Tandem

“Whatever happens,” Grant continued, “this has been the best night of my entire life.”

I laughed. “What could happen?”

“Anything,” he said. My heart pounded away in my chest like a bass drum, and my hands were shaking. I clenched them into fists to keep Grant from noticing.

He took a deep breath. The air changed, as if there had been a shift in the Earth’s rotation. “I have a gift for you.” He dug around in the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a flat black box the size of his palm. “Open it.”

Inside the box was a thin silver bracelet on a bed of black velvet. It was the simplest thing I’d ever seen, and because of that, one of the most lovely. Not a single engraving or gem or artistic flourish, just a plain, elegant silver band. I picked it up and tried to slide it over my hand, but it wouldn’t fit. It was too small. A flush crawled up my neck and into my face. My hand was too fat for Grant’s gift.

“No, not like that.” He reached over to take the bracelet; I didn’t quite see how he did it, but he managed to open an imperceptible hinge. He placed the bracelet around my left wrist before closing it with a firm snap. It was snug, but not tight, as if it had been sized just for me.

The sleeve of Grant’s jacket rode up and I caught another glint of silver. I grabbed his arm.

“You have one just like it?” It was a question, but not. He was wearing a bracelet identical to the one he’d just given me on his own wrist. My brain struggled to process this information, to make some sense out of it. Grant really wasn’t the type to wear jewelry. At least I didn’t think he was, but it wasn’t like I knew all there was to know about him. Still, it struck me as odd.

Grant didn’t explain. Instead, he cupped my face in one hand and adjusted the scarf around my neck, pulling me in by my waist and holding me close. I shut my eyes and let myself drift in his arms, forgetting about the bracelets. He leaned in, his lips brushing my ear. I thought I heard him whisper I’m sorry, but the words were washed away by the hush of the waves on the sand, if he even said them at all.

 

THOMAS IN THE TATTERED CITY

Thomas watched the rise and fall of Sasha’s chest as she slept. High above, the aurora performed its nightly dance across the indigo sky, casting a soft green glow upon her skin. After everything he’d seen, he still couldn’t believe how much she looked like Juliana. The resemblance was breathtaking in its perfection, and unsettling, too; he would have called it impossible if he didn’t know the truth. Thomas slid his KES ring back on; it was a relief to wear it again after two weeks of having to carry it around in his pocket. His hand throbbed with pain, and a strange sort of restlessness stirred within him; it was the same way he’d felt on the night he came face to face with Grant Davis. The universes didn’t like to be messed with, and try as he might, he couldn’t shake off the sense that he had made a catastrophic error in bringing her here.

But it was already done.

The waters of Lake Michigan—his Lake Michigan—gently lapped the shore ten yards away, and the towering skyscrapers of the Chicago skyline rose behind him, nearly invisible in the dark. They called it the Tattered City; Libertas had stripped it to its bones, and the buildings were largely derelict now, places where squatters played house. Electrical power was erratic in the Tattered City these days, and the city officials had started enforcing a mandatory blackout after midnight in an effort to conserve energy. He couldn’t have planned their arrival in Aurora any better; the streets would be dark and empty, and he would slip through them easily with his otherworldly cargo. Operation Starling was proceeding exactly as planned.

Something beeped in his pocket; his mobie had caught a signal. He pulled it out to send a message to Agent Fillmore, who was waiting in the wings for his summons. The mobie was about the size and shape of a playing card; this one was government-issue, made of a near-indestructible titanium alloy and only an inch or so thick, not counting the retractable cover. He pressed a button and the cover slid away, revealing the screen, which demanded a thumbprint and a numerical code to be entered before it would show him what he wanted: the time. Nearly one in the morning now. Right on schedule.

We’re about to miss curfew. The thought caught him off guard. No point worrying about that. And yet, he couldn’t stop imagining Sasha’s grandfather waiting up for her, wondering where she was. He tried not to feel guilty about it; after all, he was just doing his job. It’s for the greater good, he told himself. Remember that.

Fillmore arrived in minutes. They’d chosen this spot because it was deserted at nighttime in both worlds. That was the trouble with going through the tandem, at least the way they did it—you always landed in the exact same geographical location in the destination universe as you were in the universe you’d just left. It would’ve been much easier to take Sasha from the Chicago of her world straight to the heart of Columbia City, where they were ultimately headed, but unfortunately it just didn’t work that way.

“How was the dance?” Fillmore asked sarcastically as he bent over Sasha’s body. He was a short, squat man with the face of a troll and the smile of a Cheshire cat. How he’d come to work for the King’s Elite Service, Thomas didn’t know. There had to be a reason the General kept him around, and it must’ve been a good one in order for the General to have assigned him to Operation Starling, but Thomas couldn’t imagine what it was.

“Don’t touch her,” Thomas said, grabbing Fillmore by his jacket collar and yanking him back. “I’ve got it.” A wave of protectiveness surged through him; Sasha was his assignment, his responsibility—Fillmore had no business getting anywhere near her.

“Did she let you kiss her?” Fillmore teased, unfazed by Thomas’s poisonous glare. Fillmore was a creep, and insubordinate to boot. Thomas was light-years above him in the KES chain of command, and yet Fillmore pressed his luck at every opportunity. This happened from time to time, older agents thinking they could jerk him around in spite of his rank and connections, but he tried not to let it get to him. He knew where he stood.

“I said don’t touch her!” Thomas snapped as Fillmore bent toward Sasha once more. “You were supposed to bring the moto around. Is it close?”

Fillmore pointed. “Just up there, over the hill. What’s wrong with your hand?”

Thomas realized he was cradling the bruised appendage. He shrugged. “Nothing, it’s fine. Go start the moto. I’ll bring her.”

Fillmore, apparently sensing, finally, that Thomas was in no mood for games, nodded and, for once in his life, followed orders. He scrambled up over the grassy knoll and was gone.

Thomas lifted Sasha up into his arms, taking care to avoid putting any pressure on his left hand. Other than loss of consciousness, she seemed to have suffered no ill effects from going through the tandem. Her vitals were normal, and she’d sustained no visible injuries. Everything was as expected, which was a relief. He was used to taking chances with his own life, but risking someone else’s was another matter altogether. Besides, if something happened to Sasha, it would likely mean the end of his career.

When they got her back to the safe house he would give her a sedative in the hopes that she would sleep through the majority of the tandem sickness. A first crossing could be uncomfortable, to say the least. It got a little easier every time, so it wouldn’t be quite as bad when she returned home; he had done over a dozen trips through the tandem and now it didn’t even affect him. Still, she would be better off if she got some rest.

This did pose a problem, though. It would be much easier to transport Sasha to Columbia City in the middle of the night, but he couldn’t move her now. Thomas hated the Tattered City, and spending time in Sasha’s Chicago had only made him hate it more. The Tattered City was a shadow of its Earth counterpart, with less open sky and green space, more deserted high-rises and garbage. Once it had been a major metropolis, a cultural mecca and an important financial center, but that had been eroded away by the revolutionary assault of Libertas. They’d all but seized the city; you couldn’t go anywhere without having to dodge Libertas “security,” commandos dressed in black who carried unlicensed military rifles and prowled the streets like panthers. The local police were useless, because Libertas controlled them from within, and KES agents like Thomas weren’t exactly welcome, although the