by Barry Lyga
“And I got out of that okay.”
“Moira.” She had told him—after much prodding and annoyance—of her escape, of the bloody beatdown of one of the Dutchmen. “Be real. That wasn’t getting out of something ‘okay.’ That was risking your life and escaping by the skin of your teeth. You got lucky. Really lucky. We both know you’re tough, but come on—you won’t get lucky like that a second time.”
She stubbornly refused to respond to that, saying only, “I can’t go in there.”
Zak mused for a moment. “How about this: If someone notices you, we’ll just say that you got lost and that your dad or your grandfather is somewhere else in the store. They’ll spend some time looking for him, and we can slip out.”
Moira considered this. “That’s not the worst idea I’ve ever heard.” She sighed heavily and studied the Apple Store across the street. It seemed so much like home that she ached inside. And Zak was right—there was no sign on it declaiming that women could not enter. Maybe it was, if not actually safe, at least safer.
“Let’s go,” she said.
* * *
The Wonder Glass display was crowded, and Zak was antsy, wanting nothing more than to push people aside and get his turn. But drawing attention to himself and, by extension, Moira was a bad idea, so he waited patiently until he had the Wonder Glass to himself.
The person before him had been surfing news sites, and headlines scrolled by on the surface of the Wonder Glass: Wild Science Conference Hacked—by Alchemy!… President Gore Signs Global Cooling Pact … Apple CEO Steve Jobs Celebrates 60th Birthday in Territorial Hawai’i … Coalition Forces Triumph in Sudan … Lunar Olympians Prepare for Winter Games …
Superficially, it was similar to an iPad back home. He had no trouble figuring out the interface or the gestures. The Internet here was something called the TIM, but it worked basically the same way. He started browsing for information on the electroleum recycling facility south of the city, when he heard Moira, positioned close by, gasp.
Zak spun around and grabbed her hand, ready to pull her away from anyone who would try to snatch her. But then he recognized the source of her surprise.
Khalid.
FORTY-NINE
Zak had truly begun to wonder if he would ever see Khalid again. Near tears, he couldn’t help flinging himself at his buddy, enfolding Khalid in his arms.
“Zak?” Khalid murmured in his ear. “Is it really you?”
“Yeah, man.”
All around them, the crowd in the Apple Store grinned and awwed at the reunion … for a moment. It was still New York, alternate universe or not, so soon someone said, “Very touching. You done with this?” and gestured to the Wonder Glass display.
Moira cleared her throat; Zak could tell she was uncomfortable being so close to the center of attention. Together, the three of them headed outside.
“How did you get here?” all three of them asked at once.
And then—for the first time since escaping Zak’s hospital room back home—all three laughed as though safety and sanity awaited them out on the street and not a universe away.
It wasn’t far to Dr. Bookman’s office—a block away, around a corner—and they caught each other up on what had happened as they walked there. Entering Bookman’s office, Khalid said, “… so I went to get help, figuring I’d look up a hospital or something at the store, and then I saw you guys.”
Bookman still lay on the sofa, exactly as Khalid had left him. Moira knelt down by him and touched his neck, then his wrist.
“I tried that,” Khalid said lamely.
“I think he’s okay,” she said. “Seems like he’s sleeping.”
As if in response, Dr. Bookman suddenly snorted a complicated, phlegmy breath, then rolled over on his side, facing away from them. Moira stretched and actually yawned, then sat on the edge of the sofa. “I can’t believe I can finally relax. Even just a little bit.”
“What’s this?” Zak pointed to an aquarium with cockroaches skittering about.
“Dude, don’t even ask. It’s weirder than you can imagine. You don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. You know that electroleum stuff? He was messing with it. Next thing you know, some of them were dead, then alive—or alive and then dead—and some of them disappeared. It was a cockroach Rapture, man.”
“So, now what?” Zak asked. As he made his way across the room to the desk, he kicked something accidentally. Crouching down, he realized it was Officer’s Cheong’s stun gadget. He tucked it into his pocket and covered it with his shirt. While he was down there, he noticed water underfoot. “What happened here?”
“It was during the whole … voodoo possession thing. And believe me, I never thought those words would come out of my mouth. The whole place was just soaked with salt water.”
“Weird…” Zak armed a sheet of water off the desk, clearing a space. “We need to get online. Does he have a computer or one of those Wonder thingies?”
Khalid held up a rectangle like the one Dr. White-eagle had used. “Yeah, but I can’t get it to work.”
Without a word, Moira snatched it from him. She studied it for a moment and then, with a shrug, lifted Dr. Bookman’s hand by the wrist and pressed his fingertip against the screen. The Wonder Glass made a tiny, clicking unlock sound, and the screen lit up.
“Now I feel like an idiot,” Khalid said.
“Now?” Moira asked, grinning.
While Khalid and Moira bantered with each other, Zak spread out on the desk the plans Moira had given him. SOUTHERN CONFLUX ELECTROLEUM RECLAMATION FACILITY, read a box in one corner. The schematic itself had a number of additions, typed in. When he tapped on a certain box, a keyboard came up for him to type into. The whole thing was like a big, flexible tablet, almost as thin as paper.
“Very funny, Science Girl,” Khalid said. “Maybe you’re equipped for travel to alternate universes. Some of us aren’t.”
“You should have read those Philip Pullman books I gave you.”
“There were too many zombies needing killing over on Xbox Live.”
“I managed to read the books and still kick your butt on Live.”
“Oh yeah? Well … well, imagine how much worse my butt would have been kicked if I’d wasted time with your stupid books.”
Something occurred to Zak. He peeled the schematic off the slightly damp desk and turned it over. Sometimes when he was doing homework, he would jot notes on the back.…
Sure enough, there were some sketches and notes on the back, positioned in the center of the sheet so that they weren’t visible when it was folded up. Zak scanned them, licking his lips the further along he went. He tapped and scrolled them, finding more information and more sketches. Even a few shaky videos. The “paper” didn’t seem to be connected to the Internet (or the TIM, rather), but it clearly had some kind of memory buffer, in which the Dutchmen had stored all kinds of information about their planned heist.
As Moira and Khalid squabbled, he stared intently at the plans. Then he slowly turned to regard the aquarium with its skittering, jittery cockroaches.
“It was a cockroach Rapture, man.”
“Guys,” he said, “I think we have everything we need.”
Moira perked up, but Khalid stared at him with bug-eyed astonishment. “We can’t just run off and do this. Godfrey and Tommy ripped right through Dr. Bookman. Look at the poor guy.”
The poor guy shifted and mumbled in his sleep again.
“I’m sorry that happened to him, but I can’t worry about him right now. Tommy needs me. Bookman’s going to be okay. Moira said so.”
Khalid erupted, flinging his hands in the air. “Moira said so? Moira said so? Are you crazy? No offense, Moira, but since when is she a doctor?”
“She got me out of the hospital.”
“No kidding! How’d that work out for you, Heart Attack Boy?”
Zak touched his chest with the tips of his fingers. Everything was still fine under there. “So far, so good. Never f
elt better.”
“Because you got lucky and stumbled onto a doctor with magic powers!”
“No, Khalid—because Tommy led me to a doctor with magic powers. He saved my life while you were off gallivanting around the city, accomplishing precisely nothing. So I’m going to go return the favor.”
The wounded expression on Khalid’s face almost made Zak apologize immediately. It wasn’t Khalid’s fault that he couldn’t navigate the byways of the alternate universe. But this wasn’t about who was right or who was wrong or who hurt whose feelings. It was about life and death. Rescuing Tommy from beyond the veil of mortality, where he’d lingered and languished for far, far too long. While it could still be done.
“Not cool, man,” Khalid said quietly.
“Zak…” Moira said, gesturing to Khalid in that infuriating grown-up way she had. He knew what she wanted.
He wouldn’t give it. Not an apology. Not now. “I’m not sorry.”
“Are you joking?” Khalid asked. “You’re the whole reason we’re stuck in this place! With ghosts and voodoo and—”
“Now you both owe each other apologies,” Moira said firmly.
Khalid huffed out an outraged breath. “He brought us here!” he complained. “We followed him, and now we’re in a world where you can’t cross the street without a chaperone. And, hey, might I add that you’re the one who thought it was a cool idea to bring him down into the subway in the first place?”
Moira harrumphed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatever, Khalid. No one put a gun to your head.”
“I’m not saying you did. But I’m saying you guys have had your shot. Give me a chance.”
The room fell silent. Zak shook his head slowly. Everything Khalid had said, he realized, was true. None of it mattered.
Or rather, it mattered in one way but not in another. Khalid was right: This was his fault. Zak had led his best friends here. It was up to him to make it right. To fix things. Like spilling Kool-Aid on Mom’s skirt, like all the lies his parents had told him about Tommy, saying sorry wasn’t enough.
He had to do something.
“There are only two options,” Zak said. “Either we go to rescue Tommy or we sit around and talk about it.”
“Or we get Bookman some help, and he helps us figure out what’s really going on,” Khalid insisted. “You weren’t here, man. Tommy and Godfrey didn’t seem like good guys. They picked him up and set his hair on fire.”
“How do you know it was even them?” Zak asked. “How much experience with this ‘wild science’ stuff do you have? Maybe Bookman screwed up. Maybe he did something wrong. How the hell would any of us know?”
Khalid opened his mouth to respond, but Zak bulldozed over him. “The answer is, we don’t. So, what do we know? Well, we know that my twin brother is out there somewhere and that we can save him with the electroleum. And we know that we have plans to the plant and a way in. So I say we go ahead and do it, and then we worry about everything else later.”
“Look, Zak, normally I’d be all about charging ahead without a plan, but we’re in a different universe. You’re talking about superhero heist-level stuff. Since when did you put on a cape and learn to fly?”
“It’s not going to be a problem,” Zak said confidently.
“I bet most thieves think that, too. They convince themselves that they’ll never get caught.”
“This isn’t robbing a bodega, Khalid. I’m trying to save someone’s—”
“And,” Khalid interrupted, “you don’t even understand what you’re dealing with, with this electroleum stuff. There are ghost things and iPads made out of paper and voodoo and possession and stuff we can’t understand. Is it crazy to say let’s hit the brakes for a minute?”
“Yes!” Zak fumed. “You said it yourself—when they talked through Bookman, they said we didn’t have a lot of time. I don’t know what it’s like as a ghost, but maybe there’s a clock ticking somewhere, and if we don’t rescue them soon, they’ll be dead for good. So I’m not going to sit around and debate it.” Why didn’t Khalid understand? No, wait—the question was wrong. It wasn’t that Khalid didn’t understand; it was that he couldn’t understand. He had no idea what it was like to be a solitary twin, to be missing half of himself. His imagination could stretch so far and no farther.
Don’t trust him. That’s what Tommy had been saying from the outset. Zak had assumed him was his father or a doctor.
He’d never in a million years fantasized that the him he was not to trust would, or even could, be Khalid.
“I say we don’t go,” Khalid said. “I say we help Bookman and get him to do some more research for us. This is what he does. He’s the expert.”
“I didn’t call for a vote, Khalid. I know what I’m doing.”
“Oh yeah? You’re gonna go hijack a big old factory all on your own? What are you gonna do, light a match and set the stuff on fire?”
“If I have to.”
“Good luck with that.”
“He’s not going to be alone,” Moira said, speaking for the first time in a long time.
They both turned to look at her, still perched on the edge of the sofa near Dr. Bookman, turning over his Wonder Glass in her hands, staring down at it.
“Don’t tell me you’re doing this,” Khalid told her. “I’m supposed to be the crazy, immature one.”
“What else am I supposed to do?” she demanded, finally looking up at them from under the brim of her Breukelen Dodgers cap. “This place might seem like a fun little party zone for you guys, with cool new toys and all that, but to me it’s like being the only mouse at the cat convention. This place is going to kill me, Khalid. And if I’m gonna go, then I’m damn well going to do something worthwhile first.”
Khalid shook his head. “Moira, man, come on. This is crazy. You know it is. The two of you? Breaking and entering? Stealing weird magic goo? Getting out without killing yourselves or someone else? It’s never gonna work. You’re kids.”
“Joan of Arc was a teenager when she took on the English,” Moira said.
“And they killed her!” Khalid howled. “Even I know that part!”
Moira stood up and straightened her coverall, then her cap. “Sorry, Khalid. I’m with Zak on this one. We have to do something.”
“Dr. Bookman might be able to help—”
She shook her head. “Sorry. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t even know him! Why not?”
“Because he’s from here. And because he’s a man.”
The three of them went silent, each of them looking from one to the other. No one spoke. And then Zak nodded to Moira, and the two of them headed toward the door.
“Zak. Moira.” They looked back. Khalid gazed at them somberly. “Guys, you have to—”
“We’re doing this.”
“Zak, man, come on. I’m sorry about what I said before. Three Basket—”
“Don’t. Even,” Zak interrupted him.
Before anyone could speak again, he and Moira walked out the door.
FIFTY
According to the information on the back of the plans, a superway led straight to the electroleum facility. A minute or two with Google on Dr. Bookman’s Wonder Glass, which Moira had kept, told them that the superway was an elevated subway. Very elevated. The tracks ran in sealed tubes between thirty and eighty stories up, connecting the upper levels of skyscrapers. One of the routes—the 10 line, according to the map—ran from Eighth Avenue and Seventeenth Street down past the Houston Conflux and out over the water, where it then tipped and ran down an artificial slope before continuing on to a stop dubbed “Battery Landing” on Battery Island before proceeding to Ellis Island and Liberty Island.
“Better than a ferry, I guess,” Moira said.
“They have those, too, according to Google.”
Huddled in the lobby of Bookman’s building, they cobbled together their strategy, checking their facts against the info jotted down on the back of the plan
s and comparing them to information available online.
Getting to the facility wasn’t a problem—the superway stopped there routinely on its way to Ellis Island.
Getting into the secure facility … That was the tough part. But there was a way. Definitely.
Moira must have been thinking the same thing. “Look, Zak, I’m on board, but if we get caught, it’s going to be rough on both of us.” Worse for her, she didn’t need to say. “Even if we figure out how to get in, getting out will be even harder.”
“I’ve got that one figured out,” Zak said.
Moira looked stunned at the idea that Zak had outthought her. “Really? How?”
He shook his head. “Later. I’ll explain it later.”
* * *
At Eighth and Seventeenth, there was a massive skyscraper that Zak was certain did not exist in his own world. A sign outside featured an arrow pointing up and the words A.R.T. 8TH AND 17TH.
Moira was more and more jittery with every step they took. Night was falling, but it was early evening and it was New York, so there were still a lot of people milling about. Every single one of them, Zak knew, was a threat to her.
“It’s New York City,” he muttered to her. “No one’s paying attention to us.”
“It’s Manhattan City,” she corrected him, “and I hope not.”
All around them was the evidence of this world’s cluelessness, from the storefront signs to the overdressed, overly made-up women meekly following their companions along the sidewalks. Zak didn’t know how Moira would manage to live in this world, how she would come to any sort of accommodation with a society that saw her as only barely human. Maybe, as he’d speculated before, it would turn out that the woman-hatred existed only here in this city. Or this state. Maybe elsewhere it wouldn’t be so bad.
One problem at a time, he thought. First Tommy, then Moira.
But that was just a stall, he knew. A pointless, moot stall.
Because if Zak’s plan worked, he wouldn’t be around after rescuing Tommy.
