Tether (9 page)

“Exactly.”

“But how?” There were an infinite number of universes. Some were similar to each other, and others were extremely different, but travel between them was nearly impossible. I was starting to understand just how important the connection between Dr. March and Dr. Moss was, because it had established a route from Earth to Aurora.

I’ll tell you everything.
Her voice was like a whisper in my ear, and the green light of her mind pulsed along the tether. I closed my eyes, trying to shut her out, but it was useless—she was always there, and she would not go away. But if I could sense her mind, why couldn’t I sense Juliana’s?

“I believe we’re very close to finding out,” the General said. I blinked and tried to clear my head. I couldn’t pay attention to both of them at the same time. “We’ve caught one of them. She’s in a holding cell just down the hall.”

“She?”

“Yes. She refuses to tell us anything, naturally. She won’t divulge the name of her home universe, and she’s silent on the subject of her reason for being here.” The General paused. “She does have one demand. She wants to see her Auroraanalog. She wants to see Juliana.”

“She’s my analog, too,” I said softly. This wasn’t a coincidence.
Someone—or some
thing
—was pulling the strings, but it definitely wasn’t the General.

“Precisely,” the General said with a frown. Maybe he was thinking the same thing. He looked older to me, weaker. For a man who claimed to control the world, he seemed strangely uncertain.

“Where is Juliana?”

“Still with Libertas. The situation in the Tattered City has deteriorated further, due to the war. They’ve completely overrun it, and they’re hiding her well.”

It was just about the worst thing he could’ve told me. I had to find Juliana, but I’d gone up against Libertas before and escaped only with Thomas’s help. I had no idea what his loyalties were now, and even if he still cared about me, he might not have a choice. What if I couldn’t count on him this time? What if I had to do it alone?

You have me,
the girl said.
We can find her together.

Who are you?
I demanded. It made me feel crazy, yelling at someone else
in my own head,
thinking that she could hear me, but I knew she could. The green light intensified, and for some reason, I knew that meant she was pleased. That was the strangest thing about the tether: there was an internal logic to the way it worked, and I understood instinctively, which was comforting in a way, but frightening, too.

Come and find me,
she said.
And I’ll tell you.

“Sasha,” Thomas said. I met his eyes, hoping to see a spark of feeling, but there was still nothing. The way he was acting, he could have been any KES agent and I could’ve been any prisoner. I noticed he was wearing the KES ring he’d left behind when he followed me into Farnham; it caught the light as he took a step toward me. “We need you to talk to her. Find out why she’s here and how she passed through the tandem.”

I turned to the General. I couldn’t stand to look at Thomas anymore; the longer things went on like this, the harder it was going to be to convince myself he was only playing a part. “And then what will you do with me? You’re not going to make me pretend to be Juliana again, are you?”

“No, Miss Lawson. I won’t be making the same mistake twice. What I do with you depends entirely on how successful you are at getting your analog to talk,” the General said. I highly doubted that letting me go was on the table. The General didn’t give second chances.

I have a plan,
my analog said.
Neither of us will be here for long, but you have to trust me, Sasha. You have to help me.

“She asked for Juliana. What makes you think she’ll talk to me?”

“You’re her analog just as much as Juliana is, and as far as I’m concerned, one of you is just as good as another.”

“All right,” I said. The anticipation of seeing this new analog made my chest feel uncomfortably tight, but the green light throbbed like a heartbeat and a strange sensation, something like calm, flooded my body. “Take me to her.”

Guards escorted me down wide, curving hallways, but Thomas did not come along. He had been the General’s most trusted agent once, as well as his favorite son. I couldn’t imagine the General forgiving Thomas’s betrayal and welcoming him back into his confidence without punishment, but that seemed to be what had happened. And it was hard for me to imagine Thomas
wanting
to come back to the KES and serve his father again. I wished I could talk to him, but he was so far out of my reach, and I was starting to worry I wouldn’t get the chance.

Still, there was a glimmer of hope. The General had insisted I wear an anchor in case my analog tried to make physical contact with me—he didn’t want me going through the tandem accidentally. It was only a slim piece of silver, but it felt as if it weighed a hundred pounds. As Thomas had fastened the anchor around my wrist, his fingers had brushed my wrist¸ sending a shock spiraling through me; it hadn’t occurred to me to prepare myself to be touched by him, and I was caught off guard. I glanced at him tentatively, and he swallowed hard as he met my eyes, his expression softening for a brief, charged moment. He hadn’t forgotten me. I was
sure of that now. It made everything seem possible again, including the mind-bending reality I was about to face.

With every step I took, my analog’s presence on the tether grew stronger. I could feel myself getting closer, just as I had when Juliana approached the Farnham prison cell. It was a sort of knowing that was both physical and transcendent—a buzz in my bones, a tidal shift that sent surges of adrenaline crashing through my veins. I didn’t want to think about what the General would do if he discovered I had a direct connection to my analogs, but sometimes it felt so hard to contain, like the truth of it could be read in my eyes.

When we reached her, I knew it. I felt it down to an atomic level.

The guards unlocked the door. I entered alone, and it closed behind me. My palms were slick with sweat, and there was a lump in my throat I couldn’t get rid of. She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me. Her hair—my hair—our hair—cascaded over her shoulders in a straight chestnut waterfall. The air fizzed with electricity, and I felt I was going to be sick.

Then she stood and turned. I drew a sharp breath at the sight of her face—my face—our face. You never do get used to seeing your analog. It’s always a surprise, always difficult, always painful, and yet so, so right, like two pieces of a puzzle fitting together. I missed Juliana suddenly, as if she were a part of my body that had been cut away. My analog smiled.

“You found me,” she said.

“
You
found
me,
” I replied. It wasn’t a coincidence, but maybe it wasn’t fate, either.
She
was the one who had made it happen. I felt the urge to run away, the familiar repulsion that always sprang up in the presence of my analog, like the
universe was warning me just how dangerous it was for us to get close. “How did you know I’d come here?”

“I saw you planning it all, through the bond,” she said, tapping her temple.

“So you know who I am.” Maybe I should’ve been surprised, but I wasn’t, not after everything I’d seen through the tether. I hated the thought of this girl rooting around inside my head, but it was a relief not to have to explain.

“Of course I do, Sasha,” she said. “I’ve been with you for weeks, showing you my memories. Don’t you remember?”

“I remember some things.” A long room with ten people sitting at a triangular table. A boy’s face, the white dress she was wearing, and digging my fingers into the dirt as I climbed up a muddy riverbank. But there was so much I’d already forgotten. “Sometimes they slip away.”

“I think that will change.” She stepped forward. I backed away instinctively. I was too wary of her to let her get near me. “My name is Selene. The more time we spend together and the closer we are to each other, the more control we’ll have over the bond. Haven’t you noticed how much stronger it’s already become?”

The only thing more bizarre than coming face to face with my analog was hearing my own voice come out of her mouth. It was like standing in front of a mirror and seeing my reflection move on its own—the stuff of nightmares. But at the same time, strange as it sounds, it was like meeting a twin sister I never knew I had: comforting, like coming home after a long time away.

“How can you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Send me your memories. And talk to me in my head. Can you read my mind?” That would be a whole new level of
weird, exactly the sort of thing I needed to break the tether to avoid. I didn’t
want
to control it—I wanted to
destroy
it. If she’d been spying on me all these weeks, she had to know that.

“Not exactly.”

“That’s not a no.”

“I can sense some of your feelings and intentions,” Selene explained. “I’m sure you can sense mine, or you’ll be able to very soon. Sometimes I can tell what you’re thinking, but only when you’re projecting. As for the memories … since I was young, I’ve been cultivating an ability that, among other things, gives me greater control over the bond than I would otherwise have. We call it listening, but it has very little to do with what you can hear with your ears.”

“ ‘We’?”

“The others in my world. Those of us who are left. I’m so glad we found each other, Sasha. We have important work to do together.”

“What work?” I demanded. I had my own work to do, and it occurred to me for the first time that I didn’t just have to
find
my analogs—I had to convince them to do what needed to be done, and I wasn’t even sure what that was yet.

“We have to locate Juliana,” Selene said. “That’s why you came here, isn’t it? But first, we have to get out of this place. We can’t do anything locked up here.”

I bit my lip. I’d been thinking the same thing, but I couldn’t just follow her blindly—I didn’t even
know
her. It made me nervous, the way she kept saying “we,” as if we hadn’t just met, and that she already had a plan. And I still had no idea why she was in Aurora in the first place. “How are we going to do that? It’s not like the General’s going to let us walk out the front door.”

“Of course not. I have something else in mind. I couldn’t do it without you, but now that you’re here …” She grabbed
my hand and I jumped, but she didn’t disappear. I glanced down at my wrist, expecting the anchor to have vanished, but it was still there, too, glinting in the light. On her wrist, I saw a silver tattoo of two overlapping circles.

“We’re not supposed to touch,” I said in bewilderment.

“You and Juliana can’t touch,” she said, holding on tighter. “And neither can Juliana and I. But you and I are not from Aurora. We cancel each other out here. In my world, we’ll have to be much more careful.”

“Your world?” I was intensely curious about where Selene had come from, but I had no plans to leave Aurora. I’d just arrived. My mind turned back to Thomas. I wasn’t going anywhere until I knew where we stood with each other. I didn’t think my heart could take any more wondering.

You asked why I was here.
Selene’s voice ricocheted through my head. I tensed up. It was hard to get used to hearing thoughts that weren’t mine.
My world—my planet
—
is dying, and I need your help to save it. Yours
and
Juliana’s. To do that, you both have to come with me to Taiga. Not forever. Just for a little while.

She gripped my hand so hard it felt as if my bones were being crushed.
I would tell you more, but it would take too much time, and we’re out of that now. The guards are coming to get you.

“How do you know that?”

She smiled. “Listening.”

The door slid open. “Time’s up,” one of the guards said.

I have to tell them something,
I thought to Selene in a panic.

My name. You can tell them my name, the name of my world, and that I mean them no harm.

The General won’t believe that.

It doesn’t matter what he believes. We’re leaving this place tonight, and then he won’t have any power over us.

A guard grabbed my arm, and Selene reluctantly let go.