by Rose, Imogen
I didn’t want to leave the airport, not while Kellan and Ariele were still there. However, knowing that Mom wouldn’t let me just hang around here on my own, I said I would, and she said she would text me the details of the hotel.
“And don’t disappear anywhere else,” she said sharply. “We—I am bringing Larry, Glenda, and Pierre—will be there as soon as we can get a flight out.”
“Okay. Text me the details.”
As soon as she cut the call, I touched David’s number.
“Hey! What’s up? Thought you’d be on your flight by now.”
I explained what had happened.
“Sit tight, I’m on my way.”
Sitting tight on that toilet was the last thing I wanted to do. The whole place reeked, no thanks to me. I made sure to clean myself up and get decent before I exited back into the terminal. I walked back over to the security line, which had gotten much longer and busier, and I couldn’t see the TSA agents through the crowd. I walked over to the nearest bench and sat down, my eyes glued to the security line, wondering where Kellan and Ariele had been taken.
I looked down at my cell phone when the text tone sounded. It was Mom telling me that Kellan had called Larry, and Glenda had spoken with Ariele.
I called her. “Just got your text. What’s happening with them?”
“Thankfully, Kellan had the presence of mind to remind them that he and Ariele are minors and that they needed to call their parents before they would answer any questions. Ariele followed suit. They were both allowed to call their parents and are now waiting for them to arrive. Our flight leaves in forty minutes.”
“Are they just going to wait in the TSA office or wherever they’re being held until you guys get here, in like six hours?”
“I guess. There is only so much I can do from here,” Mom said. “I do wish your dad was here. I have no idea how to get in touch with him.”
“Yeah. He could wander them both out of there.” Maybe David would know how to get a word to the Elders in Mountain View and have them get in touch with Dad.
“Okay, we’re boarding. I’ll call you when we land. Get some sleep. There isn’t much you can do.”
I sat and waited for David, hunching over to hide my face when I noticed a couple of hovering reporters. As time went by, more of them seemed to appear, all hanging around, killing time.
“Hey, Poppet.” David slid down on the bench next to me. “Never a dull moment with you guys.”
“I can do with a bit of dull right about now.”
“Let’s get out of here while you update me. Is the press here for Ariele?”
“Sheesh, I hope not!” I kept my face lowered as we walked out to his Harley, which was parked right outside.
“Move along!” a traffic cop shouted, as we scrambled on and rode away. David pulled off ten minutes later into a hotel parking lot. We didn’t go inside but sat facing each other on his bike.
“I could contact my mom and have her find your dad, but your mom will probably get here first. She’s already on her way, right?”
I nodded.
“In that case, I think we should wait for her. If she still wants me to get your dad when she arrives, I will.”
“But what if something terrible happens to Ariele and Kellan in the meantime?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know! Torture?” I threw that out at him. It wasn’t like that never happened.
“I seriously doubt that’s even a remote possibility. You said that the TSA agent knew Ariele… so they are probably just holding them until their parents arrive. It’s not like they’ve broken any laws.”
“No, but Kell’s driver’s license isn’t going to check out.”
“That’s true. All the same, they’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure you’re right. I just keep imagining them sitting in a small, dark cell with no food or water and one of those metal toilets.”
“That’s what a trip to Alcatraz does to you.” He smiled. “The bigger worry is what excuse Ariele and her parents will come up with to explain their disappearance. I am sure they thought they’d have much longer to come up with a plan, and now they suddenly have only five hours or so to come up with something.”
“I know, right? And what about Kellan? I wish he hadn’t gone in with her.”
David shook his head. “It’s a mess. I can’t even wander them away. There is no way I could get in there. We’d need a Sigma-W.”
“You rang?”
I gasped as Stan appeared.
“Where did you come from? How did you know I was here?”
“Who is this?” David put his hand on my shoulder, probably ready to wander me off.
“Keep your shirt on. I’m a friend of Arizona’s.”
“It’s okay, David. I know him.” I turned to Stan. “So? What are you doing here? In the middle of nowhere, New Jersey?”
“Stalking you. I was bored, and you do seem to live to keep me entertained—like David here said, never a dull moment.”
“Sheesh, you need to get a life! Want me to talk to Dad and see if you can go back to work with the Sigma-Ws?”
“Maybe. Not right now, though. I don’t want to be a part of the war going on in the other dimension. And once it’s over, I’d like to go back to university, if there’s still one standing. If not, I may switch to this dimension. I’ve got to say it’s boring here, though, with no paranormals around. Anyhow, it seems you need me? You want me to break your boyfriend out? And that girl, Ariele?”
“You can do that?”
“Yep, no problem.”
“Wait,” David said. “Let’s just think this through.”
“What’s to think about?” I asked. “Seems like the obvious thing to do since Stan offered so nicely. I might even ignore his whole stalking problem.” I rolled my eyes at Stan.
“Just say the word,” Stan said.
“What if Ariele’s parents have come up with a plan that fits in with what’s happening? Just having her disappear from a TSA office will make it even more difficult for them to come back and live here.”
“But just like ten minutes ago, you said that there was no way they could have come up with a plan,” I protested.
“Point is,” David continued, “we don’t know what they want to do. Maybe they will come up with a plan. Don’t you think it’s better to wait for them? Let them decide if they want to have Stan rescue Ariele. I just think you—we—need to stop meddling.”
“That’s not going to work for me.” Stan put his hands up.
“Why not?” David asked.
“I don’t want to reveal my identity to Ariele’s folks and certainly not to Arizona’s mom. Being Potomal’s son and all that…”
“Hey, is your dad responsible for the bloodbath at the ice rink? I take it you saw that if you’ve been stalking me.”
He shrugged.
“Is that all you’re not going to say?”
He nodded.
I couldn’t blame him for wanting to stay out of it. “Can you just rescue Kellan, then? He’s not going to move here, so his disappearance won’t cause him any problems.”
“Think it through, Poppet. The consequences won’t matter to him, but they will affect Ariele,” David pointed out.
He was right. Just vanishing Kellan away would call even more attention to Ariele.
“I take it that’s a no?” Stan yawned.
“No, that’s not it at all. We do have to break Kell out, but I guess we need to wait for our parents to arrive and decide the best strategy. Can you like… hover? Is there a way I can message you to let you know when to do it?”
He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Just tell me when, but make sure not to mention me to anyone. You’ll just have to make up your own stories to cover for me, and they can’t include me in any way.”
“Yeah, no worries.” I had become an expert at fictionalizing the truth.
Five hours. That’s the amount of time the
Moreaus had to figure out how to deal with this conundrum. Olivia peeked over to the seats in front of her and noticed Glenda and Pierre, tête-à-tête, deep in conversation. Unfortunately, the noise from the jet engine wasn’t going to allow her to listen in.
“How do you think they’ll get this resolved?” Olivia asked Larry, who sat next to her, eyes closed.
“They’ve been forced to face the situation now, so I guess they will dive into it and try to handle it as best they can. I just hope they come up with something simple to try to explain their absence. To be honest, I was thinking about how to deal with Kellan. At least Ariele is in the clear, but I can’t see an easy way out for Kellan. He won’t even be in the system. His driver’s license number is probably nonexistent in this dimension. I just hope that he keeps quiet until we arrive.”
Olivia nodded. “You don’t think Kell would try to explain this to the TSA?”
“This? As in we came through a portal from another dimension…? No. Kellan’s too smart to say anything to them.”
“We don’t even know if the TSA has detained them at all. For all we know, the officer just wanted to catch up with Ariele—”
“True, but even that will lead to questions about where she has been. Hopefully they’ll concentrate on her and ignore Kellan as just someone traveling with her. Huge problem if they check his license, though.”
“Olivia, may I speak with you?” Glenda peeked over from her seat. “Larry, switch with me for a while.”
“So?” Olivia asked once Glenda was seated.
“Any way we play this, it’s going to be a circus. I could try to come up with a story, but will that stop the press from hounding us or investigative journalists from trying to find out exactly what happened? If we feed them a made-up story, we’ll end up looking like liars. And that will likely be far worse than remaining silent.”
Olivia had been racking her brain to come up with some story that would hold up, but a year was a long time to try to explain away. Could they really get away by saying nothing at all? “Is that legally acceptable?”
“Remember when I excused myself in the airport lounge? I didn’t really go for a cup of coffee. I called my girlfriend Donna. Donna’s a lawyer. She said we have every right to maintain silence. It’s not like we’ve done anything illegal. She did point out that the press will put enormous pressure on us to talk to them, and not saying anything may fuel their interest even more. They’ll probably camp outside and stalk us until another story catches their interest.”
“How do you think Ariele’s going to cope with it?”
Glenda shrugged. “Hard to tell. She is very strong, and she won’t want to do anything that will make it difficult for her to stay here with her friends. It will be hard for her, for all of us. I never aspired to be in the public eye, and now we’re being thrust right into it.”
“Are you sure you want to do this? You could still come back to the other dimension.”
“No, that’s not what we want at all. And it’s not like that’s even possible. The press will have a field day stalking us.”
It was possible, of course. Olivia could easily ask Rupert to wander them back home, but there was no need to bring that up with Glenda. Her mind was made up.
“The way I see it, Kellan poses the biggest problem. He is the only real reason that the TSA has to hold them at all. His driver’s license won’t check out. What are we going to do about him?”
Olivia nodded. “I’m going to discuss this further with Larry now that I know your strategy. Talk again after I’ve done that?”
Larry and Glenda changed seats again, Larry looking lost in thought as he stretched back.
“Pierre just gave me an update,” he said. “That leaves us trying to get Kellan out of this mess. Pierre felt that it would be best if Kellan and Ariele claim not to know each other. If they did say that they knew each other, then they can clarify that they met at the airport.”
“Okay, and then what? Hopefully Ariele will be allowed to walk away with her parents, but what about Kellan?” She paused. “Rupert?”
“Good idea, but how do we get in touch with him?”
“I’ll call Morena and ask her. She’s still at SETI in this dimension, right?”
Larry nodded.
Olivia played out the various scenarios in her mind, going through the plan Glenda had decided upon. She’d have to distance herself from the Moreaus as soon as they got to Newark. The press would surround them in a matter of hours, and Olivia couldn’t afford to be spotted. That would incite a whole different kind of attention… from Dillard, perhaps even from her own doppelganger…
“I am so tempted to see my doppelganger,” she said to Larry. She’d already told him about her conversation with Celia.
“I think your first instinct is the best one—just let it be. You may have more than one. Heck, we all may! There’s probably a plethora of Larrys scattered around in various dimensions.” He paused, looking somber.
“Larry? You are probably right, but what’s with the face?”
“It just occurred that one of those Larrys might still have his Christine.”
Olivia’s mind wandered back to happy times spent with Larry and his wife around the firepit at their house in Mountain View. “I guess that’s possible, but not here in this dimension.” This was where she had died.
“No.” He sighed. “I could spend my life looking, though.”
She took his hand. He could, or he could go on living the life he had right at this moment. Choices—those always came with repercussions. She’d certainly learned about that. Her doppelganger was living the life she had chosen, good or bad. Olivia wasn’t about to judge her doppelganger’s choices. Nothing would be gained from tracking the other Olivia. In fact, interfering would probably force her doppelganger to make different choices. And she’d done a lifetime’s worth of that. Olivia understood that it was time to move on and deal with her own challenges, Wanderers included.
As they prepared to land, Olivia slid her hand through the seats in front of her and squeezed Glenda’s. “Ready?” she whispered.
“Ready as I’ll ever be. I guess we say our goodbyes now?”
“I am going to miss you.”
“And I will miss you, Olivia. This is for the best, though. You will take care of Kellan, won’t you? We are just about to deny any knowledge of him.”
“Of course, Glen. Goodbye, and all the very best.”
Olivia and Larry stayed seated, letting Glenda and Pierre leave the flight before they gathered their belongings and walked into the terminal. Olivia turned her cell back on and found out that she'd just missed a call from Arizona. She called her back.
“Hello… Mom?”
“Yes, where are you, Arizona?”
“I left the hotel and am back in Terminal C—where are you?”
“Terminal C. I should be able to get to you in just a few minutes,” Olivia reassured her daughter.
“Mom, the terminal is swarming with reporters. I’m in the restroom by the elevator. It’s downstairs by the Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk, near baggage carousel three.”
Olivia nodded to Larry as they followed Arizona’s directions. She noticed the press mulling around just as Arizona had said. Was this because of Ariele, or were they waiting for some celebrity?
“Wow, check that out!” Larry pointed to a crowd in the distance.
“Glenda and Pierre?” She squinted, trying to see.
“Yep,” Larry confirmed.
“I hope they’re okay. Arizona is in here.” She stopped by the restroom. “I am going to get her. We should get out of here as soon as possible. Let’s get to a hotel and talk where it’s safe.”
“Sounds sensible. While you get Arizona, I’ll call Morena and ask her to contact Rupert.”
The restroom seemed empty. Was this the right one? Olivia tapped open each empty stall door. “Arizona?” she called out.
The door to the handicapped stall swung open, and Arizona rush
ed out and hugged Olivia. “I am so glad you’re here,” she whispered. “David’s here as well.”
“David? How? Where is he?”
David walked out of the stall where Arizona had been hiding.
“Hello, Dr. Darley. We thought it was best to hide out until you got here.”
“Good thinking. Now let’s get out of here. We’ll talk when we get to the hotel.” She took Arizona’s hand and rushed her out the door, with David following close behind. “Let’s go, Larry!”
They rushed out of the terminal and hailed a cab.
As soon as the cab pulled away, Arizona said, “Mom, did Ari—”
“Wait until we get to the hotel,” she said throwing a glance at the cab driver.
She could see the frustration in Arizona’s face as they got stuck in traffic. “We’ll be there soon,” she soothed. Twenty minutes later, after what should have been a five-minute cab ride, they were locked in an airport hotel room. Even though they had no intention of staying there for more than an hour or so, Olivia couldn’t help being disgusted by the musty smell. She scrunched up her nose.
“Sorry, Ollie. It was the closest one. I had no idea it would be this foul.”
“No matter, Larry. Thanks for organizing it. Did you get hold of Morena?”
“I did. She’s on her way to Inez, and I guess there is some kind of chain of command, but the message will be delivered to Rupert.” He looked at David. “How did you get here?”
“It’s my job to keep Arizona safe,” he replied.
Olivia caught the look on Arizona’s face as David spoke and wondered what that was all about.
“Good,” Larry said to David. “If you were a Sigma-W, we could ask you to retrieve Kellan, but we have to wait for Rupert’s help.”
“Oh, is that the plan?” Arizona asked. “Dad’s going to break Kell out?”
“We don’t see any other option,” Larry said.
“When’s Dad going to get here?”
Olivia checked her phone for messages. “Larry, any more news?”
“Nope, Morena said she’d call us with an update when she knows what’s going on.”
Olivia was distracted, her eyes drawn to Arizona. Her daughter’s eyes shifted from one place to another—the ceiling, the windows, behind her, like she was searching for something. Tilting her face at her, she said, “Arizona? You are making the strangest faces.”
