Unraveling

  Hydrochloradneum. That must be why Brandt bought the chemicals—he was mixing this compound. “Does it have any … side effects?” I ask, because that’s good to know. But also because I’m thinking of Ben and his superpowers.

  “Of course,” he says without looking up. “It changes the body’s chemical makeup. In concentrated or high doses right before interverse travel, the effects can be catastrophic. I know a guy who can walk through walls, which would be fine except half the time he can’t pick up his cup of coffee because his hand goes right through it. Ah, here it is,” he says, showing me the screen of the charger, though he’s careful to hold on to it. There’s what looks like a satellite picture of Earth with a lot of numbers and symbols around it.

  “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” I admit.

  “Earth number 19317,” he says, pulling the charger back and tapping the screen. Whatever it is, it loads faster than my iPhone. “Lorraine Michaels and Malcolm Suitor discovered hydrochloradneum in late 2002, though no one discovered the advanced benefits of it until about five years later.

  “And it looks like each of them lost a son in 2005,” he adds. “Three boys disappeared, and the one remaining witness described a shimmering black hole swallowing them up. Like a portal.”

  Barclay looks at me, and I nod. There’s no sense lying to him about them. He already knows. And he’s their ticket home.

  “It was a huge case. A lot of media attention is involved when the son of a world leader goes missing.”

  I wonder if Elijah was right. If his dad is looking for them.

  “They’re not opening portals anymore,” I say. “They stopped when they realized they didn’t know what they were doing.”

  Barclay gives me what can only be described as an absolutely pitying look. “You’re smarter than that,” he says, tucking the charger away in his pocket. “Think about this. You saw what happened in that house. You know what does that? An unstable portal that’s about ten times too big, and out of control. It brought three people over and swallowed up that house and killed everyone inside. You were there.

  “And you know what else unstable portals do? They cause earthquakes, tsunamis, and all sorts of other natural disasters, because they start to cause the universe to shift unnaturally. So I need to know who’s opening them.”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Is it the one who was here this morning?” He shakes his head and grabs his jacket. “Whatever you feel for him, don’t let it get in the way of what the laws of physics tell you.”

  “No, Barclay, I swear.” I grab his arm. If I can’t convince him Ben isn’t opening the portals anymore, I know he’ll kill him. “Please, you need to listen to me.”

  “No, Tenner, you listen to me. They lied to you. They haven’t stopped opening the portals. And I have to stop them before they do it again. Or you’ll all be dead.”

  He shakes me off his arm and walks out the door.

  Stop them.

  I know what he really means is, kill them.

  02:08:48:22

  When I get to Ben’s house, Barclay’s car is already there. I park the Jeep haphazardly on the side of the road and run up the driveway. My heart is pounding, and I try not to let myself wonder if it’s too late. The door is unlocked, so I let myself in and race through the kitchen and down into the basement, where I can hear them arguing.

  At the sound of Ben’s voice, I gasp from relief.

  I’m halfway down the basement stairs before I regain my wits and stop right before Ben and Barclay are visible.

  “Tenner, I know you’re up there!” Barclay calls.

  Because I made so much damn noise on my way in. And because I’m breathing so hard I’m wheezing.

  From what I can see—not much—Barclay is standing in almost the same place I stood when I was here. He has a gun on Ben, and Ben is backed up against the couch with his arms up.

  My whole body is hammering with the beat of my pulse.

  “I haven’t opened a portal in weeks,” Ben says.

  “You seriously expect me to believe that?” Barclay says.

  I can’t listen to any more. I have to do something.

  So I do.

  And it’s probably the most reckless thing I’ve ever done.

  I come down a few more steps, swing over the railing, and throw myself off the steps at Barclay. I land on his back, knocking him off balance as I essentially tackle him to the ground like some kind of psychotic linebacker.

  And it hurts. One of my knees hits concrete and I cry out from the pain, and then I can’t breathe, because Barclay’s elbow just went into my stomach and knocked the wind out of me.

  But I don’t need to breathe to reach for the gun. I pull at his right hand, grabbing his fingers and pulling him back. He screams, and I’m pretty sure I just broke his ring finger.

  Then his left hand reaches over his shoulder, grabbing a fistful of my hair, and he’s pulling me back, and suddenly Ben is there. He punches Barclay in the face, and the sound of his fist connecting with those bones makes a sickening crunch. And I already feel nauseated.

  But Barclay lets go of my hair to go after Ben, and head throbbing, body protesting with each move, I manage to twist the gun from him and roll away and to my feet. I open my mouth to tell Ben to grab Taylor’s other gun, but I’m too out of breath.

  It’s not a gun I’m familiar with. It looks similar to a normal handgun, but it’s a little bigger, heavier in my hand, like it’s weighted down with liquid. I don’t even know if it shoots real bullets or something else.

  But I train it on Barclay.

  Only Barclay’s not on the floor.

  His nose bleeding and right ring finger broken and bent at an awkward angle, he’s just pulled the gun from his ankle holster. And he has it pointed at Ben.

  And Ben has his hands up.

  “This gun has liquid hydrochloradneum bullets. They go through tactical vests, which is why we use them. But for you, it means you won’t be able to heal any injuries from them,” Barclay says, and I’m not sure who he’s talking to, me or Ben.

  “If I shoot you, I doubt Ben is going to want to heal you,” I say, even though I know we need him to disarm the Oppenheimer.

  “Fuck, Tenner! This doesn’t involve you.”

  “How do you figure? My world is about to end, and you think it doesn’t involve me?” Seems like I’ve found my voice now. “And if it involves Ben, it involves me. I told you, it’s not him.”

  “There’s evidence in his garage that says otherwise.” Barclay spits blood onto the floor.

  I almost ask what, but then I remember Ben telling me about that half-built replica of Reid’s dad’s machine.

  “Hear him out,” I say. Because I’d really like to avoid people dying if we can help it. And while I’m a good shot, and Barclay is only a few feet from me, I’ve never used a weapon like this before. And chances are, even if I shoot Barclay, Ben will end up dead.

  “I don’t want to shoot you, but I will,” I say.

  Barclay sends me a glance that tells me he’s come to the same conclusion that I just did, and he’s not about to pretend that I’m fooling anyone with false bravado.

  “Two people are dead because of me,” Ben says. “That’s on me, and I’ll own that. If you need to shoot me or take me in, go ahead, but I’m not the one opening portals. Not anymore.”

  But Barclay doesn’t answer. Instead he addresses me. “This is his fault. Your world is about to end, and it’s his fault. The damage he’s done, it might even be irreparable.”

  My eyes burn. I know he could be lying to me, but I also know it might be the truth. I might die in two days no matter what happens to Ben.

  I try to take a deep breath, but I can’t seem to get enough air. “You don’t know that!”

  “I’ll bring you back with me—you and your brother,” Barclay says. “It’s against the rules, but I can make a case for it. Eric will back me up. I’ll keep you alive.”

 
For a second, I think of Jared and wonder if Barclay really would save him. But I shake my head. I don’t know what is coming or how we’ll survive it—or if—but I’m not about to trade Ben’s life for mine. I’m not like that.

  “It’s his fault your father is dead.”

  “No, he had nothing to do with that,” I say. I already heard Ben’s confession, and I know he’s wrong. “Someone shot my father. That’s why he’s dead. It was a bullet. It wasn’t Ben.”

  “Are you sure?” Barclay asks.

  The only sounds in the basement are the ticking of an old clock and our own heavy breathing.

  “Janelle, I told you everything,” Ben says. “You know I stopped when I realized what we were doing.”

  “It isn’t Ben,” I say. “You can’t pin this all on him.”

  Barclay refocuses on Ben. “Then who is it?”

  “I don’t know!” Ben shouts back. “Don’t you think I’ve been racking my brain for days? But no one else knows the science, and it’s not me!”

  “Then it has to be you. If no one else knows the science, it’s you.”

  I see Barclay’s logic. If I didn’t believe Ben, I’d think he was lying too. And I wish I knew something to say, but I don’t. Which means…

  I focus on the gun in my hand. It’s just a gun. It has a trigger like any other gun I’ve shot. I only have one chance, and it has to count. I slow down my breathing, five seconds per inhale, hold for five, and then a five-second exhale. I let everything else just Fade Away.

  And I ask myself if I can live with killing a man.

  With Barclay in my sights, holding the gun on Ben, the answer is easier than maybe it should be.

  Barclay is yelling at him, “You violated the laws of physics—you don’t think there are consequences to that?”

  And right as I’m about to pull the trigger, the walls rattle, and the earth opens up beneath my feet.

  02:08:30:29

  The basement stairs collapse, and a combination of dirt, concrete, and wood from the frame of the house begins to fall on top of us. Cracks in the cement floor of the basement sprout and race across the room.

  I’m jerked into the wall. Hard. And the gun gets knocked from my hand.

  Then the violence of the quake doubles and I’m thrown upward—my whole body airborne—and then to the ground. I hold out an arm to break my fall, but when I hit the floor, I hear something in my wrist crack. Pain shoots up my arm and into my shoulder. I can’t help letting out a yelp from the impact.

  A piece of wood—maybe from the stairs, but who knows—falls on me, slamming into my hip, and I try to curl myself into a ball to protect my organs. I have a split second to wonder if this is really it. If I won’t even have those extra two days.

  But then Ben is there, falling on top of me, shielding me with his body.

  Still the earthquake rages on.

  There’s a high-pitched electronic noise, something that smells and feels like the thickness in the air right before it rains, and Barclay is grabbing Ben and yanking me up into his arms.

  “Let’s go!” he shouts, and then he’s pulling us both into a black hole.

  02:08:30:00

  The summer Jared was three, all he would eat was hot dogs—hot dogs made on a charcoal grill. We tried to offer him other stuff. Odds were, he’d get hungry enough—right? No. He’d rather starve than eat something other than a hot dog. He wouldn’t even eat the bun.

  So he ate hot dogs for every meal.

  My dad would grill them up every morning for breakfast and every night for dinner. For lunch we either got my mom to make him one or he skipped lunch altogether.

  Except for one time.

  She had a headache and wouldn’t get out of bed, and Jared kept asking for a hot dog. I tried to give him microwavable soy sausage Alex’s mom had given us instead, but he wouldn’t take it, so I tried to cook one myself.

  I got as far as lighting the coals before I set my hand on fire.

  Third-degree burns—I used to have some scarring on the side of my pinkie and on the palm of that hand from where they were the worst. Then Ben healed me.

  I thought nothing could be more painful than setting my hand on fire.

  I was wrong.

  Traveling through a wormhole to another universe hurts a thousand times worse. It burns like nothing I’ve felt before. Even worse than dying. I’m being suffocated by steam; it feels like my skin is being pulled apart.

  My fingernails are melting—I can feel it.

  I have fire instead of blood running through my veins.

  I’m going to explode.

  And then something pricks me, right in my chest, and the force of it makes me gasp for air. Ben and Barclay are leaning over me, and I’m flat on my back on a carpeted floor, staring at a white ceiling fan.

  “Just keep breathing,” Barclay says to me. “You’ll cool off in a minute.” Then he disappears from view.

  My breath is desperate, more like panting, like I’ve suddenly developed asthma, but he’s right, I’m already cooling off. I’m hot—sweating—but I’m not burning up anymore. I lift my left hand and look at my fingernails. My skin is red—like a bad sunburn—but everything looks intact.

  Ben reaches for my right wrist—the one that’s broken—and I flinch away.

  “I’m just going to heal it for you,” he says.

  “No.” I shake my head. “My skin.”

  “I said don’t touch her!” Barclay yells from somewhere else. “Her skin is sensitive from the radiation. You could end up hurting her worse, even killing her.”

  Ben pulls his hand back, but he still hovers over me, and when his head eclipses the light from the ceiling, silhouetting him, I have a sense of déjà vu. It makes me wonder what cataclysmic events will come next.

  “I’m right here if you need me,” Ben whispers.

  I nod, still trying to get my breathing under control.

  “The good news is he knows it’s not me,” Ben says. “The bad news is someone opened another unstable portal, and it triggered more earthquakes. The worst one was in San Diego, but each portal causes shifts beneath the earth, and it’s—”

  Barclay is there again, cutting Ben off. He picks up my head and slips a weird braided wire necklace over it before lowering me back to the floor. “It’s made from hydrochloradneum; it’ll help.”

  Then he disappears, but I can still hear him. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  “What do you mean?” Ben asks.

  “It’s not natural. The hydrochloradneum must have altered your genetic makeup, but people aren’t meant to have abilities like that, and I doubt you really know what you’re doing. You shouldn’t mess with things you don’t understand. You have no idea what it could do to you as you get older.”

  And then he’s back. “How’s your skin?”

  “It’s okay, I think.” I hold my arm toward him, and there don’t seem to be any adverse effects. I don’t feel like a live wire anymore.

  “Good,” Barclay says, then sticks me with another shot. This one makes me feel like I’m dead. It travels from my wrist up my arm and into my chest, then everything goes black.

  I dream of buildings collapsing and imploding. Cities turning into rubble in huge clouds of debris. A slew of tornadoes have taken out downtown Chicago. Earthquakes have leveled areas of Dallas and Las Vegas. A tsunami blankets New York City. Another one rises up and crashes against the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans is completely sunk. A third tackles the California coast. And then there are the wildfires—and they’re everywhere. They spring up in different spots, but they seem to be sweeping the nation in all directions, and there’s no one to fight them, so they just burn.

  Millions of people are dead.

  Millions more are missing.

  The hospitals still standing are bursting with those who are injured.

  People are looting or trying to evacuate the major cities.

  Chaos reigns everywhere.

  And then I dream of
similar images for every major country all over the world.

  When I wake up, I’m on a leather couch with a blanket around me, and Ben is sitting perpendicular to me, unconsciously petting my hair. My right wrist is splinted and wrapped with something a little better than an Ace bandage.

  “I had the worst dream,” I say, shivering a little and trying to sit up.

  “Be careful,” Ben says, helping me. “You were under a strong sedative.”

  I wonder if all IA operatives have a cache of drugs.

  I look around. The furniture looks a little like something out of Modern Home & Living magazine—everything is sleek blacks and whites. The wall in front of me is covered with a few big frames showing digital backlit pictures of Barclay shaking hands with people who are presumably important. The light is bright, but I don’t see any lamps—like it’s all ambient.

  Next to me is something that looks like a giant iPad, and when I touch it, it flares to life and a computerized voice asks me who I would like to call.

  I look at Ben. “Where are we?”

  “Taylor calls it Prima. We’re at his home Earth.”

  I watch as his gaze lifts above me, like he’s looking through me. Only I realize he’s looking at something behind me, and when I turn around I see why.

  The wall behind me is all windows—floor-to-ceiling windows—that look out over a city, like we’re in one of the highest floors of a high-rise. Entranced, I stand up and move toward the window. At first glance, the sky looks gray, but when I look closer I realize it’s iridescent. I can see shimmering shades of purple, blue, and pink depending on which angle I’m looking from. The gray is smog, hovering like a thick blanket of storm clouds.

  A sliver of sun peeks through for a second and flickers off the crystal skyscrapers, making them look like ice castles or flowing liquid creations—the buildings are something out of an Alice in Wonderland–esque LSD trip.

  Leaning my forehead against the window, I try to look down, but I can barely see through the fog—I can’t see the streets, but I can see what looks like a huge brown square in front of me with a few patches of green. It looks a little like what Central Park would look like if all the grass had died....