Selfless Series Box Set

by S Breaker

  The door opened with a shush.

  “Impressive.”

  Laney couldn’t see who it was but she mumbled, trying to move her head up off the floor, “I’m glad you think so.”

  She felt herself being lifted off the floor, her chair put upright with a thud, before she met the girl’s gaze.

  She didn’t look much older than Laney. She had red hair and was wearing a type of jumpsuit uniform similar to the Dauntless crew and a wry look on her face as she surveyed Laney’s appearance, while two men wearing nondescript business suits and earwigs flanked her.

  “Is it Miss Carter or Dr. Carter? How’s it going?”

  “I’m sorry. Have we met before?” Laney asked, trying to be vague on purpose. She wasn’t entirely sure what they knew about multiverses, but she figured it was better to be safe than sorry.

  Except for the girl’s next statement confirming it. “As a matter of fact, I have met another one of you before.”

  Laney blinked, stunned. What? That made no sense whatsoever. The Dauntless had confirmed that there was no other Eleanor Carter in this parallel world. So how could this girl possibly claim that she’d already met one?

  Unless…

  Laney stopped short as it clicked.

  Oh, Eleanor. You are one sneaky mad scientist.

  Berry had even suspected as much. Somehow, and for some strange reason, Eleanor had already been to this parallel world before and didn’t tell anyone.

  “Red” waved dismissively with a low chuckle. “And before you deny it, we already know you’re from a parallel world,” she said. “Our instruments have confirmed it. Just like that other boy.”

  Laney’s pulse began to race. “Where’s—where’s Jake?”

  “Oh, don’t worry about him.” Red looked up and signaled a nod to the two guys, both of whom promptly turned to leave. She perched herself to sit upon the corner of the table. “You know,” she began as soon as they were alone. “I’m not usually involved in these—interrogations. So there must be something really special about you for them to have brought you to me.” She paused to consider. “Or something really wrong.”

  Laney glared at her. “Who are you? Why am I here? Where’s Noah?”

  Red tilted her head, amused. “I thought you said his name was Jake.”

  Laney bit her lip.

  But before she could say anything else, the door opened again and a young man wearing a white lab coat came in, carrying a silver briefcase.

  “Ah, Verren. Perfect timing,” Red remarked.

  Laney stiffened as Verren came up to her.

  He plunked the briefcase open onto the table and Laney could see he had several tools inset inside. He picked up one of them then moved to employ something against Laney’s neck, something that pinched.

  “Ow.” She winced. “Hey! How about gentle next time?” she suggested irately.

  Verren didn’t flinch. He applied the tool onto the surface of a tablet device that he was holding. “Hmm…” He murmured as he was reading. “They were right. We can’t use her.”

  Red raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. What about the other one?”

  Verren nodded as he put the tablet back in the case. “Him, yes. He may be just exactly what we’ve been waiting for to get our breakthrough.”

  Red gave him a self-satisfied look. “I told you we were close. Aren’t you glad you didn’t apply for that transfer yet?” she quipped. “Three-point-five-billion dollar money pit my ass.”

  Verren gave her a teasing jeer. “Let’s just say my expectations are way lower than the committee’s, boss. You know they only care about results, especially with this program.”

  Laney watched them warily. “What are you two talking about? What breakthrough?”

  Red answered her question with a question. “Did you know that all matter vibrates? That’s simple physics,” she dismissed offhand. “Everything from the same dimension vibrates with the same frequency.”

  She went on with a small wave. “Well, guess what? You and your friend are obviously not from this dimension.” Then she regarded her with a look. “Tell me, Miss Carter. Where are you from?”

  Laney glared up at her, her tone dull as she replied, “Florida.”

  Red chuckled again, low and throaty. She walked across the room and when she pressed a little button on a wall, the mirrored panel cleared to display some type of surveillance video feed.

  Laney peered at what was being shown on it. A large board had been pushed up to the “camera”. She was surprised to see that the board had a similar geometric shape diagram drawn on it that was on Berry’s “peanut map”.

  But at the same time, they all heard a loud groan of pain as the button that Red had pressed must not only let them see what was on the feed but also hear it.

  “What was that?” Laney’s eyes widened in dread.

  The yelling didn’t stop.

  She winced. “Is that Noah? What are you doing to him?”

  Red looked at her calmly, gesturing to the map on the screen. “See, we’ve already determined which dimension your friend is from,” she called out to be heard over the noise then gestured to Verren. “But we can’t seem to find where you came from. Your readings are all fuzzy.”

  She glared at Red, her stomach turning over at the bloodcurdling sounds of pain from the other room, from what was undoubtedly Noah. “What’s happening to Noah?” she pressed.

  Verren was still standing beside Laney and he reached out to tilt Laney’s head to one side. “What’s this?”

  Red glanced back. “What is it?”

  Uh-oh. With all the rush to rescue Noah, Laney had forgotten that her CCL was still attached.

  “There’s something installed under her ear,” Verren replied, training another one of his tools toward it. “They must have missed it down below. A monitoring gadget of some type. It looks like it’s from the same dimension as the other one.” He whacked the bottom of his palm against his device a couple of times, shaking his head. “Sort of. It’s also a bit fuzzy.”

  Laney was heaving, her fists all balled up. Every scream of pain from Noah was gutting her insides.

  Red watched Laney’s face intently then after a moment she straightened up and pushed the button again, making the mirrored panel come back and the room became silent once more. She turned to the door. “Cut her loose.”

  Verren looked up at her, surprised.

  Red looked somber. “Whatever she is, I don’t think she knows either.”

  He looked dubious for a moment but then he finally shrugged and reached over to cut off the duct tape around Laney’s hands and feet.

  Laney looked as though she was going to vault up from her seat. “I want to see Noah,” she demanded.

  Red rolled her eyes, her hand on the open door. “Yeah, yeah, let’s go.” She beckoned her over.

  Laney shot Verren a wary look as she moved to follow suit, rubbing her sore wrists.

  But as soon as she stepped out the door and into the hallway, her jaw dropped in awe. She couldn’t help but walk up to the window to marvel at the view.

  The Aquila was the biggest anything Laney had ever seen in her life. She was in a structure along the curve of a massive spaceship made up of two spinning concentric circles. From the window, she could see a couple of ships approaching to dock onto the inner ring. Just beyond the outer edge, she could still glimpse Saturn and its glorious rings amidst the black void of space.

  Looking up, Laney had a one-eighty degree view of hundreds of people going about their day within the different levels of the shiny generation ship along the huge outer ring. There were large terrarium gardens, green forests, man-made lakes, and there were austere-looking building structures, as well as what looked like tidy sections of housing communities. Various robots, automated machines, and a sleek transportation network, all gliding smoothly, traveled on the narrow rails along the annexes connecting the habitats.

  “Exactly how many people are on this ship?” Laney want
ed to know.

  “About fifty thousand, give or take a few.”

  “Holy wow…” she mumbled, still gawking.

  But Verren nudged her forward to follow Red down the hall. “Keep moving.”

  Red had paused beside a doorway. She swiped her hand on a sensor panel to activate the door.

  Laney gave her a suspicious look. “Where are we going?”

  “Down to the lab to see your boyfriend,” Red replied.

  “He’s not my—,” she began to protest but before she could throw her hands up in helpless dismissal, the door slid open, revealing a spotless white capsule shuttle that had wide windows and two benches fitted on each side.

  Laney thought it looked half train car, half elevator, and figured it must be how the fifty thousand people got around within The Aquila.

  Verren motioned for Laney to get in and sit down.

  “Put your seatbelt on,” Red told her. “We wouldn’t want you to float away.”

  All Wrong

  Laney felt almost sick to her stomach from the changes in gravity they encountered on the tube ride and was relieved when they finally got off.

  The Alliance was holding Noah somewhere at the very core of the generation ship. There were fewer windows in that part of the ship and everywhere was wall-to-wall white panels.

  They passed a large door that was just sliding closed and Laney craned her neck in wonder as she glimpsed what looked like a dozen smaller spacecraft parked in a large hangar, at the end of which you could see a huge open port leading straight out to space.

  But before she could look some more, Verren was back beside her, nudging her forward again. And the feeling of panic spread through Laney as she moved to follow Red, leading the way toward another set of doors.

  Laney rubbed her hands over her arms.

  Red glanced back at her, the expression in her eyes strangely interested.

  “What?” Laney shot her a pointed look.

  She dismissed offhand. “Nothing. You seem cold.”

  Laney narrowed her eyes. “What’s it to you?”

  “This ship is completely climate-controlled. The temperature is never lower than seventy-two degrees,” she noted casually. “It’s just odd,” she remarked before the door shushed open and Laney heard the scream again.

  “Noah—” She tried to hurry to push past Red to see but Verren held her back.

  “Hey!” Red whistled, waving her arm to signal the two lab technicians standing behind a control panel. “Let’s give our friend a bit of a break, shall we?”

  Laney looked around. The laboratory they had walked into must have been at least ten times the size of what she could see since large plastic sheets were hanging from the ceiling to obscure what was past all the control panels, and when one of the lab technicians left the area, he walked past one of the sheets, revealing a small peek at a much bigger space beyond it where there were even more labs and people in white coats working on other machines.

  Verren pushed Laney forward and her breath caught in her throat.

  Noah was strapped to a solid vertical slab, beside a table where his jacket and all his belongings had been dumped. He looked exhausted, his hair matted against his forehead. But she could faintly see his chest moving. He was only passed out.

  Laney sighed in relief. “Noah.”

  “He’s fine.” Red insisted with a wave as she walked over to one of the machines spewing out paper with readings and line graphs on it. “See?” she prompted. “In fact, he’s showing a 99th percentile rank in his frontal lobe faculties. It’s almost off the charts!” she commented brightly. “I would be very interested to study this brain up close.”

  “What are you doing to him?” Laney was still trying to struggle her arm away from Verren’s grasp.

  “Just some tests,” she replied as though it was anything other than the invasive, painful procedure it was. “Hey Verren, have you seen this? There’s something weird going on with his blood work. I mean this DNA analysis is all kinds of exciting.”

  Verren dragged Laney along as he approached the console where Red was to study the chart with her. “It’s got an accelerated degradation pattern.”

  “So the brave must indeed die young. It must be unique to his dimension.” Red turned to Laney. “Tell me, did some type of apocalyptic event occur on his world too?”

  Laney chewed on her bottom lip, trying to rack her brain for a way to help out Noah or to escape herself, but she was stumped.

  Red snapped her fingers in the air. “Hello? I asked you a question.”

  Laney jumped with a start. “Y-yes, uh,” she began, meeting her gaze with a nod. “Yes. A global cascade bomb wiped out most of the population.”

  Red raised an eyebrow. “Huh,” she huffed. “I guess in that respect, our world got off a bit lucky.”

  “Lucky?” Verren mumbled with a cynical scoff. “It’s not the word I would use.”

  That caught Laney’s attention. A feeling of dread was creeping into her stomach. “What happened to your world?”

  Red shot her a narrow-eyed look, and when she spoke again, there was a hint of contempt in her tone. “A few years ago,” she began. “There was an interdimensional breach at the LHC labs in Geneva.”

  Red’s lips curled up as she acknowledged Laney’s stunned look. “You guessed it,” she said. “It was you—the other you. And that little blip triggered a massive chain reaction. Weather anomalies, tsunamis, earthquakes, sinkholes the size of football fields. It made Earth basically uninhabitable.” She gestured ceremoniously around them. “So here we are.”

  Laney groaned inwardly. Great. Eleanor was like the freaking gift that kept on giving.

  Red tilted her head as though in melancholy. “You know, The Aquila was the first generation ship ever built. We’ve been in space now for over ten months. And we’re never going back.” Her expression darkened for a moment before she shook her head briskly, looking up to meet Laney’s gaze again. “So you’ll understand if we’re a little apprehensive about interdimensional trespassing.”

  Laney swallowed. That incident must have been what caused The Alliance in this world to stop merely advising the government and take over.

  Red stepped back, reaching up to tug one of the large plastic divider sheets aside. “Look familiar?”

  Laney gasped. “Oh my god.”

  It may have looked like a scale-model in an opaque rectangular box, but with the same machine components made entirely of glass and mirrors, it was unmistakable.

  Red’s team had built their own quantum jump machine.

  Laney followed a lead from the machine traveling through a spaghetti wire mess on the floor, almost already knowing that she would find the other end hooked up to Noah’s slab. “Oh shit.” Her voice hushed as Red’s plan cleared in her mind. “You’re going to use Noah as the grounding wire.”

  Red’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Ah, she’s much cleverer than she looks, folks.” She glanced over at Verren. “Verren, can you set up for another molecular vibration analysis? I want to re-run that test on her. Make sure the guys didn’t miss something before we move on. And then—” She smirked as she walked up to Noah. “I want to see more of this amazing little gadget that’s integrated into his arm.”

  Laney’s eyes widened.

  “That’s an impressive level of human augmentation right there,” she said, peering closely at his arm. “Shall we see how it responds to certain stimuli?” she suggested with a Dr. Frankenstein glint in her eyes.

  And Laney felt sick. She piped up loudly. “Here! Here, why don’t you analyze this? Study this.” She gestured to her watch. “This is called a Zeta device. It will let you travel across dimensions. Just please, stop whatever you’re doing to him,” she pleaded.

  Red shot her another surprised look. “Really? You’re willing to give up your little wonder gadget?” She shook her head. “If that is what you say it is, I don’t think you realize what kind of advantage you’d be giving us.”


  Laney stuck her chin up. “He would do it for me.”

  Red let out a light laugh.

  “So here, take it!” Laney held out her arm emphatically.

  She exchanged a look of ridicule with Verren before she went on. “I think we’re good on the gadgets so we’ll pass. Besides, that could be a trap and I need to ensure that we protect ourselves from the threat of your worlds.”

  “You’re the threat.” Noah’s voice was gravelly but the defiance was clear from his tone.

  Laney’s eyes lit up. Noah had regained consciousness. “Noah!” She tried to pull away to go to him but Verren held her fast.

  “And he’s back.” Red rolled her eyes. “Mr. Had To Be An Asshat and almost killed three of my men.”

  “Are you okay?” Laney called out to him, worriedly searching his face.

  Noah merely coughed in response.

  Laney turned to Red in frustration. “Just tell me what you want from us.”

  Red looked cynical. “Want? We don’t want anything from you.”

  “Then let us go!” Laney insisted, giving her an imploring look. “Look, you don’t understand. I have an—appointment. And if I miss it, I’ll never get back home.”

  “Honey.” Red gave her a fake sympathetic look. “Bigger picture. This doesn’t just concern you.” Her tone was firm. “You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying right here.”

  “Stay?” Laney mocked. “You want me to live here? On the generation ship?”

  Red blinked. “Oh, no, no. Sorry. I meant in our detention cell.” She waved in ridicule. “We couldn’t let you run amongst the population and potentially contaminate it.”

  Verren let out a chuckle at how she could have possibly thought otherwise.

  Ahh…much better. Laney resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She glanced up at Noah in anguish then she looked up at the guy with the vise-like grip on her arm.

  Verren’s face was cold, closed.

  Laney could sense that he was brimming over with bitterness. It wasn’t unlike the expression Noah usually wore when asked about his homeworld and she guessed something devastating must also have happened to him as a result of the disruption in spacetime. It was clear there was no dissuading him from his convictions.