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Unbreakable
When I get out of the car, my shoes hit the dry, scorched earth and kick up some dust. The wind doesn’t help, and I have to close my eyes for a second to keep them from burning. It’s not quite sunrise yet. If I look back toward the way we came from, there are orange and pink streaks in the sky, and I imagine the sun will be up soon. But in front of me the sky is still dark, and even though I can’t see the ocean, I can hear the waves sliding out to sea, curling and cresting, then crashing against the side of the cliffs.
Apparently done with threats, Struz walks back over to me. He puts one of his giant hands on my shoulder and squeezes—almost too hard. His eyes are closed and the lines on his face are deeply etched—stress leaving its mark. When his voice comes out, it’s strained, and I appreciate how much restraint he’s capable of. I wouldn’t be able to just close my eyes and let him leave me.
And I know it’s not easy for him.
It doesn’t matter that it’s the right thing to do or that he can’t be the one to leave. It doesn’t even matter that I’m technically an adult and he’s not really related to me. We’ve been tied together by our love for my dad for a long time, and now the ever-present ache that stems from my dad’s absence and our love for each other makes us family.
It’s the two of us against the rest of the world—I can see that in the way he bites his cheek and in the tension of his body. I can feel it in the rising lump in my throat and the way my eyes burn.
There are no words of advice. He doesn’t tell me to be safe or to be careful. There are no words of encouragement—serious or comical. He doesn’t tell me to bring Cecily back, to save the day, or to stick it to the bad guys.
He just says, “Come back.”
I nod first because I can’t answer. Something’s blocking my throat. I lift my eyes to the black, cloudless sky to keep from crying, and I memorize how this feels—the cool desert breeze, the middle-of-the-night silences, the hard earth of my universe underneath my feet, the burned smell of smoke lingering everywhere, the taste of sweat on my skin. And Struz—the warmth of his fingers digging into my shoulder, and the deep breath he takes to keep his shit together.
I resolve to keep from losing this. It might be filled with problems, and it might take us years to solve them, but this is my world—my universe. I belong here.
No matter what, I promise myself I’ll come back to my family.
I almost add something snarky—I almost tell him I’m not that easy to get rid of. But I don’t. Because I’m about to follow someone I don’t trust through a portal and into another universe. I’ll be in a different world, facing a human-trafficking ring, a potentially corrupt international agency, and technology I can’t fathom.
Nothing about this is going to be easy.
“Here,” Barclay says, handing me a necklace identical to the one he’s wearing, identical to the one I wore the last time I moved through a portal, when Ben and I were coming back here. “Put this on.”
It’s a metal necklace, the one all Interverse Agents wear. It looks like it’s just braided wire, but it has an electronic charge that allows it to travel through the activated portals without being affected by the radiation.
Barclay watches me, our eyes meet, and he holds my gaze.
I think about how it felt when he pulled me through my first portal a few months ago, when one of the quakes was about to bring Ben’s house down on us—the way it felt like fire was moving through my veins, liquefying me from the inside out, like my skin was melting off my bones. Barclay injected me with something then, to keep me from dying from the radiation.
I crack a couple of knuckles to keep my hands from shaking.
“Do I need another injection?” I ask. I’d rather take the shot first and avoid feeling like that than wait until afterward.
Barclay shakes his head. “You only need those about once every six months.”
I nod, take a deep breath, ignore the pounding of my heart, and tell myself that I’m ready.
From his pocket, Barclay pulls out what looks like a complicated cell phone—some kind of cross between an iPhone and an old Palm Pilot. It’s his quantum charger, another thing all IA agents have. They activate and open portals, like a navigation system that uses coordinates to pinpoint the exact spot in any given universe, so an agent knows where he’s going. And it stabilizes the portal when it opens.
Struz steps back and I want to turn around and say good-bye one more time. Because what if I don’t make it back? What if this is the last time that I see him? I want the moment to matter.
But I don’t look because I don’t want him to be able to see how scared I am. Instead, I just watch Barclay as he presses a few buttons on the charger. He points it at the ground in front of him.
I hear that electrical sound—the sound of something powering up.
And then the portal springs open.
It’s a perfect circle, pure black like oil, with a diameter of a little more than seven feet, and it’s in front of Barclay, backlighting him, giving his silhouette some kind of otherworldly glow.
The temperature drops, the wind picks up and moves through my hair, goose bumps spring up on my neck, and the air smells like we’re in that moment right before a storm sets in.
I shiver.
Not just because it’s cold.
Barclay turns around. His eyes look impossibly blue in this light, and I have the urge to back out. I can’t help but feel like I’m about to violate every law of the natural world.
He must know I’m struggling, because he says, “This is the right thing to do, Tenner.”
Our eyes don’t break contact as he takes a step back into the black hole that is the portal. I watch as the blackness seems to grab hold of him and pull him deeper—until it swallows him, and he’s gone.
I could leave him. I could let the portal just fade out of existence and I could stay here.
But I can’t, and Barclay knows that—he knows I’ll follow him. For Cecily.
And for Ben.
The sky is red and orange. The clouds look almost gray, with glowing white outlines. The sun is rising, a golden globe peeking over the eastern horizon, lighting up a world that almost ended.
I take one last look around my universe at the cliffs under my feet, not so different from the cliffs where Ben and I watched the sun set, where we shared burritos and our first kiss. I listen to the ocean waves beneath me and think of the cold sting of the salt water, of the way my arms and legs burned every time I swam. I memorize the feel of the sun, the way my skin warms as the light touches me and chases back the shadows.
Then I glance back at Struz, too tall and lanky, blond hair and grayish blue eyes, the lines on his face clearly giving away how helpless he feels. “Keep Jared safe,” I say.
And I follow Barclay through.
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
—Lord Byron
The earth underneath me is cold, and I can smell the wet grass as if it rained recently. The air is still and unmoving, and all I can hear above me is the sound of Barclay’s breathing. The grass I’m lying in is long and overgrown; huge trees shoot up to the sky and block out the sunlight; and everything I see is green and brown.
This doesn’t look like the Prima I remember. We’re more likely in a jungle than we are in a capital city. “Where are we?”
“This is Earth 06382,” Barclay says. “It’s been uninhabited for the past two hundred years or so. Don’t worry, we’re not staying here.” He looks down at his quantum charger and begins typing things in.
I can’t help but groan a little when I stand up. If I’m going to make portaling into different worlds a habit, I really need to figure out how to land. Barclay is standing casually next to me, quantum charger in hand, so there must be a less traumatic way to do this.
I take a deep breath, and it’s like I can smell the earth. It’s that deep, woodsy smell sweetened with pollen. But there’s something not right about this place. In the distance there’s a cabin. The overgrowth has sprung up around it, and it’s slumped on its foundation. I can’t picture anyone ever living here. Not even two hundred years ago.
Because even though it’s green everywhere and I can hear the rustling of the leaves as the wind moves, there’s a creepy stillness around us.
I can’t hear anything. No birds, no animals, nothing. That’s what’s wrong with this place.
“What happened?” I ask.
Barclay looks at me, his eyebrows raised, his lips pursed together. It’s an expression that says, You don’t really want to know.
“No explanation, that’s shocking.” He should know by now how much I hate secrets.
He sighs. “They were actually the first world, we think, to discover interverse travel. We’re not exactly sure what happened, but the scientists who’ve studied this world think no one controlled the portals. People opened them and started going in and out, without any kind of regulation. Maybe they had too many portals opening and closing. Maybe they didn’t have the technology to keep the portals stable. Whatever it was, a radiation virus swept through this world and killed everyone.”
Everyone. If IA doesn’t know what caused this, there’s nothing to say it couldn’t happen again.
“So why are we here?”
“We can’t just portal into New Prima directly because I don’t want anyone in IA to know we’re there. So we certainly can’t just portal into my apartment, like we did last time. We need to muddy our trail a little just to make sure there’s no energy signature that will trace us back to your world. Then we need to enter Prima through a soft spot in a remote location.”
I know he’s trying to keep things under wraps, but I didn’t expect all this secrecy.
“Tenner, the situation is a little worse than I let on,” he says. He looks guilty, which is a bad sign. “What we’re doing is directly against IA orders. I was actually sent on a completely different mission, and I’m ignoring those orders.”
“What mission?”
He shrugs it off. “It’s stupid and I’m not doing it, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Couldn’t you, I don’t know, get fired or something for ignoring orders?” If he loves anything, it’s his job. I’m surprised he’d be careless like that.
“Worse,” he says. “This is why we’re running low on time. I could be tried and thrown in jail, even executed for treason, if they find out, which means we have to do everything under the radar.”
I let that sink in. For a second, I’m glad the stakes are high for him, too. Not only are we on the same team, but this is about more than just glory for him. It’s personal. Then reality sets in. What am I doing on some unnamed, unoccupied world just now finding out about this? “What else is worse than you’ve let on?”
His jaw clenches, and I know there’s something. So I wait.
Barclay’s voice is quiet but firm. “Government officials in Prima have put out bulletins to all the worlds that are part of the Interverse Alliance. If Ben doesn’t turn himself in by nine a.m. on the thirty-first, they’re going to execute people he cares about.”
The air comes rushing out of my lungs like I’ve been hit, as I think of his parents—of his brother—and of Ben, of how much his family means to him. He just got them back, after being gone for seven years. He can’t lose them now. Not again.
“By the thirty-first?” I say, trying to do the math in my head. I count the days several times, hoping that I’ve made a mistake somehow. But I haven’t. “That’s in five days.”
Barclay nods and glances at his watch. “Five days, one hour, thirty-seven minutes, ten seconds.”
“Shit.” What else is there to say, really?
“They’ve already got all the remaining members of his family in custody,” Barclay adds.
Ben’s family. He told me about them after the first earthquake, when we sat under our table in Poblete’s English class. His mom the scientist, and his dad the traveling salesman. His older brother Derek.
We had these miniature car kits. They were like toys, but you built a car that was about two feet long from scratch and it was real, like with an engine and everything. But they were really expensive, so when my mom bought Derek a new kit, she used make him let me work on it with him. Then we’ d take turns with the remote, racing the car down our street. We chased the dog a lot.
I take a deep breath. I can’t let anything happen to them. When we were in New Prima, Ben could have gone home to his world, but he came back with me to mine, to help me find my brother and stop Wave Function Collapse.
But this isn’t going to be easy. And now there’s a deadline—one that doesn’t leave us much time. We only have five days. Less than a week. “What’s the plan?”
Barclay grunts. “We need to find Ben, prove him innocent, and figure out exactly who’s behind this.”
And we need to find Cecily.
It’s a tall order for only five days.
I take a deep breath. “How do we find Ben?” That’s the first step, and we don’t have time to waste.
“We have to talk to the one person who knows Ben better than you,” he says.
I don’t have to ask who that is, I already know.
Elijah.
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.”
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.”
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