“Steve-beast is confined in another part of SHE. He can be made deceased, but Jadie-being says no because it is only a bad stone that makes him so un-nice.”
“Yes,” Rose agrees. “If you can remove the loyalty stone inside his body without killing him, my clan will try to rehabilitate him.”
Ty has no idea what a loyalty stone is or what it has to do with Steve being the way he is. But apparently, Jadie does. Jadie knows everything.
“The bad stone is out,” the 5-space creature announces mere seconds later. “SHE is delivering him to the flat space you came from.”
SHE thinks 4-space is flat? Ty tries to imagine how vast SHE must be, how many appendages and sensory organs she might have. Could SHE have multiple brains in different parts, like leeches do? And is there, somewhere, a planet SHE lives on, with a universe beyond it? Or is the entirety of 5-space comprised of SHE?
“Thank you,” Rose says. “Your mercy is generous.”
“The bees are welcome to return to the flower,” SHE says. “And SHE will keep Jadie-being to communicate.”
Of course SHE will.
All three Martins holler, “You can’t!” practically in unison, while Dr. Lowell starts pleading, “Please…”
Rose speaks over them. “We ask you to let Jadie go. She is a child. In the world of three-dimensional humans, children are precious. Jadie’s parents want to take her home.”
“SHE needs Jadie-being.” SHE pulls Jadie’s body closer to the mass of starry lights, like a toddler hanging on to a toy that adults want to take away.
“I will give you one of my Drones as a replacement,” Rose promises.
“SHE does not want them. SHE likes Jadie-being.”
“Take me!” Ty shouts. Stepping forward under the shimmering lights and the girl hanging midair, he raises his arms to the creature. “Let her go, and take me. I’m similar to Jadie. You can adapt to me. I want to stay!”
Control of the Transporter is lost to him. The tablet and the computer program will end up with Rose, assuming they weren’t both destroyed. This is the only thing left for Ty to grasp for himself. And this—an ambassadorship to a suggestible, childlike creature large enough to be mistaken for a planet—would be much more than a consolation prize!
Hands grab him from several directions, yanking him away from SHE. They talk over each other, their words a jumble of protests.
Mrs. Martin: “Ty, you don’t have to give yourself up for Jadie!” (As if.)
Marius: “Are you nuts?”
But Dr. Lowell speaks the loudest. “It would be an unkind thing for SHE to take any of our children—even an unhappy one!”
Ty snaps back, “I’m not unhappy. I’m ambitious!” His eyes fix on the creature and on Jadie’s body, which slowly descends toward the platform. SHE has made up her mind, and she has chosen…
“I accept Miss Rose-teacher’s offer of a Drone and return Jadie-being so that she can participate in the great battle looming on her world,” the 5-space creature says mournfully. “Jadie-being is needed for victory, or sadness will befall her people.”
Rejection cuts through Ty like a sharp knife, painless in the first second and agonizing thereafter. The people who clutched at him when he offered himself to SHE let go, their attention turning to Jadie.
“Great battle?” Mr. Martin repeats worriedly.
Jadie’s feet touch the warped platform. When SHE releases her, Jadie blinks and clears her throat. “All I said was, I had a soccer tournament to get back for. You know they can’t win without me.”
While Mr. Martin grabs his daughter in a bear hug, Ty backs away.
SHE didn’t consider him, didn’t even answer his offer.
He’s come out of this with nothing.
37. JADIE
I barely have time to adjust to seeing through my own eyes again before Dad grabs me in a tight hug. Mom slips her arms around me too, although I don’t know how she fits them in. It’s almost multidimensional.
“I’m sure in your mind, the soccer tournament equates to world domination.” Dad squeezes me hard. Mom kisses me twice after Dad lets go, and then I’m awkwardly facing my third parent.
I pull the physics journal from the back of my jeans. “Saved this for you.”
Dr. Lowell ignores the journal and crushes me in a hug. It feels good, even though he’s breaking my rule.
“I am happy for your reunion,” Miss Rose says, “but I want to get you back to 4-space before SHE changes her mind. As it is, I will have to track Ty’s scent to the wormhole. I have lost my own sense of where we are.”
“Glad my stench can be of help,” Ty says snarkily.
I glance at Ty. He’s probably furious SHE didn’t accept his offer, but his feelings are not my concern. “You don’t have to track your way, Miss Rose,” I say. “SHE will transport us. I just need to signal we’re ready.” It was the last idea SHE and I exchanged before she let me go—that SHE would carry us all back to 4-space.
“Let’s go,” says Dr. Lowell. “My wife must be frantic with worry.”
Marius sucks in a shuddering breath. “Do we have to see the alternate pasts again?”
“Not you.” Miss Rose’s claw tip touches Marius, and he slides to the ground in a boneless heap. Mom and Dad cry out in alarm, but Miss Rose says, “It is better for him to sleep through the trip. The rest of you can handle it.”
Dad kneels beside Marius and props up his unconscious body. “Thank you for sparing him.”
I’m not looking forward to repeating my own experience in the wormhole, though when I realize what Marius must have endured, I know I got off easy.
Raising my arms over my head, I wave, and featherlight tentacles wind around my waist more gently than Steve’s muscular fingers ever did. I brace myself for the connection, but this time SHE keeps her appendages out of my nervous system.
We plunge into the wormhole without warning. There’s a whoosh inside my head, and the insanity of the ever-changing past fragments my memory into a hundred different possibilities. This time, the oblivion that overcomes me in the past where I didn’t survive the carjacking is less soul-wracking. Maybe my recent connection to SHE lessens its impact. SHE had no concept of death until SHE learned it from me. Some of that must have rubbed off, because I ride through my nonexistence with relative serenity, knowing it’s not reality.
I did live; I am alive, and nothing I see in this wormhole can change that.
SHE will miss Jadie-being. The barest hint of that thought touches my mind as the feathery tentacles release me.
My family was horrified when SHE wanted to keep me, but I never believed SHE would. Not against my will. SHE only needed to understand why I wanted to leave. I’ll starve! was my first explanation. I want my family! was my second. I have a soccer tournament on Saturday! was an irrational thought, yet the one SHE fixated on. Nutrition and family are meaningless to SHE, but having grasped the concept of individual lives, SHE finds it fascinating that they could be in conflict.
The wormhole ends abruptly in 4-space—big and dark and crushed by gravity, but somehow smaller than where we were. I land on my hands and knees, fight the pull of gravity for one second, then give up and lie on the ground. We’re out of danger. I deserve a rest.
Dr. Lowell thinks otherwise. “You are taking us home now, aren’t you?” he asks. “I need to get back—”
“I know you are anxious to return to your family,” Miss Rose replies, “but there will be a small delay. I retrieved the computers, but I need the journal now.”
A trickle of alarm runs down my back. Are we out of danger? When Miss Rose has her talons on the theory completed by Dr. Lowell and the computer program created by Sam and Ty, what use is this particular batch of humans? Humans who know the real reason Agents exist and the true motives of the Seers.
Ty seems to be thinking along the same lines. “The program isn’t finished,” he says quickly. “I only faked it enough to distract Dave.”
“I will ins
pect what you have accomplished,” Miss Rose insists.
The journal is in my hand. Remembering that sideways motion is easier than fighting gravity, I slide my body until I’m lying on top of the leather-bound treasure.
The effort is wasted. Large fingers flick me onto my back like I’m a beetle and pluck the journal away.
Ty keeps arguing. “That tablet is too small for your eyes. We need to come up with something more to your scale…”
“Tyler, if I wanted to dispose of you, I would have let Dave trample you in 5-space.”
Long seconds of awkward silence pass.
Then Miss Rose adds, “I reward individuals who do a good job, not punish them.”
“Doesn’t seem like that from my vantage point,” Dr. Lowell grumbles. “You arranged for my daughter to be kidnapped and my son to be hit by a car.”
“You’re the reason Eli lost his research grant and Holly can’t find a job,” Dad says.
“How do you know about that?” Dr. Lowell asks.
“We met Sam and took him home to Holly,” Mom says. “Before we came to rescue you.”
“You are correct on all points except one,” Miss Rose replies. “I did not plan those changes to Dr. Lowell’s life. The Seers did. Things are about to change. When this project is completed, my status will rise. I will be in a position to reward those who helped me. But I must ask Darrien and Becca Martin: Do you plan to tell your fellow Agents what you have learned?”
“You expect us to keep playing along?” Dad asks incredulously. “Pretend we’re not test subjects in a giant experiment?”
“My dad’ll quit,” Ty states. “He thinks he’s so important. If he knew he was a lab rat, he’d flip out.”
“Your world benefits from this experiment,” Miss Rose says. “Terrorist plots have been averted. Unbeknownst to you, a meteor was turned aside from your planet. This experiment is protected. If Agents cease to cooperate, the Seers will order Technicians to train new ones, or—since you have already created a template for what we want and there are other braneworlds where the product can be developed—they might relinquish responsibility for yours. Your braneworld could end up in the hands of a clan like Darkness and Storm.”
“You see our universe as expendable?” Dr. Lowell exclaims. “Our lives of no value?”
One of Miss Rose’s huge eyeballs hovers closer. “I do not. But I am not a Seer. Yet.”
I get it. “If your project is a success, you get promoted.”
“I will reward you for your efforts and protect your world.”
“How do I know,” Mom demands, “that when I get a course correction, it’s not going to result in someone else’s child being kidnapped?” She addresses Dr. Lowell. “I hope you believe we didn’t know. We were told Jadie had been abandoned by her parents!”
“I believe you,” Dr. Lowell says. “And I owe you thanks for raising my daughter so lovingly.”
“What about Marius’s family?” Mom looks at my brother, blissfully asleep.
“He would have died without our intervention. But the Seers envisioned great things from Marius, and so he was saved. You have no reason to believe me,” Miss Rose admits, “except for what he saw in the wormhole. This is the only version of his life in which he survived.”
A shudder runs through me. I experienced a past where I died. And Ty said his father didn’t want children, so I guess Ty experienced multiple pasts where he didn’t exist. Or, rather, he didn’t experience them. But neither of us burned to death in every possible past but one.
“We have to do what she asks,” Dad says suddenly. “To keep the children safe. To keep everyone safe.”
“I agree,” Dr. Lowell replies. “If creatures like Dave and Steve had control of our world…”
“Where is Steve?” I ask. SHE was able to remove his old clan stone—slipping it out of his body through a 5-space dimension and leaving the rest of him relatively intact. SHE returned him through the wormhole while SHE was communicating with my parents and Miss Rose on the platform. But that should mean that Steve is here somewhere.
“He is nearby,” Miss Rose confirms. “Can you not smell him?”
“That’s me you’re smelling,” Ty grumbles.
“You need to get over that.” I roll my head to look at him. “Miss Rose told me to do it, and it probably saved our lives.”
“I smell something like burnt rubber,” Mom says. “With cinnamon, if that makes sense.”
“He is excreting pheromones that indicate extreme distress,” Miss Rose explains. “He is calling for help, like you might dial 911.”
“Why aren’t you helping him?” I’m not sure why I’m so worried about Steve. Maybe I feel sorry for him. Maybe it’s guilt over Dave getting turned inside out. When I saw him leap toward my father—uh, Dr. Lowell—I pleaded for SHE to Stop him! I didn’t realize what might happen when SHE knocked him aside. Whatever the reason, since SHE—well, actually WE—made the attempt to save Steve, I don’t want him to die of neglect now.
“It is not my job,” Miss Rose says. “Drones will deal with him. Darrien Martin, do I have your word that we can come to an arrangement?”
“For the sake of the children,” Dad repeats, “yes.”
“Then it is time you went home. Drones! Take them back!”
Fingers and claws appear out of the gloom, bodies shift, and people disappear one by one from the dark chamber.
Except me.
I’m spread-eagled on the ground, pinned by gravity, while Miss Rose’s blue eye with the horizontal slit glares down at me.
38. JADIE
I swallow uncomfortably. “You forgot me.”
“I will take you home myself. But not yet.”
Not yet? I can’t hold back a groan.
“I want to show you something,” Miss Rose says.
“I can’t see very well here,” I remind her.
“I will remedy that. First, let me give you a boost in strength.”
I feel the same prick in my legs and arms and torso as last time. Seconds later I’m able to sit up, and I don’t feel tired and hungry anymore. But I want to go home more than I want to look at the crystalline rock hovering in front of my face. “Is that gem what you want me to see?”
“It is what you are going to see with. This is a four-dimensional crystal. Look through it and you will see reflections from all directions, including the ones you cannot perceive on your own. It will not be like seeing through the eyes of SHE, and it will not put the images together like Sam’s program, but from what I have observed, you are starting to do that on your own.”
I take the crystal into my hands. It’s heavier than it looks, even accounting for the force of gravity, and I assume that’s because it has ana and kata extensions. Its many facets reflect dozens of images. “You had this the whole time? Then why did you need—”
“It is four-dimensional, Jadie. It will not help us in 5-space. Humans find it useful, however.”
I tilt the crystal back and forth, getting glimpses of Miss Rose. I already saw the real Miss Rose through the eyes of SHE, so the reflected images in the crystal are like a jigsaw puzzle of eyes and mouths, teeth and weird Medusa hair.
“The last human I allowed to use a viewing crystal was the man who started the unified theory finished by Dr. Lowell. So, Jadie, what do I look like to you?”
“Uhhh…” I let the crystal thunk on the ground. How am I supposed to answer that? “Powerful.”
“Not beautiful?”
“Well, different species, different standard…”
“Hold on to the crystal. I am going to show you what beauty looks like in my world.”
I clutch the crystal to my chest and brace myself for Miss Rose’s fingers, which clamp around my torso. She carries me quite a distance through sparsely lit tunnels before the way ahead begins to glow. We enter a large cavern illuminated with torches and some sort of phosphorescent growth on the walls.
“Look down.” Miss Rose helps me adju
st the viewing stone.
The kaleidoscope of images shifts to a dozen bloated bodies lying on the floor of the cavern. The pale, flabby creatures remind me of slugs, or maybe giant larvae. Their limbs—six for each—hang from their bodies, withered and useless. An army of 4-space creatures similar to Miss Rose crawls over their bodies. “What are they?” I ask, grimacing.
“They are the Seers.” Miss Rose sighs longingly.
“Those…” I stop myself from saying slugs. “What are the other ones doing, crawling over them?”
“Those are Drones. They feed the Seers, clean their waste, deliver and receive messages.”
I have to look away. I. Can’t. Even.
Miss Rose speaks with admiration. “Some of the Seers have not moved in centuries. Their minds are in a chemically induced state of hyperintelligence.”
“You mean they’re on drugs?”
“That does not mean the same as it does with humans. The Seers have advanced to the peak of our species. They calculate the probable future of millions of lower-dimensional beings. They coordinate course directions on your planet and other planets in your braneworld, as well as planets in several other braneworlds.”
“This is what you want to be?”
“Different species, different standard,” Miss Rose reminds me. “One of the Seers below envisioned a spectacular future for a human child who was going to die in a fire. Marius owes his life to that Seer, although it remains to be seen if he will reach his potential. Another Seer decided that your death would set Eli Lowell on his correct course. None of the Seers saw your value.”
Harsh. But I think I get her point. “You did, though?”
“Yes. I wanted to reward my faithful Agent Becca Martin with a child, but I also saw potential in you. Twelve years later, you are instrumental in meeting our goal. Do you know what this means?”
Fame? Fortune? Glory? “No. What does it mean?”
Miss Rose releases a long sigh of satisfaction. “I have foresight, even as an unenhanced Technician. I may become one of the greatest Seers our species has ever known.”
Jadie in Five Dimensions Page 17