Jesse swore, but he knew it would be wrong to waste the opportunity she had given him. She was risking her life to help him escape. He owed it to her to make good on that, and to rescue her in turn.
He headed north as she’d told him to, keeping low. The sound of the electrobike was much louder now. The dupes were scouring the streets, looking for the source.
I get my own bike, right?
Cashile’s voice seemed to be right in his ear. Jesse could guess what that meant: Cashile and Theo were getting close. Hurrying to the northern edge of the trees, he pressed himself flat against a trunk and held his breath.
Behind him, a flurry of gunfire broke out. An instant later the bike appeared along the road ahead, leaving a trail of tortured space-time in its wake, and a cloud of burning rubber.
‘Free New York!’ Marcia shouted from the other side of the park, provoking even more gunfire.
‘Sorry it took us a while,’ Cashile called. ‘Ray fell off and we had to double back to find him again.’
Jesse was running harder than he was listening. Theo brought the bike around so the seat was facing him. He jumped aboard, shouting, ‘Go, go, go!’
Then they were escaping at last. The rear wheel skidded under him and the bike accelerated, almost throwing him off the seat. Reaching over Cashile to grip his mother by the shoulders, Jesse closed his eyes and prayed. If all went well he would leave Manhattan and arrive in Manteca, where his father was waiting, and then—
Something happened that blew the thought completely from his head. He felt as though every organ in his body had twisted down to nothing, then just as unexpectedly expanded back out to normal size, leaving him gasping for air and momentarily, literally, unable to tell up from down. Only his hands, still gripping Theo for dear life, prevented him from tumbling off into space.
‘What just happened?’ he managed to wheeze.
‘Neat, huh?’ said Cashile with short-lived cheer. ‘But this time it didn’t work. Why not, Mum?’
Jesse forced his eyes to focus. Instead of Greeley Square – or the streets of Manteca near the safe house, which he had been hoping against all logic or reason to see – around him towered a different set of buildings … buildings inside the bubble.
He looked fearfully for the dupes, but there were no people firing at them … yet.
‘We have to try again,’ he said.
Theo nodded.
‘Look for a doorway,’ said Cashile. ‘That helps.’
‘How? Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ Cashile pointed. ‘Over there, Mum.’
The wheels spun even as dupes burst out of buildings nearby, weapons raised. Something hissed over Jesse’s shoulder at the same time as the bark of a pistol, reminding him of the ambush at the safe house, where Clair’s friend Zep and another dupe of his father had been killed. That was the last time he had been fired at in earnest.
A building loomed over them, a closed roller door dead ahead—
Jesse felt himself being turned inside-out again
—and then they were skating across the floor of a large, empty hall, with ranks of seats rising to a curved roof. The sound of the engine was loud in the empty space. Theo brought the bike in a half-circle to avoid running into the first row of seats, and then jerked to a halt, shaking her head.
‘Where are we now?’ Cashile asked.
Jesse unlocked the death grip of one hand to check his lenses. ‘Madison Square Garden.’
Theo signed urgently, and Cashile interpreted.
‘Something’s keeping us in New York.’
‘What?’ Jesse asked.
‘It could be you,’ Cashile relayed. ‘How could it be Jesse, Mum?’
Jesse needed the answer too. ‘I want to get out of here as badly as you do, but we’ve got to come back and help Marcia.’
Theo signed again.
‘Maybe it’s not that you don’t want to leave, but that you don’t want to arrive.’
‘What’s the difference?’
Instead of answering, Theo put the bike into motion again. There were dupes coming down the aisles of chairs towards them, too far away to fire effectively, but that would quickly change. Theo, Cashile and Jesse put their heads down as they accelerated for an empty aisle. Jesse hoped it was sufficiently similar to a doorway for the trick, whatever it was, to work.
Space warped and twisted, tying Jesse into knots.
On the other side they found they weren’t in Manhattan, but they weren’t in Manteca either.
15
Theo killed the bike’s electric motor and kicked out the stand. She took off her helmet, releasing long, black dreadlocks, and sighed.
‘Are we lost, Mum?’ asked Cashile.
She shook her head. With a gesture even Jesse understood, she indicated that they should dismount.
Jesse supposed they were safe enough. This latest jump had brought them to a remote, desert-like environment that could have been Africa or Australia, or even somewhere in Texas. There were no trees, and no hills either, apart from a low bulge on the eastern horizon, from behind which seeped the first hints of dawn. Nearby was the roofless ruin of an old house, doors and windows gaping wide. A lizard lay on a fallen stone slab, awaiting the first appearance of the sun.
Theo signed, via Cashile, ‘We couldn’t go to Manteca so I brought us here instead.’
‘Why?’ asked Cashile and Jesse at the same time.
‘This is where your grandfather was born,’ she told her son. To Jesse she signed, ‘We couldn’t go to Manteca because you don’t want to.’
Jesse was about to protest. Of course he wanted to go to the safe house. Ray was there. His father was there … But then he realised that Theo was absolutely correct.
Deep down, he didn’t want to go to Manteca. The safe house was where his father’s second dupe had been killed. That image was burned in his mind forever.
And there was more to it than that. Three times, a dupe inside his father’s body had tried to kill him. Three times, his fake fathers had died right in front of him. That was what the thought of Dylan Linwood meant to him now. Death and despair.
Was it any wonder Jesse didn’t want to go to Manteca?
‘I’m scared,’ he admitted.
Theo reached out to squeeze his shoulder. Her eyes were full of sympathy.
‘Sorry I’m such an idiot,’ he said.
She shook her head, but he wasn’t buying it.
‘You’re sure Dad’s not a dupe?’
Cashile said, ‘He’s just like he always is.’
‘Mean?’ said Jesse. ‘Bossy? Full of his own self-importance?’
Theo signed, ‘You know the guy, then.’
Jesse nodded. He did know his father, too well. Maybe that was an even deeper layer to the problem. When he had been with Clair, he had been free. Now he had no Clair and was going home with his tail between his legs.
‘Give me a minute, if we have one. I can get past this.’
He had to. Otherwise he would be letting Marcia down. While he struggled with his father issues, she might be running for her life.
Theo nodded and turned away to check the bike for damage, tugging Cashile after her. Jesse walked a dozen paces towards the ruins and stared up at the lightening sky, deep pink at the horizon but fading to yellow and grey above.
16
What would get him moving?
Fear of discovery, for one, although that wouldn’t necessarily lead him back to Manteca.
What about something positive?
For several minutes, he could think of nothing positive at all.
There simply had to be something, he told himself. If Clair was here, he knew that she would find a solution.
Clair.
The thought of her was as brilliant as the sun coming up in front of him. Manteca wasn’t where they had first kissed – that had been on a train somewhere near Chicago – but it was where they had first exchanged more than a sentence or two. She had actually com
e to his home, which was just around the corner from the safe house. Although they had talked about nothing romantic, she might have had dinner with him if Jesse’s dad hadn’t pissed her off. Who knows what might have happened if she had stayed?
He laughed at himself. Always dreaming! And why not? He had admired Clair from afar for a long time, never thinking he would get close to her. Somehow, against all odds he had.
In Manteca.
If he was ever going to recover the history they had shared, he was going to have to start there.
With his Clair.
There had to be a name for what he was feeling: love, or something like it, for someone who looked exactly the same as someone who no longer existed. Were they the same, where it mattered: inside? He clutched his head. Just trying to think it was confusing. Maybe this kind of thing happened when one person dated identical twins; maybe someone had coined a word centuries ago. Even if they hadn’t, that was where he was at.
And at least now he knew in his heart where he had to go.
‘Okay,’ he said to Theo when the sun breached the horizon, casting spears of light across the arid land. ‘I’m ready. But can we check on Marcia on the way?’
Theo nodded with kind eyes, and together they went to do just that.
17
Greeley Square was busy when they roared through it, driving fast along Sixth Avenue and then turning sharply right to cut back down Broadway. There were at least twenty dupes at the southern end, clustering around what looked like a body. Jesse craned his neck to see past them as the bike sped away. Short white hair, matted with blood: definitely Marcia.
Sorrow and self-blame made willing collaborators, eating at Jesse’s sense of surety. At the same time, he knew that it wasn’t entirely his fault. Marcia could have run, but she hadn’t. She had stood her ground, and although she’d talked about defending her city, he suspected her actions had less to do with that and more to do with a life she didn’t have faith in anymore, robbed of the animals she loved. Could he blame her for finding a way out that gave her honour, and might, in the long run, save others?
Bullets snatched at them, but the bike was moving quickly and the dupes were unlucky. On being bubble-shifted to another intersection entirely, Theo lined up a doorway and revved the motor, which was a question as surely as if she’d spoken.
His Clair was coming for Wallace, he told himself, from outside. If there was breath in her body, she wouldn’t stop until Improvement was taken down and everyone was safe.
It was Jesse’s job to be ready to help her. Army or no army, she would need all the allies she could get.
‘Let’s do it,’ he said.
For Clair.
And for him.
Hell, even for his father.
Everybody deserved a second chance.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean Williams was born in the dry, flat lands of South Australia, where he still lives with his wife and family. He is the author of over 40 novels and 100 published short stories. Fall is the third book in the Twinmaker trilogy.
www.seanwilliams.com
www.twinmakerbooks.com
Also by Sean Williams
Twinmaker: Fall (Allen & unwin, 2015)
Twinmaker: Crash (Allen & unwin, 2014)
Twinmaker: Jump (Allen & unwin, 2013)
Troubletwisters (with Garth Nix, Allen & unwin, 2011–)
The Fixers (Omnibus/Scholastic, 2010)
Broken Lland (HarperCollins, 2008–2009)
Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (Ticonderoga, 2008)
Astropolis (Orbit, 2007–2009)
Geodesica (with Shane Dix, HarperCollins, 2005–2006)
Books of the Cataclysm (HarperCollins, 2004–2006)
Orphans (with Shane Dix, HarperCollins, 2002–2004)
Books of the Change (HarperCollins, 2001–2002)
Evergence (with Shane Dix, HarperCollins,1999–2001)
AVAILABLE NOW
If you could be anywhere in a moment, where would you go?
If you could change your appearance in a minute, what would you choose?
If you discovered something was very wrong with this perfect world, what would you do?
If you betrayed a friend, how far would you go to earn their forgiveness?
If someone had saved your life, would you risk your life to save them?
If you could bring someone back from the dead, who would you choose?
If you had a chance to undo your worst mistakes, would you take it?
If you lost the one you loved, how far would you go to bring them back?
If your best friend turned evil, could you bring them down?
PRAISE FOR TWINMAKER
‘A ripping read, perfect weekend escapism.’
— Advertiser (Adelaide)
‘With its terrifying chases and a plot that twists and turns, this is a novel that takes the reader on a breathtaking ride.’
— Magpies
‘A sprawling and complex tale, built on an impressively well constructed premise and held together with intrigue and tension.’
— Publishers Weekly
‘Teens will revel in the drama, Clair’s tenacity, and the memorable characters who discover that their utopia isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’
— Booklist, starred review
‘A gripping YA thriller, coming of age and love story that transports the reader to a future that looks a whole lot better than it really is ... Highly Recommended.’
– Garth Nix, author of Sabriel
‘A mind-blowing adventure about what it means to be human, and what it means to find ourselves.’
– Scott Westerfeld, author of Uglies
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