Tandem: The Many-Worlds Trilogy

by Anna Jarzab

  “Hey!” I cried as a door shut behind me. The voices in the ballroom died away completely as the latch caught. I looked around in a panic, expecting to see Lucas or someone even worse. Instead, to my surprise—and great relief—I found myself facing Dr. Moss. He was holding a file folder in his hand, his eyes dramatically big behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  “Dr. Moss, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m sorry to have scared you, Ms. Lawson, but I’ve discovered something very important and I thought I should show it to you as soon as possible,” he said, indicating the folder.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’m just glad it’s you. What do you have there?”

  “I finally got a hold of Dr. March,” Dr. Moss told me. “I was stumped as to the cause of your problem, but sometimes when Dr. March and I put our heads together, great things occur. For example, your anchor. I couldn’t have invented it without him.”

  I gave the physicist a tight, insincere smile. If I ever met Dr. March, I was going to have a couple of things to say to him. “So? Does he know why I’m seeing the visions of Juliana?”

  “He had a theory,” Dr. Moss said. He paused, carefully considering his next words. “How much do you know about your parents, Ms. Lawson?”

  “What’s this got to do with my parents?”

  “Possibly everything. Go on, tell me about them.” Dr. Moss regarded me with increasing excitement.

  “Um, I don’t know. They were both physicists. Brilliant physicists,” I said with pride. “They died when I was seven, in a car accident. Is that what you mean?”

  “Who do you live with now? On Earth.”

  “My granddad,” I told him.

  “Maternal or paternal?”

  “Maternal. Dr. Moss, I don’t understand. Why are you asking me about my parents?”

  “Have you ever met any of your father’s family members? Parents? Siblings? Cousins?” Dr. Moss pressed.

  “No. His parents were dead by the time I was born. They were both only children, and so was my dad. His only family was my mom and me. Why?”

  “What was his name?” Dr. Moss’s fingers worried the edges of the folder he was holding, bending and crushing it.

  “George Lawson.”

  “Did he have any other names?”

  “Of course not.” Why would my father have had other names? He was a scientist, not a spy.

  “Did you know that your father has no analog in this world?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Thomas said that happens sometimes, that people don’t necessarily have an analog in every universe.”

  “That’s true. But there’s another possible explanation.” Dr. Moss opened the folder. There was a photograph on top, clipped to a handful of documents, parts of which were blacked out. “Is this your father, Ms. Lawson?”

  “Yes,” I breathed. The man in the picture was unmistakably my dad. “What is this? Why do you have it?” The file read: CLASSIFIED: OPERATION LOOKING GLASS.

  “Dr. March and I concluded, after exhaustive analysis of the available data, that the only way in which you could be seeing Juliana through the tether is if you were born with a connection to both worlds,” Dr. Moss explained. “And the only way that we know of for that to be true is if you are a crosser.”

  “What’s a crosser?” I demanded. “And why does the KES have my father’s picture in one of their classified files?”

  “ ‘Crosser’ is a term I invented this afternoon to describe someone whose genealogy originates from more than one universe,” Dr. Moss said.

  “This afternoon?”

  He gave me a sheepish smile. “Well, you’re the first one we’d ever heard of. There was no official term for the phenomenon, but of course we needed one.”

  “Of course,” I said in disbelief. “Go on.”

  “In order for you to be experiencing the visions, one of your parents had to have been born in Aurora. It looks to have been your father. His real name was George Anderson, and he was employed as a research scientist by the KES. He was sent through the tandem on a top-secret assignment, to work with Earth physicists in order to sabotage their attempts to develop the many-worlds technologies that we were trying to perfect here at the Citadel.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not possible.”

  “I’m afraid it’s more than possible—it’s true. He worked for the KES for several years,” Dr. Moss said. “Until he went AWOL.”

  “My father was from Earth,” I insisted. There was absolutely no way he had any connection to this awful world.

  “I’m afraid that’s not so,” Dr. Moss said with regret in his voice. “You see, I knew your father. I didn’t realize it when I first met you because he had changed his name, but before he was assigned to Operation Looking Glass, he worked with me in my lab. He was, as you say, brilliant. Beyond his years. I’m sorry to hear that he’s no longer with us.”

  I was crying now, a stream of silent tears pouring down my face, surely smearing my makeup. But I didn’t care about that.

  “Oh, there, there, dear.” Dr. Moss gave my shoulder an awkward pat. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” It was Thomas I wanted, Thomas I needed to talk to. He was the only person I could tell about this, the only person who would understand what it meant and how it made me feel. “I’m sorry, Dr. Moss, but I need to be alone.”

  I kept thinking about my mother. How would she have felt if she knew that she had married an imposter, an invader from another world who’d come to Earth with the express purpose of destroying her work? Because that was where my parents had met, on a research project at Princeton University.

  Unless she knew. But she couldn’t have … could she? I tried to put myself in my mother’s shoes, but I knew so little about my parents that I couldn’t imagine how my mother would’ve reacted to the news that George Lawson, gifted physicist, beloved husband, had been nothing more than an alien from Aurora. And if she had known the truth, had Granddad also known? Was this the mysterious reason why he’d always disliked my father?

  “I understand. I should go now. I’m not supposed to be in the Castle, and if somebody sees me …”

  “Yes, of course,” I said. “Thank you, Dr. Moss. For … for telling me, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “Please take care of yourself, Ms. Lawson.”

  “I will.” He gave me a sad smile, then left the way we’d come, vanishing into the crowds in the ballroom.

  I brushed the tears from my eyes. I didn’t think I could face the queen or Callum in my condition, and didn’t want to. I have to get out of here, I thought. I couldn’t go back into the party—I was a mess. I didn’t want to go to Juliana’s bedroom, just in case someone came looking for me.

  I could only think of one place no one would find me.

  The king’s room was dark and cold. The only sounds were the occasional mechanical beeps from the machines that measured his vitals and his own raspy breathing. For whatever reason—perhaps it was my state of mind, or the fact that I now had bigger things to be afraid of than the king’s oddities—I felt safer in this room than ever before.

  I took a seat and closed my eyes, relishing the silent company of Juliana’s father. I wondered what he would make of me. It was obvious from the fact that one of the Operation Looking Glass files had been in his possession that he’d been aware of the existence of parallel universes, specifically of Earth, and that he had been party to my own father’s assignment. But had he known about me? Was he aware I wasn’t his daughter? A few days ago, I would’ve said no, but now I couldn’t be sure. He’d led me to the Angel Eyes file, even if I hadn’t understood. But perhaps I’d been wrong all along. Maybe his mutterings were random after all. Had I been so desperate for meaning that I’d manufactured a pattern that didn’t exist?

  “I found it,” I told him, squeezing his hand. “I found the map. Except I don’t understand. What is it?” But he didn’t answer. He n
ever did, and he never would.

  I switched on a lamp and picked up The Odyssey. I began to read, to tell the king of Odysseus’s reunion with his long-lost son.

  “ ‘Telemachus,’ Odysseus, man of exploits, urged his son, ‘it’s wrong to marvel, carried away in wonder so to see your father here before your eyes. No other Odysseus will ever return to you. That man and I are one, the man you see … here after many hardships, endless wanderings, after twenty years I have come home to native ground at last …’ ”

  THIRTY-THREE

  I stayed in the king’s room until I was sure the last of the gala guests would be gone. It was almost three in the morning by the time I got back to Juliana’s room, but I didn’t find it empty.

  “Hello, Miss Lawson.” The General looked relaxed, sitting on the sofa near the window as if it was completely natural for him to be there. “I was wondering when you were going to show up.”

  “Where’s Thomas?” I demanded. If something had happened to him, surely the General had been the one behind it.

  The General’s face contorted with thinly veiled anger. “That’s none of your concern.”

  “Then why are you here? If you’re going to yell at me about leaving the gala without telling anybody, believe me, you wouldn’t have wanted me there,” I said. I was too exhausted to argue. He had me, he had Thomas, he even had my father, in a way. There was nothing I could do to fight him. I just wanted him to say whatever it was he’d come to say and then leave.

  “That’s not why I’ve come. The queen will be furious, I expect, but it doesn’t matter—you’re going home.”

  “What? Are you serious? You’re sending me home?” No, I thought desperately. I couldn’t leave without seeing Thomas at least one more time and being sure that he was safe. But I doubted the General was going to allow me that.

  “I told you six days, Miss Lawson, and tomorrow is the last day. I would have thought you would be elated.”

  “What about Juliana?” I demanded. “You haven’t found her yet.”

  “Do you really think I don’t know where Juliana is?” the General asked. I said nothing.

  “They think they’re so clever, my boys,” the General said. “They forget who trained them. To whom they owe all their skills—even Lucas. I know he turned her over to Libertas when I told him to get rid of her. I don’t even mind. She can’t tell them anything. She doesn’t know anything, and if she thinks they’re going to help her then she’s mistaken. They’ll hold her for leverage or ransom as long as they think she’s useful, and then they’ll find their own way to dispose of her.” He brushed his hands together. “Win-win.”

  So the General didn’t know that Juliana had given Libertas the Angel Eyes map. I’d seen the look on the Shepherd’s face, and he, at least, seemed to think it was worth the price.

  “Where’s Thomas?” I asked again.

  The General’s face grew cloudy. “I told him not to get involved with you. I explicitly warned him against becoming emotionally attached. Thomas is a very brave young man, very smart, very skilled, but his heart’s soft.”

  “Then why did you give him the mission?”

  “I think that’s fairly obvious,” the General said. “We have no other agents whose analogs are in your life. Why do you think I adopted Thomas in the first place?”

  “Because he’s Grant’s analog?” That was a risky gamble.

  “One of the reasons, yes,” the General said. “It was an insurance policy, just in case we ever needed you. You have no idea how thrilling it was to find an Aurora-analog of someone in your life who could actually be molded into a KES agent.”

  “I barely knew Grant back then,” I said. “Even now I don’t know him. He could’ve moved away at any time, and then what?”

  “Then I would still have an exemplary soldier who was entirely indebted to me. Besides, it was very unlikely that you and Grant wouldn’t grow up together. You’d just lost your parents; your grandfather needed a job, and the university offered him one. And Grant’s mother was tenured. Of all of them, he was the best bet, and Thomas has proven to be a very good investment. Until recently, that is.”

  “What have you done to him?”

  “Don’t be so melodramatic. Thomas is far too important an asset for me to do anything to him. But I couldn’t risk keeping him on Operation Starling knowing how he felt about you. He was starting to compromise the mission.” He handed me a sheaf of photographs.

  “Where did you get these?” The pictures showed Thomas and me, kissing on my bed at Asthall Cottage, taken through the curtains with a long zoom lens.

  “I was having you surveilled.” He shook his head. “I have to say, I’m disappointed in you. I thought you would be more excited to go home.”

  “I don’t think I can be too excited until I see the strings,” I told him. “What do I have to do? Go through with the wedding?”

  “There’s not going to be a wedding,” the General said. “Not if I can help it. I never intended for Juliana and Callum to actually get married, although I couldn’t share that with her at the time.”

  “What do you mean, there’s not going to be a wedding?”

  “Prince Callum is going to have a medical emergency,” the General said. “Tonight.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “Because you’re going to make it happen,” the General said. He reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a small vial filled with an ounce of clear liquid. “He’s still awake. He’s looking for you, and when we’re finished here I’ll make sure he finds you. He’s worried. He wants to talk. I’ll have the kitchen send up a tea tray and you’ll pour him a cup. Then, when he’s not looking, you’re going to slip this into his drink and hand it to him. The solution will do the rest.”

  “I can’t do that,” I told him. “I won’t kill Callum. You were probably better off keeping Juliana.”

  “Oh, it won’t kill him, I assure you,” the General said.

  “But it’ll make him sick!”

  “Hopefully,” the General said.

  “You’re insane! I’m not doing this. Callum is my friend. I’m not going to help you hurt him.”

  “Actually, you are.” The General leaned forward and placed the vial on the table between us. “Because if you don’t, you will remain here in Aurora, rotting in the worst prison the Commonwealth has to offer for the rest of your natural born life.”

  “Why do you even want to do this? If you don’t want him to marry Juliana, why don’t you just send him back to Farnham and end this?”

  The General sighed. “I shouldn’t expect you to understand the delicate political situation we’re in. The marriage does nothing for the UCC, because we don’t want a peace treaty. We want Farnham. For two hundred years that family has been sitting on land that rightfully belongs to this country, and I’m going to get it back. The first step in assuring that that happens is securing our collateral. Prince Callum is that collateral. But I have no use for a hostage who’s well enough to be extracted. Not that I think Farnham is capable of such a maneuver, but it never hurts to be sure.”

  “According to Callum, his mother practically hates him,” I said. “What makes you think she won’t blow this country to smithereens rather than cooperate with you?”

  “Because as much as she may hate him, which I’m not convinced she does, her country loves him,” the General said. “If she sacrifices him for her own political reasons, they’ll revolt. Libertas will make sure they do. The queen of Farnham likes to pretend they’re simply a scourge on the UCC, but they aren’t. They operate in Farnham as well, and stirring up revolution is what they do best. She knows she’ll lose if she shows her people what a miserable tyrant she really is.”

  “She’s a miserable tyrant? What does that make you?”

  “A brilliant strategist,” the General said arrogantly. “I don’t need the love of the people; I have nuclear weapons.” He stood up. “I’ll leave you
to make your choice, Miss Lawson. We have other ways of making sure this task is done, but none of them involve you going back to Earth, so I would consider my offer very, very carefully if I was you.”

  He strode to the door, confident that he had been victorious over me, the naïve little girl from another world.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  I picked up the vial and turned it over in my hand. It was the only thing other than the tandem standing between me and Earth—home. And it was so small. Just a flick of the wrist and it would be done. Nobody would ever suspect that I had anything to do with what happened to Callum, and even if they did, by then I would be an entire universe away where no one could ever touch me.

  What was my other option? Disobey the General and condemn myself to a lifetime of imprisonment in Aurora? Either way, Callum’s fate was sealed. I couldn’t save him, but I could save myself.

  I struggled to get out of my dress, ripping it as I pulled it off. The beautiful rose tiara clattered to the floor. I collapsed beside it in tears, panting. After a while, I got up and threw on a pair of pants and a T-shirt, not caring one iota for how I looked.

  “Juli?” Callum stood in the door, his voice full of concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I said, turning from him and wiping at my face. My fist closed over the vial. Somehow, I found the strength to smile. It felt unnatural, as though the muscles I needed to do it had atrophied. “I’m fine. Just overwhelmed.”

  “I’ll say.” He came in and sat down on the sofa the General had just vacated. “You disappeared hours ago. I was really worried. I thought something had happened.”

  I shook my head. “No, I just hate crowds. They make me nervous.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay. Well, I’m glad you’re all right.”

  “I am, I promise.” An attendant entered the room, pushing a tea cart I hadn’t ordered. I nodded my thanks and he left as quickly as he had come. “Do you want some tea?”

  “Uh, sure.” Callum was bewildered by my strange behavior and I couldn’t blame him. I was acting like a crazy person. I felt crazy, too. Was I really going to do this? Poison Callum? Turn him over to the General in exchange for my own happiness? Could I ever be happy back at home, knowing what I’d done, the destruction I’d left in my wake?