Tether (6 page)

I had to take two buses and the El to get to Helena’s, a Polish restaurant on the far northwest side of the city. I’d just stepped out onto the platform at the Jefferson Park Blue Line station when another vision hit me. A hand flew at my face, but I couldn’t protect myself as I was struck over and over again. My ears rang with the force of the blow; I tasted blood.

Who are you?
a cold voice demanded.
Where do you come from?
I was afraid but determined not to show it. I glanced down at my wrist, at the tattoo that was both a reminder and a key to the door that would take me home again, and I said, in the steadiest, calmest voice I could muster,
Give me what I’ve asked for, and I’ll tell you.

“Miss! Miss! Are you okay?”

The vision skittered away, leaving behind an awful sense of doom. My heart had frozen into a lump of ice. I was on my knees at the edge of the platform, digging my fingernails into the concrete, and a young boy was bent over me, peering at my face.

“Are you okay?” he repeated.

“I—I think so,” I said. He helped me to my feet. “What happened?”

“We were getting off the train and you shouted and fell,” he explained, guiding me to the exit. “Do you need to go to the hospital or something?”

“No, I’ll be fine.” I managed a smile. “Sorry if I scared you.”

“You were the one who looked scared,” he said.

A bell tinkled as I opened the door to Helena’s. The restaurant was dim and practically empty. I recognized Dr. March immediately. He was sitting in the back, hunched over a book, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. A shiver rolled down my spine at the sight of him: coming face
to face with your own analog is hard, but meeting other people’s doubles is no picnic, either. It really makes you question your sanity.

“Can I help you?” A short, dark-haired older woman came out from behind the deli counter and stopped me at the hostess podium, wiping flour off her hands with the corner of her apron. She had a thick Eastern European accent and some sort of religious medal hanging around her neck. I wondered if this was Helena.

“Yes,” I said, feigning courage I didn’t quite feel. Now that I was there, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I wanted the answers I’d come for. I pointed at Dr. March. “I’m looking for that man.”

“Looks like you found him,” she said. I must’ve seemed nervous, because she smiled and put a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I just know the professor likes his privacy.”

“I need to speak to him,” I said. “It’s important.”

Helena shrugged. “Suit yourself. Want me to bring you something?”

I shook my head.

“You can’t sit in my restaurant and not order anything,” Helena said with a frown. “I tell you what, I’ll bring you some pierogi, fresh from the pan. You like pierogi?”

“Uh, sure,” I said. I wasn’t hungry, but it felt rude to refuse.

“Coming right up.” She nodded at Dr. March. “You go ahead and sit down. If he kicks you out, just move to another table, okay?”

“Okay.” I walked over to Dr. March. Even when I was standing right in front of him, he didn’t bother to glance up from the book he was reading. I kept reminding myself that he wasn’t Dr. Moss, that they were different people, but it
didn’t cushion the blow of looking at someone I recognized and realizing he didn’t know me at all. It was amazing he was even there, in my city, sitting in a restaurant a mere five miles from my house. Two months ago, I thought destiny was a crock; now I saw the hand of fate everywhere I looked. “Dr. March? I’m—”

“I know who you are,” he said with a weary sigh, closing his book. “Carla forwarded me your email. I should’ve known she’d tell you where to find me. I thought a virtual assistant would be able to resist getting involved in my affairs, but apparently not.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Well, are you just going to stand there like some kind of specter, or are you going to sit down and explain yourself?” Dr. March asked. I took my seat, afraid he’d tell me to go away if I hesitated.

“I was hoping you’d be able to tell me about my parents,” I began. “George and Mary Lawson?”

“Yes, they worked for me for a time.” His voice was emotionless, and I wondered if I’d made a mistake in coming. Maybe he didn’t care about my parents at all. “What did you want to know?”

“I guess I’ll start with … what were they like?”

Dr. March drummed his fingers on the table. “Your mother was a postdoc in my lab. Your father came in as a research fellow.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“That’s it?”

“It’s been a long time,” Dr. March said. “What makes you think I even remember them?”

I stared at him. “You must.”

“Must I?”

“You’ve got to at least remember my dad. How many people could you possibly have worked with who were from another universe?”

“Keep your voice down,” Dr. March hissed. “Do you want people to think you’re crazy?”

“They already do,” I told him. “But I’m not. I was there. You know I was. You helped Dr. Moss figure out why I could see through my analog’s eyes. You left that note in my mailbox.”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do. You folded it into a star,” I said, placing the note on the table. “Dr. Moss is one of two people who knew that would mean something to me, and the other one’s not your analog. You can talk to him through the tether. Why?”

“I thought you came here to find out more about your parents.” Dr. March’s mouth was a thin, grim line.

“I came here to find out about a lot of things. How can you talk to Dr. Moss? Are you a crosser, too?”

Dr. March laughed. “No.
Crosser
is a term Moss invented when we figured out why
you
could see through the tandem via the tether. He always did like to name things.
Tandem
was his, too, and
tether.
But you’re the only crosser I know of.”

“Then why—?”

“We have no idea,” Dr. March said. “Moss says it’s because we’re so intelligent, our brains operate in a fifth dimension. I’m sixty percent sure he’s kidding. But we can do it, just like you. Better, of course. We’ve had years of practice—at talking to each other and at shutting each other out.”

I started to ask another question, but he interrupted me. “As for your mother, she was … brilliant.” His expression morphed as he spoke of Mom, storm clouds dispersing to let the sun break through. “One of the most gifted students I’ve
ever had the pleasure of teaching. Her mind was an open sky. To her, anything was possible, and she worked tirelessly to make our dreams a reality. It was no wonder your father fell so hard for her. He must have loved her very much to abandon his mission. Until Moss and I put the pieces together about you, I didn’t know who he was. I should’ve, though. When I hired him, he seemed almost too qualified for the job.” He shook his head. “There’s no fool like an old fool, as they say.”

“I wish I’d known them,” I said. Granddad had been a wonderful parent, but he shouldn’t have had to raise me all by himself. He shouldn’t have had to lose his only daughter, either. Sometimes when he was talking to me—especially when he was telling me about his work—it seemed as if he were really talking to her.

“I wish you had, too. They were great people, great scientists, and their deaths were a colossal waste.” Dr. March narrowed his eyes. “How are the visions? Getting worse, I presume.”

“How did you know that?” Was it obvious how little I’d been sleeping, how jumpy and scared I was, worried that at any second a vision could overtake me?

“It’s the natural progression. Once you open the door to your analog’s mind, the connection intensifies exponentially. Soon it’ll become difficult to sort out whose thoughts are whose—whose memories, whose life. It’s why Moss and I had to stop communicating, except on rare occasions. Unless you can learn to shut the transmissions out, you’ll never really be you again. Believe me, I know.”

“I’m not going to live my whole life with someone else in my head,” I said. The visions were already so bad, I couldn’t imagine them getting worse, but I knew from Dr. March’s grave expression that I had much to fear from the future if
I didn’t do something about them soon. “How do I shut my analogs out?”

Dr. March raised his eyebrows. “Analogs? You mean you’ve got more than one up there?” He tapped his head.

“I think there are two,” I said. His scrutiny was making me nervous. I would’ve bet money he was already thinking of experiments to run on me, but I was nobody’s lab rat. “Juliana and someone else.”

“Well, that’s interesting. You have no idea who she is?” I shook my head. “Very curious. I wonder if she knows she’s getting through.”

“You think she’s doing it on purpose?” I’d gotten that sense, too. But even if I wanted to speak to my analogs directly along the tether, I wouldn’t have known how, so why did she? The thought that my analogs could peek inside my head whenever they wanted or send me messages through the tether made my stomach squirm.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Dr. March said. Helena approached and set down a plate of pierogi in front of me.

“For you,” she said, smiling at me. “On the house.”

“Lucky you,” Dr. March grumbled as Helena walked away. “I’ve been coming here for years and never got so much as a free refill.”

“So what should I do?” I asked.

“To be honest, I’m not sure I can help you,” Dr. March said. “The tether is peculiar, and there’s very little, if any, true experimental evidence to support our theories.”

“But you do have theories.”

“I’ve always thought … but it doesn’t seem very likely,” Dr. March said.

“Tell me, please,” I begged. “Whatever it is, I’ll try it. Anything to stop this from getting worse.” Before I went to
Aurora, the visions I’d experienced as dreams weren’t that bad. But with the tether wide open and all kinds of things pouring through, the thought of going on like that forever was terrifying. How was I supposed to figure out who I was meant to be when the lines between my mind and theirs grew blurrier by the day?

And how was I supposed to be with Thomas if I didn’t know who I was?

“Do you know what the tether is made of?”

“Energy,” I said. “Dark energy.”

“Right,” he said, smiling in a proud way that reminded me he’d once been a teacher. “I think of the tether as a circuit, an endless loop of power. So I’ve always wondered: what happens if you overload the circuit? Can you break it, in the same way you blow a fuse? For what it’s worth, I think you can.”

“How would that work? It’s not like it’s got an outlet you can plug a hair dryer into.”

“I don’t know,” Dr. March said. “The tether’s always been more of Moss’s pet project. But in all the years we collaborated, one thing he wouldn’t let go of was the idea that, under the right circumstances, the energy in the tether could be released. We never got it to work. There was one time it felt as though we were close, but something was missing.”

“What?”

He gave me a rueful smile. “According to Moss’s calculations, we needed a third analog.”

“No way.”

“Three is an important number,” Dr. March said. “From Christianity to music to the Pythagorean theorem. Three is balance. Unity. Harmony. We know far less about how the worlds behave than I wish we did, but from what information we do have, it’s clear: the multiverse adores a triad.”

“So you’re suggesting I … what? Track down my analogs and try to unleash the tether’s energy so we can snap it apart?”

“It’s as good a plan as any,” Dr. March said. “I don’t see you coming up with a better one. Of course, you could always try heavy drinking. It’s working for me. Sort of.”

“I’m seventeen,” I said. He shrugged. “Let’s say I find a way to break the tether—what happens then? Will it hurt? Could it … damage my brain or something?”

“I have no idea,” he said sharply. He seemed to be tiring of my questions. “Probably not, but anything is possible. You of all people should know that.”

“Juliana is in Aurora. If I’m going to try this, I’ll need to go back there.” I had no idea where to even start looking for my other analog, but Thomas would help me; I knew he would. There was nothing we couldn’t figure out together.

“You want my advice? Stay in your own damn universe. Cut your losses, fight the tether’s influence as best you can for as long as you can, and try to live a normal life. No good comes of crossing into other worlds. Your parents learned that the hard way.”

“With all due respect, I don’t think so,” I said. “I think they learned that safety is an illusion, and if you’re going to have a life worth living, you have to take risks. You have to fight to hold on to the important things.”

“Like what?”

“Family. Love. Destiny,” I said.

“Destiny?” Dr. March scoffed. “You don’t really believe in that.”

“How can you communicate with your analog using only your mind and
not
believe in destiny?” One of the things I learned in Aurora was that there are connections deep
beneath the surface of reality. The more you look for them, the more you find. My bond with Juliana had existed since I was a child, and in Aurora it had helped me—I had a hard time convincing myself that was a coincidence.