Ten Thousand Skies Above You

After only a couple of minutes, I hear the door slam, and heavy boots tromping toward our kitchen. Dad breathes out a sigh of relief.

Josie strides in, wearing her coverall, a grin on her face. “Hey, looks like we still have a house.”

“Fortunately,” my dad says. “That’s handy, isn’t it? Otherwise I have no idea where I’d keep my shoes.”

They’re both pretending all our lives weren’t in danger during the raid; they have to. If they didn’t pretend, the fear would be too much to live with. I haven’t been here long enough to match their bravado, but I muster a smile for my sister.

Dad gets out a frying pan and spatula. “Genuine scrambled eggs coming up. Last ones for a while, too, so enjoy.”

“Can’t we trade for some more ration cards?” Josie makes a face. “Reconstituted eggs are so awful.”

“Don’t be greedy, Josephine. We receive more than most people as it is.” Mom comes into the kitchen, and there is nothing weirder than seeing her in a military blazer, skirt, and necktie.

As my parents hug each other, and the frying pan sizzles, Josie leans close to me and whispers, “Hey, Mom and Dad might be cutting you a break on the young-love-in-wartime thing, but could you and Theo watch the decibel level? I need my sleep.”

Oh, my God, my sister heard me having sex, no, no, no. “Sorry.”

Josie’s already moved on. “You know what we need? Caffeine.”

“Coming right up,” Dad says, placing mugs of something warm, brown, and steaming in front of us. But the smell is all wrong. Whatever he just gave me, it isn’t real coffee. When I take a sip, the stuff’s so bitter I have to force myself to swallow.

“Maybe you should cut down on coffee, Marguerite,” Josie deadpans. “You don’t seem to be sleeping well lately.”

Mom comes to the rescue—deliberately or not, I don’t care. “Was it at least good flying this morning?”

“Better believe it,” Josie says. As she keeps talking, I realize my sister isn’t just in the military. She’s a freaking fighter pilot.

At first that seems impossibly strange, but then it doesn’t. My big sister is the definition of a thrill seeker. Surfing, snowboarding, zip-lining—if you have to sign a liability waiver before you do it, Josie thinks it’s fun. No matter how much this dimension has changed, my sister still found a way to get her adrenaline rush.

“I wish someone would call us about the lab,” Dad mutters as he works with the eggs.

“Phone lines are probably down,” Mom points out. “They’ll send someone. Until then, it’s no use worrying about it.”

She always says that, back home. My dad answers like he always does: “I don’t worry because it’s useful. I worry because I can’t help it.”

Mom pats his shoulder. “Just eat breakfast.”

“Come on, Dad.” I want him to stop talking about the war. I want him to sit down and make bad jokes over our meal, like he always does. It seemed so strange when they all first started pretending we’d never been in any danger, but now I wish they’d go back to it.

They don’t. “We’ve got to move forward,” Dad says as he puts my mom’s eggs on her plate. He’s talking to her, not me. “We could do more theoretical work, but if the Firebird project is ever going to help the war effort—we must build a prototype soon.”

Mom nods. “I know. We’ll have to start tomorrow. We’d be ordered to within the week in any case. I doubt the generals would be willing to wait any longer.”

“You can do it, Sophie,” Dad says. “We’ll make this happen. It’s our last chance.”

That’s when it hits me. Conley sent me here to sabotage my parents’ work on the Firebirds. I can’t get Paul back any other way. I can’t cure Theo.

But if I steal that technology from my family in this dimension—I might be condemning them all to death.

Someone knocks on the door. “That will be someone from the lab,” Mom says.

I get to my feet before she can. “I’ll get it.” Right now I just need to do something. Anything.

Or so I believe, until I open the front door, and Paul is standing there.

8

PAUL SITS IN MY FAMILY’S LIVING ROOM, ON THE MOST uncomfortable chair. He took off his uniform hat when he walked inside, but otherwise he could have stepped right off a recruiting poster. The navy-blue jacket frames his broad shoulders; his trousers are sharply creased. Even his shoes shine. His posture is so rigidly straight I wonder if his back hurts.

I want to run to him, use the reminder and capture this second splinter of Paul’s soul—halfway there! Almost done!—but I can’t. In this dimension, he and my parents know what Firebirds are; they’d understand what I was doing, and that I was from another universe. In other words, I’d be busted.

The warm rapport I’m used to between Mom, Dad, and Paul is absent now. Here, my parents appear to be his superior officers, no more.

“What about our electron microscope?” Mom asks.

“Minor damage,” Paul says. “Or damage that would be minor, if we could get the replacement parts more swiftly.”

Dad puts his head in his hands. “Bloody hell.”

“It’s all right, Henry. We can still run the resonance test. But not here.” It’s weird, seeing my mother act so official, especially with Paul. “Lieutenant, is the San Francisco facility ready?”

Paul nods. “Very nearly, ma’am. I could travel into the city tomorrow to personally supervise the modifications. Within five days or so, we’d be ready. A week at most.”

“Then we should review the plans,” Mom says. “Normally we’d do this on base, but I trust you won’t object if we meet here today, Lieutenant Markov.”

Even though this is an entirely different universe, an entirely different Paul, something in my heart still sings when I hear those two words: Lieutenant Markov.

Couldn’t I reclaim this splinter of his soul? If Mom and Dad figured out what I was doing, would that be so terrible?

Yes, it would. My heart sinks, imagining my parents’ reaction. This is a world at war; I am an invader, one wearing their daughter’s skin. If they reported me to the authorities, I could wind up in a military prison. Regardless, once they knew I was a traveler from another dimension, I would have no chance to sabotage their work. If I can’t prove I did that when I go to Triad’s home office, Conley won’t give me the final coordinates, or the cure for Theo.

“Of course not, ma’am. I’ll set up at this table.” Paul reaches for the stuff lying in front of him—my sketchpad, open to the portrait of Theo. He hesitates. “That is—if you wouldn’t mind, Miss Caine.”

Miss Caine?

“No, it’s fine.” I step forward to take my art supplies myself. My hand brushes against his, an accidental touch, but Paul reacts to it. His eyes search mine, hoping for meaning.

The look in his eyes is one I know. One it took me a long time to interpret. But once I understood him, I could never miss that look again.

He loves me. At the very least, he cares about me deeply. And obviously Paul and I have known each other for a long time in this dimension.