“I have no weapon,” he called. “Will you trust me now?”
19
A NEW DUET
Nathan leaned back against Kelly’s car, trying not to show his nervousness. “It depends. I want to see the left side of your face.”
“My face?” Turning his cheek, Dr. Gordon edged closer. “I take it you left some kind of wound on my Earth Blue counterpart.”
“You could say that.” As Gordon climbed the hill, Nathan squinted at the smooth skin on his cheek. “Looks like you’re clean.”
Gordon halted. “Will you call off your assassin?”
Nathan glanced up at Kelly. She had raised the shotgun and propped it under her arm. “Cut it out. He’s on our side.”
“I wasn’t even aiming yet.” She laid the gun back on the roof. “I was just watching.”
Gordon finished his climb and stopped in front of Nathan. “I can’t say I blame you for being cautious, but you have also thrown caution to the wind on more than one occasion.”
“If you mean the highway chase, that was before I knew there were two of you. I was afraid that —”
“You were afraid,” he interrupted, pointing a finger at Nathan. “I’ve been hearing reports about you. You’ve shown a lot of courage at times, but courage isn’t something you can afford to switch on and off. Shooting at guards, racing down the highway like a madman, and being afraid to hear me out at the school isn’t going to cut it. If you want to rescue your parents, you’d better shake that yellow stripe off your back.”
Nathan scowled at him. “Wait a minute! I was —”
“Don’t you dare insult Nathan!” Kelly shouted, still sitting on the window frame. “Most of the time he was protecting me, and I was the one blasting the shotgun, not him. And I didn’t shoot at the guard. If I had, he’d be pushing up daisies.”
“Protecting you?” Gordon shifted his finger toward her. “Dragging a girl on his adventures got Nathan Blue killed as well as Kelly Blue. So much for protection.”
Tightening a fist, Nathan pushed away from the car. “And it was the other Gordon who killed them. Maybe it wasn’t protecting a girl that got Nathan killed. Maybe it was trusting the wrong people.”
Gordon backed away a step. “I see your point. In any case, Dr. Simon is not pleased with your —”
“Dr. Simon?” Nathan repeated. “So he is behind all of this?”
“Not behind it. He’s trying to stop Mictar and my Blue counterpart. It wouldn’t be a wise idea to upset his plans.”
Nathan rolled his eyes. “Well, good old Dr. Simon might not be pleased, but I’m not exactly jumping for joy with how he’s handling things. Simon Red told Mictar that he arranged my parents’ deaths, so trusting him in any dimension isn’t exactly the first thing I want to do.”
“I understand your distrust.” Dr. Gordon waved his arm toward his Lincoln. “I will drive you to the funeral site and explain what I can along the way.” He popped open the trunk with his key fob. “Young lady, please deposit the shotgun in the back. You might wish to scare people half to death, but I have a different modus operandi.”
While Nathan retrieved the violin and mirror from the Camry, Kelly dismounted the window frame, snatched her sweatshirt from the backseat, and lugged the shotgun toward the rear of the Lincoln, glaring at Dr. Gordon as she passed by. She muttered something under her breath, making Gordon frown.
After depositing the violin in the trunk, Nathan helped the three ladies pile into the backseat. Keeping the mirror tucked at his side, he slid into the front, his eyes focused on Dr. Gordon.
Gordon started the engine, meeting Nathan’s stare with a hardened gaze of his own. “You still don’t trust me, do you?”
A hint of a growl spiced Nathan’s voice. “My father in Earth Blue said I should, but I’m not so sure. My real father got killed because of trusting people like you, so I’m taking a big risk.”
Gordon’s tone stayed calm, almost mechanical. “When weighed against the alternatives, it is not such a big risk. Going with me gets you to the funeral on time as well as the vital information you’ve been seeking.”
Kelly spoke up from the back. “The shotgun would’ve pried the information from you, too.”
“I assume you consider that an edgy quip.” Dr. Gordon shook his head and sighed. “Young people these days have a fondness for nonsensical humor that escapes me.”
Nathan winced at Dr. Gordon’s remark. No sense in getting on his bad side when they needed him to explain what was going on. It was time to get to the point before he clammed up completely. He pointed at the triple-infinity emblem on Dr. Gordon’s jacket. “So, what’s up with all the dimensional stuff and Interfinity?”
Daryl pulled forward on Gordon’s headrest. “I already told them about how you heard the music from the other dimension before you played it in ours, so you can start from there.”
“Very well.” Dr. Gordon settled back in his seat. “When I discovered the existence of another dimension that parallels ours, I knew right away that some people might be tempted to try to benefit from the discovery in an inappropriate manner. Which-ever dimension slides into the lead, if you will, time wise, can feed information to the other — stock market rallies, sporting events, bankruptcy filings, et cetera.”
“So this whole thing is a money-making scheme?” Nathan asked.
“Not at all. For my part, I hoped to avert disasters and prevent loss of life. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to prevent an earthquake, but I could warn people and assist them in getting out of harm’s way. Strangely, however, my Earth Blue counterpart had a profiteering mind-set. This troubled me greatly, because I had theorized that genetic duplicates would make identical decisions when presented with identical information.
“The big problems began when Mictar appeared. Long after the other Gordon and I created the twin observatories, we experimented with various dimensional transport scenarios. In one trial, after syncing with each other, we aimed our activation lights directly at the ceiling mirror, just to see what would happen if we hit the mirrors simultaneously. The beams made an intense splash of indescribable light, and when it dispersed, a man stood at the center of my observatory floor, a gaunt, white-haired man.”
“Mictar?” Kelly asked.
“No. He called himself Patar, and he warned me that his brother, Mictar, had likely appeared at the same place in the other dimension.” Gordon altered his voice to a snaky whisper. “‘Beware of my brother’s schemes. He does not seek gold or silver, but discord and fear.’” Gordon gave a slight shrug. “Then he disappeared.
“As you have surely guessed, Mictar allied with my counterpart. His powers made it impossible for me to fight him in the open, so I decided the only way to stop his plans was to play along. Mictar gave each of the two Gordons the assignment of finding and killing you. The other Gordon succeeded on Earth Blue, while I hoped to find you in order to protect you.”
Nathan clasped his hands together, trying to keep his voice calm. “What’s so important about me?”
“This is where the matter becomes quite complex. When your father was called upon to recover some proprietary technology and sensitive data, stolen by a two-bit hacker, we had to take him and Dr. Simon into our tight circle of confidants. Once Solomon understood our technology he postulated a fourth dimension that was completely different from the other three, a reality that transcended the others. He had no data to prove it. He merely claimed that common sense and logic dictated its existence.”
“That’s my dad. He’s always the logical one.”
“Yes, he has an impressive intellect, but he had another quality that intrigued me. He seemed to have an unusual insight into issues that defied empirical observation. He theorized that when we reached the point of moving from one dimension to the other, we began to alter the balance between them. In other words, the three streams of parallel events began to run askew of one another, because interference from one dimension to the other could not be exactly duplica
ted due to the misalignment of time.”
“You mean,” Nathan said, “when someone travels to another dimension, his counterpart isn’t doing the same thing anymore. Both dimensions get thrown off.”
“Correct. Solomon and I learned that since the dimensions no longer run in perfect parallel, the forces that separate them have been weakened. When we began the project, we had three infinities that would never intersect. Now, as they deviate from their linear path with relation to one another, they will experience random intersections that will cause havoc.”
“What would those intersections look like? I mean, if it happens, what would people notice?”
“On Earth Yellow, since it is behind us in time, I would expect the people would receive some kind of signal of future events, perhaps more soothsayers and other self-proclaimed prophets providing hints of things to come, but their fortune telling would actually come true, at least for a time. Eventually the lines would shift so far away the events would become unpredictable.”
Nathan peeked at Kelly. With her eyes sharp and gleaming, she was definitely on the same wavelength. The nightmare epidemic was a sign of interfinity’s approach.
He turned back to Dr. Gordon. “What would happen here or on Earth Blue?”
“It’s already happening. I believe we are experiencing weather conditions based on Earth Yellow’s climate. Since Yellow is moving on the time stream far more quickly our weather has wild swings. Only hours ago, it was probably early spring there, and we participated in their snowfall. Now it’s approaching summer, and we are enjoying a much warmer afternoon, though that might not last long.
“This phenomenon prompted me to find out what you’ve been up to on Earth Yellow. I knew Simons Blue and Yellow had a longing to prevent some kind of disaster. It seems that the timing worked out perfectly for you to rescue the American Airlines flight.”
“Not exactly. Besides Kelly and me, only six others survived.”
“That’s far too many Six new puncture wounds in the infrastructure. I’m surprised events aren’t worse than they already are.”
“But they stayed where they belong,” Nathan said. “Why would there be wounds?”
“That’s a good point. Without the mirrors, I assume they couldn’t have traveled across the barrier. But there has to be an explanation for the huge disturbance we’re experiencing.”
Kelly touched Nathan’s elbow. When he looked back, she stealthily pointed at the camera, still dangling from the strap around Daryl’s neck. He imagined the lens inside. Could it have sent the survivors through the dimensional fractures when Kelly took the pictures? It seemed able to launch them out of Francesca’s room in Earth Yellow. Setting his focus back on Gordon, he tried to play it cool. It might be best not to let him know about the camera, at least not yet. “So, what can we do to fix them?”
“Dimensional holes are like wounds. They could heal over time, but, since we’re not sure, it would be better if we could repair them quickly. Solomon studied the concepts of dark matter and energy, and he believes any dimensional break could significantly affect the infrastructure of the universe and eventually cause it to collapse, like a concrete wall punched full of holes until it falls in on itself. He called the merging ‘interfinity.’
“Mictar scoffed at the idea and decided to rename the company after Solomon’s theory, a joke in his mind, and a foreboding doom in ours. Your father was undaunted. He believed that your mother had some kind of gift, a way to seal the holes if she could only get the opportunity to use it. But it seems he was captured, so we must find a way to help him escape. And that brings me back to your earlier question. Mictar desires to kill you, because he believes that you possess the same abilities that your mother has. He wants Interfinity to occur, so he wants to make sure you aren’t around to stop it.”
Nathan set his mirror upright on his lap. So that was what Dad and Mom Blue were doing in the telescope room. Somehow her gift allowed that light to shoot out of her eyes, the same thing he saw in the younger Francesca, though weaker, probably because of her age and size. And it seemed to thrust both of them into visions of huge violins that they had to play. But however Mom Blue’s vision fit into the dimensional puzzle, she wasn’t strong enough to do the job by herself.
He traced the edge of the mirror with his finger. She needed his help. Somehow he, too, really did have a gift.
“How do the mirrors work?” Kelly asked.
“It is far too complex to give you the formula for the mirroring substance, but I can tell you what it does. The mirror captures light energy from the other dimensions, invisible to our eyes, of course. Yet, since the two realities are in different realms, it exists here in a scrambled state. Music, it seems, brings the light source from another dimension into harmony with ours. It is encoded by a source we have not identified.”
“But my mirror seems different. It —”
“Ah! We are here.” He steered the car into a cemetery entry road. “We will have to continue this conversation after the funeral. We have not yet discussed the fourth dimension thoroughly, nor how you control the Quattro mirror. After that discussion, we will embark on our mission to rescue your parents in Earth Blue.”
Nathan tucked the mirror under his arm. “The other Dr. Gordon might be here, so I’m taking my mirror to the burial site.”
“As you should. I have people watching for him. I will tell them that you marked his cheek.” Dr. Gordon stopped his car at the side of the cemetery’s grave access road behind a long line of other cars. About sixty yards ahead, a tent canopy rippled in the breeze, sheltering the grave sites. Dozens of rows of tombstones lined the gently sloping grass between their stopping point and the tent, looking like morbid sentinels of stone in horizontal battle lines, each one reciting its name and age in etched letters.
“As you probably already know,” Gordon continued, “your tutor designated you as a pallbearer for each coffin, so you should go to the hearses immediately. It seems that the others are waiting for you.”
“They’ll wait another minute or two.” Nathan jumped out and opened the back door on Clara’s side. While he helped her out, Dr. Gordon opened the opposite door. He offered Kelly his hand, but she just glared at him as she got out on her own and marched around the car, her sweatshirt now covering her dirty polo. When they all gathered on the cemetery lawn, Nathan backed away. “I’ll see you under the canopy.”
As he turned to go, Kelly headed for the rear of the Lincoln. “Pop the trunk, Gordo; I’m getting the violin.”
Nathan spun back. “I won’t need it.”
“We should bring everything with us.” She pressed her hands into a praying position and batted her eyelids at Dr. Gordon.
“Please pop the trunk?”
Dr. Gordon pressed a button on his key fob. “Very well. But not the shotgun.” A muffled chime sounded. He pulled a cell phone from his pocket and waved at his passengers. “Go on to the grave site. I will meet you there.”
Nathan jogged up the pavement toward the hearses, brushing off his dirty, smelly shirt. As he passed by the rows of tomb-stones, he tried to read the engravings, but he could only catch a couple of names, a Phillips and a Madison. Just hours ago, the stone slabs would have meant nothing, just marble decorations to be ignored, but now the terrified faces of the airline passengers flashed in his mind. Who could tell? Any one of these stones might be marking the grave of one of those victims. Since this was a huge cemetery in the western Chicago suburbs, that wouldn’t be a stretch at all.
As he continued, he passed a bearded man kneeling at a grave site. The man held a crumpled hat against his lips as he bowed his head and stroked the marker’s curved top, weeping. A surge of sympathy swept through Nathan’s mind. What a portrait of grief! This miserable man poured out his heart over an empty shell he had once loved, now gone forever. Nathan wiped a tear. He would never … never ignore a tombstone again. Each one told a story of tragedy, at least to some poor soul left behind.
&
nbsp; As he neared the hearses, a thin man in a black suit waved at him and opened the trailing hearse’s back door, revealing a coffin. “I am Samuel Carpenter, the funeral director.”
Nathan came to a stop and gazed at his reflection on the coffin’s polished black surface. Nausea once again twisted his stomach. A body lay within. His mom? Dad?
“Master Shepherd,” the director continued in a calm, soothing voice, “we were quite concerned about you.”
Nathan kept his gaze locked on the coffin. “Yeah. The car quit working so I had to hitch a ride.”
“I see. Did you try to fix the automobile yourself? Your clothes are quite disheveled.”
“No.” He smoothed out his shirt. “I had other problems.”
The director shed his dark jacket and reached it toward Nathan. “Please borrow this, out of respect for your parents and the mourners who wish to bid them farewell.”
Nathan allowed the gentleman to help him put it on. The sleeves fell past the heels of his hands, but the shoulders felt pretty good; loose, but not too loose.
The director touched the coffin with a fingertip. “This is your mother’s. The other hearse carries your father.” He signaled for the other men who were milling around near the graveside tent. “Your tutor selected these gentlemen from among your father’s clients and your mother’s orchestra friends. If you wish to renew your acquaintance with them, we can delay the proceedings further.”
Nathan scanned the faces of the approaching pallbearers. None resembled Dr. Gordon. “No. It’s okay. Maybe I can talk to them afterward.”
“Certainly.” While two dark-suited men pulled the coffin out on a gurney, the director stationed the pallbearers around the coffin, setting Nathan at the front and on his mother’s body’s left side. “Your tutor designated this position,” Mr. Carpenter said, “the closest to the heart of your mother.”