I fumble over the lawn mower, the cobwebbed high chair and rusted toolboxes. Slip the bike out of its place. Press my thumb into the wheels. They’re soft but they’ll get the job done.
The gears chatter as I push off. Maybe if I pedal hard enough, this bubblegum ten-speed can outrun what’s chasing me.
The straps of Danny’s duffel bag are still tangled around the handlebars from the last time we went out painting. The rest of it bangs against my knee as I pedal toward Acoma Park. I don’t have a plan; I’m just riding through the night looking for him, forcing my legs forward, peering into the shadows, moving from one amber patch of streetlight to the next. The sidewalk winds through the park, circling the playground at the far side.
There’s no sign of him.
Headlights approach. I pull the bike into the dark beneath a tree and wait. Please don’t let it be my parents. Have they even noticed yet that I’m gone? The car drives on and I push off again, heading toward school. Cold stars shine down on me. Exhausted and running on adrenaline, I’m trusting my gut to get me where I need to go.
The school campus is dark, of course, and locked up tight. I didn’t really think he’d go there. It was just a stop on the route. I ride past the teachers’ parking lot and head north, following a loose trajectory of street names and landmarks that Danny has mentioned, hoping to find the way. The night casts everything in shadows. I pass a chain-link fence, hear a barking dog. Three streets up, there it is. The dirt yard. The dead tree.
I’ve found the foster home.
The curtains are drawn and the lights are off. I park the bike between two cars in the neighbor’s driveway and wait. There isn’t any movement at the house, or anywhere on the block.
Then the porch light flicks on. The front door opens, and a woman smoking a cigarette walks outside. She stops at the curb and looks up and down the street before taking a few more puffs. The tip glows red in the darkness. A booming voice calls out from inside the house. “Sooz!” That must be Brent. Sooz takes her time with the cigarette, then tosses what’s left into the street. She turns and walks slowly back up the drive. The door closes and the light goes out.
My gut tells me Danny isn’t in there. Which means I’m wasting my time.
I retrace the route back to the park, the bag banging against my knees, the paint cans rattling.
Paint cans.
My legs pedal faster as I make another pass through the park (just to be sure) and then ride south to Thunderbird Road. I hang a right through the neighborhoods, my heart thumping inside my chest, and pass the strip malls and gas stations, cruising toward the Paseo Park overpass.
Danny isn’t here either.
The park is deserted. Only an occasional car rumbles across the bridge. I cross my arms over the handlebars and rest my head on them, exhaustion falling on me like a blanket. Then I let the bike crash to the sidewalk, and collapse onto the grass. I’ve never been so tired in my life. Not just tired. Gutted. I curl up on my side and the grass pricks at my arms. My eyes ache. I try to cry, but no tears come.
Empty.
I pick the bike up again from the sidewalk and push it under the overpass. The paint cans rattle and my eyes move to the ceiling. The bright paint glows through the shadows, the words and skulls and flowers. Beautiful impermanence.
Stillness settles over me as a terrible thought fills my mind: What if he’s gone? What if he had a nightmare episode, like that last one in the kitchen, and it took him and now he’s gone? For good?
I wouldn’t be able to do anything to change it. But if he’s gone, the least I can do is make sure the world knows he was here. I’ll make my own art, for him.
With uneven steps, I lug the bag up the incline of the overpass. My feet walk across the countless images. I brace the bag with my feet, pull my shirt up over my nose like he does and press my finger to the nozzle.
It’s as good a place as any. I couldn’t go back to Eevee’s house after the showdown with her parents. At least here, I’m in my element.
This body is in no shape to go on, every ounce of strength spent fighting to stay in control.
I stash the bike in a clump of bushes at the bottom of the trail. Someone will find it in the morning. Ride off with it. Give it a new life. It’s a trek to the overpass and my feet trudge like bricks. Whatever this is going on inside me, it feels like it won’t stop until it’s done me in. Maybe I should just lie down and give up. This body is in no shape to go on. In the morning, a jogger’ll find me. The cops’ll haul my meat off to a cooler. They’ll report it on the news. Unidentified body of a young man. John Doe. DOA.
Would it be me, though, or the other Danny? Either way, we both would probably be better off.
I drag myself to the base of the overpass and crumple to the concrete. The paintings swirl above me. I’ll just lie here and let the patterns carry me away. The hard ground bites into my shoulder blades, but I’m too tired to care.
The bridge shudders as a car drives overhead, then everything goes quiet. Just my shattered breathing.
And the sound of an aerosol can.
I lean up on my elbows and listen for it again. Squint my eyes and see a guy up in the space where the bridge meets the support. The can rattles and sprays. Rattles and sprays some more.
“Hey!” My voice is pinched. I cough and try again. “Hey!”
The hissing stops and the guy creeps into the shadows. Scared. But he doesn’t run.
“I didn’t mean stop,” I say. “Just don’t paint over the moon and her name, okay?”
The can clatters as it bounces down the incline. Crashes at the bottom and spins to a stop.
Amateur.
“Danny?”
Here come the voices again. I brace myself for the crush of pressure, the pulsing. But instead, there’s just one voice.
Hers.
“Danny!”
I drag myself to my feet and see her racing down the slope. She’s coming at me fast, dragging her feet to slow her descent. It takes all my strength to train my eyes on her and lock my feet to the ground.
She flies the last few feet, falls against me, and before I can even catch my breath, my arms are full of awesome.
“I’ve got you.” I squeeze her tight and kiss her face and hair.
“I thought you were gone.” Her cries echo off the overpass walls.
“I thought I was, too.” I look into her eyes. “Don’t let me go. Please. Don’t. Let me. Go.” Then my mouth is on hers and her lips taste like saltwater tears.
“Turn left here.”
She’s standing on the wheel pegs, her arms around my neck. Even though my legs feel like freaking Jell-O, just having her near keeps me going.
We turn off 51st Avenue and head down Country Gables. Looks familiar.
“Is school that way?” I point.
“Yeah.”
This is the neighborhood I ran through the day I arrived.
“This one.” She points to the one-story coming up on our right. I steer up the curb and into the gravel driveway. The house is dark. “I thought teachers lived as far away from school as possible.”
“Not Mac.”
I lean the bike against the low fence lining the yard, and feel the pressure build. Eevee grabs my hand and hurries me to the door. She knocks and paces and knocks again. It’s late. Really late. This is a bad idea. The static buzzes in my brain. I focus on her face and blink away the blurring.
“We should have done this a long time ago.” Her voice is purposeful. “We should have gone to Mac the moment you showed up.” She knocks again and looks through the window, then walks away toward the side of the house. I don’t know if she hears me whisper her name or hears me hitting the ground, but she’s at my side as the pressure crushes down.
“No, Danny!” Her face is in mine, and I try to fight. Try. But the haze takes over as I watch her lips saying my name.
The door to Mac’s shop opens, lighting up the driveway, then bangs shut and his footsteps hurry towa
rd us. “Eevee?”
“Help.” I cradle Danny’s head in my lap and watch his face twist in pain.
Mac crouches beside me and checks Danny’s pulse. He flips open his cell phone. “Calling 9-1-1.”
“Wait. Don’t.” Mac looks up, surprised. “He doesn’t need a doctor.” I don’t flinch from what I have to tell him. “He’s switching universes.”
The cell phone falls to the ground. Mac’s eyes don’t leave mine as he gropes around to find it. I can’t read his face. It isn’t shock or even confusion. He finds the phone and slips it into his pocket. “Get his feet.”
Mac catches Danny under the arms and lifts him up. I grab Danny’s legs and together we carry him inside. Mac bumps the light on with his shoulder. The front room is full of moving boxes, half-empty bookshelves and blank walls where pictures used to hang.
“What—?”
He ignores my reaction and kicks a stack of books from the couch. Danny groans as we lay him down. He claws at his chest. I kneel beside him and hold his hands.
“You have exactly ten seconds to tell me what is going on,” Mac says.
I take a deep breath and remind myself this is Mac I’m talking to. Someone I can trust. Then my words run together as everything spills out for the second time that night. Maybe, unlike my parents, he’ll believe me. “His name is Danny. He showed up at my house a couple of weeks ago. He’s from Phoenix, but not this Phoenix. He’s been having these episodes. He hears voices and sees things, like he’s stuck between here and somewhere else. Warren and I, we’ve been trying to figure out how he got here. We think it had something to do with an EMP. We’ve been trying to find you, to tell you what’s happened, but…Where have you been?”
“EMP? Is this why you and Warren—”
“Yes. You have to help him, Mac. Please.”
He runs a hand through his hair and starts muttering to himself. “Your parents know about this? That you’re here?”
“Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. They know about Danny, but…They think it’s crazy…They think I’m lying….” I trail off.
Before Mac has a chance to respond, Danny gasps and bolts upright. He stares wide-eyed at Mac, then sees me and exhales.
“You’re okay.” I keep my voice calm. “You’re okay.”
He coughs as he sits up, and touches his arms, like he’s checking to make sure they’re still there.
“What did you see this time?” I whisper. He shakes his head and looks away.
Mac makes a chair of the coffee table and leans in. “Follow with your eyes.” He holds a finger up and Danny tracks it. “Tired?”
“Exhausted.”
“Dizzy?”
“Yeah.”
“I know something that might help.” Mac walks to the kitchen and flips on the light. “Jumping puts an enormous strain on the body.”
Jumping?
The refrigerator door closes and Mac returns with a glass of orange juice. He hands it to Danny, who chugs the juice and hands the glass back empty. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome. If you keep your feet flat on the floor, it can ease the spinning. Deep breathing helps, too.”
What in the world?
He asks Danny if he can walk, then helps him up from the couch. I put my arm around Danny’s waist and let him lean on me. His shirt is soaked with sweat.
We shuffle down the hallway to Mac’s office. “Are you claustrophobic?”
Danny shakes his head. Mac flicks on a light. The pale walls are covered in scrawled-on whiteboards and schematics. Against the near wall stands a desk strewn with books and more moving boxes, and on top of a metal table in the far corner is a glass chamber.
“What is that thing,” I ask, “an electric coffin?”
“Hyperbaric chamber.” Mac flips a switch, lighting up the console. “Oxygenates the cells.” He opens a door at the far end of the machine.
“Like what they use for divers?” Danny asks.
“Exactly.” The machine powers up. “Make yourself comfortable.”
Danny squeezes my hand before climbing inside.
“It won’t hurt him?” I hate seeing him lying there.
“It’ll make him feel like a million bucks.”
“What do you use it for?”
Mac adjusts the settings. “To feel like a million bucks.” He presses a button, and a timer on the console begins to tick down.
“What’s with all the moving boxes?” I ask. “Where are you—”
“Solomon!” Warren rushes into the room, holding our research binder in his hand. “I heard the yelling at your house and saw you leave. I’ve been looking for you all over— Whoa!” He turns to Mac. “You have a hyperbaric chamber?”
“I do.” Mac doesn’t look up from the console.
“Can I try it next?”
“No.” He presses a green button and speaks louder for Danny’s benefit. “All good?”
Danny gives him a thumbs-up through the little round window in the chamber door. Mac nods and turns back to me and Warren.
“Mac?” Warren’s hands grip the binder tight. “Why did Murray fire you?”
Mac sighs and walks over toward us. “I haven’t been fired. I’m on leave.”
My mind races. “Administrative leave?”
“Something like that.”
“Then why the moving boxes?”
“It’s complicated.” Mac closes his eyes for a moment. “I have to go away for a while.”
“No.” I look at Warren. This can’t be happening.
“Does this have to do with those guys in suits?” Warren asks.
Mac leans back against the desk and stares up at the ceiling. “Yes. Partially.” He looks at us again. “CIA. They came around asking about unorthodox experiments.”
“They knew about the EMP?” I ask.
Warren’s mouth falls open. “How did they find out?”
“I could ask you the same question,” Mac says, one eyebrow raised. “I never turned in that science fair application. If you recall, I told you guys no. But here you two show up talking like you’ve gone through with it.” He walks back over to the hyperbaric chamber to check on Danny.
Warren looks at me, his face harsh. “What did you do?”
“Me? You think it’s my fault they found out?” I put my hands on my hips. “You’re the one whose computer got hacked.”
I glare at Warren, and he glares at me. The cartoon Tesla on his T-shirt glares, too. It’s the same shirt he was wearing the day we started building the Faraday cage. The same day he had a date with…
“Missy.” Warren groans and his head falls into his hands.
“Bivins?” Mac asks.
“You told her, didn’t you?” I knew it. It’s all I can do not to rip the goggles off his face.
“I didn’t think she’d figure it out, but…Wow. She’s even smarter than I thought.” He looks up from his hands. “On one of our dates, we told each other our deepest secrets. She said it would be romantic….”
I so don’t want to hear this.
“I told her about Project DELIVR—”
“Warren,” I say, through gritted teeth.
“But I told it to her in Elvish, so she wouldn’t understand. Except…”
“She speaks Elvish.” I sigh. “Your Elvish-speaking girlfriend ratted us out.”
“Ex-girlfriend.” His face is dark.
“Regardless of who told them,” Mac says, walking over to the window, “they found out.” He lifts one of the slats on the blinds and peers through the gap. “Looks like they’re gone again.”
“Who?”
“The spooks in the white van.”
Warren and I exchange looks.
“But if we’re the ones who built the EMP,” I ask, “why are they after you?”
Mac lets the slat fall closed again. He turns and gives me a grim smile. The hyperbaric chamber chimes and he walks over to check the dials, leaving my question unanswered. “I wish I’d known the real reason yo
u were researching EMPs.”
Danny’s eyes are closed. He looks so peaceful. “Will oxygen fix him?”
“That depends on what’s wrong.”
“You don’t know?”
Mac shakes his head. “Not yet.” He eases the numbers on the console down to zero and opens the door.
Danny climbs out and stretches. “That was awesome.”
“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Mac closes the door again and powers down the machine. “Let me guess. You’re starving.”
“Totally.”
“How about a late-night snack? And a chat to go with it.”
That hyper-whatever chamber is amazing. Here it is, almost eleven, I showed up totally fried, and now I feel like I could run a marathon.
I chow down on the chips and salsa Mac’s put on the table and continue telling him my story. “Next thing I know, I’m in that classroom with that crazy Fish lady glaring at me.”
Mac raises an eyebrow. “You mean Ms. Fischbach.”
“Right, Fischbach.” I drain my can of soda and open a second. Warren’s across from me, scribbling in a notebook. The dude never takes a break. He probably does word problems in his sleep.
“What day was this again?” Mac sets a sandwich on a paper towel in front of me and I tear into it. Roast beef with mustard and cheddar. My stomach groans with relief.
Warren stops writing and flips back through the notebook. “He showed up two Fridays ago.”
That’s all? It feels longer than that. I look at Eevee, but she’s eyeing Mac.
“Huh.” Mac makes a thinking face. “And you suspect it was an EMP detonation that sent you jumping? Not…something else.”
Mac asked me, but Warren answers. “The sort of explosion he described may have propelled him across the room, but not into the next universe. There had to be some other factor to cause such a dramatic event. The energy surge from an EMP might have been what it took to escalate things to the next level.”
“An EMP wouldn’t affect you physically,” Mac says. “Unless you had some kind of implanted device.”
Warren points to the notebook. “No implants.”
Now That You're Here (Duplexity, Part I) Page 17
