Selfless Series Box Set

by S Breaker

  “Laney,” Noah began, his expression carefully blank. “I don’t think you should make a sudden appearance and raise their hopes unnecessarily. At least, not yet,” he added.

  “Not yet,” she echoed in displeasure. “You’re such a party pooper. I mean, look, they’re right there.” She moved a few branches away for Noah to be able to see as she gestured toward her two friends. “It would literally only take—” She stopped short from her sneer of ridicule. “Wait, what? Why is he holding her hand?” She frowned, confused.

  The next moment, Kevin leaned over to kiss Darla.

  Full. Right on the mouth.

  Laney’s jaw dropped in shock. What the damn hell?

  “Good night, babe,” Kevin whispered with a wave and a smile, to which Darla replied with a smile of her own before they both stood up and walked off in different directions.

  Laney felt her stomach somersault. She felt sick, frozen, paralyzed. What the hell was going on? Was it even possible? Were they cheating on her?

  She’d only been gone for five days.

  But what if that was enough time for them to develop a relationship? Maybe their feelings had grown over the loss they both felt from Laney having disappeared.

  Laney shook her head briskly, unable to process what she’d just seen. It couldn’t be real.

  She felt something shift again, as though something invisible passing right through her, and she held on to Noah’s arm, but she was too upset to think about anything else right then.

  “It happened again. You felt that, right?” Noah asked her, checking on his HUD again at the same time furtively looking around.

  “Felt what? The knife in my back from my backstabbing friends?” Laney wanted to throw up. There was a lump in her throat and she felt like she was about to cry.

  Noah was frowning over his HUD readings. “We should go now.”

  She was still shaking her head, more than willing to let disbelief overtake devastation for the moment. “I don’t understand. This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Focus, Laney!” Noah snapped, bracing his hands on her shoulders. He gave her a steady look. “I have a theory,” he supplied. “But we have to find the quantum shear trace first if you wanted to be able to return here permanently.”

  Laney blinked up at him, his words coming through to her.

  She needed to fix herself and get rooted back to her own world. Only then could she deal with whatever the hell was going on with Kevin and Darla.

  She started to nod. First things first. “Right. You’re right. Let’s do it.”

  Noah returned the nod before he began to work on his HUD to manipulate the quantum shear into reforming right by where the orange cone indicated.

  And just like before, just like it always did, a tear in the current reality appeared in the form of the gaping mouth of a black hole.

  Laney looked around, her hair whipping in her face in the sudden gusty wind, with everything around them turning reddish in hue as the quantum shear sucked in every other color of the light spectrum.

  “Okay. That seemed to work. It’s reading the coordinates of the next world.”

  She tilted her head. “I thought the traversal path never completed. What are you, guessing right now?” she prompted in skepticism.

  “These dimensional coordinates were on the list of safe worlds cataloged from the project last year,” he informed her. “It should be fine.”

  She wasn’t exactly buying it. “Well, it looks like your garden variety swirling vortex of doom alright. How do we know it’s going to the right place?”

  Noah gave her a deadpan look. “What, you want me to redial? It’s not an international phone call, Laney.”

  “Maybe we need to test it first. What if something’s wrong and we vaporize the moment we go through there?”

  “Exactly how do you propose we test it?”

  “I don’t know. Throw something in there. Stick your hand in.”

  “What about you stick your hand in?”

  “Hey, you’re the one who insisted on coming along for my protection.” She folded her arms across her chest.

  He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Yes. What a terrible idea. Why do I never learn?”

  “I’m just saying,” she rationalized, throwing up her hands. “Berry never mentioned how much testing he’d done on this. Besides,” she posed, tossing a resentful wave at the quantum shear. “When has going through one of them ever turned out well for me?”

  Noah stifled his groan behind his hands in aggravation. He looked like he wanted to wring her neck. “For the love of god, Laney, can’t you just—oof!”

  Laney exhaled sharply, feeling the wind knocked out of her, short of blacking out, as she fell back on the pavement.

  A man dressed in a generic office suit had come out of nowhere and tackled them both to the ground.

  Noah grunted out loud, wrestling the guy off of Laney so she could scramble away toward the thicket for cover.

  She gasped, her head snapping up in alert as Noah was pinned down by the man who was most certainly an agent from her own world’s version of The Alliance.

  It was just like Berry had said. And “they” had probably detected their quantum shear entry and sent someone to check it out.

  Laney hissed in helpless frustration, looking around anxiously to make sure there weren’t any more agents coming first. Not to mention, they were running the risk of someone else on campus hearing or seeing the commotion and waking up everyone.

  She suddenly wished she had sneaked through some weapons from the other world. But it was too late now. All she could do was watch Noah struggle with the agent, rolling around on the ground.

  “Noah!” she yelled hoarsely, trying to figure out how she could help him.

  But Noah had a different notion.

  “Laney—go—,” Noah called out in a half-groan, even as he tried to break free from the agent’s hold.

  “What?” She looked shocked.

  “Go!”

  Laney panted as she looked helplessly between the quantum shear and the pair of them brawling on the ground. “I can’t!” she maintained. “You’ll be stuck here! Berry said—”

  “Laney, go!” Noah yelled again.

  Laney’s eyes lit up as the Zeta device on her wrist began to beep in alarm.

  The exit trace was fading away.

  She swallowed hard. She felt frozen in her stance again. She wanted to jump on the Alliance agent to help get him off Noah, but the portal was about to disappear. This was her only chance.

  “Go!” Noah’s voice was nothing but urgent.

  “Oh shit—,” Laney cursed out loud before she took a deep breath and jumped into the quantum shear.

  Same

  Laney crashed onto her bed, which she supposed would have snapped in two from the impact of her fall if not for the pile of laundry heaped on top of it.

  She struggled to sit up and untangle herself from some clothes. “What? What am I doing here?”

  She was in her dorm room, the sun was streaming in through the windows, and her bedside digital clock read 4 p.m.

  She checked the Zeta device. It did indicate that she was no longer in the previous world, except this other parallel world was uncannily similar to her own and somehow she had also jumped past the last sixteen hours.

  But before she could analyze the Zeta device’s readings any further, she heard footsteps at the door and clambered to hide under the bed just as she heard the door swing open and some people came in.

  “Nope. Changed my mind. There is absolutely no chance I’m going to be motivated enough to study this weekend. And if I take these home, they’ll just sit on my desk, taunting me as they gathered dust.”

  Laney recognized the girl’s voice.

  “Don’t worry, Laney,” Darla responded. “We can always do another cram session on Monday morning. Besides, what else could we possibly be motivated to do?”

  “I don’t know about you but I have a tr
iple trilogy and surround-sound home theater waiting. That’s a little over twenty hours of space fantasy fun. My weekend’s sorted.”

  There was some shuffling and thumping of things on tables before the two girls headed out and shut the door behind them.

  Laney let out a breath in relief. That was close.

  She couldn’t help a little smile as she registered the fact that in this world, she and Darla were still the best of friends. Somehow, it gave her some reassurance that she was going to resolve whatever was going on back on her world, as surely what she had seen between her and Kevin must have merely been some kind of fluke, or an accident, or a hallucination, something.

  What other explanation could possibly make any sense?

  She crept out of her hiding place, keeping one eye on the door to make sure that the other her was not going to come in again.

  Berry did say that any contact with her other self would have catastrophic consequences and jeopardize the mission.

  Then again, the entire plan had already bombed.

  She had left Noah behind in her homeworld. And now she was going to have to go on by herself.

  She straightened up, squaring her shoulders. You can do it, Laney.

  She’d told everyone that she could do this by herself. That she didn’t need anyone to come along. She’d already survived this far. What was one more alternate parallel world and a supernova?

  She chanted a mantra in her head, nodding self-assuredly to psyche herself up.

  Child’s play. Piece of cake. Walk in the park.

  On her way out of the room, she walked past her desk and paused to fish inside a Hobbit hole figurine collectible. In her own room, she knew she kept some emergency cash in there. She grinned as she fished out a few coins and paper bills.

  Sorry, other me, she thought. But this certainly qualified as an emergency.

  Laney walked to the door and peeked out to make sure the hall was empty before she scooted out straight down the stairs to exit the dorms to go in search of the next traffic cone, which given the odds were, she figured, would also be at the paved walkway along the garden, beside the gym, on the way to the clinic.

  She knew she shouldn’t call attention to herself but as soon as she stepped outside, she couldn’t help but marvel as she looked around. She must have looked as though she had never seen a school campus before.

  The mid-afternoon sky was blue, dotted with white puffy clouds. The grass in the quad gardens surrounding the complex of campus buildings was the same green as her own world’s. The faint but familiar sounds of students laughing and shouting and playing echoed across the football field.

  When the school bell rang its last one for the day, her stomach fluttered at the sheer familiarity of the entire situation.

  It was like she was home.

  She swallowed. But she knew she wasn’t.

  She shook her head briskly to refocus. This wasn’t her world and there might be Alliance agents lurking about waiting to capture her again. She needed to stay vigilant. And incognito.

  She ducked her head slightly as she kept walking, trying not to look anyone who passed her by in the eye.

  She was going to walk straight past the group of girls who were watching a group of guys playing ball when she overheard one of the girls giggle.

  “Oh my gosh, Jake is so cute.”

  Laney stopped in mid-stride and turned to look toward the basketball court.

  He wasn’t hard to spot.

  Jake Donovan. Every world’s answer to “Hottest Hunk” in high school.

  There he was, doing a fake and rebounding under the hoop, before doing a left-handed lay-up swish into the basket.

  “And he’s so good at basketball, isn’t he?” one of the girls went on.

  “He’s probably good at lots of things. What do you think, girls?” another one remarked.

  And the group erupted in girlish airy giggles again.

  Laney had to roll her eyes, almost having to stifle her laughter in derision.

  Jake and Noah were so different.

  It was ridiculous to think about how she could have even mistaken one for the other in the past. And she was willing to bet all the stars in the cosmos that there was likely no way on any Earth that Jake was good at more things than Noah was.

  Noah was like a jack of all trades. Except for he was also a master of all trades.

  Her throat constricted sharply at the thought that Noah was no longer there with her. Despite what she’d said back at the sub, she knew for a fact, he was handy to be around. But she couldn’t boomerang her way back to her homeworld to get him. Not just yet. She still had to find a supernova.

  “Hey, who’s the fan club?”

  Laney blinked out of her trance and looked around. The rest of the girls had gone and she was all by herself standing by the sidelines of the basketball court, somewhat creepily watching the group of guys play.

  She opened her mouth to try to formulate any lame excuse, sliding her glance past Jake, who was staring at her strangely, but her mind had gone completely blank.

  Her face flushed red in embarrassment and she was about to whirl around to scurry away until she heard Jake call out.

  “Hey! Have we met before?”

  Laney tried to wave him away, quickening her pace.

  “Aren’t you the one who loves tomatoes?”

  Laney froze.

  What?

  She was so shocked she couldn’t move.

  His question had her completely taken aback that it took her a few moments before she slowly turned to look again.

  She narrowed her eyes at him. What the damn hell…?

  His intense blue eyes met her gaze.

  It was Noah.

  But it was Jake.

  It was Noah pretending to be Jake.

  Laney couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Her jaw dropped as she gave him a once-over. He was wearing the preppy sports jersey, the tailored pants, and his hair was slicked back off his face, instead of looking like a tornado had run through it.

  He looked…ridiculous. And ridiculously, absolutely, incredibly super gorgeous.

  Laney tried to get a grip and she shook her head briskly so she could try to respond. Her eyes widened slightly. Oh crap. What was that code word again? “Uhh…that depends, you know,” she flustered. “It’s all…relativity?”

  Jake appeared to scoff to himself before he moved to walk to her with a casual wave to the others. “Gimme a sec, guys.”

  Laney could only stare at him, speechless, as he came closer, her mouth still hanging open.

  Under normal circumstances, there would have been no earthly reason for Jake Donovan to ever in a million years approach her, so in another time and place, this would have all been very, very unusual.

  But as soon as Jake figured they were out of earshot, it was like a shadow fell on his face and he shot her a flat, dark look.

  “If I even hear one smart comment out of you about this outfit that I’m having to wear right now, I swear to god, I am going to boomerang home and strand you in this world.”

  Unfortunately, the look of intense displeasure on his face was too much for Laney to handle and her façade of disbelief crumbled and she broke down into a fit of laughter.

  “Holy crap, Noah. It is you.”

  Noah glared at her. He did not look happy.

  “I’m s-so sorry,” she wheezed, trying to get her giggles under control.

  He looked more than a little curious, maybe even a little more than slightly displeased. “Didn’t you recognize me?”

  She still couldn’t speak. She shook her head.

  “Curious. Maybe only one primary can recognize the other at any one time.”

  “What?” she asked between gasps.

  “Nothing.”

  She took a breath to collect herself. “Hey, so what the hell is going on?” she hissed in bewilderment. “You managed to make it through the quantum shear trace before it faded away? What happened to t
he Alliance agent?”

  “I took care of him.”

  “You took care of him?” Laney repeated in disbelief. “That sounds exactly like the suspiciously convenient lie an Alliance spy would say.”

  “For the millionth time, I am not in The Alliance!” Noah rolled his eyes, exasperated. “I can’t believe you still don’t trust me after everything we’ve been through.”

  Laney huffed, making an obstinate face, but she didn’t push her point. “Whatever. I guess we’re lucky we both made it.”

  “Lucky? I can’t even begin to tell you how glad I am to find you,” he said, his eyes widening in displeasure. “I jumped into this world’s Jake Donovan’s parent’s house hours ago and they thought I was him. So…so this!” He gestured to himself. “Apparently, their son Jake was supposed to have left on a camping trip this weekend,” he relayed. “Which he probably did. But when they saw me, they thought he had changed his mind and didn’t go. I had to pretend to be him.”

  “So…this?” She gestured to his outfit while trying to suppress another wave of giggles. “Um, it really doesn’t suit you.”

  He gave her a suffering look.

  “Hey, Jake!” one of the guys from the basketball game called out.

  Noah spun around, alerted.

  “We’re all going to The Shack,” the guy beckoned. “So, are you coming? And…?” He looked over at Laney.

  “Uh, yeah!” Noah yelled back with a nod. “She’s coming too,” he replied quickly. “This is Laney, my uh…girlfriend,” he said, reaching over to awkwardly put his arm around her shoulders.

  Laney shot him an incredulous sideways glance.

  For a freaking genius, Noah sure didn’t know how to behave around regular people. She was honestly surprised that he’d lasted this long without anyone noticing that he wasn’t the real Jake Donovan.

  Then again, Noah was a highly-skilled spy and soldier. He was probably trained to adapt to any hostile environment. Even a high school.

  Camouflage

  Laney leaned back against the wall outside the door of the boy’s locker room, waiting, since Noah had insisted on changing out of his preppy clothes before they leave campus. She folded her arms across her chest, still trying to avoid catching the gaze of anyone passing by.