Resonance (41 page)

"It's all right," she lied. "Fire alarm—probably a mistake. Get dressed just in case."

She switched off the light and shut the door. Mark was on the phone, reporting the incident. Annalise knelt down and laced her shoes. The room was in darkness except for the steady flicker of grey light from the monitors. It gave the room a ghostly feel. She shivered.

Movement appeared on one of the screens—the hallway. A front door opened—one of the flats—a head popped out, an elderly man, looking worried, unsure, glancing left and right.

Other doors opened, more confused residents, some in nightclothes, some hurriedly dressed. They gathered in groups, peered towards the stairwells, shook their heads, asked the same questions. Annalise heard them on the loudspeaker. What's happening? Is there a fire? What should we do?

Some began to head for the stairs; others went back inside to collect belongings. A woman appeared with two large cats in her arms.

A siren sounded softly in the distance.

Mark was still on the phone. He covered the mouthpiece. "They've confirmed a call has been sent to the emergency services. One of the residents reported a fire."

"It's a trick to get us out," said Annalise instinctively. "There's no fire. We stay here until the police arrive."

Mark looked less sure. "I'm here to see to your safety."

"Then keep the door locked. I'm not moving 'til I see a flame."

A fire engine pulled up outside. Annalise saw it in the camera pointing at the ground. The siren stopped wailing, men jumped out and ran towards the building.

Then everything went dead.

The screens, the loudspeakers, the light from under the front door.

A residual bleed of light radiated from the screens as they crackled into inactivity. A muffled scream came from the corridor. Annalise held her breath.

Mark shouted into the phone. He was like a shadow standing next to her. A shadow losing his cool. Annalise guessed he was talking to the two men outside in the car.

"The whole building's out?" she heard him say. "Could a fire have cut the power lines? Can you see a fire?"

She listened for a reply, attuning her ears to the quiet of the room.

There was a muffled crash from nearby. Breaking glass. Graham's room!

"The window!" Annalise screamed and ran blindly towards the bedroom door.

Annalise flew into Graham's room. Everything dark, a hint of grey from the window, a shape climbing in, feet crunching over glass and jigsaw pieces. Another shadow in the corner, hunched over, it had to be Graham.

Annalise moved instinctively, fast and low, her hands pushed out in front of her. One thought, intercept and stop. She launched herself, hit something hard, something that moved with her and thudded against something even harder.

There was a sharp intake of breath.

Not from Annalise.

"Run, Graham!" she shouted as she grappled with the body she'd pressed up against the far wall. Sound all around her, running feet, ragged breaths. She hung on with her hands while she thrust up with her knees. Then she was flying across the room, tossed like a rag doll onto the bed.

She rolled with the momentum, off the bed, onto the floor, found her feet and ran towards the door. Graham would be out by now, he'd be in the lounge, maybe at the front door. She'd given him time to escape.

A series of grunts and sickening crunches sounded behind her. Mark and the intruder. A second later she was in the lounge. A shape was fiddling with the door chain, the door was opening. She reached Graham in the doorway, bundled him through, grabbed his hand.

"Follow me."

Noise all around them—from the stairwell, the corridors, above, below. Doors slamming all over the building, running feet from the floor above, shouts, questions—"What's happening?" "Should we evacuate?

She pulled Graham towards the back stairs. Hand in hand, they ran through the darkness, pushed through the fire doors into the window-lit stairwell. And froze, listening to the echoes—the shouts, the cries, the click and clatter of feet on the stairs.

Up or down? Which way? All logic said "down," down towards the exit and safety. If there was a fire, it was the only way out. Her heart said "up." There was no fire. ParaDim would have people watching all exits. They'd grab her and Graham the moment they emerged. Hit them a few times, call them hysterical, carry them off to their big black cars and no one would lift a hand to stop them.

That was not going to happen.

They'd hide upstairs. Stay in the building until the police arrived. "Come on!" she hissed and pulled Graham up the next flight.

Heavy feet clattered on the stairs above. Someone large coming down fast. Another turn and they'd meet.

She pushed Graham through the fire doors on the fifth floor, held the door as it swung back, cushioned it and let it close gently—no noise, no hint of someone having just run through.

They were back in a windowless void, moving swift and silent along the corridor. They had to find somewhere to hide. Someone must have left their front door open in the panic.

Annalise tried every door they passed. A gentle turn, a push. Locked, locked, locked . . . open!

They fell inside. Closed the door behind them. Annalise leaned against the door, listening, her ear pressed against the wood. The landing door crashed back against the wall, footsteps vibrated along the hallway, a fist banged on doors.

Annalise stepped back, felt for the lock, found a catch, pushed it; the lock clicked home far louder than she'd hoped. She froze. The footsteps stopped.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

A fist hammered on the door. "Anyone in there?" a male voice boomed. "You have to evacuate the building. There's a fire."

Annalise waited—silent, immobile—unsure if the man outside was a fireman or a kidnapper.

The man hammered on the door again. Louder.

"Stand away from the door!" Annalise shouted. "I've got a gun."

The hammering stopped.

"Tell your boss I'm not coming out until I see Graham Smith on the other side of this door," she yelled. "Understand?"

"There's a fire . . ."

"There's no fire!" interrupted Annalise. "And I'm not coming out until you show me Graham. Show me he's unharmed and we can talk. Until then I'm staying here. And shooting anyone who tries to get me out."

The hallway went silent. She closed her eyes and prayed. He had to believe that Graham wasn't with her. He had to!

Graham awoke. Someone was banging on his front door. He looked at his alarm clock—8:15.

The banging continued. He thought he heard someone call his name. A woman's voice. Annalise?

He pulled his dressing gown around him and trudged downstairs. The doorbell rang continuously.

"Graham!" shouted Annalise through the letter box.

He slipped the chain and opened the door. Annalise Six charged through.

"Come on, get dressed," she said. "Gary's found out how you flip."

He blinked into the early morning sun flooding through the doorway. What had she said? Her words hit him on a time delay.
Gary's found out how you flip
.

"How?" he said as she turned him around and pointed him back towards the stairs.

"He didn't go into detail. All he said was, 'Fetch Graham and don't let him make any choices.'"

"Choices?"

"Exactly. Choice bad. And in this house it's even worse. Way I see it, every time you make a choice you risk flipping worlds. And if you stand in a spot where millions of other Graham Smiths are standing the risk is increased."

She pushed him gently in the back. "Come on, Gary's waiting. Do you want me to choose your clothes? No! Don't answer that. Point me at your wardrobe and I'll choose everything."

He started to protest but was brushed aside. Annalise selected everything, flicking through his shirts and ties, sorting through his socks and dwelling far too long on his underpants.

"I'll be downstairs," she said when she'd finished. "Remember, no choice. If you need any help, shout."

He washed and dressed as quickly as he could, his mind alive with potential choices. He'd never felt so indecisive. As soon as Annalise had warned him of the danger of choice, he'd been inundated. Should he put his left sock on before the right? Which shoelace should he tie first?

He asked Annalise.

"What do you normally do?"

He stopped and thought. It was Sunday. Sundays were right-handed days. Why hadn't he remembered that? Was he starting to forget his rituals?

A taxi was waiting outside. Graham sat in the back and tried not to think. He gazed out the window and let the journey wash over him.

Gary and Howard were waiting for them in 5G. Both were smiling; gone were the haggard, drawn faces of the day before.

"It's activated by choice," said Gary, launching into an explanation as soon as Graham entered the room.

"Or interaction," corrected Howard. "We're not sure of the exact translation. Tamisha says the word can mean both."

"Choice, interaction—call it what you like," said Gary, impatiently waving Howard's intervention aside. "Whenever you make a choice, the potential for forming a bridge to another world is created. If another Graham Smith on another world makes a choice at the same time in the same place, then that potential can be realized and your consciousness exchanged."

"Every time I make a choice?"

"Or interact," said Howard. "It's the impact you make on the world. The bigger the choice, the bigger the potential for creating a bridge."

"The mathematics behind the explanation is mind-boggling," said Gary. "It blurs the boundary between thought and energy and introduces a twelfth dimension where . . ." He ended the sentence in a shrug.

"His mind is boggled," said Howard, pointing a finger at Gary and adding a raspy laugh. "With good reason. The twelfth dimension is a place where nothing is certain."

"And Maria Totorikaguena was right all along," said Gary. "Though for all the wrong reasons. Her theory was flawed, her proofs incorrect . . . but she was right. There
are
significant holes in the eleven-dimensional model. Once you know where to look."

Graham was losing touch with the conversation. Gary and Howard may enjoy the intricacies of a well-turned equation but what did any of this actually mean?

A thought echoed by Annalise.

"Are you saying that if Graham got up tomorrow morning and decided to put his socks on in a different order, he'd flip?" she asked.

"Could flip," corrected Gary. "From what we can deduce, every time you"—he nodded towards Graham—"make a choice, a filament of charged particles is formed in this twelfth-dimensional space. The greater the choice, the longer the filament. The greater the effect on other people's lives, the greater the charge."

"And if it connects with a filament from another Graham Smith then," Howard clasped his hands together. "Contact. A bridge is formed."

"But it doesn't always connect," said Gary. "You have to be in the same place at the same time."

"And even then," said Howard, "there's no guarantee that the two filaments will touch. There's a chance they miss each other altogether."

Graham followed the conversation like a spectator at a tennis match, turning from Gary to Howard then back again.

"How long do these filaments last?" asked Annalise. "Could Graham flip because of a choice he made yesterday?"

"From what we can calculate," said Gary, "they last from a fraction of a second to several minutes. The greater the charge, the longer they last."

"What if more than two Grahams make a choice at the same time?" asked Annalise. "Do they all flip?"

"No. The first two that connect form the bridge," said Gary. "The third filament gradually dissipates. It's like the formation of lightning. The ground emits many strands of negatively charged ions." He wiggled his fingers as he slowly raised his hand. "Some rise higher than others—like the tall tree on the top of a hill or the metal pole on a church tower. But only one will ever connect with the line of positively charged ions descending from the thundercloud. It's more likely to be the tree or the church but sometimes it's neither, sometimes it's the short blade of grass in the field next door."

He pointed at an imaginary blade of grass on the carpet.

"And then they meet," he continued. "Positive and negative. And zap." He clapped his hands. "The lightning flashes up from the ground and back down again. It's the same with Graham. The two strands connect and one consciousness is fired up the bridge and another one is fired down."

"You see," said Howard, "nothing is ever certain. Graham can flip if he selects a different shirt or if he decides to blow up the Houses of Parliament. Both would generate the possibility, though the latter would send such a filament of such a charge that it might exist for hours."

"But why me?" said Graham. "Why my choices, why not someone else's?"

"It's a residual effect of the conjunction," said Gary.

"Although we haven't totally worked out how," said Howard. "Tamisha's still cleaning up the translation and some of the math appears contradictory. One appears to posit no residual effect, another implies there has to be."

"Can I stop a bridge from being formed? I've tried twice and both times been beaten by the pain. Could I stop it if I hung on long enough?"

The two scientists looked at each other.

"I can't see how," said Gary.

"I can't see how you even fought it," said Howard. "Transfer should be instantaneous. Are you sure you weren't feeling a side effect of the transference?"

He shook his head. "I know what I saw," he said softly. And he had seen the world shimmer before his eyes. He knew he had. Maybe if next time he was stronger?

"So," said Annalise, "the most dangerous places for Graham to be—flipwise—are the places where the other Grahams are. His home, his work, the park at lunchtime."

"Exactly," said Gary. "Which is why he's probably safe here. The number of Grahams on other worlds with access to this building will be extremely low. On most worlds, ParaDim doesn't even own this building."