Quicksilver

by R. J. Anderson

This was why I’d come here, to this place, at this time. This was why I hadn’t tied Crackers up more securely, even if I hadn’t let myself think about what I was doing. Because deep down, in spite of everything, I loved my life and didn’t want to lose it. And I’d wanted to see Milo again, even if only to say good-bye.

  “Oh God,” he breathed, dropping to his knees beside me and lifting me into his arms. “Oh God, Niki. Why?”

  He’d seen the train go past. He’d seen Crackers running toward him, the broken branch tangled at the end of his leash. He’d seen me crawl out of the ditch. He knew what I’d almost done, and there was no way I could deny it.

  So, in broken and gasping words, I told him everything.

  When I was finished, Milo bowed his head, dark hair falling over his glasses. Then he pulled me closer, into the warmth of his body. “I had no idea,” he said. “I’d never have left you alone with Sebastian if I knew—Niki, I’m sorry.”

  Still, it was selfish of me, maybe, not to pull away. Not to remind him that I’d be leaving soon and we’d never see each other again, and besides, I could never want him the same way he wanted me. But it felt so good to have him hold me that I didn’t care. I dropped my face against his chest, brow pressed to the hard line of his collarbone, and closed my eyes.

  “I’m not ready to die,” I whispered. “I want to stay here and live, and make things, and be free. But I don’t know how.”

  Milo cupped my chin in his hand, brushed my hair back, and kissed my forehead. Then he took my right arm and lifted it to the light.

  “Show me,” he said.

  Reluctantly I let go of him and guided his fingers to the place where the quicksilver had wormed beneath my skin. Ten centimeters above the wrist, deep in the flesh of my forearm, where no one but Alison could see it.

  “And we can’t cut it out?”

  I shook my head. There was a device that could dissolve quicksilver—Sebastian had used it on me last summer—but we’d left it on the other side of the wormhole. The only one who could disable the chip without killing me now was Mathis.

  “Then…” He bit his lip. “Can we trick it somehow? Make it think it’s got you, when…” He trailed off, then added with sudden savagery, “Or we could kill Sebastian. How he could do that, after everything you did for him…”

  “It wasn’t about me,” I said wearily. That much, at least, I’d figured out. “It was for Alison. He wanted the wormhole closed to protect her.”

  “From what?” demanded Milo. “Aren’t you the one this Mathis guy wanted all along? Why would he bother with some random Earth girl who had nothing to do with his experiment in the first place?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe he only threatened her to force Sebastian to betray me.” And Sebastian had pretended to give in, thinking he could double-cross Mathis and destroy the relay or close the wormhole first. Only that plan hadn’t worked, so he’d had no choice but to go through with the bargain. “Or maybe he found out about Alison’s synesthesia, which is pretty incredible. A lot of scientists would give their right hand to—”

  I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

  My breath caught in my throat, and my heart stuttered. I froze, the rest of the sentence forgotten, as a new and terrible idea blazed like a comet across my mind.

  Could I really do something so enormous, so outrageous, so utterly appalling? It would take every bit of skill and determination I possessed. I’d have to confess some of my deepest secrets to people I wasn’t even sure I could trust and put myself totally at their mercy. And even if I could get them all to cooperate, even if I had enough time to track down the necessary parts and build the device I needed, there was no guarantee my plan would work. I might end up hurting myself, traumatizing the people who loved me, and even beaming myself through the wormhole prematurely, with nothing to show for it.

  But as much as the idea scared me, it was my idea. And though it might be the end of every dream I’d ever had and every ambition I’d ever treasured, it also felt like hope.

  “What is it?” asked Milo. “You look like you’re about to throw up.”

  “Alison,” I said, struggling to my feet. “I need to call her. Right away.”

  Six

  When I plunged through the front door fifteen minutes later, filthy and wild-eyed with Crackers barking hysterically at my heels, my parents nearly had a heart attack at the breakfast table. The next thirty seconds were total chaos, all of us talking at once and getting louder with every word. But eventually I got them to understand that I was okay, at least for the moment, and that I had a plan.

  “But you have to let me do this on my own,” I pleaded. “I need you not to ask questions or try to get involved. Because if you interfere, I won’t be able to do it. And I have to do it. There’s no other way.”

  Dad looked baffled, but Mom clapped her hands over her mouth. She’d seen it in my face—not the details of what I meant to do but the enormity of it. She knew I was about to do something that couldn’t be undone and that whether I failed or succeeded, my life would never be the same again.

  “Oh, honey,” she whispered. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” I said, and turned to my dad. “So do I have your permission? Will you trust me on this and promise you won’t try to stop me?”

  Every second I had left was precious, but I didn’t dare rush him. I had to let him think it over and come to his own conclusion. But when he lifted his head and his sober brown eyes met mine, I knew the answer before he even spoke.

  “You don’t have to ask,” he said. “You’re not a child anymore. Do what you think is best.”

  My heart swelled. I threw my arms around him and kissed his cheek, then turned to embrace my mother. She clung tightly to me for three seconds, then kissed me and let me go.

  “I love you,” I told them. “I’ll be back—I hope.”

  Then I bolted downstairs for my tool kit and parts bin, grabbed my phone from my bedroom, and dashed out. I was halfway down the driveway before I realized the bus wouldn’t be fast enough and was about to drop everything and call for a taxi when Dad appeared in the doorway, holding up Mom’s car keys.

  “Drive carefully,” he said. “Don’t blow up the makerspace. Or yourself.”

  I hesitated. I wasn’t surprised he knew where I was going, but how could he have guessed what I was about to do? I opened my mouth to explain—but Dad shook his head.

  “Don’t tell me.” His smile was sad and tender. “It’s probably better if I don’t know. Love you, pumpkin.”

  Then he tossed me the keys and shut the door.

  Five

  I drove to the Sunrise Café, bought an enormous coffee, and spent the next hour contacting everybody I needed to help me carry out my plan. I’d already talked to Alison, but I texted to confirm that she’d caught the early bus out of Sudbury and was on her way. I touched base briefly with Milo, to see how he was getting along with the worst research project ever. I called Barry, asking him to meet me at the makerspace right away. Then, last and hardest of all, I wrote to Sebastian.

  Anyone else, even my past self, would have told me I was insane. If Sebastian had betrayed me to Mathis once, what made me think he wouldn’t do it again? But right before he put the chip in my arm, he’d said that he was sorry and that he’d never wanted things to turn out this way. And when I thought back over everything that he’d done and said since the night he beamed into my bedroom, I believed him.

  –This is your last chance as well as mine. If you want to help me stop Mathis, you know where to find me.

  Then I packed up and drove off to meet Barry with my heart galloping all over my rib cage.

  Not that our phone call had gone badly: Barry had seemed willing enough, if somewhat puzzled by my urgency. But my plan could so easily fall to pieces if even one person refused to cooperate, and I was afraid of how he’d react when I told him what I meant to do.

  The answer, as it turned out, was something close
to hysteria. He paced around the corridor outside the makerspace, waving his arms as he raved about unprotected electrical equipment and enclosed spaces and how he’d lose his membership if even the tiniest thing went wrong and how could I even ask—

  “I’m asking you,” I said with desperate calm, “because this is the only place I know of that has all the equipment I need. And nothing that belongs to the makerspace will get damaged, I promise.”

  “You’re right it won’t,” said Barry. “Because you’re not going to do it here.”

  “Just listen,” I urged him. “If I wire up a timed detonator with a kill switch, the EMP bomb won’t go off until it’s well out of range of the makerspace, or else we can stop the countdown before it happens. And to make absolutely certain that I don’t wreck any of the equipment, I’ll set it up in the woodshop and take everything electronic or explosive out of the room first. But I have to do this, Barry.”

  He gave a skeptical snort. “Look, there’s no question that flux compression generators are cool. A lot of makers would love to build one, me included. But it’s hardly a matter of life and death—”

  “Yes, it is,” I told him.

  I’d been hoping I wouldn’t have to tell Barry my whole story, especially since I knew how unbelievable it would sound. But I’d sworn to myself that I’d do whatever it took.

  “I know I’m just some teenage girl you just met a couple of weeks ago,” I went on quickly, before he could interrupt. “I know that right now I look like I just crawled out of an unmarked grave, and what I’m asking you to do sounds crazy. But I mean it, Barry. If I don’t get that EMP bomb built and send it off fast, I am going to die.”

  For a second, Barry looked shaken. But then he folded his arms. “Why should I believe that?” he asked. “It doesn’t make any sense, for one thing, and you’ve lied to me before. All that stuff about having to build a transceiver for your dad’s birthday—”

  “I had good reason to lie,” I retorted. “If I’d turned up at your Open House and said, ‘Hey, there’s an evil alien scientist who wants to abduct me, I need to build a deep-space radio transceiver to shut him down,’ would you have listened to me?”

  And there it was, in all its bald and uncompromising glory. The truth that would set me free—or destroy everything. I held my breath and waited.

  Two deep furrows grew between Barry’s caterpillar eyebrows. He stared at me for a full ten seconds, chewing his lip. Finally, he said, “So you’re saying the transceiver didn’t work?”

  I shook my head.

  “What’d you use for the antenna?”

  “The Magnus Lake Radio Telescope,” I said. “If you don’t believe me, call Dr. Newman at the Observatory and ask if he’s ever met a girl named Niki Johnson. Ask him if there’s any chance that anomaly where we sent the signal could be an artificial wormhole.”

  Barry’s scowl deepened, and I feared the worst. But then he sighed and reached into his pocket. “Len’s never going to go for this,” he said, “and Shawn’s going to have an aneurysm. But at least we can get started before they show up.”

  Then he flashed his key card at the scanner, and the door clicked open.

  When I first told Barry about my plan, I’d staked my life on the conviction that inside every maker, no matter how sober and responsible he or she might seem on the surface, is a big goofy kid who loves the idea of blowing stuff up. I was sure that Barry had at least some idea what a flux compression generator was and that if I could get past his initial reservations he might even enjoy helping me build one.

  And I was right. As I opened up my box of tools and components and started scribbling a list of the additional parts I’d need to make an EMP bomb, he kept breaking in with comments like, “Oh, I know where to get you that capacitor,” and “I saw a reflector that size over at Steve’s last week.” And by the time I’d told him the rest of my story—or as much of it as he really needed to know—he’d stopped questioning whether I could pull this off without frying all the electronics in the makerspace and started trying to figure out how to convince the other members to let me do it.

  “So you believe me now?” I asked, as I handed Barry my shopping list and the cash I’d taken out of my bank account that morning. He’d already offered to drive around town and get me the parts I needed, and I’d accepted because he knew the local electronics and hardware dealers a lot better than I did. “Or are you just keeping the crazy girl distracted until the police show up?”

  It was only half a joke. That was what had happened to Alison when she’d told her mother the truth, after all.

  But Barry shook his head. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” he said. “A bit paranoid, maybe. But I wouldn’t bet my life on that, so I’m sure as hell not going to bet yours. Back soon.” He tucked the list into his pocket and headed out.

  Soon in this case turned out to be two hours and thirty-seven minutes, but I made good use of the time. Since it was the middle of the week, Shawn was at school and most of the other makerspace regulars were at their day jobs, so I was able to focus on my work without interruption. By the time Barry returned I’d finished the timer and the kill switch and was ready to start putting the main part of my EMP bomb together.

  The flux compression generator. A single-use explosive device that would generate an intense electromagnetic pulse, capable of knocking out any equipment within a ten-meter range.

  Like the wormhole stabilizer in Mathis’s spacelab, for instance.

  “I can’t see how it’s going to work at that size,” said Barry as I squinted down the two lengths of metal pipe he’d brought me, one slightly narrower in diameter than the other. “And you’ll need some explosive for that inner tube—”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, rummaging in the bag and pulling out a coil of copper wire and a large box of safety matches. “I’ve got it covered. Thanks, Barry.”

  At two o’clock I was still absorbed in putting the device together, the lunch Barry had brought me sitting unheeded by my elbow, when my phone clanked. It was Milo.

  –Bus from Sudbury just got in. See you soon.

  –Great.

  I replied, then hesitated and thumbed in another line:

  –Best boyfriend ever.

  Not exactly a declaration of undying love, but I couldn’t afford to get emotional right now, and I knew Milo would understand.

  Then I went back to work. I could hear Barry grunting and snipping wire in the background as he built a Faraday cage around the laser cutter, the only piece of vulnerable equipment in the makerspace that was too big for us to move. More minutes passed, until a familiar deep, quiet voice snapped me out of my distraction:

  “I won’t insult you by trying to justify myself. But if you still want my help, I’m here.”

  He’d always had a knack for dramatic timing, but this time Sebastian had outdone himself. I pushed up my safety goggles and studied him closely, searching for any hint that I might not be able to trust him after all, that the shame in his eyes and the self-loathing twist to his mouth weren’t real. Then I put down my wire stripper and slid out of my seat.

  “Come with me,” I said, and led him into the woodshop.

  Four

  “No,” said Sebastian faintly, when I’d finished telling him my plan. He shook his head and repeated, “Tori, no.”

  “Why not?” I demanded. “I did everything you asked, when it was your plan. Don’t tell me you’re too gutless to do the same for me. Or do you think I don’t know what I’m doing?”

  “Of course not.” He put a hand over his eyes. “I don’t doubt your capability. Or your courage. But there’s no way this is going to work.”

  “Why not?” I asked. “When Alison broke my nose it was a good three seconds before the relay activated, so there should be enough time for you and Milo to move. And when it took me, it took my clothes and shoes as well, so if I strap the device to my arm—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” said Sebastian. “Yo
u’re right about how the relay operates. But you’d need an extraordinarily sophisticated device just to detect its presence, let alone the exact instant when it starts to beam you away.”

  “That’s not your problem,” I said irritably. “I know all that and I’ve got it covered, so stop micromanaging me. All I want to know is, are you going to help me or not?”

  Sebastian’s throat moved convulsively as he swallowed. “There has to be another way.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “I’m pretty sure that was what you were hoping when you made that devil’s bargain with Mathis. But there wasn’t, was there? Not in the end.”

  He was silent.

  “Let me tell you what I think,” I said, glancing at the doorway as Barry staggered past with the 3-D printer. “I think you thought you’d never have to choose between my life and Alison’s. I think that all along, you were planning to double-cross Mathis and save us both. But when I got obnoxious, there was always the temptation to just put the quicksilver in my arm and be done with it, wasn’t there? That’s why you pushed me and Milo together. So there’d be somebody to protect me and make it harder for you to give in.”

  Which explained what he’d done at the gas station, on the way back from Algonquin. All Milo had wanted was a few minutes alone to get his head together, but when he’d come out of the washroom, his knapsack was sitting on the pavement and the truck was gone. Because by then, Sebastian knew he was going to have to betray me.

  “It doesn’t matter what I was trying to do.” Sebastian’s voice was rough. “All that matters is that I failed. And you’re going to fail too, at a horrible cost to yourself, and I don’t want any part of it.”

  “Too bad,” I said. “Whether you knew it or not, you signed up for this when you shook my hand two nights ago. You put that chip in my arm. It’s your responsibility to help me take it out.”

  “You’d rather do this than take your chances with Mathis? Even if I told you he’d promised to make sure you were treated well and not terminated?”