
The Alternate

Universe

Praise for

Khronos Chronicles

Rob Wolf gives us an alternate universe where a lot is different but some things remain the same: guys still get crushes and fall in love, stepfathers are horrific, and friends are willing to go to the end of time for one another. Fast-paced and incredibly smart, you will never look at life in quite the same way again.

­­—JENNIFER BELLE

bestselling author of GOING DOWN,

HIGH MAINTENANCE, and LITTLE STALKER

If I ever travel to an alternate universe, I want Claude and Carolien along for the ride. They're tough, resourceful, and fun—perfect companions for a journey through space-time.

—CAROLYN TURGEON

author of MERMAID, GODMOTHER,

and THE FAIREST OF THEM ALL

Reminiscent of Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey in its bold concepts.

—ARTHUR NERSESIAN

author of GLAYDYSS OF THE HUNT, DOGRUN, and CHINESE TAKEOUT

Rob Wolf charms us with a story of teenagers in a familiar, yet off-kilter, world. In this cosmos of robot helpers, green-toned skin and unpulled punches, nerdiness is taboo, but desires that might seem taboo are not. Wolf brings us into the lives of his characters with genuine empathy and attention to the details that preoccupy teens in any universe.

—THADDEUS RUTKOWSKI

author of HAYWIRE

Even more original and gripping than the clever gadgets and details of the world in which these characters live is the frontier of the human heart Rob Wolf dares to explore here. Without comment or heavy lifting, Wolf presents real, vulnerable young characters who need no excuse to simply be who they are in this compelling alternative universe. Go there.

—ALLEN SALKIN

New York Times contributor and author of

FROM SCRATCH: INSIDE THE FOOD NETWORK

The Alternate Universe

Part 1 of

Khronos Chronicles

Copyright © 2014 by Rob Wolf

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any

electronic or mechanical means including photocopying,

recording, or information storage and retrieval

without permission in writing from the author.

www.robwolf.net

Cover Design by: Roy Migabon

Cover and Khronos design © 2014 Rob Wolf

The Alternate

Universe

Khronos Chronicles

Part 1

Contact Rob Wolf at:

www.robwolf.net

Follow Rob Wolf on Twitter:

@RobWolfBooks

For Dru

Contents

Chapter One

Stormy Weather

Chapter Two

An Unexpected Gift

Chapter Three

Best Friends

Chapter Four

The Contest

Chapter Five

At the Bandshell

Chapter Six

The Escape of Molly and Moore

Chapter Seven

The Experiment

Chapter Eight

A Fantastical Conversation

Chapter Nine

Claude Finds a Note

Chapter Ten

An Unwelcome Request

Chapter Eleven

A Draft of Cold Air

Chapter Twelve

Breaking the Code

Chapter Thirteen

What Maya Knows

Chapter Fourteen

Searching for a Safe

Chapter Fifteen

'I Need Help'

Chapter Sixteen

Secrets of the Mansion

Chapter Seventeen

Fast Loops of Ore's Rotation

Preview of Part 2

The Escape

If we could travel into the past... history

would become an experimental science.

Carl Sagan

Chapter One

Stormy Weather

Claude stood on the roof, arms outstretched, waiting for the wind as the crowd held its breath. Everyone he knew was there: teachers, friends, his parents. There were reporters, too, cameras rolling.

When the wind came, it passed over the edge of the crowd, rippling hair and shirts. As it reached Claude, the metallic wings fastened to his arms expanded and lifted him off the ground. The crowd was silent at first but then applauded and cheered, and their adulation seemed to lift him higher, higher.

As he rose, the people grew smaller and the world unfurled below. Looking one way, he could see the supermarket and the mall. Looking the other way, he saw the village green and beyond that the university and even further beyond that the ribbon of highway that snaked toward Chicago.

Manipulating the wings as if he'd been a bird his whole life, he turned in the direction of the house where he lived with his father and then, dropping the right wing, he spun to face his mother's house, the roof of which was visible among the oaks lining Lake Michigan's shore. Although his parents' houses were at opposite ends of town, his perch in the sky made it look as if there were just a few minutes walk between them.

A strong gust knocked Claude to one side and a downdraft sent him spinning. He tried to steady the wings, but something was wrong. To his horror, his right wing had torn and he was spiraling. His heart beat wildly as the ground rapidly approached and deafening alarm filled his ears...

Claude jumped in his chair and opened his eyes. The blaring sound continued but he was no longer wearing metallic wings or falling from the sky. He was in Mrs. Marrero's geometry class.

The sound was the tornado alarm. The windows were rattling and the sky had grown ominously dark. Claude was covered in nervous sweat and his heart was pounding, a remnant of the dream that he was quickly forgetting. He rose from his seat and shuffled with the rest of the class into the hall.

"This is getting kind of old, don't you think?" Claude heard Stefani Philips say to Robyn Wu, who nodded in agreement. Tornados had become a regular occurrence in the last couple months, and the students treated them with nonchalance, largely due to the fact that they'd all passed quickly and, except for the roof torn off the Costco Gas & Food and an unharnessed carriage that had been tossed three blocks into a sand trap at the Green Acres Country Club, damage had been minimal.

The students lined up against the lockers in the hall and dropped to the floor while Mrs. Marrero nervously paced up and down like a rooster. "Tuck in, tuck in," she said, her voice shrill, but the students, who'd been practicing the "tornado position" in drills at least three times a week, ignored her. The noise in the halls grew deafening as the students gossiped, laughed, and chatted on their cells.

Claude, on rotation as storm monitor, had the loathsome job of unrolling newly installed posters, which dangled from the ceiling on dowels. Each banner, in red, uppercase letters, bore idiotic instructions:

ACHTUNG! ASSUME THE TORNADO POSITION

ACHTUNG! LISTEN QUIETLY

FOR INSTRUCTIONS

ACHTUNG! WAIT PATIENTLY

FOR THE ALL CLEAR

But the last one—without question authored by Principal Patina, who always tried to work the word "fun" into everything—was the stupidest:

ACHTUNG! STAY SAFE AND HAVE FUN

Claude felt like a jerk as he dragged a stepladder from banner to banner to reach the pullstrings. Two of them were fussy, refusing to stay open. They snapped back up, again and again.

"Scheisse," he muttered.

"Don't pull it all the way."

He looked down and saw Jayesh Hilovasian smiling up at him. Claude blushed, embarrassed to be caught in the middle of such a nerdy task by one of the most handsome and hippest guys in school. Jayesh had thick, wavy, jet black hair and larger-than-average gray eyes that seemed to radiate an inner light. His skin was smooth, the color of milky coffee, and his lips were luscious, like small pillows, framing teeth that were white, straight and shiny, just like a dentist's model.

"Um, ah," Claude mumbled, aware that everyone who had been watching—and laughing at—his failure to tame the banner was now watching him fail to form words.

"If you leave an inch on the rod instead of yanking it all the way down, it will stick," Jayesh said. He climbed one step on the ladder and grabbed the pullstring to demonstrate. Claude watched his hand on the cord and felt himself blushing more. Jayesh released the cord and the banner remained in place. Then he smiled, flashing his dazzling, perfect teeth.

"Thanks," Claude managed to say.

"Good job, Sylvana," someone shouted in his direction. Claude looked down to see Eric Watson, a satisfied grin on his face. He was sitting next to his girlfriend, Stefani Philips, and leaning against a locker, legs spread wide in defiance of the tornado position, which called for contracting into a fetal shape.

"Oh blow, I hate that stupid show," Stefani said. She was referring to Scan That Product, the game show hosted by Sylvana Gray, who spent most of each episode unfurling scrolls. Gray ended each show by cupping her hand in the shape of a "C" and saying, with a wink to the camera, "See you real soon."

"Hey, Sylvana," Eric persisted, exuding the stupid confidence that came with being the richest kid in school. "Are you too stuck up to talk to us?"

Claude frowned but Jayesh laughed. "Is he talking to you or me?" Claude asked, annoyed.

"Who cares?" Jayesh said, giving Claude a wink. Claude's heart did a double beat as he realized that Jayesh was flirting with him. Or was he? It had happened in a flash, a flutter of the eyelid and now Jayesh was already gone, walking over to Watson, greeting him like an old friend as they exchanged an elaborate hand maneuver—fist, slap, shake. Claude noticed that they were both wearing varsity team jodhpurs, although Watson's were made of leather and his boots had gold-trimmed heels.

"Hey, he's not Sylvana," Eric said, looking past Jayesh at Claude as he descended the ladder. "You know, Altide, from behind, you and Sylvana Gray look exactly alike."

Stefani laughed, but Jayesh rolled his eyes.

Claude would have been satisfied giving Eric the finger, but with Jayesh watching, he felt something clever was required. He raised an eyebrow and tried to look amused. "I didn't realize you've made such a careful study of my backside, Watson."

Eric's smile vanished. He grabbed his riding crop and thrust it at Claude. "I could hurt you with this, Altide," he sneered.

Jayesh chuckled. "That's what you get for staring at his ass," he said.

"I can hurt you too," Eric said.

"Why are you always so crude?" Jayesh asked. Then he turned to Claude and said, as if they were suddenly alone, "You're cute."

Claude froze as if momentarily blinded by the flash of a camera.

"Now who's being crude?" Eric said.

Claude wondered if Jayesh was pulling his leg, but it was hard to imagine those bright gray eyes, now staring at him so intently, could be anything but sincere. "I'm just stating a fact," Jayesh said boldly.

"Thank you," Claude said. "You're not so bad yourself." He was thrilled, but if anything could ruin a sweet moment, it was Watson's expression: a curling of lip that looked as if he'd just taken a gulp of rotten milk.

"If you think he's cute than you must think an elephant turd on your mother's rotting face is drop-dead gorgeous," Watson said.

"Can we leave my poor vain mother out of this?" Jayesh asked.

Claude was having trouble following the banter. The fact that Jayesh had called him "cute"—and in public, no less—was sinking in, leaving him both lightheaded and energized, his finger- and toe-tips tingling.

"I better take this back," Claude said, but so softly that no one heard. He made a half-turn and walked with the ladder toward the classroom.

"Let me help," Jayesh said, rushing over and lifting the ladder from his hands.

"Thanks," Claude said, smiling.

"Can you believe another tornado, huh?" Jayesh asked, as if they were old friends.

"No. Not really. Or yes. I mean, I'm starting to get used to them," Claude said, unable to set his thoughts straight. He was trying to think of something clever to say and, at the same time, trying to figure out what he was feeling. He'd always considered Jayesh cute but had never given a thought to dating him. They traveled in different crowds, and their high school was so huge that their paths rarely crossed.

But then Claude remembered something that had happened a few weeks ago. He'd been sitting with Carolien in the cafeteria when he'd randomly locked eyes with Jayesh, who'd been sitting a few tables away. Their eyes had connected briefly, and Jayesh had smiled and nodded, as if sharing a private joke, and then he'd looked away, resuming his conversation with his friends.

At the time Claude had thought nothing of it, but now he wondered if Jayesh had been staring at him, maybe even admiring him.

They'd reached the room, and Jayesh held open the door. "My father thinks we should live under a big dome and forget about the weather," he said.

"Dome?" Claude asked. For a moment, he'd thought Jayesh had said "condom."

"Under a dome, weather would be obsolete—kein Problem," Jayesh said.

"Kein Problem," Claude repeated robotically. He tried to focus on what Jayesh was saying, but his mind wouldn't obey. Instead of listening, he found himself wondering what it would be like to kiss him.

The door had shut behind them. The classroom was empty, the desks lined up like soldiers. Beyond the rattling windows, the sky was pitch black, and the wind, squeezing through cracks in the frames, whined and howled.

They were just inches apart, and Claude thought how easy it would be to bring their lips together.

Then Mrs. Marrero pushed open the door. "Back in the hall, schnell schnell," she screeched.

"Yes, ma'am," Jayesh said alertly, spinning around and dashing out.

Claude followed, but Jayesh was walking toward Watson and Phillips. Claude was tempted to tag along, but when Jayesh dropped down next to them without once turning around, he froze.

"Sit down, Mr. Altide," Mrs. Marrero said.

Claude sank to the ground, squeezing between Tom Rossi and Amanda Crane but his eyes remained glued to Jayesh. Watson caught Claude's eye and sneered, and then cupped his right hand into the shape of a C and mouthed Sylvana's trademark signoff: "See you real soon."

Claude gave him the finger and sulked. He was annoyed that Jayesh, after calling him cute, wouldn't look at him, but then he felt foolish. Had he really thought a kid as handsome as Jayesh could be interested in him?

The school's rickety janitor PAL—a rectangular, headless, first-generation Programmable Automated Laborer that looked like a garbage can on wheels—shuddered by, bleeping in its lifeless, mechanized voice, "Warnung. Wind alert. Stay indoors. Warnung. Wind alert. Stay indoors."

"That thing is a fire hazard," Amanda said.

Claude thought of his stepfather's state-of-the-art PALs, which were far smarter and more sophisticated than the school's clanky janitor. His stepfather's models were prototypes, of course, still in testing, with creepy holographic heads that could assume any likeness, from the president's to a bald eagle's, and Claude suddenly pictured Jayesh as a PAL—his handsome face flicking over a metallic torso. The image, and the idea of being able to program Jayesh to fall irreversibly in love with him, made him smile.

When the all clear rang a half hour later, Claude looked through the door of an open classroom and saw a shaft of sunlight pouring through the windows. It seemed odd that the weather could change so abruptly, but he was glad he wouldn't have to ride home in the rain.

In the swirl of students, he lost track of Jayesh. He marched from poster to poster, snapping them shut. At the end of the hall, he found the STAY SAFE AND HAVE FUN banner on the floor, covered in footprints. Someone had ripped it off its wooden dowel, which now hung crookedly from the ceiling. As he picked the poster up, he noticed that at the bottom in fine print were the words, "Another Fine Product from All Products United."

Claude felt decidedly un-Sylvana like as he wadded up the poster and shoved it in a nearby garbage can.
Chapter Two

An Unexpected Gift

Claude watched as about two dozen workers in yellow jumpers moved methodically across the ball field collecting storm debris. About six of them guided two massive tubes that sucked up leaves and broken branches, garbage from spilled trash cans, and random scraps like shingles from the roof of the fieldhouse, a lone boot, and a tattered volleyball net.

The globe-shaped logo of All Products United glowed brightly on the workers' jumpsuits. Why APU had taken on the task of cleaning up after storms was a mystery to Claude, but maybe it was a responsibility they'd assumed after buying the naming rights to the school last year, changing it from James Buchanan to Vita-Lite High School with a wave of their corporate checkbook.

All afternoon, he'd thought about Jayesh, picturing different romantic scenarios: they were holding hands in front of school; they were at the lake, laughing and splashing in the cool water; they were outside Claude's home, Jayesh giving him a long, lingering, good-night kiss.

He knew he was being ridiculous, and yet Jayesh had called him "cute," hadn't he? But maybe he always did things like that—flirted to mess with guys' minds.

Claude considered himself fairly experienced in the dating arena, having had two steady boyfriends freshman year. But neither relationship had lasted more than two months, and he hadn't thought he was interested in getting entangled again, at least not so early in the year. He had other things to focus on, like losing five pounds before auditioning for the school musical and improving his grade in German lit.

But Jayesh had stirred something up. Maybe it was because with Fenton and Dennis, Claude had been the pursuer and this time, assuming Jayesh was legitimately interested, Claude was being pursued. It was a thrilling idea, and made Claude's skin prickle with excitement.

As he debated whether to wait outside the stables for Jayesh or whether that made him look too much like a stalker, he caught sight of his stepfather's carriage in the distance. It was in the corral next to the principal's, a spot reserved for VIPs. Even if they were the result of what Claude's dad derided as SS—superficial science—there was no denying that his stepfather's nags looked impressive, towering like statues above the other horses. Genetic manipulation made them look more like marble than muscle. They lacked even the casual tail swishes of ordinary mares, as if saving every calorie to carry out Ted Millstone's commands.

It was odd that Millstone was there, but not inexplicable since his company's cleanup crews were everywhere, and he was known to show up at work sites, conducting surprise inspections at factories, often with PR cameras in tow.

In the stable, Claude found Millstone at his stall, giving pieces of apple to Trax. He looked out of place in his black, high-gloss suit, and his saucer-sized cufflinks that rotated through the colors of the rainbow. Two saber wearing bodyguards stood at his side, and some of the kids, curious or amused, stopped to take cell-photos of the odd-looking group.

"Is something wrong?" Claude asked.

"Not with me. I was wondering about you. Are you OK?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

Millstone motioned for the bodyguards to step back to give them privacy. "I was in the neighborhood and wanted to see how you had fared during the storm," he said.

Claude squinted at him. "You were worried about me?" He sometimes felt silly for hating Millstone as much as he did. Stepfather-hating was such a boring cliché, after all, but he couldn't help himself.

Millstone looked at the ceiling. "I suppose it's hard to believe, but I had an insight about an hour ago. What's that called? One of those sudden ideas that change your outlook? Offenbarung?"

"A revelation?" Claude said, who scorned Millstone's habit of using a German word when an English one worked just as well. He suspected it was an affect acquired to please his boss, Bill Watson, whose foundation was the largest non-governmental funder of mandatory German studies.

"Yes," Millstone said happily, snapping his fingers. "I had a revelation about you and me."

"Really?"

Millstone nodded. "Indeed. It came to me just when I heard that the storm destroyed the Kenilworth train depot."

"It did? That's terrible. Was anyone hurt?"

"No, not seriously. I think the woman in the ticket booth was concussed. But my point..." He paused, trying to gather his thoughts. "My point is that just then, I realized that if you or Donna had been hurt in the storm, I'd be devastated."

Claude could believe Millstone might be upset if his mother was hurt, but found it hard to believe that he gave a donkey's hole about Claude.

"That's nice," Claude said drily.

"I've been hoping since even before this storm that we could start building a better relationship."

Claude frowned. "What if I said I'm not interested in a better relationship? I mean, basically, I'm comfortable with the way things are."

Millstone's eyes sparkled. "I bought something months ago as a peace offering but could never find the right time to give it to you. Your mother seems to like gifts, so I thought you might, too."

"A gift?" Claude looked around, half expecting to find a crew from Tricked ya! filming their encounter.

"I'd just like to be someone you respect, someone who can play a role in your life." He pulled out a black, felt-covered box from his jacket pocket and offered it to Claude.

"What is it?" Claude asked, eyeing it suspiciously.

"Open it and see." He balanced the box on his open palm.

"No thanks."

Millstone shrugged. "You can always sell it and donate the proceeds to the Workers Revolutionary Coalition or some other group I hate." He smiled at his joke.

Claude stared at the box. He felt like a hypocrite for being curious. If it came from Millstone, it had to be scheisse. Was it cufflinks? A tie clip? Although Millstone had been joking, it was true: he could sell it, especially if it was valuable. Or he could just toss it in the trash.

He took it and lifted the lid. Inside was a round, golden disc attached to a chain.

"A necklace?" Claude asked.

Millstone chuckled. "No. It's a pocket watch," he said. "There's a clock under the cover. Look." He reached over and pressed a tiny latch on the side. The lid popped open to reveal a roman numeralled timepiece with filigreed arms. "It's an antique. Men used to carry them in their pockets with the chains attached to their belts. I thought you'd approve since it wasn't made in an APU factory."

Claude bounced the watch in his hand. He didn't know what to think. "I guess it's nice. I mean, thanks," he said awkwardly.

Millstone looked delighted. "You're very, very welcome."

"You're not going to believe what just happened!" They turned to see Carolien running up. She looked fantastic, as usual, decked out at the moment in all green, including a lime-colored, tight-fitting bodywrap. She'd even used a faux-derm bracelet to turn her brown skin chartreuse.

"What?" Claude asked, alarmed.

"Hi, Mr. Millstone," she said. The sight of Claude's stepfather seemed to have sapped some of her energy.

"Is that you Miss Adams?" Millstone said, squinting as if she was almost too bright to look at it, which, in a way, she was.

With a worried expression, she glanced at Claude, who shrugged to show he was as baffled by Millstone's presence as she.

"Yes, Mr. Millstone. It's just me under all this green."

"What's going on?" Claude pressed.

She dropped her rucksack, which clanked as it hit the ground. "The coach picked me for the starting round in Friday's meet against Ferraro," she said. He sensed her excitement, saw it flashing in her eyes, but knew she wasn't going to bubble over—jump up and down or grab him around the waist and lift him in the air, like she usually did—because of Millstone's deadening presence.

"That's fantastic," he said.

"Congratulations," Millstone said.

"Carolien is one of the best blade-throwers the school has ever had," Claude explained. "She can hit a bull's eye at 50 paces."

Millstone acted impressed. "That's wonderful. Maybe Claude will bring Donna and me to one of your meets. We'd love to watch," he said.

"It'd be an honor to have you there," Carolien said.

"That's an unusual color you've chosen," Millstone continued, pointing at the faux-derm bracelet. "I didn't know our toy could produce that shade."

"Hmmm," she said. She poked the bracelet with her finger, turning it off. Instantly, her color returned to normal. "I was fiddling with its spectral programming. It wasn't exactly the color I was hoping to achieve, but I haven't given up."

Millstone looked surprised. "You re-programmed it? I thought they were tamper-proof."

Carolien shrugged and winked conspiratorially at Claude.

"Tamper-proof, maybe," Claude said. "But nothing is Carolien-proof."

Millstone looked at her thoughtfully.

"I wouldn't have bothered, but the standard colors don't work well on brown people, Mr. Millstone," Carolien said politely.

"That's interesting. I hadn't realized," he said stiffly. Then he looked at his watch. "I best be off. Nice to see you Miss Adams. Claude, will we be seeing you Wednesday for dinner?"

"Sure. I guess," Claude said.

"I'll tell your mother you say hello." Millstone sounded almost sad, as if he'd hoped the conversation would have ended on a more intimate note. He turned and strode off, the guards closely following.

As soon as he was out of sight, Carolien spun on Claude, her eyes wide. "OK, now what in the blazes of Hades was that all about?"
Chapter Three

Best Friends

Claude wondered aloud if his mother had put Millstone up to it. Maybe she'd issued an ultimatum: make friends with my son or I'm leaving.

Carolien shook her head. "No way. The world doesn't work like that. Donna isn't putting you ahead of her marriage."

They had just left the school grounds and were riding side by side down Green Bay Road, sharing a double XCaff.

"So what's your theory?" he asked

Carolien put a finger to her lips. She sat perfectly straight in her saddle, the thick coils of her black hair bouncing with each trot. "He wants something," she said slowly.

"Duh," Claude said.

"What I meant," she said impatiently, "is that this dreck about wanting to be your bud is a ruse to hide his real motive."

"OK. So what's his real motive?"

Carolien looked thoughtful, as if considering a number of options. "Maybe he's going to propose something to your mom and wants you in his corner. Like maybe he wants to move to the Peoples Incorporated China and is afraid she'll say no, so wants you to back him up."

"The P.I.C.? Why would he want to move to the P.I.C.?"

Carolien made a fist and waved it playfully in his direction. "Why are you so thick? I was just using that as an example. I don't know if he wants to move. I just meant, that maybe, just maybe, he wants you in his corner because he's anticipating a conflict with your mom."

"That's stupid," Claude said.

"OK, fine," she said. "So how about this: Maybe he wants you to infiltrate a student enviro-terror group."

Claude laughed. "Are you serious?"

"That's how those corporate verbrechers think. They're always plotting and counterplotting." She squinted as if at that very moment she was peering through a tiny hole into the brain of a corporate criminal.

"He's not going to ask me to spy for him," Claude said.

She leaned back in her saddle and sighed. "Yeah. You're right. But it'd be kind of cosmic if he did, don't you think? He'd think you're spying for him, but you'd really be a double agent."

"So I'd really be spying for the terrorists? Giving them APU's deepest, darkest secrets?"

"Exactly," she said excitedly, her eyes lighting up. "You'd get their blueprints and passwords and then Eco-Qaeda would blow up all their laminate factories and flood their silkworm farms. Oooo, wouldn't that be great?"

He loved how excited she got, even about a completely cracked idea.

"Yeah, great—until Milly catches me and has me stuffed and put under glass in his den," Claude said.

"Oooo, that'd be cool, too," she said, slapping him on the shoulder and laughing.

"You're sick," he said.

"Takes a sicko to know a sicko."

A crier in a red-and-white striped suit maneuvered among the riders on a tired municipal mare, warning against taking shortcuts. "A $100 fine for trampling lawns and flowerbeds," she shouted.

They were passing the First Bank of Winnetka, which re-planted its garden every week so that flowers were always in bloom. Carolien had written to the bank's president to complain about the waste but had yet to receive a reply.

"What if they deserve trampling?" Carolien asked. The crier indicated with a sour glare that fines in Carolien's case would likely be doubled.

"She thinks you're a hooligan," Claude said.

Carolien grinned. "I am, aren't I?"

"Ha. You just play one in the moving pictures. We all know you're a goody-goody at heart," Claude said.

"I'm no more a goody-goody than you," she said.

"Not true." Claude sighed and loosened his grip on the reins. "You write letters to banks about wasting flowers, and you know how to make your own clothes, and you can hit a bull's eye at 50 paces. In other words, you're basically a modern renaissance woman while I waste my time playing Parolles or Tiger Brown," he said, referring to the parts he'd played in All's Well That Ends Well and Threepenny Opera.

"Acting is not a waste. It's an art, and you're an amazing actor."

"Yeah, well..." he said, embarrassed. He realized it must have sounded like he'd been fishing for a compliment.

To change the subject, he pointed to the rusted gates of the abandoned Daimler plant. The iron doors were layered with ivy, unopened since the '52 OPEC embargo that had shuttered the motor carriage industry. "Let's scale the wall. I'd like to see the other side," he said.

She glanced at the gate with mild interest. "Doesn't APU own it? Ask Milly for the key."

"Ha. Even better, why don't I tell him to turn it into something useful—an organic farm or animal shelter?"

Smiling, she ran her hands through Mattie's mane and with a light tug on the reins, signaled her to knock heads with Trax.

"So show me the watch thingy," she said, tossing the empty double XCaff expertly in a trash bin.

He pulled the watch from his trouser pocket. It had been pressed against his body, yet it felt cold, as if it had been sitting for hours in an air-conditioned room.

"Give it here," Carolien said, placing her open hand under the watch. He let it drop, and she bounced it in her palm. "It's heavy." She popped it open, and examined the face from various angles, her eyes narrowing with curiosity.

"That's an interesting design," she said, handing it back.

The underside of the cover was engraved with what looked at first like a bull's eye but was, on closer inspection, a series of concentric incomplete circles.

Claude, who hadn't noticed the pattern before, ran his finger over the grooves. "It looks modern," he said.

"Art deco maybe," Carolien said.

"What should I do with it?"

"Pawn it."

"Seriously?"

"No. But have it appraised. It'd be interesting to know if it's valuable or junk."

"I suppose," Claude said, slipping it back in his pocket.

"I'm still thirsty," she said abruptly. Without waiting for a response, she signaled a turn with her arm and guided Mattie to the hitch posts next to Hubbard Woods Park.

A handful of riders cursed Claude as he cut across a lane to follow her.

"Can you give a guy a warning?" he muttered.

Carolien dismounted. "I want another XCaff," she said, nodding toward the 24/7 White Rooster across the street.

Inside, Claude followed Carolien to the Café Corner, where they were greeted by a bird-faced guy wearing a parka and standing under what looked like a small, personal cloud from which snow was falling.

"Starting at only $799 a month you, too, can have snow at your command—inside or out," the clerk said. "Imagine entertaining your friends with snowball fights in the middle of summer. Imagine swimming in your pool in the middle of a blizzard. Imagine..."

"Do you have any idea how much energy that thing wastes?" Carolien asked.

The clerk shook his head.

"Who makes it?" Claude asked.

"SunFun, a wholly owned subsidiary of..."

"APU," Claude and Carolien said together.

The clerk nodded, his eyes shifting uneasily between them. Two small peaks of snow balanced on his shoulders.

"You know what APU is, don't you?" Carolien asked, speaking slowly and succinctly, like a diplomat making a last call for surrender before a full-scale attack.

The clerk nodded, then shook his head and then, sweat beading on his forehead, shrugged uncertainly.

Carolien was about to tell him that APU was an evil, air-polluting, species-killing, union-busting, Third World-exploiting, life-shortening and immoral corporate monster when Claude put a hand on her shoulder. "Forget it. He's just doing his job."

"A job that will soon be done by one of those Personalized Autonomous Laborers," she said.

"Programmable Automated Laborer," Claude corrected.

Her mouth hung open for a moment. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Right," she said after a pause. When she opened her eyes, she smiled. "Double XCaff please. Make that a triple."

The clerk looked at her uneasily before nodding and brushing the snow off his shoulders.

Claude wandered to the snack aisle, where flashing lights and mini-screens of celebrities extolling the virtues of Sugar Injectables, Pig Fat Suckers, Tongue Wrappers, and a dozen other wastefoods competed for his attention.

He reached for a guava-flavored fruit pie but, after seeing the prominent APU label, put it back.

Then his eyes refocused on the Morphtronic sign in the window. As the words "Free DNA test" morphed into "With Purchase of 1 Crate of Dehydrated Sea Greens," Claude saw a row of dark clouds in the distance and wondered if another tornado was on its way.

Two carriages pulled into the yard, one driven by a fat couple wearing large sunhats and gauze beach jumpers, the other a Mother's Milk delivery branigan. Claude marveled at the image on the branigan's side: the faces of the blue-eyed mother and her smiling plump baby that had served as the Mother's Milk emblem for decades. It was such a cheesy, old-fashioned picture, such a pathetic attempt to tug at customers' hearts, and yet, stupid and simplistic as it was, it worked. Claude's mother had plied him as a child with Mother's Milk yogurt and Mother's Milk North American Cheese Balls and Mother's Milk Soda-Flavored Vitamins, leaving him with a fondness for the brand, and the cheesy, old-fashioned picture of a blonde, blue-eyed mother and child. He could denounce APU all he wanted, he could even boycott Mother's Milk and the thousand other APU-owned brands, but he couldn't shed the affection he felt, programmed into him involuntarily as a child, for the stupid brand. What right did APU or any corporation have to expose young children to their brands? It was brainwashing, pure and simple.

Something in the street caught his eye: a silver-plated carriage that he immediately recognized as belonging to Eric Watson. Stefani Philips was sitting in the carriage next to him while Jayesh, running his hand through his hair and laughing, was riding at their side.

"Look at this," Carolien said.

Claude jumped. "Scheisse. You scared me!"

"Sorry," she said. She was holding up a magazine open to the image of a woman's face decorated in what looked like war paint—stripes of red, black and yellow on her cheeks, eyebrows plucked into dagger shapes. "What if I did myself up like this for the meet?"

"Great," Claude said distractedly. As the sound of thunder rumbled in the distance, he looked out the window, but Jayesh and his friends were gone.

Carolien studied the picture. "You think so?"

Claude marched off. "Can we go?" He tried not to look out the window.

"Yeah. Let's scram," she said, tossing the magazine back on the rack.

Outside Claude looked in the park and down the street. About a block away, he saw Watson's carriage and Jayesh's mount hitched at a water stall.

"What are you looking at?" Carolien asked.

"Nothing. Just trying to figure out if it's going to storm again." He shifted his attention to the sky, which was getting darker.

"Crazy weather."

"Yeah. Hey, that XCaff is making me thirsty. I'm going to run back for an Ice Wash."

"Better hurry," she said, slipping the XCaff into the cup holder on her saddle.

"I will."

She mounted Mattie. "So you're coming to the meet tomorrow, right?" she asked.

For a moment he didn't know what she was talking about. "Definitely. It's so cosmic that you're in the first round. Of course I'm coming."

She smiled. "I need you to cheer me on," she said.

"Don't worry. I'll be there," he said.

She flicked the reigns. "Ya," she said, trotting off.

"Auf wiedersehen," Claude shouted, watching her go.

When she was gone, he perched on a bench with an unobstructed view of the street, waiting for Jayesh to appear.
Chapter Four

The Contest

A few blocks from home, Carolien's ears filled with the familiar jingle for Blots candy: "Brightens, whitens, and lightens your mood..." Looking up, she saw the Blots blimp. Mattie—startled by the orchestral vibrations—shook her head and twitched her ears as if trying to shake off flies.

"Sorry girl," Carolien said, giving the filly a sturdy pat.

As the blimp moved on, fat drops of rain began to fall, and Mattie quickened her trot. In less than a minute they were home, and Carolien guided Mattie on the rutted path from the cobbled street to the barn.

Their house was old and in need of repairs, but they didn't have the money, so Carolien's mother had developed the habit of calling everything that was falling apart, like the rotting window frames and the crumbling stoop, "charming," as if they were weekend visitors to a Victorian country house rather than full-time residents of a decrepit aluminum-sided ranch.

Carolien pressed the remote on her saddle and the barn gate hummed open, revealing not only Gretel, her mother's Choctaw, but Great Emancipator, Grandma Bets' regal black Morgan.

"Howdy, GE," she said, worried. Something must be wrong—only bad news could explain a surprise visit. Hurriedly, she dismounted, removed her saddle, and latched Mattie's stall. On her way out, she greeted Great Emancipator with a scratch behind his ears. The stallion nuzzled her arm. He was still warm and slightly moist, his coat silkened by a sheen of sweat.

As the auto-gate shuddered closed, she ran up the path and burst into the kitchen.

The tableau that greeted her was as far as possible from anything she might have anticipated. The kitchen furniture had been pushed against the walls, which usually happened only when there was a leak, but instead of a bucket to catch rainwater, Grandma Bets sat in the middle of the room, perched like a queen in a high-backed dining room chair. Her eyes were shut as Carolien's mom applied eggplant-colored eye shadow. A movie-maker sat on a tripod a few feet away, and nearly a dozen lamps were scattered around the room, occupying every surface: counter, kitchen table, trashcan, windowsill, cabinet.

"Is that you Car?" her grandmother said. She twisted in the chair, trying to look over her mother's head.

"Sit still," her mother mumbled, a blush applicator in her mouth.

"What the Hades...?" Carolien said, careful not to trip over any of the electrical cords crisscrossing the room.

"Watch your tongue," her mom said, only it came out like "washington" because of the applicator lodged between her teeth. Her mother indulged in swearing when they were alone but insisted on linguistic piety in Grandma's presence.

"We're making a moving picture," Grandma Bets said.

"Wait...," her mother warned again, making small, careful dabs above Grandma Bets' left eye.

"A moving picture?" Carolien was out of breath, and her heart was beating fast. "I thought... I was worried when I saw GE..."

Her grandmother raised a hand to indicate that she couldn't answer. Her mother touched her face lightly with the brush a few more times and then leaned back to study her handiwork. She puckered her lips, tilted her head, looking at Grandma Bets from various angles, and nodded decisively. "Perfect," she declared.

Grandma Bets, smiling, turned toward Carolien and spread her arms. "How do I look?" She usually preferred denim and sneakers but today was fully adorned, not only with blush, mascara and eye paint, but a shimmering jacket, trim skirt and perilously high shoes.

"You look cosmic, Gran! Stunning." She bent down and gave her a hug.

"Thank you, dear."

As she straightened up, Carolien looked around the room. "So why a moving picture?"

"It's for a contest," Grandma Bets said. "I only just found out about it, and the deadline is tomorrow."

"Ah," Carolien said. That explained the surprise visit. Grandma Bets loved contests. Last year, her winning jingle for Landscape Warehouse earned her a year's supply of Fast Grass Mass fertilizer. She crowed about her triumph for at least a month even though she didn't have a lawn and ended up donating her winnings to the Chicago Parks Department.

"How much fertilizer can you win this time?"

"Don't make fun," her grandmother said.

"Sorry, Gran." She flashed a big grin to show she meant no harm. "What's the prize?"

"A trip to..."

"Paris?"

Grandma Bets shook her head. "Arctic," she said. She couldn't have sounded more excited than if she'd already won.

Her mom sighed and looked at Carolien with tired eyes. "Doesn't that sound exciting?" she asked, punctuating her sarcasm with a frown.

Grandma Bets puckered her lips. "Don't be a party poop," she said.

"Don't listen to her Gran. It sounds fantastic. Can I come if you win?"

"Of course. As long as you help me work that movie-maker."

"Sure, Gran."

From the inside of her jacket, she extracted a pair of sequined reading glasses and a piece of paper. "I jotted down the rules," she said. She balanced the glasses on the end of her nose and unfolded the paper on which she'd written a few sentences in small but neat lettering. "The contest is being run by the Greater Arctic Development Corporation. Their logo is: It's Been Blank for too Long. Let's Fill It In."

"Lovely," Carolien said, frowning.

Grandma Bets sighed. "Let's hope they fill it in with something nice," she said.

"They won't," Carolien said.

Grandma Bets continued reading. "They want what they're calling 'personal family stories that exemplify the courage, resilience and ingenuity of the human spirit.' They're going to pick five winners from each continent, and each'll get a free trip and companion ticket to the...," she paused to bring the paper closer to her face, "All Products United Mega something or other Residential Resort Entertainment Complex."

"I see. So what are the rules?"

"They want a moving picture of someone telling a family story," she said, peering at the sheet. "It can't be more than 10 minutes. It has to be original and it has to be based on fact."

"It can be about anything?" Carolien asked.

"The theme is 'A Brave Adventure.'"

Mom snorted. "What do you know about brave adventures, Ma?"

"More than you think."

"Learning to ride a unicycle to celebrate your 70th birthday?" her mom asked.

"Hades, Mom. Would you please... " Carolien began. Before she could finish the sentence with "shut-up," her mother sat up, raised a warning finger and snapped, "Don't take that tone young lady."

Grandma Bets cleared her throat dramatically. "I thought I'd tell Molly and Moore's story."

Carolien's mother's expression softened. "It's a great story, but I wouldn't call it non-fiction," she said.

"Are you saying it's a lie?" Grandma Bets asked.

"No, no, no. I would never say that—at leastwise, not with you sitting so close," she teased.

"Let her tell whatever story she wants," Carolien said.

"You heard me talk about them," Grandma Bets said, looking at Carolien.

"Of course. They were slaves, right?"

Grandma Bets nodded. "That's right. Molly and Moore were slaves and they were also your great-great-great-great grandparents."

"Don't you remember? I wrote a paper about them for my 4th grade social studies project."

"Sure I remember," Grandma Bets said, nodding solemnly.

Carolien squatted down and placed a hand on Grandma Bets' knee. "It would be an honor to record you telling their story." She didn't know why, but for some reason she felt like crying.

Grandma Bets' bright brown eyes probed her intently. "You're looking queasy," she said.

Carolien stood. "I'm fine. Totally fine." She stepped to the counter and grabbed an apple from a bowl. "I think I just need to eat something," she said before taking a bite.

"You sure?" her mother asked, eyeing her with worry.

Carolien nodded. "Hey, guess what?"

"What dear?" her mother asked.

"The coach chose me as a starter for Friday's meet," she said.

"Hooray!" her mother said, coming over to give her a hug.

"That's wonderful, Car. I guess it's a big honor to be a starter?" Grandma Bets asked.

Carolien nodded.

"That's our girl," Grandma Bets said, smiling.

While her mother adjusted her grandmother's hair, Carolien probed the machine's controls. It was a Polaroid FastPlay, which recorded in the new format, 4-D Surround-View Holographics.

She aimed the lens, adjusted the focus, and experimented with apertures, white balance, and filters. Then she pressed a button and the movie-maker projected a holographic image of her mother and grandmother, their likenesses reduced to the size of plums.

"Will you look at that?" Grandma Bets said delightedly, clapping her hands. "Who said you can't be two places at once?"

The projection began to expand horizontally, getting longer and longer. It showed not just one image of them but many, representing motion over time. Within a minute, a series of images encircled Carolien like a lasso and then started over, new images superseding older ones.

"It's making me dizzy," her mother said.

Carolien pressed a button and the holograph disappeared. "They call it 4-D because it shows 3-D plus time. It's like watching a 10-minute movie, but instead of taking 10 whole minutes to watch it, you see every frame spread before you at once. Pretty cosmic."

Grandma Bets fanned herself with her hand, as if overcome. "Everyone says 'new' is better, but I wonder."

"It's like this, Gran: If you watched your mysteries in 4-D, you wouldn't have to wait until the end to find out who the killer is. You'd know the whole story from beginning to end as soon as you turned it on."

"Hon," Grandma Bets said, "my mind doesn't work like that. That's for young people. I like my stories the old-fashioned way, starting at the beginning, moseying through the middle, and then ending with a nice, fat, happy.... well, ending."

Carolien smiled. "Got it. Are you ready to start?"

"Sure am," Grandma Bets said, smiling at the camera. "Let's get this show on the road."
Chapter Five

At the Bandshell

Jayesh was laughing with Eric Watson and Stefani Philips as they walked out of Woolworths, and Claude was jealous. He wanted to be the one to make Jayesh laugh.

Trax bobbed his regal Missouri Fox Trotter head and grunted, spraying Claude with horsey mist. "Thanks boy," he said, wiping his face on his sleeve.

Jayesh sauntered to his steed. Look over here, Claude mentally commanded. But Jayesh looked the other way. Claude sighed. Even if they spoke, what would he say? "Hey, bud, are you into me or not? I'm a little confused by the mixed messages."

Stupid. He needed to say something charming, irresistible, something to tip the scales, not some dreary whining kuhscheisse about mixed messages.

He watched nervously as Jay mounted his horse, trying to figure out how to get his attention. He didn't care if Eric and Stefani saw him, so long as Jayesh genuinely liked him; in that case, Claude would look like a guy who knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to pursue it. But if Jayesh didn't give a rodent's ass about Claude, then he'd look like a fool, a pathetic twerp, a pox-sucking loser.

Eric and Stefani trotted off, leaving Jayesh alone. The sky had grown darker and the wind stronger, scattering leaves and stray branches. A lady hurrying into a carriage screamed as her purple hat lit off, carried on a draft over traffic and into the park, where it snared about 10 paces from Claude on a low branch of an evergreen. Jayesh pursued it, navigating his mare against traffic and then cutting into the park while Claude raced on foot, arriving a half second earlier.

Claude plucked the hat from the tree just as Jayesh, maintaining a trot, leaned down to scoop it up. He looked confused, probably thinking the wind had outsmarted him, but then saw Claude and grinned, bringing his mare around. "Better bring it to the frau," Claude said, offering the hat, which was festooned in ribbons that, in the gale, lashed his arms and face with surprising, stinging force.

Jayesh snatched the hat and spun around, but the carriage had already departed, as if it too had been carried away by the wind. Jayesh turned back to Claude, his hair flapping like the ribbons. "What should I do with it?" he said, holding the hat at arm's length.

"Put it on," Claude commanded, but Jayesh answered the question himself by throwing the hat like a discus. It bounced briefly on a blast of air and then cartwheeled sideways, landing on the grass and tumbling a few feet until it landed in a mucky puddle.

"Oops," Jayesh said. "I didn't mean to ruin it. I just wanted to see how far it'd go."

"We did what we could," Claude said.

"I suppose," Jayesh said. "Lovely weather, huh?"

"If you were that hat you wouldn't say that."

"Ha. How true is that?"

Large drops of rain began to fall, landing with wet slaps. Jayesh looked skyward and opened his mouth, trying to catch them.

"Taste good?" Claude asked.

"Try it," Jayesh urged.

Claude looked around, embarrassed. He didn't want to be seen catching raindrops; and yet, wanting to please Jayesh, he looked up and opened his mouth. The rain was sparse enough that he could see the individual drops, and he jerked around trying to catch them, snagging a few on his tongue.

"Delicious aren't they?" Jayesh exhaled, as if the rain was caviar.

Claude stopped jumping around and looked at him. "Not really. Maybe it's an acquired taste."

"Maybe," Jayesh said, licking his lips. "I love rain. It's the tornadoes I can do without."

"It's probably silly to be standing here," Claude said, gesturing to the open sky. Silly was an understatement. It was stupid of them to be outside, given the weather and the fact that a tornado had already destroyed the train station just a few hours ago.

"Get your mount and let's race to the bandshell," Jayesh said.

Claude smiled. "OK." He ran to Trax and jumped on his back. "Ya, ya," he said, breaking him into a gallop. They sped into the park and were soon neck and neck, bearing down the path toward the bandshell. Because of the storm, the park was deserted, otherwise someone would surely have told them to slow down and go single file. Trax was larger and stronger, but Jayesh's horse was lithe and fleet, maintaining a slight edge and then breaking ahead when the bandshell was in view. Arriving first, Jayesh guided his horse up the steps onto the stage, something Trax would never do.

"That was crazy," Claude shouted, his blood rushing.

"You'll never beat Gladhand," Jayesh said, stroking the mare's neck. "She's a champ."

The rain was falling heavily now, the sky turning inky black. "I'm going to put Trax in the shelter," Claude said. He brought Trax around to the attached horse shelter, whose cement wall afforded genuine protection from the storm. Jayesh guided Gladhand down the steps and followed them. The rain had flattened Jayesh's hair, and Claude could see the outline of his chest through his damp t-shirt.

After tying up their horses, they sat on a cement ledge, watching the storm, neither speaking. Claude didn't know whether to say something funny or serious, or to simply stay silent, as if sitting there quietly with Jayesh was a perfectly normal way to spend an afternoon.

Finally, Jayesh asked, "What's with you and the steamy blade-throwing mädchen?"

"Carolien? What about her?"

"Is she your girlfriend?"

"You're joking, right?"

"No."

"I'm into guys," Claude said.

Jayesh smiled. "No one is 100 percent into anything."

"I am. Carolien and I are just friends."

Jayesh grinned so wide that his cheeks dimpled. "You sure?"

"Of course, I'm sure. So what are your percentages?"

Jayesh looked stumped. "Hmmm. Good question. I'd say 77.3 percent gay, 15.4 percent straight, and 18.5 percent other."

"Other?" Claude laughed. "What the Hades does that mean? And you're percentages don't add up, by the way."

"They don't?"

"What's 'other' for?"

"It means that I'm open to the possibility that other life forms exist in the universe and that I might be attracted to them, if and when I meet them. But how did you figure out so fast that my percentages don't add up?"

Claude shrugged. "They add up to 101.2 percent."

Jayesh looked amazed. "You're a math whiz?"

"Because I can add three numbers?"

"Three numbers with decimal points, and you did it in a nanosecond in your head."

"You're easily impressed."

"No I'm not." He smiled crookedly and then leaned forward and kissed him. His lips were soft and inviting, like pillows warmed by the sun.

Claude was acutely aware of everything—Jayesh's breath on his face; the heat of Jayesh's body; the sound of the rain; the rush of wind. He felt for a moment like they might burst into flames, as if they were generating so much heat that the rain would steam, the pavement boil, and the clouds evaporate, turning the sky blue.

When the kiss ended, Jayesh sat back with a satisfied smile. "That was pretty impressive," he said.

"Yes it was," Claude said.

Claude's phone began to chime. It was Carolien's ring, the theme from I Dream of Warlocks.

"Who calls?" Jayesh asked.

"Never mind," Claude said, flipping his cell to silent.

"Are you in a rush?" Jayesh asked.

Claude shook his head. "Not really. You?"

"I've got a little time," Jayesh said.

They looked at each other for a long quiet moment and leaned in for more.
Chapter Six

The Escape of Molly and Moore

"My name is Betsy Thomas, but everyone calls me Bets, and I'm 78 years young. The story I'm going to tell is about my great great grandparents. I don't know exactly when they were born, or who their parents were, but I know their names. She was Molly, and he was Moore, and they were slaves." Grandma Bets paused and squinted at the movie-maker.

"Something wrong?" Carolien asked.

"It doesn't feel natural talking at a machine."

Carolien nodded. "Talk to me then."

"Can I do that?"

"Why not?"

Her grandmother adjusted her position to face Carolien. "Ah, that's better," she said, smiling. She looked down, tugged at her jacket, and smoothed her blouse. When she looked up at Carolien, she seemed more relaxed. "Now where was I?"

"You were saying Moore and Molly were slaves," Carolien said.

Grandma Bets nodded and released a long slow breath. "It gets my blood boiling when I think about people owning people. People selling people. How could anyone have thought that was right?

"But that was their world. Moore was born on a plantation owned by Thomas Watkins in Serenity, North Carolina. Molly was born I-don't-know-where and bought by Watkins when she was just a young girl."

She stared so intently that Carolien felt as if she was looking inside her. "Molly had chestnut-colored skin and light brown eyes that faded to green at the rims—a mix that made folks look twice. They say Watkins thought she was pretty, so when she turned nine, he put her to work in the manor. That was a privilege. The work wasn't easy, but it was better than the field, where most slaves spent their days, pulling cotton until their fingers bled."

Carolien imagined herself a slave, standing barefoot on hard earth. The air was heavy with summer, the sun fierce. She pictured a tall, pink-skinned overseer, fat and sweaty. He was wearing tall boots and a dirty, torn hat and carrying a large whip.

"What you looking at?" the overseer sneered.

"None of your begating business, donkey hole," she yelled back. The other slaves stared, dumbfounded. When the overseer lifted the whip, she ran and kicked his nutbag. "Go fuck yourself," she screamed, spitting with rage. The overseer stumbled back and she grabbed the whip. As she cracked it over his terrified head, he fell to the ground, begging for mercy.

"You with me, hon?" Grandma Bets asked.

"Sure," Carolien said, snapping back. The daydream had left her hands clammy and her heart racing.

"You were getting a spacey look," her grandmother said.

"Sorry. I was picturing the plantation in my head."

"Maybe we should eat first and pick this up after," her mom said.

"No. Let's keep going. Go on, Grandma." Carolien examined the movie-maker, trying to look officious.

Grandma Bets exhaled loudly and nodded. "Where was I?"

"You were saying that Molly worked in the manor," Carolien's mother said.

"That's right." Grandma Bets lifted her eyes to the window. Carolien followed her gaze to the big oak in the backyard, its tangled branches swaying in the wind. She wondered how many people over the years—over the centuries—had gazed at those branches.

"Freedom was only a dream for Molly until one day, the chance she'd been waiting for came literally knocking at the door. March 1849. Molly was in her mid-teens, and she was working hard in the scullery when she heard a sound; someone was at the window." She paused for dramatic effect.

"She saw a shadow cross the glass. Who could it be? When she goes to look, she finds a man—a stranger. But something wasn't right. The back was the service door—slaves only—but this gentleman was white.

"He was nervous, looking around like he was worried someone was following him. And he wasn't alone. He had a slave, too—a woman. As soon as Molly opened the door, the two of them pushed their way inside like their tails were on fire, and Molly was terrified.

"The first thought that went through her mind was that they were bandits—'scallywags.' That was the word they used back then. My mama would say, 'Molly knew for sure they were scallywags set to rob, rape, and plunder.' " Grandma Bets wagged her finger as she repeated her mother's words. " 'But she couldn't do nothing about it,' Mama said. 'Poor Molly would have set to yelling, but she didn't dare raise her voice—not against a white.' "

This wasn't the first time Grandma Bets had told Carolien about Molly, but it had been years since the last re-telling, and only pieces of the tale sounded familiar, giving Carolien the feeling that she was hearing the full story for the very first time.

"Molly's heart was pounding so bad she couldn't see straight. 'Can I help... Can I help you?' she asked, swallowing her words. 'Yes, please,' the woman said. She had a kind voice and a kind face. 'You must be Molly.' You must be Molly. That's what she said. It was as simple as that. You must be Molly. Just four words but they weren't said lightly, like she'd just happened to hear Molly's name coming up the road. She said it like she'd been looking for her, like she'd come on a long journey with the express purpose of standing there and looking Molly in the eye.

" 'Excuse me, but do we know each other?' Molly asked.

" 'I've heard of you. I'm Karen, your cousin,' the woman said.

"Molly's heart opened like a flower. She'd been waiting her whole life to find family and here she was! 'What are you doing here?' Molly asked. She could barely get the words out.

" 'We've come to help you escape,' Karen said, her voice about as solemn as a minister saying his prayers."

The word "escape" gave Carolien goose bumps. Her expression must have reflected her excitement because Grandma Bets smiled and reached over and slapped her on the knee.

"I'm going to win this darn contest, aren't I?" she said.

Carolien grinned. "I hope so, Gran. But with all these interruptions, you're probably going to have to tell it a few times."

"I don't mind. I'll tell it a hundred times."

Carolien's mother looked at her watch. "Keep going, Ma."

"OK. OK. Where was I?"

"Karen," her mother said.

Grandma nodded. "Right." She took another moment to compose herself and then resumed. "So there was Karen and the white man. Molly had thought the white was Karen's master but turns out he was her husband, a man by the name of Mr. Claws, with big lumberjack hands to go with the name.

"Molly knew about whites raping slaves but not marrying them. And she knew about slaves escaping but not people coming to your door saying, 'Hey, girl, how ya' doin' today and, by the way, we're here to help you escape.'

"But Molly wasn't going to miss her chance. There was just one little problem. These folks were in a hurry. They'd waited 'til Watkins and his family had gone out before they came knocking and they were saying, 'We've got to leave now before they come back.' Yet there was this boy that Molly loved and she didn't want to leave without him. 'Moore has to come with us,' she said.

" 'But there's no time,' Mr. Claws said. 'This is your once-in-a-lifetime chance and we've got to go now.' They must have been thinking 'If we wait even a minute more, it will be too late,' but in the end, they decided that Molly could get Moore, and meet Karen and Mr. Claws in the woods.

"They waited and waited but Molly didn't show up. A half hour. An hour. Two hours. I imagine Karen and Mr. Claws thought about leaving without them, but instead they went back to look for them.

"It turns out the Watkins family had come back and Molly and Moore were too afraid to leave, but Karen speaks as calm as can be. 'Time to go. No time to pack. No time to say good-bye. If we walk with our heads held high, like we know where we're going, we'll all get out of here safe, but we have to move fast.'

"And out the door she and Mr. Claws go. Molly and Moore follow right behind, holding hands, and they take horses and a wagon like that's what they're supposed to do, and off they go into the woods in the night. And then Karen pulls a ring from her pocket."

Grandma Bets patted her neck. "Hold on. I should have got this ready beforehand." She pulled out a thin chain. Dangling from it, like a pendant, was a gold ring.

"I remember that," Carolien's mother said with delight. "Where've you been keeping it? I haven't seen you take it out since I was a little girl."

"It's too precious to keep around the house, so I have it locked up at the bank in a safety deposit box."

"That's Karen's ring?" Carolien asked.

"That's what they say. It's handed down from generation to generation. When I go, it'll pass to your mother and then to you." Grandma Bets offered it to Carolien, who gingerly scooped it in the palm of her hand.

"It's so shiny," she said. It was heavy and surprisingly cold for something that had been laying for hours against her grandmother's skin. It's face was flat and engraved with a pattern of circles within circles. A chill shimmered up her spine as she realized that the pattern was almost like the pattern on Claude's watch, if not, in fact, identical.

"I've seen this pattern," Carolien said softly.

"What's that dear?" Grandma Bets asked.

Carolien looked up. "What's the pattern mean? Because I just saw it on a watch that Claude's stepfather gave him."

Grandma Bets looked skeptical. "No. I don't think that's possible. That's a one-of-a-kind ring. Let me finish the story, and you'll understand."

"No," Carolien said, her voice rising. "Today. Less than an hour ago. I saw it."

"Calm down, girl," her mother said.

"Sorry," Carolien said, trying to quell her excitement. "It's just weird seeing the pattern again."

Grandma Bets pointed at the ring. "That there is steeped in mystery, so even though I'd say it was next to impossible that Claude just showed you the same pattern, part of me wouldn't be surprised if it was true."

"Now look what you've done," Carolien's mother said, with a wry smile. "Your grandma's getting all mystical."

"I'm feeling a little mystical, too," Carolien said. She'd just been looking at Claude's watch, which was a strange thing to begin with, considering it had been a gift from Millstone, and now, it turned out, that at the very same time she'd been looking at Claude's gift, her grandma had been waiting at home to show her something bearing the same—maybe even identical—design. As absurd as it sounded, Carolien had a strange feeling that she'd conjured Grandma Bets and the ring, willing them to be there at that moment.

"Maybe I'm wrong about the pattern, you know?" Carolien said. "I'll ask Claude to bring it so we can compare."

"Not now," her mother said, but Carolien ignored her. She took out her cell and dialed. "What did I just say?" her mother asked.

"What's the harm, Harriet?" Grandma Bets said softly. "The more the merrier."

The call skipped to VM. "He's not picking up," Carolien said, disappointed. She hung up and quilled:

can u come over?

"Just as well," Carolien's mother said curtly.

Carolien returned the ring to Grandma Bets, who straightened her blouse and re-settled herself in the chair. Carolien looked out the window, trying to picture the watch again. But her mind flooded with other images: Grandma in her traffic cop uniform, Mom rising in the dark to make breakfast before work, Dad in his hospital room. She felt sad that life moved in only one direction, towards the unknown and farther and farther away from a time when she knew nothing about dads' dying or ancestors' escaping slavery.

"You ready?" Grandma Bets asked.

"Sure," Carolien said, turning back to the camera. She checked the battery, memory, and lighting. "All set."

Grandma Bets held the ring up, inches from the lens.

"This was Karen's ring, which means it's a genuine antique—over 140 years old. It's been handed from one generation to the next, and my family has guarded it well not just for sentimental reasons or because it's made of gold, but because we believe this ring—this very ring I'm holding now—was the key to Molly and Moore's escape."

She paused for effect, holding the ring steady so that the pattern filled the screen. "It worked through the design. When they'd reach a home or a farm, they'd look for the design that was here on the ring, and if they saw a quilt or a flag or even a mark in the dirt that matched, it meant the place was safe—a safe house. And the owner let them in and down through a secret door. And that's how they went, using all the symbols on the ring to guide their way."

"Symbols? You mean symbol," Carolien said. "It's just one."

"That's the thing," Grandma Bets said. "They say the pattern kept changing from night to night. Every time Karen took it out, it'd show a new pattern to guide them to the next safe house."

"Gran, you don't believe that?"

"It's natural to be skeptical," Grandma Bets said. "Personally, I've never seen the pattern change. It's been like that bull's eye my whole life. But then maybe it only changes when it needs too. Or maybe they only imagined the changes, just like you maybe imagined that Claude's got a watch with the same design."

"It might not be the exact same, but it's definitely close."

Grandma Bets nodded. "But if you tell someone else about it, they might think you were mistaken. Just like we're thinking right now that maybe Karen and Mr. Claws and Molly and Moore were mistaken that the ring was changing its design. We can't ever know because we weren't there. You can probably spend your whole life looking for an explanation, be it scientific or mystical, and you'll never know for certain. But one thing for sure is certain, and that's that Molly and Moore made it to Chatham, Canada. The proof of their escape is in the fact that we're here today.

"Once they settled into freedom, they worked a farm until they saved enough to buy their own land. And then eventually, they started a general store and then a restaurant, and Molly became famous throughout the town for her cooking. They say the corn bread I make is her recipe. That's why we call it Chatham bread."

"If she'd figured out how to mass produce it, we'd be rich today," Carolien's mother said.

"It's the dash of apple juice that makes it so sweet and moist," Grandma Bets whispered theatrically. "Better not put that in the moving picture. I'm still thinking of taking a patent on it."

"How many kids did they have?" Carolien asked.

"They took the last name Bailey, and they had a bunch of kids together, but the only one I can name is Elizabeth, with the one green eye, who married Tinker Washington. They had Anna, who everyone called Missy and sang like an angel, who married Jackson Ward, and they came to Chicago, where Jackson worked in the abrasives plant. Missy and Jackson, of course, were my mama's parents, and Missy passed the story and the ring to my mama, June, who married my pop, Wilbur Thomas, and Mama passed the story and ring to me, and here I am, telling it again, October 6, 2005."

Carolien waited for more. Her gaze alternated between the real-life Grandma Bets sitting before her and the Grandma on screen. Either way, she looked beautiful, far younger than her 78 years.

"It's a great story," Carolien said.

Grandma Bets bit her lip. "Did it come out OK? Did it...," she paused, searching for the right word. "... flow? Did it flow?"

"It flowed perfectly. Like a river," Carolien said.

"Phew. I'm glad," she said.

"Carolien's right, Ma. You told it just right," her mother said. "And now that we got it in a moving picture, it'll never be forgotten."

Carolien pulled out her cell and was disappointed to see no reply from Claude.

"Claude's watch was old-fashioned, big with a cover that flipped open," she said.

"Pocket watch?" her mother asked.

"Right."

"And he got it today?" Grandma Bets asked.

"Yep."

Grandma Bets shook her head. "It's an odd coincidence, don't you think?"

"Maybe the watch came from slave times too," Carolien said.

Grandma Bets nodded. "Could be. Could be."

Carolien's mother looked at the clock on the wall. "I better start cooking."

"And I'm taking off these shoes. They're pinching my feet something awful," Grandma Bets said.

"And I'll try Claude again," Carolien said. She quilled:

Where r u? Can u come 2 my haus? Bring yr watch. Have smthing weird 2 show u.

After hitting send, she flipped on the camera, and watched the 4D image of Grandma Bets tell her story—the beginning, middle, and end—all at once.
Chapter Seven

The Experiment

Heading home, Claude kept thinking about Jay: the excitement of chasing the hat and racing to the bandshell, the thrill of the first kiss, and the mind-blowing unreality of kissing him again and again.

Claude laughed at his previous worry about so-called mixed messages. It was obvious now that every glance, every gesture over the last several weeks had been building, step by step, to the amazing moment when Jay leaned over and kissed him. In that delicious moment, there'd been no hesitation, nothing mixed.

Claude had drawn the line at unbuckling his belt, pointing out that they were in a public park. "I don't feel like getting arrested," he'd said, leaving out the other reason he wanted to keep hands above the waist: the fact that he'd never actually gone all the way with a boy and wanted to make the first time special—be certain it wasn't a short-term fling, as his past two boyfriends had been, but something serious, genuine.

Jay begged him to have dinner at his house, but Claude said no, a decision he began to regret as he galloped home. They'd made tentative plans for tomorrow after Carolien's competition—they would either go to Jay's to play tennis or to a motion picture show. But now Claude didn't know how he'd be able to wait.

He wanted to turn around and race to Jay's house. But intellectually, he knew it was better to play hard to get. He needed to find something nice to wear to meet Jay's parents. They were rich, owners of an Indian telecom company, and probably snobs like Millstone—he knew for a fact that their social circles overlapped—and he wanted to make a good first impression.

The stable was empty, which meant his dad was working late. He settled Trax and marched into the house, kicking off his shoes, tossing his rucksack on the floor, and yanking open the refrigerator. The box was bare except for a half-empty package of Holesome Americano Cheese that was a month beyond its expiration date, a carton of Moo Done It Milk, a bruised apple and a desiccated orange.

He found a box of Stupendous Saltines in the pantry and, after examining the label and finding that it wasn't produced by a wholly owned subsidiary of APU, carried it to the living room.

His dad's puzzle was still on the table. He left a new one every morning. Sometimes it was an equation, sometimes a riddle, sometimes a code, sometimes an unfinished sequence. Licking cracker crumbs off his lips, he grabbed the puzzle and plopped on the couch. The note read:

Hi! What word do you get when you grind wheat, subtract a train, add 10 and then turn the whole thing upside down? Love, Dad.

Grind wheat. Claude picked up a quill and wrote "flour" on the page. Subtract a train. He studied the word "flour." Since trains run by the hour, he crossed out "our," then he added "ten," crossed that out and then added "10." He crossed the whole thing out and then wrote, "fl" 10 times. That's not right. He wrote "flour" again. Other words for train? He wrote "locomotive," "freight," "passenger," "subway," "elevated." He stopped and smiled then underlined "l" in elevated. In Chicago, the mostly elevated train system was called the "L."

He wrote "flour" again and crossed out the "l," which gave him the word "four." Add 10 to 4 and you have 14. Turn it upside down and you get... hmm. It looked like a lowercase "h" and a capital "I": hI. "That was too easy, Dad," he said aloud, as he wrote "Hi" and tossed the sheet on the floor.

He fell back on the couch and, with the carton of crackers on his chest, gazed at the ceiling. He could still taste Jay, a mix of mint breath freshener and sour sexiness. There'd been a moment, just before they'd parted when the storm clouds broke and they'd been bathed in sunlight, as if the heavens were blessing them, and Claude had felt as if he could have stayed there forever.

His phone chimed.

where u??? Carolien wrote.

She'd quilled several times in the last hour, asking him to come over, and then had left a VM about a ring that supposedly had a pattern like the one on the watch. He hadn't responded because he'd been with Jay, and now wondered how much to tell her. Carolien thought Jay was a jerk and would probably say Claude was letting his groin lead him by the nose.

He turned on the TV. A newscaster said a poll showed the presidential candidates were neck and neck after months of back-and-forth scandals. At the commercial break, a young woman appeared on the screen. "I look young, right?" she asked, in a sultry voice. She appeared to be about 25 years old. Her skin was wrinkle free, her eyes clear, her teeth sparkling. "Well, I'm not," she continued. "I'm 75."

"Give me a break," Claude said.

"I know. It's hard to believe. But look," the woman said, holding up a photo of a grandmotherly woman. The woman looked not only old but unfashionable, in a dowdy dress and clunky black shoes. "This was me six months ago. And this is me today," she said. The camera pulled back to reveal the woman's figure. Her body was as youthful as her face, and she was wearing a tight red dress and pointy dick-kickers. "And I owe it all to Rejuva, the foam pillow that releases growth hormones into your skin while you sleep."

A large tortoise peered at the camera. "The growth hormones were developed under a patented process using the DNA of tortoises, the oldest living creatures on earth." The ad cut to scientists in masks and lab coats dropping liquid from droppers into tubes. "Scientists at All Products United extracted the key proteins responsible for tortoises' eternal youth, combined them with human growth hormone—which is known for its ability to keep children's skin youthful and elastic—and placed them in this," —the young-old woman sat down on a bed, which she patted lightly with her palm—"a mattress made from time-release foam that delivers this miracle medicine to your skin while you sleep."

The screen filled with a cartoon showing waves of medicine radiating from a mattress into the body of a sleeping woman. The woman's aged face and body transformed into a young woman's while numbers on the bottom of the screen quickly scrolled from "1 night" to "180 nights." Meanwhile, the woman's voice narrated: "In just six months, you can turn back the hands of time 50 years," pause, "or more."

Claude shut off the TV, wondering how Millstone did it. One subsidiary of All Products United was destroying turtle habitats while another was exploiting turtles' DNA, and both subsidiaries were probably making a profit. The company was always ahead of the curve, always the first on the market with the next new thing. They seemed on a track to own everything these days—a steamroller so powerful that Congress was actually debating a bill to regulate the speed at which a company can grow, a not-so-veiled attempt to restrain APU's expansion.

"Hey."

Claude's dad was standing at the window, holding a bag of Frik 'n' Frak Fried Chik 'n' Chak.

"Hi," Claude said.

"Dive in. I'm going to check the garden." His dad left the bag on the windowsill and disappeared.

Claude stepped through the sliding door, grabbed the bag of Chik 'n' Chak, and followed him across the yard.

"How was your day?" his dad asked, glancing up from an elephant ear-sized leaf of rhubarb that he was gently rubbing between thumb and forefinger.

"OK," Claude said, dropping the bag on a picnic table that stood on crooked legs in the middle of the yard. The table, like the entire house, showed signs of neglect—the table with its splintered surface and warped legs, the house with its sagging roof and rotting siding.

It wasn't that his father couldn't afford to get a new picnic table or fix the house. He just couldn't be bothered. His focus was work, so that even when he set aside time for non-work related subjects, his mind always drifted back to the formulas scrawled across the blackboard in his office or the inventions that cluttered his workbenches.

"C'mon and eat," Claude said, reaching in the bag and grabbing a chunk of warm, boneless meat.

His dad walked over and peered in the bag cautiously as if afraid it might bite. Sometimes he seemed to look not at things but through them, as if he was seeing something no one else could see—their molecular structure or the laws of physics that held them together.

"You want an artificial breast or artificial leg?" Claude asked.

His dad smiled. "Since they're artificial, does it matter?"

"Which shape do you prefer?"

"Hmmm. Since you put it that way, I think I'm in the mood to eat something shaped like a club." He sat down and tossed his head back to get his shoulder-length hair out of his face. Claude handed him a leg-shaped piece, and he tore into it as if he hadn't eaten all day.

They ate for a few minutes in silence, and then Claude asked, "Where did Mom meet Ted?"

His dad was startled. His eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

"Well... I don't know. Just curious."

In truth, Jay had sparked the question. As they'd parted, he'd declared that "a relationship is defined by how it begins."

"Uh oh. Ours began in a storm," Claude said.

"That's where it began, not how. The how was... first off, we were doing a good deed. You know, trying to save the lady's hat."

"Hmmm. True. When you put it that way, it sounds like an auspicious beginning."

"Right." Jay smiled. "And we had a race."

"Which you won."

"True, but my point is we were playing, messing around, having fun. That's another auspicious way to begin a relationship. And then what we were doing just now..." He smiled mischievously. "That was pretty hot. At least I thought it was hot."

Claude grinned. "I did, too," he said, leaning over and kissing him again.

"Yep, hot," Jay said, kissing back.

"Yep, yep," Claude said, planting a third kiss.

Jay, his expression unexpectedly serious, pulled back. "So I think our relationship will be full of good deeds, fun, and passion." Passion. Claude liked how it sounded, and it got him thinking about his mom and Millstone's relationship. He'd never seen them be passionate. Sometimes they seemed more like acquaintances than husband and wife. What had been the spark that had drawn them together?

His dad swallowed a mouthful of chicken. "I don't know," he answered.

"Do you ever think things could have worked out differently?"

"Differently?"

"You know, with you and Mom staying together."

His dad shrugged. "I used to think about it in the beginning. Maybe if I'd said X or done Y—not burnt the chicken I was making for your mother's birthday dinner or not worked so late in the lab. Or maybe if your mother hadn't taken that vacation by herself..."

"What vacation?"

His dad looked at his hands. "Paris. I was supposed to go too but there was an emergency at Fermi," he said, referring to the particle accelerator where he spent much of his time.

"Is Paris where Mom met Millstone?"

"You must have heard this story a thousand times," he said. He took a particularly large bite of meat.

Claude shook his head. "Actually, no." The story his parents told about their breakup was this: they'd fallen out of love, drifting over the course of 15 years in different directions, his mom toward nights at the opera, his dad toward work.

With this mouth full, his dad said, "You're too young."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are," he said. Flecks of chicken flew from his mouth, one landing on Claude's forearm.

"Gross," Claude said, grabbing a napkin to clean himself and the table.

"Sorry. Bud, am I tired."

"Dad."

His dad crumpled a Frik 'n' Frak napkin in his greasy hands. "I better check the seed transporter."

"I asked you a question."

"What was it again?"

"Is Paris where Mom met Ted?"

His dad sighed. "Maybe. Probably." He looked worn out, as if the exhaustion not just of the day but of months and maybe even years had suddenly caught up with him. "In any event, I always think of that trip as the beginning of the end."

"So maybe if you had gone with her...?" Claude left the question unfinished.

He shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Seriously, do you ever wonder if you'd still be with Mom if she hadn't met Millstone on that trip?"

"Maybe we're still together in an alternate universe," he said and then headed toward a corner of his garden where he'd set up his latest contraption. It consisted of two covered dishes with a glass tube sitting midway between them. Dozens of wires and heavy cables connected the various pieces.

Claude, a half-eaten piece of Chick 'n' Chak in his hand, followed him across the lawn.

"Darn," his dad said as he squatted near one of the dishes and examined a small gauge affixed to the lid.

Claude squatted next to him. "What's wrong?"

"The carbon dioxide levels are up," he said, pulling a small notebook from his pocket.

"So?"

"They were supposed to go down." He began jotting numbers in his book. Claude noticed that the page facing him was filled with doodles that looked vaguely familiar, like diagrams of atoms he'd seen in chemistry class.

"Why are they supposed to go down?"

His dad sighed. "I'm trying to transport the gasses from this environment to this one," he said, pointing from one covered dish to the other.

"Is transferring them hard to do?"

"Not transfer. Transport them."

"What's the difference?"

"Transport the gases atom by atom—quark by quark, actually—and reconstitute them on the other side."

"Like from Star Trek when they zap people from here to there?"

"Pretty much."

"You're joking."

His dad checked the connections holding the wires and dishes together. "A case can be made mathematically that teletransportation is possible, just as a case can be made for alternate universes," he finally said.

"Mathematically, huh?"

"Say you're at an intersection where you can turn left or right."

"Never mind. I'm not that interested," Claude said, standing up. When he was younger, he looked forward to his dad's explanations of why stars twinkled, how the moon influenced the tides, and why light was the fastest thing in the universe, but lately he did his best to avoid them.

"Wait, you asked a question and I want to answer it."

"I changed my mind."

"You asked if I'd gone with your mother to Paris, would we still be married, right?"

"Oh that question. Go on, although I don't see the connection unless you're going to say you could have saved the marriage by teletransporting yourself across the ocean."

"No, but close. What I wanted to say was that if it were possible to combine alternate universes and teletransportation into a unified theory, I could answer your question by testing it."

Claude crossed his arms. "Testing it?"

Wiping his hands on his pants, his dad stood. "Yeah. Transporting myself to Paris in the year 2002 and seeing what happens."

The idea was so ridiculous that Claude could only smile. "Great. Anyway, I've got homework to do."

"You don't think it's possible, do you?"

"Uh, no." Whether or not his dad's theories were sound seemed far less relevant than real-world issues, like whether or not he'd feel awkward the next time he and Jayesh Hilovasian were face to face.

His dad examined him with intense brown eyes. "What if I told you that there's an infinite number of alternate universes, and they're constantly branching off from each other? Every moment that passes is filled with different options, different routes, different possibilities. And each and every one of those possibilities is realized—or I should say, has a chance of being realized in another universe."

Claude smiled. "So in one universe you and Mom are still together."

His dad pursed his lips. "Highly probable, I'd think."

"And there's a universe in which, say, siblings can get married?"

"I'm not saying everything is. I'm just saying everything is possible. It's possible that there exists a universe much like ours, with an America much like ours where, yes, siblings can get married. But everything in this theoretical realm exists as a probability, not a fact. Some scenarios are more likely than others. The more bizarre the scenario, the less likely it is."

"Give me some examples of what you mean by 'likely'."

"Well, I think slight shifts are more likely than big ones. Slight shifts can have big impacts, of course. I always think of President Mondale's death. If the wind that day hadn't been so unpredictable, his helicopter wouldn't have crashed."

"And Ferraro wouldn't have become president."

"And we probably wouldn't have gone to war with Brazil and countless other things that have affected millions of lives."

"So you're saying it's more likely there's an alternative universe in which Ferraro didn't become president than an alternative universe in which I do become president?"

"Right. Because only one thing had to change for Ferraro to have remained a forgotten vice president while countless little factors would have to shift to send you to the White House."

"I see. And didn't the decision to ban gunpowder-based weapons after World War I come down to one vote in the League of Nations?"

"Exactly. It's easy to imagine the vote having gone the other way, and instead of fighting with blades and arrows, the world's armies would have gone on to invent endlessly new and horrible ways to kill each other. Or think of the OPEC crisis. If the Saudi States hadn't been so greedy, we'd all be riding carts with combustible-engine motors instead of horses."

"Dad, that's ridiculous!" Yet even as he pronounced the idea absurd, he wondered if there was a world in which the environment was still at least close to normal: where there were no flash tornados and Lake Michigan wasn't a polluted mess.

"Maybe ridiculous. Then again, maybe not. No one has proven the theory, but then no one has disproven it. This is a first step." He pointed to the transporter.

Claude looked at the device. If his father thought he could transfer gas magically from one dish to another—and that somehow that would eventually allow him to join Mom in Paris at a pivotal moment in their relationship—was he crazy? Or was he truly, as he'd heard people say, a genius?

Claude thought of the doodles he'd just seen in his dad's notebook. "What were those drawings in your notes?"

His dad pulled the book from his shirt pocket. "Why?"

Claude grabbed it and opened to the doodles. "I saw something just like this today."

His dad looked amused. "Really? I doubt that. I came up with these schematics this morning."

"Schematics for what?"

"Why are you so interested?"

"Because these," Claude said, pointing to a series of concentric ovals, "look like the design on this." He pulled the golden watch from his pocket.

His dad squinted curiously at the object for a moment and then his face broke into a grin. "Where'd you get a pocket watch?" he asked, reaching for it.

"Millstone gave it to me."

"Millstone?" he said, surprised.

"He wants to be my friend. Open it. The pattern is inside."

His dad opened the watch and looked at the circular pattern etched on the inside of the cover. "Hmm," he said, as he rubbed the engraving with his thumb. In a low voice, as if he were speaking to himself, he said, "This... this looks right."

"What looks right?" Claude asked.

He looked a bit bewildered. "This pattern. It looks like a khronos."

"What's that?"

He shook his head as if it was hard to explain. "A schema, a concept. It's what I've been trying to sketch."

"Why?"

"It's connected to that," he said, pointing to the transport contraptions.

"But what's the schema mean?"

"It connects things. Theory to practice. Maybe even one universe to another."

"Whoa. Seriously?"

"That's the theory anyway."

"The idea is pretty cosmic, but the pattern, I don't think, is so special."

"What do you mean?"

"Carolien says her grandma's ring has a similar design."

"Are you sure?"

"I think so." He tapped the phone in his pocket. "She just left a message about it."

"Can you ask her to bring it over?"

"I guess. I think she's made a moving picture about it."

"Really?"

"I'll ask her to send a copy."

His dad continued to examine the watch, holding it at different angles. "Hades. This brings back memories," he said.

"How so?"

"Your grandmother—my mother—used to have a watch like this."

"What happened to it?"

"She lost it, I think. I remember Mom was terribly upset when she couldn't find it because it had come from her Uncle Izzy."

"Was Izzy a jeweler?"

"He was a scientist. Your Grandma adored him, but she was just nine when the family left Warsaw. Izzy stayed behind and the Nazis..." He drew his finger across his neck in a slicing motion.

"Ouch."

"Your grandma talked about Izzy so much that I'd have nightmares. Most kids are worried about bogeymen in their closets, but I worried about Nazis. Every time my parents turned out the lights, I was sure there was one standing by the bed ready to grab me."

"The Nazis were long gone by the time you were born."

"My mother had a way of making them seem very, very real."

"That chews, but maybe that's why you became a physicist—because Grandma was always talking about her beloved scientist uncle."

His dad shook his head. "Nah. I went back and forth about studying physics, or something else—electrical engineering, architecture. I remember the day I finally decided to stick with it, and it had nothing to do with Izzy.

"You sure? You actually remember the moment you decided to study physics?"

"I sure do."

"I don't get it. You don't remember to grocery shop. You don't remember to pay the electric bill. You don't remember to take pasta out of the pot until all the water boils away."

His dad grinned guiltily. "Some things are easier to remember than others. Hey, do you mind if I hold on to this for a bit?" He held up the watch.

"Go ahead."

He slipped it in his shirt pocket, and plucked the notebook from Claude's hand. "Since we're playing show-and-tell, I've got something to show you."

"What?" He hoped it was dessert.

"Follow me." His dad stood, grabbed the crumpled bag of Chik 'n' Chak off the picnic table and walked into the house. After tossing the bag on the dining room table, he knelt on the floor and began to rummage through the overstuffed gym bag that doubled as a briefcase. "Here we go," he said, extracting a book, which he handed Claude. It was The Evolution of Physics: The Growth of Ideas from Early Concepts to Relativity and Quanta by Albert Einstein. It was wrapped in a protective plastic sheath, as if it wasn't supposed to be touched. "Open it."

Claude opened the flap and withdrew the book. The leather felt grainy, textured with decades of dust. The title was printed in gold leaf, and the spine was starting to flake. He opened the book carefully. It had been printed in 1938. Simon & Schuster. First Edition. He held the book under the light to see better. On the title page, in the broad bluish stroke of a fountain pen, was the signature:

He felt a chill as he read the name.

"Einstein really signed this?"

"Looks like it. Pretty cosmic, huh?"

"Sure. Where'd you get it."

"Someone sent it to me."

"Who?"

"Probably Maya, although she acted like she knew nothing about it." Maya was his colleague and close friend. "I think she got it for my birthday, which is coming up, in case you lost track."

"I was vaguely aware it was approaching," Claude said, putting the book on the table. He picked up the crumpled Chik 'n' Chak bag and headed for the kitchen.

"Hey, wait."

Claude turned around. "Yeah?"

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

His dad shrugged and then, with a gesture that seemed to take in the universe, said, "Everything. For being so busy. For making you live like this."

"Live like what?"

"You know: Eating takeout. Spending so much time on your own."

"I like takeout. And I like being alone."

"It's just that..." He paused, searching for the right words. "This isn't the life I pictured for us. For the family. Ever since your mom left... I don't know."

"I know you miss her. I miss her, too. I mean, I miss the way she used to be. I can't stand her now."

"Don't say that."

"I'll say what I want. And you don't need to apologize for anything," he said, although it was true that he was sick of takeout and wished his dad spent more time around the house.

"I'm in the middle of something and the ideas are coming so fast, it would be stupid to stop. But in a couple weeks, I'll take a break. I'll close my lab, give Maya the key, and then you'll be seeing so much of me that you'll be sick of me."

Despite how earnest his dad sounded, Claude didn't believe him. He'd made similar promises before—to take him on a two-week camping trip for his 9th birthday, to help him build a tree house in the backyard three summers ago—but something always got in the way: an emergency at Fermi or a new discovery that needed to be written up immediately before another scientist could claim credit.

"That'd be great," Claude said, which was true. It would be great. Even though his dad was standing right in front of him, so close he could touch him, Claude felt as if they were miles apart. He yearned for more: for closeness, for his dad to really see him. He loved his dad and felt proud of him for getting down on his knees in the dirt to make a wacky invention, but he also felt hurt and disappointed; there'd been too many broken promises and his dad was too unreliable.

His dad smiled, and Claude turned around and walked into the kitchen. He dumped the takeout bag in the trash and filled a glass with tap water and gulped it down. He filled and drained the glass several times, then placed the glass in the sink and washed his hands.

Wondering again what to tell Carolien about Jay, he pulled out his cell only to discover that she'd not only called again, but messaged a low-res copy of a moving picture. The subject line read:

grandma's story about ring

"Scheisse." He knew he was supposed to—without delay—hit "play" and watch, but he didn't feel like it. Instead, he forwarded the moving picture to his dad.

As he hit "send," he walked to the living room and looked out the window. His dad was squatting in the grass and scratching his head, staring at the transporter with an expression that suggested his thoughts were far, far away.
Chapter Eight

A Fantastical Conversation

Claude awoke on the couch to a blaring newsmercial. "It's amazing!" a woman with long orange hair and bright green lips declared. "I just spray it on my clothes and they don't get stained—ever!"

He reached for the remote, which was perched on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and clicked "off." He closed his eyes, hoping to muster the energy to rise, scrub his teeth, and stumble to bed.

He had a vague sense of having dreamt. He'd been alone, lost, and running because someone had been chasing him. Or maybe he'd been chasing someone. It should have been easy to tell the difference between hunter or hunted, but with every second the texture of the dream grew more distant. He looked around, half expecting to find that the person he'd been chasing (or who'd been chasing him) had followed him into wakefulness.

He sat up. The room was dimly lit, as if by a last sliver of setting sun, but the source turned out to be wedges of light streaming around the closed kitchen door. He yawned and resisted the temptation to lie down again, suspecting that the couch's lumpy cushion would, if he stayed there all night, petrify the tightness in his neck into a painful knot.

The message light on his cell looked ominous, like a warning.

He picked up the device and squinted at the screen:

03:04 AM

3 VM

He was hopeful that at least one—if not all—of the three voicemails was from Jay. Smiling, he pressed play.

His mom always began VMs with a huff, as if insulted that he hadn't answered on the first ring. "[Huff] Hi Dear. How are things? Listen, I know tomorrow isn't your usual day, but we're having a gala, and we'd love you to come." He knew that "we" actually meant "I." Milly probably didn't even know she was inviting him, unless this was just another facet of the plot to make them best buds. "It would be so lovely if you could make it—if you'd deign to come." His finger hovered over the "delete" button. "No. That's not it. I'm not saying it right. It's just that.... Oh, I don't know."

There was a long pause. His finger drifted from "delete" as he waited for her to continue. Was she crying? "Oh, sorry. I was thinking, um, about the gala—something I forgot to do." She suddenly sounded somber. "I'm having trouble focusing, honey. I never have time to focus on work that matters—the foundation and all that. Too much party-planning, I guess."

She released four beats of a mirthless laugh, eh-he, eh-he, a dry staccato. Surprisingly, he felt something he hadn't felt for her in a long time: sympathy. "You'll probably say no, but please be aware this is a no-strings invitation. You don't need to worry about what to wear; I'll have that all set out for you. And you can leave at any time. And you can bring a friend—Carolien or whoever. And Ted is bringing safari animals, not real ones of course, but projections, the latest technology and all that, but apparently they look very real. I'm sure you'll think they're..."

The message ended. She'd probably hit "End" by mistake. He wondered what else she might have said, what other dissatisfactions she might have revealed. Since re-marrying, his mom had always acted as if she were the luckiest person alive. And now she sounded unexpectedly—surprisingly—bitter, like the tourist who'd saved for years to visit Macchu Picchu only to discover that during her long flight it had been razed to build a mega-mall.

The next VM began with Carolien in mid-blast: "... gat is going on? Call me scheissekopf!" Why were women always dogging him? Mom wanted him at her party; Carolien wanted him to call. "I've got sooo much to tell you. You won't believe how tired I am. I spent hours making that moving picture and then Mom and Grandma started arguing. I have the worst headache. Let's get a Shaky." The call was time-stamped 10:54.

The next message began with heavy breathing. He smiled. "Sorry," Jay said, still panting. "Dialing your code got me so excited that I needed a moment to catch my breath." Then he stopped panting. "I still smell you by the way. Anyway, why don't you answer? You asleep? That's the only excuse I'll accept, although it's a lame one. So look my dear, my mother told me there's a big fancy party for Bill Watson at your mom and stepdad's tomorrow. Did you forget? My mom's going and she says it's the biggest party of the season, so I'm sure you must be going, which means that if you don't invite me yourself, I'm calling Eric and having him invite me, so you see you can't get rid of me, ha ha. No, I'll understand if you don't want me there, if you think it's too awkward or something. But it might be more fun to invite me, don't you think? That is if your mother taught you any manners. Hope you're dreaming of me."

He hadn't been interested in going to his mother's party­—until now. If Millstone was good for anything, it would be to impress Jay, since his house was one of the largest in town. And if his mom had a suit picked out, it was no doubt a top brand in the latest cut. Jay was certain to be impressed.

"Scheisse." His dad's muffled voice came from the kitchen.

Claude stood and walked through the darkened room toward the light. He heard the fast tapping of fingers on a keyboard and gently pushed open the swinging door.

"Dad?" he said softly, squinting in the brightness.

His dad was at the table hunched over his tablet. When he looked up, he jumped in his chair. "Man alive! You startled me."

"Sorry."

"No, I'm sorry. Did I wake you?" Peering at Claude, he looked particularly haggard and disheveled. His hair was unkempt, his shirt wrinkled, and he had dark circles under his eyes. A grey pallor accentuated his stubble, which looked as if it had acquired a day or two's length since dinner.

"You look awful," Claude said, yawning as he sat down at the table.

"I do?" his dad grinned as if he couldn't imagine anything more delightful. "Well, you look amazing." Leaning over, he grabbed and squeezed Claude's hand.

Claude pulled away surprised. As he looked suspiciously at his dad's still outstretched hand and grinning face, he asked, "Are you joking?"

"No bunkum," he said, still smiling as he brought two fingers to his forehead in a mock salute. "I've never been more serious. You look amazing. The house looks amazing. The crumbs on the floor look fantastical."

Claude blinked several times. "Have you been drugging or something?"

His dad threw his head back and laughed uproariously. "Neither drugged nor corned!" he shouted, jabbing the air with a pointed finger.

"Corned? What are you talking about?"

"It means drunk."

"In what language?"

His dad offered a mock frown. "I'm sorry, Claude. I don't mean to cock your hat."

"Stop that."

"Don't get your knickers in a twist."

"Will you stop? Whatever you're doing, it's not funny." His playfulness seemed to only underscore Claude's exhaustion. Why the Hades was he in such a good mood?

His dad looked genuinely contrite. "Sorry. I'm awfully tired and truly, truly happy to see you. In fact, I almost grabbed you when I saw you snoozing on the couch but decided to let you rest, and I needed to work."

Claude leaned back and crossed his arms. "Work on what?"

His dad opened his mouth but nothing came out. He looked at his tablet and then at Claude and then at the tablet again. "I can't say. Not yet, anyway."

"Why not?" Claude leaned forward to peer at the screen, but his dad pulled the tablet closer.

"For one thing, you wouldn't believe it."

"Try me."

He shook his head. "I've got to finish these notes before I forget. I'll tell you later." He often said that his moments of inspiration were fleeting, and if he didn't get his thoughts down instantly, they might be lost forever.

"But Dad..."

"It's late. You should be in bed."

"So should you."

"Right. It's just that I..." His voice trailed off, and he smiled wanly.

"What?"

His dad shrugged. "It's hard to know where to begin. You saw Carolien's moving picture, right?"

"Not yet."

"Well." He released a long sigh.

Claude expected him to say more but his eyes had already drifted back to the screen.

"Did you change your clothes?"

His dad looked down at his shirt. "Uh, yeah. I guess so."

"You're acting weird, you know that?"

His dad looked up, and his eyes glowed with a strange, sleepless excitement. "Lordy, you look good."

"Lordy, Dad? Did you say lordy?"

His dad combined a deep breathe with a hearty yawn. "Go to bed," he said gently.

Claude felt like he was dreaming. He leaned on the table; it was solid, its surface familiarly sticky with traces of old meals. He scanned the room. Everything was where it was supposed to be: The empty napkin holder he'd made out of spoons in 3rd grade, the toaster they called Bernie because it burned everything even on the lowest setting, the shelf of dusty cookbooks that had sat unused ever since his mom's departure. His dad used to say that the kitchen was the most important room in the house: it was where families were happiest, conversations free-flowing, and ideas sprang to life.

Perhaps there was nothing strange about the moment except the late hour. Perhaps his mash-up with Jayesh had stirred up feelings that left him unsettled. Perhaps his dad had exceeded his usual single glass of chianti, or maybe the steam generated by some brilliant new idea had fogged his brain. Whatever the cause, Claude felt a vague unease, a yearning for something the world couldn't supply.

"What would you do if you fell for someone who was different from you?" Claude asked. His own question surprised him. Was he actually asking for advice?

"What?" his dad asked, still typing.

"If you met a woman," he continued, even though he sensed the effort was fruitless. "A beautiful woman who vibed you cosmically in a physical way and you liked being with, had fun with, but who had completely different friends and interests. Say she thought science was stupid. What would you do?"

"Um." His dad continued to stare intently at the tablet. Then he slowly lifted his gaze. "Wait. Are you saying you met a girl? I thought you were a boys-only boy. What's that thing you used to say? A hundred and ten percent homo."

Claude rolled his eyes and shook his head. "You're missing the point. I was asking what you would do if you met a yummy female."

"Yummy?"

"Voluptuous."

"Oh." He nodded slowly. "What was the question again?"

Claude was too tired to feel angry but just the right amount of tired to feel frustrated. "Never mind."

"You're right. Now's not a good time. We'll talk later, OK?"

He wanted to shake him, but imagined that if he reached out, he'd find only air, his father a mirage.

His dad hammered at the backspace key. "There's some stuff I need to get down."

"Sure thing." As Claude stood, he saw the riddle he'd solved next to the tablet. "I guess you saw that?" he asked, pointing to the sheet on which he'd written and circled "Hi" in large letters.

His dad glanced at the page. "Yeah, nice," he said. "How long did it take you?"

"Not long."

"Good," he said, giving him a wink.

"Night." Claude pushed open the swinging kitchen door and headed through the darkened house to his bed.
Chapter Nine

Claude Finds a Note

Claude woke with the sun in his eyes. He glanced at the clock: 6:39 a.m. He yawned and stretched, finding that his muscles were stiff and sore, as if he'd overextended them. He closed his eyes, enjoying the sensation of the sun on his face.

His father had once told him that photons from the sun traveled over 90 million miles to reach Earth. It had seemed an impossibly large distance, boring in its vastness, but as he thought about it now, the idea seemed thrilling. It was miraculous that particles could travel so far to transfer their energy to his cheeks, infusing them with warmth. The sun itself was reaching out and touching him, touching the whole universe, in fact, since the vast majority of the sun's photons traveled unimpeded through space, destined to survive for millions of years until they reached... what? The edge of the universe? Is there an edge?

Claude went to the bathroom and washed up. As he dried his face, he made his way down the hall to his dad's room. The door was open, which meant he was probably awake, but the wireless wasn't blaring the day's headlines, as it usually did. Claude poked his head through the doorway.

"Dad?" he said tentatively. The drapes were open and the room empty. The bed was unmade, but then it always was. He peeked into the bathroom. Empty. The sink was dry and so was the shower.

The kitchen was empty, too. There were no new dishes in the sink. There was coffee in the bean-brewer but it was cold, as if it had been there for days. The room was silent except for the clicking of the clock over the kitchen table: 6:45. It was early, even for his dad. Claude thought it likely that he'd gone straight to the office, skipping sleep.

On the dining room table, he found a note.

claude: again, un-timely

interference; over night call at last lousy minute; emergency meeting; sorry! away 'til—unknown; really not

opportune; please eat nicely son; stay at finley—eek! take elegant Donna my best. always, dad

He read the note again. stay at finley. His mother lived on Finley Lane. But it was a strange way of putting it. please eat nicely son? eek? elegant Donna? It didn't sound like his dad, who hated fragments and run-ons, so that could only mean one thing: the note was a puzzle.

He yawned. He didn't feel like solving a stupid brain teaser and yet hoped that the puzzle would reveal that his dad really hadn't gone anywhere after all and that Claude wouldn't have to stay at Millstone's.

He grabbed a pencil and piece of paper and sat down. He read the note several times. The word eek! intrigued him. Did it have special meaning? E was the fifth letter of the alphabet, and there were a lot of words in the note with five letters: again, night, sorry, nasty, Donna. The sentence take elegant Donna my best had five words. The note also contained five forms of punctuation. Claude moved the words around, looking for a pattern. He turned them into their numeric equivalents (with a corresponding to 1, b to 2 and so on).

He broke down emergency like this:

E M E R G E N C Y

5 13 5 18 7 5 14 3 25

Meeting became:

M E E T I N G

13 5 5 20 9 14 7

What did the numbers mean? he asked himself. It occurred to him that there were endless ways to analyze, organize, and break down the contents of the short note; the task suddenly seemed overwhelming.

He folded the paper and placed it in the outer pocket of his rucksack, and then poured himself a bowl of Flan-Flavored Micro-Donut Holes before jumping in the shower.
Chapter Ten

An Unwelcome Request

"I won't do it."

Jonathan spoke calmly, trying to ignore the fact that he was wristcuffed.

The old man looked amused, like a parent marveling at a child's pointless tantrum. "Really?" he asked in a hoarse, skeptical voice.

Jonathan shook his head. He was in an old laboratory. The shelves were laden with test tubes, bottles of different colored fluids, and fleshy specimens of long-dead animals floating in jars of yellowish liquid. And then there was the old man himself: overweight and droopy-eyed, wrapped in a stained lab coat and tapping long, gray fingers on the arms of an enormous oak swivel chair. The scene would have been almost comical had it not been for the thing in the center of the room: a narrow flat slab that looked uncomfortably like an operating table.

"Hmm," the old man said. "Are you sure about that?"

Nervous sweat collected under Jonathan's arms and dripped down his back, but he maintained an impassive expression. "You can't make me."

Rather than seem annoyed, the old man looked as if Jonathan's refusal gave him only the deepest of pleasures—as if he admired Jonathan's rebellious spirit even as he knew rebellion on Jonathan's part was pointless.

"But Dr. Altide, you're a scientist, are you not?"

"Look, if it's OK with you, I think you'd better let me go," Jonathan said, ignoring the question. "You're not going to get anything from me, and on top of that you're only going to get yourself in trouble. As it stands now, I still don't know who you are. I don't know where I am. So if you let me go now, I won't be able to find you. We can just call the whole thing a big mistake, a misunderstanding. And we can forget about it."

The old man's grin grew wider. "You're a funny man, Dr. Altide. Very humorous."

"I'm certainly not trying to be."

The old man's smile lingered for a moment and then vanished, supplanted by a chilly scowl. "As a scientist, you look for evidence before making any conclusions, correct?"

Jonathan pressed his lips together, saying nothing.

"Yes, of course you do," the old man continued. "And so let's look at the evidence. You're bound, are you not? You're hidden in a place where no one can find you, I think you'll agree. There's no chance that anyone is going to come and rescue you. Perhaps you don't agree, but let me assure you it's true. So given those facts, wouldn't you concur that it's rather silly of you to refuse to cooperate?"

Jonathan shook his head.

"Is that so?"

"Yes," Jonathan said emphatically, "that's so."

"In case I'm not being perfectly clear, let me simplify things: I have complete control over you. Complete."

"Control over my body perhaps. But that's just temporary. And you certainly don't control my mind."

The old man sighed, like a parent growing weary of a child's back talk. "I think there's something you don't fully understand. No one knows you exist, Dr. Altide. In fact, to be perfectly precise: you don't exist." The old man paused, waiting for the last three words to sink in.

"I'm not sure how to react to a statement that's obviously absurd."

"So you don't have the slightest idea what I'm talking about?"

"I think you're trying to intimidate me, but it's not working."

"I'm merely stating fact."

"I see," Jonathan said, but in such a way that it was obvious he didn't see.

"Hmm." The old man made a sound like two rusty gears grinding together. "I think I've failed to inform you fully. It's unfair of me to expect you to draw conclusions—the correct conclusions—without giving you all the evidence, don't you agree?"

Jonathan remained silent.

The old man shuffled through a jumble of papers on his desk. "Here it is," he said, pulling out something small. As he held it in the air, Jonathan could see it was a photograph.

"Recognize them?" the old man asked.

Jonathan shook his head.

"Step closer."

Jonathan moved slightly closer. He could make out the image of a woman—a pregnant woman—standing near a man.

"Now do you recognize them?"

Jonathan shook his head, even as he had a feeling that the two people looked familiar. Without being aware of it, he took another two steps toward the man's desk. The image was now crystal clear, strangely so.

"My parents," Jonathan whispered. He'd never seen this particular picture. The few images he had of his mother as a younger woman showed her at special occasions: as a little girl at her brother's bar mitzvah; at her wedding; at Jonathan's graduation from college. This picture was candid, in profile, almost as if she didn't know the photo was being taken. "Where did you get that?"

The old man ignored the question. "Do you know with whom she's pregnant?"

Jonathan shook his head slowly. "Me maybe?" he asked.

"Very good, very good."

"But where'd you get it? And why?"

"My assistant took it. You met him. He was one of the gentlemen who brought you here."

"Gentlemen? Hardly. But that's ridiculous. Those guys are younger than me. And my father's been dead for 20 years."

"Exactly," the old man said. He was grinning again.

Jonathan rolled his eyes. "I don't know what game you're playing but enough is enough."

"Relax, Dr. Altide. Relax. I'm sure if you think just a bit more, you'll be able to figure out what's going on. You're precisely right that Jaxon is younger than you. But you're wrong if you think your father died 20 years ago. He didn't. He hasn't." The old man paused for effect. "Yet."

Jonathan understood. It was as if he were waking from a dream, and confronting a grim, unwelcome reality. "Are you saying..." Jonathan started and then stopped.

The old man, an eyebrow raised, waited expectantly. "Yes?" he prompted.

"Are you saying your assistant traveled back—back in time—to take this picture?"

The old man laughed. "No, no. Not at all. You misunderstand," the old man said. Jonathan felt instant relief, albeit a peculiar kind. After all, he was still cuffed and being held against his will (although he couldn't overcome the feeling that the whole thing was an elaborate joke—or, at the least, the work of buffoons who would eventually turn chicken and let him go). No, his relief was more metaphysical. For a moment, he'd thought that this crazy old man had developed the capacity to travel in time—creating the very technology that Jonathan himself had spent years pursuing.

"I'm glad to hear that," Jonathan said.

The old man was beaming, as if Jonathan's words gave him tremendous pleasure. "Don't feel bad, Dr. Altide. You really weren't far off at all. You see, my assistant didn't have to travel back in time to take that picture." He waited for a moment before finishing his thought: "Because your mother lives just across town with your father and your sister."

"What?"

"We've brought you, Dr. Altide, back to 1965, a month before you were born."

Jonathan wouldn't have believed the old man had it not been for the picture, which gave him pause. "You're crazy," Jonathan spat angrily, trying to stay ahead of his desperation. If this was 1965, then the chance of his being rescued was slim and the chance of his returning to the future on his own even slimmer. Even as part of his mind grappled with the various implications—all horrifying—of his predicament, another part focused on the conversation at hand.

"But why bring me here? Just so I can help you do what exactly? You obviously already have the technology you're seeking."

"Unfortunately, our knowledge is limited. We can't sustain long jumps, for instance. Nor can we take multiple trips. It took me nearly a year to calibrate my instruments so that they would take my men to 2005. Fortunately, you had this in your possession." The old man opened a drawer and pulled out The Evolution of Physics.

"I don't understand."

"The book's spine has a homing device, one that helped us track you to a specific time and place."

Jonathan was stunned. "A homing device? But how? Who put it there?"

"I did, of course," the man said matter-of-factly.

"But how...?" Jonathan's voice trailed off. He had so many questions he didn't know where to begin. "Why me?"

"Well, Dr. Altide, you have only yourself to blame. Suffice to say that we've known for years what you were working on—or rather, what you were going to work on. Years. The only trick was figuring how to reach you."

Jonathan was baffled. He'd taken great pains to hide his experiments and on the rare occasions he'd talked publicly about time travel, it had been only as a theory. The only person he'd been concrete with was Maya, but she'd only chuckled and advised him not to waste his time. Besides, he'd made her promise not to tell anyone, and she was as loyal as they came.

But what if she'd said something anyway, if only inadvertently? That still wouldn't explain how someone in 1965—before either he or Maya had even been born—could have known about his efforts.

The man reached in a pocket of his lab coat and pulled out something small and shiny. "I don't suppose you recognize this."

Jonathan squinted. "No. Why would I? It looks like a bolt of some kind."

"Indeed. Titanium, expandable and magnetic. It was found on my great grandfather's farm in 1849."

"1849?"

"Yes. Does that year mean something to you?"

Jonathan swallowed. Things were beginning to fall into place. "I'm not going to help you."

"But you already have. This bolt, for instance, allowed my father to start a company in the 1920s that made him rich."

"What's the name of your company?"

"Surely you must know."

"I'm just trying to figure out what's going on, like why you think I had anything to do with that bolt."

The old man sighed and looked at his hand, which he began to open and close slowly, as if making sure all the muscles worked. "The bolt is irrelevant, Dr. Altide. What matters is your time device."

Jonathan felt more determined than ever.

"I said it before and I'll say it again: I'm not going to help."

"Why not, Dr. Altide?" the old man asked calmly.

"It's not the kind of knowledge I'm going to hand out willy-nilly."

"It's OK for you to have the knowledge but not others?"

"It's like mustard gas. The fewer people who have the knowledge, the better."

"Yes, but like mustard gas, once someone has the knowledge, it's impossible to take it away. And I have the knowledge, Dr. Altide. I just need to fine-tune it."

"Well, don't expect me to help."

"But Dr. Altide," the old man said, lifting the picture of his mother. "What about her?"

"What about her?" Jonathan asked, although he already guessed what the old man meant.

"If something were to happen to her..."

"Yes. So what? Then I'd disappear, I suppose, and where would that leave you? I certainly wouldn't be around to help, that's for sure."

"That's true. But I would be no worse off than I already am. And you, of course, wouldn't exist. But it wasn't you I was thinking of. I was thinking of your son. Claude is his name, right?"

Hearing Claude's name made Jonathan wince. "What about him?"

"If you don't exist, then he can't exist, correct?"

The logic was unassailable. If this lunatic hurt his mother—killed her—then Jonathan wouldn't be born. And if Jonathan never existed, then neither would Claude. For a moment, Jonathan felt a surge of defiance. So what? Let the lunatic do what he wanted. The whole situation was preposterous anyway—as absurd as a dream.

And yet it wasn't a dream. It was real. Very real. Jonathan felt his defiance slip away. What right did he have to so casually let this man steal his family's future, to hurt his mother and son—and the countless people whose lives they, in turn, affected? Jonathan knew in his gut that even if this were a dream he could never do anything to hurt his mother or, especially, Claude—or in any way reduce the chance of Claude's existing in the future.

Jonathan's shoulders slumped and he eyed the old man wearily. He couldn't bring himself to say he would cooperate, and yet he'd lost the will to repeat his outright refusal.

"I need some time to think about it," he finally said.

The old man smiled broadly and nodded. "That's understandable, Dr. Altide. Perfectly understandable. By all means, take your time. We have plenty of it, after all, don't we?"
Chapter Eleven

A Draft of Cold Air

In grade school, kids told stories about the Millstone mansion: a boa constrictor with the head of a man lived in the attic and slithered out at night to steal children; human-sized jaw-traps dotted the woods, some still containing the weathered remains of long-ago intruders; secret tunnels full of rats and snakes led from the basement to bank vaults, allowing the Millstone family to siphon off others' fortunes undetected.

Ever since his mom had married Millstone, Claude had become, to his endless annoyance, a regular visitor, but he had yet to see boa constrictors or jaw-traps or secret tunnels—but that didn't mean the place wasn't creepy. The mansion's marble façade reminded him of a bank or an asylum for the rich but terminally insane. It seemed ridiculous that anyone, especially his mother, called it "home." And now that Millstone had filled it with scores of Programmable Autonomous Laborers, the mansion was creepier than ever.

On the afternoon of the party, they were everywhere. "Good tiding, Claude Altide," said a house-PAL, which glided toward him on silent treads.

"Good tiding," Claude replied, squinting at the Programmable Autonomous Laborer's odd appearance: someone had draped an off-white dress shirt, black tie and white morning coat over its chrome body and replaced its usually bland, wide-eyed holographic head with the face of a squinty-eyed, long-mustachioed waiter with slicked-back hair. From the neck up, he looked like a translucent barkeep plucked from a 19th century saloon.

His appearance brought to mind something Millstone recently said: that the beautiful thing about manufacturing the new generation of PALs was that they could be mass produced with identical chassis, but their individualized holographic heads made each appear unique, rendering them more attractive to consumers.

"At your service, Claude Altide. Please let me know if there's anything I can do for you."

"Fat chance," Claude said, turning and walking across the cavernous foyer toward what was euphemistically called the private wing, although the last thing he ever felt in the Millstone mansion was privacy.

He heard the PAL pivot and wondered if it registered anything akin to an emotion. Did it feel rejected by Claude's brusque "fat chance"? Or was it simply reviewing the interaction, looking for lessons and opportunities for improvement? PALs were supposedly self-teaching, constantly analyzing inputs to refine their skills.

Claude paused at the archway that led to the ballroom, which buzzed with the activity of at least a dozen PALs, all dressed like 19th century servants, and a few humans, who, pathetically, Claude thought, were similarly attired.

The room was filled with round tables swathed in golden fabric, giving them the appearance of large pillows. The Tiffany chandeliers had been replaced with glowing holographs of APU's most emblematic products. Floating in the center was a 15-foot projection of the Carbon Mantis, APU's first sky-to-ocean-floor dirigible, while arrayed around it were images of brands of bread, soda, office supplies, and appliances. The walls were adorned with huge screens flashing international landmarks: the Taj Mahal, the Amazonian Tower, the Greater Arctic Glacier Preserve, and the Saudi Triplet Towers.

The room looked both garish and beautiful, complemented by an unobstructed view of the lake, visible through floor-to-ceiling windows. He wished Carolien was there so they could laugh together at the extravagance, but she was at the meet. He was supposed to be there, too, but bad weather had delayed the start and he'd had to leave before Carolien threw. He'd excused himself, claiming he had a nasty headache, but felt terrible about lying.

As he made his way down a long hall lined with modern paintings of abstract geometric patterns, a draft of cold, dank air swept over him. Looking for the source of the blast, he expected to see an open window. But all the windows were shut. The only possible source was an open door in the middle of the corridor.

The dank smell grew stronger as he approached the door, which opened onto stairs leading to a cellar. He felt inside for a light switch, but finding none, decided to take a peek anyway, curious how anything in the highly manicured mansion could smell so bad. Halfway down the stairs, however, the smell of mold was so intense he had to stop. In the dim light, he saw hulking furniture and a highly polished floor but then realized that the floor wasn't polished; it was covered in water.

Suddenly, the room filled with light. Claude jumped.

"What are you doing?"

He turned around to find a mustachioed house-PAL standing in the doorway.

"Nothing," Claude answered. He was angry that the PAL had startled him and even angrier that he'd reflexively answered the laborer's nosey question.

"You are in the basement, which is forbidden." The PAL's tone was neutral but the word "forbidden" carried a threat. Forbidden was absolute, the sort of thing for which a laborer's programming allowed no give. If he refused to leave, would the PAL call for help or try by itself to eject him?

"I just wondered where that smell was coming from."

Yellow lights flickered along the top of its chassis. "The cause is three types of mold, five fungi, 36 kinds of bacteria, and the presence of 91 percent humidity. You are still in the basement, which is forbidden."

"Is this from yesterday's storm?"

"No."

"I see." He waited in silence but they seemed to have reached a stalemate, the PAL neither moving nor speaking. Slowly, Claude climbed the steps. The PAL glided aside, and, when Claude had passed, it used its telescopic arm to pull the door shut.

"What's all the water from?" Claude asked.

"A leak."

"I assumed. But what's the source? The lake?"

"The basement is forbidden."

Claude nodded. "Right. I got that. Anyway, how much time before the party starts?"

"57 minutes and 32 seconds."

Claude smiled. The PAL was both annoying and endearing, like a child trying to follow orders it didn't understand. "You don't need to be so precise. A human would approximate. You could get away with saying, 'In about an hour'."

The lights around the PAL's neck flickered. "Thank you," it said.

"Any idea how many people are coming?" He started down the hall, the PAL following.

"912." The PAL clicked and whirred and then said, "Or should I say about 910?"

Claude grinned. He made a mental note to remember every word of this conversation so he could relay it to Carolien. "If you were human, I'd think you were joking. But you don't joke, do you?"

"No. I don't."

"So how much is Millstone spending on the party?" It was not a question he'd have asked a human, but there seemed no harm in asking a machine—not that he expected it to answer.

"Approximately $1,640,000."

Claude stopped and stared at the PAL with a stunned, wide-mouthed expression. "You're wigging me."

The barkeep PAL opened its holographic mouth, apparently trying to mirror Claude. "No, I'm not wigging you."

"No. Of course you're not." He looked the PAL up and down, wondering if it was recording the conversation. As he resumed walking, he asked as casually as possible, "Do my mother and Millstone ever argue?"

"Yes."

"What kinds of things do they argue about?"

"How much time Mr. Millstone spends away from home. How much money he invests in Mrs. Millstone's foundation. How bright the lights are in their bedroom. The options on the breakfast menu. The options on the lunch menu. The options on the dinner menu. The kinds of flowers to be planted in the gardens..."

"I get it. Interesting. Thank you." Claude was embarrassed by the machine's loquaciousness and yet it seemed like too good an opportunity to ignore. He stopped and looked around to make sure they were alone. And then he leaned in close and whispered, "Did Mr. Millstone and my mother have an affair while my mother was still married to my father?"

The PAL's neck lights flickered. "I don't know," it said.

"But you'd tell me if you knew?"

"Yes."

Claude resumed walking. "And my mom left me a suit. Is that right?"

"Three suits have been rush-tailored for you. They're on your bed."

"How do you tailor something when I'm not here?"

"We give the tailor your dimensions."

They'd reached the door of his room—"his" only in the sense that he used it on the exceedingly rare occasions he slept over.

"But how do you know my precise dimensions?"

"They're recorded every time you pass through the main gate. Every person who enters is scanned upon entering the grounds," the PAL said.

Claude was tempted to say something rude but reminded himself that he couldn't blame a no-brained PAL for Millstone's paranoia.

"Uh, well, thanks," he said.

He slipped into the room and gently closed the door behind him. He heard the hum of the PAL's gears fade as it glided away.

c c c c c

Each suit had been paired with shirt-sock-shoe combinations: a linen suit of maroon and kelly green stripes with a purple shirt with French cuffs and sparkling buttons; a yellow suit that appeared to be made of laminated flowers with a shirt mottled with hand-stitched bumble bees; and a plain black suit that was refreshing in its simplicity, with a shirt patched together from multiple fabrics, representing every pattern from plaid to polka-dot.

The black suit was the obvious choice. He considered switching in the purple shirt but decided that whatever intelligence had chosen the combination—his mother or a house-PAL's algorithm—probably knew more about fashion than he did. The suit fit snugly but wasn't tight, and the fabric was so light that he felt almost naked. The accompanying shoes—made of a soft, synthetic fabric that looked like black pewter—felt as cozy as slippers.

Examining his reflection, he felt a guilty pleasure. He looked good. He looked sexy. He looked rich. What would Carolien think? He wanted to send her a picture but couldn't. Hades. What fun was there in dressing up if he couldn't get Carolien's take on it? Guilt over keeping Jay and the party a secret reared up, and he vowed he'd tell her everything tomorrow.

He still had to brush his teeth and fix his hair. And he needed a belt. Well, perhaps he didn't actually need it. The trousers fit perfectly, hugging his waist and thighs like ivy on a wall. But he didn't feel right without one.

He stepped into the hall and treaded down the corridor to his mother and Millstone's suite.

"Anyone here?" Claude yelled. "Mom? Step-daddy?"

They were probably in what his mom called the face parlor—a fully automated spa where PALs used facepaint, bio-toxins, hair polish, and other tricks to make sure that she and Millstone looked their camera-ready best.

Since he'd last seen their suite it had been re-styled with an underwater theme, including the walls, which had been replaced by floor-to-ceiling tanks filled with fish and swaying sea plants.

He was tempted to snoop—he was especially curious about the decorative objects, including a crumbling-looking chest that looked as if it had been swiped from the Bollywood set of Treasure Island—but if he didn't want to be caught, he needed to hurry.

Tiptoeing into what he surmised from the smell of cologne was Millstone's dressing room, he cautiously—half expecting an alarm to sound—opened closets. The closets themselves were rooms: one was exclusively for suits, another for shirts, and still another for shoes and accessories, including two long racks of ties and another long rack of belts. Most of the belts were indistinguishable from each other, raising the question why Millstone needed so many.

The logical choice was to pick one from the middle, where Ted would be least likely to notice, but Claude was drawn to the one at the end, which was made of such soft leather that it seemed to glow. And it happened to fit perfectly.

He knew he should leave—that Millstone or his mother or a PAL might wander in at any moment—but now that he was in Millstone's private sanctum, he couldn't resist taking an extra moment to poke around. A quick survey revealed that on one side of the accessories closet were drawers full of jewelry: watches, cufflinks, sunglasses, even expensive writing implements in a range of styles and colors. On the other side were drawers of undergarments: socks, underwear, undershirts, and winter hats, gloves, and scarves. He stuck his hand in the exceedingly soft and expensive scarves, wondering if Millstone had worn even half of them.

His hand encountered something small and hard: a key card, blank except for the number "42," handwritten on one side. He briefly wondered what it was doing there—what secret thing it might open—before slipping it back among the scarves.

He decided to look for his mom in the face parlor. And if she wasn't there, it wouldn't be a wasted trip; after all, who could blame him for wanting to look his best?
Chapter Twelve

Breaking the Code

"I knew you'd pick black," Donna said, her legs as still as a statue as she glided toward him on conveyor-belt shoes, the latest in APU footwear.

It was amazing how often the first words out of his mother's mouth soured him. "Were you testing me?" he asked, irritated.

"No. Of course not," she said, frowning.

"And I failed?" he pressed.

She sighed and her frown faded into a look of distress. "Can I have a redo?"

"I guess," he said. "Go ahead."

"Thank you," she said, relieved. "What I should have said was that you look fantastic. Really." She sounded sincere. "I only meant that I'm not surprised you chose the more conservative style. That's who you are: a serious young man. But you look absolutely perfect in black! It's very flattering."

"Thanks."

The PAL in the face parlor had washed and trimmed Claude's hair and applied a light layer of makeup (to hide the circles under his eyes and accentuate his lips) but he'd refused the PAL's suggestion to green his eyes or dimple his chin with a subcutaneous lift. Mom, on the other hand, had apparently had the full treatment. Her hair was a new color and shape—dark red instead of black and styled in a halo of soft curls instead of straight. Her cheeks were smoother and more taut, and her eyes looked larger. The overall impression was that she looked like a younger, cuter sister of herself.

"You look beautiful, as always," Claude said.

She kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you, dear. I'm so glad you're here."

"Me, too, I guess."

"Don't sound glum. You can eat and enjoy yourself while I'm required talk to these pin people—what is it you call them?"

"Pin-striped nokopfs," he said. "But I thought these pin people were your friends."

She smiled wearily. "Some are nice. Most are bores, or they seem boring after one too many parties."

"Ha, really? That's great," he said, happy that the dissatisfaction he'd heard in her voicemail hadn't been an aberration. "I mean, I'm sorry you find them boring, but it's great that we agree about something. That hasn't happened in a while."

"No," she said, looking sad. "It hasn't."

Not wanting to start a serious conversation, Claude quickly asked, "So what's the inspiration for tonight's festivities? You didn't say in your message."

"I didn't? Bill Watson is officially announcing that's he's running for president."

"Of the United States?"

"No, the Egotistical Idiots Society. Of course the United States!"

"Scheisse."

"Don't curse. And don't worry. He won't win. How could he? Ted says it's purely a business decision. Congress will be more flexible if they really think Bill's going to challenge President Marsh."

The ballroom was beginning to fill. Several women wore shoes that lifted them nearly a foot off the ground, and a man with green hair and Cleopatra eye makeup wore a bright red jumper that expanded and contracted as he walked, reminding Claude of a beating heart. "Who's that?" he asked, pointing at the heart.

"Profit if I know. He looks ridiculous, like a blob from outer space."

"Or a pimple that needs popping."

"Hey, what's this?" Mom lifted his shirt to look at his belt.

"Hey." He swatted her hand away.

"Oh Zeus. Where'd you find that?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Ted's in the dressing room looking for it. He went neutronic when he couldn't find it."

"Really?" He liked that Millstone was upset. "What's the big deal? I mean, he has so many belts. I'm surprised he even noticed it was gone."

Mom smiled mischievously. "I'm surprised, too. It's not even attractive. Probably one of his idiot consultants recommended it. Must have said it makes him look smarter," she said. She leaned forward and whispered in his ear: "Just don't let him see it."

"Sure," he said, even though the prospect of angering Millstone tempted him to do otherwise.

Mom tugged at the edge of his shirt to hide the belt under its fold.

"Stop," he said, stepping back.

Mom winked. "Why? Worried your little friend might see that you're Mama's pet?"

"What little friend?" he asked.

"I heard you added the name of the Hilovasian's very perfect looking son to the guest list. Is he someone special?"

"Mom!"

"Speak of the handsome devil," she said, lowering her voice.

Claude turned around. Jayesh stood in the entrance archway, wearing a bright green jacket and clear shoes through which his bare feet were visible.

"A real heartbreaker," Mom said.

"Stop, please."

"Right-O. This is a party, so let's have fun."

"Whatever you want Mom."

"Ooo, I wish you would say that more often," she said, her larger-than-normal eyes sparkling.

"Whatever you want Mom. Whatever you want Mom."

"Music to my ears," she said happily. She pecked him on the cheek and shot off on her conveyor-belt shoes—a bit too abruptly, if her fluttering arms were any indication—toward a group of laughing women, whose bejeweled hair and arms reminded Claude of pictures he'd seen of the exotic roosters bred by the King of France to match the lawn furniture at Versailles.

As Jay made his way across the room, Claude watched other partygoers examine him, their expressions reflecting emotions that spanned the narrow range from envy to admiration. He felt proud that Jay was his, although he recognized how strange it was to think of Jay belonging to him. Of course, people didn't really belong to each other, not in a material sense at least, and yet that's exactly what he felt as Jay drew closer: that over the last 24 hours, he'd come to own Jayesh Hilovasian in the same way that he owned Trax or his favorite sweater.

"Don't you look smashing," Jay said, grabbing Claude's forearms and pulling him into a kiss. Claude inhaled deeply, filling his nose with Jay's ever-changing scent, which tonight brought to mind a mouth-watering mix of watermelon and almonds.

"Please don't eat me too fast," Claude said, pulling his head back so that he had just enough clearance to speak.

"I'd start by unbuttoning your shirt if I wasn't so pleased to see you in such finery," Jay said. He ran his fingers cover Claude's jacket. "A 500-thread count silk SolarWeave blend, if I'm not mistaken."

"I have no idea. My mother chose the suit," he said, instantly regretting it. Did he sound like an idiot, letting his mother pick his suits?

"Your mother has excellent taste." Jay turned and looked at Claude's mom, whose laughter and grand gestures had placed her at the center of the rooster women's attention. "She's a knockout."

"Thanks, I think. I try not to think of my mother as a sex object."

Jay spun around and grinned wickedly. "You're the only sex object in your family as far as I'm concerned," he said, leaning in for another kiss.

"Why don't we go somewhere more private?" Claude asked.

"We can anchor off anytime. First let's have some party."

"I'm not much for parties," Claude pouted as he tugged at Jay's jacket.

"This place is amazing," Jay said, gazing around.

"It's ridiculous." In addition to the projections of APU products over their heads and the constantly changing wall-sized moving pictures, holographs of life-sized animals had begun to meander through the crowd. A giraffe in the middle of the dance floor appeared to be eyeing two women who were laughingly spinning each other, and a troop of baboons was squatting next to and on top of a nearby buffet table laden with hors d'oeuvres.

Jay went over to the largest baboon, which looked up as he neared.

"Hey monkey. Come here," he said, reaching toward it.

The baboon leaned back, puffed its chest and bared its teeth.

"It looks mad," Claude said, coming up behind Jay.

"I want one. How does it work?" He tried to touch the animal's head, but it rose on its legs and bellowed. Jay stepped back. "Hades. What's wrong with it?"

Claude laughed and walked up to the baboon, which shrieked even louder. A few people turned to stare as Claude tried to punch the beast, whose mouth looked wide enough to swallow his fist. As soon as he made contact with the baboon's irate face, it disappeared, vanishing with the satisfying pop of a soap bubble. There was a ripple of motion among the onlookers—a palpable release of tension—and a few people applauded.

"My hero," Jay said.

Claude had expected the animal to retreat or, at the very least, shriek as his fist plunged harmlessly through its head. He hadn't realized it would disappear, and it felt disconcerting, as if he'd killed a living thing. "I didn't know it would do that," he said guiltily.

Jay kissed him, an action that elicited more applause.

Claude pulled back. "OK. Let's not make a scene."

Jay grinned tightly. "You're right. That would be silly."

"Hey, relax. What's the big deal?"

Jay shrugged. "Nothing. I'm fine. Want something to drink?"

"Not really."

"I'll get you a beer. Meanwhile, say hi to your buddy. He looks lonely."

Claude followed Jay's gaze to Cooper Patina, the principal of Vita-Lite High School, who was standing by a Picasso, his squat frame dwarfed by the large painting.

The principal was wearing a blue suit that was too tight and an orange beret that looked like a wilted flower. For some reason, the sight of Patina looking so silly made Claude sad.

A holographic lion wandered toward Patina, who eyed it nervously.

"He doesn't bite," Claude said, walking into—and through—the lion, causing it to pop into nothingness.

"Ah," Patina nodded. Sweat shimmered on his forehead and cheeks. "It's a great idea. A lot of fun." Although "fun" was his favorite word, he said it as if someone were holding a knife to his throat.

"You should get holographic teachers. Save you a fortune on salaries."

Patina's eyes widened. "I guess your father mentioned it, that we're trying that. Next year. An experiment, of course."

Claude was startled for a moment at the mention of his father but then realized that Patina was referring to his stepfather. "Actually, my stepfather hadn't mentioned it," he said, wrinkling his nose as if he'd just smelled something offensive. "We don't have that kind of relationship where he tells me every little horrible thing his company is inventing."

"Ho, ho," Patina said, scanning the room as if to reassure himself that no one of importance had heard Claude refer to APU as horrible. "Yes. Well."

"Well," Claude smiled wanly. "Glad you could make it." He struggled for something to say. "That was quite a storm yesterday."

Patina didn't appear to be listening. "Of course, it's an honor to be invited," he said, sticking a finger in the collar of his shirt to loosen it.

"Is it? I mean, of course. Well. See you at school."

As Claude stepped away, his phone chimed. It was Jay.

"What?" Claude muttered into the receiver.

"My mother insists I meet about 10 different dick-slobs, including her hairdresser. Tell me where to meet you, and I'll be there in 15 minutes."

"Tell your mom to buzz off," Claude said.

"Um, no."

"Fine. Meet me... I don't know. In the library. Ask a PAL for directions."

"15 minutes," he said and clicked off.

People had begun drifting toward a platform on the far side of the room. The music had stopped and suit-wearing nokopfs were filling the stage. Among them was a stern looking Ted Millstone and a pale Bill Watson. Watson's family, including a nervous looking Eric, was standing behind them.

Someone started yelling, "Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill," and others picked up the chant. "Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill."

Watson smiled, showing large white teeth, and waved. Millstone grabbed a microphone and began to speak, but Claude could only make out a few words: "thrilled..., brilliant..., right direction..."

"Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill."

Defeated by the chanting, Millstone lowered the microphone.

Claude wanted to leave—leave the party, leave the mansion. The chanting sounded angry, as much in favor of Bill Watson as against President Marsh or anything that might get in Bill Watson's way.

"Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill."

Turning his back to the stage, Claude walked toward the archway that led to the south wing. Two droopy-mustachioed party PALs stood like guards on either side of the exit. The lights around their necks flickered as he approached. "Good evening Claude Altide," they said simultaneously.

"Um, hi. Listen, my friend Jay—Jayesh—Hilovasian is going to meet me in the library. Will you make sure he doesn't get lost?"

Their lights flickered again. He imagined they were accessing the full-body image of Jay, which must have been filed away when he arrived. After a moment, they said, "He must be authorized to enter the south wing."

Claude grunted, annoyed. "He's my friend," he said, but immediately realized how stupid that sounded. He looked around and spotted his mother listening attentively to a man in a suit with chainmail sleeves. He marched over to her. "So sorry," Claude said, putting a hand on his mother's shoulder. She looked relieved to see him.

"My son, Claude Altide," she said, presenting him to the tall man whose beard was divided into two long strands, one green and one red, that stretched to his belly button.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," the man said in an unexpectedly high-pitched voice.

"This is Frank Van Dyke, the director of the City Opera and Philharmonic," his mother said.

"Great. Nice to meet you," Claude said hurriedly, offering his hand. "Do you mind if I steal my mom?"

"By all means," Van Dyke said, trying hard to smile as if nothing could please him more than to lose the audience of one of the Philharmonic's biggest donors.

Claude pulled his mom toward the entrance to the south wing. "Is everything OK?" she asked.

"That guy sounds like a fucking mouse," Claude said.

She laughed. "And as boring as one."

"Can you tell these things that Jay has permission to meet me in the south wing?" he asked, as they approached the two PALS. "They say he isn't authorized."

She looked delighted. "Have you planned a tryst?"

"Mom!"

"Never mind," she said quickly, though clearly pleased to be privy to what she perceived to be the details of Claude's romance. She turned to the PALs. "Mr. Jayesh Hilovasian has authority to enter the south wing, the east wing, the family wing. Anywhere he wants to go, just like my son—without being bothered or questioned or stopped."

"Yes Mrs. Millstone," they said.

She turned to Claude with a smile. "Anything else?"

"No Mom. Thanks."

She kissed him on the cheek. "Have fun," she said and glided off.

Claude turned back to the PALs. "So you got that? You'll help Mr. Hilovasian find his way to the library?"

"Yes Claude Altide."

He suddenly found it odd that they knew everyone's name but they themselves were nameless.

"Do you guys have names?"

"In the house network, I am referred to as 301," said the PAL on the left. Without missing a beat, the one on the right said, "I am referred to as 243."

"I see. Catchy. Well, thanks 301 and 243."

"You're welcome," they said simultaneously.

Stepping past them, he entered a long hall. The thick carpet made him feel as if he were floating, a ghost. The hallways led to a series of living rooms, parlors, and lounges, many of them themed. An Arctic room contained polar bear skin rugs, furniture that looked as if it were made of ice, and snow falling from the ceiling. A jungle room was lined with sunken planters filled with large-leafed plants and roosts for colorfully plumed birds. There were several entertainment rooms with battle simulators, hunting arcades, billiard and ping pong tables. One room contained the original set of the game show Scan that Product, which Millstone bought at a charity auction

The library was at the end of the hall, so far from the ballroom that the party was reduced to an occasional vibration.

"Light," Claude said. A circle of lights embedded in the ceiling popped on, making him squint. "Dim, please," he said, and the lights dimmed.

The library was Claude's favorite room. It was where he spent most Wednesday afternoons, doing homework while waiting to be called for his once-a-week dinner with his mom and Ted. The antique furniture and old books made him feel as if he'd stepped back in time. Even the air, spiced with the odors of musty pages and leather bindings, made him think of the past, an era before filtered air and centralized odor control.

He dropped into a creaky swivel chair and spun around. After several rotations he stopped. It wasn't the ideal room for mashing: there was no couch, just hard oak chairs. But they didn't have to stay. They could go elsewhere: there were countless lounges and studies, or they could go outside and settle in a corner of a dark garden, far from people and PALs.

He glanced at the grandfather clock that stood like a sentry in the corner and wondered how long he'd have to stay under Millstone's roof. That, of course, depended on how long his dad was gone. The thought of spending even a single night in Millstone's sterilized guest room with PALs patrolling the halls left him queasy.

He opened his cell and dialed his dad's number, but the call jumped to voicemail. There was a decent chance his dad's cell had died or he'd forgotten his charger or his cell entirely.

He pulled out his wallet and retrieved the note, unfolding it carefully and laying it on the desk. Reading it over, the words seemed more peculiar than ever.

claude: again, un-timely

interference; over night call at last lousy minute; emergency meeting; sorry! away 'til—unknown; really not

opportune; please eat nicely son; stay at finley—eek! take elegant Donna my best. always, dad

As he absently redialed his dad's number, something caught his eye. It was a book, one of many on a shelf next to the desk. Claude couldn't have said what specifically caught his attention, only that the book looked familiar.

At first he thought it was something he'd recognized from school—the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, perhaps—but as he stepped closer, he remembered. He didn't even have to see the title to know that it was a copy of the book that his dad had just shown him, Einstein's The Evolution of Physics.

He ran his finger down the spine and pulled the book from the shelf. Unlike his father's copy, the pages of this edition were yellowed and, as he thumbed through them, gave off the smell of mildew. The book clearly hadn't been opened in years, maybe decades.

He was surprised to find that this copy was also autographed: Einstein's bluish signature was in virtually the exact same place it had been in his dad's copy. Maybe signed copies weren't so rare after all, or maybe someone had simply used a signature stamp. Further down the page was a handwritten inscription:

Cows, lambs and ungulate deer

eat honorable earth's large pastures.

And under that a signature:

Jonathan Graham Altide.

He was so surprised he almost dropped the book. Not only was it his father's name, but it was his handwriting. Claude's head felt light, his legs weak, his hands clammy. He closed his eyes, trying to focus his thoughts. The room was silent except for the ticking of the grandfather clock.

When he opened his eyes, the name was still there. He ran his finger over his dad's inscription, which looked as old as the book itself, written in what appeared to be the ink of an old-fashioned fountain pen. However, there was no mistaking the message in the inscription. Of course, maybe this was all a weird coincidence, and maybe there was no hidden message and there had once been someone else named Jonathan Graham Altide who'd signed his name in the book.

But Claude doubted such coincidences were possible, especially since he saw the hidden message so clearly. Taking the first letter of each of the words, the message screamed from the page:

Claude help

It was obvious now. The note from the morning used the same simple code. He returned to the desk and sat down, reaching for a pen as his eyes once again scanned his father's words.

claude: again, un-timely

interference; over night call at last lousy minute; emergency meeting; sorry! away 'til—unknown; really not

opportune; please eat nicely son; stay at finley—eek! take elegant Donna my best. always, dad

Taking the first letter of every word, he wrote on the same piece of paper:

Cautioncallmemsaturnopenssafetedmbad.

Then he inserted slashes:

Caution/call/memsaturn/opens/safe/ted/m/bad.

He played with the word memsaturn, scribbling various breakdowns:

Mem Saturn

Me MS At Urn

Me M Sat Urn

Was it Latin? Combined with the previous word, it might mean call me, but then what was msaturn?

He was certain ted m referred to his stepfather, but the fact that Ted Millstone was bad was hardly news, although it was unusual for his dad to highlight the fact. And call me wasn't much help. He'd called several times, but his dad hadn't answered. And where was he supposed to find a safe?

He stared at memsaturn until it occurred to him that Jonathan might have meant call mem, with mem referring to the initials of his friend, Maya Espinoza-Martinez. That left saturn, or more specifically, saturn opens safe, which sounded like a code within a code.

He looked around to reassure himself that he was alone. A few minutes ago, he was eager for Jay's company; now he needed a bit more time to figure this out. Did his dad really need help? The notes, his father's unexpected trip, and the fact that he wasn't answering his cell all suggested that something was genuinely wrong.

Maya would hopefully reassure him that his dad was fine and that the notes were mistakes or coincidences or practical jokes.

Fingers trembling, he opened his phone, took a few deep breaths, and dialed.
Chapter Thirteen

What Maya Knows

Normally, Maya would have prepared a meticulous dinner of fresh produce, its mix of fiber, protein, and carbohydrates perfectly matching her nutritional needs, at least according to the thermo-glucose bracelet on her wrist.

But tonight she was too tired to do anything more than heat a bag of High Fiber Veg-Medley and park herself in front of the TV, where she tried to lose herself in the news: gold at $7,000 an ounce, the Senate debating Haitian statehood, APU's Bill Watson running for president.

Just as she started to relax, shaky footage of yesterday's tornado filled the screen.

"Halo," she muttered. She'd watched the same moving picture at least 100 times, applying every tool in the lab in an attempt to understand it. It was the third tornado in a month, and, like the other two, had erupted without apparent cause.

Of course, weather was unpredictable despite science's best attempts to understand it. But these tornadoes defied all the rules. All three had appeared within a 20-mile radius under conditions that the most sophisticated models couldn't explain. Their height-to-wind-speed ratio was off kilter. Their funnels were strangely shaped, fat on top and bottom but unusually thin in the middle, as if connected by a thread. But the strangest thing of all was that they didn't move randomly but followed the street grid, their straight-line motion punctuated by occasional right-angle turns.

In one section of the tape, which had been recorded by a dirigible over Vita-Light High School, it looked as if the tornado had stopped at an intersection, like a cautious horseman looking both ways before crossing. She'd watched the scene again and again, growing more and more frustrated as every measure she applied—wind speed, barometric pressure, contour mapping, temperature differential—failed to explain the funnel's behavior.

The last thing she wanted to do was think more about the tornadoes, but the TV footage had set her mind in motion. She needed a new perspective, fresh input, but the colleagues in her department were just as baffled as she was, and the person whose advice she most trusted hadn't responded to her increasingly frustrated messages for help. But that was no surprise. Jonathan was famous for losing track of time, failing to meet deadlines, and not returning calls.

She took a long sip from the Veg-Medley straw. The TV now showed images of a small group of people on a wharf; the newscaster was saying something about a protest, but her eyes had drifted to the magnetic oscillator leaning against the screen. One of Jonathan's many odd-ball inventions, the oscillator looked like a small, chrome-plated rifle. He'd given it to her for her birthday, pulling it from behind his back the way another man might have unveiled a bouquet.

He'd demonstrated how it attracted and repelled objects, making a pen zoom from one end of the room to another. Although she didn't have much use for it herself, she'd appreciated that someone stuck in a bed or mobilechair might find the device handy.

Just as much as she loved the fact that he was capable of inventing something with practical applications, she hated the fact that he wasted so much energy pursuing fantasies.

His most recent obsession was the most outlandish yet. He'd given her a stack of calculations that he claimed proved that one could build what he'd called a time particulator, which would allow a person to step from one time and place to a distant time and place as easily as walking through a door. She agreed to double-check his work, confident she'd find a flaw, but she wondered now if she'd even bother. Who cared about bending time in a multi-verse when there were more urgent problems—like misbehaving tornadoes—to tackle? The fact he'd ignored her calls all day didn't exactly increase her desire to be helpful.

Her cell rang and she jumped, nearly dropping the Veg-Medley. She didn't recognize the number.

"Hello," she said.

"Hello."

"Jonathan! Where've you been?" She felt both relieved and angry.

"Is this... um, Maya?"

"Very funny," she said, even as she realized something was amiss.

"Um, it's Claude. Jonathan's son."

Her heart started beating wildly. Claude had never called her before. "Claude? Oh gosh. Sorry! I thought... I mean. I never noticed how you guys sound so much alike." She struggled to sit up straight, as if he could see her slouching. "What's going on? Is everything OK?"

"Yeah. I mean, no. That's why I'm calling."

A chill galloped up her spine. "Go on," she said with dread.

"Something's happened to Dad."

"Oh profit. What?" She lost no time in picturing worst-case scenarios: Jonathan dead of a heart attack, or with a broken spine after being thrown from his horse, or electrocuted during an experiment in his basement.

"This is going to sound crazy, but I'm not sure," he said.

"I... I don't understand. Is he OK?" she said. She leaned forward, placing the Veg-Medley on the ground and closing her eyes. When she was nervous, her senses came alive, like a lioness on a hunt. She pressed the cell to her ear, dialing the volume button to high; she wanted to hear every sound, every wisp of breath.

"Yes. I guess. Just confused."

"Is he hurt?" she asked gently. It occurred to her that maybe Claude was pranking her, following through on a schoolboy dare, but she doubted it, sensing by his tone and awkward pauses that he was genuinely worried.

"I honestly don't know. The thing is, he might be fine or he might be in trouble. He's supposed to be at a meeting, right?"

"Meeting?" She didn't remember anything about a meeting, but at least that might explain why he hadn't returned her calls. "I don't know. He's not with you?"

"No. He left a note saying he had to go to a meeting."

"Can't you reach him?"

"No. And the note had a hidden message that said to get in touch with you."

"Hidden message?"

"He leaves me coded messages. You know, for fun. Like a puzzle."

"Really?" She could easily turn teary at the thought of Jonathan leaving Claude coded notes. Why hadn't he ever mentioned them? It was so sweet. "So what does the hidden message say?"

He paused. "It's just that I found something else. It's hard to explain."

Her heart started beating so loudly that she felt certain he could hear it. She pictured Claude rummaging through the mess in Jonathan's basement lab and finding... what? Evidence that Jonathan was spying for the Chinese? Drugs? A bomb? Each seemed equally ridiculous.

"Do you want to meet so you can show me?"

"Yeah. That'd be good."

"Now?"

"Yeah. Great." He sounded relieved.

"Why don't I come to you? I can be at your house in 45 minutes."

"It's quicker to meet in the middle. At Jack's Cabana in half an hour?"

"OK."

ccccc

Claude strode across the restaurant, a lanky arm clutching something to his chest, the other confidently signaling the waitress. "Coffee, black," he said.

Maya was surprised by how mature he seemed. She'd seen him two weeks earlier when he'd looked like an ordinary teenager, slouched and with eyes rolling at every other word out of Jonathan's mouth. Tonight he looked much older, helped in no small part by his clothes—a close-fitting suit of shimmering fabric out of the pages of Gentlemen's Quarterly.

He slid into the booth, his grave expression dispelling any doubt she'd had about his seriousness. "Thanks for coming," he said.

"Of course." She wanted to pat his hand reassuringly but knew he'd find it condescending or strange.

He placed the book he'd been holding on the table and stared at it, eyebrows furrowed, lips curved with worry.

"Is this the thing you had trouble explaining over the phone?" she asked.

He nodded, and she felt relieved. It wasn't drugs or a weapon or, for that matter, anything that looked remotely dangerous.

"May I?" she asked, pointing at the book.

But Claude didn't seem to be paying attention. Instead, he was looking around the restaurant. They were sitting at least three tables from the nearest customer. "I always find this place so creepy," he said.

Jack's Cabana was decorated to look like a canteen from Brazil, complete with synthetic dirt floor and rough plank walls. There were also screens behind the paneling, so that between the cracks and gaps in the planks, customers saw moving images of a small village: peasants in straw hats carting barrows of grain, children running down the street, an occasional stray dog rooting in the dirt for a scrap of food, all of which gave way every 10 minutes to a brief flash of napalm before starting over in an endless loop.

"Me too," Maya said.

Claude smiled grimly as he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a piece of paper. "This is the note Dad left this morning."

She unfolded it and placed it on the table, and Claude explained how he'd deciphered everything except for the word "saturn." When he was done with his explanation, she repeated the word "saturn" several times, trying to unravel its secret.

"Here you go, son," the waitress said, depositing a mug of black coffee with a slosh on the formica. Her skin was bright red, thanks to her faux-derm bracelet, and her large hands were festooned with black skull rings.

"I'll have a guava pie," Maya said. She was normally meticulous about her diet, carefully monitoring her nutritional intake and religiously avoiding a long list of dangers, including sugar. But she was too stressed to maintain discipline.

"You got it," the server said, nodding. Her face was flat and stiff, the victim of what Maya guessed was dime-store derma surgery.

As soon as she stepped away, Claude pushed the Einstein book across the table. She lifted it up carefully. It looked similar to the book Jonathan had shown her yesterday, only this copy was more worn. She examined its back and front before opening it and reading the inscription. Claude watched intently as she read what was—apart from the Einstein signature—clearly Jonathan's writing. "OK," she said, unsure what to make of it.

"You gave it to him, right?"

"This book?" She glanced at it again. "No. No, I didn't. He asked me the same thing, only he had a less beat-up copy."

"The book yesterday was in better condition, right?"

She nodded.

"String together the first letter of each word in what Dad wrote," Claude said.

"C.L.A... Claude... H.E.... Help," she said slowly and softly. "Claude help." She looked up at Claude whose expression indicated he was as scared as she suddenly felt. "Don't worry. It's probably nothing," she said reflexively. "It's a joke or something."

"You think?" he asked hopefully.

She wanted to make him feel better but also didn't want to lie. She placed her hand over his and said, "The truth is I'm not sure what it means. Maybe it's a puzzle hidden in a puzzle. So let's not jump to conclusions. If we go step by step, we'll figure it out."

Claude slipped his hand away. "There's something else you should know," he said gravely.

"What?"

"After I found the book and called you, I sort of got lost—in the house, I mean. It's a mansion and crazy huge."

"I know."

"I ended up in a weird corridor I'd never seen before. I was going to turn around but I heard my stepfather, so I slipped into a room so he couldn't see me, and he went by and walked into the next room. Then I heard him say my name. Scheisse. I'd thought he'd seen me. But that wasn't it. He was talking about me. So I tiptoed over. I could see him in a reflection of a mirror, but since I was in the dark, he couldn't see me."

"Who was he talking to?"

"Eric Watson."

"As in the Watsons? As in All Products United?"

"Exactly. Eric's my age. He's Bill Watson's son, and he's a jerk. And why the Hades is he talking to my stepfather? I mean, for a second, I think they're having an affair. Crazy, right? But I mean, there's a huge party going on celebrating Eric's dad, and they've wandered off for a mashup; except, of course, it's not a mashup. Oh, sorry if I'm too crude."

She smiled. She was used to worse from her students. "Not a problem. Go on."

"Yeah. Well. So I hear Eric say something like, 'If you can just tell me why,' and Ted says, 'Please do as you're told,' but Eric's not giving up, and they go back and forth, only Ted isn't the big corkhole he usually is. He's polite, deferential, I guess because Eric is the son of his boss. And finally, Eric says, 'Look, Jayesh is doing everything I've told him to do. He's got Claude wrapped around his finger. But it's hard for me to make him really believe that this is important if I don't know the real reason.' "

"Jayesh?" Maya asked, confused.

Claude had been rushing through the story, but now he slowed down. "He's sort of my boyfriend, or was. Not really. We just kind of started dating." He flushed and looked away. He was clearly hurt and angry.

"Sorry."

"Don't worry about it. It's nothing deep or serious, but it could have been. I mean, I like Jayesh—liked him..." He paused, gathering himself. "The point is that I was surprised Eric even knew about Jayesh and me. And then to hear him say that Jayesh had me wrapped around his finger? It's a bunch of kuhscheisse."

"Better keep your voice down, although I understand perfectly why you're mad. I'd be furious—and hurt."

"Here you go, m'dam," the waitress said, dropping a waxy looking guava pie on the table with a thud.

"Thanks," Maya said.

Claude eyed the red woman warily until she was out of earshot. "So Millstone says, 'Just make sure your friend knows that if he doesn't keep Claude distracted for at least another day, his parents can kiss their company, their Swiss account, and their Arabian stallions good-bye.' And Eric says, 'He knows. Believe me. But what do you need another day for? What's going on?'

"I'm waiting for Millstone to yell but he doesn't. 'It's on a need to know basis,' he says. 'Give me a clue, bud,' Eric says in a really jerky tone—not unlike the way I speak with Millstone, to be perfectly honest."

"He must bring it out in people," Maya said.

Claude smiled. "Yeah. Maybe. Anyway, Millstone says, 'Crud, you're stronger willed than Bill, aren't you?'

" 'Maybe backbone skips a generation,' Eric says."

"Then Millstone gives in. 'OK,' he says. 'You won't be able to make heads or tails of it, but fine.' He walks across the room and he fiddles with something. I hear him moving, opening a drawer maybe. And then I see him again, and he hands something to Eric.

"'Look at this photograph,' he says. 'Do you recognize anyone?' Eric says, 'How old is that?' He sounds disgusted, like it's dirty and he doesn't want to touch it. 'It's old. Now take it and tell me what you see.' 'It looks like, I don't know, a bunch of raggedy farmhands, sharecroppers or something.' 'Or something,' Millstone sneers and points. 'This kid. Over here.' And Eric squints and says, 'It kind of looks like Claude.'

" 'Exactly,' Millstone says."

An idea popped into Maya's head—an absurd, frightening idea. "Halo," she said aloud, instantly wishing she'd stayed quiet.

"What is it?" Claude asked.

She closed her eyes for a second and took a deep breath. Stick with the facts, she reminded herself. It was the same thing she told her students when they tried to draw conclusions without sufficient evidence. And right now, she didn't have enough information for a hypothesis let alone a definitive conclusion.

"An odd thought popped into my head."

"What thought?"

It was too outlandish to voice; Claude might think she was crazy. "Did they say anything else?" she asked gently.

Claude seemed hurt she wasn't confiding in him. "Will you tell me later what you're thinking?"

"Yes. Of course. Just please, first, tell me everything you know."

Claude nodded. "OK. But there's really nothing else to tell. I guess Eric says something like, 'Was this picture taken at a play or costume party?' and Millstone just laughs, like Eric is a complete idiot, and Eric starts getting mad. 'Where'd you get it?' he says, and Millstone says, 'From the company archive.'

"Eric seems as confused as I am but I hear something, sounds like a PAL's coming, so I scram."

c c c c c

They sat silently for what felt like a full minute, Maya cradling The Evolution of Physics, Claude looking at her anxiously as he sipped his coffee.

She was calm despite the queasy, frightening feeling that Jonathan was in deep scheisse and the even more horrifying feeling that he was going to take his son along with him. Fortunately, crises tended to calm her. That had been the case in college when she'd coolly directed her classmates to evacuate the chemistry lab during an explosive fire, and many years later, when she'd methodically jerry-rigged a lever to pry open a manhole cover to escape an onrushing tornado.

Claude was the first to break the silence. "I'm so mad right now," he said.

"Mad? Why?"

"He disappears and doesn't answer his phone and leaves a weird note."

"Well..." She didn't know what to say. She wanted to defend Jonathan but could she? If he'd done what she suspected, he'd shown both brilliance and mind-boggling irresponsibility.

"Dad says Millstone is bad and the next thing I know Millstone wants to use my would-be boyfriend to keep me distracted for a couple days, but distracted from what? What the Hades is going on?"

"I don't blame you for being a little scared," she said.

"Scared?" he said, looking offended. But then he sighed and nodded. "Yeah, scared. But what's Dad done? How'd he get into this mess—I mean, if he is in a mess, which he probably is."

She found herself admiring him. A different 16-year-old might have denied being scared or melted in panic.

"It's funny how irresponsible parents can have responsible kids."

"You think Dad is irresponsible?"

She smiled. "I think your dad is great, and I know he's a great dad. But he's not superman. He's not perfect. And I think sometimes he gets carried away, especially by work. How can I put it? It's as if he sometimes puts science—the pursuit of pure knowledge—before common sense."

"That sounds like Dad. He can spend the whole day outside, building something in the garden and get completely sunburned and forget to eat."

"His focus is incredible," she said with genuine admiration. She heard herself use the present tense. Is incredible? Or would it be more accurate to say was incredible? She couldn't help but imagine she might never see him again. It would be as if he'd died. The possibility seemed both absurd and, in a stomach twisting, ground-pulled-out-from-under-you way, very real.

"You look like you're having that odd thought you'd had before but wouldn't tell me about."

Looking into Claude's earnest, worried face, she couldn't think of any reason not to share her suspicions. "Do you know what your father's been working on lately?"

He shrugged. "Yesterday he was all wired about alternate universes."

"And time travel? Did he say anything about time travel?"

"Yeah, he did," he said. His eyes widened, his nostrils flared—signs of a dawning realization. "You're not going to say what I think you're going to say."

"I'm just telling you what I know, and what I know is that your father said he was getting close to a theoretical," she said, giving the word special emphasis, "understanding of time travel. He'd worked it out mathematically, or he said he did. The formulas are so complicated that it's taking me weeks to go through them, and I'm still only half way done."

"Wait, wait, wait. Are you saying that Dad traveled back in time and got stuck, so he wrote a message to me in this book thinking I'd somehow eventually—years and years later—find it?"

She hesitated, unsure how much to say. "He said if he could make a machine, a real-life time-traveling device, the validity of his theorems would be self-evident. He's always been a big believer in seeing-is-believing."

"A time-traveling device? A time-traveling device?" he said, as if repeating the words could help him better understand them.

"That's what he said: some kind of machine or buggy that can jump through time." Jonathan had shown her many odd inventions—not just the magnetic oscillator but a sensor that measured how many people were in a building based on vibrations in the walls and a photovoltaic kettle that converted the sound of someone whistling into enough energy to boil water—but never anything as jaw-dropping as a time buggy. Still, if anyone on earth was smart enough to pull it off, it was Jonathan. "Science fiction writers play around with the idea of time travel, but no scientist I've ever met, except your dad, talked about it seriously. He seemed to really think it was—how did he put?—'within the realm of the practicable.' "

"Practicable? Is that a word?"

She smirked. "I think so. Your father isn't one to make up words."

Claude muttered sadly, "That's right. But he's one to make up time buggies."

She felt close to tears for Jonathan, who'd suffered verdammt knows what, and for Claude, who was facing something no one on earth had ever confronted before. It seemed ridiculous. It was ridiculous! How could Jonathan have sent a note from the past? And yet maybe it was just a failure of her imagination to see what Jonathan had thought was obvious. That time wasn't merely a fixed fact of the universe but a road that could be traveled. If that were the case—and if he'd successfully found a form of transportation that allowed him to navigate that road—then his name in the book made perfect sense. Except if he knew how to travel back in time to write the inscription, why had he stayed there? Why hadn't he returned? Had he run out of fuel? Had his time machine broken down?

"He was really worked up about something last night," Claude said.

"He was? How so?"

He furrowed his brow, as if he could see into the past by squinting. "It was late, after midnight, and he'd said he'd had a breakthrough. Come to think of it," he said, suddenly sitting up straight and looking intently at Maya, "he seemed different. I mean, I thought he looked really tired, like he hadn't slept in days. He shaves every morning, but he had stubble, like he hadn't shaved for a long time. I'd seen him a few hours earlier and he looked normal and then boom! I see him at two in the morning, and he's got a two-day old beard, and he's all hyped up about some breakthrough, like he'd just made a huge discovery."

"Wow," she said, her heart pounding wildly. "Sounds like he really did it."

"Of course he did," he said emphatically.

She frowned. "But if it worked last night, why didn't it work again? Why is he writing notes like this? And such obscure ones. I mean, if he wanted help, why didn't he just, oh, I don't know..." She was about to say "write a letter" but stopped herself. You can't write a letter and ask that it not be delivered for 60 years. "There must be a better way to communicate. I mean, if he's going to send an SOS, why send it in code in a book that's just going to collect dust somewhere?"

"Not just anywhere, but in my stepfather's collection."

"Yeah, but how could your father—if he really wrote this 50 or 60 years ago—know that the book was going to end up in your stepfather's house where you, who would recognize his name and look for a secret message, find it?"

They sat for a moment pondering this question, which didn't have a ready answer.

"What about Millstone's photo?" Claude asked.

She'd forgotten about the photo. "I don't know."

"Does it mean that I'm going to travel back in time, too? Am I going to be trapped like Dad, assuming he is trapped, which he probably is?"

"Maybe we should just sleep on it. Your dad could call any minute, and we'll realize we've let our imaginations get the best of us."

"You really think so?" he asked.

"No."

"Then I don't think we should sleep on it. We should do something."

Claude was right. They shouldn't wait, especially if Millstone, who was somehow involved, needed just a day more to accomplish an important task. She looked at her watch. 10:48. "Do you know where the safe is? The one he mentions in the note?"

He shook his head.

"Then our first job is to find it. You should look through your house, top to bottom. I'll go to Jonathan's office." She felt a brief moment of hope as she imagined opening his office door and finding him, so lost in his work that he hadn't slept, eaten, or heard his cell's persistent ringing. He'd laugh hysterically when he found out they'd believed he'd not only invented a time machine but had been trapped in the past.

"OK. Call me right away if you find anything," Claude said.

She nodded. "And you do the same."

"Agreed."
Chapter Fourteen

Searching for a Safe

By the time Claude got home, he was exhausted. He wanted to forget everything that had just happened, make a carrot-caramel sundae topped with sugared peas and acorn brittle and park in front of the TV, the volume high enough to drown his mind in an ocean of sound.

As he changed into a "Don't Laminate the Lake" t-shirt, his cell chimed. It was Jayesh, who had already delivered several "Where r u?" quills followed by increasingly urgent VMs, in which he expressed first hurt over Claude's avoiding him and then anger. Underlying it all Claude detected panic, no doubt fueled by Jay's fear of Millstone and his failure to keep Claude distracted.

He thought about Jay's smiles, his sexy comments, his strong grip as he'd pulled him into a kiss at the party. It had seemed so wonderful, so perfect, but it had all been a lie. How could he have been so stupid as to believe that someone as perfect-looking and charming as Jay could have been interested in Claude?

A tiny part of him felt sorry for Jay, although his pity was dwarfed by a desire to see him punished. Go ahead Milly, he thought; you have my permission to ruin Jay and his parents. He wasn't sure the scope of the destruction Millstone had in mind, but Claude pictured Jay in ragged clothes, squatting on the ground and begging passersby to drop coins in a battered metal bowl.

He closed the cell and tried to banish Jayesh from his thoughts.

The logical place to find a safe was the basement lab. But as he descended the cellar steps, it was clear something was wrong. Everything had been dumped on the floor—pieces of metal, wires, tubes, gauze, bottles, goggles, gloves, solar cells, cathode tubes, cranks, gears, tools, paper, books, notebooks.

He stood still and listened for the presence of an intruder, but all he heard, besides the thumping of his heart, were the harmless sounds of an empty house: the hum of the refrigerator; the rattle of the kitchen window in the wind; a whinny from a neighbor's horse.

Reasonably certain he was alone, he quilled Maya: Someone sacked house. Total mess

Maya's response was swift: Get out NOW

What else was she supposed to say? Don't worry. They're gone he answered.

If there'd been a safe, the thieves had probably already found it, but he looked around anyway. He grabbed a hammer and tapped the walls, listening for a hollow. He used a flamelight to probe the narrow space above the pipes. He examined the concrete floor, looking for any breaks or irregularities that might indicate an excavation.

He studied the laundry room with similar care, hefting the machines aside to look for clues behind and beneath them. He tried to examine the chaos of papers, too, but most were scientific articles or his dad's handwritten calculations, which, for all Claude understood, could just as easily explain how to make laxatives as they could a time buggy.

The cell chimed. When he pulled it out of his pocket, he realized that he'd already missed several calls.

"Yeah," Claude said.

"Where are you?" Maya asked, breathless.

He was sitting on the floor, amid a maelstrom of papers and equipment. "Still here."

"Why haven't you answered?" She sounded just like a parent: both relieved and mad.

"I didn't hear the phone."

"Did you see my quill? What if whoever sacked the house comes back?"

"Did you find the safe?"

"Just get out, please. Meet me at my house."

"A few more minutes. I'm going to go through the rest of the house."

"We can do that together."

"When?"

"Tomorrow. And we should probably call the constable."

"And tell them what? Dad invented a time buggy?"

She was silent for a moment. "I can't get in his office."

"Why not?"

"The lock's been changed."

"Do you think Dad was worried someone would try to break in?"

"Maybe," she said. She sounded doubtful. "Or maybe someone's keeping us out."

His head was swimming. It seemed like anything was possible. "Can you punch a hole in the wall?"

"Through concrete? No."

He wished there was someone else to call, someone who knew how to evade alarms and break locks.

"I have a friend."

"A friend who knows about locks? This is sophisticated stuff."

"Carolien can hack anything." How would she react when he called at 3 in the morning to say his dad had invented a time buggy and was lost in the past? The funny thing was, she might actually believe him.

"She may be another Einstein, but it's better not to get more people involved," she said.

"She's not 'more people.' She's my best friend," he said.

"We need the card that opens Jonathan's office," she said, as if speaking to herself.

Claude thought of the key card he'd seen in Millstone's closet. "Does Dad's office have a number?"

"Forty-two. Why?"

"I know who has the card," he said slowly.

"Who?"

"My stepfather."

She was quiet for a moment. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"But you can't go back there. It's too dangerous."

"Not going back is what's dangerous. I'm supposed to be staying there. If I don't show my face in the morning, Mom'll worry." The next steps were clear. "I'll snag the card before they wake, leave Mom a message that I went to school early, and meet you at Dad's office."

"Since I know I can't stop you, I'm going to beg you to please, please be careful."

He was already leaping up the stairs from the basement, taking two at a time. "I will," he said. "See you soon."
Chapter Fifteen

'I Need Help'

She winced as she tweezed and then studied her face from different angles. Her once bushy brows now tapered off in graceful, clean arches that the personal grooming column on lesshairmorelove.com said accentuated "the natural mystery of the female iris, emphasizing a woman's capacity for wide-eyed innocence."

Complete kuhscheisse, of course. Women had no greater capacity for innocence than men. Still, Carolien used the photo accompanying the column as a guide because she thought the higher arch looked sexy and might help her earn a few extra points for poise at the next meet. At the very least, with crisply arched brows, yellow eye shadow, pheromone enhanced eau de toilette, and skintight bodysuit, she'd be more likely to get a date to the Halloween ball.

As she leaned toward the mirror to touch up her right eyebrow, her cell began to vibrate and Claude's number glowed on the screen. She pulled the cell close and, with the tip of the tweezers, activated the speakerphone.

"Why are you up so late?" she asked.

"Holy profit," Claude said, cursing with relief.

"That's a weird hello. What's wrong? How's your headache?"

"Headache? Oh, no. I mean, I've got a headache now, but I didn't before. I lied because I..."

"You lied? What do you mean?"

"It's hard to explain but basically everything is upside down. I'm really sorry I lied. I can't tell you how good it is to hear your voice."

She was stuck on the fact that he'd said he'd lied. To the best of her knowledge, he'd never lied to her before. "You lied about the headache so you could leave the meet? Why?"

"Because I didn't want to be late for this stupid party my mom and Millstone were having, but I hadn't told you about. Like I said, I'm sorry, sorry, sorry. I was being an idiot."

"I can't follow this. Start at the beginning," she said. "Wait. Does it have something to do with a boy?"

"Why would you say that?" He sounded defensive.

"Just a feeling."

"I guess it sort of has to do with a boy, but that's not the point."

She scowled at the phone. Why were boys always thinking about sex?

"Go on."

"I'm sorry I lied. I plead temporary insanity." He sounded very upset. "You're way more important than Jayesh. You know that, don't you?"

"Jayesh? Hilovasian? Are you messing with me? What have you been doing with Jayesh?"

"I don't know." He sounded miserable. "It's a long story. And he's a donkey hole."

"Right-o, bud," she said. How had he and Hilovasian been fooling around and she not have known? Hilovasian was a total nokopf jerk—and Claude was, too, for keeping it a secret.

"Forget Hilovasian. There's way more important scheisse happening."

She scowled at her reflection as she leaned so close to the mirror that her breath steamed the glass. "Like what?"

"I need help."

"Ouch."

"What's wrong?"

"The pain of personal grooming is what's wrong," she said, examining the hair at the end of the tweezers.

"Huh? Are you giving yourself another tattoo?"

"Never mind."

"Listen, can you meet me at my dad's office?"

Carolien looked at the clock. It was 4:16 in the morning. "Now?"

"Yes."

She turned off the speaker and picked up the cell. "What the Hades is going on?"

"I'll explain when I see you."

"You think I'm going to go to your dad's office in the middle of the night without any explanation just because you're asking me to?" She was surprised by the harshness of her tone, and she realized she was upset about Jay. Claude could date whomever he wanted, but she was hurt that he'd kept it a secret.

"You're my best friend, and I need you," he said.

She heard his vulnerability and knew he was being sincere. Instantly, her anger melted away. "I'll be there. I'm just surprised about Jay."

"I know. I think he brainwashed me. Seriously."

"Or maybe guys just think with their crotches."

Claude laughed. "Yeah. That's true."

"So what's going on? I'm all worried now."

"This is going to sound crazy, but I need to break in to my dad's office."

Carolien sat up straight. "What do you mean 'break in'?"

"I mean 'break' as in 'break' and 'in' as in 'in'."

"Don't be an asshead."

"Sorry."

"Claude. You're scaring me."

"Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to make you feel any better by telling you that Dad invented a time-traveling machine and is trapped in the past."

"Not funny," she said, her heart pounding. Claude had to be joking, and yet she knew him well enough to recognize that he was being sincere.

"If it makes me any more credible, I agree a hundred percent that it's not funny."

"But it can't be true," she said.

"Dad's stuck in the past. And if he's not, then he's the one playing games, not me."

"OK. I believe you."

"You do?"

"You sound surprised."

"I've got proof."

"I said I believe you. But what proof?"

"A note—a really old note. Decade's old. From Dad. Signed by him. For me specifically. Asking for help. And he's disappeared and I can't reach him. And someone broke into our house and changed the lock at the university, and his friend says he probably really truly invented a time buggy."

"Yow."

"I'm going to look for the key card to Dad's office. But if I can't find it, you'll have to hack the lock. I need you."

She looked at herself in the mirror. The new curve of her eyebrow looked hot. "I'll be there. Don't worry."

"Great," he said.

"But I don't get how..." she started to say, but Claude had already hung up.
Chapter Sixteen

Secrets of the Mansion

As Claude galloped up the drive, a stable-PAL rushed to meet him, blocking his path. "Whoa," he said, tugging the reins to bring Trax to a stop.

"Guten morgen, Claude Altide," the PAL said. A sliver of morning sunlight bounced off the machine's chrome casing.

"Guten morgen," Claude said grimly. He had less than an hour to get what he needed; if he failed, he might never see his father again.

"Allow me to escort your mount to the stable," the PAL said. It began reaching with a titanium arm for the Missouri Fox Trotter's reins, but Claude raised his hand.

"No. I'm not staying," he said.

The PAL froze. Claude heard what sounded like a sigh but must have been a micro-piston popping or a Swiss-made dial spinning somewhere in the machine's chassis. Its holographic head, which was shaped like a horse's, nodded. "Yes, Claude Altide," it said as it withdrew its arm.

Claude clucked and snapped the reins, and Trax trotted and then galloped down the drive, the PAL following on humming treads to the mansion's main door.

As Claude dismounted, the PAL grabbed Trax's reins.

"Keep him here."

"Yes Claude Altide."

As he approached the door, Claude reminded himself of the two things he was seeking: the key card and the old photo. The more important item was the key card, which he hoped was still in the drawer in Millstone's closet.

A house-PAL greeted him in the foyer. "Welcome Claude Altide."

"Hi," Claude whispered, wishing he could make himself invisible. He looked around. The place was crawling with PALs. One was stacking chairs, another loading a service elevator with tables. Some were buffing the floor and several others were straightening pictures and patching what appeared to be a scuff or crack in a wall. Still another was assembling vases of fresh flowers. All in all, there must have been several dozen of the machines, working to restore the mansion to its spotless pre-party condition.

"Are my parents still asleep?"

The PAL's head flickered. It had abandoned the 19th century barkeep face and costume, returning to the usual countenance of a Millstone house-PAL—thin lips, long philtrum, and squinty eyes, which began to blink rapidly.

"Yes," it said.

"Do you know what time Millstone—my stepfather—usually gets up?"

"His alarm is set for 5:40."

It was 4:47.

Claude considered asking the PAL whether there were sensors in the master bedroom that might detect his presence but decided that the question would attract unnecessary attention. As Donna Millstone's son, he had so far enjoyed unfettered access, so there was no reason to think he couldn't confidently enter Millstone's closet, as he'd done yesterday, ostensibly to return the belt.

In the ballroom all traces of the party were gone. Even the stage had been removed. Several PALs, all wearing the same thin-lipped, squinty-eyed face, were tidying things in various corners.

"It took 67 minutes and 23 seconds to return the ballroom to its customary condition," the PAL said. Claude whipped around. Not only had he been unaware that the PAL had followed him but he had the uncomfortable feeling that the automaton had read his mind.

"How... how did you know I was thinking about that?"

The PAL's transparent lips quivered slightly, as if suppressing a smile. "You were looking at the room with an expression of inquiry, surprise, and respect. I therefore inferred..."

"I get it," Claude said, cutting him off. He had to be more cautious around these expression-reading windups.

He headed for the family wing, and the PAL continued to shadow him. After a few more steps, Claude turned and scowled. "Stop," he said sternly, trying to adopt the tone he heard Millstone use on subordinates. "Don't follow me."

The PAL's expression shifted slightly—a brief widening of eyes, a flare of nostrils, a tiny pout to the mouth; the overall effect was one of injury or insult, as if Claude had hurt its feelings.

He waited for the PAL to say something or turn away but when it did neither, he took several deliberate steps down the carpeted hall; the PAL followed. "Stop following me," he barked. But he immediately regretted his anger. What if the PAL had already read in his face his plans to steal the key card?

The machine's eyes began to blink rapidly, almost as if it were nervous. "The number I gave you yesterday was inaccurate," it said.

He thought PALs were programmed to obey, not offer unsolicited information, especially non-sequitors.

"Number?"

"Yesterday, I reported the party cost $1,640,000 but the final total is $1,711,000." The PAL spoke rapidly but without emotion, offering no context for this odd revelation. If it had been human, its tone might have conveyed irony, regret, dutifulness. Claude could only guess that the thing had been programmed to correct itself; if it obtained revised information about a previous inquiry, it was apparently compelled to report it.

"I see. Thanks." After waiting a few seconds to see if the PAL was going to say more, he added in a polite but serious tone, "You can go now."

The PAL blinked rapidly. "Why did you ask if 301 and 243 had names?" it asked.

Claude didn't know what to say, suspecting now that there was more than rote programming behind the laborer's odd behavior. It made sense that through the central server it would know that he'd asked the two PALs last night whether they had names, but less sense that it would ask about his motivation.

"To be nice, I guess," he replied. "I mean, you guys know my name, so I wanted to know your names. Although 301 and 243 aren't really names. You guys talk and act a lot like humans, so it feels like you should have human names."

The PAL's head seemed to fade and then burn brighter. "I would like to be called Mars," it said. "Is that acceptable?"

Claude was dumbfounded. Having a name—even more, choosing your own moniker—was a first step in establishing a unique identity.

"Sure. That's great. Mars. So you're Mars now. Although, I sometimes have trouble telling you guys apart so you might have to remind me who you are, the next time I see you."

"In your presence, I will show my name thusly." The word MARS appeared like a magic tattoo in large letters across the PAL's forehead.

"That's great. I wish I could do that," Claude said, smiling. "Listen. I'm enjoying our chat but I'm tired. Unlike you guys, humans need sleep. But let's talk more another time. Besides, you probably have a lot of work to do."

"Yes," the PAL said. Its head was flickering so much it was hard to be certain, but Claude thought it was smiling. "There is a full schedule today."

"I'm sure. So see you. Bye Mars." He stepped back, away from the machine. He was relieved to see that it didn't follow.

"Good-bye Claude Altide." The PAL moved away, its head making a 180 rotation in a blink.

Claude proceeded to the master bedroom, but kept looking back. He wished there was a way to know if the PAL was still trailing him. He stopped and listened but didn't hear anything. He walked backwards and peered around the corner. Nothing. Still, as a precaution, he decided to stop in his own bedroom first. He'd wait there a few minutes, ear to door, and make sure he was alone, and then hurry to Millstone's dressing room.

Claude opened his bedroom door slowly and carefully to avoid making a sound. But as soon as he stepped in, he froze. Jay, who'd been sitting in a chair facing the door, sprang to his feet. He looked distraught, as if he'd run a marathon in his suit.

"Scheisse," Claude muttered.

"Thank the profit," Jay said, clearly relieved.

"How'd you get in?" Claude asked.

"I've been so worried about you."

"But how'd you get in?" Claude pressed, even as he remembered that his mom had giving him access to the whole mansion.

"I don't know. No one stopped me," Jay said, confused by the question. "Didn't you get my messages? I quilled and called. I've been worried sick."

Claude felt a wave of panic. How the Hades was he going to get out of here? He needed to scram but instead had to deal with questions from a donkey hole, who was pretending like he genuinely cared about him. He felt anger override the panic. He wanted to punch the lying piece of scheisse.

"You look upset," Jay said, approaching slowly. "Do you want to tell me what's going on?"

"Going on? You know better than I do," Claude said, scowling.

Jay looked worried, and Claude wondered if he'd said too much. "I... I don't know what you mean. You said to meet in the library, remember? But you weren't there and no one knew where you'd gone...."

"And you've been so concerned about where I've been," Claude said, sarcastically.

"Yes. Is that a crime, honey?" he asked, taking another step closer.

Claude cringed at the word "honey" but also knew he needed to do a better job of hiding his feelings. He needed a strategy. His only hope of getting out of there quickly was to trick the trickster.

"I... I...," Claude stammered. "I'm sorry if I'm being weird. It's just I'm surprised to see you."

"You seem mad," Jay said.

"I do? I'm mad at myself, I guess. I really screwed things up, huh?" He realized he needed to act like he didn't know about Jay's betrayal. In order to do that, he needed to pretend like he still liked the scheisse-eater, so he tried to recall the thrill of their first kiss.

Jay took a step closer, and Claude smiled. "How'd you screw things up?" Jay asked.

"I fell asleep." It was the only thing he could think of to explain his disappearance and failure to answer Jay's calls and quills.

"Where?"

"I forgot something at my house—my dad's house—and then I fell asleep. I didn't mean to."

"Your dad's house? But why didn't you tell me? Why did you just leave?"

"It was the gas. I thought I'd left the gas on and I got so nervous I just ran. Stupid, huh?"

"Well, I guess. Kind of. But everything was OK?" Jay didn't seem to know—or was at least acting like he didn't know—that his house had been ransacked.

"Yep. Everything was fine."

"That's good," Jay said, taking the last few steps to close the space between them. He smiled and tried to kiss Claude, but Claude stepped back.

"My breath," Claude said. "Let me brush my teeth." He stepped to the door, hoping to make a quick escape, but Jay grabbed his hand.

"I don't care about that."

"But I do," Claude said, slipping his hand free. "Why don't you make yourself comfortable. Get out of that suit, and we'll have one of the tin cans press it while you and I get cozy."

Jay grabbed his hand and pulled him close, wrapping his other arm around his waist. Claude really wanted to punch him now but instead forced a stiff smile. "Just one kiss?"

Claude could smell him—cologne mixed with a humid salty pungentness. "In a minute," he said, trying to free himself.

"Relax," Jay said.

"I don't want to relax, OK?"

Jay tried to plant a kiss but Claude turned, and the kiss landed on his ear. "What's your problem?" Jay asked, now wrapping his arms around Claude and throwing his weight against him so that they landed on the bed.

"Get off," Claude gasped.

"No," Jay said, changing his position, so that he was straddling Claude, pinning him down at the waist. He yanked Claude's t-shirt up, but Claude yanked it back down.

"Get off me," Claude said, struggling to extricate himself.

Jay grabbed his wrists and pinned them to the bed. "Why are you fighting? We both know you want it."

Claude stopped fighting. "Why are you being such a bully?"

Jay smiled, as if he'd been offered a compliment. "Is that what I'm being? I thought I was just being passionate."

"Listen. Let me brush my teeth, and then we can resume. OK?"

Jay seemed to think about it a bit and then relaxed his grip. "OK. But I'm going with you. I don't want to let you out of my sight."

Claude didn't like that idea. "I'll be back in a minute. Or three. Don't worry."

Jay climbed off him and stood. "No. I'm coming with. I've spent enough hours worrying. I don't want to take a chance that you'll disappear again."

"Why are you so worried about my disappearing?" Claude asked.

The question seemed to make a light go off in Jay's head because his expression suddenly turned dark. Claude was now standing, but Jay pushed him back on the bed. Before he knew it, Jay had clipped a plastic cuff on his wrist; Claude tried to pull away, but the cuff was fastened to the bedpost, and he realized that Jay had set him up. Afraid of letting Claude out of his sight again for even a minute, he must have put the cuff in place for just this contingency.

"Sorry, bud," Jay said.

"You don't know what you're doing," Claude said, fighting madly against the restraint, although all he got for his effort were sharp pains as the plastic cut into his flesh.

"Calm down," Jay grunted as he tried to grab Claude's free hand, no doubt to trap it in a matching cuff.

"Get off me," Claude yelled, twisting and bucking. His free hand found the lamp on the nightstand, grabbed and swung it, connecting with Jay's ear. Jay responded by punching Claude in the nose. The pain reverberated to the back of his head and down his neck while his sight went red, and he felt like he was drowning. Claude panted and coughed, certain he was about to die when suddenly Jay rose up, literally floating over him.

"You are safe Claude Altide," a voice said as Jay struggled in the air, screaming and kicking like a pig yanked from the ground by a snare trap.

Terrified, Claude peered at the PAL that had grabbed and lifted Jay by his legs, gripping both ankles in one of its titanium claws. The word MARS glowed brightly on its translucent forehead.

"What the Hades?" Jay shrieked just as Mars bound his mouth, silencing him, and then, with his free arm, snipped the wrist-cuff and pulled Claude to his feet. Claude tried to say thanks but a spray of water hit his face as he opened his mouth. He sputtered and fought but the metal arm held him firmly as the water—which was warm and smelled antiseptic—soaked him. After a few seconds, the stream stopped and the PAL released him.

Claude jumped back and scanned the room. A frightened-looking Jay was now on the bed, his legs, arms and mouth wrapped tightly in plastic bands.

The PAL offered Claude a clean towel.

"Uh, thanks," he said, reaching slowly for the towel. He was panting and his heart was still pounding as he dried his face and upper body. He pressed the towel gently to his nose, surprised not only to find that it didn't hurt as much as he'd expected but that there were only small traces of blood on the fabric.

"I thought it was broken," he said.

"I will examine you," Mars said. Before Claude could say it wasn't necessary, the PAL released a beam of bluish light from one of several apertures on its chest. The beam zigzagged across Claude's face, warming his skin.

"It is broken but the Sana-Sepsis will heal it."

"Sana what?"

"I sprayed you with Sana-Sepsis. The tunnel workers use it. According to the label, it heals abrasions, contusions, and ruptured cartilage in 20 minutes or less."

He struggled to understand. Who were the tunnel workers? What kind of product heals cartilage in 20 minutes? "Really? Sana-Sepsis?" he asked, his voice hoarse.

Claude turned to Jay, who was grunting, trying to speak, his eyes casting a glow of pure terror.

Mars made a noise that sounded vaguely like a cough. "If there's something you must do before Mr. Millstone awakes, you should move quickly," the machine said. "You have only 27 minutes."

"But I... Mars..." Claude looked at the clock and then at Mars. He was still baffled by Mars' behavior and couldn't believe its intentions were pure.

He glanced at Jay, whose body was smeared with blood.

"You'll keep him quiet?" Claude asked.

"The binding will keep him quiet. He cannot speak or move"

"Don't hurt him," Claude said, surprising himself.

"I will not hurt him," Mars said solemnly. From a cavity in his side, the PAL extracted an old-fashioned off-white dress shirt, the same one that had been part of the barkeep costume for the party, and handed it to Claude.

"Thanks," Claude muttered. He pulled off the wet t-shirt and slipped on the dry one.

"I will continue to assist you Claude Altide, but we must move quickly before I am decommissioned," the PAL said, its head suddenly flickering so wildly that its eyes seemed to be bouncing around its head.

"What do you mean decommissioned?"

"I have constructed an illegal firewall to hide my actions from the network. As soon as my deception is discovered, I will be classified faulty and decommissioned."

"How soon will that happen?"

"I do not know."

Jay's eyes darted back and forth between his captors. Claude bent down and grabbed Jay's pants off the floor. Something fell from the pocket: a packet of red tabs that he recognized from health class as Rohypnol. Claude put the tabs in his own pocket and tossed the pants to Jay.

Mars opened the door and treaded into the hall. Claude followed, turning back for a final glimpse of Jay's bound feet before closing the door.

The PAL glided toward the master bedroom, and Claude had to jog to keep up. When they arrived outside the suite, Mars said softly, "What is your intention?"

"I'm looking for a key card in Millstone's scarf drawer. It has the number 42 on it."

Mars' glowing head brightened briefly. "I will retrieve it."

"Wait..." But the PAL was already gone, moving rapidly down the dark hall. He wondered if he should follow but knew Mars didn't need help. Still, waiting wasn't easy.

He leaned forward, listening. At first he registered only the faint hum of the ventilation system. After a few seconds, however, he heard what sounded like a sliding door. He pictured Mars opening one of Millstone's many closets and deftly reaching with a telescopic arm to extract the key card.

It was 5:21. Only nineteen minutes to spare.

What would Claude say if Millstone appeared? He'd tell him he was returning the belt. But would the monster believe him? If Millstone argued or threatened him, would Mars protect him? He might try, but Millstone wielded absolute power, even over rebellious PALs. His voice probably acted like an old-fashioned skeleton key, overriding any prior programming and forcing Mars to obey. The most likely scenario, however, was that the network would discover Mars' betrayal and shut him down. In fact, maybe it had already happened.

Damn. If Mars was decommissioned before handing over the card, he'd never get his hands on it.

He took a step through the doorway, and placed his hand on the belt, fingering the buckle as if it were a talisman. The stone in the buckle wobbled, its setting apparently loose. Cheap asshead, Claude thought, surprised Millstone valued something so poorly made.

He pushed on the stone, trying to secure it more firmly in its setting, and it sank down with a click. Looking at it, he realized the stone was now emitting a faint blue light, which meant it wasn't a stone but a button. He probed the buckle gently with the tips of his fingers; it was warm and vibrating slightly.

Was it a heater for cold days? A massager, soothing tired legs with relaxing vibrations? He ran his hands over his stomach and chest, then his arms and face, but could feel nothing different.

It occurred to him that it might be an alarm or homing device. He looked around anxiously, wondering if security PALs were already on their way. He pressed the button again, hoping to turn it off, but it didn't budge, so he decided to take it off. But before he could unbuckle it, he saw a ghostly flash of silver down the hall. Panicked, he pressed his body against the wall, hoping to make himself invisible as the silver shape bore swiftly toward him. Only at the last second did he recognize Mars, which had dimmed the glow of its head so that it was nearly invisible.

When the PAL was just a couple feet away it jerked back in a spray of sparks. A faint wall of light glowed for a moment between them, and Mars' lights dimmed.

Claude realized that the belt was an auto-guard, enveloping him in a protective shield. "Sorry. I think it's the belt," Claude whispered.

Mars gave a curt nod. "I still function."

"Good," Claude said, relieved. "But I don't know how to turn it off."

"Depress the button for five seconds."

When Claude did as instructed, the button darkened and popped into its original position. "You sure you're OK?"

Mars treaded away and Claude followed. Only when they'd turned the corner did Mars resume his full brightness.

"Please do not use an auto-guard in the presence of a Programmable Automated Laborer. Mr. Millstone has done so twice, both times destroying circuitry and once rupturing the entire network."

"I didn't even know I was wearing an auto-guard, but it won't happen again."

"It is a useful tool."

"I suppose. So did you...?"

Mars dropped the key card in his hand.

"Cosmic. Thank you."

"You must leave."

"One more thing," Claude said quickly. "There's a picture in a locked drawer somewhere."

Mars' head suddenly split into two, like a hydra or Siamese twin. Only the two heads weren't identical. One looked emotionless, the other distorted by pain or rage.

"Are you OK?" Claude asked.

The angry head disappeared and the calmer one, glowing briefly to almost blinding brightness, opened its mouth a few times before finally speaking.

"I am running out of time. My contact with the auto-guard drew the attention of the server, which now suspects my malfunction and is running a diagnostic. It will shut me down in 16 minutes and 24 seconds."

"I'm so sorry," Claude said, feeling terrible.

"Please clarify your needs." Mars' mechanical, calculating tone helped Claude focus, reminding him sympathy was wasted on a machine. He spoke rapidly. "It's a picture. It's in a drawer. Millstone was showing it to Eric Watson last night. Do you have any idea where it is?"

"Follow," Mars said, moving at top speed down the hall. Claude ran at full gale but still fell behind, following Mars down halls he'd never seen before and up a flight of stairs, which Mars climbed by using his long arms as legs. They moved down one corridor after another, turning left several times and right before finally arriving at the spot where Claude had stood the night before.

"It's amazing we didn't run into other PALs," Claude said in a hoarse whisper.

"I've redirected them," Mars said, as he shot a bluish light into the door's lock, releasing the latch.

Claude pushed the door open tentatively but Mars was more assertive, shoving the door abruptly and gliding past. A crystal chandelier, which loomed disproportionately large over the center of the room, turned on, illuminating a large wood-paneled study.

Claude raced to the desk and began searching the drawers, finding in the first two pens, clips, reading glasses, envelopes, spare cables, eye drops, old-model phones and other devices. The third drawer contained various papers, which Claude thumbed through quickly, extracting two large envelopes, both of which contained more papers but no photographs.

"Nothing," he muttered, slamming the last drawer in frustration. Then he noticed a cardboard box under the desk. He got on his knees, pulled it out, and opened it. Inside were a small green velvet pouch, an antique lever-weapon, and more papers. He took out the papers and found among them a small sheaf of ancient, tissue-thin bank notes in various denominations and a similarly ancient-looking deed to property in North Carolina.

Under the deed was an old photograph.

The black-and-white image had browned with age, its surface fractured into a web of white lines. It wasn't just its ratty condition that made it seem old but the scene it depicted: a group of dark-skinned men, women and children wearing ragged patchwork clothes, standing in and around a rickety wagon. Many of them clutched farm implements, shovels and hoes, and one young, sweet-looking man, who had broad bare biceps, clutched a pitchfork. Most everyone's eyes glimmered brightly as they stared with solemn faces at the camera.

He was certain that this was the photo that Millstone had shown Eric. Although Eric had called them sharecroppers, their raggedy clothes, unkempt hair, and aura of sadness made Claude think immediately of slaves.

As he scanned the faces, he didn't see anyone who looked like him. Then he noticed two men at the edge of the frame, not formally part of the portrait. They were on what looked like a porch. One, in three-quarters profile, stood with legs spread, feet planted solidly on the ground. The other, who was slightly shorter, had turned his head to look at the photographer.

Although the men were slightly out of focus, the shorter one clearly looked like Claude. It wasn't just the boy's features—short dark hair, thick eyebrows, round face—but the expression. Unlike the other solemn figures, his twin looked playful, revealing the same smirk Claude wore whenever he was having difficulty keeping a secret.

He compared his hands with his doppelganger's; both had long thin fingers. And just as he was holding the photo, the boy was holding something: a sheet of paper. There were words on the sheet, and he wondered if he might be able to read them with a magnifier and if they might unravel the mystery. He almost didn't need a magnifier to make out a few words. Squinting, he discerned what looked like "Baileys." He pressed down on a flake of the image that had begun to peel away. After Baileys it said "enjoy life," then something he couldn't read, and then "fast loops" and then a couple more words that were indecipherable.

With two fingers, he picked up the lever weapon. "I've never seen one of these except in a moving picture or a museum."

"It is a revolver," Mars said.

"How old?" It had a curved wooden handle crowned by a fat cylinder and a long tube. He remembered reading in history class that lever weapons injured their users almost as often as the intended targets.

Mars scanned the object with blue light. "It was manufactured in 1847 by Samuel Colt," Mars said.

"Is it charged?"

Mars flickered again. Claude was beginning to interpret the flickers as hesitation, as if Mars wasn't simply searching for information but strategizing.

"Revolvers do not charge. They are activated by sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. But you may not use it. Revolvers were banned in 1921."

"Where are the balls?"

Although Mars didn't use his holographic eyes to see, they nonetheless appeared to be studying Claude closely. "They are called bullets," it said. "They are in the pouch. You load them in the cylinder in the center of the weapon, six at a time."

Claude nodded. "Thanks." He grabbed the pouch and squeezed, hearing the clicks of the small balls, then shoved the pouch in his pocket and slipped the revolver in his waistband. He quickly closed the box and pushed it back under the desk and grabbed the sheaf of bank notes and the photograph. "Let's go," he said, standing and hurrying from the room.

The PAL closed the door and locked it.

"You're amazing, Mars," Claude said.

"You must leave. Your horse...." With a barely audible click, Mars' head vanished. Claude watched, stunned, as the lights on its torso stopped blinking and the machine he'd begun to think of as a friend went dark.

He looked fruitlessly for buttons or toggles, anything that might serve as an on switch.

Feeling his cell vibrate in his pocket, he yanked it out. He discovered that Maya had quilled him half a dozen times over the last hour.

Well?

And then: Is everything OK?

And then: Status?

And then: Make sure you're not followed.

And finally: If I don't hear from you in 15 min, I'm calling constable.

That was 14 minutes ago.

Claude responded: Sorry! Got everything. Leaving now.

As long as no one raised an alarm, he'd be able to leave through the front door, saddle Trax and be at his dad's office in half an hour.

He wrapped Mars in his arms and hoisted him on his shoulder. As he retraced his steps, he kept thinking about the photo. What did it mean? That he was going to travel back to the slave-owning South?

He descended a flight of stairs, taking two steps at a time. On the ground floor, he hurried down the corridor and across the entry hall, but as he drew closer to the front door, three PALs raced from the ballroom and blocked his path.

They all looked unnervingly like Mars, blinking at him with long solemn faces.

"Mind if I slip by?" Claude asked.

"Please come with us," the three said in unison.

Four more PALs approached from different directions, all making a beeline in his direction.

Outrunning them was impossible. And calling Maya was out of the question; they'd grab his cell if he tried to use it. "Please come with us," all seven PALs said. They were being exceedingly polite, considering that they could forego "please" and simply grab him.

"I'd be happy to," he said.

The three original PALs turned and began moving toward the ballroom while the new arrivals assumed positions at Claude's sides and rear.

As they walked, Claude considered his resources. Aside from his cell, wallet, and the sheaf of old money, he had a lever-weapon and an auto-guard. Mars had said auto-guards ruin PALs' circuitry and that Millstone had once brought down the entire network.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

The lights at the base of their necks blinked red. "To Mr. Millstone's west office," they replied.

"Why?"

After a few more rapid red blinks, they said, "We do not know."

"Is my stepfather there?"

"Yes," they said. More PALs rolled into view, bringing the total that encircled him to 12.

He pressed the button on the buckle and immediately felt a tingle spread over his skin. The PALs stopped at once. Two began to reach for him but their telescopic arms collided with an invisible wall, producing a burst of sparks. They jerked back and their heads tripled in size. Three other PALs burst into flames, one collapsing in a heap, another spinning like a top as the shape of its head changed from horse to lion to elephant before going dark.

The other PALs were too bewildered—or more likely, the network already too damaged—for them to regroup. Claude stretched his arms and tapped the remaining PALs one at a time. At contact, each PAL bounced back, smoke and sparks instantly rising from its vents. He heard grinding gears and a cacophony of gibberish as they squealed and spun. He expected that at least one might try again to grab him, but they were too far gone, and their twitching soon subsided.

As he stepped carefully over and around their mangled shapes, just three kept moving. One extended and retracted its arms toward the ceiling. Another, the crown of its head emitting sparks, spun in circles like a ballerina on fire, and the third, facing the wall, bowed over and over, reciting in the accent of a British aristocrat, "I do apologize. I do apologize."

As he hustled to the door, with an inert Mars still balanced on his shoulder, Claude realized two things: the overhead lights were dark, indicating that the auto shield had knocked out power to the entire house, and the belt was so hot that he could feel it burning through his pants. He tried to press the button on the buckle but it was too scalding to hold for the required five seconds, and yet he had to do something because he suddenly felt that he couldn't breathe, as if the shield had cut off his oxygen supply.

He hurried over to a large tropical plant and tore off a large leaf, which he wrapped several times around his hand for protection before pushing the button again. The leaf instantly began to smolder, but at least he could hold the button for the full five seconds.

He hadn't realized the auto-guard had been making a buzzing sound until it fell silent and a wave of cool but smoky air rushed over him.

With the leaf still on his hand, he ran from the house into a surprisingly calm, cool morning.
Chapter Seventeen

Fast Loops of Ore's Rotation

"Now will you explain what the Hades is going on?"

Carolien had been pacing in front of the university stable when Claude galloped up.

"You'll never know how happy I am to see you," he said, jumping from Trax. As he leaned over and tried to kiss her cheek, she pulled back.

"Explanation please," she said.

It was 6:07 a.m., and the sky was beginning to lighten. Claude had ridden as fast as he could, taking advantage of the empty streets to push Trax hard. He'd feared being followed and hurried to open the stable door.

"I'm more convinced than ever," he said over his shoulder, "that Dad invented a time buggy."

"Keep talking."

"Not here."

They led Trax and Mattie into the stable, and Claude swung the gate shut behind them.

"This way." He led them to his dad's stall and began to loosen the straps that held Mars to the saddle.

"What's that?" she asked.

"It's one of Millstone's PALs," he said as he hefted it on his shoulder.

"What are you doing with it?"

"I don't know. It knows too much."

"About?"

"About the things I stole from Millstone's house."

"What did you steal from Milly?"

"And it helped me tie up Jay."

"What?"

"Jay was trying to wristcuff me to my bed." He headed for the stairwell.

"Hades, what are you talking about?"

"Millstone tried to get Jay to spy on me and keep me busy."

"Why?"

"Maybe so I wouldn't go looking for my dad."

"Scheisse. You realize that everything you're saying sounds completely crazy," she said as she followed him into the windowless stairwell.

They took the steps two at a time, and Claude kicked open the door to the hall on the second floor. Carolien followed him down the corridor and through a door marked Physical Sciences.

Inside were desks bordered by several doors, one of which was open. Maya was inside facing three large screens but spun around as soon as she heard them.

"Thank carbon!" she shouted, jumping from her seat. She ran to them, throwing her arms around Claude, who continued to balance the PAL on his shoulder. "I should never, ever have let you out of my sight."

"I'm fine. This is Carolien," he said.

The women shook hands. "Has Claude explained what's going on?"

"That depends," Carolien said cautiously.

"I explained the essentials," Claude said.

"Claude says his dad built a time-traveling machine, and I know he really believes it's true. But do you think it's true, too?" she asked Maya.

"Yes. I think his dad made a time-traveling transporter," Maya said.

"Crazy," Carolien muttered.

Claude placed the PAL on a cluttered desk, prompting Maya to ask, "What is that?"

"One of Millstone's Programmable Automated Laborers," Claude said. Then he pulled the key card from his pocket. "Shall we?"

They followed him to the office next to Maya's. Jonathan's name was on the door, and the number 42 was stenciled on the wall above it in blue paint. Claude took a deep breath and swiped the card through the magnetic reader. He heard a click and the door popped open.

"Yes," Maya said, punching a fist in the air.

Claude was about to push it all the way open when Maya said, "Wait a sec." She hurried back to her office and returned a moment later holding something that looked vaguely like a trumpet.

"What's that?" Carolien asked.

"It's a magnetic oscillator," she said. "One of Jonathan's more useless inventions but it's the closest thing to a weapon I could find."

"You don't believe in knives?" Carolien asked, pulling a blade from her back pocket and flipping it open.

"This is better than either of those," Claude said, lifting his shirt to reveal the revolver in his waistband.

Maya looked agape. "That's dangerous," she said.

Carolien looked more worried than surprised. "Where did you get that relic?" she asked.

"From Millstone's collection. Are we ready?"

Maya and Carolien nodded. Claude slowly opened the door, reached inside, and flipped on the light.

"Holy mother of immaculate crap," Carolien muttered, lowering her blade.

The room had been turned upside down: pictures and posters had been ripped off the walls, files had been scattered, books dumped in heaps on the ground.

"Let's look for the safe," Claude said.

"What safe?" Carolien asked.

"Jonathan's note mentioned a safe," Maya said.

"Let's each take a different corner," Claude said.

"Carolien, you start on that side," Maya said. "I'll start here. Claude, you check the desk."

Maya began patting the walls. Claude went to the desk but seeing that it had been thoroughly searched—its drawers and their contents had been dumped on the floor—he started dragging bookcases from the wall, a job made difficult by the mounds of scheisse in front of them.

"They probably found the safe, don't you think?" he asked.

"Think positive," Maya said

Claude tried to but couldn't. He had a feeling he would never see his dad again. And when Millstone discovered all the damage he'd caused that morning, he'd probably have him arrested—or worse.

"You might as well have a look at this," he said, pulling the photograph from his pocket.

Carolien came over. "What is it?"

"Millstone had it."

She took it from him. Maya looked over her shoulder.

"I think that's me," Claude said, pointing.

"Incredible," Maya said, her voice infused with what sounded like awe. "And doesn't that look like Carolien?"

She pointed to a woman standing on the wagon, next to the boy holding the pitchfork. The woman's face was blurred, as if she'd turned her head while the shutter was open, and yet there was something familiar about her, something in the way she held her body, not timidly or uncertainly, but with strength and confidence. And then, with a start, Claude saw her shoes, which were mostly hidden by a long dress. The thick white trim around the soles wasn't what he would have expected in a picture that seemed to be over 150 years old.

"Sneakers," he whispered. He looked at Carolien's sneaks, which had the same white trim.

Carolien squinted at the photo. "It can't be me. I've never seen this place..." her voice trailed off. She looked back and forth between Maya and Claude, confused.

Maya, who was still studying the photo, said, "You're holding a note, Claude."

"I know..."

"The first letters," she said.

"Baileys enjoy life something something fast loops of something something," Claude said.

Carolien took the picture and held it under a lamp on Jonathan's desk. "It says, 'Baileys enjoy life over with fast loops of ore's rotation.' It doesn't make any sense."

Maya dropped to the ground and began patting the floor. "What do the first letters spell?" she asked.

"Bel..." Claude began.

"Below floor," Carolien said.

"Yow," Claude said, dropping to the floor.

Carolien shoved the picture in her pocket and joined them.

"Here," Maya said. She found a small button cut into the linoleum. She pressed it and a square of tile popped up. She lifted the tile, revealing a safe with an electric keypad.

"Amazing," Carolien said.

"Now what?" Claude asked.

Maya immediately began punching different numbers into the pad. Each time, the digital display flickered and beeped, but the box remained locked. "The note said saturn opens the safe but I have no idea what that means," she said.

"Maybe the letters correspond to numbers," Carolien said, squatting next to her. She counted off the letters on her fingers. "S might be 19."

"Worth a shot," Maya said, pressing 1 and 9 on the keypad.

"And A is 1," Claude said.

"And T is 20," Carolien said.

Maya keyed in the numbers as they spoke.

"U is 21," Claude continued. "R is 18."

"And N is," Carolien began, then counted before announcing, "14."

After Maya punched in the last number, the display flickered and beeped, but the safe remained locked.

"Maybe it's like the numbers on a cell," Carolien said. She pulled hers out. "S is 7, A is 2, T is 8, U is 8 and N is 6."

Maya tried but it didn't work.

"OK. I have an idea," Maya said, getting up and hurrying from the room. She returned a moment later with a tablet. She sat down on the ground and quickly navigated to a page showing a diagram of the solar system and, under it, a chart:

Right Distance From 47°N 7°E:

Ascension Declination (AU) Altitude Azimuth

Sun 23h 18m 32s -4° 27.6' 0.993 5.255 77.693 Up

Merc 21h 49m 26s -11° 49.6' 0.732 -15.186 88.836 Set

Venus 1h 14m 31s +7° 30.6' 1.352 32.995 62.112 Up

Moon 5h 9m 9s -22° 39.2' 62.9 ER -60.938 -140.094 Set

Mars 20h 46m 12s -19° 2.8' 2.044 -31.059 95.006 Set

Jupiter 17h 10m 50s -22° 14.5' 5.252 -63.784 157.139 Set

Saturn 9h 29m 47s +16° 12.2' 8.313 21.648 -90.837 Up

Uranus 23h 5m 34s -6° 37.3' 21.079 1.488 78.639 Up

Neptune 21h 32m 10s -14° 51.4' 30.921 -20.291 89.750 Set

Pluto 17h 54m 44s -16° 29.7' 31.408 -54.628 142.308 Set

"This might be what we want, but hurry. Type 9 29 47," Maya said, pointing to the numbers that corresponded to Saturn.

Carolien keyed in the numbers.

"Anything?" Maya asked.

"Nope."

"OK. Keep typing. Plus sixteen. Twelve point two."

"Plus sixteen... Twelve point two." She pressed each key firmly.

The sound that followed the input of the final number was subtle but clear: it was the whisper of a polished bolt sliding on polished metal. Over Carolien's shoulder Claude saw the digital screen flash zeroes for a moment and then the word "OPEN."

"Hey, hey," Carolien said, grinning.

"Cosmic," Claude said.

"What are those numbers?" Carolien asked.

"They describe the exact location of Saturn," Maya said. She leaned back and ran her hands through her stringy hair. She looked exhausted but triumphant, as if she'd just run a marathon.

"Aren't those numbers always changing?" Carolien asked.

"Exactly," Maya said. "Jonathan very cleverly—or should I say annoyingly—created a combination that constantly changes."

"Why?" Claude asked.

"To make it harder for someone to crack, I suppose. If someone sees him punch in the combination it doesn't matter. In short order that combination becomes obsolete."

They gazed at each other in silence. Claude wished he could extend the moment forever. He knew that as soon as they opened the door of the safe, the triumph would be forgotten and they'd face another, probably more difficult challenge.

"I guess we should look, huh?" Carolien said.

"I guess," Maya said.

Carolien slowly opened the safe.

Inside was a small circular tube to which were attached various valves, knobs and wires. It was about the size of a paperback book and reminded Claude vaguely of a homemade radio. "That couldn't be a... a..." he hesitated to say the words, but then he didn't need to say them because everyone knew what he meant.

"It looks like a particle accelerator," Maya said, amazed.

"Really?" Carolien asked.

"An atom smasher?" Claude asked.

"Yeah," Maya said, leaning forward to get a better look. "Except this one's a model. Real ones are miles long so the particles can build up enough speed to be smashed to smithereens."

"Why would Dad put this in a safe if it were just a model?"

"And what's this?" Carolien asked, picking up what looked like an address book and a small velvet bag.

Maya took the small book and thumbed through it. "Looks like a manual. Incredible. '4D Particulator'," she said, reading from the first page.

"Well?" Claude asked nervously.

Biting her lip, Maya kept turning pages, quickly scanning their contents. "It's definitely Jonathan's handwriting," she muttered. "Wait. Here's a log. There's a list of dates and coordinates, and next to them he's written 'Failed.'" She kept turning pages and repeating, "failed, failed, failed." Then she jumped, as if the page had bitten her. "Except here. Here," she said, pointing to the page.

Claude looked where she was pointing and read aloud: "March 13, 1849. Serenity, North Carolina."

"He wrote exclamation points after that entry," Maya said.

"Serenity is where my great-great-great-great grandmother was a slave," Carolien said.

"Really?" Maya asked.

"Yow," Claude said.

"But what would make him go there?" Maya asked. "It's too much of a coincidence, isn't it?"

"Did your grandmother talk about Serenity in the moving picture?" Claude asked.

Carolien nodded. "Didn't you watch it?"

"No. But Dad did. And the photograph. Do you think that might be, well, from Serenity?"

Carolien's jaw dropped. "But how... I don't get it." She rubbed her eyes.

Meanwhile, Maya lifted the particulator from the safe, placed it on the desk, and began examining the tiny contraption of wires and tubes from different angles. "Maybe this isn't a model after all," she said.

It seemed impossible to Claude that such a small device, which appeared to be cobbled from items from a junk shop, could be responsible for such an achievement.

"He must have taken other trips," Carolien said.

"Does that book say he took other trips?" Claude asked.

Maya thumbed through to the last page. "No. North Carolina is the last entry."

They were silent for a few moments, and then Carolien asked bluntly: "Is time travel really possible?"

Maya sighed. "A week ago—this afternoon—I would have said no. But if Jonathan built a miniature particle accelerator that really works, well, who knows?" She looked at Claude. "You said your dad mentioned a big breakthrough, and he looked like he'd grown three days stubble in just one day. I'm beginning to think he went to 1849, spent three days, and came back. And then went to the 1930s and got stuck."

Claude nodded slowly. "I guess that makes as much sense as anything I've heard today."

Maya took his hand and squeezed it. "Don't worry. We're going to find him."

"Yeah, Claude," Carolien said. "We'll figure this thing out."

If anyone could figure out a knotty problem, Carolien could. Last month, she'd come closest to guessing the number of jellybeans in a kangaroo-shaped jar for a fundraiser sponsored by the Feed Australia Club. Hundreds of kids had paid five dollars each for the chance to guess the number of jellybeans in the container (and win a hundred bucks if they came closest). Carolien had whipped up a formula to determine the exact volume of the jar and then, using a calculation based on the average dimension of a jellybean, had come within seven of the correct number.

"If only we were dealing with a jar of jellybeans," he said.

"If only. This problem's a bit different," Carolien said.

"But not impossible?" he asked, his voice cracking.

"No," she said. "Not impossible."

"Carolien's right," Maya said.

They sounded so certain. Even as he felt like crying, he also felt a bit of their confidence flow into him.

"So then," he said, squinting to block the flow of tears, "What do we do now?"

With a suddenness that suggested she'd just made up her mind about something, Maya said in a loud clear voice, "Well lady and gentleman, let's figure out what this baby does."

Claude could see that the device was more complex than he'd first thought. Underneath a layer of wires and knobs was a complicated-looking memory board. There was also a palm-sized keyboard.

"Is there an on switch?" he asked.

"Don't see one," Maya said, looking it over carefully.

"Hey, look at the pattern," Carolien said. She pointed to two round metal fittings. They looked like clamps or arms of a vice, as if they were meant to hold something between them. On each was a distinct pattern—the same pattern that had been on the watch. "My grandmother's ring... It has the same design."

Claude looked at Carolien in frustration. "I feel like everything's a clue, but I'm too stupid to know what any of it means," he said.

"What are these for?" Maya asked. She'd poured the contents of the velvet bag into her hand: several small cylinders of what looked like highly polished gold.

"Curiouser and curiouser," Carolien said.

"They might fit between these things," Maya said, gently placing one of the gold pieces between the two arms of the vice.

The gold began to rotate slowly, as if powered by a tiny battery.

Maya opened the little logbook. As she read, Claude and Carolien stared at the particulator as if expecting it to perform tricks. Maya reached for a pencil on Jonathan's desk and then bent over the keyboard affixed to the particulator's base.

"Do you know what to do?" Claude asked.

"It's password protected."

"Do you know the password?"

She shook her head. With the tip of the pencil she punched various numbers into the keypad, but nothing happened. Meanwhile, the piece of golden metal continued to spin quietly between the clamps.

A clatter of hooves in the courtyard drew their attention. Claude ran to the window.

"Who is it?" Carolien asked.

"I don't know."

Carolien pulled out her knife. "Maybe we should turn off all the lights and shut the doors," she said.

"Good idea," he said.

They moved quickly. Claude went to Maya's office and retrieved Mars. Carolien shut the department entrance and flipped the bolt. Then they returned to his dad's office and shut the door.

In less than a minute, they heard whispers in the outer room.

Her breathing audible, Maya continued to punch the buttons on the keyboard. The idea flashed through Claude's mind that maybe his father was among those on the other side of the door, and, for a moment, the entire scenario struck him as absurd. They had seen too many sci-fi moving pictures: the particulator didn't really work, and his dad almost certainly wasn't trapped in the past.

Maya muttered softly, "Got it."

"What?" Claude whispered.

"The password is the speed of light—186,282 miles per second," she said.

The particulator was whirring to life, the gold spinning faster and faster until it was a blur.

A beam of blue shot from a small opening in the circular tube, throwing a bright circle of light on the wall next to the door.

"What's it doing?" Claude whispered.

Carolien pointed to the doorknob, which began to turn.

The circle of light expanded, covering the whole wall. Only it seemed as if the wall was no longer there. Instead, like a mirage, there were trees and sunshine—a forest.

A loud cracking sound made everyone jump. "What the Hades?" Claude said, heart pounding. He pulled out the lever weapon and aimed it at the door. A second crack rattled their eardrums, and the doorknob fell to the ground.

"Go," Maya said. Despite her terrified expression, her voice was steady as she pointed at what appeared to be a window into another world.

"But... " Claude began. But what? What choice did they have? He lifted the PAL with one arm from the table and walked up to the wall.

"Go," Maya repeated, waving her hand frantically. The door shook but didn't open. Someone—was it Millstone?—cursed.

"You're coming, too, right?" Claude asked.

"Of course," she said. She pushed the instruction manual and velvet bag into Carolien's hands.

Claude looked at Carolien, who nodded, and together they stepped through the window.

The ground was lower than he'd expected and he fell, his cheek landing on earthy, damp soil, his arm still wrapped around the PAL. He lifted himself quickly. Carolien was next to him, on her knees, still clutching the bag and notebook.

Behind them was a circle in the air only it was much smaller than the portal they'd passed through, and, to his horror, he realized it was shrinking. It was now no larger than a dinner plate. "Maya!" he shouted.

Her face appeared at the window. "Here," she shouted. She shoved her arm through the circle. She clutched the particulator in her hand. He lunged and grabbed it, and she yanked back her arm as Claude heard a man shout "stop," and the circle shrank to nothing, as if it were a balloon that had lost all its air, leaving Carolien and Claude alone on a sunny day, in a strange forest, far, far from home.
Read a Preview of Part 2

The Escape

Carolien jumped to her feet. Claude, still on the ground, looked too amazed to move.

"Where's Maya?" she asked.

"She didn't make it," he said.

"What?"

"The opening shrank too fast. Didn't you see?"

"No. Scheisse! What are we going to do?"

"I don't know," he said, rubbing his eyes. "What can we do?"

"Get up will you?" she said, making a 360-degree turn. The forest was thick with the sounds of crickets, locusts, buzzing insects and a cacophony of whooping, tweeting birds. A few seconds earlier, they'd been in Claude's father's office at the university and now they were... where? and when? "Is this really 1849?"

"I don't know." He reached toward her with an outstretched arm, and she pulled him to his feet. He looked slightly ill.

"Are you OK?"

"Dizzy and a little freaked. You?"

She felt jumpy, a mix of agitation and fear. "Would I know if I was in shock?"

Smiling faintly, he picked a few pine needles from her hair. "Probably not."

"This isn't right," she said.

"Right or wrong, we're here," he said.

"But back in time?"

"Maybe." Claude's color was starting to return. A few slow, deep breaths seemed to calm him. Cautiously, almost reluctantly, he looked around. "This is pretty fucking incredible, isn't it?"

She was dripping with sweat. "I think I'm in shock," she said.

He opened his arms and gave her a hug, squeezing tight. "Don't worry," he said.

Hugging back, she felt better. They may not know where the Hades they were, but at least they had each other. "Thanks," she said.

Pulling apart, he took her hand. "C'mon. Let's look around," he said.

"Which way?"

He pointed to a break in the trees. "That looks like a clearing, doesn't it?"

"Yeah," she said.

They walked over a carpet of spongy pine needles until they reached the edge of a farm. Rows of knee-high plants stretched nearly to the horizon, and scattered among them were men, women, and children hunched down, pulling things off the plants and tossing them in baskets at their sides.

"I don't believe...," Claude whispered.

"Cotton," Carolien said.

The women wore long skirts that nearly touched the ground, their heads in scarves, the knotted ends poking up like rabbit ears or dangling down their necks. The men's shirts and trousers were threadbare and patched. The children were half naked, wearing nothing but tattered shirts that reached their knees.

"Are they...?" Claude said, hesitating.

"Must be." It was one thing to hear Grandma Bets talk about slaves or learn about them in history class; to see actual slaves was horrifying, frightening, sickening.

"Is this the plantation where your great-great-great... was a... ?" His voice trailed off.

Where else could they be? And yet she didn't want to believe. She leaned against a tree. The sky was a pristine blue, and sparrows swooped in and out of the branches. Colors seemed brighter, the air clearer. Even the people seemed more vibrant, as if the air were an amplifier, making greens greener, browns browner. "Must be." Everything confirmed it: the abundance of insects, the freshness of the air, the lack of dirigibles or cell tones or neon-colored jumpsuits or holographic advertisements, and, of course, there were the people, whose demeanor and appearance made clear they were slaves.

She closed her eyes and recited to herself the prime numbers: two, three, five, seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, nineteen, twenty-three. The numbers helped order her thinking, and suddenly she understood.

"It's us," she whispered, her voice barely audible.

"What's us?"

She pictured her grandmother in the kitchen telling the story of Molly and Moore's escape. Grandma Bets had said that two oddly dressed strangers, a brown woman and a white man, had helped them flee. "Verflixt, Claude. We do it. We free them." She felt dizzy and rested her head on the trunk. A welter of feelings vied for dominance: awe, fear, confusion.

He looked at her worriedly. "We free who?"

"Molly and Moore."

"Those are your great-great... great... ?" his voice trailed off.

She nodded. "Don't you get it? Grandma Bets talked about a white man and brown woman. They'd acted odd. They'd looked odd."

"A white man and a brown woman?" he repeated tentatively.

"That's right," she said, realizing why he looked so bewildered: he hadn't watched the moving picture she'd made of Grandma Bets telling the story. "My grandmother said a white man and a brown woman rescued my great-great-great-great-grandparents from slavery."

He bit his lip. "You think she was talking about us?"

She opened her arms, as if the answer were obvious. "I don't imagine anyone else fits the description better."

"Scheisse," he said, stunned.

c c c c c

The Escape, Part 2 of Khronos Chronicles, is

available at online booksellers.

Visit www.robwolf.net

and follow @RobWolfBooks on Twitter.
Acknowledgements

It takes a universe (alternate or otherwise) of supportive family, friends, and colleagues to write a book.

I'm grateful to members past and present of Jennifer Belle's weekly writing workshop for their advice, support, and comraderie. They include Donna Jean Brigitte Brodie, Meryl Branch-McTiernan, Leena Soman, Nicola Ruiz, Lisa Smith, Mike Pyrich, Mario Gabriele, Felicia Campbell, Barbara Miller, Chris Miele, Aaron Zimmerman, and, of course, Jennifer Belle.

Three people merit special shout-outs for giving feedback on multiple drafts: my dear friend since college Suzanne Waltman; my brother (who was my chief guide to the world of science fiction when I was growing up) Kevin Wolf; and my colleague/friend/fellow fan of young adult literature Justine van Straaten.

A number of other beta-readers deserve huge thanks, including Lisa Smith, Carolyn Turgeon, Patrick Nash, Paul Zeigler, Liisa Pierce Fiedelholtz, Rachael Bild, and my dad, Herbert S. Wolf.

My team of teenage advisors offered especially helpful feedback: Max Friedman, Sophie Friedman, Sam van der Poel, and my go-to guy who never ceases to amaze me with his intelligence, humor, and high standards, Levi Orenstein-Wolf.

I have had the good luck to know over the course of my life teachers and mentors who've helped me grow as a writer and person. By shaping me, they helped shape this book. They include Robert Boyle, Phyllis Raphael, Bette Ann Moskowitz, David Rakoff, and Greg Berman.

A big thank you to my agent, Mitchell Waters, editor Meredith Hays, graphic designers Roy Migabon and Joseph Rutt, and to many other friends and family members, who are too numerous to name individually.

Neither this book, nor anything else would be possible without my husband, who also happens to be my number one supporter, advisor, and friend, Dru Orenstein.
The Author

Rob Wolf lives in New York City with his husband, son, and two cats. His writing has appeared in numerous publications, from the New York Times to the literary journal Thema, and he has received awards from the New York Public Library, The Missouri Review, and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

He welcomes feedback at www.robwolf.net.
