by Barry Lyga
Soon, Tommy. Soon you get your chance at life. Enjoy it, man. Make the most of it.
“WE WILL STORM THE CAR IF YOU DO NOT RELEASE THE OPERATOR AT THE COUNT OF TEN.”
Uh-huh. Whatever.
The operator, trembling, sweating, tapped a few more controls. “Look, you can’t steer into the building. There’s nowhere to go, no way out of the tube.”
“I want to go through the tube, then. Crash right through it.”
“You’ll hit the air cushion halfway down the tube,” the operator said. “The impact will rip the tube open—”
“Show me where that happens.” Zak unfolded the schematic of the plant. The operator pointed. Zak nodded in satisfaction. The holding tanks were far from the point of impact, but the bend in the path there nearly guaranteed that the train’s momentum would carry it through the broken tube and right into the spot he needed. He would most likely be dead by the final collision.
And then the electroleum would erupt. And swap out one twin for another, just like the roaches in Dr. Bookman’s experiment.
Just then a flat, dull crack echoed, and the windshield vibrated with impact. The operator shrieked and dropped to the floor. Zak, stunned, stood his ground, his vision tunneling to focus on the sudden nick in the glass, right at his eye level.
He refocused beyond and through the glass. A security officer with a rifle aimed at him stood at one end of the platform.
Crack! again. This time Zak jerked to one side, though it was ridiculous—he couldn’t dodge a bullet. The windshield still held, pocked with another chip. The glass (if it was glass) must have been specially treated to resist collisions and the tremendous speed at which the superway traveled. It would take more than a couple of shots to break through.
“Hurry,” Zak said to operator, but the man had hit his limit. He shoved Zak aside and dived for the door. Before Zak could recover, the operator had slipped through, leaving it wide open as he tore through the car.
Zak checked the windshield. The cops had stopped shooting, and one of them was waving frantically. A moment later he saw the operator charging toward them, head down, arms pumping. The cops directed him toward an exit, and the man never broke stride.
Now they’d be coming for Zak.
He closed the cabin door and hopped into the control seat. He would have to hope for the best.
Scanning the control panel, he nodded to himself, took a moment to assess it, then stroked a finger along a glowing trail.
The superway lurched and began to move. Zak grinned at the stunned looks on the faces of the cops. They fired at him some more, but soon he was gone, racing down the tunnel to the end.
FIFTY-SEVEN
According to Dr. Bookman’s Wonder Glass, the superway’s 10 line was currently shut down, making a boat the fastest way to Battery Island. In the backseat of the car, Khalid and Dr. Bookman raced to the ferry stop at the Houston Conflux.
“Godfrey’s power is substantial,” Bookman said quietly, not wanting to bring the driver into the conversation. They’d offered the man three times his usual fee to ignore as many traffic laws as humanly possible. “But it all exists in the nonphysical realm. He can’t actually impact the physical world.”
“But he can get us to do it for him. Or he can possess people. Like he did with you.”
“Perhaps. I don’t know if he can do that on his own. I let him in. I commanded him in. Without a wild scientist, I’m not sure he can reliably communicate with anyone.”
“I don’t get it, though,” Khalid said, remembering the vision at the Houston Conflux when they’d first crossed into this universe. “If Godfrey is so powerful, then why did we see Tommy?”
Dr. Bookman hesitated before answering. “I told you before: Twins are powerful magic. They have a special connection, and I suspect Godfrey has been able to commandeer that connection.”
“I still don’t get it. And besides, why would Godfrey want to flood my Manhattan?”
“He’s trying to shatter the wall between life and death so that he can return to life. An electroleum explosion might just be able to do that, but it will almost certainly crumble the weakened wall between our worlds, no matter what. And from what I picked up during my … merging with Godfrey, he fully intends for your world to suffer the brunt of the damage. Our worlds are connected, like Zak and Tommy in the womb. If something happens in my world, it will have repercussions in your own. Godfrey will make sure of it.”
Khalid’s head spun. He couldn’t keep thinking about this stuff. Moira would get it, he knew. Zak could probably figure it out, if he let it steep in his brain for a while. But to Khalid, it was all mumbo jumbo. Dangerous-sounding mumbo jumbo, but mumbo jumbo nonetheless. He decided he didn’t need the details. He had to stop Zak and Moira. Full stop. Everything else was extraneous information. Let the geniuses do a postmortem later.
Khalid checked the Wonder Glass. This was an older model, slightly larger and thicker, but still more svelte and sweet than anything from his world. It probably ran on some combination of true science and wild science, and it was connected (maybe through voodoo, who knew?) to Dr. Bookman’s newer model, the one Moira and Zak had swiped. A positioning app placed the newer Wonder Glass at or near Battery Landing. Zak was probably still angry, but Khalid had no choice—he called the other Wonder Glass.
To his surprise, Zak answered.
“Don’t hang up,” Khalid said. “Listen, man, you have to listen: Dr. Bookman’s up, and he knows stuff. I don’t get it all, but you have to be really careful and just get out of there. Now. That electroleum stuff is dangerous. You could get killed. Bookman says Godfrey wants to blow it all up.”
“Well, yeah, that’s the plan.” Zak sounded almost cheerful. “Big blast of energy, just like Tommy told us. It’s the only way to bring him back.”
“Are you listening to yourself? Do you care about the other people who will die?”
Zak took long enough to answer that Khalid feared he’d hung up. But then: “I’m going to be careful. Everyone will be evacuated. The only one getting hurt will be me.”
“No, man. It might not be up to you. And you wouldn’t just kill people here. People back in our world, too. It could happen. You gotta rethink this. Please.”
“Dr. Bookman doesn’t know everything,” Zak said. “I’ll feel bad if something terrible happens to his world, but at the end of the day…”
“Dude, you’re not thinking straight. You’re gonna be a terrorist. Do you realize that? Do you realize that’s what you’re becoming?”
“Shut up, Khalid. That’s not it at all and you know it. That’s not what this is. I’m not trying to hurt anyone, change anyone’s mind, scare anyone. If there was another way to bring Tommy back to life, I’d do it.”
Khalid had been friends with Zak long enough to be able to tell when he’d made up his mind about something. But Khalid tried again anyway.
“Zak, please, man. There’s something off about all of this. Tommy and Godfrey and all of it. Just come back and let’s talk about it a little, and then you can do what you think makes sense. Okay? Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”
Nothing.
And then:
“It’s too late.”
He didn’t even say good-bye.
* * *
“The Godfrey spirit is filled with rage,” Bookman said as he and Khalid neared the park. He quaked a little extra at the thought. “I felt it when I was possessed. I’ve never felt such pure anger in my life. He was able to take over completely. I had to force his presence; he resisted. But once I had him, he took control.”
“What about Tommy? When Tommy possessed you, what did you feel?”
Dr. Bookman said nothing. He looked down at his hands, which still shook, as though seeing them for the first time.
“Dr. Bookman? What did you feel? With Tommy. I heard his voice first.”
“You have to understand, Khalid: I was trying to contact your friend Zak. That was the point of the ritual
.”
“Right. And you got Tommy instead. Because they’re twins, right?”
Dr. Bookman didn’t answer. “Godfrey uses Tommy’s connection to your friend,” Bookman said. “It’s his way of communicating with the physical world. Imagine you are trapped in a room, and a mannequin is bolted in place in front of the only window. You can only stand behind the mannequin and turn its head this way and that and perhaps try to shout loud enough. But all anyone will see is the mannequin, even though it’s your voice.”
Riiiiight. “I get all that,” Khalid said. “But that didn’t answer my question. What did you—”
“Nothing,” Dr. Bookman said, turning slowly to look at Khalid. “I felt nothing. Because there was nothing. There was never a Tommy. I felt only Godfrey.”
“But Tommy spoke to me. Through your mouth. I heard it.”
“No.” It was the strongest word Khalid had heard from the man since before his voodoo ritual. “That was Godfrey pretending to be Tommy.”
“Are you sure?” The edges of the Wonder Glass bit into Khalid’s fingers as he tightened his grip. “Why would—”
“I am sure. I was possessed by the spirit, Khalid. I know what I felt. It was Godfrey all along.”
“But … but if Godfrey can pretend to be Tommy…” Khalid stared out the window. The familiar yet unfamiliar city, aglow with electroleum, whizzed by. “If Godfrey can pretend to be Tommy, then how do we know when we actually heard from Tommy?”
He turned back to Bookman, who said nothing, staring once more at his hands.
“Dr. Bookman, are you listening to me? How do we know when we heard from Tommy? Did it stop when we got to this universe?”
Bookman drew in a deep breath, steadying himself. “We’re almost at the Conflux,” he said. “I’ll make this quick:
“Energy cannot be created or destroyed. Only transformed. You have Einstein in your world, yes? Even in wild science, this rule applies. Wild science just allows us to manipulate energy in new ways.”
“I don’t get the connection.” Science. Every time someone started to talk science, it was as though the wind picked up to carry the thoughts and ideas right over Khalid’s head.
“There is a connection between Zak and his twin, a connection that transcended death. This connection, to put it simply, is made of energy, an energy that flows back and forth between them. Godfrey is able to piggyback on this. He is able to manipulate the energy to his own purposes. He commandeered the connection between Zak and Tommy.”
Khalid squinted, trying to rearrange his brain the way he did during math tests. “We went through that already. Am I missing something? Godfrey didn’t talk to us or to Zak. Tommy did.”
Dr. Bookman smiled, but it was the smile of a patient receiving bad news. “In your world, there is no wild science. Godfrey had a tenuous existence. Here, he is stronger. Godfrey can manifest in this universe, can appear visible and can be heard, if he wishes, without using the connection between Zak and Tommy.”
The Conflux came into view ahead. There were police cars converging there, along with ambulances and fire trucks. Khalid tried to ignore them, focused on the question at hand: Why would Godfrey not speak to them all directly, then, instead only going through Tommy? Why pretend he needed Tommy?
“Oh God,” he whispered. “It’s because he can lie.”
He turned excitedly to Dr. Bookman, who was nodding sadly. “Yes, that is the conclusion I’ve reached as well. By using the twin connection and not his own power to manifest, Godfrey can pretend to be Zak’s twin. And convince you of things because you trust ‘Tommy,’ and ‘Tommy’ said so.”
“Because Zak would listen to anything Tommy said. Oh, man!” He ground his palms into his eyes. “So, wait. Did Zak ever really hear from Tommy?”
“I don’t know,” said Dr. Bookman. “There’s a chance Tommy may have been used up and discarded by Godfrey in his desperation to connect to Zak. There might not even be a Tommy at all.”
FIFTY-EIGHT
The superway inched forward through the tube. Zak didn’t quite understand the entire readout on the control panel before him, but he got the gist of it. The train always moved slowly when pulling out of a station, then picked up speed. Normally, it would cruise along at a leisurely pace while on Battery Landing, but now—as the warning light flashing in the upper right-hand corner of the screen declaimed—the safety protocols had been disengaged. In a few moments, Zak would be able to push the superway to its limits. He would push the engine to its limits to race the entire length of Battery Island, to the recycling tanks, located at the maximum safe distance from the passenger station.
And then the safety air cushion would engage along the tube. Designed to slow a superway moving at a normal rate of speed, the contact between the cushion and a breakneck train would be catastrophic. The tube would be ruptured, and the superway’s cars would barrel through the openings, right into tanks of recharging electroleum.
A momentary doubt nipped at him. Was Khalid right? Was he about to become this world’s first terrorist?
No. Of course not. He was just doing what he had to do. By the time the superway crashed into the tanks and exploded, the island would have been evacuated. No one would be hurt except for Zak.
And …
Boom.
Soon, Tommy. You’ll be back soon.
FIFTY-NINE
The Battery Landing Ferry was faster than any ferry Khalid had ever been on, cutting across the water at top speed. Then again, maybe that was because it was on a rescue mission.
The car had dropped him and Dr. Bookman as close to the ferry as they could get. A clot of emergency vehicles prevented them from getting any closer. The driver, who had a news readout mounted next to his steering wheel, shrugged apologetically when he explained that he couldn’t get any closer.
“Someone’s hijacked the superway at Battery Landing. The ferry’s headed out for evacuation.”
“Hijacked? Who?”
The driver shrugged. “I just know what’s coming across on the screen. It said something about a ‘feminist army,’ whatever that means.”
Khalid had stifled a giggle. The times were too serious for laughter, but he couldn’t help it.
He and Dr. Bookman had approached the ferry station on foot. Sure enough, people were being herded off the ferry as cops and firefighters and EMTs loaded on. Dr. Bookman gave Khalid his Wonder Glass.
“You may find this of some help. I will distract the police so that you may slip on board the ferry,” Dr. Bookman said.
“Great.” Khalid scanned the dock, looking for shadows and easy concealment. He flashed to a moment playing hide-and-seek near Grand Army Plaza. Another world. Another lifetime.
“Khalid.” Dr. Bookman rested his hands on Khalid’s shoulders and gazed into his eyes. “What your friend proposes to undertake is very dangerous. And what you propose to undertake in stopping him is just as dangerous. Are you certain you wish to do this?”
Khalid felt as though his body hummed with energy. Electricity. Electroleum. Or maybe just nerves. “I don’t have much of a choice. He’s my best friend. This is what you do.”
Dr. Bookman nodded. “Your name. You know its meaning? That it means ‘eternal’ in the language of your ancestors?”
He’d known, but he’d never really thought about it. “Yeah.”
“May your courage be eternal, if not your life. If death is another world, I shall look for you when we are both there, Khalid Shamoon.”
And then he very gently kissed Khalid on the forehead and, without another word, turned and strode off toward the police, waving his arms and shouting, “Officers! Officers, excuse me! Officers!”
Khalid wanted to absorb everything that had happened, but there was no time, and so he dashed off to cover.
And now he stood at the prow of the ferry as it cut through the Houston Conflux on its way to Battery Landing. No one had spotted him yet—they were all out on the deck, shouting over one another,
arranging equipment. He checked the Wonder Glass. According to it, Zak and Moira were moving along the eastern edge of the island. He zoomed in on the dot that represented Dr. Bookman’s stolen Wonder Glass and was delighted to find the best satellite image he’d ever seen—it was actually in real time, as he could see the ferry he was on powering through the water. Wow.
The maps showed him nearing what appeared to be a ferry dock at Battery Landing. Good. He would cruise right up and track down Zak, and he would do whatever he had to do to stop him.
Sometimes, being one of the Three Basketeers meant stopping the other two from messing up big-time.
SIXTY
Moira grunted as she was shoved and jostled in the mixed crowd of tourists, commuters, and facility personnel jostling for position at the ferry dock. After leaving the superway, she’d been caught up in the press of people running for the water-bound evacuation post. Klaxons rang from every direction, and a robotic voice on a PA system calmly but loudly urged everyone to “follow the lighted signs to the nearest emergency exit.”
Moira didn’t know what else to do. Zak’s plan was crazy, but she had no way to stop him. And fighting against the flow of people seemed impossible. No matter what direction she tried to move in, the press of humanity bore her in one direction only: to the ferry dock.
And then it happened: Someone jostled her as he passed, knocking off her cap. Her bright red hair spilled out. She cast about for the cap, but it was lost under the stampede of fleeing feet.
Before she could react further, a tall man who was wearing a green jumpsuit with SUPERVISOR stenciled on its left chest and a logo that read Consolidated Tesla Power & Light caught a glimpse of her and fought his way through the crowd. Moira tensed, but the crush pushed her right toward him.
“Are you alone?” he asked. “Isn’t someone with you?”
Oh, crap. “Uh, my dad was here.…” She started to move away, but he took hold of her wrist and started pulling her toward the ferry dock.
