Resonance

Chapter 31. In Which We Fail to Escape, Several Times

  I woke up and stretched, feeling pretty good, and punched my pillow to raise my head a little. It wasn't until then that I noticed I wasn't in my room at home. I was still figuring out where I was when I heard Shep.

  "Oh, shit!" he said. "Shit, shit, shit. We're morons!"

  "Speak for yourself," I said automatically. I was looking around at the room—carpeted floor, blank walls, big windows, two desks, two desk chairs—and two mattresses on the floor, with sheets and pillows. Huh?

  I sat up. "What happened?"

  "This is a TSA." Shep was waving his arms and talking so fast he was tripping over his words. "It works like a TSA. Whatever you need, whatever you want, you imagine it, and you get it. Remember?"

  "Right," I said, "so we've got pillows now."

  "Right, there's towels in the bathroom, and soap, and t.p. We've got mattresses and bedding, and isn't that just terrific. We are morons!"

  "What do you mean? Why are we morons?" I asked. "It's better to have all that stuff than not to have it. Isn't it?"

  "Oh, yeah, it's just terrific. And why do we have it?" asked Shep impatiently.

  "Because we thought of it?"

  "Yes, because we thought of it," repeated Shep. "But we didn't remember how TSAs work, so we didn't think of it consciously. It's just what was in our mind. Right?"

  "I guess."

  "Don't you see?" Shep was practically foaming at the mouth. "If we had remembered how TSAs work, if we had thought consciously, we'd have a key!"

  "Oh." I sighed. He was right. "You're right," I said. "We'd also have some clothes. We might even have a magic wall hatch, you know, a replicator, to get decent food out of." A thought struck me. "Do you think the food the Ys have been bringing us comes out of a magic food hatch? Because if it does, those guys either have no imagination or they're seriously challenged in the nutritional awareness department."

  "We know that. And it matters why?" Shep snorted.

  I shrugged. "I just thought it was interesting. Sort of. And we can't do anything about not having a key or stuff now. I guess we'll have to wait till tonight."

  "Maybe not," said Shep. "Maybe we could go back to sleep now."

  "Good luck with that." It was my turn to snort. I suddenly had another idea. "Wait—when I first got my clothes, they turned up in the closet while I was awake and sitting right there in the room. Close the bathroom door and let's put a key in there. Wait—let me pee first."

  After I'd taken care of business, we looked at the lock carefully, then went and sat on our mattresses and thought "key" as hard as we could at the bathroom door.

  "How long do you think it will take?" Shep asked after a few minutes.

  "Not very long," I said. "Let's look."

  There were two keys in the bathroom, Shep's on top of the toilet tank and mine on the basin. I knew it was mine, first of all because I'd put it on the basin in my head, and second because I'd imagined it on a key ring with a brass fob, like one my dad had. Shep's was just a bare key.

  We compared the keys, and they seemed to have an identical pattern of teeth, or whatever you call the points and dips on the blade. Shep rushed over to the door and tried to open it with his key. The key turned and the latch clicked and the door moved slightly, but it wouldn't open.

  "You try," he said, so I did, but we both knew it wasn't going to work—the door was bolted on the outside.

  And then there was a ­snick, and it opened right in front of me, pulling my key, which was still in the lock, out of my hand.

  Yancy looked at the key sticking in the lock and the key in Shep's hand and grinned.

  "Couple of smart boys we have here," he said to Yarnall, taking my key out of the lock and tossing it to me. "Into the bathroom, smart boys. I see you got yourselves some amenities as well. Beats sleeping on the floor, right?"

  We stood in the bathroom while Yarnall put our breakfast on the desk. They left, and in addition to the key turning, we heard the bolt snick shut.

  "It was a good try," said Shep. "Bearclaws today instead of Danish."

  "Oh, yippee," I said. "I bet the coffee is sweetened again too. Another fabulous sugar high, followed by a gigantic dip and, if we're lucky, a little bout of hypoglycemia."

  "Food's food," shrugged Shep. "I'm gonna eat it anyway." So we did.

  "Maybe now we can imagine a giant electromagnet," I suggested, licking my finger to get the last crumbs off the cellophane, "that would pull back the bolt."

  "How about an axe?" said Shep. "No finesse, but we'd get through the door and out."

  "We could imagine a map of the TSA," I said. "This TSA, I mean, or this building, showing where the control room is."

  "And a weapon," added Shep, "so we can make the evil doctor send us back."

  "Hmm," I said. "We could probably make the evil doctor send us, but how would we know where he was sending us?"

  We were pondering that when the Ys came back.

  "Boss wants to see you," said Yarnall. He and Yancy stood in the corridor, back from the door, and he made a stage bow, sweeping his hand out to indicate the direction he wanted us to go.

  We looked at each other. Once again I thought how convenient it would be if we were still linked. Should we try to make a break for it?

  Shep pretty much read my mind. "Let's see what he wants," he said quietly. We left the room, and they herded us down the hall.

  As we entered the office, Yancy took hold of my right arm between the elbow and the shoulder, and Yarnall grabbed Shep's left arm. They marched us across the acre of dark red carpet to the black slab of desk where Kirk A was sitting, with his hands folded on the surface in front of him.

  The Ys let go of us and took a step back, so we were standing together in front of the desk. Kirk A looked at us for a while.

  "You're a fucking nuisance," he said finally.

  "How did you find us?" Shep asked. I felt a pang, like maybe we should have tried first to pretend that we weren't the right us. Too late now.

  I was a little surprised when Evil Kirk answered, then I wasn't. Of course he would want to boast and gloat.

  "It wasn't easy," he said. "It wasn't easy at all. First I found you in Beta, where you spoke with the campus security guard. Eventually I found out who you were. But how to narrow it down and find the right world?

  "It had to be a world in which I had discovered the Temporal Anomaly, but I'm a very intelligent man, so there were a lot of those. Then I realized that in some of those worlds you'd been killed in a car accident, and in some you hadn't had a car accident, and in one you'd had an accident that should have killed at least one of you, but it didn't. And in that one, you turned up right after the accident with scars you hadn't had the day before." He shrugged modestly.

  "Very smart." Shep was nodding, his lips curved in a little smile. "Why are you doing—whatever you're doing, killing Halloway and snatching and selling those poor little kids and all? What do you think you'll get out of it? World domination?"

  "Don't mock me!" Evil Kirk looked angry now.

  "I didn't mean to," Shep said quickly.

  "We're just—interested," I added. "In what your—your ultimate aim, your goal is." I tried to look sincere.

  "Halloway obviously had to be eliminated," Kirk said after a moment, so I guess my sincerity was acceptable. "He was—an inconvenience. I don't tolerate interference." He put on an expression that I think was supposed to convey importance and superiority. It made him look as if he'd just farted and it stank.

  "And—your goal?" I repeated after a moment. "What do you need all the money for?"

  There was a pause. "None of your business," he finally replied. Holy wow, I thought—he's just doing it because he can, and he doesn't even know why.

  "And you think you've succeeded in ruining our plans," he hurried on. "But we're going to turn you and your interference to our advantage." He smiled, not in a nice way.

  "Here's what's going to happen
," he went on. "You and the McDowells are going back to Beta, getting there at about 3:30 a.m. relative. That way, any eddies from your, and their, former presence will have dissipated.

  "They're going to take you into Beta Halloway's house. You will have thirty minutes to kill him."

  Shep made a noise, and I think I did too. Kirk A smiled again.

  "Thirty minutes to kill him," he repeated. "You may have to use rather—primitive methods. There are plenty of knives in the kitchen, or you could smother him with a pillow, I suppose. You might need to dispose of his wife as well, or at least incapacitate her.

  "When you've taken care of that little chore, you will be retrieved and reinserted into a world distant from Beta, distant from my world, and distant from your own. You may eventually be rescued, of course."

  "We won't do it," I said, at the same time Shep was saying, "No way!"

  "Yes, you probably will," he said, reaching under the edge of his desk and then shifting his eyes to look past us at the door to the office.

  We both turned and saw the door open. We caught a brief glimpse of a guard, who shoved Angel into the room.

  She fell, because her wrists were duct-taped together behind her. I started to go help her up, and Yancy grabbed my arm so I couldn't. She managed to get to her feet, which were bare like ours. She was wearing what she probably slept in—little flowered pink shorts and a matching tank top with lace on it. Strands of her hair were coming out of the tie that held it at the back of her neck. There was a strip of duct tape over her mouth too, and she looked mad as hell.

  "Mmdmhm!" she shouted over her shoulder at the closed door, then marched over to stand with Shep and me.

  "Shut up," said Yancy mildly.

  She looked at him, then looked at me—evaluating, then relieved. She shut up.

  "Are you going to hold An—Ms. Kirk hostage?" asked Shep. "To make us kill Halloway, um, Beta Halloway?"

  "Oh, no." Kirk A grinned in a really nasty way. "She'll be going with you. Maybe she can help you kill Beta Halloway."

  "We still won't do it," I said. I tried to imagine what it must be like for her to see this person with her dad's face talking about us killing someone for him.

  "Fine," he answered, still grinning. "If you don't, after half an hour the McDowells will return and kill you. Then they'll kill Beta Halloway and his wife. Then they'll collect the Beta versions of you three and transfer them to your world.

  "I know what you're thinking," Kirk A went on. "It is possible to check whether there's an extra version of someone in a world. If your team should decide that the Beta versions aren't just the three of you with amnesia, that's the first thing they'll probably do. But there won't be an extra version of you anywhere, you see. And they don't know which world is Beta. Here's a clue: it's not the one in which you got in our way.

  "The McDowells will drug you with, let's see, PCP would be good. Then they'll stage it to look as if you three killed Beta Halloway and his wife and then killed each other. The Beta police will have no reason to question this scenario. Your grieving Beta parents will wonder when you started doing drugs and how you could commit such a horrible crime. They'll bury you, and then they'll move on as fast as possible.

  "And of course this kind of violence will echo widely into all the surrounding worlds. Even if your team decides that their versions of you are missing, they won't know where to look for you. You three will be dead, not just in Beta but in a number of surrounding worlds, and you'll stay dead—no last-minute rescue.

  "Whereas, if you do the murders for us, you'll get off alive, and your team may well eventually find you. Of course, your Beta versions, and the versions of you in the many surrounding worlds, may be convicted of the murder, but why worry about them?"

  I thought about this. Nick and Andrew had told us that if anything bad were to happen, they could go back and pull us out before it did. But what if they didn't know what world we were in? What if they didn't even know we were missing?

  I couldn't pick a hole in his logic.

  Kirk A reached under the edge of his desk again and looked past us. I turned and saw a guard coming in with some clothes in his hands. Yarnall went over and took them, then came back over to us.

  "Yours, I believe," he said, giving me a pair of pale blue cotton boxers with white polka dots. "And yours." The ones he gave Shep were black silk with white skulls-and-crossbones.

  Yancy took out his switchblade, opened it, and cut the tape holding Angel's wrists together. When she reached for the tape over her mouth, he held the switchblade to her neck, grinned, and said, "Try it, sweetie." She dropped her hand.

  Yarnall handed her a pair of yellow and white seersucker boxers and a white t-shirt.

  "Get changed," said Kirk A. "I mean it. Now. Unless you want the lady to get hurt."

  We looked at each other. As if we were still linked, Shep and I simultaneously turned away with our backs to Angel. I took my time taking off my own shorts and putting on the blue ones. When I turned back around, Shep was changed and Angel was pulling down the T-shirt. Her face was very red around the duct tape. The Ys were grinning.

  Yarnall collected the things we'd taken off. "Presto change-o," he said. "We'll dress the Betas in these so they'll look right when they get to your world, and now you'll look right when the police pick you up. Unless you cooperate, of course, and kill Halloway. Then you'll get switched with versions from yet another world. In which case we'll have you change your clothes again. Which walnut is the pea under? Your team will have a hard time finding you." He grinned.

  "Take them away," Kirk A said to the McDowells. "Get on with it—no time like the present."

  Shep turned and punched Yarnall in the belly. We're making a break for it, I thought. I whirled to tackle Yancy, but he just reached out and slapped Angel so hard she fell on the floor again. Shep saw it and stopped. Yarnall walked over and kicked Angel in the ribs. She groaned through the tape. Yancy grabbed my arm when I started to go to her.

  "You hassle us," said Yancy, "we hassle her. Your choice." He shook my arm to make his point, then let me go.

  The two of them stood there grinning as Shep and I helped Angel up. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," Shep kept saying.

  "Mfmay," she said. There were tears in her eyes, and her face was even redder on one side, where Yancy had hit her, but she still looked more furious than anything else.

  As soon as she was on her feet, Yarnall grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the door. Yancy stood back and bowed again, sweeping his arm out.

  "Gentlemen?" he smirked. We followed Yarnall back down in the elevator to the lab.

  There were only two gurneys, so Shep insisted on Angel taking his. He lay on the floor, and the man with the glasses injected us.