Now That You're Here (Duplexity, Part I) (26 page)

The door to Mac's shop opens, lighting up the driveway, then bangs shut and his footsteps hurry toward us. “Eevee?”

“Help.” I cradle Danny's head in my lap and watch his face twist in pain.

Mac crouches beside me and checks Danny's pulse. He flips open his cell phone. “Calling 9-1-1.”

“Wait. Don't.” Mac looks up, surprised. “He doesn't need a doctor.” I don't flinch from what I have to tell him. “He's switching universes.”

The cell phone falls to the ground. Mac's eyes don't leave mine as he gropes around to find it. I can't read his face. It isn't shock or even confusion. He finds the phone and slips it into his pocket. “Get his feet.”

Mac catches Danny under the arms and lifts him up. I grab Danny's legs and together we carry him inside. Mac bumps the light on with his shoulder. The front room is full of moving boxes, half-empty bookshelves and blank walls where pictures used to hang.

“What—?”

He ignores my reaction and kicks a stack of books from the couch. Danny groans as we lay him down. He claws at his chest. I kneel beside him and hold his hands.

“You have exactly ten seconds to tell me what is going on,” Mac says.

I take a deep breath and remind myself this is Mac I'm talking to. Someone I can trust. Then my words run together as everything spills out for the second time that night. Maybe, unlike my parents, he'll believe me. “His name is Danny. He showed up at my house a couple of weeks ago. He's from Phoenix, but not
this
Phoenix. He's been having these episodes. He hears voices and sees things, like he's stuck between here and somewhere else. Warren and I, we've been trying to figure out how he got here. We think it had something to do with an EMP. We've been trying to find you, to tell you what's happened, but…Where have you been?”

“EMP? Is this why you and Warren—”

“Yes. You have to help him, Mac.
Please
.”

He runs a hand through his hair and starts muttering to himself. “Your parents know about this? That you're here?”

“Yes. Well, no. Not exactly. They know about Danny, but…They think it's crazy…They think I'm lying….” I trail off.

Before Mac has a chance to respond, Danny gasps and bolts upright. He stares wide-eyed at Mac, then sees me and exhales.

“You're okay.” I keep my voice calm. “You're okay.”

He coughs as he sits up, and touches his arms, like he's checking to make sure they're still there.

“What did you see this time?” I whisper. He shakes his head and looks away.

Mac makes a chair of the coffee table and leans in. “Follow with your eyes.” He holds a finger up and Danny tracks it. “Tired?”

“Exhausted.”

“Dizzy?”

“Yeah.”

“I know something that might help.” Mac walks to the kitchen and flips on the light. “Jumping puts an enormous strain on the body.”

Jumping?

The refrigerator door closes and Mac returns with a glass of orange juice. He hands it to Danny, who chugs the juice and hands the glass back empty. “Thanks.”

“You're welcome. If you keep your feet flat on the floor, it can ease the spinning. Deep breathing helps, too.”

What in the world?

He asks Danny if he can walk, then helps him up from the couch. I put my arm around Danny's waist and let him lean on me. His shirt is soaked with sweat.

We shuffle down the hallway to Mac's office. “Are you claustroph
obic?”

Danny shakes his head. Mac flicks on a light. The pale walls are covered in scrawled-on whiteboards and schematics. Against the near wall stands a desk strewn with books and more moving boxes, and on top of a metal table in the far corner is a glass chamber.

“What is that thing,” I ask, “an electric coffin?”

“Hyperbaric chamber.” Mac flips a switch, lighting up the console. “Oxygenates the cells.” He opens a door at the far end of the machine.

“Like what they use for divers?” Danny asks.

“Exactly.” The machine powers up. “Make yourself comfortable.”

Danny squeezes my hand before climbing inside.

“It won't hurt him?” I hate seeing him lying there.

“It'll make him feel like a million bucks.”

“What do
you
use it for?”

Mac adjusts the settings. “To feel like a million bucks.” He presses a button, and a timer on the console begins to tick down.

“What's with all the moving boxes?” I ask. “Where are you—”

“Solomon!” Warren rushes into the room, holding our research binder in his hand. “I heard the yelling at your house and saw you leave. I've been looking for you all over— Whoa!” He turns to Mac. “You have a hyperbaric chamber?”

“I do.” Mac doesn't look up from the console.

“Can I try it next?”

“No.” He presses a green button and speaks louder for Danny's benefit. “All good?”

Danny gives him a thumbs-up through the little round window in the chamber door. Mac nods and turns back to me and Warren.

“Mac?” Warren's hands grip the binder tight. “Why did Murray fire you?”

Mac sighs and walks over toward us. “I haven't been fired. I'm on leave.”

My mind races. “Administr
ative leave?”

“Something like that.”

“Then why the moving boxes?”

“It's complicated.” Mac closes his eyes for a moment. “I have to go away for a while.”

“No.” I look at Warren. This can't be happening.

“Does this have to do with those guys in suits?” Warren asks.

Mac leans back against the desk and stares up at the ceiling. “Yes. Partially.” He looks at us again. “CIA. They came around asking about unorthodox experiments.”

“They knew about the EMP?” I ask.

Warren's mouth falls open. “How did they find out?”

“I could ask you the same question,” Mac says, one eyebrow raised. “I never turned in that science fair application. If you recall, I told you guys no. But here you two show up talking like you've gone through with it.” He walks back over to the hyperbaric chamber to check on Danny.

Warren looks at me, his face harsh. “What did you do?”

“Me? You think it's
my
fault they found out?” I put my hands on my hips. “You're the one whose computer got hacked.”

I glare at Warren, and he glares at me. The cartoon Tesla on his T-shirt glares, too. It's the same shirt he was wearing the day we started building the Faraday cage. The same day he had a date with…

“Missy.” Warren groans and his head falls into his hands.

“Bivins?” Mac asks.

“You told her, didn't you?” I knew it. It's all I can do not to rip the goggles off his face.

“I didn't think she'd figure it out, but…Wow. She's even smarter than I thought.” He looks up from his hands. “On one of our dates, we told each other our deepest secrets. She said it would be romantic….”

I so don't want to hear this.

“I told her about Project DELIVR—”

“Warren,” I say, through gritted teeth.

“But I told it to her in Elvish, so she wouldn't understand. Except…”

“She speaks Elvish.” I sigh. “Your Elvish-speaking girlfriend ratted us out.”

“Ex-girlfriend.” His face is dark.

“Regardless of who told them,” Mac says, walking over to the window, “they found out.” He lifts one of the slats on the blinds and peers through the gap. “Looks like they're gone again.”

“Who?”

“The spooks in the white van.”

Warren and I exchange looks.

“But if we're the ones who built the EMP,” I ask, “why are they after you?”

Mac lets the slat fall closed again. He turns and gives me a grim smile. The hyperbaric chamber chimes and he walks over to check the dials, leaving my question unanswered. “I wish I'd known the real reason you were researching EMPs.”

Danny's eyes are closed. He looks so peaceful. “Will oxygen fix him?”

“That depends on what's wrong.”

“You don't know?”

Mac shakes his head. “Not yet.” He eases the numbers on the console down to zero and opens the door.

Danny climbs out and stretches. “
That
was awesome.”

“Feels good, doesn't it?” Mac closes the door again and powers down the machine. “Let me guess. You're starving.”

“Totally.”

“How about a late-night snack? And a chat to go with it.”

That hyper-whatever chamber is amazing. Here it is, almost eleven, I showed up totally fried, and now I feel like I could run a marathon.

I chow down on the chips and salsa Mac's put on the table and continue telling him my story. “Next thing I know, I'm in that classroom with that crazy Fish lady glaring at me.”

Mac raises an eyebrow. “You mean Ms. Fischbach.”

“Right, Fischbach.” I drain my can of soda and open a second. Warren's across from me, scribbling in a notebook. The dude never takes a break. He probably does word problems in his sleep.

“What day was this again?” Mac sets a sandwich on a paper towel in front of me and I tear into it. Roast beef with mustard and cheddar. My stomach groans with relief.

Warren stops writing and flips back through the notebook. “He showed up two Fridays ago.”

That's all? It feels longer than that. I look at Eevee, but she's eyeing Mac.

“Huh.” Mac makes a thinking face. “And you suspect it was an EMP detonation that sent you jumping? Not…something else.”

Mac asked me, but Warren answers. “The sort of explosion he described may have propelled him across the room, but not into the next universe. There had to be some other factor to cause such a dramatic event. The energy surge from an EMP might have been what it took to escalate things to the next level.”

“An EMP wouldn't affect you physically,” Mac says. “Unless you had some kind of implanted device.”

Warren points to the notebook. “No implants.”

“And even if you did have one,” Mac says, “that would hardly cause you to jump universes. Stop your heart, yes. Inter-universal travel? No. So there must be another variable.”

“There's something you're not telling us,” Eevee says to Mac.

“Solomon,”
Warren hisses.

She ignores him. “Why do you keep using the word
jump
? And how did you know the orange juice would help him?”

Mac shrugs. “I've seen a lot of inexplicable things in my time.”

“Things like this?” She points at me. “We show up at your door claiming he's from a parallel universe and you're not even fazed.”

Tension chokes the room. Mac sets his soda can on the table and stares at her. He looks like he's having an argument with himself.

“Clearly, he's—” Warren starts, but Mac holds up his hand.

“No, no. She's right. Good observation, Eve.” He stands up and walks to the counter. “I would have told you eventually, of course. After. But with the feds breathing down my neck, well, it just seemed easier to pack up and move on.”

“Told us what?” Warren looks confused.

Eevee, though, looks hurt. “You were going to leave without telling us why?”

“It would've been better that way. Safer, at least. For all of us.” He turns around to face us again. The stark kitchen light deepens the circles under his eyes. He takes a deep breath and begins. “About ten years ago, after NASA but before teaching, I worked for DART, Division of Advanced Research in Technology.”

“Never heard of it,” Warren says.

“Few have. The department was
above
above top-secret.” Mac walks to the fridge and straightens a magnet. “Also, it no longer exists.”

“What happened?”

“Our team was tasked with developing innovative methods of travel utilizing clean energy. We had our hands in everything. Gyroscope propulsion. Hovercrafts. Plasma generators. But it's when we delved into electromag
netism that things got really interesting. It started with high-speed railways. It ended with teleportat
ion.”

The pen falls out of Warren's hand. “What?”

“You heard correctly.” Mac puts his hands in his pockets and meanders as he speaks. “We'd perfected our models, built the units and were all set for the first test when we ran into a roadblock. Getting the higher-ups to sign off on using a live test subject. Namely, one of the team.” He pops open a can of soda and takes a drink. “Admin refused and the project went silent for about two weeks, until we couldn't stand it any longer.”

We watch in silence as Mac crosses the kitchen and joins us again at the table. “Ever put your heart into something, only to have it snatched away? Well, that's what it was like for us. We wanted to see that unit hum.”

“You tested it anyway,” Eevee says. Mac raises the can and winks. Warren's mouth hangs open.

“So?” she asks. “Did it work?”

He considers his answer. “Yes. Mostly.”

“Who volunteered to be the guinea pig?” she asks.

Mac holds out his hands.
Ta-da.

“Wait.” Warren lifts his goggles onto his forehead. “
You
teleported?”

“Which is how you know what's going on with Danny,” Eevee says.

“Well, kind of.” Mac takes a sip. “I only jumped from one place to another within the same universe. And I did it with the help of technology. What's happened to him is…” He looks at me and shakes his head.

“But it's similar, right?” I ask. “The pulsing. The wonky eyes.”

“Sounds like it. The system we utilized was much more stable, but stepping out on the other side, I felt exhausted, famished. Among other things.”

“Yeah.” I can't help but smile. Someone understands.

“How many times did you jump?” Warren looks like he's gonna pop.

“Just the one time.” Mac sets the can down. “After the jump, it was pretty clear we needed to do some more calculating.” He stands and puts one foot up on the seat of the chair. “There was a glitch in the restructuring sequence.” He lifts the hem of his jeans and pulls down his sock. The light from the kitchen shines on the metal where his ankle should be.

Eevee and I both gasp. Warren just about falls out of his seat. “You're a robot?”

Mac laughs so hard he has to wipe his eyes with a paper towel. “Sorry to disappoint you, Warren, but I'm just a run-of-the-mill human.”

“Did it hurt?”

Warren and Eevee gape at me. Okay, it was a stupid question. But his answer is surprising. “Not really, to be honest. Traumatic, yes, but not painful. When I arrived at the receiver unit, my lower legs simply weren't there.” He sits down and puts his arms behind his head. “We couldn't hide the accident, of course. The bigwigs found out we'd performed an unauthorized test and the project was pulled. My colleagues and I were reassigned. Didn't last much longer there, though. I was tapped for my knowledge in electromag
netism to work on surveillance technology, but that didn't hold any interest for me and I quit.” He holds the soda can with both hands and inspects the label. Lost in thought. “Got a job teaching at Palo Brea, and the rest is history. Or rather physics, I suppose. Good thing I left DART when I did. Not long after, they lost funding and the whole place was shut down.”

None of us say anything for a long time. What can you say after all that? Eevee finally breaks the silence. “What are the generators for?”

Mac shakes his head, a smirk on his face. “Nothing gets past you, does it?” He stands and stretches. “This isn't exactly how I'd planned to spend the evening, but okay. Since we're all here, baring our souls, I may as well show you.”