finn and Joley at exactly the same moment.

  “Courthouse?” Finn asked his best friend.

  “Obviously. Newspaper archives?”

  Finn nodded. “And maybe the police file room. They have an intern clerking there this semester, and she sometimes lets me sneak in and look at old case files. You know, off the books.”

  “‘Old case files’?” Beckett asked, one eyebrow raised. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

  Keisha snorted.

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Isley,” Finn said. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”

  “God, Finn, we don’t need Max here to spot Jane Austen quotes. And, really? Jane Austen?”

  “The ladies love it,” Finn said with mock seriousness. “And what, pray tell, are you planning to contribute to this group effort?”

  “I’ve been researching a couple of hate groups through the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Beckett said slowly. “For my Honors thesis. Religious extremists. One of them—One God, One Truth, they’re called—is focused on scientific research that receives government funding. Yesterday I came across a mention of Dr. Abbott in an internal email of theirs and—look it’s got nothing to do with the death of Tesla’s mother. They didn’t even exist as a group eight years ago, but I feel like I want to follow up. The email called the work of Dr. Abbott and two other scientists, both physicists at the University of Connecticut, “an abomination against God.”

  Malcolm spoke up. “Are they dangerous?”

  “I don’t know,” Beckett said. “They could be. I’ve got a conference call with the Center tomorrow to see what they know about the group, if there’ve been any new developments.”

  “Can I be there?” Malcolm asked. “I won’t say a word, I promise, but I want to help. I’ve known Dr. A my whole life. How could his work be an abomination?”

  Beckett looked at him for a moment, his clear, light gray eyes, the long blonde bangs that fell into them. “Okay,” she said, without elaboration. “Be here at two thirty. I’ll make the call at three, and I’ll give you some background first.”

  Malcolm nodded once, satisfied, and Bizzy spoke up. “I’m learning everything I can about entanglement,” she said. “I’ve found a few speculative papers, all very abstract and not pertaining to human subjects, of course. I’m afraid this is brand new territory, except in fiction, maybe. If we get to a point where that’s all we’ve got, we may decide to talk to Max after all.”

  Sam spoke, tentatively. “I might be able to get access to the files down in the Medical Examiner’s office at the hospital. You know, the official coroner’s report and the death certificate for Dr. Petrova.”

  “Good,” said Finn, looking around the group and settling on Sam. “The more we can find out, the more help we’ll be to Tes when she gets back. Which is soon, right?”

  Sam calmly returned his pointed look. “You know I won’t say.” But he sounded reluctant as he ran his hand through his short, dark hair. “I’m not going to tell you or anyone else what I remember about any of this. Which, I want to stress, is not that much. I have a partial understanding of what took place—what is, now, taking place—eight years ago. But that’s all.”

  “We get it,” said Bizzy, however grudgingly. “No hints.”

  “Well—,” Sam hesitated, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Well what?” asked Finn sharply.

  “I think it’s okay to say—I mean, I just want to say one thing, which isn’t really information, I don’t think, just my own feeling about some stuff I’m not that sure about.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Beckett, who was not exactly a patient person, even under the best of circumstances.

  “I’m talking about time,” said Sam firmly.

  “Yeah, that’s not ambiguous in this context,” muttered Keisha, earning a quick grin from Bizzy.

  All eyes on him now, and a renewed tension in the room, Sam looked uncomfortable and unhappy to have brought it up at all.

  “What about time?” Finn asked.

  “It’s running out,” said Sam. “Tesla is…look, things are happening fast now, and there’s a lot we don’t know. We need to hurry.”

  CHAPTER 8

  “So,” said Sam as he handed Tesla his helmet, swung his leg over and sat down on the patched leather seat. “What are you doing here?”

  Tesla grinned as she tightened the chin strap and pulled the mirrored visor down, despite the darkness, so that only her mouth and the dimples on either side were visible in the lights of the parking lot. “Wow, you’re that happy to see me, huh?”

  Sam—this younger Sam, sweetly earnest and a total failure at hiding his feelings—looked down and fiddled with the ignition, clearly embarrassed.

  “No, yeah, of course I am,” he said, finally looking up. “But, you know. Last time you came for a reason, and you had a plan.” He revved the engine once, as a vent for his feelings, and then moved his head once, sharply, toward the bike.

  “Get on.”

  Tesla climbed up behind him and loosely wrapped her arms around his waist. “Full use of all my limbs this time,” she said happily, leaning over his shoulder so he could hear her above the sound of the motor.

  “So I see,” he said, a trace of amusement and a hint of the cool—and, let’s face it, Tesla thought, sexy—man he would become.

  “Where to?”

  They sped through town and out into the countryside, in less than fifteen minutes, content with their thoughts and the feel of each other’s bodies where they pressed against one another, clothes, and the vibrations of the motor and the tires speeding over rough pavement the only things between them. Tesla pondered Sam’s question about where she wanted to go, to which she had only answered, “Somewhere we can talk.” She assumed they would go to a coffee shop or some other quiet venue, but the focus of her thoughts was not on where, but rather on what she would say to him. Things were trickier now. She knew Sam in two different times, he was in many ways two different people to her, and she wasn’t sure if it was possible to keep them separate—in terms of information she might accidentally spill, but also in terms of her feelings about him, which were not exactly clear.

  Tesla realized that Sam was headed for the field he’d taken her to the last time, when she’d thought she’d been seen by her father here, in the past, and blown everything. It was also the open land an older Sam would one day buy, and on which he would build a little cabin back in the trees—the little cabin where he had kissed her. Where he would kiss her, she corrected herself. She was beginning to understand how difficult it was to know things about the future when it was your own past, and to have to try to keep that knowledge from changing anything.

  Sam drove slowly into the field and they left the motorcycle to walk and talk, their boots crunching the dead grass and faded flowers that had bloomed so beautifully in the summer, the single headlight from Sam’s bike illuminating a narrow swath of the field.

  “So?” Sam prompted. “What are you doing here this time?”

  “I have no idea,” Tesla said
.

  “Well that’s helpful.”

  “I know. Things are just… let’s just say things have gotten weird at home. Plus,” she continued, remembering her conversation with the older Sam just before she jumped, and trying to assure the future unfolded as it was supposed to, added, “I had a really shitty day and all guys are asshats.” Tesla congratulated herself on an obviously flawless attempt to not screw things up. She was going to be a boss at this.

  “Tesla, what the hell are you talking about?” Sam said, utterly confused.

  Tesla laughed, crossing into the glaring brilliance of the headlight, which dramatically picked out the fiery colors in her hair in sharp contrast to the predawn darkness outside its beam. “I know, I know. This is not as weird as it seems at the moment.”

  “If you say so,” he said.

  They walked on, their unspoken agreement to stay in the open and skirt the trees guiding their steps. Tesla’s mood, so dark and quick to change lately, did another one-eighty.

  “I’m not sure why I’m here in terms of a specific plan, but I do have reasons for coming,” she said. “My mom—no, scratch that,” she amended hastily. Unbelievable, she berated herself. Almost the first thing you do is tell Sam your mom is supposed to die in a few days? He knows she dies, but not when or how. Keep it that way.

  “Sebastian Nilsen, the guy who kidnapped my dad last summer, managed to jump back here in the time machine—we don’t understand what happened, he had a gun on me, made me jump with him, but I somehow stayed and he made the jump. Anyway, he’s here, as far as we know. Both of him, I guess. And he’s dangerous, and I want to find out what he’s up to.” It wasn’t exactly not true, and it certainly seemed plausible, and that was all she needed for the moment.

  “Wait, what?” Sam was incredulous. “The guy’s criminally insane, a kidnapper, and there are two of him—and both of them are here?”

  “Yeah,” she said, unable to keep the grin from her face. “Weird, I know. But there are two of me here, too.”