“Just humor me, okay?”
Storm shrugged, then set off down the hill.
They passed a woman sitting on a porch, doing absolutely nothing. Faller waved; she squinted, partially raised her hand and gave a tentative flip of her fingers.
A few doors down a small pug-nosed dog rushed out from between two pickup trucks. It pulled up short at the curb and began barking, its butt popping into the air with each bark. All of the dogs on Faller’s world had been eaten within a hundred days; Faller guessed this world must have more food. Faller knelt on one knee and held out two fingers, but the dog was not to be won over, so they moved on.
The main drag was just ahead; it was barely two blocks long, the curbs spotted with vehicles. A half-dozen people were visible. There was a man sitting in a wooden chair set out on the sidewalk while another cut his hair. Another man was hammering something, half in, half out of a doorway. A couple were crossing the street, and two young girls were drawing something on the sidewalk with a stone.
Stores lined the street, the snugness making Faller feel comforted. He hadn’t realized how peculiar open spaces made him feel. Not a bad feeling—just untethered, as if he might fall up into the sky at any moment. The stores to their left and right were empty, their display windows mostly broken and displaying nothing but dust and dead moths.
“We should be talking,” Storm said. “People usually talk when they’re walking together.”
“Good point.”
They passed a store that wasn’t empty. There looked to be food inside, along with some Day One things—shoes and such. Faller was tempted to stop and take a closer look, but stuck to his plan. There would be plenty of time later.
“Did I seem at all familiar when you first saw me?” Faller asked. “Like maybe we’d met before, but you couldn’t remember where?”
“No. I heard someone had brought in a lunatic who claimed he fell out of the sky. I didn’t want you to get too close, in case you were dangerous.”
Faller laughed. “You may get a chance to see how it feels to tell someone you fell out of the sky.”
Ahead, two men stepped out of a doorway, onto the street. Faller’s heart thumped slow and hard as the men turned in their direction. This was it, their first test. They were older men, one wearing a leather billed cap, both in heavy boots held together with masking tape.
The men slowed as they approached, then stopped completely. They were gawking at Faller.
“Who are you?” A walrus mustache hid the movement of the man’s lips, but he didn’t have a beard. His face looked strange, sporting so much bare skin.
“Excuse me?” Faller said, trying to sound light and unconcerned.
“I’ve never seen you before.” He said it like it was a shocking thing, looked at his companion, who shook his head slowly, as if in a trance.
Faller held out a hand. “The name’s Faller. I’m from—” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Off in the … far reaches—”
The men stared at Faller like he had the head of a goat. Faller wondered why they weren’t staring at Storm. Certainly she was more stareworthy than he.
The man with the big mustache finally looked at Storm. “Emily, who is this?” He squinted at Storm. “Or is it Susanna?”
“Stuart?” the other man called, looking past Faller. Faller glanced over his shoulder. A tall man with a bland face partially obscured by a scraggly blond beard was heading toward them. This wasn’t going according to plan.
Both men pointed at Faller. “Look at him,” the mustached man said. “I’ve never seen him before in my life.”
Stuart stepped onto the sidewalk, his head tilted as if trying to make sense of Faller’s face.
“We keep to ourselves,” Faller stammered. “We’re hermits.”
“It’s like he appeared out of thin air,” the mustached man said to Stuart.
Two women were crossing the street, their curiosity evidently piqued by the growing crowd. Faller lifted his head to greet them, trying to keep up his air of “oh, isn’t this a silly misunderstanding?”
When he saw the women’s faces, his polite smile crumpled.
They were staring wide-eyed at Storm, approaching her as one might approach a wild dog on a lead of indeterminate length. They were wearing blue summer dresses, worn but clean, and each had a yellow bow in her hair.
They both looked exactly like Storm.
One by one the men who’d been staring at Faller noticed these two Storms, and their eyes widened further as they looked from Storm to these women and back again.
“What the hell is going on?” Stuart finally asked. He looked at the two women. “Emily? Susanna?” The two women nodded, their eyes not leaving Storm. Storm looked like she might collapse.
Stuart turned to Storm. “Then who are you? What’s going on?” He sounded on the verge of panic. Two others joined the crowd; yet more hurried toward them. So much for blending in.
“Look,” Faller said, then fell silent. He wasn’t sure how to continue. There was no remotely feasible lie he could tell. It hadn’t occurred to him that a world could be small enough that everyone knew everyone else by name. His only recourse seemed to be to tell the truth.
“I can tell you who we are and how we got here, but you’re not going to believe me. I wouldn’t believe me if I were you.” Faller heard a shout in the distance. There were at least a dozen people crowded around now. Some looked as if they weren’t breathing for fear they might miss a word. Faller pointed at the sky. “There are other worlds, far above here—so far above you can’t even see them.” He took a deep breath and pressed on. “Storm and I fell from one of them.”
The silence stretched on so long that Faller felt himself turning red with embarrassment, as if he’d just been caught telling an absurd lie.
Finally, Stuart asked, “Are you trying to tell us you fell out of the sky?”
“I’m not trying to tell you anything,” Faller said. “We fell out of the sky. Well—” He shrugged the pack off his back, opened the pouch and pulled out the parachute. “Not exactly fell. We parachuted out of the sky. Obviously if we fell we’d have been killed. We parachuted.” He partly unfolded the parachute, showed it to them. “It captures air so you float down slowly.”
He looked at Storm, hoping for some support, but she was gaping at her duplicates, her mouth working soundlessly.
“Mister, you’re so full of shit I can smell it from here,” Stuart said.
Faller could feel his face growing redder, now out of anger. He took a step toward Stuart. “If I’m lying, you explain it to me.” He dropped the parachute on the sidewalk. “How else could we have gotten here? Why have you never seen us before?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you, would I?”
Faller opened his mouth to say that he’d prove it, he’d parachute off a building and show them. But none of the buildings were more than two stories tall, not enough for the parachute to open. He turned his face to the sky and sighed in frustration. “How is us falling from another world any harder to believe than what happened to all of us a few hundred days ago?”
“Hey,” Stuart said, “that’s enough.”
“What? I’m just saying.” Faller pressed his hands to the sides of his head. “If none of us knows anything about what happened before that day, assuming we even existed—”
“I said, that’s enough out of you,” Stuart snapped. People were looking at each other as if Faller had pulled out his pecker. Stuart gestured toward two young, rather large men at the back of the crowd. “Jim, Billy, help me lock these two up. We’ll sort this out after we can gather the City Council.”
Stuart grabbed Faller by the shoulder. Faller tried to shake his hand off. “Why would you lock us up? We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“You’re spreading bad feelings,” James said, as if that explained everything.
XII
AT THE far end of the driving range a figure squatted to tee up a ball. From this
distance Peter couldn’t make out his face, but the Panama hat told him it was Ugo. He took a deep breath and, box of chocolates under his arm, headed across the parking lot toward the driving range.
The yardage markers set on the range were still standing, but the grass was knee-high and choked with weeds. Too much energy was needed to maintain the range and adjoining miniature golf course. Plus, who but Ugo went to a driving range in the middle of a world war?
Ugo wound, whacked a ball on a low, rising trajectory, out past the two-hundred-fifty-yard marker. As he turned to pluck another ball from a bucket he noticed Peter and froze for a moment, staring, before setting another ball on the tee.
Peter had tried playing golf with Ugo once, back when they were friends, and had quickly realized it wasn’t for him. Too frustrating.
He squinted against the glare coming off the blacktop, feeling yet another headache coming on, and shifted the box of chocolates to his other arm. It was a good thing it was a cool day, or they’d be melting.
Ugo was wearing a white polo shirt, his hat, and wraparound sunglasses. Peter raised a hand in greeting. Ugo only stared. He didn’t look surprised to see Peter.
“I still don’t get what you see in this game,” Peter said.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
Peter stopped a dozen steps from Ugo. “I thought maybe we could talk.”
Gripping the club, Ugo looked down at the ball. “Is that right?”
“Ugo, I’m sorry. I want to make things right between us, but I don’t know how.”
Ugo glanced at him in what seemed a warning, then he looked away, as if he found it hard to look at Peter for long.
Peter pushed on. “I loved Izabella. I never would have done anything I thought would harm her. I only wanted to help her.”
Ugo stared off at the field. “What do you have there?”
Peter offered the box to Ugo.
To his surprise, Ugo took them. He examined the box. “Knipschildt truffles. These must have been hard to find.”
“I just want you to know how sincerely sorry I am.”
“Nothing says sincerity like Knipschildt truffles.” Ugo pushed the club he was holding into his bag, pulled out his driver. Peter took an involuntary half-step backward as Ugo turned, the club clutched in his fist. He strode to the tee, the chocolates in one hand, driver in the other.
“You’re so transparent. Like a little boy. You want to repair things with me because you can’t explain our falling-out to Melissa, and goodness knows, you can’t tell her the truth.” Ugo set the box in the grass, plucked out one of the truffles and set it on a tee. “I’m not particularly interested in helping you out of that little jam.”
The truffle exploded when Ugo hit it, spraying chocolate a dozen feet in front of the tee. Ugo squatted, retrieved another and teed it up.
“I’m here because you’re my friend. Or were. Because we’re family.” He wondered if Ugo had surmised that Melissa was the one who’d told Peter where to find Ugo. “Come back to the lab. Let’s get back to work. The war is too important to let a personal conflict get in the way.”
“A personal conflict.” Ugo swung the club viciously, as if trying to bludgeon the truffle out of existence. Chocolate filling spattered his golf shoes. He paused, turned toward Peter. “What a nice, sanitary way to phrase it.”
Ugo stuck out his bottom lip, surveyed the range. “When I was a twelve-year-old boy, a prisoner in the Omarska camp during the war, I was forced to bite off a fellow inmate’s pinky finger while the guards cheered. If I’d refused, the other boy would have bitten off my pinky.”
Peter put his hand over his mouth. “Jesus, Ugo. I had no idea—”
Without warning Ugo swung the driver at the box, sent it spinning toward Peter, one side torn open, truffles bouncing in the grass. “I don’t want your sympathy. I want you to understand. You think I’m of no consequence. A lightweight.”
Peter opened his mouth to disagree, but could see from Ugo’s eyes that he’d probably swing the driver at Peter’s head if he interrupted again.
Ugo gave a quick shrug. “Ugo doesn’t agree with this, but I’m going to do it anyway. I’m going to send his wife through my duplicator. Who cares what Ugo thinks?” Ugo rubbed his long nose. “‘Don’t be a dick,’ you once said to me, in front of the janitor.” He shoved the driver into the bag. “I’m not who you evidently think I am. I’m not weak. When people cross me, I take their heads off.” He spat in the grass.
Peter surveyed the chocolate massacre stretching from the tee box down the gentle slope into the weeds. “This didn’t go down at all like you’re thinking. Izabella pleaded with me—”
Ugo stabbed a finger at him. “If you speak her name again, I’ll split your skull against that wall.”
Peter was tempted to tell Ugo to go ahead and try. But win or lose, a fight would only make things worse.
“Now,” Ugo said, “as to the war. It is too important. Too important to waste time helping you play with your toys. And too important to be left to a frail little dove of a president who doesn’t have the stomach to do what has to be done.”
“What do you mean?”
Ugo turned away. “You’ll find out. Now get out of my sight.”
Peter stood his ground as Ugo moved to a new, cleaner tee and went back to hitting golf balls. After a minute or two he headed back across the parking lot.
The war was too important to be left in the hands of President Aspen? Peter had no idea what that meant. The next election wasn’t for another two years. What, was Ugo planning a coup?
Peter chuckled at the thought.
25
THEY WERE led to a cell occupied by the most fearsome-looking man Faller had ever seen. He was sprawled on the floor along the bars, one knee drawn up near his bare chest, which looked like two flat stones set beside each other. He had long, jet-black hair, reddish-brown skin, and ragged, almost gaudy scars on both his shoulder and stomach. He barely glanced at Faller and Storm as they took a seat on the long bench across from him. There was a puddle in the corner of the cell; from the dusky stink Faller guessed it was urine.
“That went well,” Faller said. He looked at Storm, but his attention was on the stranger, whom he could see out of the corner of his eye. The stranger was staring at the floor between them. He didn’t appear threatening, necessarily, but still, it was the sort of situation Faller liked to avoid.
“Why do those women look like me?” Storm asked. “They look exactly like me.”
“It’s just like the woman on your world who looked like my friend Orchid. Maybe we all have twins.”
The stranger looked at them, then at his fingernails, one of which was missing.
“We must be sisters.”
“Maybe.”
Faller gestured toward the stranger. Storm shrugged. It was beginning to border on absurd to be in such a small space with someone and not speak to him.
Before he realized what was happening, Storm was standing over the stranger. She cleared her throat. The man looked up. He had remarkably sharp cheekbones and bright, angry eyes.
“I thought I should introduce myself, since it seems we’re going to be roommates.” Storm stuck out her hand. “My name is Storm.”
The stranger studied her. “I don’t understand. Why did you change your name?”
“No, I’m not…” Storm pointed vaguely. “I’m not one of the women you know. The twins.”
“You just look exactly like them?” the man asked.
“That’s right.”
The stranger looked at Storm for a long moment. “Do you think I’m stupid?”
“No—” Storm began.
“No, honestly, she’s telling the truth,” Faller said. He tried to insert himself between the man and Storm, but Storm wouldn’t give ground, so he ended up beside her. “I know it sounds absurd. But, honestly, if we were going to lie to you, wouldn’t we choose something more believable?”
The man studied Faller, his
face unreadable.
“I mean, look at our situation.” Faller swept a hand to indicate the cell. “We’re in a small, locked space with a stranger who can clearly snap both of our necks without bothering to stand. Why in the world would we agitate you?”
The big man considered this.
“I’m Faller, by the way.” Faller offered his hand.
After a pause, the man reached up and shook. “Snakebite.” The man’s hand was so big Faller felt like a child shaking a grown-up’s hand.
“Snakebite. That’s an interesting name,” Storm said. “How’d you get it?”
Snakebite rolled up his pant leg, exposing yet another scar—this one two puckered holes set about an inch apart. “I was bit by a snake.” He looked up at Faller and Storm. A smile broke across his face.
Faller and Storm burst into laughter.
Snakebite rolled down his pant leg. “I heard you say everyone has twins on other worlds. What did you mean?”
Faller decided to take it more slowly this time. He retrieved his pack, pulled out the parachute and explained it to Snakebite, who examined the chute carefully, right down to the clasps and harness. Only then did he and Storm explain exactly what they’d used the chute for, as shock and alarm grew increasingly apparent on Snakebite’s face.
“Shit,” Snakebite said when they’d finished.
“You believe us,” Faller said, trying not to sound surprised.
“Why wouldn’t I? You’re here, aren’t you?”
The outer door squealed open; the twins who looked like Storm were led in by Stuart.
“Now, I’m trusting you to watch your mouth, keep the conversation civil,” Stuart said, wagging a finger at Faller. Faller nodded, confused as to why he was being singled out as a potential pottymouth.
“I’m Susanna,” one of the twins said to Storm as the outer door closed. She pointed to her sister. “This is Emily.”
“I’m Storm.” A tear welled under her eye and broke down her cheek. “Are we sisters?”
Susanna stepped closer, grasped the bars. “We must be.”
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