Fusion (31 page)

He laughed. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere. Just tell me when, but make sure not to mention me to anyone. You’ll just have to make up your own stories to cover for me, and they can’t include me in any way.”

“Yeah, no worries.” I had become an expert at fictionalizing the truth.

F
ive hours. That’s the amount of time the Moreaus had to figure out how to deal with this conundrum. Olivia peeked over to the seats in front of her and noticed Glenda and Pierre, tête-à-tête, deep in conversation. Unfortunately, the noise from the jet engine wasn’t going to allow her to listen in.

“How do you think they’ll get this resolved?” Olivia asked Larry, who sat next to her, eyes closed.

“They’ve been forced to face the situation now, so I guess they will dive into it and try to handle it as best they can. I just hope they come up with something simple to try to explain their absence. To be honest, I was thinking about how to deal with Kellan. At least Ariele is in the clear, but I can’t see an easy way out for Kellan. He won’t even be in the system. His driver’s license number is probably nonexistent in this dimension. I just hope that he keeps quiet until we arrive.”

Olivia nodded. “You don’t think Kell would try to explain this to the TSA?”

“
This
? As in we came through a portal from another dimension…? No. Kellan’s too smart to say anything to them.”

“We don’t even know if the TSA has detained them at all. For all we know, the officer just wanted to catch up with Ariele—”

“True, but even that will lead to questions about where she has been. Hopefully they’ll concentrate on her and ignore Kellan as just someone traveling with her. Huge problem if they check his license, though.”

“Olivia, may I speak with you?” Glenda peeked over from her seat. “Larry, switch with me for a while.”

“So?” Olivia asked once Glenda was seated.

“Any way we play this, it’s going to be a circus. I could try to come up with a story, but will that stop the press from hounding us or investigative journalists from trying to find out exactly what happened? If we feed them a made-up story, we’ll end up looking like liars. And that will likely be far worse than remaining silent.”

Olivia had been racking her brain to come up with some story that would hold up, but a year was a long time to try to explain away. Could they really get away by saying nothing at all? “Is that legally acceptable?”

“Remember when I excused myself in the airport lounge? I didn’t really go for a cup of coffee. I called my girlfriend Donna. Donna’s a lawyer. She said we have every right to maintain silence. It’s not like we’ve done anything illegal. She did point out that the press will put enormous pressure on us to talk to them, and not saying anything may fuel their interest even more. They’ll probably camp outside and stalk us until another story catches their interest.”

“How do you think Ariele’s going to cope with it?”

Glenda shrugged. “Hard to tell. She is very strong, and she won’t want to do anything that will make it difficult for her to stay here with her friends. It will be hard for her, for all of us. I never aspired to be in the public eye, and now we’re being thrust right into it.”

“Are you sure you want to do this? You could still come back to the other dimension.”

“No, that’s not what we want at all. And it’s not like that’s even possible. The press will have a field day stalking us.”

It was possible, of course. Olivia could easily ask Rupert to wander them back home, but there was no need to bring that up with Glenda. Her mind was made up.

“The way I see it, Kellan poses the biggest problem. He is the only real reason that the TSA has to hold them at all. His driver’s license won’t check out. What are we going to do about him?”

Olivia nodded. “I’m going to discuss this further with Larry now that I know your strategy. Talk again after I’ve done that?”

Larry and Glenda changed seats again, Larry looking lost in thought as he stretched back.

“Pierre just gave me an update,” he said. “That leaves us trying to get Kellan out of this mess. Pierre felt that it would be best if Kellan and Ariele claim not to know each other. If they did say that they knew each other, then they can clarify that they met at the airport.”

“Okay, and then what? Hopefully Ariele will be allowed to walk away with her parents, but what about Kellan?” She paused. “Rupert?”

“Good idea, but how do we get in touch with him?”

“I’ll call Morena and ask her. She’s still at SETI in this dimension, right?”

Larry nodded.

Olivia played out the various scenarios in her mind, going through the plan Glenda had decided upon. She’d have to distance herself from the Moreaus as soon as they got to Newark. The press would surround them in a matter of hours, and Olivia couldn’t afford to be spotted. That would incite a whole different kind of attention… from Dillard, perhaps even from her own doppelganger…

“I am so tempted to see my doppelganger,” she said to Larry. She’d already told him about her conversation with Celia.

“I think your first instinct is the best one—just let it be. You may have more than one. Heck, we all may! There’s probably a plethora of Larrys scattered around in various dimensions.” He paused, looking somber.

“Larry? You are probably right, but what’s with the face?”

“It just occurred that one of those Larrys might still have his Christine.”

Olivia’s mind wandered back to happy times spent with Larry and his wife around the firepit at their house in Mountain View. “I guess that’s possible, but not here in this dimension.” This was where she had died.

“No.” He sighed. “I could spend my life looking, though.”

She took his hand. He could, or he could go on living the life he had right at this moment. Choices—those always came with repercussions. She’d certainly learned about that. Her doppelganger was living the life she had chosen, good or bad. Olivia wasn’t about to judge her doppelganger’s choices. Nothing would be gained from tracking the other Olivia. In fact, interfering would probably force her doppelganger to make different choices. And she’d done a lifetime’s worth of that. Olivia understood that it was time to move on and deal with her own challenges, Wanderers included.

As they prepared to land, Olivia slid her hand through the seats in front of her and squeezed Glenda’s. “Ready?” she whispered.

“Ready as I’ll ever be. I guess we say our goodbyes now?”

“I am going to miss you.”

“And I will miss you, Olivia. This is for the best, though. You will take care of Kellan, won’t you? We are just about to deny any knowledge of him.”

“Of course, Glen. Goodbye, and all the very best.”

Olivia and Larry stayed seated, letting Glenda and Pierre leave the flight before they gathered their belongings and walked into the terminal. Olivia turned her cell back on and found out that she'd just missed a call from Arizona. She called her back.

“Hello… Mom?”

“Yes, where are you, Arizona?”

“I left the hotel and am back in Terminal C—where are you?”

“Terminal C. I should be able to get to you in just a few minutes,” Olivia reassured her daughter.

“Mom, the terminal is swarming with reporters. I’m in the restroom by the elevator. It’s downstairs by the Dunkin’ Donuts kiosk, near baggage carousel three.”

Olivia nodded to Larry as they followed Arizona’s directions. She noticed the press mulling around just as Arizona had said. Was this because of Ariele, or were they waiting for some celebrity?

“Wow, check that out!” Larry pointed to a crowd in the distance.

“Glenda and Pierre?” She squinted, trying to see.

“Yep,” Larry confirmed.

“I hope they’re okay. Arizona is in here.” She stopped by the restroom. “I am going to get her. We should get out of here as soon as possible. Let’s get to a hotel and talk where it’s safe.”

“Sounds sensible. While you get Arizona, I’ll call Morena and ask her to contact Rupert.”

The restroom seemed empty. Was this the right one? Olivia tapped open each empty stall door. “Arizona?” she called out.

The door to the handicapped stall swung open, and Arizona rushed out and hugged Olivia. “I am so glad you’re here,” she whispered. “David’s here as well.”

“David? How? Where is he?”

David walked out of the stall where Arizona had been hiding.

“Hello, Dr. Darley. We thought it was best to hide out until you got here.”

“Good thinking. Now let’s get out of here. We’ll talk when we get to the hotel.” She took Arizona’s hand and rushed her out the door, with David following close behind. “Let’s go, Larry!”

They rushed out of the terminal and hailed a cab.

As soon as the cab pulled away, Arizona said, “Mom, did Ari—”

“Wait until we get to the hotel,” she said throwing a glance at the cab driver.

She could see the frustration in Arizona’s face as they got stuck in traffic. “We’ll be there soon,” she soothed. Twenty minutes later, after what should have been a five-minute cab ride, they were locked in an airport hotel room. Even though they had no intention of staying there for more than an hour or so, Olivia couldn’t help being disgusted by the musty smell. She scrunched up her nose.

“Sorry, Ollie. It was the closest one. I had no idea it would be this foul.”

“No matter, Larry. Thanks for organizing it. Did you get hold of Morena?”

“I did. She’s on her way to Inez, and I guess there is some kind of chain of command, but the message will be delivered to Rupert.” He looked at David. “How did you get here?”

“It’s my job to keep Arizona safe,” he replied.

Olivia caught the look on Arizona’s face as David spoke and wondered what that was all about.

“Good,” Larry said to David. “If you were a Sigma-W, we could ask you to retrieve Kellan, but we have to wait for Rupert’s help.”

“Oh, is that the plan?” Arizona asked. “Dad’s going to break Kell out?”

“We don’t see any other option,” Larry said.

“When’s Dad going to get here?”

Olivia checked her phone for messages. “Larry, any more news?”

“Nope, Morena said she’d call us with an update when she knows what’s going on.”

Olivia was distracted, her eyes drawn to Arizona. Her daughter’s eyes shifted from one place to another—the ceiling, the windows, behind her, like she was searching for something. Tilting her face at her, she said, “Arizona? You are making the strangest faces.”

“Oh, sorry, Mom. I was just thinking how wonderful it would be if we could just
get Kellan now
.”

I
hoped Stan got the message. Mom was still looking at me like I was having some kind of a seizure.

“I’m fine, Mom.”

“Okay. You were making the strangest faces. Oh! Hopefully that’s Rupe,” she said as she answered her phone. “Hi! Where are you?”

He must have asked her what had happened because she launched into the full story. Her version of it was so different from my own, but then she wasn’t aware of my doppelganger, my visit with Dillard, my wandering back to the other dimension, and my bird’s- eye view of the carnage there. She didn’t know about any of that, so her story was fairly simple: Kellan and I had gone with Ariele to visit Princeton. Ariele and Kellan were detained by the TSA in Newark. The Moreaus had decided to stay here and deal with the consequences, and Kellan needed to be rescued from the TSA agents. Mom told him that she needed him to come over and do that. Of course, there was no way I could tell her that Stan would have Kellan back to us very soon. Asking Dad to travel over to rescue him was a waste of his time.

“How long will it take you to get here from Celia’s?” Mom asked him.

“I’ll be there in minutes. Give me the address.”

Mom gave him directions and finally seemed to relax. “It’s going to be fine, Larry,” she said, turning off her phone. “Rupert will be here soon, so we’ll need to find out where the TSA is holding Kellan.”

“I’ll call the TSA and let them know I'm Kellan’s father. They’ll have to tell me where to come to find him.” Larry picked up his phone.

“Are you hungry?” Mom looked over at David and me.

“No, fine.” I glanced at David for confirmation.