On Through the Never

by Melissa E. Hurst

  Wrapping a towel around myself, I leave the bathroom. I’m kind of glad I got up early. Normally, Zed or Elijah are banging on the door wanting me to hurry up. Or I’m doing the same to one of them.

  “Oh my God,” a voice exclaims as soon as I get to the doorway of my bedroom.

  I nearly drop the towel. Alora is sitting on my bed, her face a fiery red. She quickly looks down.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you would be like … that,” she says.

  I can’t help but smile. Alora had a similar reaction when I stayed at her aunt’s inn back in 2013. She peeked in my room to invite me to supper and saw me in my skivvies. She could barely look me in the face when it happened.

  “I’ll go so you can get dressed,” she says.

  “No, wait,” I say in a rush. I don’t want her to leave—not when she came back after being so upset with me. “Just stay here. I’ll dress out here.”

  I grab a uniform and hurry to the living area. I keep looking down the short hallway leading to Zed and Elijah’s rooms. For some reason, I don’t want them to know that Alora is here. I want to talk to her in private for once.

  Back in my bedroom, I sit next to her on the bed. She still doesn’t speak, just fidgets with her fingers. She looks so lost and sad. It makes me angry with myself, knowing I did that to her.

  “I’m sorry about what I said last night. It was stupid of me to try to tell you what to do.”

  “It’s okay,” she says in a quiet voice. But then she looks at me and flashes the biggest grin. “Besides, I have some good news. I found Colonel Fairbanks, and guess what? My father is still alive!” She’s practically bouncing as she says that.

  I feel my eyes go wide. “Wait, you went to see her last night?”

  “Yeah. She tried to make me believe that Dad was really dead, but I found a digigraph of him with Vika that was recent. He’s been showing up there every month to visit with her.”

  Without thinking, I wrap my left arm around her and draw her close. She leans her head against my shoulder. We fit perfectly together. And yet we’re in the midst of a perfect mess. How can I stop seeing her, like Dad demanded? After she left last night, I felt as if a part of me had been ripped away.

  Alora fills me in on everything Halla told her. By the time she finishes, adrenaline is racing through my body. I’m stunned that Vika is alive … but apparently a shell of the girl she used to be. I still remember how full of life she was. And she was brilliant. It’s sad thinking of her being incapacitated like that, relying on drugs to keep her from permanently wilding out.

  But the information about General Anderson isn’t so shocking—it just confirms what I already knew. That he is the puppet master pulling all of our strings. It still doesn’t explain his motive, though. Why would he risk his career to clone my father? I mean, he was smart enough to get Halla to do the actual work, but still, he was behind it. And why go through so much trouble to hide the fact that Dad had illegally shifted before his death, and that I illegally went back looking for him? He claims it had to happen, but I’m not buying that.

  Something isn’t adding up.

  What Dad told me yesterday, about having a plan to stop the Purists, is really weighing on my mind now. Knowing that Dad is working for General Anderson alone makes me suspicious. I can’t stop wondering when the bioweapon attack will happen. How it will happen. And how will Dad be involved? Because that has to be what his plan is about: stopping the detonation. I can’t see him being an instrument of mass murder.

  I want to talk more to Alora about it, but she’s too giddy. “Bridger, I need to find him. Today. I need to let him know I’m okay.” She pauses and frowns. “And I want to know why he’s been visiting Vika, but not me.” She shakes her head and takes a deep breath. “No, I’m not going to think like that. He must have a good reason for not coming to see me. It’s probably because I’m in DTA territory. It would be easier for me to go to him.”

  She suddenly leans over and hugs me tightly again, then pulls back. Her blue eyes meet mine. Then my gaze slips down to rest on her lips. They’re parted slightly.

  I don’t know what comes over me. I lean down and brush my lips against hers. For a moment she doesn’t move, and I think I’ve made a horrible mistake. But then her lips part even more and she deepens the kiss. I reach over cupping her face with my hand. Her skin is so soft against my fingers. I never want to let go.

  “Holy shit, I never thought I’d see action in here!”

  My head snaps up and turns in the direction of the irritating voice. Of course, Zed has to be standing there with the biggest idiot grin on his face.

  “Oh, don’t stop just because I’m here. Pretend I’m invisible.”

  My entire body tenses. “Go away, Zed.”

  “Fine, fine, I can see that I’m unwanted here. I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone in your cozy little nest.” He flutters his fingers at us before heading back to his room. No—probably to Elijah’s room to gleefully recount what he just saw.

  I storm over to shut the door, then activate the lock.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I say, returning to Alora’s side. “Zed has a way of turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  She shrugs her shoulders, smiling. “It’s fine. Really.”

  I frown. What she said before she hugged me is bothering me. “Look. I don’t have any right to tell you what to do, but I don’t think it would be a good idea to shift to wherever your father is right now. There are too many unknown variables.”

  She rolls her eyes. “That’s what you said when I wanted to get to Halla. But that worked out.”

  “Think about what you’re saying,” I plead. “Halla Fairbanks has a child she’s protecting. She was working for Anderson, and he helped set up her new residence. On the other hand, your father somehow faked his death. Nobody knows where he’s been hiding. He could’ve been living by himself all these years, or he could’ve been with others. My point is, there isn’t any way to know for sure. It’s too big of a risk.”

  She recoils. “How could you say that? You know what, Bridger? You’re a hypocrite. It was fine for you to go looking for your father when you thought he was dead. But when all I want to do is see mine, who is very much alive, you tell me no. I wish I’d never come here.”

  Before I can say anything else, she closes her eyes and shifts.

  I can’t move. A part of me is screaming that I’m a furing idiot. How in the hell did we go from kissing to fighting so quickly?

  But then something Dad said about Dual Talents surfaces in my mind: that they’re just out for themselves. Is that true? Alora is behaving recklessly, going off on her own to talk to Halla, and now shifting to who knows where to speak to her father. Going to him could put me, and all of our friends, in danger.

  Maybe Dad was right about her all along.

  28

  ALORA

  FEBRUARY 22, 2147

  The alarm I set on my DataLink yanks me out of a fitful sleep at 4:45 in the morning. I get up, already dressed in black jeans and a dark purple sweater, and braid my hair. After that, I hide the DataLink in my dresser. Then I touch my Jewill, making sure it’s still fastened around my neck, and check the mirror. Dark smudges line my eyes, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Sleep will have to wait.

  I’ve decided for sure that I’m going to see my father today.

  It’s now a little after five o’clock in the morning. I don’t have to be at my first class for another three hours. That should give me time to find Dad and figure out why he’s stayed away from me for the ten months I’ve been in his time period. He owes me an explanation, especially since he’s been seeing Vika regularly.

  A lump appears in my throat. I wish I could wash it down with some juice, but I don’t want to go into the kitchen and risk waking Tara. More than likely, she would try to talk me out of going. And I’m done listening to other people when it comes to my own father.

  Standing in front of my
bed, I press the stone on my Jewill, then close my eyes and carefully picture Dad’s face as it appeared in Vika’s digigraph. His features were the same, but the head full of blond hair was gone, and his skin was covered in scars. Please, let me go to him. Please.

  The comfortable warmth of my bedroom is replaced with a searing heat and a pungent stench. My eyes fly open and I twist around to see that I’m standing in what appears to be a small, wooden barn. The floors are packed dirt, and a rusted, old-fashioned wood-burning stove has been fitted along the far side of the wall. A rickety picnic table sits to the left side of the stove. And directly in front of it, but out of the direct path of the heat, are five dirty cots, men and women sound asleep in them. A sixth man is standing in the barn’s doorway, staring up at the sky.

  My heart leaps when I realize it’s Dad.

  I want to rush over to him, but curiosity and common sense make me wait. I need to figure out where I am and who these people are. First I study Dad. He’s holding a white mug with steam coming off the top. I wonder if it’s hot chocolate, because Aunt Grace told me once that Dad always hated the taste of coffee.

  He’s wearing dark-brown denim pants, a plain green button-up shirt, and a brown leather coat. The scars are harder to see in the dark, but I can still make them out. I ache for the pain he must have gone through, but I’m glad he made it out of the explosion alive. Surprisingly, I feel sympathy for the other two DTA officers who died. I wonder if Dad has any idea how the shuttle exploded.

  Suddenly, Dad turns around, as if he senses I’m here. I hold perfectly still.

  He doesn’t seem to notice me. Instead, he takes a sip from his mug, then barks out, “Get up, get up! It’s time to work!”

  Usually, when I wake up, I allow myself a few minutes to stretch and shake off the last bits of sleep. Not these people. They spring up and are on their feet in just a few seconds, standing at the ends of their cots. They’re all wearing wrinkled clothes that look like they haven’t been washed in weeks. I guess that explains the smell.

  “Let’s go. Milt’s got breakfast ready and he said not to be late if you want to eat,” Dad says. He turns and saunters out of the barn, while the five people behind him follow in a line.

  My brow wrinkles. What on earth is going on?

  By the time I get to the entrance, they’re already halfway across the yard. The sun peeks over the tops of pine trees that surround the clearing where we’re located. In addition to the barn I’m standing in, I can see the clearing also holds a two-story white house with a sloping roof and wraparound porch, a chicken coop, a field of cattle behind the house, two old sheds. Most surprisingly, there are also two small silver shuttles about the size of compact cars from Aunt Grace’s time, and one shuttle that’s similar to the size of a school bus. There’s an old oak tree planted on the right side of the house.

  So I’m obviously on a farm, but where? I could be anywhere.

  Somehow, I have to get Dad alone so I can let him know I’m here. So he can tell me how he ended up here, apparently in the middle of nowhere.

  Dad leads the five men and women inside the farm house and into a large kitchen, where an older, pot-bellied man is stirring something on a stove. The stove is old-fashioned, with spiral burners that are kind of like the ones I saw in movies from the 1980s and 1990s.

  I wonder if Dad has been going back in time to get this stuff for them, or if these people bought them from a genuine artifact reseller.

  “Well don’t just stand there. Take your seats,” the old man tells the people who followed Dad inside. His accent seems to be southern, but it has an unfamiliar cadence to it. Everyone sits around a large, square, wooden table. Glass bowls and spoons are set at each seat, along with glasses already filled with water. One at a time, each person takes their bowl and the man serves them what appears to be oatmeal.

  Dad grabs a spoon and bowl, too, and after having his filled, he leaves the kitchen and walks across the hall to a dining room. It has another long, rectangular table and white painted walls that are lined with rows of TeleNet screens. Some of the screens are in sleep mode, and some have operators in front of them, sorting through I don’t know what. Images flash by so fast I can’t make anything out.

  “Good morning, Nate,” a man sitting at the head of the table says. His voice sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t place it.

  “Morning,” Dad murmurs. He sits in an empty seat at the opposite end of the table from the man who spoke and digs into his breakfast, not bothering to talk to any of the other people. There are fifteen men and women total, plus a young boy who looks so pale that he’s obviously sick. That excludes Dad and the three people working at the TeleNet stations. Everyone else is eating plates of eggs, sausage, and toast slathered in jelly. The scent of the food is heavenly. I used to get stuff like this most every morning with Aunt Grace. Now it’s only an occasional treat, and it doesn’t taste anywhere as good as hers.

  But then I finally notice the man who spoke to Dad sitting at the head of the table and nearly fall over when I realize I recognize him. It’s Jode Lincoln, the Purist who ordered the murder of all those people three days ago. My fingers curl into my palms. What I wouldn’t give to strangle him.

  Then a sick feeling makes my stomach churn. My father is here with a terrorist. How in the hell is that possible?

  “How are the new recruits doing?” Jode asks, directing the question to Dad.

  “They’re hanging in there. I think they’ll all work out,” Dad says.

  “I really hope they do, for your sake. That last crew you brought in was unacceptable.”

  “It won’t happen again,” Dad replies.

  “It better not,” Jode says, in between bites of scrambled eggs. “Not if you want that pretty daughter of yours in New Denver to stay perfectly safe.”

  Dad flinches but doesn’t say anything.

  And like a slap to the face, it hits me: I know why Dad is here with these people. Jode Lincoln is using me to blackmail him.

  I feel dizzy. I step just outside of the doorway and cringe when one of the wooden planks makes a creaking sound.

  “Did you hear that?” the woman next to Dad asks. “Sounds like someone’s in the hallway.”

  Chaos immediately erupts. The food is forgotten as everyone jumps up from the table.

  “Get the comm-sets,” Lincoln shouts to the woman on his left. She rushes to a cabinet behind her, yanks open the top drawer, and takes out a tan briefcase. She sets it in front of Lincoln, where he snaps open the top and starts tossing comm-sets to the people around the table, including Dad. “Get to it,” he growls. “It might not be a false alarm this time.” To the woman, he orders her to take the young boy to their “safe spot,” wherever that is.

  While the people in the room are occupied with putting on the comm-sets correctly, I take the opportunity to dive under the table, right next to Dad’s legs. Because no matter where I go outside, someone will be able to see me, and I have the feeling these people will shoot me no matter what I say to explain myself.

  Everyone pulls stunners out of their pockets, except for Dad. While all the people who were eating at the table rush out to search the house, the ones at the TeleNet stations look uneasily back at Jode Lincoln.

  “Keep working!” he barks at them. Then, while striding across the room, he says to Dad, “Guard this room with your life.”

  “I need a weapon to do that,” Dad says.

  “You had your chance with that, and you blew it. Figure out some way to keep this area secure.”

  Footsteps thud throughout the house while the others search. I wait until I hear the majority of them grow fainter before tapping Dad’s right foot. To his credit, he stays perfectly still, then he peeks over the side, comm-sets in place. He should be able to see my outline in white, but the Jewill masks my words. So I press the stone to lower my cloak, and when I do Dad nearly falls off his chair.

  “Activate it again and move to the center of the table,” he whi
spers. “The others will take their search outside soon.”

  I give him a thumbs-up and press the button before gingerly making my way between the legs of the table to reach its center. There, I wait for an eternity before Dad waves for me to come out.

  Dad tells one of the techs. “I think I see something in the yard. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “That’s not what Jode told you to do!” the man says in a fearful voice.

  Dad ignores him and exits the room, heading to a staircase to our left. We quickly ascend the steps and turn right down a long hallway. Dad goes into the last door on the left, waiting until he’s sure I’ve followed him. The room isn’t that big, but it’s filled with bunk beds. Somehow they managed to squeeze three in a room the size of a large closet. Once the door is locked, I lower my cloak.

  Dad hugs me tight for a few seconds before pulling back. “Dear God, how did you find me?”

  “The same way I’m sure you found Vika. Can you shift just by thinking of a person, instead of a place?”

  “Yes, but I had no idea you could do that as well.”

  “I didn’t know either, until recently. All of these abilities are still new to me, and apparently we are the only two people who can do that. We’re like unicorns.” I try to smile, but I’m sure it looks more like a wince. “So … where are we?”

  “We’re on a farm several miles outside of Draperville, Georgia. Completely off the grid.” Dad rubs his right hand over his head.

  Being this close to him in person reveals the extent of his injuries. Scar tissue covers most of the left side of his body, and some of the right side. Still, his features are the same. His eyes are the same. I wish I could see him smile, but instead he’s wearing a grim expression.

  “You need to leave now,” he hisses. “If Lincoln finds you he’ll never let you go. He’s been threatening to hurt you if I don’t do everything he says.”