Equilibrium (23 page)

I nodded, although I wasn’t sure if it had been two or three other men. Maybe more. I guess it wasn’t important at this point.

“What about Simla and Justin?” I asked. “Are they involved? Has anyone seen them or even spoken to them?”

“As far as we know, they’re not involved. But, we can’t be sure,” Inez replied. “So, once Raj and his accomplices had transported Ella and Harry though the portal, they decided to dump them with Arizona, while they figured things out. In the meantime Arizona had contacted Kevin. David had made his way over to check on you. At around the same time, Olivia and Larry figured out the possibility that Kellan’s ring may contain a message. The ring was extracted and then analyzed by the FBI. David came home for an update and then returned to Arizona with Kellan. So when Raj came back to get Ella and Harry, he unexpectedly found David, Kellan and Kevin there as well. You were all put in the back of a van, and then David transported Ella back and you know the rest.”

“Is she okay? Harry asked.

“Yes, she’s fine. As I said, she’s with your mom over at my place at the moment. She’s been sleeping since she got back, she is tired out from her journey. David said that she was in fine form earlier–very chatty.”

“What about David?” I asked.

“He’s fine as well, but totally exhausted.”

“So, can we head back to our homes?” Kellan asked. He just wanted to get back to his own stuff, to normal life, into his own clothes.

“Not yet,” Inez replied.

“Why not?” I asked frustrated.

“Although we’re fairly sure that you are safe now, we can’t be certain. Also, we need to explain your return to the FBI. We have to do that without revealing ourselves–I mean Wanderers–and without mentioning the portal.”

I laughed. “How are we going to do that when the whole issue was the portal?”

“We’ll have to think up a convincing story,” she said matter-of-factly.

“You mean,
lie
?” I muttered.

“Yes, unfortunately,” Inez said without remorse. “I’ve given it a lot of thought, I can’t think of a way around it. The positive thing about the FBI being involved is that they’ll help us keep you safe. You know, just in case Raj has contingency plans in place here, or somehow manages to come back.”

“All right,” Harry sighed. “What do you want us to tell them?”

“I am not sure yet. We’re waiting for your dads to come over, so we can all discuss it together. It will have to be a simple story, something that Ella can grasp and remember,” she said.

“You’re going to make Ella lie too?” Harry said shocked.

“Harry, we’ve no choice,” Inez said. “I don’t like this one bit, either.”

We heard the roar of a bike. Kevin looked out of the window and said with relief, “They are here now.”

It was nice to see Rupert and Larry. I had kind of missed Rupert, even though he wasn’t my
real
dad.

“I’m so glad you’re okay!” Rupert threw his arms around Harry and Arizona. He had wanted to stop by and see Ella, but Inez had been firm when she’d asked them to come over here first. He was sure that they’d been followed when they left Ames on his bike. He’d been forced to cut through the woods to lose whoever it was. It was probably just the FBI, keeping them safe. However, now was not the time for Claire or her colleagues to stumble upon the kids. They had things to talk about first.

“Inez, how can I ever thank you?” Rupert said, throwing her a grateful smile. “All of you,” he said looking over at Kevin, Morena, Lars, Javier, Constance and Morgana. “I’m indebted to you.”

“As am I,” Larry added, patting Kellan’s shoulder.

“How did it go with Claire, Larry?” Inez inquired.

“Claire’s the FBI agent in charge of finding you,” he explained, for our benefit. “She confirmed that she’d identified Raj Sen in the security footage at Ames. She seemed cagey, so I think there’s more. I’m fairly sure we were being followed, so she’s either put a tail on us, or someone else has. How are we going to explain away the kids being back?”

Javier, the youngest of the Wanderers in the room, had maintained silence until now. He finally spoke in a very even, quiet voice. I had to strain to hear.

“Inez assigned me the task of dealing with that. We need to keep it simple, especially for Ella. In my opinion, we should tell them the following: That you, Rupert and Larry, emailed the blueprints to Raj. Have you done so, yet?”

“Well, no,” Larry replied. “I don’t want to do that. They could be dangerous in the wrong hands.”

“You don’t need to send a blueprint of the portal or even the collider. Send a blueprint of something that looks important, but is useless to Raj. We just need the FBI to see that Dr. Sen has received the email on his computer and it’s marked as
read
. Rupert, have you circumvented the IP addresses being tracked?”

Rupert nodded. “Yes, no problem. I’m using a very sophisticated proxy server, courtesy of Morgana and the SETI. I’ve reset Larry’s clock as well.”

A flurry of activity followed as Larry tapped away on his laptop, trying to find a suitable blueprint. I marveled, as Rupert worked away on his Mac and hacked into Dr. Sen’s email, getting ready to open the attached blueprint when it was delivered.

“Ready, Rup?” Larry asked with a twinkle.

“What are you up to?” Rupert laughed.

“Oh, nothing! Sent,” Larry said. “Make sure you time the receipt for about an hour ago or so.”

“Come on, Dr. Fox! Tell,” I demanded. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s a blueprint of an early collider unit–one that never worked. If anyone gets their hands on this, it will take them years to figure out how to read it, and then it won’t work,” he chuckled.

Physicist humor, I thought to myself and shrugged.

“Okay, it’s arrived. Opening it now,” Rupert mumbled to himself. “Done.”

“What next?” Larry asked, looking over at Javier.

“Next, it’s important that we’re all on the same page with the
story
. Arizona, you were taken with Kellan from the lake. Just stick to the truth here. You were then taken to a dark place and kept there, describe it if you want a bit, but keep it vague. Kellan was taken and dumped by the side of the road. Just stick to the truth about that, Kellan. You’ve already told the FBI this bit of the story. Arizona, you were then driven in a van to a house. Harry and Ella were taken from their beds and brought to this house. They had been drugged. Then the three of you were held there and eventually put in the back of a black van and dumped by the lake. Harry, you simply say that you were attacked at your house, and woke up at the other house with Ella. Now that house,” he mused. “Harry, what do you remember about it?”

“I take it you mean the house in Princeton?” Harry asked.

“Yes, but let’s not mention the Princeton part,” Javier said.

Harry tried to remember back, he hadn’t really paid much attention. It was just a house. “I remember it being smallish, probably a bungalow. I woke up in a bedroom. Can’t say I noticed much. It was kind of dark. There was a TV there and a smelly bathroom. I only say that because Ella complained about it. I did walk through to the kitchen. Again untidy, all the counters were full of stuff. On the way out, we walked through the family room, again, untidy but pretty ordinary.”

“Good,” said Javier. “Keep the description like that, vague. Inez, can you get David to bring Ella over. Her mother also?”

She nodded and disappeared.

“Arizona, could you use pretty much the same description?” Javier asked.

I nodded. It was going to be difficult. I knew every nook and cranny of my Princeton house. I didn’t appreciate it being called untidy and smelly.

“That’s good,” Javier said. “We need to see if Ella can do the same. The story that follows has to be very simple. Then, men–you don’t know how many exactly– took you from the house and put you in the back of a van, a black van. You were driven about for hours and hours and then dumped by the lake.” Javier took a deep breath and continued. “It is
very
important for you
not
to mention that Kevin, David or Kellan were there with you. Is that clear?”

We nodded. Of course it was clear. We weren’t stupid.

“Any questions?” Javier asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Do we mention that we saw Raj, Sophie and Dan and give them descriptions?”

“Yes, you should,” Javier replied. “That’s going to be a bit complicated. However, it’s the only way to get Sophie and Dan’s descriptions to the FBI. It’s important that they have them to keep you safe. Arizona, you give them the descriptions. Say that they brought you to the house. Keep it vague.”

I nodded. I would have to think this through. Make sure I didn’t get myself confused. It was a lot to remember
not
to say. Detail was not my strong point.

Javier continued. “Constance, you talk to Ella with Harry, when she gets here. Morgana, will you talk to Olivia?”

I wondered how Ella would cope with all this. I guess she could channel her inner actress. We waited in silence for Mom and Ella to arrive, all of us working through our
scenes
. I thought it through again and again, some of it was very weak. It would probably not stand up to very thorough questioning. I could only hope that Mom and Rupert would prevent that from happening. I would hope that we weren’t going to be put in cells, with bright lights in our faces, and questioned incessantly for hours. No, that wouldn’t happen. We were the victims. I guessed we would be subjected to some light, but perhaps clever questioning. We’d have to be on the ball. None of us could afford to slip up if we wanted to keep the portal and the Wanderers a secret. Though, I expected that if we did mention the
Wanderers
bit, no one would even believe us. We’d be promptly escorted to the nearest psych facility. Come to think of it, it would probably be the same if we mentioned the portal! Really? A time-travel portal? No, It would be best for all of us to keep these two things to ourselves.

“Dad!” Ella shrieked, and rushed over to Rupert and flung herself on him. “Dad, you’ll never believe what happened to me! I woke up in a completely different house! I was so frightened.”

“Ella, I missed you,”
Rupert said with relief, clutching onto his little girl.  “Are you okay? There’s nothing to be afraid of anymore.”

“I think so, Dad. David got me home, but Harry, Arizona and Kellan are still there.”

“Nope, we’re not,” Harry said, as he extracted her from Rupert’s arms and hugged her. “We’re all back!”

Ella looked around and reached her arms out for me. I went over and hugged her, as did Kellan. It was good to be together again.

“Now, Ella,” Rupert said, trying to get her to focus. “This is Constance. She is a friend of Larry’s. I need you to talk to her and Harry. Harry will take you through to the kitchen with him. Okay?”

Ella looked unsure.

“Ella, Mom and I will wait right here,” Rupert assured her. “The kitchen is right over there,” he said, pointing. “It shouldn’t take long.”

“Okay, Daddy,” she said, and walked off clutching onto Harry’s hand.

“Ollie, you need to be debriefed as well. Morgana is going to do it. Is that all right?”

Olivia nodded and quickly kissed Rupert before she walked out with Morgana.

“Right,” Javier said. “While they’re busy, let’s continue with what we have to do next. So, we’ve sent the blueprint email to Dr. Sen. The FBI will have seen it by now. We now need to formulate an email from Dr. Sen to you, Larry, telling you where and when to pick up the kids. This is where it gets tricky. We’ll receive the email at the same time the FBI will receive it. I’m sure they’re tracking them.”

“How’s that a problem?” I asked. I wasn’t following this at all.

Javier nodded. “See, if the FBI receives an email saying that you kids are going to be dropped off at the lake at ten, for example, they’ll be there, ready with a team hoping to pick up Dr. Sen. Can you see how that would be a problem?”

“Yes,” I acknowledged, leaning into Kellan. My head was starting to hurt.

“We could call the lake by a pretend code name that the FBI wouldn’t be able to figure out, but one that would be obvious to all of us,” Kellan offered thoughtfully.

I still wasn’t following. Thankfully, I didn’t really have to. This was supposed to be an email sent by Dr. Sen to Larry. So really, only
they
needed to be able to figure it out. I closed my eyes and blanked them out.

Kellan was excited. “You know, if we refer to the lake as
shooting star
then that could be a code, you know.”

Everyone stared at him blankly.

He sighed. “We go up there to watch the meteor showers. It’s the prettiest place to watch them. So, it would make sense that if Dr. Sen had asked us to meet him at
shooting star
, that the lake would be a strong candidate, right?”

“I can see where you are coming from,” Larry said. “And that’s all that really matters here, isn’t it? As long as I could work out a code, then the code is good enough.”

Javier nodded. “That’s right. So we need to prepare an email from Dr. Sen telling Larry that he will drop the kids off at shooting star in half an hour. That won’t give the FBI much time to work out the code or even get there in time.

Rupert nodded. “Before I do that, we better head over there with the kids to make it look believable, you know, leave our tracks.”

Ella and Olivia had barely returned and confirmed that they were on board with the details, when we carried Ella to the car and drove out to the lake.

Later, when we returned to Morgana’s house, Rupert furiously tapped away at the computer. “Right, I’m done. Do you want me to send the email to Raj now?”

Larry nodded, and Rupert pressed the
send
tab.

“Open it, Larry,” Javier instructed.

We looked around at each other. The phones would start ringing at any moment.

Larry’s phone rang within minutes. Javier shook his head, indicating for Larry not to answer it. Minutes later, Olivia’s phone rang. Javier shook his head again, and she let it ring. They all turned their phones off.