The windows of Busara’s car are all down and I’m shivering uncontrollably. But the chill is preferable to the smell wafting off me. I really should have used the Depends.
“That’s it,” Busara says, pointing through the windshield at a house on the side of a hill. It’s three stories high, and the front, which looks out over the forest, is almost entirely glass. I’ve been fascinated by the structure ever since I moved to New Jersey. As a kid, it always reminded me of a giant dollhouse. I could never understand why the owners would choose to put their lives on display.
“We’re going up there?” I ask. The driveway that leads to the house is completely exposed, and there are no other homes on the hill. “Everyone in town will be able to see us. Have you forgotten that I’m kind of on the run these days? Are you sure this is something we need to do?”
“Yeah, I’m—” Busara is cut off by a blaring emergency alert from her phone. It sounds like the end of the world. As the car swerves, I grab her phone and turn down the volume. There’s a message flashing on the screen.
“ ‘I’ve been expecting you. Don’t drive up to the house. Pull over as soon as you can. I will guide you from there,’ ” I read out loud. Then I look up in surprise. “What the hell is going on?”
“It’s from Marlow,” Busara says. “He must have geo-fenced the property line.”
“We’re going to see Marlow? Why?”
“Because I think I may have been wrong about him,” Busara tells me.
Busara pulls onto the shoulder of the road. Just as she shifts the car into park and turns off the engine, a small black drone appears at the driver’s-side window. It hovers there until we’ve gotten out of the car. Then it heads off through the woods. Busara goes after it without hesitation.
“You’re just going to follow a random drone into the forest?” I call out to her.
“You got any better ideas?” she shouts back.
I catch up with her and together we hike through the forest. The little black drone stays a few feet ahead of us at all times. As the slope of the hill gets steeper, I keep glancing over at Busara. Tiny beads of sweat are forming along her hairline. She does not look well.
“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Busara says in a voice that sounds determined—but not terribly convincing. She follows up with a weak smile. I think this may be her way of saying she’s sorry for not taking any risks in Otherworld.
“We can go back,” I assure her. I don’t know how much farther she can go. I have a hunch I’m going to end up carrying her out of here.
“We’re almost there,” she pants. “Look.”
I glance up and realize I can see part of the house through the trees. There’s an unobstructed view into the gym on the building’s ground floor, where Marlow is lifting weights in his underwear.
“He knew you were coming,” I say with a snicker. “Why isn’t he dressed? Is there something you want to tell me?”
“Yeah. There is. I don’t think that’s Marlow,” says Busara.
She must be feeling a little loopy. Because unless Marlow’s been cloned, that is definitely my little buddy working out inside the house.
“Now who’s the spy?” someone says behind us, and I nearly leap out of my skin.
“Marlow?” My eyes flick back and forth between the guy working out inside and the one standing here in the woods. This kid is dressed in mud-covered jeans and he looks like he’s been out here for a while.
“The one and only,” says Marlow, his voice quavering slightly.
“Oh my God,” Busara suddenly gasps. She’s ignoring the Marlow in front of us and watching indoor Marlow lift weights. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yep,” he replies. “They don’t know we have one. I turn it on when I need to escape. I’m pretty sure I’m under heavy surveillance.”
“It’s amazing,” Busara marvels. I still have no idea what it is—or how these two ended up sharing secrets.
“What in the hell are you both talking about?” I ask. “And if you’re the real Marlow, who’s the guy inside?”
“It’s not a guy, it’s a hologram,” Busara tells me.
“That’s not a hologram,” I argue. “And even if it is, how would you know?”
“It’s a Company product—the first three-D hologram projector that produces an opaque, lifelike image. Marlow’s mom invented it,” Busara says. “She and my dad used to work together in California. At the Company’s West Coast innovations lab.”
I’m pretty sure this is information I should have been given a long-ass time ago. I’m seriously annoyed. “What? So you guys knew each other in California? You’re friends?”
“Not exactly,” Marlow said. “I don’t think I’d spoken to Busara in years before she accused me of moving to Brockenhurst to spy on her.”
“Can you blame me?” Busara jumps in. “Was I supposed to think it was just a random coincidence that another Company kid shows up at my school on the other side of the country and starts pretending to be some kind of Goth stoner? I knew there was something weird about the whole thing. And I was right, wasn’t I? Why are you in Brockenhurst, Marlow?”
“Punishment,” he says.
The word stuns me for a moment. “Punishment? For what?” I ask.
Marlow looks over his shoulder at the house, where his hologram double is now doing a series of lunges and squats. “My mom built the projector to help people,” he said. “There are a lot of schools in poor countries that can’t afford to hire teachers. My mom thought the projector could be a solution to the problem. But when the guys who run the Company saw the projector, they had other plans. Turns out the device has some serious military applications. You throw a few into a battle zone and have them project three-D images of soldiers. Your enemy won’t know who’s real and who’s not.”
“But Milo doesn’t work with the military,” Busara argues. “It’s one of his rules.”
“I get the feeling Milo doesn’t care much about his rules anymore,” Marlow replies. “When my mother tried to tell him what was going on, she couldn’t even get a meeting to see him. So she decided to leak news of the military deal to the press. The Company found out before any harm was done. My mom could have gone to jail for the leak, so I took the blame. Pretended it was me trying to make a quick buck by selling the intel. A few days later, we find out my mom is being transferred to beautiful Brockenhurst, New Jersey, so she’ll be closer to the Company headquarters.”
“That was your punishment?” I ask.
“Yeah, we thought we were getting off easy. Then when we get here, they tell me I have to hang out with a certain group of kids at school.”
“Who told you? Do you remember their names?” Busara asks.
“Their names?” Marlow asks. “You think these guys and I sat down and discussed this shit over Frappuccinos? Someone called me on the phone and told me what to do. As far as I know, it was God himself.”
“What exactly did he tell you to do?” I ask.
“He told me to get to know Jackson, Brian, West and Kat.”
“He mentioned those names specifically?” I demand.
“Yep,” says Marlow.
“Why was the Company interested in them?” Busara asks.
“No clue,” Marlow replies. “I just did what they told me to do. Jackson, Brian and West weren’t the kind of people I’d usually spend time with, but they were a lot better than the kind of guys I would have met in prison.”
“And then?” I ask. “What were you supposed to do once you got to know Kat and her friends?”
“Nothing,” says Marlow. “I mean, there were always weird men watching us, but—”
“Weird men?” I ask.
“Yeah. They’d be in the parking lot before school or outside our houses at night. But I never talked to any of them. And I didn’t hear from the guy on the phone until the day before the party. He called and told me to suggest a party at the factory, so I did. I had no idea—”
“That’s it?” I blurt out. “They didn’t ask you to do anything else?”
“No, I swear! I thought they were just going to spy on us. It wasn’t till I saw the projector fall through the ceiling and hit the floor that I knew some serious shit was about to go down. So I stayed with my back against the wall. I tried to keep Kat from going near it, but she jumped up and ran toward it like—”
“Like she knew what would happen and wanted to save everyone.” I finish the thought for him. I know exactly what Kat would have done. Her reaction tells me two things: Kat knew they were in danger. And she knew the Company had been watching her.
“Yeah,” says Marlow. “I thought they might have rigged the projector with some kind of explosive, but the floor collapsed instead. If I hadn’t grabbed on to a pipe when I heard the first rumble, I probably would have died too.”
“So you were the one who dialed 911?” I ask.
Marlow holds up his hands. The abrasions on his palms are still red and raw. “I couldn’t have wiped my own ass after the incident. How was I supposed to dial anyone? Whoever threw the projector must have called the ambulances.”
“But why?” I ask. “Why arrange something like that—and then make sure there were ambulances on the scene?”
“Maybe they didn’t want everyone to die,” Busara says. “Maybe they had plans for the survivors.”
Of course they did. At the facility.
“You have to come with us to the police,” I say to Marlow. “You have to tell them everything you just told us right now.”
“I can’t. I doubt I’d make it as far as the station.”
“What do you mean?” Busara asks.
“No one warned me about what was going to happen at the factory that night. They wanted me to die or end up in a coma along with the rest of them,” he says. “But I didn’t. And now I know too much. My mom, too.”
“You really think—” I start to say.
“Yeah. That’s why I left a present for you in your locker. When I’m gone, you should use it.”
I look over at Busara. She shrugs. She doesn’t know what he’s talking about either.
“What present?” I ask.
“I found the projector after the collapse. It’s just a hunk of metal at this point, but it can tie the Company to what happened to Kat and her friends. I couldn’t keep it here, so I took it to the hospital to give it to you. When you got hauled out by security, I put it in your locker at school.”
“That’s what you were talking about at the country club? When you asked if I’d ‘gotten it’?”
“Yeah,” says Marlow. “Kat always said you were a genius. I thought you might be the one who could figure out what to do with it.”