Dangerous Designs (13 page)

"Double wow." They both stared in awe as the picture became a photographic image of the stylus. "Have you ever done this before?"

"Never."

In silence, they watched and waited for her hand to stop. Her arm dropped to her side and she could now see the whole picture. Her eyes widened. "The stylus has colored ink?"

He snorted. "The stylus doesn't have any ink."

Storey gulped. "Holy crap." She stretched her fingers. They weren't even sore.

"And now what?"

She stared at him and gulped louder. "I'm not sure." Her eyes were drawn back down to the picture. She reached out with her left hand to touch the incredible likeness, only to back off at the last minute, laughing nervously. "I'm scared to try."

Eric stood up and strode over to the window. "We're going to be hunted down and captured, locked away and maybe killed. We should be running to the other side of the planet. Instead, you're drawing pictures that scare you." He shook his head. "I don't understand you."

"But do you get this?" Jubilation rang in her voice.

He spun around to stare at her in complete exasperation. "What? Do I get what?" His gaze landed on the object in her hand. His jaw dropped open. "What the hell?"

Storey stared in shock then gave him a fat grin, almost bouncing on the bed in joy. "You swore.
Finally.
Good for you."

He stared at her uncomprehending. "What are you talking about?"

"You. You swore."

"Swore?" His eyes widened as he shifted his stance and fisted his hands on his hips. "I did not. I couldn't have."

Her grin warped into a smirk as she watched his reaction. "Oh yes, you did. You said, 'What the hell.'"

His face froze. She laughed in delight.

Glaring at her, he said, "That's hardly the issue right now. We have something more important at stake here."

Smirking, she held up the second pencil. "I think this is beyond cool."

"Do you think it works?"

"That it comes off the paper at all is a blooming miracle. I highly doubt that it's a stylus. I wasn't even thinking of creating a usable one, only a fake one for your people to take off of me, allowing me to keep the real one."

His gaze switched from her left hand to her right hand and back again. "They're identical."

"In appearance," she cautioned, twisting the new pencil around and around. "This isn't even flat like the paper. It's 3D. Unbelievable."

She reached over to hold the new pencil under the light from the lamp at her night table. Sure enough the wording lit up under the warm glow. "Wow. They're perfect copies."

"How did you do that?"

She shrugged. "I'm not sure. I thought about creating a copy of the stylus. The stylus took over and created it for me."

"Can we test it?"

"Why not?" She reached for the sketchbook and tried to draw a line. Nothing. She sat back, disappointed despite her expectations. Pursing her lips, she said, "I didn't really think it would work. The real stylus has a power of some kind. This is a flat carbon copy."

"This just might work...with two styluses you have a chance." He ran his fingers through his hair. Poor Eric. For the first time, real hope glimmered in his eyes. His world had flipped these last few hours. That his father was bent on having her killed was one thing, almost understandable given his people's fears, but to have a kill order on his own head if he didn't comply...now that had to hurt. How would she feel if her father sentenced her to death?

"And you'd care?" She couldn't help asking. What did he really feel? Guilty, because he'd taken her over there in the first place? Or did he feel that same connectedness she felt?

"Huh?" Confused exasperation slid through his voice. "I wouldn't be here otherwise."

She stared at the floor, a giddy ripple snaking through her body. Maybe he did care. Not that she'd let him know it mattered. "So, we're good to go?"

He stared at her. "I still don't like it, but yes, let's get moving. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can find a solution to this mess."

Storey couldn't stop her biggest worry from dominating her thoughts.
What if the solution was one that didn't allow either of them to live?

***

Storey and Eric used her drawings to cross the veil to Eric's world. With his guidance, they crossed via Stanshor mine.

"You're sure this is the best entrance?"

"Yes. It used to be a central meeting point for various city members. They'd travel here via codex," he said, holding up his wrist. A long metal band covered his skin from elbow to wrist, "and then come to the hall as a group." He strode into the murky depths of the cavern she'd been happy to forget. He stopped ahead of her and pointed at the ground. "Why did you do this?"

Storey paused to stare at the crosses she'd marked on that fateful day. Had it only been yesterday? Or the day before? She shook her head. Her sense of time had warped. For the first time, she wondered at the long-term side effects and health problems of crossing the veil multiple times. "I was trying to mark out distances, so I'd be able to find my way back again."

"Smart."

There it went again. That little wiggle inside. Damned if she knew why she should care about what he thought of her. She followed him through the darkness to a destination only Eric appeared to know. Storey peered through the blackness, yet saw nothing. He glanced from time to time at his codes. "Is that like a GPS or something?"

"GPS? I don't understand."

"Hmmm." Rather than try to explain something she didn't perfectly understand, she asked, "How does the codex work?"

"It's a digital map, I guess you could say. You can punch in coordinates or places and it can tell you where you are and direct you to a specific place."

"So you just dial up Earth 2.0 and it sends you to a doorway?" She bumped into his back. He held the flashlight in front of him, lighting the immediate space. Everything else appeared to be absolute darkness. "Oomph."

He reached around and grabbed her hand, pulling her up beside him without slowing his pace. Keeping her hand in his, he answered, "Kinda. But a lot more complicated than that. With it I can also create a doorway if I need to in an emergency, and it can send me across my world instantly."

"Perfect way to evade capture."

"Not really. It leaves a signature that is automatically tracked by Paxton's computers. Wherever I go, they'll know."

She frowned. "Okay, not so great."

"We're here." Eric stopped on the spot, showing her the flashing colors on his codex.

She stared at it in disbelief then looked around, "That's it? Just because the colors are different, you're willing to trust that little piece of technology. Look around you. We're nowhere." Her voice rose at the end and it was all she could do to stop herself from yelling. "That's a whole lot of trust in nothing." Her voice echoed on for a long time. She shivered, staring out into black soup that thickened and darkened even as she watched.

"It's all right. Everything's going to be fine." He wrapped one arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer. She didn't protest. In fact, she couldn't resist snuggling up to his comforting warmth. The place gave her the creeps.

"Right," she muttered. "So now what?"

"What do you mean?"

She shuddered again. "Why is it so cold all of a sudden? And what do you mean, what do I mean?" she said in exasperation. "Honestly, sometimes I think you're from another world."

"Well technically..."

With a look of disgust she tried to search her surroundings. The soup had blanketed out everything but Eric, and that's only because she was right beside him.

She shivered. "How do we leave then? I'd like to get out of this."

"That should happen in about five, four, three..."

She reared back. "What the-"

Blue sky beamed down on her.

***

Eric realized he hadn't considered what the transit must have seemed like for her. Everything in her world was so visual. Billboards, television, trains. And everything took so much time. Look at the long hours he'd been forced to attend her school. What a joke. School on his side of the veil was mornings only. And still they finished in half the time that her school system did. Plus, from what he could see, his schooling system taught the youngsters so much more.

That's not to say there weren't some good things over there, he admitted to himself.

"We're here? Just like that?"

"Yes. That's why the darkness thickened and swirled around us. You felt the cold because you haven't had a chance to adapt. I'm used to traveling that way and no longer notice the temperature change."

She sniffed the fresh air while he watched. Did it smell the same to her? Cleaner? Fresher? Foreign? Her features shifted and she seemed to take gulping breaths – almost tasting the air. Curious, he watched the expressions flit across her face. What was she thinking?

"Do you have any pollution here?" She spun around studying the terrain. "Do you have cars? Trains?" She tilted her head back and stared up at the sky. "Airplanes?" With a funny sound that was a cross between a laugh and snort, she added, "Do you even have clouds here? The blue sky looks painted on, it's so perfect."

Spinning around, she tried to take it all in. Her hair flew out in all directions, her t-shirt twisting snugly around her body. Tall compared to the girls he knew, she had an unconscious beauty she made no attempt to capitalize on. Odd, yet endearing. He grinned. Such inquisitiveness. "We don't need those kinds of transportation because everyone has variations of the codex."

"Everything is so different but so much the same."

"Exactly. We as a people developed separately, biologically, environmentally, and socially. Our government structure is completely unique. We don't even have bicycles."

"Don't need them either, do you. Everyone has a codex?"

He watched the unformed queries blaze in her dark chocolate eyes as they darted from one thing to another. "No," he corrected patiently. "They have different units, called taprins, that can take them to any of the many transit points we use. Then everyone walks from there. But those units are only good for local travel."

"Cool. I like the sound of that."

He grinned at her, loving the innocence mingled with eagerness. She had something he hadn't recognized before. What he'd taken as aggressiveness, or maybe
stubbornness
was a better word, was actually spirit. So unlike the girls in his world, who were quiet, graceful, yet contained. They didn't need to be high-spirited. Their lives were easy, peaceful, ordered. But they lacked the spontaneity he'd come to appreciate from Storey.

Another difference between the girls he knew and Storey was her mind. Hers raced and bounced off different things, stopping to question anything of interest before zipping forward. He admired her. He also liked her. That she was seemingly unaware of her physical appeal made her even more unusual. His brief stint at her school showed the females of her age wore tight clothing, bright colored paint on their faces and decorations in their ears, nose, even eyebrows. Storey wore nothing like that. Through confidence or disdain, he didn't know. It set her apart. She made no attempt to attract males. In fact, she ignored them all equally.

Except maybe...him. That he enjoyed her, respected her...and dare he say...cared for her, was a big surprise he hadn't considered prior to taking this job. He didn't see how she could be part of his future, yet he already knew there'd be a gaping hole in his life if she wasn't.

"Which way?" Storey waved her arms at the multiple paths stretching out before them.

Eric studied the bright green and yellow bushes adding a cheerful look to the early morning. Given the number of choices, he quickly picked one of the least traveled paths. They needed to stay under cover as long as they could.

He glanced around, realizing they could be pounced on by guards at any time. "This way."

CHAPTER ELEVEN

S
torey followed as Eric hurried toward the trees ahead. He'd gone from standing around to full speed. Weird.

She made it seconds after him. Still gasping at the unexpected pace, she grabbed his arm, barely slowing him down. "What's the panic?"

He twisted to look down at her, that sideways grin sliding her way. "I just remembered that people could be looking for us. Here we are, standing around like ducks in hunting season."

A horrible comparison. She shuddered. At least she now knew they had ducks and a hunting season.

Brushing back the green overgrowth, Eric trotted ahead. "We'll enter the city by the back gates."

"Aren't they guarded?" She hurried to catch him. His long legs ate up the miles, leaving her sputtering in shock. Normally, she let other people eat
her
dirt.

"Not by people," he said.

Wincing, she decided not to ask. She'd find out soon enough. "How much further?"

"Half an hour, give or take." He headed off again at a quick clip. "Or less, if you'd move a little faster."

After that comment, she jogged to keep up. Focused on trying to maintain his grueling pace, she slammed into him when he came to a sudden stop.

"What's wrong," she gasped, staggering back several steps to bend over and catch her breath. She closed her eyes briefly. Damn, she'd developed a stitch in her side. Eric wasn't even out of breath.

"We're here."

Thank heavens for that. Straightening, she surveyed the immediate area. Where was here? What could he see that she didn't? Thick evergreens clogged her view on one side. Not big fat trunks of an old growth forest, but thousands of skinny trees so crowded together she could barely see through them. Everywhere else appeared to be open field. No building. No fence. And certainly no gate. "What am I looking at?"

"A forest?" Again that superior amusement. It was really starting to piss her off. Glad he thought her ignorance was so funny. Not.

She shot him a disgusted look. "Yeah. I can see that. What about your gate?"

"It's on the other side of this group over there." He pointed out the trees in question.