by Teri Terry
“Do you know where he is now?” Rohan asks.
“Somewhere in Scotland. He’s with a cultlike science group called Multiverse. He’s their leader.”
“What?” Mum says. “I’ve heard of them; I think I even talked about it with Alex some time ago. He never said he had anything to do with them.”
“He wouldn’t. His role was kept secret. They know him as Xander.”
“Multiverse? I’ve heard something about them recently,” Rohan says, and frowns, shakes his head as if trying to jog his memory into place. “Yet Dr. Cross passed extensive security checks before doing some work for us. It was while working for us that he unfortunately perished in a fire—or so I’ve been told.”
“That’s what he wants you to think. Alex was a survivor—both of that fire and of the epidemic.”
“What?” Mum is shocked.
“That’s right: he’s a survivor. And SAR is also searching for Alex. They blame him for everything that happened, and for them taking the fall.”
“We have been looking for the SAR lieutenant too,” Rohan says. “We may be close to moving in on him.”
“Kirkland-Smith? I spoke to him as well.”
A raised eyebrow. “You get around a bit.”
“He’s been hunting survivors, murdering them.”
“I see.” He exchanges a glance with Mum. “We’re trying to come to grips with the survivor problem ourselves.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Calm down, Kai,” he says. “We aren’t like SAR: we are locating and identifying all survivors we can, true, but only to take them into protective custody—both to protect them and to protect others from them. So long as they don’t resist, they’re absolutely fine.”
“But you’ve got everything so wrong. They’re not to blame for the epidemic: it’s SAR and Alex. And SAR is after Alex too—if you find one, you may find the other.”
Kai! It’s Freja, her presence more intense in my mind now; she must have come even closer. Alarm radiates from her. Get out of there—now. They lied. There are three approaching left, and two right. Run!
I spring up, go—run.
Mum is calling my name. Rohan takes up the chase, but he is too old and slow, and I pull away. Freja tells me where to go to get to her and the bike—she’s brought it with her—and how to dodge the others who are coming and running toward me now too. Did Rohan tell them to come after a while, so we could talk before they took me?
I reach Freja, clamber onto the bike with her, and we go.
CHAPTER 23
FREJA
WE DON’T STOP FOR MANY MILES. I’m reaching the whole time, nudging Kai which way to go to elude those who follow, until finally I can’t sense anyone at all anymore: we’ve lost them. I signal Kai to pull in for a break.
He gets off the bike, stretches. “I can’t believe it,” Kai says, a haunted look in his eyes. “I can’t believe she set me up: my own mother.”
“Maybe she didn’t. Maybe as far as she knew, it was just this Rohan, and he is the one who betrayed her and did it?”
He pauses, thinking. “Yeah. That could be—in fact, that’s more likely. Thank you.”
“I was there with you the whole time, listening; I heard everything that was said. Do you think they believed you?”
“I don’t know. I did what I could.”
“So much risk, and all to talk to closed minds.” I shake my head, scowl. “You heard what he said: the survivor problem.” I spit the words out. “He didn’t seem that bothered that Kirkland-Smith is happily murdering people, not if they’re survivors. Like it’s one way to deal with a pest problem, as if we are rats. He might prefer traps, but poison works too.”
Kai reaches for me, but I shake him off, too angry to be held by anyone, even him. “Let’s get going: as far from them as we can.”
CHAPTER 24
KAI
I CAN’T THINK, can’t talk anymore. Just ride.
Was all that a waste of time? I hope not, but I’m not convinced that Rohan would act on anything I said.
Mum—well, maybe. She knows some things I told her were true now, like antimatter being the cause, about SAR and the research lab too—things she didn’t know before that were confirmed by Rohan.
There’s a twist in my stomach when the implications fall into place. Maybe Mum is in trouble with them now? For setting up this meeting with me, even though she told Rohan. And because now she knows things not everybody knows: knowledge that might be dangerous.
Freja is silent too.
The bike’s tank is getting low; we stop in a village to look for gas. Even though Freja tells me she keeps reaching all around and hasn’t found anyone trailing us, we’re both jumpy, nervous.
I find an abandoned car with some gas in the tank and start to siphon some out, accidentally getting some of the foul stuff in my mouth. I’m gagging and spitting when Freja calls out to me, alarm all through her voice.
The phone is in her hand. “There’s a missed call from Wilf and Azra.” She curses. “I muted it when I was coming up closer with the bike and forgot to take it off silent.”
She calls them while I finish the job with the gas as fast as I can, fear coursing through me.
“There’s no answer now,” she says. “And they knew to only call in an emergency.”
We get back on the bike and go, as fast as we can and still hold the road. Freja nudges me mentally, and I stop a bit later so she can try the phone again. Nothing.
When we get within a few miles of Patrick’s house, I want to keep going, to race straight there, but Freja talks sense, makes me hold back. We leave the bike behind some trees and go in slowly, quietly, on foot. She says she is reaching as we go, and we are both sick to our stomachs at what we might find.
CHAPTER 25
FREJA
WE ARE CLOSE TO THE HOUSE WHEN I SENSE THEM. I pull Kai’s hand, and we step back into the trees.
What is it? he says.
There are men around the house. Hiding in the woods. An ambush waiting for us, maybe?
But what about Azra and Wilf? Can you find them?
I’m still trying; I have been all along! I snap, tears in my eyes: I reach out and hail them again and again, but there is nothing in return. They’re not answering me, Kai.
We stand there, uncertain what to do next.
Then there’s a small sound behind us, and we spin around. Kai’s fists are ready, but it’s Wilf.
His face is ash-white, but he looks unhurt. He must have either seen or sensed that we are here and come to us, but his mind is closed.
I hold out a hand, go to him. Put my arms around his stiff body.
Wilf? It’s okay, it’s me. Let me in. Where’s Azra?
At first he stays still, silent. Then when he finally leans his head against my shoulder and his mind opens to mine, I almost fall back from the shock of it.
Azra wouldn’t let him use the phone, and he was bored, exploring the woods, trying to climb the tallest tree he could find.
Then they came. Soldiers. He saw it in their minds—that they’d tracked the car, the one from the air force. They’d worked out we had it from the CCTV, and it had a tracker on it, and they followed its signal here.
Azra told him to stay still and quiet in his tree. She made him promise.
And then she tried to run.
They shot her. In the back as she ran. They just shot her, and I see it all in his mind—the jerky slow motion of it as she fell to the ground. She tried to crawl away, and they shot her again.
Wilf saw it all from high in his tree, and now I do too. He’s been up there since, afraid to move, until we got here.
In every way that counts—and more besides—she was his sister, and he watched her die.
She told me to stay in the tree. I just stayed in the tr
ee.
You did the right thing, just like she said. I soothe him, hold him, rock him in my arms like a small child while he cries—silently—too scared to make any noise at all.
Then I let Kai lead us away. He carries Wilf. Merlin appears from the woods and follows us. We get to the bike, somehow get the three of us and a cat on it, and go in the other direction.
Azra was fifteen, barely more than a child. She was a survivor who resisted being taken into custody—she ran. They didn’t try to chase and catch her, did they? No. She resisted, so they shot her.
The whole time we bounce up the road, these things all bounce through my mind, as if I’m thinking about this or making a choice. But the truth is: I already know.
The survivor problem.
The different, the damned.
Even as Kai takes us away from this cursed place, I know it. There can be no us, not anymore. There never really was, if I’m honest. How could there be?
The barriers between us in this world are too complete and profound.
And it’s not just the end for us.
This is the end for me too.
As I was—I can never be again.
When we finally stop, exhausted, for the night, I try to explain to Kai that we—Wilf and I—have to go on without him.
I can tell he understands, at least a little, but he says he can’t let us go on our own. That it’s too dangerous.
But being me is always dangerous; it always will be, and he can’t change that.
I tell him we’ll talk again in the morning.
CHAPTER 26
KAI
IT’S LIKE SOME SORT OF BAD DREAM, but I’m awake. They’ve gone; they’re really gone—Freja and Wilf. The bike with them. They even took the damn cat.
I don’t know how long it has been since they left. I could try to follow them. I’m at turns angry and worried that she didn’t let me at least see them safely to wherever she thinks they need to go. But if she doesn’t want to be found, she’ll block me at every step. Besides, they could be miles away by now on the bike. Assuming they haven’t fallen off it—she barely knows how to ride the thing, and now I add that worry to the list.
What happened to Azra…I shudder. Freja showed me Wilf’s memory, and it won’t leave my thoughts.
But why did that make Freja feel she had to leave me behind? I don’t understand.
I know something else now though. I cared for her; I really did. But this isn’t like when Shay left me—when my guts were ripped out from the inside. I didn’t love Freja. Maybe she knew this, and that is part of the reason she left.
But I still needed her. Now there is no one to think of besides myself, and that is something I don’t want to do. Can’t do.
I feel empty, lost. I have since Shay left, but Freja—and then Azra and Wilf—distracted me from the pain. Now part of me wants to just give up, to curl up alone in a dark room somewhere. Or better yet: find a cliff and jump, or crash a car into a wall at maximum speed.
Thinking like this isn’t helping.
I start walking. I hesitate at a crossroads: north or south?
North: Freja and Wilf, Xander and Shay. Maybe even Callie.
South: Mum. And also Rohan.
I don’t know whether Callie is really that way—that she is anywhere.
As for Shay and Freja, well, maybe, just maybe, it’s about time I stop chasing after girls who’ve decided to leave me.
And we’ve got some unfinished business, Rohan and I. I have to tell him about Azra. Maybe then he’ll see how wrong they are about how they are handling the survivor problem—it can only push us all further apart.
Like it has me and Freja.
I head south.
PART 5
CHEMICAL EVOLUTION
Extreme heat and pressure within early stars forced the creation of elements—from the initial few to all the naturally occurring elements we have today. Yet now we can create elements; we call them artificial, but once they are made, they are real enough. Why not direct other stages of evolution? It is inevitable.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
CALLIE
I RUN BACK TO OUR HOUSE in Community and yank the door open.
Shay is curled up on the sofa. She hasn’t really moved much since almost everybody died.
She sits up, alarm crossing her face. “What’s wrong?”
“They’re back,” I say, gasping for air.
“Who?”
“Some of the ones from Community that traveled away with Beatriz and Elena. I saw them walk in from the edge.”
Shay’s eyes are wide with shock. She didn’t know they were coming, then. She shakes her head, gets to her feet, even though I can tell she’s still really tired.
“Can I ask you something?” I say, knowing I should leave it, that other things are important to her right now, but I can’t help myself.
“Of course, but make it fast.”
“The edge of the world is still there. Shouldn’t I be able to see through it now? Are there still blocks in my mind?”
She is walking to the door. “I don’t know; I couldn’t see any, but that you still see it that way suggests there must be. I’ve got to go talk to Xander now; we’ll have another look later, okay?”
The door swings shut behind her.
CHAPTER 2
SHAY
I COULD HAIL XANDER BEFORE I GET THERE, but I want to see his face, his aura, and judge him with my eyes as well as my mind. There’s no chance he didn’t know they were on their way. He always knows what is going on. Xander is the puppet master; his people dangle from strings in his hands. How could he have them come back here after so many have already died? We’ve burned the bodies, but does the sickness still hang in the air of this place?
We couldn’t save anyone. There were a few immune, but every single person who got sick died. He was disappointed. There was something in his thoughts about it, after Persey’s death. He suspected that if we could try a few more times, we’d be able to work out how to save someone. But we ran out of patients.
He wouldn’t have told them to come back, so they could get sick and I could try to heal them? Even as the thought forms, I’m pushing it away: he couldn’t do that, not to them, surely? These are his followers. He cares about them; I know he does. He wouldn’t risk them like that.
Would he?
And then there’s me. I’m his daughter. Does he care enough about me not to put me through that again, the pain of trying and failing to save each one—experiencing each death as if it is my own?
No. He doesn’t. He’s said as much before, and it hurts to know this. I’m not even sure why. He’s never been any kind of father to me. It wasn’t his fault before, but he knows who I am now, and he still wouldn’t save me from that pain.
If that is so, would he care enough about them to keep them away when coming here may mean they’ll die?
Even as I can’t believe he could do this to us all deliberately, I’m sick with distrust and fear. I have to ask him straight out if he has done this; it’s the only way to know.
I’ve started to work myself up to confront him about it, but when I arrive, I don’t need to bother. Cepta is there already, and she is furious enough for two.
He holds up his hands, and she’s quelled so instantly he must have attacked her aura. “Listen to me, both of you. Some of them are ill; they were already. They’ve come home to die.”
CHAPTER 3
CALLIE
THEY ARE TAKEN TO THE HALL when they fall ill—the place where all of Community, except for me, used to have dinner. After dinner in this same place, they’d join together, minds linked—something I’ve never experienced, but from what I understand, it is like being so close that they are part of each other forever. But before this group arrived, most of thei
r friends had already died, here, in this same place. Was being so close in life why they couldn’t stay away? Maybe they had to be together again—in death.
Cepta has me fetch blankets, and I run back and forth with what I can find. There isn’t much available: a lot of them were wrapped around the bodies that were burned on the pyres. Soon the hall looks like a hospital again, beds made on the floor, but there aren’t any doctors or medicine—there is just Shay.
Shay is next to a woman. Shay’s eyes are weirded out like they go sometimes, and I know not to speak to her. But a moment later, her eyes come back to the way they usually are—they are shiny with tears. The woman is still now, quiet, blood in her open, blank eyes.
“Shay?” I say, and she turns her head slowly toward me.
“Callie. You shouldn’t be here.” Her voice is a faint whisper, her skin so pale that rings of darkness under her eyes stand out like bruises. She blinks, and I’m grateful for that movement, the only thing that shows her eyes aren’t just as open and blank as those of the woman who died.
“Where else can I be right now?” I say, and it’s true, but the horror around me is so complete that I want to run away.
A ghost of a smile crosses her face. Shay’s hand moves as if to go to mine, then falls back. I reach forward instead and grip hers.
“What can I do to help?”
As I speak, there are cries of pain behind us. A man. Aristotle. I recognize him, like I do all the others—even though until recently I was kept isolated. I knew them by sight, heard their names when they spoke to each other. He’s big, a wall of muscle that would tower over me if he could stand again, but now he is crying. Shay moves slowly toward him.
“Shay? Can I help?”