by Gini Koch
“You two rock, and Aunt Carla, I’m not sure there’s a good excuse to avoid Paris. But I truly appreciate you taking one for the team.” Looked at Dad who’d come downstairs to join us. “Um, you know, why don’t you just say that Dad and I aren’t doing well and that you feel that we need you with us right now?”
“Because you tend to not want me to stay an hour, let alone longer.” Aunt Carla had a sarcasm knob. She wasn’t at eleven on a scale of ten, but she was surely at an eight and rising. Bizarro World was loaded with surprises.
“Makes it all the more believable that you’re staying,” Reader said quickly. “Tell them that the accident—which Kitty and the kids miraculously walked away from—is causing Sol and Kitty to finally deal with Angela’s death and that’s why they asked you to stay.”
She nodded. “That sounds reasonable. It’ll fly with the family and friends I’m visiting.”
“What about your husband?”
She gave me a small smile. “He died last year. I . . . still wear my wedding ring because you two don’t have a monopoly on mourning.” She gave Chuckie a fond look. “We don’t all find our soul mates on the first try, Katherine. For me, third time was the charm.” She took a deep breath. “But, we do go on. And it makes this easier.”
“Are we going with you guys, wherever it is you’re going?” Caroline asked.
“No. We want you and the kids in a safe house of some kind. We’re still setting that up, but you should get your excuses done now.”
They both nodded and stepped away to make their calls. “I’ll call the Israelis,” Reader said, also stepping away.
“I’ll start packing what we’ll need to survive for, how long, a week?” Pierre asked.
“Let’s hope it’s that or less,” Chuckie said. Pierre nodded and zipped off.
Dad sighed. “I’ll go back upstairs and tell the children they can pack one small bag each with toys and games. Pierre will handle clothing, toiletries, and anything else pertinent. We’re barely unpacked anyway. But . . . Jamie isn’t going to want to leave.”
“I’ll talk to her.” No one looked like this gave them any hope that I’d get through. Dad kissed my cheek and headed upstairs.
“You need to clear anything?” Chuckie asked Buchanan.
“No. I’ve got safe houses and I’ve been floating between them since I, as you put it, went rogue.”
“I think it was James who put it that way.”
“I did,” he said, rejoining us. “Jakob said that, with what we just gave them, Mossad would take us to Israel and back if we needed them to. Housing our civilians at their embassy with full Mossad protection is, and I quote from his superior, merely a small favor they’re happy to oblige. So, once we get the kids, Sol, Pierre, Caroline, and Carla safely tucked away, where do the four of us go? Cuba? Jakob said Mossad will drop us wherever we need.”
Thought about it. “No. Cliff’s here in D.C. First of all, because he works here, but mostly because he wanted you guys brought back here so he could see you dead.”
“Why, do you think?” Reader asked.
“Because in my world, this is my skill. I’m Megalomaniac Girl—there’s not a psycho or evil genius mastermind I can’t feel the love with. For whatever reason, I’m just this kind of skilled.” Missed Tim something fierce. Which reminded me. “James, what did you find out about my flyboys?”
“Ah, we should determine if we want Mossad to help us. They’ve offered.”
“Oh, nice try at the distraction. Tell me. It’s something bad, isn’t it? Are they working for Cliff or something?”
Reader didn’t look like he wanted to share. “Tell her,” Chuckie said, in a tone that brooked no argument. “She’s a big girl. Frankly, she’s Wonder Woman, based on what I’ve seen. Tell her—I’m sure she can handle it.”
“I’m not,” Reader muttered. “But fine, have it your way. I found them. All of them. And . . . they’re all dead. Killed in action in Iraq or Afghanistan over the course of the past five years.”
CHAPTER 40
MY THROAT WAS TIGHT and I had tears in my eyes. But I didn’t let them fall. “You’re sure? All of them? Jerry and Matt and Chip and—”
“Yes.” Reader stopped me. “I’m positive. Kitty, I’m so sorry. First your mother and now this.”
“There’s no one I can hurt to avenge them, is there?”
“No,” Chuckie said as he put his arm around me and hugged me to him. “There’s not. They were in wars, and unfortunately, wars have casualties. I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Swallowed hard. I knew about casualties, of course. Understanding that this was how the world worked was easy from a logical perspective. However, from an emotional one, any time someone was lost it was a tragedy.
Tragic or not, however, I knew what my guys would tell me to do if they were, somehow, here. And that would be to save the day and not let the bad guys win. “Okay. I’m going to go talk to Jamie. James . . . search for Tim Crawford. Maybe he’s not dead.”
“Common name. What does he do?”
Great question. I had absolutely no idea what Tim had done before he’d joined Centaurion Division. “Ah . . . I don’t know.” It was official—I sucked as a boss and a friend.
“We can get Mossad as backup,” Chuckie said soothingly. “You don’t have to find every person here you know in your world.”
Considered this. “Maybe I do. I mean, some are good and some are bad. So the possibility exists that they may be hooked up with Cliff in some way.”
“Cross that bridge when we get there,” Buchanan said. “We need to clear out before Goodman figures out his team’s failed and sends a better one.”
“A better one, that’s it!” All three men looked at me blankly. “James, see if you can find Peter and Victor Kasperoff. They’re cousins, probably out of Russia. Sometimes they go as Keller, but always Peter and Victor.”
“Who are they?” Reader asked. “In your world I mean.”
“The best assassins out there. And my adopted uncles. Long story. But if they’re here, I think I can get them on our side again. And we may need them.”
Reader and Chuckie exchanged an “OMG” look. “I’ll try.” Reader didn’t sound enthused.
“Look, I’ll write out a list of every other human operative and ally I have in my world. I had no luck finding anyone but the two guys who turned pro and while I’d love to call in the Jets for backup, I doubt we can score help from that corner. But one thing I do know—the Mastermind is a master chess player, and we’re going to need all the pieces we can get.”
“We’ll get backup,” Chuckie said soothingly. “Why don’t you try with Jamie? If she doesn’t want to go, we’re going to have to come up with another plan, because I doubt the Israelis want to move in a three-way mirror.”
“I’m sure they could roll with it.” But I wanted to talk to Jamie anyway, so I trotted upstairs, leaving the men to discuss their worry about my insane desire to call on scary people who wouldn’t know me for help. They probably had a point.
Found her in her room, watching herself in her mirrors. “Hey, Jamie, can I talk to you for a minute?” She nodded but didn’t turn away. Went to her and sat down next to her. “What are you looking at?”
“Me.”
“Ah. Well, do you like what you see?”
“Sometimes.”
“Okay. We need to go and we can’t take your mirrors with us. But we can come back for them.”
“I can’t leave them.”
“Why not?”
“They need me.”
Pondered my next move. She was a little girl and I was quite capable of picking her up and just taking her to safety. I was also the adult and the mother, so, technically “because I said so” was also a very viable and legitimate response. However, we needed to avoid Jamie having a meltdown, and be
sides, there was something more going on here.
Other Me and Chuckie had come to the conclusion of autism, and I could see why. But I was from a world where, if someone started behaving oddly, you had to question if they were an alien, an android, an enhanced human, or something else entirely. Therefore, I’d learned that the obvious, easy answer wasn’t always the right one.
So, had to figure out my next move, and make sure it wasn’t the move that Chuckie or Other Me was likely to choose. Not that I thought they were doing a bad job as parents, but if they’d known the right things to do or say, they wouldn’t think Jamie was autistic, or they’d have confirmed it and would be getting her professional help.
Looked into the mirror. It was set up so that the mirrors reflected not only the person in them, but each other. In fact, the way the mirrors were set created what appeared to be an infinite number of Jamies, curving out and around. I’d seen something like this before. Recently. And at least one time before.
It looked like the Universe Wheel, only closer up and on its side, truly like a round cassette that you’d use in an old-fashioned slide projector.
But Jamie wasn’t looking at all the other images. She was staring straight ahead. So I stared straight ahead, too. And I saw what she was seeing.
In front of me, not so much. But in my peripheral vision? Worlds were spinning past, and I could see myself in them. Just for a moment, and then the next worlds moved into place. And if I looked directly at a world, what I was seeing turned back into the general reflection of the mirror.
“It’s like Through the Looking Glass. Times a million. Or more.”
Jamie didn’t turn, but I saw her beam at me in the mirror. “I knew you’d understand, Mommy!”
“I think I do. What, um, do you see, Jamie?”
“What you’re seeing, Mommy. All of us, all over. I’m always with you,” she said happily. “Even where I have two mommies. You’re always the mommy who is my mommy.”
In most of the other worlds I was married to either Chuckie or Reader. Mine was the only one where aliens were on Earth, so it was the only one where Jeff was. But I’d seen a few worlds where I was married to guys I didn’t know, and a few where I was married to girls I didn’t know. I was too busy to try to spot those worlds right now, but I remembered them from when I’d given birth to my Jamie.
“Who’s your daddy in those worlds?”
“Usually Daddy. Sometimes Uncle James.”
Made sense. Chuckie and I were in every world I could see, and Reader was in most of them. If I was going to be artificially inseminated, or just have sex with a guy I liked in order to conceive, they’d be the obvious choices. And choosing the smartest guy in any room as your baby’s sperm donor made sense, though, clearly, in some worlds, I’d gone for slightly less brains and perfect cheekbones instead. That was me, mixing it up and keeping the multiverse guessing.
Cleared my throat. “Why haven’t you told Daddy or . . . your Other Mommy about this?”
“They don’t understand.” She looked sad. “They think I’m broken.”
Wanted to stop looking into the mirrors and just pull her into my arms and tell her how much I knew Chuckie and Other Me loved her, that they were frightened because no parent wants their child to suffer and they thought she was suffering.
But I didn’t. Instead, I picked her up, keeping her facing the mirrors, scooted myself under her, bent and crossed my legs, and put her down onto my lap this way. Then I put my arms around her and held her. “Parents want the best for their children. And I can understand why they’re scared. They love you so much.”
“I know. I love them, too. That’s why I asked.”
“Asked what?”
“For help.” She said it as if it was obvious. I’d changed universes—perhaps it was obvious.
“Who did you ask to help you?”
“Who we all know to ask.”
We all. Interesting. “I don’t know who that is, Jamie-Kat.” Was she in contact with ACE or Algar? I could but hope.
“Yes, you do, Mommy—Auntie Mimi.”
CHAPTER 41
I WAS THE ONLY ONE in my world who knew that Naomi wasn’t actually dead. Well, ACE and Algar knew, of course. But I was the only non-superconsciousness and non-Black Hole Person who knew. She’d taken so much Surcenthumain that it had done what we’d nicknamed it and then some—it was the superpowers drug and she’d become like Dark Phoenix, so powerful our world couldn’t contain her.
Naomi had left us and saved ACE. But ACE had told me she could never return to our world again. However, he’d never said she couldn’t travel the multiverse.
Chuckie and Naomi had wanted to have a little girl who would be Jamie’s best friend. Maybe Naomi had compensated for that loss by watching over not only my Jamie, but every Jamie out there. She loved Chuckie and Jamie both, and any jealousy and insecurities had to have burned off when she became, if not a god, then a powerful superconsciousness.
“So, ah, how do you talk to Auntie Mimi?”
“I don’t.”
“Um, Jamie, you just said you asked Auntie Mimi for help.”
“No,” she said in the stubborn way little kids have, “I didn’t. I said I asked for help and that we all know that it’s Auntie Mimi who will help.”
“Okay. So who did you, specifically, ask to help you?”
She shot me a look in the mirror that I recognized. It was my Jamie’s “oh Mommy, you see but you do not observe” look. Thought about it. “Oh. Wow. You’re talking to, ah, yourself? In all these worlds?”
She nodded. “I can see everyone. That’s my job,” she added rather proudly. “I’m the one who can see us all.”
“Who has what other jobs?”
“We’re all a little different. Because of who our Daddies are, and because of how it is where we live. So we each do different things.”
“Are all of . . . you . . . powerful?”
“Sort of. I’m the only one who can see everyone, though.”
“Have others tried?”
“Uh huh.”
“Has my Jamie tried?”
“Yes. Your me is who connects us, but she can’t see everyone. Only I can.”
This made sense. Jamie was incredibly powerful, and now she housed ACE in her mind. “When did Jamie connect with you?”
“Oh, I saw everyone first. I saw your me, and you, before I had the mirrors though.”
“How?”
“I heard your music and I concentrated. That’s how I knew that mean lady. She tried to kill us when I was a little baby.”
Maybe this Jamie was autistic. But if she was, this was autism taken to an amazing degree. Then again, maybe all autistic kids saw other worlds and no one had figured that out yet. “So, you hear the music I play? Not the music here?”
“Uh huh. I like the music here, but I like yours more. When Mommy took me shopping with her is when I first saw the mirrors. I made her take them home with us.”
Tried not to imagine the temper tantrum that would have had to have been thrown in order to get Other Me to literally buy a somehow special three-way mirror set out of a department store. But if your child is having hysterics, sometimes you do whatever you can to make said hysterics stop.
“Is that when you saw all the other worlds?” She nodded. “And is that when you talked to my Jamie?”
She shook her head. “It wasn’t until Auntie Mimi died that Jamie found me. She was looking for Auntie Mimi and found me. She can see me in her mirror sometimes. But not all the time. But I can always see everyone all the time.”
So ACE had either given my Jamie the boost she’d needed or she’d taken that boost from him. Hoped it was a mutual thing, however it had happened. I didn’t want ACE harmed or abused any more than I wanted Jamie harmed or abused. Any Jamie.
“So, why have you be
en staring at your mirrors, and yourself, all this time?”
She gave me the “duh” look. “Because it’s fun. And it’s important. I can see what’s coming, too, sometimes.” She looked sad. “Only bad things, and only if they’re going to happen soon. When I was littler, I thought all of the things were going to happen to us. But then I figured out they were different mes.”
Chuckie had said she occasionally proclaimed doom but tended to be wrong. “So, you told your Daddy and Other Mommy about bad things you saw coming up, and they didn’t believe you, did they?”
“No, because they didn’t happen to us most of the time.” She looked sadder. “If I’d known how to talk to Auntie Mimi, I could have saved them.”
“Saved who?”
“People we love.”
Decided this might not be the best line of discussion. I hugged her tightly. “It’s not your fault, if you couldn’t save someone, Jamie-Kat. You’re not responsible for everyone in the multiverse.” Her expression said she didn’t agree with me. Tried another way. “You saved your Other Mommy and your brothers today, though, as well as yourself.”
She brightened up. “I did! And you did great, Mommy! I knew you would, too!”
“So, how do you talk to the Jamie in my world?”
“I don’t know, I just can.”
“Even if you’re not looking in your mirrors?”
She nodded. “Sometimes. My mirrors make talking to her a lot easier. But I only know what needs fixing if I look in the mirrors.”
“Well, right now, we’re the ones that need fixing. And in order to do that, we have to take you, and Charlie and Max, and Papa Sol to another house. Just for a while. While Daddy and I go save the day and stop the bad people. But your mirrors need to stay here.”
“But I need them.”
“I know. But you know what? Charlie and Max need you, too. They need you to pay attention to them right now, just like Daddy and I do. You can’t save everyone else if something bad happens to you, or to us, right?”
