Unbreakable (Unraveling)

  Elijah.

  05:01:09:07

  A half hour and four portals later, we’re finally in Prima, and I’m flat on my back and aching. I try not to think about how badly bruised I’m going to be from all the falling down. Instead, I focus on New Prima and how it doesn’t exactly remind me of the brief memory I have of looking down on the city from Barclay’s window.

  For one thing, the stench is awful. It’s some dreadful combination of burning rubber, week-old garbage, and warm sewage. I wrinkle my nose at Barclay and look up.

  The sky is the same iridescent gray that I remember, something that would be beautiful with all the different shimmering colors if it wasn’t crowded by thick, stormlike smog clouds hanging heavy in the air.

  We’re in some kind of alley in what must be New Prima’s red-light district. Instead of the crystal skyscrapers, there are dark, graffiti-covered buildings with neon signs for alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex toys, and hotel rooms by the hour. The skyscrapers must be up there somewhere, since the sun is completely blocked out. It might as well be dusk or early evening.

  But it’s morning, and no one seems to be around—probably because they’re still asleep from whatever they did last night.

  “Did anyone see us portal in?” I ask anyway, since that could potentially blow our cover.

  Barclay shakes his head. “I don’t think so. But if they did, it wouldn’t matter. No one down here would give a shit.”

  I push myself to my feet and hug my jacket a little closer around me as I realize the building across from us has a number of floor-to-ceiling windows that only make sense if they’re lit up and showcasing someone stripping.

  “Pull your hood up,” Barclay says. “We’re safe from being recognized for the moment, but we need to get to my apartment without being seen.”

  He pulls a beanie from his coat pocket and puts it on his head. “Stick close to me; keep your head down. Don’t talk to anyone, and whatever you do, don’t look up.”

  I follow his orders and stay close to his left shoulder as we walk through the alley. Underneath the neon lighting and the flashy signs, the filth matches the smell. There’s trash piled up next to the sidewalks and blocking the gutters, and old rainwater and possibly human waste sits puddled around the trash since it has nowhere to go.

  We turn the corner and head down another alley, through a layer of foul-smelling steam that’s rising up from under the street. Barclay walks fast and keeps his head down, and I find myself almost running to keep up with him.

  Whatever part of Prima this is, it’s not one I want to be hanging out in by myself.

  After a couple more turns, we pass a stand in the street with a sign that says OPEN-AIR BODEGA, but really it’s just a guy grilling some kind of meat that looks burned and smells unclean. My stomach shifts uncomfortably as I try not to wonder what kind of meat it actually is. There’s a bulky guy next to the grill, watching a couple of people nearby approach. He’s clearly some kind of guard to make sure no one steals the mystery meat. He catches me looking at him, and his eyes rake over my body while his lips curl into a smile. A shiver moves up my back.

  “Walk faster,” Barclay says without turning around.

  For once, I listen without question.

  We make another turn and pass a homeless guy sleeping on a pile of trash. Next to him, an old metal trash can is smoking from a fire about to die out.

  He lifts his head as we pass him. “How much for your girl, man?”

  I almost expect Barclay to make a joke about selling me to the homeless guy if I don’t follow his orders and cooperate with him, but he doesn’t. And I’m glad.

  Finally we get to a metal building that at least seems well kept. Two guys who look like some kind of cross between military and police are standing guard next to the door. They’re wearing dark fatigues, bulletproof vests, and black boots, and carrying machine guns. As we approach them, their bodies visibly tense, and they adjust their grip on their weapons.

  “I’ll do the talking,” Barclay whispers. I’ve got no problem with that. “And remember to keep your head down.”

  When we’re a little less than five feet away, with guns trained on us, one of the cops shouts, “Hold it right there. Let’s see your tags.”

  05:01:05:31

  We stop, and Barclay says in his most polite voice, “I’m going to reach in my back pocket and grab my face tag.” But he doesn’t make a move yet. He waits for the approaching cop to nod, then reaches in his pocket and pulls out a black wallet. From it he hands over something that looks like the most glamorous driver’s license I’ve ever seen.

  I shift on my feet. I can’t help it. My body feels tense and a little too warm, and I’m not sure how this is going to work.

  The cop examines Barclay’s ID, tilting it to see a hologram, and then runs it through a scanner. While he does so, we don’t say anything. I’m not exactly sure what the card says. A face tag sounds like some kind of ID, only any form of identification announces, “Hey, this is Taylor Barclay, the guy who’s supposed to be on some kind of IA mission, and guess what, he isn’t,” which, as far as I know, wasn’t the plan.

  This is worse than the checkpoints I go through with Deirdre. For one thing, I know I’m on the right side of the law at home. Feeling guilty means we’re more likely to look it too. For another, I know Deirdre will fight for me. Barclay, on the other hand, will serve his own ends. He might need me right now, but if it looks like we’re in trouble and it’s him or me, I know I’ll be on my own. Plus I don’t have any kind of identification on me, at least not any that would make sense to these guys.

  I shift my glance to Barclay to see if he’s giving me any kind of sign. If we want to get past them, and he can’t get us through by talking, we’re going to have to storm the entrance by force. The two of us might be able to take out the guy in front of us with the element of surprise, but we’d be dead before we got to the door.

  It doesn’t matter, though, because Barclay is relaxed and patient, waiting for the cop to give him his ID back.

  “Tomas Barclay, sir,” the cop says as his stance shifts a little. “I apologize for the delay, but I’ll need to report what you were doing down here.”

  Barclay offers him his most dazzling smile. “If possible, I’d love to keep this off the record,” he says. “You see, my wife’s sister . . .” He gestures toward me. “She’s had a rough go of it lately, and I had to come get her. It’s not going to happen again.”

  The cop doesn’t say anything, and Barclay apparently takes that as an invitation to pay him off. He pulls several bills from his wallet and passes them to the cop. “For your discretion?”

  I can barely breathe as I wait for the cop to decide what he’s going to do.

  If he declines the money, I don’t know what our backup plan is, which puts me at a disadvantage if we have to put that plan into action. I can follow Barclay’s lead, sure, but I’m going to be slow.

  And sometimes, being slow is how you end up dead.

  But right when I think he’s going to decline, the cop takes the money and puts it in his pocket. “I’m sorry for the trouble, sir. Right this way.” Then he escorts us to the door.

  When the door opens, it’s an elevator, and it’s clearly the cleanest thing in this part of town. I follow Barclay in and avoid eye contact with the cops.

  I let out a breath when the doors close and the elevator comes alive.

  “Taylor and Tomas?” I ask.

  “Later,” Barclay says.

  As we rise, I can smell the difference in the air with each level we ascend—cleaner, sweeter. In the silence, my mind goes to Ben and his family. He spent seven years trying to get back to them—to his parents and his brother. I remember the first time he told me about them. It had been so long he was having trouble remembering their faces.

  I conjure up an image of Jared in my head, with his hair that needs to be cut and his dimpled smile, and I think of the lengths I would go to in order to keep
him safe.

  Right now Ben is either plotting how he can get his family back or he’s planning to turn himself in.

  Either way, we have to find him first. And we have barely five days to do it.

  The elevator dings and opens to a shiny white-and-blue outdoor platform. A crowd of people in business suits and an array of high-end coats are standing around. Some of them have tablets like iPads, only they’re completely clear, like they’re made of glass.

  Barclay leads me off the elevator into the crowd. People move easily to make way without paying us any real attention, and I try to do the same. Marveling at all the differences between their world and mine would make me look like a tourist or someone out of place, and that’s going to attract attention.

  But I can’t help gasping when I see the sky. Iridescent gray with shades of blues, pinks, and purples and streaks of silver, and it’s right in front of us.

  At the end of the platform, there’s a railing separating people from a drop that has to be at least six stories off the ground.

  Barclay pulls me against him and puts his arm around me. “If you don’t relax, you’re going to get us shot.”

  As I nod, I hear the train approaching. I turn and look, even though I know I shouldn’t. I’m glad I do. It’s silver and sleek, like a bullet train, only it doesn’t run on actual tracks. It hovers above them.

  Stars cloud my vision, and I feel light-headed as the gravity of where I am sinks in. I wonder if Ben felt like this in our world—or if this is what he felt like when he went home.

  I’m in another universe—a place I don’t belong. I’m here, interfering with the laws of this world and the laws of physics as I understand them.

  And the only person I know is Barclay. Which means I’m completely alone.

  I wish Alex were here. I wish he could see this, but even more than that, I wish he could tell me what he thought of all this.

  Because I’m in even more over my head than usual. I’m going up against serious criminals and an entire law-enforcement agency. And I’m in a strange world that isn’t mine.

  05:00:06:31

  When the noise from the train is loud enough to muffle our voices, I ask, “So, Tomas?”

  “My brother,” he says without looking at me.

  “Those cops—their whole demeanor changed when they ran his ID.”

  Barclay smirks, but it’s not exactly friendly. “He’s a big shot in the corporate world. I lifted his face tag a few weeks ago, before he left town for a conference on global warming or something. He’s one of those environmentalists.”

  “One of those?”

  “Saving-the-world-by-doing-everything-green-and-organic types. His wife is too.”

  The train hovers to a stop in front of us and the doors open to reveal a clean and almost empty car. Barclay’s hand on the middle of my back guides me onto the train and toward a corner in the rear of the car as everyone else crowds on. Floods of people move from the platform into the train and Barclay holds my arm to keep me next to him.

  I can’t help wondering why whoever designed this city chose an aboveground system instead of a subway like my New York has.

  And suddenly something occurs to me. Something I should have thought of before. “Why is Elijah on New Prima?”

  Barclay shushes me. “Not now.”

  “You suck at working with someone,” I say, because it’s true.

  Barclay leans into me. “There are cameras all over the city.” His lips brush against my ear as he talks, and I hold my breath, partly because of what he’s saying and partly because he’s a little too far into my personal space. “They’ll pick up noise and chatter, and a program will pull out any designated words. We don’t want them to know we’re here.”

  I nod and he pulls back.

  If there are cameras and what he’s saying is true, he’s absolutely right, but there’s a bad feeling in the pit of my stomach. I can’t imagine why Elijah would ever come to Prima of his own volition. In fact, I know he wouldn’t.

  Which means that if he’s here, someone made him come here.

  I can think of only a few reasons they would do that.

  And none of them mean anything good.

  “He’s been detained by IA for questioning,” Barclay whispers once the train starts moving. “The detention center is here in New Prima. They’re not going to release him anytime soon, which means we need to get to him.”

  “IA has Elijah?” I ask, that sinking feeling in my stomach getting worse. I think I know, but I have to ask anyway. “Why?”

  Barclay grits his teeth and doesn’t answer.

  And it hits me that I’m right.

  “Because he’s someone Ben cares about . . .” For the first time, it actually sets in what that might mean for me.

  04:23:55:49

  “Not exactly,” Barclay says.

  “Not exactly what?” I hiss in his ear. I’m surrounded by people I don’t know, suffocating on a train that smells like a mixture of cleaning products, perfume, and detergents. If Barclay’s going to do the whole vague thing, he can get someone else’s help.

  He grabs my shoulder and whispers, “Elijah’s been detained for the past few month or so, and I’ll be happy to explain more later, but we can’t just hang out in the middle of the city and wait to get caught, Tenner. Use your head.”

  He doesn’t elaborate on why. And I get it. He can explain all this at his apartment. Except I don’t want to go to his apartment. I don’t want to go anywhere. Every alarm in my body is blaring right now, and all I want to do is go home.

  He must sense my panic, because Barclay grabs my arm. “Come with me,” he says, pulling me along to emphasize his point. When we get to the back of the train car, Barclay opens the door and pushes me through, shutting it behind him.

  The air around us is deafening. I’m not sure I realized wind could be this loud. We have to be moving at almost ninety miles an hour. Barclay will have to scream for either of us to hear anything.

  “When we got back, Eric and I wrote up a report about what happened!” he yells. “A few months ago, Ben and Elijah were both detained. I’m not exactly sure why they were really brought in, but they were held in connection to illegal interverse travel and trafficking, and at some point, Ben either escaped or was let go, and now the order is out that he needs to be brought back in, dead or alive.”

  I look at Barclay’s face. His jaw is tight, and he looks a little worried.

  “In the write-up you did.” I can barely hear my own voice. “Did you mention my relationship to Ben?”

  He doesn’t look at me and that’s enough of an answer in itself. The hood up, the avoiding the cameras and not speaking, it takes on a whole new meaning now. “So they might actually be thinking of grabbing and executing me?”

  “It is a possibility,” he says, but I can tell from the look on his face that’s not what he means. It would be more accurate if he just said, “Yes.”

  And he brought me here.

  04:23:41:45

  The train slams to a stop and I lose my balance, crashing into Barclay, my face colliding with his chest. His arm goes around me, holding me up to keep me from falling again. He smells a little like the ocean—like portals.

  I push myself back from him. “What part of your brilliant plan includes getting me executed for something Ben didn’t even do?” It comes out louder than it should, but yelling at Barclay isn’t exactly something I’m about to start scolding myself for.

  “Would you relax!” he hisses at me.

  “How can I relax?” I suck down air and try to get a hold of myself. We only have four days.

  Four days to rescue Cecily, find Ben, save his family, and stop the traffickers. And IA is looking for me. Which means that in four days, I could be dead.

  Barclay still hasn’t answered me. When I look at him, he jerks his head to the left and I can see a camera tracking people who are moving from the platform onto the train. We’re far enough away and there
should be enough background noise to cover us, but I understand. As pissed off as I am, this conversation can wait a few more minutes.

  I wait quietly, though not patiently, as we travel two more stops. When Barclay nods toward the platform, I follow him off the train and from the platform to a long window-covered hallway. We’re still high up, walking on some kind of elevated pedestrian bridge between buildings, and when I glance out the window, all I can see is sky, crystal buildings, and a city that looks like it’s been built on the clouds.

  If I weren’t suddenly worried about ending up dead, I would think that New Prima was just a little bit beautiful.

  But I am worried. And I’m terrified.

  About Ben and his family. About Cecily, wherever she is. And now I’m worried about myself, too, because I promised Struz and myself that I’d come back. I mean to honor that.

  The walkway takes us directly to what must be Barclay’s apartment building, because he unlocks a door that leads us to another elevator.

  We get off on the thirty-fifth floor and head down a hallway of apartment doors. I remember the last time I was here and suppress a shiver. One moment we were in Ben’s basement, facing off against each other, the next an earthquake hit and the house was starting to collapse. And after that, Barclay opened a portal and pulled us through into his living room.

  I think of how it felt like my insides were melting as I traveled through the portal for the first time, and I’m glad that at least this time I’m not going to need a sedative.

  Hopefully I’ll make it home alive, too.

  Barclay unlocks his door and lets me in the apartment.

  Once we’re inside, he pulls off his hat and sets the alarm over his apartment door. I drop my backpack on the floor, peel off my jacket, and throw it on his couch. Then I fold my arms across my chest and wait. Because we’re not doing anything else until I get some answers.

  “I’m not exactly leading you into this blind,” he says, turning to me. “You think I want to see you executed?”