Catch the Lightning (15 page)

“Find anything?” Heather asked.

“I’m trying to match what’s here with the history files in my web.” He scanned a page. “A lot is the same, even down to details. There must be a parallelism between the universes. But it’s not identical. Like here—the Greeks migrated south later on this Earth. There is no record at all in my files of this Egyptian ‘Desert Conquest.’” He went to another section. “And Zoroaster was born later here.”

“Who?” Joshua asked.

“Zoroaster. He founded a Persian religious system prior to Islam.” Althor read some more. “The development of Messianic religions was also delayed.” He looked up. “You date your years from the birth of Jesus Christ, yes?” When Joshua nodded, Althor said, “He was born 339 years later here than in my universe.”

Heather motioned at the papers he held. “Those equations need two Riemann sheets. Maybe your universe is the first and we’re on the second.”

“Actually, the equations need an infinite number of sheets.” Althor lifted the papers. “These are incomplete. They don’t have James corrections.”

“James corrections?” Heather asked. “He must not have discovered them here yet.”

I smiled at Joshua. “Maybe you’re going to be famous.” When Althor gave me a questioning look I said, “Joshua’s last name is James.”

“It wasn’t a Joshua James,” Althor said.

“Oh.” Joshua looked disappointed.

Heather said, “You’re asking a lot for us to believe this is more than a game,” but her garden of curiosity was blooming all over the room.

Joshua put his hand on her shoulder. “Just think of what we could learn.”

The moment he touched her, I knew he was wrong about her having no interest in him. Her fragrances curled into his hair, accompanied by the pulse of a drum, the song of an oboe. For the first time I noticed the way his T-shirt hugged his torso just so, the way his jeans clung to his hips—

I jerked, breaking away from Heather’s mind. Neither she nor Joshua noticed. She smiled up at him, her look far softer than anything she had for the rest of us. Joshua stood waiting for her answer, oblivious to the effect he was having on her.

Heather sighed. “Okay, Josh. Let’s see what we can do.”

“
Tina?
” The voice called in the dark, low and urgent. “
¿Eres tu aqui?
”

I lifted my head. Althor lay asleep beside me and Joshua was snoring on the floor.

“
¡Tina! ¿Puedes otrme?
”

I looked out the window. Jake Rojas stood in the courtyard below.

I kept my exclamation to a whisper. ‘Jake! How did you know I was here?”

“Why else would you come to Pasadena, except to see Josh?” Behind me, Althor sat up and slid his arms around my waist. I heard a rustle from the floor and turned to see Joshua standing up, rubbing his eyes. He came around the bed and leaned out the window. “Jake? Wait just a second. I’ll bring you up.”

Joshua threw on a coat and left the room. A minute later he appeared in the courtyard. He and Jake shook hands, then took off running. It was only a moment before the door opened and they came inside. Jake glanced around the room as if he didn’t quite know what to make of it.

I regarded him. “Is everything all right?”

“We been worried about you.” He glanced at Althor, then back at me. “First the cops came asking questions. Then the FBI. Then some guys who wouldn’t say nothing about who they were. It took me this long to get past the men they have watching us.”

“That test plane the shuttle found is Althor’s,” I said.

Jake considered Althor like he didn’t believe it. Then he looked at me. “Nug’s funeral was yesterday.”

I tried to feel regret for Nug’s death. But I kept remembering my cousin Manuel, how he used to laugh and swing me around when I was a little girl. From Althor, I felt a remorse Nug didn’t deserve.

After the silence became awkward, Jake spoke to me in a gender voice. “I need to talk to you private.”

I wasn’t sure where we could find privacy. I didn’t know what Joshua and Daniel had told the other students on the hall, but I had a sense they all kne w Joshua was hiding people in his room; in such a close-knit community, it was hard to keep a secret this big. I felt a sense of fellowship in the hall; Joshua and Daniel were two of their own, and as long as we were here on their approval, apparently the others accepted us as well.

“We can go out in the hall,” I said.

Althor took hold of my wrist. “No.”

“I need to do this,” I said.

“I'll go with you,” Althor said.

Jake tensed. “Like hell.”

Althor scowled at him. “It’s none of your business.”

Jake gave him a look that could have burned rubber off a tire. “She told you she’s going,
cabrón
. So let her go.”

If Althor knew what Jake had called him, he showed no sign of it. He must have understood, though; his biomech web can translate bastard into hundreds of languages.

“Althor, I’ll be all right,” I said.

The cords in his neck tensed. But he nodded and let go.

It was quiet when Jake and I stepped outside. After I closed the door, he raised his arms in that familiar way, ready to hug me. He stopped himself and let his arms drop. “I’ve been crazy trying to find you.”

I swallowed, unsettled at how much his presence affected me. Apparently I hadn’t turned off my feelings as well as I thought. “I’m all right. Really.”

“I had to warn you.” He paused. “And to say good-bye.”

“You’re leaving?”

“I wanted to tell you at Mario’s.” Anger tightened his voice. “But you were with him.”

“Where are you going?”

“Arizona, after the cops let us leave town. My stepfather, he says there’s a job for me in his garage if I want it.”

I knew it was a good decision. His mother lived in a small town with almost no people at all, let alone gangs. “What made you decide to go?”

“I’m tired, Tina. Tired of coming closer and closer to—I don’t know what.” He exhaled. “I went to Nug’s funeral.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.” After a moment he said, “Maybe because I’m glad it wasn’t me.” He touched my cheek. “No more guns, baby. If that’s what it takes to bring you back, I’ll do it.”

I felt caught on an edge, poised between two universes, literally and figuratively. Jake offered everything I wanted: a predictable world, stability,'a mate like myself, or at least more like me than most anyone else in LA. Althor offered chaos, choices I barely understood, let alone sought.

“I don’t know what will happen,” I said.

“That’s what I came to warn you about.” He shook his head. “Those people, they don’t stop asking questions. We haven’t talked. But they aren’t going to give it up. They’ll find out you and Josh are friends. They’ll come here.”

I had believed a dorm room at Caltech was the last place anyone would look. To this day I wince when I think how close the false sense of security came close to ruining us. “We owe you.”

“I didn’t come here to help him. Just you.”

“I won’t forget it.” I took a breath. “But I have to see this through with Althor.”

It was a moment before he answered. He spoke in a gentle voice. “I know. You always stand by your man. But when it’s over—if he—if you—” He paused. “You know my mom’s number in Arizona.”

“I’ll call, Jake. If I’m still—” Still what? Free? Alive? I had no idea how the situation with Althor would end.

“If you can.” He kissed me. “
Adios, mi hija
.” Then he was gone, running down the steps and into the night.

“Breaking into computer networks is illegal,” Heather said. We were all standing in Joshua’s room: Althor and me, Joshua, Heather, and Daniel. Heather and Althor faced each other like fighters in the ring.

“But you can do it.” Althor made it a statement rather than a question. He motioned at Daniel. “He has her password.” Daniel stiffened. “I told you I don’t.”

“You’re lying,” Althor said.

“What, you know what’s in my brain?” Daniel demanded. “I told you I don’t know the password to my mom’s account.” The lie of that surrounded him in an orange haze, droning like a maddened bee.

“It’s irrelevant,” Heather said. “I’m not fooling with any network at Yeager Flight Test Center.”

Althor spoke in a too-quiet voice. “I need your help.”

I shifted my weight. I had already seen, at the library with Nug, what happened when Althor felt backed into a corner.

Heather paled, but she didn’t back down. “You claim you’re some futuristic fighter pilot. You told Tina you brought a warship here that could blow California to smithereens. Then you expect me to break into a military network and falsify records so you can get onto a secured base? At the least you want me to compromise this country’s security by letting an escaped killer loose in Yeager. If your story is true, you’re asking me to risk the safety of a world.”

“Where else can I go for help?” Althor asked.

Heather pushed her hand through her hair. She walked to the window and looked out at the courtyard. When I glanced at Daniel, he averted his eyes. Even Joshua wouldn’t look at me.

Finally Heather spoke. “If I did help you—and I’m not saying I will—but if I did, the best I could do, and that’s only with Daniel’s help if he’s willing, is get us on the base.”

Hope jumped in Althor’s voice. “Just get me there. I’ll do the rest.”

Heather turned to him. “What is it you would do?”

“Leave,” Althor said. “And never come back, if I have a choice.”

“What do you mean,” Joshua said, “if you have a choice?”

“My ship might be too damaged. Or what brought me here maybe can’t be reversed.” Althor grimaced. “If this is true, my only real choice is to die in space or come back to Earth. This Earth.”

For an instant, as he spoke, his mental armor slipped and I felt his fear. He clamped down his barriers immediately, but he was too late. I knew how vulnerable he felt. To him, this Earth was i primitive, even savage; he feared he would die a painful death far from home. In fact, the process had already begun, though I didn’t know it then. The longer the team at Yeager worked on his ship, the more they damaged his brain.

Both Joshua and Heather picked up traces of Althor’s turmoil. Joshua’s forehead furrowed, as if winged by a bullet he hadn’t seen coming. Heather looked as if she were struggling to catch whispers that flitted out of hearing. I understood then what drew her and Joshua together. It was the same thing that made Joshua and me friends, that drew me to Jake, and especially to Althor. Empath. Like sought like.

Heather spoke to Althor. “If I help you, there’s a price. A ride in your starship.”

Daniel grinned. “Yes!”

“This is no game,” Althor said. “If you get killed, no magic potion will make you alive again.”

“If you’re telling the truth,” Heather said, “this is a chance we’ll never have again.”

“The inversion drives have a malfunction,” Althor said. “If I get home, I have no intention of returning here. I might not get home a second time.”

“Take us out as far as Mars,” Daniel said.

“No,” Althor said.

“No ride,” Heather said, “no security pass.”

Althor muttered in his own language, but I didn’t need to recognize the words to know he was swearing. I also felt Heather’s and Daniel’s doubts hovering behind their bravado. I laid my hand on Althor’s arm. “This may be our only chance.”

He exhaled. Then he spoke to Heather. “If we reach the ship, I’ll take you in orbit around Earth.”

“Deal,” Heather said.

Moonlight sifted through the curtains and silvered the room. Outside, crickets sawed in the night. I sat with Althor on the bed, unable to sleep. The others had gone to prepare for our trip to Yeager and we couldn’t turn on the light when the room was supposed to be empty. Althor was silent, brooding; with the perfect vision of hindsight, I realize now that he kneW he might be killed during his attempt to recover the Jag.

After a while he said, “Tell me a story.”

“What would you like to hear?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” He lay down and put his head in my lap. “Any story.”

My voice slipped into the lilting style I had learned from the best story teller I knew. “This tale was told to me by my mother, Manuela Santis Pulivok, told to her by her brother, Lukarto Santis Pulivok, who heard it from a traveler in Santo Tomas Chichi-castenango. It is the story of the Ancestral Hero Twins.” I paused for effect. “Before the birth of the twins, their father and uncle offended the Lords of Death. The two men made a great commotion while playing a ball game in a court above Xibalba, the Underworld where the Lords of Death lived. So the Lords took their lives, sacrificing them for their offenses. They buried the uncle under the ball court. The skull of the father they hung in a gourd tree, a warning to humans that they should be wary of offending the gods. This happened before the birth of the dead man’s sons, Xbalanque and Hunahpu—”

“Where did you hear those names?” Althor sat up. “Shibal-ank. Quanahpah.”

“It’s pronounced Xbalanque. And Hunahpu.”

“Where did you hear them?”

“Originally, it comes from the Popol Vuh, an ancient holy book of the Quiche Maya.”

“What made you think of it tonight?”

“You asked me to tell you a story.”

“But why did you think of this one in particular?”

“I don’t know. Why are you so upset?”

He watched me intently. “Just before we made love yesterday I told you a quote from Iotic. It was about the great beauty of a woman called Shibalank.”

“Xbalanque was a man,” I said. “But I remember now. Some of the words sounded familiar. I guess that’s why I thought of this story.”

“Tell me more.”

“The daughter of a Lord of Death found the skull of the ball player hanging in the gourd tree. It got her pregnant by spitting into her hand.”

Dryly he said, “I can think of more pleasant routes to fatherhood.”

I smiled. “Is that like your story?”

“Shibalank and Quanahpah were twin sisters. They founded the first two houses of the ancient Raylican dynasties.”

“Xbalanque and Hunahpu were twin brothers.”

Shadows and moonlight played across his face as he tilted his head. “These legends, among my people they are over six thousand years old. By Earth reckoning.”