The Twin Powers (18 page)

“Well, if it goes both ways, then he knows what's in your mind.”

I understood what she was getting at, and I was glad. Maybe I'm more sensitive than people give me credit for. “You're worried about whether he knows you're a girl.”

“I'd like to tell him myself.”

“I'll try not to think about it. Let's go north.”

“One more thing,” she said. “I guess you didn't take Spanish in school.”

“French. Why?”

“
Culebra de Cascabel
means ‘rattlesnake.'”

“You think I'm afraid of snakes?”

We hoisted the backpacks and walked north until it got dark. I'd read about how night falls on the desert like a lid slamming down on a pot, but I'd always thought it was just a writer being fancy. And then
bang!
One minute there was light in the sky; the next minute it was totally black. I dug out a flashlight, mostly to scare away snakes.

Ronnie and I didn't talk. We were both too tired. We were stumbling along, almost too tired to stop, if that makes any sense. We almost walked into a mountain. Or maybe it was just a little hill. Suddenly, there was a wall of rock and dirt in front of us.

“Here,” I said. It was all I could say.

We spread two blankets on the ground and wrapped them around us. It was cold. We were too tired to make a fire. We drank water. Ronnie took out one of the ready-to-eat packages. “It's meatloaf,” she said.

“Anything else?”

“An energy bar.” She broke it in half and handed me a piece.

We ate the bar and fell asleep shivering.

 

In my dream, I wasn't cold.

There was a fire, bright and hot, and when I sat up, I saw shapes around the fire. They looked like the Council members we had seen on the grandstand in Riverboat.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

“To stop the atomic explosion. Tomorrow, May 12, 1958, there will be an atomic explosion that will convince the U.S. government to continue testing nuclear bombs. It must be stopped.”

“Why can't you stop it?”

“The Primary People will never intervene in the affairs of an Earth.”

“I'm a Primary Person.”

“You're a halfie. You can do anything you want.”

 

I woke up. It was morning. Ronnie was already up, staring at the last burning embers of a fire.

“Did you start this?” she asked.

“No, but I had the weirdest dream,” I said.

“What's that?” she asked, pointing.

Neatly folded on the ground were two long white shirts.

“It wasn't a dream,” I said softly. “The Council came down to tell me I had to stop the atomic explosion today.”

“How?”

“I don't know.”

Ronnie grinned at me. “You'll figure it out, Tom. You always do.”

We scattered the embers of the fire, rolled our blankets, and put on the long white shirts. I could feel the heat reflecting off the desert as the sun rose.

The hill we had camped against turned out to be one in a line of hills that rose into a mountain. We headed north through a canyon and into another part of the desert that looked like a huge lake of sand.

There were giant signs on poles dug into the sand.

 

NO ADMITTANCE

CULEBRA DE CASCABEL

ATOMIC TESTING GROUNDS

EDDIE

WASHINGTON, D.C.

2012

 

T
HE
covered wagon was parked near the Washington Monument, and Grandpa was sitting on the front seat. He winked and nodded at the seat next to him.

Get on. Be cool.

I swallowed down all the questions I had for him.
What happened? Where'd he been? Where'd I been?

I had a headache. I remembered jumping on the back of Hercules's bike, but that seemed like days ago. I remembered Dad and Riverboat and speaking to the Council and the trip to Homeplace and how much my head had hurt from trying to remember those names and numbers in New Mexico for Tom.

New Mexico. Tom and Ronnie were there. On EarthTwo in 1958. How did I know that?

I climbed up onto the front seat. One of the Browns started the SUV and the wagon began to move. A Brown was walking along on each side of the wagon. They talked into their sleeves. “We are moving.”

I felt peculiar, as if I was there and not there.

Grandpa nudged me.
You're here and you're not here. Get used to it.

Erin hurried up alongside the wagon. “We were so worried about you, Tom. What was going through your mind?”

“About what?”

“Jumping on that motorcycle,” she said. “Thank goodness you had that helmet on.”

“Who was that biker guy?” asked a Brown.

“What biker guy?” I said. He must mean Hercules.

“He doesn't remember anything,” said Erin. “It's common after a coma.”

“A coma?” I said.

“You were in a coma for twenty-four hours,” said Erin. “In the hospital for three days.”

I floated a thought to Grandpa.
What's up?

Primary People can be two places at the same time, Eddie, remember?

Homeplace and the hospital?

Right.

Like when you were in the nursing home on EarthOne with Tommy and living with me on EarthTwo?

That's it, Eddie.

How can that be?

One is really you and one is your projection, your hologram.

How can I tell the difference, Grandpa?

Takes concentration and practice, Eddie.

What am I now?

Figure it out.

I pinched myself. It hurt. I was me.

“So who was the biker?” the same Brown asked again.

I shrugged at him but slipped a thought into his mind.
That was Injun Joe. I was following him. He murdered Dr. Robinson.

“What?” The Brown turned to the other Brown, who gave him a funny look.

Now, this is super groovy,
I thought.
I can keep them off balance.
I wondered if I could mess with the minds of linebackers blitzing me.
C'mon, Eddie, no football right now.

“We were so scared when you fell off,” said Erin.

“I fell off?”

“We told the media you were exhausted,” said Erin.

I nudged Grandpa.
Am I somewhere else now, too?

Your hologram is heading to Culebra de Cascabel.

I'm going too.

The Browns were muttering about the murder of a doctor named Robinson all the way back to the White House.
Let's hear it for Mark Twain!

BRITZKY

CULEBRA DE CASCABEL, N.M.

1958

 

T
HE
slip from Homeplace to EarthTwo was a lousy ride, two hours that felt like two days of chills and nausea before we were dumped out onto the desert. The flu symptoms disappeared the moment we landed, but then the heat dropped over us like plastic bags.

Alessa and I were standing on a hill overlooking a canyon that cut through a mountain and ended in an ocean of sand. There were huge signs in the desert.

 

NO ADMITTANCE

CULEBRA DE CASCABEL

ATOMIC TESTING GROUNDS

 

“We better get out of here,” said Alessa.

“Too late.”

I pointed down. A caravan of army trucks and jeeps, even a tank, rumbled over the sandy road through the canyon, sending up clouds of dust. Soldiers with guns walked alongside.

A helicopter was clattering up ahead. It made so much noise and churned up so much sand that we didn't see Eddie suddenly appear next to us. Buddy was at his feet.

“Wassup, dudes?”

“Eddie,” screamed Alessa, throwing her arms around him. All she got was air.

“Hologram,” I said. “Where's the real Eddie?”

“He'll be here,” said Eddie. “Look!”

Below us, the army caravan had come out of the canyon onto the desert floor and stopped.

Ronnie and Tom were blocking the way.

“What are they doing?” asked Alessa.

“Trying to stop the testing,” said Eddie.

“They can't,” said Alessa. “It already happened.”

“Not on this planet,” I said.

“Even if they stop it for today,” she said, “what about the future?”

“Who knows? You ever hear of the butterfly effect?” I said.

“Some little thing causes bigger things to happen and changes history,” said Eddie. “Like if they don't test today, maybe they'll have a meeting and decide atomic bombs are a bad thing.”

“How'd you know that?” I said.

“You think you're the only person who knows anything?” said Alessa.

I didn't want to say it out loud, but I thought,
Well, most of the time . . .

“Hey,” shouted Alessa.

Eddie and Buddy were racing down the mountain toward the caravan.

We ran after them.

TOM

CULEBRA DE CASCABEL, N.M.

1958

 

A
GUY
with a gold braid on his Smokey Bear hat got out of a jeep and started walking toward us.

“I'm Colonel Kirby Yorke of the United States Army,” he yelled. “You kids can't be here.”

A voice that sounded like Dr. Traum said to me
,
Speak for the Primary People, Thomas.

I was scared. I wished I had my Extreme-Temperature Narrow-Beam Climate Simulators. All I had was my mind.

You can do it, Tommy.
That was Dad.

“Move out, kids.” The colonel swung his arm. Everything—his men and the tank and the jeeps and trucks—arranged themselves in a row facing us.

Ronnie nudged me. “There's Eddie! And Buddy.”

They were skidding down the mountain as if they were sand surfing. I was so happy to see my brother. I was even happy to see that dog. But I had to work fast.

I imagined a powerful voice. It came out of my mouth like a bullhorn. “That's far enough, Colonel. There will be no atomic testing today.”

“Who are you?” he yelled.

The row of army vehicles started coming toward us. A helicopter circled above us.

I imagined the helicopter descending, then tilting so that its whirling blades churned the air a few feet off the desert floor. Giant plumes of sand rose like geysers in front of me and Ronnie.

“Groovy,” said Eddie, appearing beside me. “Dig this.”

The sand geysers began to sway like hula dancers.

“Cool,” I said. I was trying to imagine what I could do to top the hula dancers when I saw Alessa and Britzky running toward us. “Ronnie! Get them out of the way, behind the rocks. You too.”

She hesitated until Eddie said, “Yeah, we've got a plan.”

What plan, Eddie?

I figured you had one.

We waited until Ronnie, Alessa, and Britzky were out of sight before we let the sandstorm subside.

Now it was just the two of us facing the colonel and his advancing army. And I could tell it was only Eddie's hologram.

“That's far enough, Colonel,” I roared.

The line kept moving closer. We could see the faces of the soldiers.

“Yo, Smokey,” Eddie roared. “You heard my homey.”

Do you have to talk like that?
said Dr. Traum.
This is about the fate of the world.

We're doing it our way,
Eddie and I said together. We high-fived.
It's twin time.

“I said, who the hell are you?” boomed the colonel.

“We represent the people of the Earths who don't want the Doomsday Clock to hit midnight,” we said.

“You're just two little boys interfering with the federal government of these United States of America.”

Just two little boys?
Eddie and I looked at each other and got the same idea at the same time. Twin-sense!
How about more little boys?

When we finished laughing, there were four of us.

One of the Eddies said,
Can we make more?

My hologram said,
You're not as dumb as you look.

I said,
I think we can make as many holograms as we want.

Let's find out.

My head really hurt, but then there were eight of us. And four Buddys!

“We are from the Primary People,” I boomed, “and we have come to stop the atomic testing. It will only lead to more war and suffering and the destruction of the planet.”

“You are all under arrest.”

All sixteen of us? And eight Buddys?

Count me in,
said the real Eddie, popping up beside me.

We're all real,
said one of my holograms.

Whatever,
said the real Eddie.

There were thirty-two of us and sixteen Buddys.

“Now, you listen to me, you misguided do-gooders,” yelled the colonel. “I don't care what kind of tricks you think you're playing, but you have thirty seconds to clear this area before we take you by force.” He signaled the tank to aim its gun at us.

At all sixty-four of us? And thirty-two Buddys?

“Detail,” roared the colonel. “Forward, ho-oh.”

Sounds like John Wayne.

Does that make us the Indians?

Whatever.

RONNIE

CULEBRA DE CASCABEL, N.M.

1958

 

“W
HAT'S
going on?” said Alessa.

“I don't know,” said Britzky.

That was a first.

I didn't know either.

The row of trucks and jeeps, with the tank in the middle and the soldiers behind, moved over the desert toward Tom, Eddie, and Buddy and their three holograms. The six of them looked so small.