by S Breaker
Laney blinked, agreeing with a quick nod. “Of course not.”
“This is our world,” President Lineham spoke up again, his tone firm. “The only world we know. The Quantum Jump Project, revolutionary as it may have been, was a ‘need to know’ project for a reason. If The Community started questioning this reality, if they thought they had a choice—a better choice,” he emphasized. “There would be anarchy,” he stated.
Then he tilted his head slightly. “Can I trust that your stay with us, however brief, will in no way result in anarchy, Miss Carter?” he prompted, pointedly.
She swallowed, glancing up at each of the two beefcake bodyguards flanking the President as they stared down at her. “Of course, Mr. President.” She nodded again.
Then the twelve-year-old boy turned on his heel and walked away, with his entourage following suit.
Prime Minister Maloney gave Laney a regal nod. “Enjoy the festivities,” she said before walking away herself to greet the other guests at the reception.
Laney blew out a breath. “Boy, so much for world peace,” she mumbled before looking up to meet Noah’s irate gaze.
“And just what the hell did you think you were doing?” Noah hissed at her.
“I was just trying to do the right thing,” Laney replied. “You knew exactly what I was talking about.”
“You’re already in enough hot water in this world,” Noah reminded her, in annoyed disbelief. “Don’t you know better than to antagonize the sitting government? Why can’t you just lay low until Berry figures out how to send you back, so you can be someone else’s problem? Don’t you remember nobody wants you here?”
Laney let out a suffering groan. “How could I possibly forget when you keep bringing it up?” she retorted.
He narrowed his eyes at her. “Why are you suddenly lobbying for honoring the scientists who lost their lives anyway?”
Laney gave him an even look before she spoke again, her tone incredibly wry. “I just found out what happened to Laney.”
Noah looked taken aback. He darted a quick look around to make sure nobody had overheard before he took Laney’s arm to drag her through a doorway out of the banquet room, arriving at the empty elevator lobby.
Laney shrugged his arm off before shooting him an accusing look. “How could you keep something like that from me?” she hissed. “How could you not tell me she died by getting sucked into that freaking swirling vortex of doom?”
Noah’s jaw clenched as he furtively looked around again to make sure nobody could hear. “Because some of those details are classified, Laney.”
She shot him a flat look. “Seriously? You’re going to pull security classification crap with me too?” She shook her head. “I would have thought all that goes out the window when you knowingly endanger someone else’s life. And if there was a risk that the quantum shear could possibly kill people, don’t you think that—oh, I don’t know.” She threw up her hands. “You should have told me that before you forced me into going into one with you?”
“It didn’t happen like that, okay?” he told her, his tone clipped. “The quantum shear is perfectly safe by itself when it’s stable,” he explained. “And I didn’t tell you because…I couldn’t risk you not coming back to this world. It was too important.”
She stuck her chin up at him. “So tell me now.”
Noah sighed a long heavy sigh and replied after a moment. “It was the only way. Can you please keep that in mind? The earlier you already realized that.”
“The only way…for what?” She sighed herself, her patience wearing thin.
Noah cursed softly, frustrated, before he looked up to meet her gaze again. “It was the only way to save you. Okay?”
Laney stopped way short. What?
He averted his gaze. He knew he was going to have to tell her everything. Laney was nothing if not stubborn, and having been told the highlights, he knew she would no longer simply let up and patiently wait for her memory to come back to find out. He took a deep breath. “There wasn’t time…to save you both.”
She paused. “What? What are you saying? You’re saying you—saved my life, instead of hers?” She was unable to disguise the complete bewilderment and shock on her face as she looked up at him again. “Why?”
Noah swallowed hard as he looked at her.
It was a valid question. But even after eight months of pondering on it, he still couldn’t bring himself to say the incredibly confusing answer out loud.
Laney looked off to one side in deep thought, as she tried to even out her breathing. “You said you’ve saved my life before, but I would have never imagined that you’d had to sacrifice Eleanor’s life for it.”
Then her eyes lit up in realization and she blew out a breath. “No wonder you hate me.”
Noah’s chest constricted. “No…” He shook his head.
She gave him a skeptical look. “No?”
He moved closer, making Laney step back so her back was against the wall.
Laney noticed his expression change as he looked down at her. He was standing so close that she could feel how warm he was, and it was as though without meaning to, he was drawing her in.
“I don’t hate you,” he told her, his voice almost a low groan. And somehow a shadow of a smirk hovered around the corner of his mouth as he added, “Which frustratingly, is in spite of my best efforts.”
Laney’s heart began to pound harder as she stared up into his piercing blue eyes, trying to arrest the urge to start heaving. “This feels familiar…” she said, under her breath.
“It is,” he replied, gazing down at her intently.
A Reminder
Then Noah’s HUD beeped.
And Laney let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding, even as she still didn’t move an inch, and her gaze shifted toward his hand briefly, before moving up to meet his gaze again.
Noah blinked slowly, before glancing down at his HUD, but not pulling back. “Berry’s got something for us back at the lab,” he told her. He looked back down at her again, seeming unwilling to break away.
“Hey guys, I just got a message from—whoops!” Maia immediately did an about-face upon seeing Laney and Noah how they were. “Uhh…I better—I’ll tell you later—”
“Maia!” Noah called her back sharply as he stepped back a few feet away from Laney.
Laney swallowed hard as she straightened herself up, her cheeks flaming red when she briefly met Maia’s gaze as she turned back toward them.
“Um,” Maia began. “I got a message from Berry. He’s sending through his own analysis of the chem panels from GNR. It should help us figure out what’s wrong with my machine.”
Noah nodded. “Then we’d better get back to the University,” he said, his tone neutral.
Laney met his gaze for a moment, before she looked over at Maia again, who was pursing her lips, obviously trying to stifle a giggle. Great. Just great…
Laney could only stand back and watch as Maia and Berry, transmitting through Berry-AI, huddled in front of several reversible, see-through glass panels, full of scientific formulas in different-colored scrawls, as they worked together to analyze the results from that morning’s trial of the memory-doohickey reversal chamber, discussing and arguing points between themselves, sounding more and more frustrated as the evening wore on.
As usual, Laney could barely understand anything they were saying. She glanced sideways over at Noah, who was only leaned against a shelf a few feet away from her.
When he looked up at her, Laney raised her eyebrows in a prompt. “Why doesn’t Berry just make Berry-bot solve the formula? Isn’t he a smart android?”
“It can only do what it’s been programmed to do,” Noah replied. “Most AI’s generally don’t have the capacity for creative thinking, even learning AI’s. They can only work on the data they’re provided and even then, they can only extrapolate so far. Not enough to help with this type of scientific analysis work.”
“I th
ought you were a ‘scientist’ too?” She motioned with air quotes. “Why don’t you help them out?”
“I’m a theoretical physicist,” Noah told her pointedly. “My understanding of biochemistry is basic, rudimentary at best. Each of us has our own expertise.”
“Sure, like karate chopping some guy into oblivion,” Laney quipped to P.T., again perched on the lab table beside her.
Noah just huffed, crossing his arms over his chest again.
“What? But that doesn’t make any sense.” Maia’s forehead was creased. “I thought it was supposed to be T prime equals v squared…”
Berry-AI was making notations on the opposite side of the formulas on the board. “Wait, what if you put psi here and then we can switch this around…like this?” he mused. “And you round off Planck’s constant to minus thirty-six instead of thirty-five.”
Maia stepped back from the whiteboard, her pen poised in the air in deep thought.
“Well, that’s clearly wrong,” Laney spoke up from behind her.
Maia turned around, her eyes wide. “Pardon?”
Noah looked up, surprised, as Laney stepped forward to gesture at a particular formula on one of the boards.
“This is obviously in reference to an outdated Pendleton method,” she began authoritatively. “His calculations were off by at least .001 or did you forget the paper Wu published last year?”
Maia blinked at her, stunned in disbelief. “P-pardon…?” she asked again.
Noah narrowed his eyes at Laney for a second, before he straightened up in epiphany, just as his HUD began to beep in response to Laney’s CCL status. “It’s Eleanor,” he announced.
Laney turned to him. “What?” she prompted, looking almost annoyed, before turning to the whiteboard to erase the entire formula emphatically. “What are you even doing here, Noah? I thought you said your mission to Abu Dhabi would take three weeks?”
“What’s going on?” Maia shot Noah a look of disbelief.
“It’s a ‘bleed through’. Laney’s phased again,” Noah told Maia. “To a version of Eleanor apparently.”
Maia’s eyes widened somewhat in dread. “Shut up.”
P.T. whirred on the table, spinning his wheels.
“And seriously, Maia.” Laney cast a glance over at a table and wrinkled her nose. “When was the last time you did cell cultures? These look like they were done by a five-year-old.”
And Maia rolled her eyes.
Noah just stifled his chuckle. Captain Blood was back.
“Berry,” Laney snapped. “Would you please be a dear and redo cell cultures five through eight?”
Berry-AI’s eyes lit up. “Right away, Dr. Carter,” he piped up.
“How do you even know what we’re trying to do here?” Maia asked her, sounding almost offended.
Laney shot her a flat look. “You’re obviously trying to reverse an enneagram-blocking process using these DNA markers. Anyone with a basic biology degree can tell you that,” she said then she waved at the whiteboard. “Although this is an interesting treatment of Wu’s work. It looks like you’re trying to adapt this formula for an extra-dimensional DNA sample, which is, of course, where everything starts to break down.”
If Maia’s jaw could drop any more, it would have reached the South Pole.
Noah was just staring at Laney. He could tell it wasn’t his world’s Eleanor, but she was the same brilliant, candid, almost ruthless Laney that she always was—almost exactly the woman he had fallen in love with. Almost.
Noah stepped into the huddle, and with Eleanor’s efficient direction and her almost impossibly-perceptive insights, it only took the four of them three more hours to complete what could have taken at least another two weeks’ worth of refining formulas and recalibrations for Maia’s machine.
When they finished, Laney skimmed her hands as though dusting off imaginary chalk dust. “There you go. Your fancy-ass machine should work properly now.” She nodded, looking satisfied.
Maia looked over at Noah and Berry-AI in turn with a smirk. “Um…thanks…Laney,” she said.
Laney tilted her head. “Of course,” she replied with a haughty smile. Then she looked around the lab and cringed. “I don’t know how you can work in such a small space.”
Maia cleared her throat, tamping down her offense, and she gave Berry-AI a pointed look. “Berry, why don’t you take Laney outside for a little fresh air,” she suggested. “I think it might be a little too stuffy in here for her.”
“Right away, Dr. Chambers.” Berry-AI nodded as he took Laney’s arm to lead her out the door.
Noah was shaking his head.
Maia met his gaze. “Did that just happen?” she asked, still in disbelief.
“Don’t overthink it,” Noah recommended. “We’re still not out of the woods.”
“What do we do?” she asked. “We can’t put Laney in the machine when she’s phased like this.”
Noah sighed. “I guess we just have to wait.” He motioned her toward the machine. “Just make sure the machine is ready. I’ll go keep an eye on Eleanor and make sure she doesn’t accidentally freak out anyone else from this dimension.”
Maia nodded, grinning. “Good plan.”
Berry-AI was just leaving when Noah approached the two of them in the same little courtyard from earlier in the afternoon.
“Dr. Donovan,” Berry-AI bid him as he walked past, headed back into the building.
Laney was standing by the bench, looking up at the sky, when Noah walked up to her.
“Hey,” he greeted.
“Oh, hey Noah,” Laney said with a smile before she swept her hand upward across the night sky. “Look at that. Isn’t it absolutely fascinating how different the sky could look in the Southern Hemisphere compared to back at GNR? It really makes you appreciate the circumference of the Earth.”
He smiled a little. “Sure.” He did miss her. Of course, he did. He cleared his throat softly before asking, “Do you have any idea what’s really going on right now?”
“Listen, I’ve figured it out,” Laney began, before she looked up to meet his gaze. “I’m not really supposed to be here, am I?”
Noah blinked at her keen perception then he just shook his head, chuckling. “You’ve always been such a giant know-it-all.”
That made her laugh then she tilted her head slightly as if in deep thought. “But somehow, I get the feeling that this Laney is also not supposed to be here,” she guessed.
Noah paused for a moment, his expression clearing before he nodded.
Laney looked a bit staggered, as though she had already managed to extrapolate where her real self might possibly be in that case. “I see.” She nodded, her tone somber. She shrugged, cracking a small smile. “Well, I suppose it’s good to be back, in some way,” she said, going to sit down on the bench.
Noah went to sit beside her. Like always.
After a moment, Laney glanced up at him again with another genuine smile. “Did you think we would ever get here?”
“What do you mean?”
Her smile widened. “I mean, a few years ago, all of this—inter-dimensional travel and phasing—was just an idea,” she said, looking back up at the sky. “A little theory we would discuss on and off.”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “Discuss?” he echoed. “By that do you mean: you’ll say something, I’ll disagree, and then you’ll tell me why I’m wrong?” he asked, his tone sarcastic but good-humored.
That made her laugh.
His smile faded a bit. “I always knew we would get here,” he said. “Because you were always right, Laney.”
She met his gaze again, her expression ambiguous, and she paused before she spoke again. “I’m guessing given the current circumstances, I’ve made at least one mistake.”
Noah just looked at her. He knew he didn’t have to say anything. Laney was the one person who knew him better than anyone else in the world.
She averted her gaze again. “Do you miss her?”
&
nbsp; He replied right away. “Of course I miss you.”
Laney pursed her lips, smiling as though she could see right through him. “I think she’s coming back now,” she said, her voice soft.
Noah’s eyebrows furrowed. “Laney, I…” He hesitated. “I really do miss you.”
And Laney gave him a haunting smile back. “Don’t worry,” she said. “The Laney you love will always be with you.”
Noah’s HUD beeped again. Then he looked down at Laney’s face.
Laney blinked slowly, before straightening up in her seat, looking confused as she looked up sideways, upon realizing that Noah’s arm was around her shoulders. “Noah? What’s—?”
He withdrew his arm. “You phased again.”
“Oh.”
“To Eleanor.”
“Oh.” Laney’s eyes widened.
“And—she fixed Maia’s machine,” Noah said with a slight shake of his head, a small, proud smile on his mouth.
“Oh.” At that, Laney’s stomach tightened. “But of course she did.” She took a deep breath. “Maia did say that she was probably the one person who could fix everything,” she recalled. But for some reason, she also remembered something the President had said earlier that night.
Not if you’re going to make me feel like I’ll be in his shadow forever…
Laney frowned but then she quickly shook her head to clear it. “So?” She sat up straighter. “No point sitting around here then. If Eleanor’s fixed the machine, let’s get this show on the road.”
“Don’t people sleep in this world?” Laney was shaking her head, glancing back at all the night owls of the University.
There were still about a dozen people in the common area, studying, working, or having a late-night coffee. A handful of people were still bustling around the hallways despite the late hour.
Maia looked up from her microscope at the sound of Laney’s voice, as she and Noah walked into the lab.