Time Zero: 40 minutes
THE BODIES ARE STILL THERE, but they’ve been pulled to one side. Piled up. The guards are gone.
Did they run out on everyone?
If they did, they shut the door behind them. It’s sealed, tightly sealed. I search every part of it, but there is no gap, no way through.
Smoke is filling the corridor. Footsteps pound on the floor, coming this way.
More people from the cafeteria? They try the door, but they can’t open it. It’s locked.
“We need to blast it,” one of them says. They’re all coughing from the smoke.
“Maybe one of the guards had a gun,” another one says, and a few of them run back the way they came to check the bodies.
They return. One of them has a gun in his hands and shoots wildly at the door. Then he steadies his aim and shoots again and again, until finally he blasts the lock mechanism. “Try it!” he says.
Another one pushes at the door. It opens, and they rush through. I zoom past them, but the corridor on the other side of it soon branches off, and I don’t know which way to go. I have to wait for them and follow.
But some are falling to the ground.
Some keep going, coughing, staggering in thickening smoke.
They go up to one last door.
It’s an elevator?
They force the doors open, but the elevator isn’t there.
CHAPTER 34
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 20 minutes
“HELLO,” MUM SAYS, and I’m instantly awake.
She stands in the doorway, her eyes open wide. Part of me wants to jump up and pull away from Kai, and another part doesn’t.
Kai’s arm tightens around my shoulders for a moment, then he takes it away.
He’d said he’d wait with me until Mum got back from work, that he’d have to go home then. And he did wait, even though she was late, and I fell asleep.
Mum doesn’t say anything about us being so close on the sofa, about it being almost midnight.
She leaves while we say goodbye.
“Thank you for listening, Shay,” Kai says. His eyes are warm; there is more, I don’t know, peace there than I have seen before. He leans forward, puts his arms around my shoulders; mine slip around his waist. He holds me for a moment. He pulls away, and now a slight frown lurks between his eyes. “You’ll call if he—”
“Yes,” I say, cutting him off, not wanting to lose this moment to Duncan. “Are you sure you’re okay to ride back this late?”
He touches my chin. “Is this worry for me?” He smiles. “I’ll be fine. Give me your number, and I’ll text when I get there.” He gets out his phone and enters the numbers as I tell him.
He leans down and quickly kisses my cheek: a feather touch. His lips are soft, his breath warm; his cheek, against mine, scratchy now with a shadow of stubble. And I want to turn my face, reach up with my hand into his hair and kiss him, kiss him properly. Everything is tumbling inside; my blood is rushing to my arms and hands and everywhere, making them too heavy to move. I’m frozen, and even though I can’t move, the moment is perfect.
Then all the emotion of the last day or so crashes in on me. My eyes are welling up. So much has been crammed into such a short time that I feel like I’ve aged, like I’m older than the girl who got up yesterday morning. His sister, missing; going on the walk together, and reliving seeing her that day; finding hope in the police renewing efforts to look for her again. Duncan; the way Kai rushed to save me; the way he couldn’t stop. His tears, and mine; all the things he told me, holding my hand; his arm around me, and his beating heart as I drifted to sleep.
And now he’s saying goodbye.
But he doesn’t see the tear that spills on my cheek. He’s turned, putting on his jacket and helmet to leave. I hastily wipe it away.
CHAPTER 35
CALLIE
SHETLAND INSTITUTE, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 5 minutes
THERE IS ANOTHER EXPLOSION, long and rumbling.
It’s not under us this time—it’s in the distance—but it comes with waves and waves of sound. Even more than the first one.
Those I followed are collapsed on the floor now. Some call out for help, but who to? Some are crying. Some are still and silent.
I fly up the elevator shaft, leaving them behind. Up and up and up, until I can’t hear the crying below anymore.
The shaft is rocked again and again by smaller explosions.
When I finally reach the top, the elevator is there, blocking my way.
No! Let me out!
I spread myself thin over the bottom of the elevator and the walls, hunting, searching…
And I find it. A crack in the wall by the floor of the elevator. I don’t know if it was always there, or if something was shaken free by the explosions.
But then there is a whoosh below.
The very air seems to claw and pull, dragging me back the way I came, back down into the depths. I scrabble uselessly at the walls, falling, falling, until a rush of heat slams into me and forces me back up. A ball of fire: a wall of flame.
Immersed in fire, I find the crack again. Is it big enough? I make myself small and thin, and start to push through the crack. The flames are all around me. The metal is warping; the crack gets smaller. I pour myself more and more through the crack. There is pain from the heat of the fire now, and it is getting stronger—pain like the cure, tearing and burning. The first time I’ve felt pain or anything else since I was cured.
I’ve survived flames before, but is it too much when I’m spread thin like I am now? I need to roll into a ball, get out of here fast—or it could destroy me.
I don’t care if it does; anything would be better than being trapped underground.
But then, all at once, I’ve escaped. I’m through!
Into a…house? No—a barn. It looks like an ordinary sort of barn: stone and wood, somewhat falling down.
The elevator was hidden behind bales of straw; they’re burning now, flames shooting up.
And across the room, a door stands open.
A door to…outside?
There is fresh air. A moon hangs in the sky, but it isn’t dark enough to be night.
I rush for the door.
CHAPTER 36
SHAY
KILLIN, SCOTLAND
Time Zero: 2 minutes
MUM COMES BACK IN. She stands with her hand on my shoulder, like she knows I need it to be there. We watch through the window as Kai’s bike disappears up the road. Will I ever see him again?
I’m not cold, but the hairs on my arms and neck stand on end, and I shiver. Somehow the world feels like more of a dangerous place than it used to, even just a day ago. For reasons I can’t explain, I worry for Kai, for me, for everyone I care about.
Goodbye, Kai, I whisper inside. Stay safe. Come back to me one day.
CHAPTER 37
CALLIE
SHETLAND INSTITUTE, SCOTLAND
TIME ZERO
I FLY THROUGH THE DOOR AND OUT.
The barn burns behind me. There are rumbles in the earth below. The sky glows red in the distance.
But I don’t care.
I’m swept up with overwhelming joy and run on the grass, away from the barn and the flames. Spinning somersaults high through the air, in weird half-light that is more night than day.
I’M FREE!
PART 2
THE APPLE
Discovery is rarely a planned thing. A mistake, intelligently observed, can open a multiverse of possibility.
—Xander, Multiverse Manifesto
CHAPTER 1
SHAY
“WAKE UP. Please wake up, Sharona.”
Mum’s voice is insistent, but my head is groggy and thick after so little sleep. A thrill rushes through me as I remember why I’m so tired; I’d stayed awake, waiting for my phone to beep. And it did. Kai had texted: Dear Shay, I’m home safe. Take care. Kai. And I’d hugged his
words inside, reading them over and over again, before I let myself drift to sleep.
“Shay?” Mum says again, and I open one eye. It’s still dark. And isn’t it Sunday…?
I sit up, awake in a rush. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
Mum stands in my bedroom doorway, still in her clothes from last night. “Come see the news. Something’s happening in Shetland.” There’s an edge of distress in her voice that makes me rush to rub my eyes, pull on a robe, and stumble down the stairs after her to the TV. Her brother Davy lives in Shetland, he and his wife and three kids—my cousins.
She holds out a hand; I sit on the sofa next to her and cuddle up.
The images moving on the screen are like a scene out of a disaster movie. This can’t be real, can it? But it is.
Flames shoot high into the sky. The very ground appears to be burning. Buildings are in flames, the whole scene lit strangely by red fire against the Shetland night sky. I reach for Mum’s hand.
“Have you called?”
“I tried. The phone lines are down. Davy’s not answering his cell.”
“What’s happened?”
She shakes her head. “The oil terminal at Sullom Voe has exploded; fires have spread. They don’t know why. Or they’re not saying,” she says, her voice thick with unshed tears.
We watch the coverage through what is left of the night. Is it an act of terrorism? A terrible accident? The reporters speculate. They know there was a massive explosion, and the oil stores on the island—oil delivered by sea or fed there by pipelines from North Sea rigs to one of the largest terminals in Europe—are up in flames. Safety features designed to contain and isolate sections of the pipeline didn’t work. Rigs are burning too.
And the unusually lovely, dry weather they’d had there in recent weeks has made everything like tinder. Even the grass burns. The scale of it all is beyond anything that can be coped with by resources on the island. The only answer is evacuation.
There is an emergency call out to ships in the area to come to the islanders’ aid. Our eyes are fixed on the screen, hour after hour. The sun comes up, and still we’re watching, willing our family to be shown getting on a boat, or in a helicopter. Fishing boats and others of all sizes—even a cruise ship—help in the evacuation, and our eyes search the faces.
We don’t see them.
CHAPTER 2
CALLIE
THE JOY OF BEING FREE from that underground place doesn’t distract me for long. The guards said that Dr. 1 has a place on the island—that when communications failed, someone had been sent up to check if he was there.
Did they make it out before the fire stopped them?
The elevator was at the top. Unless they were trapped inside it, they got out.
How can I find them?
I rush back to the burning barn, the one with the hidden elevator. It’s almost completely destroyed now. I soar high into the air for a better look. All around me, things are burning; smoke makes it hard to see. Fire is spreading along grass and scrub from here too, but most of it comes from another place, across water—where the sky was glowing red when I first came out. It’s not just a red glow anymore: flames are high against the sky. It’s spreading and growing. Was this from the other explosion we heard?
Focus on Dr. 1.
There isn’t a road that leads to the barn; there are only fields, footpaths. I swoop down low through the burning grass: there are no tire marks that I can find. If they sent somebody on foot, Dr. 1’s place can’t be too far away.
I sweep through the air in ever-widening circles from the barn. There are no trees and the ground is bleak, rising into craggy hills with weirdly colored stone, almost red in the half-light. Not easy to climb, so they probably went the other way. I drop to lower ground, and finally something white on the ground catches my eye.
There. A man lies awkwardly on a path. He’s wearing a white jacket like some of them wore under their suits underground. I stop next to him. There’s no fire in this area, at least not yet. I don’t think the smoke here is thick enough to have made him collapse.
Sweat is pouring out of his skin. His lips are moving; he’s mumbling. His body shudders—once, twice, and again—with convulsions.
He’s got it. He won’t live for long.
How am I going to find Dr. 1 without him?
Defeated, I sigh and sit on the ground next to him. He mumbles again and half opens his eyes, then he opens them wide all the way and stares—right at me.
Can you see me? I ask.
“What are you?” he whispers.
I’m a ghost.
“Am I dead?”
No. But you’re not far off. Maybe that’s why you can see me.
He sighs. “I thought so.”
Where is Dr. 1?
“Don’t know,” he says, and his eyes flutter closed.
Wait; stay with me. Where is his place? I’ll go see if he’s there.
Even though I’m a ghost, he seems to find this reasonable. He mumbles about a white house with water all around—like the bastard knew fire would be an issue one day, he says. Not quite a separate island, he says when I ask; it’s connected by sand, near the ruins. He coughs. His house is on the other side, looking out to sea. It’s the only house; it has a big telescope, he adds.
And then he dies.
I follow the path his body lies on, in the direction away from the barn. There is another glow in the sky now: the sun is starting to come up. It’s not as bright as the flames that shoot into the sky, but it still helps me see the way. The path branches a few times, and I have to go first one way, then come back and try another—searching for a house surrounded by water.
I spot what looks like a separate small island, but when I get closer I see it is connected to this one by a thin strip of land that is mostly sand. There are ruined buildings near the sand on the other side: is this the place?
I sweep up into the air and follow the coast around. And there, facing away from the flames on the seaward side, is a white house. It is about as far away from the fires as it could be, here on this not-quite-an-island.
It looks expensive: Dr. 1 must have money.
It also looks dark, empty, cold. I go in through the chimney and check every room of the house. There are two bedrooms upstairs; the beds are neatly made and empty. Downstairs is open plan with a big fancy kitchen—no dishes in the sink—and plush sofas, bookshelves, and a desk. A conservatory at the back of the house looks out to sea and has a big object under a dust cover. If that is a telescope, this must be Dr. 1’s house.
Where could he be if he’s not here, and he wasn’t underground?
His desk is huge, with books and folders on shelves above; drawers underneath that tantalize. There may be answers to where he’s gone, but I can’t open the drawers or lift folders from the shelves. I’m useless.
I go back up through the chimney, resolved to check the whole island.
The sun is up properly now. I skim above ground fast, back over the spit of sand and past the now burned-out barn and hills of red stone. This part of the island is connected to others, including the part over the water that is still a wall of flame. It covers a huge area; as I watch, there is another explosion, and it shoots even higher. If he was that way, he’s dead.
I follow the coast around. The island is big and sprawling, with fingers stretching out in different directions. There are pockets of fire all over the place, wherever there are houses—almost as if whatever was burning and exploding was connected to all the houses. Fire is spreading from these areas onto grass and scrub; fires are growing and reaching for each other.
So much has been destroyed. Everywhere I look seems to be either black and smoking, or still burning. The biggest town is by the sea, and flames shoot into the sky from buildings along the waterfront.
People are gathering in a few places away from villages and towns, in coves where small boats can reach them. I drop down to stand among them, and walk down rocks and sand to
the water’s edge. Waves lap at my feet, but they’re not cold or wet. I stare out at the sea. The wild blue green of it is beautiful, but I can’t smell the salt.
If I close my eyes, I feel nothing. Nothing tells me where I am.
I want to yell and scream and make all this not be real. I wrap my arms around myself, trying to hold it in—this panic that washes through me like the sea washes against the rocks. The sea I loved, that now I can’t smell, feel, or taste.
I sit on a rock, and watch. Small boats are going back and forth from larger boats to the shore. People wait to get on them and leave this place; people who are dazed or crying, burned, injured. Some aren’t moving and are carried, dead or dying.
There are helicopters whirring about, some with cameras. Some scoop water from the sea and empty it where fires burn. Others take injured people away.
And with all this suffering around me, I feel numb. I’m dead inside to match my dead outsides—a bag of ash in a burned-out lab underground.
How I am now is Dr. 1’s fault.
Where is he?
I leave my rock behind, and everywhere people move, I search for Dr. 1. I’ve never seen his face, not really—just a shadow of it behind his mask. But I know he’s very tall; I know the way he stands, the way he walks, like he is the one that must be noticed. I’ve never seen a king, but that is how I imagine a king would walk. And I know his voice. I look, and listen, but nowhere is anyone who could be him.
He might have died in the fires. If he didn’t, he’s not on the island, so I must leave it.
Another boat stops by a beach; more people are helped into it. Some are carried, some walk. I go with them.
We rock on the sea in our small boat, heading toward another one; it’s huge. It looks like one of those fancy cruise ships rich people sail about on. We start to pull in alongside, but I don’t wait. I float up, along a gangway thing, through a door.
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