Jadie in Five Dimensions

by Dianne K. Salerni

  Second only to his father’s brilliant mind, the content on this laptop might be the most valuable thing in their apartment.

  10. JADIE

  Three days go by without a course correction. Actually, four—because the one on Saturday was Alia’s, not mine.

  I was so shaken on Saturday that I didn’t notice I got no assignment of my own. On Sunday, I kept checking my bracelet, especially during Coach’s party, because that would’ve been the most inconvenient time. Nothing.

  Monday… nothing. Today… nothing.

  I’ve never gone four days without an assignment, and I can’t shake the idea that the Seers know. I’m not sure what they know—that I took Alia’s course correction and failed to do it, or that I found my birth family.

  But if Miss Rose and the Seers know what I did, why haven’t I been reprimanded? Waiting for a punishment is more agonizing than most punishments, which I guess is the reason for the famous water drip torture. By the end of three days, I’m a taut string, ready to snap.

  After dinner, while Mom’s running errands, Dad plunks a container of ice cream in front of me and hands me a spoon. “What’s up, Jadie-bean?” He peels the lid off the container and digs his own spoon into it.

  Mom hates people eating straight from the carton. Which is why, when Dad does it, it’s supposed to be a between you and me thing. The kind that encourages me to confide in him.

  I see right through his ploy, but I plunge my spoon into the Rocky Road anyway. I wish I could share my problem with him. Before I saw that family photograph in the Lowell apartment, the only secret I’d ever kept from my parents was their Christmas presents. For about the hundredth time, I consider showing him J.D.’s album…

  The truth is, I’m scared.

  Scared that Mom and Dad knew. That they were complicit in the kidnapping. Or—worse—that Mom and Dad are the good guys I’ve always known they are, and when they see the truth, they’ll decide to find the Lowells and give me back. I might be horrified by J.D.’s kidnapping in theory, but this is my family now, and I don’t want to trade them for some people in a photo album.

  Since I can’t directly tell Dad what the problem is, I approach it from another angle. “Do you ever wonder what your course corrections do?”

  “Every day. But Miss Rose says it works better if we don’t know. I’ve told you about my first assignment, when we were all in college?”

  Dad and his friends Joe Rivers, Ada Malik, and Chen Li were students when Miss Rose first spoke to them from 4-space and made them aware of the higher-dimensional universe that surrounded their own. She convinced them to assist her in missions for the Seers by engaging them in what seemed, at first, like a pointless activity. I’ve heard the story before, but that doesn’t stop Dad. He’s a history professor. He likes telling stories over and over.

  “Miss Rose plopped us in a dark office in the middle of the night and told us to—”

  “Rearrange the furniture. I know.”

  “A week later, the US news was completely consumed by the assassination plot and how it was foiled. We wondered if it had something to do with us… but that seemed impossible. Until Miss Rose returned and explained it.”

  Dad and his friends moved furniture in the office of some woman who worked for an advertising firm. She must’ve been really confused when she came to work the next day. Her chair was now next to an air vent, and by a weird architectural flaw, she could hear the conversations of a man on the floor below her. When she overheard him talking about a huge cocaine deal, she confided in her boss, who notified the police.

  The police raided the drug dealer’s apartment and—completely by accident—startled a group of domestic terrorists in the apartment next door. Thinking they were being raided, they engaged in a gunfight with police and lost, and as a result, their scheme to assassinate the president was uncovered.

  “The Valentine’s Day Plot was the greatest event that never happened since Guy Fawkes failed to blow up the English Parliament in 1605,” Dad says. “No one knew the coincidences that caused the assassination plan to be uncovered—except us. After that we were convinced.” He shrugs. “Turns out, save the life of the president one time, and you end up hooked. Miss Rose never reveals the intended results of our course corrections, but sometimes we can guess. Joe told me recently that he was watching the news and recognized a man he saved from choking in a restaurant ten years ago. That man is now running for senator in Minnesota, so draw your own conclusions.”

  Sure. Ty’s dad performs the Heimlich maneuver, and a decade later the guy becomes a senator. Hey, maybe he’ll end up president. Good for him. That doesn’t explain what happened to me and the Lowells.

  Dad asks, “Did you do a course correction that bothers you?”

  “I snatched a lady’s bag and threw it into traffic.”

  He cringes. “Ones like that are tough. About six months ago, I was instructed to walk into the street in front of an oncoming car.”

  I gulp. Stepping in front of a car would take a lot of guts—and a lot of trust in the Seers.

  “The driver saw me and swerved. But he clipped a bike and knocked the boy riding it into the street. Then he drove off without stopping.” Dad gazes over my shoulder like he’s envisioning the scene. “I was horrified. I rushed over to help the boy, but he didn’t seem to be hurt much. Shaken up, a few scrapes, that’s all.”

  “Geez, Dad.” What if the car hadn’t swerved? What if the Seers had miscalculated and my dad got run over? This is not helping me with my trust issues, but Dad keeps eating his ice cream like he has no doubts whatsoever.

  “It helps to remember we’re working toward better lives for humankind. I don’t know if what happened was meant to change the boy’s life, or the driver’s, or someone else entirely. But I trust it was for a good reason.”

  “Why? I mean, I know you saved the president once, but how are you still so sure?”

  “Do you think überintelligent beings from a higher dimension would expend this much energy for anything less than a good reason? If they wanted to hurt us, they could do so. Easily. We’d never see it coming.”

  “People do things for dumb reasons.” I think about Marius reversing himself and puking in the bathroom.

  “True. But let me point this out: A cruel child might burn an anthill with a magnifying glass to watch the ants run. But he won’t do it long before moving on to some other amusement. A caring child might buy an ant farm and watch them with fascination for years. I don’t think the Seers would put this much effort into our world for anything other than our best interests.”

  I play with my spoon, twirling it this way and that. The Seers see backward and forward and sometimes both at the same time. That’s what Miss Rose said.

  But Ty told me, Nobody’s watching.

  Who’s right?

  Maybe both. The Seers might be capable of seeing all, but that doesn’t mean they pay attention to every single thing. Not when there are billions of people to look at across time.

  I glance warily at Dad before raising a more troubling subject. “Do you ever wonder what happened to the rest of Marius’s family? Why did the Seers send you to save only him?”

  Dad pauses a long time before answering. “Maybe it was impossible to save anyone else. Realistically, the Seers can’t save the life of every person in danger.”

  I look down at my spoon again.

  “I know this, Jadie-bean: We’re Marius’s family now. The Seers have given me two amazing children, and I’m proud of being father to both of you, even if you occasionally snatch purses from old ladies, or whatever.”

  The grin that overtakes me comes straight up from my heart. I’m proud to be his daughter too, and I can’t imagine calling anyone else Dad.

  Maybe the Seers do know best. Maybe I’ve got this wrong.

  I’ve been researching Amber Alerts. They’re not only issued in cases of kidnapping by a stranger, but also when the police suspect a child is in danger from an abusi
ve or unstable relative. The Lowells look like a nice family, but who knows? Maybe those photos paint a false picture of my life with them.

  Maybe, I think as Dad and I finish the ice cream and clean up the evidence, I should stop worrying about how I got here and appreciate that I ended up here at all.

  Marius is bouncing a basketball in the driveway when I step outside to clear my head. “We never had that one-on-one,” he calls out.

  I put a hand over my ice cream–filled stomach. “Give me a minute.”

  “A minute to overcome your fear of defeat?” Marius catches the ball as it bounces off the asphalt. “A minute to say your prayers?”

  Well, I’m not going to put up with that. I hold out my hands for the ball. “Say your prayers, Marius. Game on!”

  Marius passes the ball, bouncing it once on the driveway between us. But my phone starts ringing in the back pocket of my jeans, and I let the ball sail past while I answer it. Ty’s name appears on the screen. “Hello?”

  “I’ve got a course correction with numbers close to that one of yours. Wanna go with me? In or out? Decide quick.”

  My head says out, but my mouth says, “In.”

  “Meet me at the playground behind our street.”

  I shove the phone back into my pocket and tell Marius, “Gotta go.”

  “Where?”

  But I’m already running down the sidewalk—away from my home and my family, toward answers I shouldn’t care about. Everything I decided in the kitchen with Dad flies right out the window.

  I have to know more.

  11. JADIE

  “I almost didn’t call you,” Ty says when I show up at the playground, which was built for toddlers and is deserted in the evenings. “You haven’t sent me any numbers.”

  “I haven’t been on any course corrections,” I answer breathlessly. “For days.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “I thought maybe they found out about you taking me to 4-space.”

  “Not likely. I’ve had an assignment every day since then.”

  A fluttery sensation runs through me as I consider why I’ve been singled out. Covering my nervousness, I wave a hand at the plastic animals on giant springs and the three-foot-tall slide. “Why are we meeting here? Your house is a lot closer.”

  “Let’s say I didn’t want my mother seeing you come over again.” Ty shows me his electric wand device. “This is how it’s going to work: I’ll activate your bracelet’s communication to the Transporter, and when we get to 4-space, I’ll enter our coordinates into the consoles. As soon as we arrive at our destination, the first thing we do is figure out where we are. Then I’ll complete my assignment.”

  “How do I get home if we’re separated for some reason?”

  “Press the button for pickup, same as always. Once the Transporter has moved you, it’s always available for a return trip.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Done it lots of times. Geez. Who knew you were such a scaredy-cat?”

  Five minutes and already my hands are bunched into fists. I force myself to tighten my ponytail with them instead of punching him. “Let’s go.”

  Ty touches his device to my bracelet. I push the button myself, and moments later, I land on a platform in 4-space.

  Wiping a sweaty hand on my pants, I wonder if I’m making a mistake. I want to see where they are. Just so I know. One time, and then I’m done. My left hand is immobilized in the port-lock, so I can’t wipe it the way I want to, and I realize my birthmark is glaringly visible on that arm, identifying me as J.D. Lowell. If Ty’s mission takes us near where the Lowells live, this could be a problem.

  There’s one thing I can do to disguise myself.

  I unlatch my bracelet, turn a hundred and eighty degrees, and slip my right wrist into the metal ring instead. The Transporter will return me to Earth with the bracelet on my left, reversing my body, and the birthmark will end up on the opposite arm. It’s not perfect, but it’ll have to do.

  The Transporter deposits Ty on the platform adjacent to mine, as it usually does when two Agents call for pickup at the same time and from the same place. His eyebrows shoot up under his long bangs when he sees me standing with my back to the console, my right arm in the bracelet. “Well, that’s interesting.”

  I scowl at him. “Let’s go. Okay?”

  Chuckling, he stretches across the two-foot gap to punch my console keys. I crane my neck to watch him enter the numbers, but he does it too quickly for me to follow.

  My platform moves away from his into the reddish gloom of 4-space. When it stops, the port-lock releases me, and I’m pulled ana back to Earth. The machine deposits me in a narrow space between two buildings. I look around, expecting Ty to appear, and then I remember he’ll be entering the same coordinates. Hastily, I step backward.

  Just in time. A thin line of substance appears in the spot where I was standing, then expands into Ty. “Glad you had the sense to get out of the way,” he says. “Where are we?”

  “In an alley.”

  “Ya think?”

  We walk out to the street and find ourselves in a city. The streetlights are on, and it’s a little darker than it was at home. A different time zone. We’re east of Kansas. Most of the buildings on the street look residential, although there are a few businesses squeezed between them. Ty checks out the menu posted in the window of a sandwich shop. “We’re in Philadelphia.”

  I point at a chalkboard propped on the sidewalk. PHILLY CHEESE STEAKS MADE 2 ORDER. “Ya think?” I use the same tone he used on me.

  Ty glances at the sign, then takes out his phone. “Any restaurant can sell Philly cheese steaks or Chicago deep-dish pizza. Doesn’t mean you’re in Philadelphia or Chicago. The menu has an address on it.”

  He’s right, darn him. While he snaps a picture of the address, I scan the residences on the street. Most of them are old buildings with their front doors located half a flight of stairs above street level. They’re large enough to be subdivided into apartments. Although the evening is warm, I shiver, shifting from one foot to the other.

  “Were you in one of those buildings?” Ty asks.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” But I’m thinking, Yes! My body feels something my mind doesn’t understand. It’s like, standing right here, right now, I’m caught between two worlds.

  “I’ve never seen any two course correction numbers this close together before.” Ty looks at the display on his bracelet and starts down the street, checking each car and parking meter as he goes. “I only started collecting them a few weeks ago, but this is the first time I know of two people going to the same place. If this is the same place.” He looks back at me. “What’d you do? Mess up your job? Is that why you wanted to come back? To fix something?”

  I don’t answer. “What’s your assignment?”

  He stops in front of a blue Toyota Corolla, removes a quarter from his pocket, and inserts it into the parking meter. “The Seers want to save this guy from a ticket.”

  “Hey, you kids! Get away from there!” A woman in a police uniform stalks toward us. She glares at the timer, which now has ten minutes on it, then at Ty. “Get out of here! If I catch you doing that again, I’ll write you up.”

  “For what?” Ty challenges her. “Doing a good deed?”

  “Come on.” I grab Ty by his shirt and pull him away. “Don’t worry,” I say to the woman. “He doesn’t do good deeds often. They give him a rash.”

  “You know, they do make me itch a little.” Ty scratches his armpit with one hand and his butt with the other.

  “Do you have to be so gross?”

  We retreat as far as the sandwich shop. “Now what?” Ty asks. “You want to hang around and figure out which building you were in last time?”

  I do and I don’t. I stick my hands in my pockets, trying not to look at Ty, who stares at me like he thinks I’ve lost my mind. Maybe I have.

  At that moment, the front door of the building beside the sandwich shop opens
and a teenage boy walks out carrying a laptop under his arm. The boy from the photographs in the Lowell apartment.

  My reversed heart pounds in the wrong side of my chest. Part of me wants to duck into the sandwich shop and hide; another part wants to stand here and stare at him. All of me wishes Ty weren’t watching.

  Sam is athletic-looking, but he moves slowly and gingerly, more like an older man than a fifteen-year-old boy. At the top of the steps, he switches the laptop to his other arm and grasps the railing before starting down. It looks like he’s trying not to bend his left leg, and I remember the crutch in his room.

  Behind him the front door of the building opens, and a man runs out, shouting, “Hey! Wait!”

  Sam glances back, but the man isn’t yelling at him. On the street, the grumpy meter maid has left the Corolla behind and is writing up a ticket for a RAV4 instead.

  “It’s almost eight o’clock! We don’t have to feed the meters after eight!” The man pushes past Sam and runs to the street.

  Sam’s leg buckles, pitching him face-first down the stairs. One hand hangs on to the railing, but that doesn’t stop his fall, and he has to use his other hand to catch himself. The laptop falls and slips through the railing.

  My body dives forward like I’m blocking a soccer goal, and the computer lands squarely in my arms. Sam Lowell stares at me through the bars of the railing. “Caught it,” I declare. “You okay?”

  “I think so.” He twists his body, trying to get to a sitting position.

  “That guy didn’t stop to see if you were hurt.” I throw a dirty look at the man, who’s arguing with the meter maid and either didn’t notice what happened or doesn’t care.

  “Yeah. He lives in the apartment below me, and he’s a jerk.” Sam gets his head above his feet and settles himself on one of the steps. “Is my computer okay?”

  “Should be.” My hands tremble as I hand it up to him through the railing, and while I watch him examine it for damage, it hits me what I’ve done.