Run (The Tesla Effect #2) (6 page)

Finally, Joley grinned. “That wasn’t so sodding hard, now, was it?”

“Yes, where the Abbotts were, Jane was,” said Beckett slowly. “And, where Sebastian Nilsen was—and is again.”

And there it was, now that Beckett had voiced the one thing they had all tried to avoid thinking, let alone saying out loud, the fact that Nilsen was alive eight years ago, skulking around the Abbott’s lab and their research into time travel, and the very confusing—and disturbing—fact that the older version of Nilsen had, just last summer, escaped from Jane Doane and her agents by jumping back in the time machine to that very time and place. So they understood, as much as they were able to, that there were
two
Nilsens at large doing who knew what, exactly when and where Tesla had arrived the night before.

“So what are we saying?” asked Malcolm. “What can we possibly do about all this from eight years in the future?”

“Research,” said Finn and Joley at exactly the same moment.

“Courthouse?” Finn asked his best friend.

“Obviously. Newspaper archives?”

Finn nodded. “And maybe the police file room. They have an intern clerking there this semester, and she sometimes lets me sneak in and look at old case files. You know, off the books.”

“‘Old case files’?” Beckett asked, one eyebrow raised. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

Keisha snorted.

“I’m sorry, Ms. Isley,” Finn said. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you.”

“God, Finn, we don’t need Max here to spot Jane Austen quotes. And, really? Jane Austen?”

“The ladies love it,” Finn said with mock seriousness. “And what, pray tell, are you planning to contribute to this group effort?”

“I’ve been researching a couple of hate groups through the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Beckett said slowly. “For my Honors thesis. Religious extremists. One of them—One God, One Truth, they’re called—is focused on scientific research that receives government funding. Yesterday I came across a mention of Dr. Abbott in an internal email of theirs and—look it’s got nothing to do with the death of Tesla’s mother. They didn’t even exist as a group eight years ago, but I feel like I want to follow up. The email called the work of Dr. Abbott and two other scientists, both physicists at the University of Connecticut, “an abomination against God.”

Malcolm spoke up. “Are they dangerous?”

“I don’t know,” Beckett said. “They could be. I’ve got a conference call with the Center tomorrow to see what they know about the group, if there’ve been any new developments.”

“Can I be there?” Malcolm asked. “I won’t say a word, I promise, but I want to help. I’ve known Dr. A my whole life. How could his work be an abomination?”

Beckett looked at him for a moment, his clear, light gray eyes, the long blonde bangs that fell into them. “Okay,” she said, without elaboration. “Be here at two thirty. I’ll make the call at three, and I’ll give you some background first.”

Malcolm nodded once, satisfied, and Bizzy spoke up. “I’m learning everything I can about entanglement,” she said. “I’ve found a few speculative papers, all very abstract and not pertaining to human subjects, of course. I’m afraid this is brand new territory, except in fiction, maybe. If we get to a point where that’s all we’ve got, we may decide to talk to Max after all.”

Sam spoke, tentatively. “I might be able to get access to the files down in the Medical Examiner’s office at the hospital. You know, the official coroner’s report and the death certificate for Dr. Petrova.”

“Good,” said Finn, looking around the group and settling on Sam. “The more we can find out, the more help we’ll be to Tes when she gets back. Which is soon, right?”

Sam calmly returned his pointed look. “You know I won’t say.” But he sounded reluctant as he ran his hand through his short, dark hair. “I’m not going to tell you or anyone else what I remember about any of this. Which, I want to stress, is not that much. I have a partial understanding of what took place—what is, now, taking place—eight years ago. But that’s all.”

“We get it,” said Bizzy, however grudgingly. “No hints.”

“Well—,” Sam hesitated, clearly uncomfortable.

“Well what?” asked Finn sharply.

“I think it’s okay to say—I mean, I just want to say one thing, which isn’t really information, I don’t think, just my own feeling about some stuff I’m not that sure about.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Beckett, who was not exactly a patient person, even under the best of circumstances.

“I’m talking about time,” said Sam firmly.

“Yeah, that’s not ambiguous in this context,” muttered Keisha, earning a quick grin from Bizzy.

All eyes on him now, and a renewed tension in the room, Sam looked uncomfortable and unhappy to have brought it up at all.

“What about time?” Finn asked.

“It’s running out,” said Sam. “Tesla is…look, things are happening fast now, and there’s a lot we don’t know. We need to hurry.”

CHAPTER 8

“So,” said Sam as he handed Tesla his helmet, swung his leg over and sat down on the patched leather seat. “What are you doing here?”

Tesla grinned as she tightened the chin strap and pulled the mirrored visor down, despite the darkness, so that only her mouth and the dimples on either side were visible in the lights of the parking lot. “Wow, you’re that happy to see me, huh?”

Sam—this younger Sam, sweetly earnest and a total failure at hiding his feelings—looked down and fiddled with the ignition, clearly embarrassed.

“No, yeah, of course I am,” he said, finally looking up. “But, you know. Last time you came for a reason, and you had a plan.” He revved the engine once, as a vent for his feelings, and then moved his head once, sharply, toward the bike.

“Get on.”

Tesla climbed up behind him and loosely wrapped her arms around his waist. “Full use of all my limbs this time,” she said happily, leaning over his shoulder so he could hear her above the sound of the motor.

“So I see,” he said, a trace of amusement and a hint of the cool—
and, let’s face it
, Tesla thought,
sexy
—man he would become.

“Where to?”

They sped through town and out into the countryside, in less than fifteen minutes, content with their thoughts and the feel of each other’s bodies where they pressed against one another, clothes, and the vibrations of the motor and the tires speeding over rough pavement the only things between them. Tesla pondered Sam’s question about where she wanted to go, to which she had only answered, “Somewhere we can talk.” She assumed they would go to a coffee shop or some other quiet venue, but the focus of her thoughts was not on
where
, but rather on
what
she would say to him. Things were trickier now. She knew Sam in two different times, he was in many ways two different people to her, and she wasn’t sure if it was possible to keep them separate—in terms of information she might accidentally spill, but also in terms of her feelings about him, which were not exactly clear.

Tesla realized that Sam was headed for the field he’d taken her to the last time, when she’d thought she’d been seen by her father here, in the past, and blown everything. It was also the open land an older Sam would one day buy, and on which he would build a little cabin back in the trees—the little cabin where he had kissed her. Where he
would
kiss her, she corrected herself. She was beginning to understand how difficult it was to know things about the future when it was your own past, and to have to try to keep that knowledge from changing anything.

Sam drove slowly into the field and they left the motorcycle to walk and talk, their boots crunching the dead grass and faded flowers that had bloomed so beautifully in the summer, the single headlight from Sam’s bike illuminating a narrow swath of the field.

“So?” Sam prompted. “What are you doing here this time?”

“I have no idea,” Tesla said.

“Well that’s helpful.”

“I know. Things are just… let’s just say things have gotten weird at home. Plus,” she continued, remembering her conversation with the older Sam just before she jumped, and trying to assure the future unfolded as it was supposed to, added, “I had a really shitty day and all guys are asshats.” Tesla congratulated herself on an obviously flawless attempt to not screw things up. She was going to be a boss at this.

“Tesla, what the hell are you talking about?” Sam said, utterly confused.

Tesla laughed, crossing into the glaring brilliance of the headlight, which dramatically picked out the fiery colors in her hair in sharp contrast to the predawn darkness outside its beam. “I know, I know. This is not as weird as it seems at the moment.”

“If you say so,” he said.

They walked on, their unspoken agreement to stay in the open and skirt the trees guiding their steps. Tesla’s mood, so dark and quick to change lately, did another one-eighty.

“I’m not sure why I’m here in terms of a specific plan, but I do have reasons for coming,” she said. “My mom—no, scratch that,” she amended hastily.
Unbelievable
, she berated herself.
Almost the first thing you do is tell Sam your mom is supposed to die in a few days? He knows she dies, but not when or how. Keep it that way.

“Sebastian Nilsen, the guy who kidnapped my dad last summer, managed to jump back here in the time machine—we don’t understand what happened, he had a gun on me, made me jump with him, but I somehow stayed and he made the jump. Anyway, he’s here, as far as we know. Both of him, I guess. And he’s dangerous, and I want to find out what he’s up to.” It wasn’t exactly
not
true, and it certainly seemed plausible, and that was all she needed for the moment.

“Wait, what?” Sam was incredulous. “The guy’s criminally insane, a kidnapper, and there are two of him—and both of them are here?”

“Yeah,” she said, unable to keep the grin from her face. “Weird, I know. But there are two of me here, too.”

“Well, yeah, but neither of you is a psychopath.”

“Far as you know.”

Sam was silent for a moment as they walked slowly back toward his bike, completing their loop around the outskirts of the field. When he finally spoke, it was clear where his thoughts had gone. “Just be careful, Tesla. Don’t do something crazy without thinking it through, okay?”

“Nice,” she retorted. “Your first assumption is that I’ll be some sort of loose cannon, and turn the world upside down.”

He considered her for a moment in the wan light as they got closer to the motorcycle. “Well, it is what you do.”

When they reached his motorcycle he silently handed her the helmet. After they were both settled, the engine idling, Sam turned his head and she leaned forward to catch his words, their breath mingling.

“I’m surprised your dad let you jump again.”

“Yeah, that would have been a surprise,” she muttered, but not softly enough.

Sam turned the engine off, got off the bike and turned to face her. “You came here again without telling your dad?”

She looked at him, her face a stubborn challenge. “Well, to be fair, I didn’t tell anybody. When I came before my dad didn’t know either, and that didn’t seem to bother you.”

“But now he knows what happened last summer. He’ll know you’ve jumped. He had no idea you were gone last time. Nilsen had him and he was unconscious. He’ll be crazed this time. That was stupid, Tesla. And kind of mean, actually.”

“Hey—” she spluttered.

“Look,” he interrupted, overriding her, no trace of the Beta-role he usually played to her Alpha. “You just vanished, from home, from school, from the universe. Dr. A’s gonna freak, and what about Max? I thought you said you two were close.”

Tesla had the grace to blush. “Okay, I didn’t think about Max. As for my dad, I doubt he’ll even notice.” She knew she sounded like a spoiled brat, and she was embarrassed, but she was angry, and stubborn, and felt wronged, and she was incensed that Sam didn’t see it that way. That his first loyalty wasn’t to her.

“Of course he’ll notice. Geez, Tesla—are you trying to publicize your parents’ time machine—is this how you’ve decided to punish your dad?”

“No! I’m as committed to keeping this a secret as anybody. I told you—there’s just a lot happening at home and I needed to get away.”

“You can’t solve your problems by running away from them.”

“Oh, okay, Dr. Phil. Thanks.”

Sam’s mouth drew down in a hard line and he said nothing, merely watched her as she began to squirm in the accusatory silence.

After a few minutes, Tesla conceded. “I guess it was kind of bratty, but anybody I care about will know pretty quickly that I jumped back. It’ll take like five minutes to realize no foul play was involved—I mean, my Aunt Jane is a government agent, she’s got the resources to figure that out pretty fast. They won’t call the police, or make a big deal out of it. My dad will call school and say I’m sick or something. And they’ll just wait, I guess, until I get back.”

Sam was silent, unconvinced, and Tesla spoke hotly before she thought—as usual. “Besides, one other person knows I jumped, and he can explain it.”

“Who?” Sam asked.

“Well I couldn’t very well jump and man the controls to send me back at the same time, now could I?” she asked, stalling now that she realized what she’d said, and where this was headed.

“Who sent you back?”

She paused, breathing heavily through flared nostrils, her mouth drawn in a tight, hard line. She was still angry, still frustrated, and annoyed that she’d carried it all back with her when she jumped. This was not exactly the escape she’d hoped for when she headed for the Bat Cave just a couple hours ago.

“You,” she finally said, reluctant and afraid, but also defiant as the word left her lips.

Sam froze, his mouth open just slightly, his breath held still.

“Me?” he asked quietly, then cleared his throat. “I sent you back? You know me—eight years from now?”

Tesla could only nod, watching him carefully.

Sam turned, hands jammed into the pockets of his jeans as he walked away from the bike where Tesla sat, but he only took three steps into the early-dawn gloom before he turned and came straight back.

“So eight years from now, we’re friends,” he said, and his voice was a demand she could not ignore.

Tesla nodded again.

“And I’m—twenty-two years old?” His voice was incredulous.

She nodded again. “But Sam—”

He held up a hand to stop her, and she swallowed what she was going to say, watching him as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Ho-
lee
shit,” he whispered to himself. “So, in the future, it’s
this
you that knows me—an older me, who has lived and aged over the eight years in between, you know, normally.”

Tesla frowned, unsure what he was getting at. “Yeah.”

“And the younger you in this time, where we are right now—the little girl—where is she in eight years?”

Tesla thought, trying to follow him, her brows drawn down in a scowl. “She’s…she’s me, I guess. This me.”

“Tesla, think about it. I can’t pretend to understand how all this works, these timelines, how we might change them, affect them—and if we do, if the other timelines are obliterated or just separate-but parallel, so, my God, there could be an infinite number of them possible every time we act—but, should you have told me that?”

“I—I don’t know.”

“It can’t all be one seamless timeline, Tesla—can it? I mean, how can our relationship just keep going on, with me just one person, going through time ‘normally,’ while you—all the yous—jump around and exist in multiple times and places simultaneously?”

Tesla looked stricken. She had to lick her lips and swallow once before she could answer. “I don’t know, Sam. I don’t know.” Her mind raced, tried to grasp time and experience and identity as not a singular thing existing as simplistically as she
felt
it. “Wait,” she said suddenly, reaching out her hand toward him. “Is it possible that I already told you this? That you knowing this about the future, about your future, won’t cause some horrible change, but rather it’s exactly what is supposed to happen, and causes that future to unfold exactly as it already has, in my time?”

“But, how can we know? If every time we break our rule we’re actually doing exactly what we already did—or worse, if only
sometimes
when we break the rule it’s what we were supposed to do—how will we ever know what to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s terrifying, Tesla. How can we even make a decision—ever?”

Tesla thought for a moment, and then looked at him serenely. “But that’s just life, right? We don’t ever know, not fully. Every decision, every action, every time we speak. We can be thoughtful about it, try to imagine the likely consequences, but once we do anything it’s out there, and it ripples through the world like water when you throw a stone into it, affecting everything, further than we can possibly see and in ways we’ll never know.”

“So, what, we’re just paralyzed, afraid we’ll wreck everything?” he asked in horror.

“No, not at all,” Tesla reassured him. “The opposite, I think. It can’t be controlled, never fully, whether we act or don’t act—and not acting is a decision, an act itself, right? So we do our best. It’s all we can do.”

“That’s not comforting,” he said shakily, trying to laugh.

“Yeah, I know,” she said. “So here’s me doing my best: I don’t know you in the future until just this past summer, eight years after my last visit to you, in this timespace. When you sent me back last time from here, you were—the older you, I mean—outside the physics building waiting for me. So, you know. Do that. Wait, and then do it at the right time.”

Sam considered this, silently, shifting his weight to his other foot as he stood beside the motorcycle, and slowly his face lost that stricken look. “So, what do you want to do while you’re here?” he finally asked.