“Fat lot of good that’ll do,” Dr. Lowell says curtly. “Not if electrons don’t—”
Huge fingers grab Ty and lift him kata, out of the room. The white containment vessel that holds Dr. Lowell becomes visible as Dave moves away from it, and Ty’s brain almost grasps what a tesseract looks like before it dwindles to a distant white point.
“What’d you do that for?” Ty demands. “What was Dr. Lowell saying about electrons?”
“He is angry and defiant, but that will not last.” When he isn’t speaking through the avatar, Dave’s voice fills Ty’s ears with its twisty, four-dimensional hugeness. “Left alone with nothing but that journal, he will work. To earn his freedom and regain his daughter.”
Ty squirms. It’s disconcerting to be held in the grasp of a being he can glimpse only in bits and pieces. Knobby, muscular flesh flexes in and out of sight. Thick black wires wriggle and bounce. “Why’d you yank me out of there? It doesn’t make him trust us any better.”
He’s answered not by Dave’s resounding voice, but by the high-pitched singsong of Steve. “Time to take Tyler home!”
“Shteffrynha signaled me that your absence has been noted,” Dave says. “I must get you back to your braneworld, or the Seers will realize you are not hitching rides on their Transporter. Yes, Tyler, they know you use it without permission. I am sure many bets are placed on where you will go and what you will do. But if they suspect you are collaborating with someone from their world…”
“Can I go back and talk to the scientist?” Steve wheezes.
“Stay away from him,” Dave’s voice booms. “You will distract him from his work.”
“You never let me have any fun.” A wild, bulbous green eye with orange flecks and a horizontal black pupil swoops in close to Ty’s head.
He flinches. The eyeball withdraws and then Ty sees nothing but dark stones, occasionally interrupted by a flickering red light. Filling in the blanks with his imagination, Ty thinks they might be passing through a tunnel lit by torches.
“You never told me the Seers killed a scientist to stop him from finishing his theory.”
“The Seers send their Agents to perform many actions on Earth. Did you think none of them resulted in deaths? You are not that naïve, Tyler.”
Truth is, he did suspect that some of the course corrections resulted in unhappy outcomes. He just never thought he might be in danger.
“Do not worry,” Dave says. “Once you have developed the means for seeing into 4-space, the game will change for the Seers. Making your braneworld more aware of our world cheapens the experience for them. When it is no longer fun, they will move on to other games.”
Ty’s heart rate spikes. “What about the Transporter? If the Seers abandon us, they won’t dismantle the machinery, will they?” Without the Transporter, a means of seeing in 4-space is useless to him.
“Their kind never cleans up their toys. The Transporter will stay, and we will give you the key to its coordinate system. As we promised.”
Ty’s mind races in anticipation of the future.
The Seers and Miss Rose—gone.
Pointless missions masquerading as course corrections— gone.
And Ty—left with the power of unlimited, instantaneous transportation. He can go anywhere he wants, whenever he wants. He’ll never be trapped someplace he isn’t wanted ever again.
Like here. Ty glimpses the roof line of his father’s house right before plunging into his own bedroom. “Keep a low profile until I deliver Dr. Lowell’s calculations,” Dave’s voice rumbles from 4-space. “No more unauthorized trips. We need you to complete the work quickly when the time comes, and it is better if the Seers do not find you interesting to watch.”
“Got it,” Ty agrees.
The last thing he needs is the Seers and Miss Rose mucking everything up when he’s this close to getting what he wants.
24. JADIE
When I tell Marius I want to return the baby album to the Lowells, he says I’m nuts. “If Miss Rose pushed you off the Transporter for meeting Sam, what’s she gonna do if you go back?”
“I took the album to learn the truth. I don’t want to keep it. Besides, after you and Ty stole Sam’s computer, the least I can do is give him back his sister’s pictures.”
“You know, it’s weird how you talk about that baby like it’s not you.”
I shrug. That’s the way I deal with it. Jadie Martin and J.D. Lowell have to stay two different people or my brain will explode.
Marius shakes his head in an exaggerated, doomed sort of way, the way he probably does with Ty. “What’s your plan?”
“I’ll use the coordinates given to Alia. That lands me in Sam’s bedroom, so I’ll have to do it in the middle of the night—like, around two a.m. I’ll leave the album and go. Two seconds, tops.”
“What if he’s not asleep?”
“One second, then. He’ll see a lot less of me than he saw of you when you stole his computer.”
Marius crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m coming with you.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Marius shakes his head. “I’m coming, and I’m coming prepared. If Miss Rose sics any furry cockroaches on you, they’ll have to go through me first.”
It’s cute that Marius wants to protect me, but this trip is a one-person job. So I tell him I’ll wake him at two in the morning, but I set my alarm for one-forty-five, planning to leave and return before he wakes up.
But Marius is smarter than I think, because he shakes me awake at one-forty. “Let’s go.”
I sigh and roll out of bed fully dressed.
Marius is holding a backpack with a flashlight tucked into the outside mesh pocket. He opens it, revealing Mom’s biggest chopping knife, a kitchen lighter, and the fireplace poker. “What, no nunchaku or throwing stars?” I ask.
“You won’t be laughing when I fight the monsters off. D’you want to put the album inside?”
Unzipping the backpack to take it out will add seconds to our mission, but I also don’t want to drop the album if we encounter trouble in 4-space. I slip the album inside a separate compartment from the poker and the knife so their pointy parts won’t tear the cover.
He shoulders the backpack, and we use the signal injector on each of our bracelets to call the Transporter. Seconds later, we’re standing on adjacent platforms.
Marius peers through the metal grate between his feet. “How far did you fall?”
“I didn’t break anything, so it couldn’t have been far.”
Marius grabs his flashlight and aims it through the grating. The light flares for a second and fades out. He clicks the button several times and knocks the battery case against the platform. “Should’ve checked the batteries,” I say.
Marius shoves the flashlight back into its pocket with a frown. “I did check.”
“You ready to go?” When he nods, I call out eleven of the digits in the coordinates, which we both enter into our consoles. “The last digit is a seven, but wait two seconds after I enter it, so I can step out of the way.”
“Other way ’round. I’m going first.” Before I can argue, Marius punches the seven, and his platform moves away from mine.
I spend my two seconds copying the gesture Homer Simpson makes when he thinks about strangling Bart. Then I press seven and follow my brother.
The lights are off in Sam’s room when I arrive, but there’s enough illumination from under the door to see that the bed is empty. Lights in the hallway are on, and we can hear loud voices arguing elsewhere in the apartment.
“They’re awake. Let’s get out of here,” Marius hisses.
“Wait! We should leave the album.”
Marius swings the backpack off his shoulder and unzips it. I cross the room in two strides, crack the door open, and listen.
“It took five hours for one of you to show up!” a woman is yelling. “Don’t tell me to calm down!”
“Ma’am, this isn’t helping�
��” A man’s voice, dry and condescending.
“I hope you don’t have to wait forty-eight hours to file a missing person report!”
“That’s only on TV, ma’am. I’ll file this as soon as I get back to the station.”
“And then what?” I recognize Sam’s voice. “What will you do to look for him?”
“Okay,” Marius whispers, laying the album on Sam’s desk. “Let’s go.”
I shake my head. “Something’s wrong.” He joins me at the door, and together we listen while the man asks if Mr. Lowell likes to hang out at bars or if he uses drugs.
“It’s Doctor Lowell,” the woman snaps. “And no. He does not.”
“Medical doctor, is he?”
“No, a professor of physics.”
“At what university?”
Mrs. Lowell pauses. “He’s out of work right now.”
“Un-em-ployed.” The man—who must be a cop—drags out the word like he’s writing it down. “That’s too bad. He been depressed lately?”
“No—”
“Marital problems? Arguments over money?”
“Excuse me, Officer. That’s not what’s going on.” I silently cheer when Sam interrupts the cop’s insulting questions. “My dad was supposed to make a proposal at Rutgers University today. He left at noon to catch a train, and he never made it to his appointment. He’s not depressed, and he’s not out drinking. Something happened to him.”
Marius and I exchange glances.
The cop clears his throat. “I can investigate whether he redeemed his train ticket—or traded it in for another destination.”
I wrap my hand around Marius’s arm and whisper, “You took the laptop away from Sam like the Seers wanted. So what’s this about?”
“Dave said Sam and his dad were important,” Marius whispers back. “The Seers were out to stop both of them.”
“You didn’t tell me that!”
“I forgot!”
We listen through the crack in the door. The policeman is leaving. He promises to be in touch, with a total lack of interest in his voice.
But if the Seers did something to Sam’s dad, the police can’t help.
“I have to try to do something.” I release my grip on Marius’s arm. “You can go home if you don’t want to be involved.”
Marius doesn’t pause to think it over. “I’m sticking with you.”
After the cop leaves, Mrs. Lowell starts crying. We can’t hear everything she and her son say to each other, but it twists my stomach into knots knowing how worried they must be. I’m worried too. Sam was hit by a car. What will the Seers do to his dad?
He’s my dad too, but it’s easier to accept Sam as a brother than to identify Dr. and Mrs. Lowell as parents.
Brother is an honor you can award to anyone. Hey, bro!
Hi, Dad. Hi, Mom. That’s different.
Sam convinces his mom to settle on the sofa for the rest of the night and wait for a phone call—or better yet, for the door to open and her husband to walk in. At last, we hear what we’re waiting for: Sam’s uneven footsteps coming down the hall.
Marius stands by the dresser, where there’s a lamp. He times it perfectly, switching on the light as the door opens so that Sam sees both of us immediately.
“Don’t yell,” I whisper.
Sam’s eyes dart between me and Marius. He steps into the room and shuts the door behind him. “I won’t ask how you got in here.” He shoots a look of daggers at Marius. “Not after the library.”
Marius shrugs. “Sorry.”
Sam turns back to me. I’m sitting on his bed with the baby album beside me and his black cat curled in my lap. I hold up the book to show him—and then my arm. Since I didn’t plan on being here more than a few seconds, I didn’t bother to reverse myself. “I lied to you.”
“You are J.D.” Sam’s voice rises.
“I go by Jadie, rhymes with Sadie.” His eyes bore into me, and I swallow. “But yeah, I’m J.D.” What am I supposed to do? Hug him? Shake his hand? Awkward. Easier to sit here, petting his cat.
But if he calls for his mother, I will hit the button on my bracelet and disappear.
I am absolutely not ready to meet Mrs. Lowell.
Sam looks just as uncertain. He shifts from foot to foot and rubs his hand across his eyes. “You’re my sister.”
“Technically.” I know how dumb that sounds as soon as I’ve said it.
“What do you mean, technically?”
“FYI, we don’t have a lot of time for family reunions,” Marius says. When Sam glares at him, Marius tries to explain. “I know it must seem like we’re aliens, beaming in and out. But the explanation is even weirder. You see—”
Sam interrupts him. “You’re traveling through an alternate dimension.”
“Oh.” Marius sags. “Dang, Jadie, he is smart.”
“Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out? I’ve known about other dimensions since I was old enough for my dad to explain the basics. You stole my computer with all my multidimensional work. You disappeared into thin air, which is impossible unless you left in a direction I can’t see. Not to mention, this happened right after I met a girl with the same birthmark as my sister, except perfectly reversed.” He runs a hand through his tight curly hair. “Do you know where my dad is?”
I shake my head. “We were returning the baby pictures. Then we overheard you talking to the cop.”
“You had the album. I thought my mom…” Sam rubs his hands over his face again. “Okay, never mind. Dad is missing, and you came back. This isn’t a coincidence. He studies dimensions, and you can move in and out of them.”
“It’s connected,” I assure him. “There are beings in 4-space who’ve been interfering with people’s lives—yours and mine especially. Marius and I talked this over while we were waiting for you, and we’ve decided to ask our mom and dad for help.”
“Dad’s missing,” Sam repeats, as if I’m dense. “And Mom is…” Suddenly his face lights up, and for the first time, he smiles. “Mom is going to flip out when she sees you! She never believed you were dead!” He puts his hand on the doorknob.
“No!” The cat leaps off my lap when I stand and point a finger at Sam. “Stop! Not your mom and dad.” I wave the finger between Marius and myself. “Our mom and dad.”
“What?”
“Marius and I are adopted. When we tell our parents what’s going on—”
“I cannot allow you do that, Jadie.”
Even in a whisper, Miss Rose’s voice fills the room.
25. SAM
Sam snaps his head left and right, searching for the source of this voice, while Cleo yowls and shoots under the bed. Meanwhile, Sam’s long-lost sister and the boy named Marius turn toward each other with panicked expressions. Marius dives for a backpack on the floor, but before he can reach it, both he and Jadie vanish, their bodies contracting to thin lines and disappearing. They must be moving in a direction unperceivable to human eyes. Intellectually, it’s fascinating. Kata and ana are real!
But when giant fingers swell into existence and swoop toward Sam, intellect flies out the window. He whirls toward the door. Pain stabs through his knee at the sudden movement, and his leg gives way, betraying him.
The disembodied finger segments slither around his torso. “Be still, Sam,” says the voice. “I am trying not to hurt you.”
Mom! Sam almost shouts, but he stifles his cry, protecting his mother from this thing. The fingers constrict around his chest, lifting him into the air. His bedroom disappears, like it’s been squashed into something flat, while his body soars into a space filled with a dim reddish light, unidentifiable shapes, and an acrid, oily smell.
He’s not in his own universe anymore. Sam yells wordlessly in protest, pummeling the huge fingers wrapped around his body with his fists. That disembodied voice speaks again, louder than before, but there’s something strange about the sound of it, and he misses what is said. He does, however, stop punching his captor. Flying th
rough a terrifying, indescribable world is bad, but it occurs to him that if he frees himself, he’ll be in for an even more terrifying fall.
Finally, the way ahead brightens. Sam can’t properly make out his surroundings despite the light, although he does see Jadie and Marius. They’re lying on their backs with their arms and legs splayed like bugs pinned to a specimen board. A moment later, Sam finds himself in the same position. When he tries to push himself upright, it’s as if his body is glued to the ground. His heart pounds while he struggles.
Jadie’s hand touches his arm, and she says something that makes no sense at first. Then the words untangle in his head, the way a heavy accent becomes understandable after a brief delay. Something about intense gravity and don’t fight it.
He turns his head to face her. “I can’t hear right.” His words are mangled too.
“Sound is weird here. You’ll get used to it.”
She’s right. When Jadie starts shouting at the empty space above her, he has no trouble making out her words. Unfortunately, they don’t make any sense. “I guess you’re not playing around this time!” she hollers. “No pushing me off the Transporter and watching while a meeker tries to eat me? Good! I’m tired of pretending.”
A small blue orb appears above them and inflates like a balloon until it’s the size of a beach ball. Sam’s skin crawls. It’s an eyeball with no white around the iris and a horizontal slit for a pupil. “There will be no pretense between us now. I thought you were smart enough to understand my warning, and it seems that you were. You simply chose to ignore it.”
“You kept messing with my birth family,” Jadie says indignantly. “Did you really think I’d stop trying to learn what was going on?”
In spite of his fear, Sam’s heart swells with pride. This girl, his little sister, is fearless. Never mind that they’ve been plucked out of their universe—Jadie is telling off the creature that took them!
The creature doesn’t seem perturbed by Jadie’s fury. “I had my hopes. But we are beyond subterfuge. Someone has interfered with my project,” it says.
Jadie in Five Dimensions Page 11