Ten Thousand Skies Above You

Since Theo’s not a perfect traveler, he doesn’t remember what happens during his journeys quite as clearly as I do. So maybe he’s forgotten the passionate embrace. Or he’s pretending to. Either way, I’m grateful. “Nothing much. You came to see me, Mom and Dad pretended you weren’t here this morning, and sent us out here.”

Theo says, “That was Paul with your parents, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you go after him? Rescue that splinter of his soul?”

“Because I have to be in contact with him to do that,” I say, blushing again. “Close contact. It’s not like I can tackle him in the middle of the living room.”

Theo frowns. “What if that’s what it takes?”

“Of course, if I have to, I will. But if I start acting weird before we get into Mom and Dad’s computer systems, they might figure out something is up.” I hook one finger around the two Firebird chains at my neck. “Remember, it’s hard for people from another dimension to see our Firebirds, but they can, particularly if they know to look for them. In this world, they know.”

“Right, right. I’ve got it.” Theo hesitates, then says, “I thought—I figured you couldn’t know him yet, in this universe. Paul.”

“Well, I do know him,” I say as lightly as I can.

My casual attitude doesn’t fool Theo for a minute. “Am I allowed to feel good about this?”

“About what, exactly?”

His eyes are dark, unfathomable. “About the fact that there’s at least one world in the multiverse where you picked me.”

I’m grateful for the darkness around us. Maybe that keeps him from seeing how flustered I am. “I—it’s like you guys always said. In an infinite multiverse, everything that can happen, does happen.”

“So this—you and me—we were in the realm of possibility? Not sure how that makes me feel.” Theo stares up at the sky. Maybe lights are turned down, for fear of more bombers, because I can see every star above. “Probably you never even met Paul before today.”

I ought to agree with him and move on. Instead, I tell the truth. “No, I know him. And he—he cares about me. I can tell.”

“Poor bastard.” When I look at him, Theo shrugs, but he’s no better at faking casual than I am. “Being in love with a girl who doesn’t love you back? It sucks. I’d know.”

There’s nothing I can possibly say in reply.

“I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. So I definitely wouldn’t wish it on Paul.” Theo hesitates, then moves us along to a new subject. “Listen, when I was on base, I tried using the military computers to get at the Firebird data. No luck. Maybe that’s just because I’m not part of the project, but I figure your parents are as security-conscious as ever.”

Mom and Dad aren’t the type to use passwords like ABC123. For a while, my mom’s log-in code at home was the molar heat capacity of magnesium, and that’s just for her email. To get into a classified military project, they’re going to employ every barrier that exists. Still, I thought Theo’s familiarity with them would give us an edge. “You don’t think you can get through at all?”

“If I had unobserved access to a terminal for long enough, probably, but in this universe, those are hard to come by. I can’t exactly hack into a military computer from a military base. I’d be arrested before I even hit Enter.”

What are we going to do? We have to complete Conley’s errand if there’s any chance of saving Paul and Theo. The computer virus can do the work for us, but only if we can access the system the virus is designed to destroy.

The answer comes to me, and I turn to Theo. “We don’t try to get in through my parents. We get in through Paul.”

“How exactly do we do that?”

“He’s going to San Francisco tomorrow to set up the lab for a test of the Firebird components. If we go to San Francisco too, we could sabotage the new lab. Right?”

“Maybe.” Theo still looks doubtful, though. “But why would Paul give us access?”

I take a deep breath. “Because I’ll ask him to.”

For a few moments, neither of us speaks. Then he says, “You’d betray one Paul to save another.”

“If I have to.” But when I hear Theo say it, my plan sounds so much harder. Crueler. “Besides, it gives me a chance to get . . . closer to him. So in the end I can rescue this splinter of Paul’s soul.”

“Makes sense,” Theo says flatly.

“I hate this, okay? I hate every minute of it. Probably Wyatt Conley thinks I don’t give a damn about my family in any other dimension, but this version of Dad is still Dad. This version of Mom is still Mom. Josie, Paul—if I do what Conley wants us to do, I might take away their last chance to win the war. But I have to. Getting close to Paul isn’t the worst thing I’m going to do in this dimension. It’s not even close.”

Together we stare into the distance, at the place where light streams through our window and paints squares on the scrubby grass. Even electricity is rationed here, so the night has become quiet and still. Instead of traffic noise, I hear only the wind through the trees.

Theo speaks first. “I eavesdropped on as much war talk as I could today at the base. Apparently the situation doesn’t look good. We lost Mexico. Which I guess means this country had Mexico at some point, but, whatever. Supply lines from the Midwest have broken down.”

“Is this like, if we lose the war, we have to rebuild? Like the Civil War?” Reconstruction and Jim Crow sucked hard, but even that sounds better than the alternative. “Or is this like, if we lose the war, Adolf Hitler rules the world?

“The way the guys at the barracks talk, it sounds more Hitler-y. Still, it’s wartime. They could be exaggerating. Everybody hates the enemy, right?”

We have to hope.

“Listen, we don’t have the power to permanently end your parents’ research, no matter what Conley says.” Theo takes my hand—for emphasis, probably, or simply for comfort, but I am vividly aware of his touch. “Say we manage to infect their project with the virus, screw up the computer system they have here—which is so tightly knit together, by the way, that taking the whole thing down would be a cinch. How long do you think it would take your parents to rebuild? A year, maybe? A little less?”

“Do they have a year left?”

From inside we hear the sound of Josie cackling, like she does at Dad’s awful jokes. If I do this, I’m betraying my sister, too. Guilt feels like a fist closing around me, squeezing tighter and tighter until I hardly remember how to breathe.

I whisper, “If my Paul were here, I . . . I think he’d tell me to leave him and save them.”

“If he were here, you’d tell him to shut up while you saved his ass.”

Despite everything, I laugh. “Probably.”

“Listen. This ‘cure’ for Nightthief exposure Conley’s talking about—even he admitted it might not work,” Theo says. “If you’re forcing yourself through this for me, don’t bother. But it’s not just about me. We have to get Paul back. That means we do whatever we have to do. Right?”