Superposition (31 page)

“Claire? How are you? Did those creatures hurt you?”

Claire started to cry. “I'm fine, Daddy,” she said. “Just scared.”

“I'm here, too,” Alex said. I turned my attention to her, surprised by the bitterness in her tone.

“Of course, you are,” I said, and then I realized that this was Alessandra, not the Alex I'd spent the last few months with. This was the Alessandra I'd always dismissed as a lost cause, preferring her more stable, smarter, and prettier older sister. I realized now that the alienation in that relationship had been mostly my doing. I looked at Alex, who Jean was just now bringing out of unconsciousness.

Alex pulled herself to her feet and saw the rest of us. “The wires are electrified,” I said quickly, before she could find out the hard way. “Don't try to step over them.”

Alessandra looked Alex up and down. “Who on Earth is that?” she asked.

It was tough to explain, but Alessandra took it better than I expected. Of course she did—she was Alex, too, only I hadn't taken the time to really know her. Once introductions were made, the two girls couldn't stop talking, both with a kind of awe that they were talking to someone who was, in essence, themselves.

They seemed to be able to forget, for the moment, that we were trapped underground as the prisoners of a monster. It wasn't so easy for Elena. She looked at me, horrified. “Which one is the real her?”

“Both of them are real. Both of them are Alessandra.”

“How is that possible?”

“It's what Alessandra would have been if she'd been kidnapped, and what Alessandra would have been if she hadn't been kidnapped. Either one could have happened, only in this case, they both did.” I prayed she wouldn't ask why there was no second Claire or Sean. We would have to cover that eventually, but I didn't want to have to tell her now.

“But . . . they can't both just keep on being Alessandra, can they?”

I shook my head. “No, they can't. Eventually they'll converge back into one person again.”

The fear in Elena's eyes sparked into anger. “Did Brian do this?”

“Indirectly.”

“The man who kidnapped us, then?”

I sighed. “It's actually not a man. It's a quantum intelligence, a member of another intelligent race that we've been calling varcolacs.”

“An alien?”

“Of sorts.”

“What does it want?”

“I don't know. It has a vastly different experience of life than we have. I don't know what it understands or thinks of us, and I have no idea what it wants.”

There was a disturbance in the air. We all felt it. Claire cringed and covered her face. A moment later, the varcolac stood over Alex, regarding her with its sightless face. Alex froze, staring up at it, her body rigid. It smiled. It was the first time it had made a facial expression of any kind, and it was hideous, stretching back its lips and showing far too much of its teeth.

“We don't have anything you want,” I said. “Please let us go.”

The varcolac didn't reply. It reached down, lifted Alex by her upper arm, and twisted. The move was casual, but Alex screamed, and we heard bone snapping.

“Leave her alone!” I shouted. I hurled myself toward her, thinking that with enough momentum I might break through the electrical fence and reach them, but it exploded in sparks and threw me back again. I tried to get up again, but my muscles twitched with the pain, and I slipped back down. I cast about for something to throw, anything that could get past the wires, but there was nothing.

“Please let her go,” Elena said. She stood at the edge of the wires, pleading with the varcolac. “What do you want from us?” she asked. “This is my daughter. Please.”

“Jean!” I said. “Do something.”

“I'm sorry,” Jean said. “I was just trying to help you. I didn't mean for it to end this way.”

“It doesn't have to end,” I said. “You can fight it, can't you? Hurry!”

Jean shook her head sadly. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I never meant to hurt you. But I have to think of my own family, too.”

This wasn't making sense. “What are you talking about?”

“I have to think of my daughter,” she said. She gripped the smartpaper,
turned
just like the varcolacs had done, and disappeared.

I stared after Jean in open-mouthed astonishment, but I didn't have time to think about it. The varcolac dropped Alex on the floor and walked across the wires toward Elena.

“No!” I shouted at it. “Come on, fight me! I'm right here!”

Elena cowered away, but the varcolac advanced on her with inhuman speed and grabbed her by the throat. It lifted her as if she weighed nothing and thrust her in range of the bundle of wires separating my square from hers. An arc of lightning shot up from the wires into her body. She screamed and arched her back, her arms and legs jerking uncontrollably while the lightning danced and crackled. She kept screaming and screaming, the sound wrenched out of her body with barely a chance for her to take a breath.

I shouted, too, a bellow of helpless rage, as I tried to reach her, casting about for some weapon, desperate to find a way through, although I knew that even if I could get through, there was nothing I could do against such an enemy. Finally, I dropped to my knees, crying, begging the varcolac to let her go. Why was it doing this? What did it want?

The varcolac opened its hand. Elena's scream died and she fell motionless to the floor. I shouted her name, but I could see her chest rise and fall. She wasn't dead.

The varcolac was intelligent; I knew that. It must have a motive, though it was possible we would all die without ever knowing what it was. Was it experimenting with matter-based life forms just to see what would happen? Was it punishing us for destroying its time bubbles? Was it looking for the Higgs projector? Maybe such a surge of power would be beneficial for one of its kind and it was trying to help Elena by giving her more energy instead of trying to kill her.

I couldn't think straight. I felt dizzy, perhaps from the electric shock, and I thought I might fall over. For a brief moment, I had a vision of driving through a pine forest in a tiny car that was not my own. Where did that come from? Was I succumbing to fear and exhaustion? I shook my head. I couldn't check out now; my family needed me. I didn't know what to do, but I couldn't just do nothing.

Elena still didn't move. Alex rocked back and forth slightly, her eyes unfocused. The others huddled in their squares, frozen or crying softly.

As suddenly as it had come, the varcolac disappeared.

CHAPTER 34

DOWN-SPIN

My house was more than twelve miles away from the prison, and Swarthmore College, where I worked, a few miles beyond that. It was too far. I needed somewhere I could go quickly to change my clothes, somewhere that wouldn't be the first place the police would look for me.

The Granite Run Health and Fitness Club was located on Pennell Road in Lima, about five miles from the prison in Thornton. It was close enough. Before my arrest, I had run two and a half miles every morning—the distance from my home to the college—and I frequently ran in the five kilometer races that local municipalities held. I wasn't built for speed, but I could cover five miles in a little more than half an hour. I decided that I was better off racing the police than sneaking around trying to avoid them, so I took off running as fast as I could.

While I ran, I unzipped my jumpsuit halfway down, pulled my arms out, and then tied the sleeves around my waist. I hoped that a guy running in orange pants and a white T-shirt would be less conspicuous than a guy in an orange jumpsuit. I steered clear of Baltimore Pike, figuring it would be swarming with cops, but there was an old line of train tracks that hugged Chester Creek, and I aimed for that instead. It was mostly in the woods, where I was less likely to encounter any people, and it was easy to run along it without twisting an ankle. Best of all, it would lead me nearly to the fitness club's back door.

I repeatedly heard sirens, and once I saw the flashing lights of a police car, but if they were creating a perimeter, they either missed the train tracks or underestimated my speed. I reached the club without incident and slipped inside. There were only three cars in the parking lot, and I avoided being seen as I made my way through the halls.

I had a locker here with a change of clothes. I was breathing pretty hard—prison life had not been good for staying in shape—but I shoved the jumpsuit into the trashcan and put on the sweats and T-shirt from my locker. Now all I needed was transportation.

I checked the showers. One of them was running, and based on the little Nissan Flash in the parking lot, I was pretty sure I knew who was inside. It was Frank Reed, a guy I knew slightly from working out together, whose locker wasn't far from mine. The lockers had combinations, of course, but a lot of people didn't bother spinning them. I found Frank's, checked inside, and found some business clothes, a wallet, and a ring of keys.

I hated to steal, but I was beyond such considerations. I needed a car, and I didn't have time to quibble. I scribbled a quick note that said, “Frank, I'm sorry. I'll return it unharmed and with interest, if I can.” I left it in the locker and took the keys.

The Flash was a tiny car—electric and made of lightweight materials. I thought I might even be able to pick it up if I had to. Frank was a small guy and fit easily. I wasn't and didn't. But it was a car, and once I wedged myself inside, I was on my way down the road, heading for New Jersey.

As I crossed the bridge, I had a sudden vision of the varcolac standing over me. Every muscle in my body tensed—I could see the varcolac almost as clearly as I could see the road in front of me. It wasn't like a dream or a vision; it was more like I had a second pair of eyes in a completely different place, feeding images to my brain.

I knew what was happening. Jacob and I were becoming one person again. The electric shock must have been from him; maybe it was even the reason the probability waveform had started to collapse. I could tell that he was underground right now, probably in the accelerator tunnels, and that the varcolac was there. I couldn't see everything that was happening; only the occasional glimpse.

I stepped on the gas. I didn't know how much time I had left.

With the help of the car's GPS system, I found Jean Massey's neighborhood and pulled up to her front door. I stepped out of my car, eyeing the place warily. The tiny yard was neatly mowed, with a small flowerbed under the eaves. I couldn't imagine Jean doing any gardening, so I guessed this to be Nick's work. Suddenly, I remembered the phone call—Nick, accusing me of sleeping with his wife. But that had been the other Jacob, not me. I had been in prison at the time, but the memory flashed into my mind as if I had actually experienced it.

I knocked on the door. Nick answered, wearing a white polo shirt and slacks and bare feet.

“Hi, Nick,” I said. “Is Jean—”

“She's given you too much as it is,” Nick said. “I'm sorry, but this is our family time. She's not available.”

I shoved my foot in the door before he could close it. “Is she with your daughter right now?” Some of my urgency must have come across in my voice, because he stepped back. I pushed inside. “Your daughter's in danger,” I said. “Where is she?”

He believed me. I didn't know how Jean had been acting since she arrived, but clearly it hadn't put his mind at ease. I followed him up the stairs and down the hall.

“Honey?” Nick called.

I walked slowly after him and peered into Chance's bedroom. It was empty.

“Jean?” Nick said, and then louder, “Jean!”

“She took her,” I said. “They're gone.”

Nick stood in the center of the room, surrounded by Chance's things—her changing table, her crib with blankets still tangled and warm, a scattering of baby toys—and bellowed his wife's name.

CHAPTER 35

UP-SPIN

Elena sat up with a groan. I was by her side in an instant, as close as I could get with the bundle of wires between us.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“My head hurts.”

“I'm so sorry.”

She pressed fingers into her temples. “Not your fault.”

I wanted to hold her in my arms, to stroke her hair and press her close. My space was roughly square, with three edges made of bundled wire and one edge against the wall. I examined the spot where the wires passed into the wall, but there was no way to cross it. I started to kick the wall. The wall was made of cinder blocks and didn't budge, but I kept kicking anyway, thinking that if I could knock loose even a small amount, then over time I could widen it, tear some of the wall away, and then get around the wire barrier to Elena.

“Use your keys,” Marek called. He was in a center square, out of reach of a wall, but I understood what he meant. I pulled my keys out of my pocket, chose the largest one, and started scraping the wall close to the floor. A little dust drifted down, and a shallow scratch appeared. I kept scraping. It was going to take a long time to make any progress this way, but it was better than just waiting for the varcolac to come back and start hurting my family again. I scraped until my muscles ached, but I accomplished little more than a small pile of dust on the floor. It wasn't going to work.