by Barry Lyga
Khalid blinked. “Even I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
But Zak got it. “There probably aren’t compatible cell phone networks over here. They might not even use Wi-Fi. Who knows?”
They stared at each other. For the first time, Zak realized, he had no idea what to do next. They’d come over into the water, so they’d swum to shore. And then they’d tried to figure out where they were. And then they’d listened to Tommy.
But now?
There was nothing for them to do.
Nothing at all.
* * *
Feeling suddenly exposed out by the Conflux, they retreated from the water’s edge, deeper into the park, following one of the pathways. The park was lit by that same odd sort of pale light they saw on the buildings uptown, captured in decorative swirls atop tall poles. It bathed the trees and the pathways with a soft glow that reminded Zak of early, dim sunlight behind curtains.
A little ways in, among a cluster of trees and shrubbery, they found an odd-looking bench on the side of the path. It was made of something that looked like bronze, with ornate, curling armrests. Zak, exhausted, slumped into the seat.
“You think it’s safe here?” Khalid asked.
“We’ve been here, yelling at each other, for a while, and no one has shown up,” Zak reasoned. “It’s probably okay.”
“We don’t know what or where is safe,” Moira pointed out. “So we should be cautious no matter what.”
“Buzzkill,” Khalid said lightly, but then made a point of pacing a perimeter, poking into bushes and looking around trees. Moira followed his example, and once they were reasonably certain they were alone, they both joined Zak on the bench.
“Did we really just see a ghost?” Khalid said. “Because I have to tell you—this is way freakier than I signed up for.”
“There are some theories,” Moira said, “that the body’s electrical impulses could continue after physical death. It’s all sort of bull, though.” She shrugged. “Then again, we’re in a whole different universe. The physics here could be different. Everything could be different.”
“But there’s still air to breathe,” Khalid said. “There’s still trees and buildings. I don’t get it. It’s a whole ’nother universe, right? Why isn’t it weirder?”
Moira shrugged. “I don’t know. If there’s an infinite number of universes, some of them are going to look a lot like ours. Like, what did you have for breakfast this morning?”
“Oatmeal,” Khalid said.
“Sure, okay.” Moira nodded enthusiastically, warming up. “So, somewhere out there is a universe exactly like our own with the only difference being that you had scrambled eggs instead of oatmeal.”
“That sounds like a waste of a universe. And I hate eggs.”
“Not in that universe,” Moira said. “That universe’s Khalid likes eggs. And that’s the only difference. But from that tiny difference, big changes can happen. A ripple effect. You eating eggs instead of oatmeal could end up changing the world in big ways.”
“I always knew I was important.”
“We need to focus, guys.” The conversation was interesting, but Zak didn’t think speculating about Khalid’s breakfast choices was going to help them. “We saw what we saw,” he told them. “We’re not going to start second-guessing it, okay? We all saw it. We all heard it. It happened. This isn’t about theories. It’s about what we actually witnessed. Now we have to figure out what to do next. We can’t just sit around this place.”
“We need a plan,” Moira agreed. “We need to figure out a way home.”
“First we need to rescue Tommy. And this Godfrey kid, too. He’s the one, guys. The one I’ve been seeing in my visions. He was the kid on the boat, and he’s in trouble, too.”
Moira gnawed at her bottom lip. “Zak, if we get the chance to go home, we should take it—”
“He’s my brother, Moira! He was missing my whole life, and now I can get him back. I’m not giving up on that.”
“I’m not saying you should. But if we come up with a way home first, we have to use it.”
“Says who?”
“Guys!” Conveniently, Khalid was sitting between them, so it was easy for him to lean in and stop their argument. “It’s all a moot point right now anyway. We have no idea how to get home. All we know is what Tommy told us. Unless you want to roam this world looking for a door back home, the only sensible thing to do is what he said. Tommy said his friend Godfrey has power, right? Maybe we help Godfrey, then Godfrey helps us.”
That sounded good to Zak. Moira considered for a moment, then agreed. “In most classic alternate-universe fiction, there’s a guide of some sort who appears after the characters cross over, to sort of introduce them to the new world and set them on their quest.”
“Well, unless you think that fish I saw in the water counts as a guide, I say we go with Tommy,” Khalid joked.
Moira smiled. “I wish I knew how we got here in the first place. We were down in the subway, and then we saw the water—”
“Wait, wait, wait. You guys saw that?” Zak’s head spun. He hadn’t realized that, for the first time, someone else had seen the sights he’d thought were for his eyes only. The evidence that Something Strange Was Going On was all around them now, but it still made him feel better that Moira and Khalid had seen the same thing he had, in their world.
Both Khalid and Moira nodded.
“We were holding your hands,” Moira put in. “Maybe that did it. An actual physical connection allowed us to see what you saw. Or maybe we were just so close to the crossover point.…”
“Crossover point?”
Moira sighed heavily, then brightened. “Remember when we were talking before, about the apartment building? I said you broke down a wall. But you really shouldn’t be able to do that. Not in real life. But in science fiction, there are places where the wall between realities—between apartments—is thin enough that you can travel. Either you break it down or there’s some kind of hidden doorway between apartments.”
“And one of those places is under the World Trade Center?”
Moira shrugged. “I guess. I mean, how else do you think that boat got there?”
Zak was stunned. Of course. He turned and looked out over the Houston Conflux. Right where they stood (well, close by) was the location of the World Trade Center and the Freedom Tower in their own universe. But here it was just water.
He remembered the juddering of the boat as it tossed in the storm. It had somehow crossed from this universe into their own, running aground because where there was open water here, there was land back home. He mentioned this to Khalid and Moira.
“That explains a lot,” Moira said. “Like the construction of the boat. In our universe, everyone’s baffled by it. Stuff like using iron nails and all that. But maybe here that’s just how they built most boats back then.”
“Eggs-loving Khalid builds his boats differently,” Khalid muttered.
“Exactly. Some of the changes ripple out and then just fade away, but some of them ripple out and knock over a boat. Or scare a duck out of the pond. And the changes compound.”
“So,” Zak mused, “Godfrey gets on a boat somewhere, headed for New York.”
“Manhattan City,” Moira corrected.
“Right. And there’s a storm that threatens to knock the boat over.” With his newfound understanding, he ran through the memories of ship-side. “All hands on deck. They were fighting for their lives against the storm.” When he tried, he could relive it—the gulls, the wind, the rain. The snap of the sails and the shouts of the captain. “Godfrey tried climbing into the rigging to fix one of the sails, but he got thrown off when the ship moved. And he went belowdecks for safety, and the ship nearly caught on fire.…”
“So he cast a spell to protect himself,” Moira said.
“That’s the part I don’t get,” Zak admitted.
“That’s the part?” Khalid spluttered.
“Well, one
of the parts. A spell. I mean, you tell me that physics says there are other universes, Moira, and I believe you. But magic spells? Come on.”
“Tommy said we would ‘call it magic,’” she pointed out. “There was a famous science-fiction writer named Arthur C. Clarke who once said that ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’ If you showed a medieval knight your iPhone, he would think you’re a wizard, not just a kid with a phone.”
“So it’s not really magic.” That somehow made Zak feel more comfortable, and then he felt ridiculous for finding comfort in such a small thing.
“It doesn’t matter, really,” Moira said. “All that matters is that he did something that allowed him to live beyond the death of his body. Magic spell, uploading his consciousness into the air, whatever. And then the boat came through to our world and wrecked on land and ended up buried.”
“Right under what eventually became the old World Trade Center.”
“What do you think it was like?” Khalid mused. “Being under there? Especially when the towers came down?”
Zak shuddered. He tried to imagine it—stuck underground for so long, in darkness and in quiet … and then, from nowhere, light and loud.
He tried to imagine it but knew his powers of creativity couldn’t possibly match up to the reality.
“Do you think he saw them?” he asked. “The people who died that day? He’s a ghost, so do you think—”
“Shh!” Khalid said, holding up both hands. His expression was alert and concerned. “I hear something.”
TWENTY-FIVE
Now Zak heard it, too—and so did Moira, from the look on her face. It was a rustling in the shrubbery around them … and then footfalls. With a shared look of panic, they leaped up from the bench and spun in every direction, looking for the source of the noise, just as a man emerged from the greenery across the pathway.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing what they immediately realized was a police officer’s uniform, though it didn’t match up with any police outfit they’d ever seen. The slacks were gray with a black stripe down the outside of each leg, and rather than a shirt, he wore a sort of greenish tunic with a black bandolier that crossed from left shoulder to right hip. There were pockets along the bandolier, and a slot for a round silvery badge that looked nothing like an NYPD badge. He wore a helmet that reminded Zak of photos he’d seen of English cops—bobbies, they were called.
In his hand, the man held a short, thin tube that at first seemed to be a flashlight. But on second glance, it was obviously much more—it projected light from the end, but there were also two bent, steely prongs jutting from it, like those on a stun gun.
“Well, now!” the man exclaimed. “What have we here?”
Zak and Khalid had jumped up first, and so they got the blast of light in the face first. They flinched at it and shielded their eyes. The cop clucked his tongue in apology and shifted the beam away from them.
“Sorry, boys,” he said jovially. “You surprised me, is all. Not a lot of folks come down to the Conflux this late at night. Nothing to see, really.”
He had a slight accent that Zak couldn’t entirely place. Not broad, but noticeable. A nameplate on the right breast of his tunic read Ofc. Cheong.
“We were just killing some time,” Khalid said. “You know. Wandering.”
Officer Cheong’s eyes lit up. “Not from around here! That makes more sense, then. No, no, wait, don’t tell me.” He held up a hand as though one of them had almost spilled a delightful secret. “Let me guess. I’m pretty good with accents. You boys hail from North Florida?”
Zak and Khalid looked at each other. Khalid mouthed, Accents?
Zak shrugged. “Yep, you got us. North Florida.”
Cheong hooted and slapped his thigh. “I knew it! Southerners! Come to Manhattan City for a good time, eh?”
Zak grinned his best grin. The officer seemed friendly enough, and maybe he could actually help them out. Regardless of the universe, cops were cops, right? “Say, I was wondering—”
But just as he stepped forward to speak, Officer Cheong’s expression changed. The beam of light wavered, then straightened, going over Zak’s shoulder.
Landing on Moira.
Zak and Khalid had stood up first and had been blocking Moira from Cheong’s view until now. Now, as Moira came into view, Officer Cheong stared with a fury that shocked Zak.
“Hey there, frau,” Cheong grumbled. “What are you doing here?”
“She’s our friend,” Zak said.
Cheong’s stance had changed. He’d gone from loose and friendly to all business. “Really, now?” he asked. “Your friend?”
Moira shrugged. “Well, yeah.”
“Hey! When I’m talking to you, I’ll talk to you,” Cheong snapped. “Got it? Until then, you keep your mouth shut.”
Any other time, someone talking in that tone to Moira would have been on the receiving end of a blistering Irish retort. But the night and the swim and the crossing of universes had taken their toll, and she just stood there in shock.
“Now, boys,” Cheong said, playing the light from Zak to Khalid and back again, “tell me what’s really going on here.”
Zak’s mind went blank. He couldn’t come up with a lie or a story or even a question to stall for time. Helpless, he gestured to Khalid, who seemed similarly devoid of words.
“You messing around with someone else’s frau?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zak said, finally relying on complete honesty. He had no idea what was going on or why the man kept calling Moira a “frow.”
“Look, if you can’t explain what’s going on out here, I’m going to have to take her in.”
“Are you kidding me?” Khalid erupted. Zak winced. He wished Khalid would think before antagonizing the cop in the man’s own universe.
“You know how it is, boys,” Cheong said gruffly, though of course they hadn’t the slightest idea “how it is.” He brushed them both aside and clamped a hand on Moira’s arm, just above the elbow. “Come along, frau. We’ll get you home nice and safe, no worries.”
Moira snapped out of whatever passive daze she’d been in. She struggled to jerk her arm free, but Cheong held her fast. “Let go of me, you creep!” she yelled. “Get off!”
“Stupid meid,” Cheong muttered. He tapped the side of his helmet. “PDNY Station Twelve, this is Cheong. I have a loose frau down by the Conflux.”
Moira couldn’t pull away. Her eyes—wide with fear—met Zak’s, and without thinking any further, Zak threw his weight at the cop, hitting with his shoulder across the backs of the man’s knees. Cheong’s legs buckled, and Moira twisted free from his grasp, dodging to one side as the cop dropped his weird flashlight-like object.
“Hey!” Cheong stumbled forward but kept his footing. Zak stood back up and prepared for another tackle attempt, but his heart fluttered warningly.
Spinning around, Cheong pointed a threatening finger. “I don’t want to run you in over this, but you guys aren’t leaving me much—”
A sizzle-crack sounded just then, and Cheong yelped in pain, then dropped to his knees.
Khalid stood next to him with the “flashlight.” The two prongs sparked with electricity, and Khalid stared in wonder. “This thing rocks.”
“Zap him again!” Moira shouted as Cheong fumbled on his bandolier for something.
Khalid shoved the gadget at the exposed flesh of Cheong’s neck, below the rim of the helmet and above his tunic’s collar. The cop screamed—briefly—and then collapsed.
“Is he dead?” Zak’s heart settled down. Mostly. At the sight of the limp form of Officer Cheong, it gave a little halfhearted skip. But wouldn’t anyone’s, watching a best friend assault a police officer?
“No. He’s breathing.” Moira shivered. “Good for him, I guess.”
“Guys, we gotta get out of here,” Khalid said. “He called this in. I bet more of them will be on the way.”
Nothing else needed to be said. Without a word, they ran off through the bushes, into the night.
* * *
Khalid and Moira were far ahead of him, making good time. Zak did his best to keep up as they burst out of the park and onto a sidewalk, but he was falling behind. He just couldn’t run as fast—his lungs burned, and his heart pounded too hard when he put on the speed. The best he could do was keep them in sight.
The street beyond the sidewalk seemed familiar—some of the buildings looked like the ones back home. There were only a few cars on the street, and they all had an odd sort of appearance—too curvy, too round. And, he realized, they were almost completely silent. The only street noise was a slow, polite sort of burp as each car passed him. So similar to home but so different. Infinite universes, Moira had said. And this particular “apartment” was decorated a lot like their own.
There were a few people out on the street. Zak paid them no mind as he weaved in and out, trying to catch up to his friends. He was so intent on his task that he tripped over his own feet and nearly collided with a woman who must have been an actress headed to some kind of audition—she was wearing a ton of makeup and an outfit right out of the Victorian age.
He had no time to goggle at her. Moira and Khalid were pulling farther away.
“Wait!” he shouted, but his breath was gone, and so his shout came out as a gasp. Fortunately, they must have realized they’d left him behind; both stopped running, checked over their shoulders, and waved him on.
But Zak didn’t catch up to them. This was Canal Street, he realized—some of the buildings were familiar, but he also spied a street sign. It wasn’t a reflectorized white-on-green sign, the kind he was used to. Instead, it was a flat gray with letters that glowed softly and seemed to hover just a fraction of an inch above the surface of the sign.
So, if this was Canal and they’d come from what should have been Chambers Street, then that meant …
Sure enough, he noticed another sign, this one with an arrow. It read:
He gestured for Moira and Khalid to come back to him, and after a moment’s hesitation they did so, jogging with an ease Zak envied as he caught his breath.