Suture (The Bleeding Worlds) (12 page)

Morning brought the hustle of preparation. Quick showers, dressing in civilian clothes with their labels removed—who knew what clothing brands existed in this world—heading to the mess tent for a quick breakfast, and meeting in another trailer serving as the mission headquarters.

"The first team of Gwynn, Jason and Alesandra—"

"Please, call me Alice."

"Very well, Jason, Gwynn and Alice, will drive to their destination and I will follow in another vehicle. I'll be posing as their father and will try to negotiate the hurtles of building a cover story and getting you enrolled at the school, so listen to what I tell the administration. Assuming all goes well, I'll return and do the same thing with the other school team. The rest of you, you have your postings at the other various points in town. Standby until I return from dropping off team one. That way, if we run into trouble, it's just us. Clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good people, let's move out."

"Did either of you look at the cars?" Jason asked.

Gwynn and Alice shook their heads.

"Man, three teenagers being given a car and we didn't even bother to check it out. We really are messed up."

"That's yours over there," Njord said from behind them, pointing to a four-door sedan with all the boxiness of a car from the eighties.

"So obviously we're not posing as the cool kids," Alice said.

"Based on the surveillance, these are the predominant style of vehicles on the roads. While it may insult your finer sense of style, the point is to blend in."

"Huh," Jason said. "Why couldn't we have a city pop into our reality where everyone drove Ferraris?"

The three of them piled into their car—Jason at the wheel. Njord hopped into another car which, to Gwynn's eyes, seemed far nicer than theirs. They crawled away from the compound and made their way toward the barricade. Space had been cleared for their passing. The combined military and state troops eyed them suspiciously as they waved them through.

What must they be thinking?
Gwynn wondered.
Being told to guard this area as it's so dangerous and yet a bunch of kids just cruise in.

None of them could say the actual point they crossed over into another world. Both Gwynn and Jason felt a slight tingling and the similar sense of wrongness, but it started shortly after the blockade and continued well into the city limits. Alice sat in the passenger seat, navigating Jason based on maps the surveillance team had put together.

They pulled into the school parking lot. Several spots were already occupied with, Gwynn had to begrudgingly admit, cars similar to their own. They arrived late—missing the start of the school day hustle would make keeping track of Njord's story easier.
 

Gwynn had been so tired and distracted, he hadn't read what little information they had. Now he took the time to read the school name.

He began to tremble.

"Gwynn, what's wrong?" Alice asked.

The words wouldn't come. He just pointed to the sign dubbing the school North Field High.

"Damn, that's creepy," Jason said.

"What?"

"That's the name of Gwynn's old high school. The one he kinda destroyed fighting his principal who'd become a Taint," Jason explained.

"Oh. That is odd." She turned around to look at him in the back seat. "You went to school in Canada, didn't you?"

Gwynn nodded.

"Then it's just a coincidence," Alice said. "Zeus told me this city isn't here randomly. It exists in this spot on some other Earth. So it can't be related to your old high school because it's half a continent away."

"Still doesn't strike me as a good omen," Gwynn managed to say.

"Too late to cry about it," Jason said. "We've got a job to do. Just forget the name of the damn school."

They exited the car and joined Njord, who assumed a fatherly air and escorted them into the school to the main office.

Several tense moments went by where everything threatened to fall apart before they even started. Only Njord's gift of conversation and quick thinking rescued them. A week before, the city was placed on quarantine. The office staff acted suspicious that three new students should be arriving. Njord convinced them he'd been posted on government business associated with the quarantine. Since he would be here for a long time, the government agreed to let him move his kids to town. The quarantine delayed their paperwork, Njord explained, but he assured them it should arrive in no more than a week's time.

With timetables in hand, they left the office and prepared to set out into the school.

"So to keep it easy, you're all registered under your own first names, but your shared last name is Smythe, just like the briefing notes said. Clear?"

The three nodded.

"So what do you think the quarantine is all about?" Jason asked. "It seemed like even the staff weren't sure."

"My guess is it had to do with the odd energies detected around the city. We knew what they were, but if this world has no Suture, it's likely their scientists aren't sure. Just keep a low profile. Remember, your father is here on business and you've been assigned to this school for the duration. If anyone asks you about where else you've been, just try to deflect it by saying you move around too much to even bother keeping track. Try to snag a map or something so we can flesh out the story a bit more tonight. I'm not too thrilled about both my Scripts in the same basket, but this is Gwynn's first infiltration mission. You're my best Jason, I expect you to keep him out of trouble. Good luck."

After Njord left, the three took a moment to compare schedules.

"So Gwynn and I are supposedly twins," Jason said. "So we've got math together in the last period."

"Meaning I have nothing with you because I'm the younger sister," Alice said.

"We'll meet at lunch and compare notes. I've got physical education first. What about you, Gwynn?"

"History."

"Could be useful," Jason said. "Hopefully they give out text books. Alice?"

"English."

"Right. Ok. Well, see you all at lunch."

Parting from the others filled Gwynn with dread. Though he'd felt the outcast, he realized he hadn't been entirely on his own for the past eight months.

It's all just muscle memory.
He told himself.
I spent years as a ghost, it can't be hard to remember how.

Of course, that had been explained to him. It wasn't he'd been great at going unnoticed, it was because on a subconscious level, his classmates sensed the 'otherness' of him and steered clear. It explained the empty seat awaiting his arrival at lunch in the cafeteria. Would these kids be the same? Or would the fact he awakened to his powers, and gained some comfort with them, make him less foreign?

I'm from another world. I couldn't get more foreign.

The back of his neck tingled and rippled with goose flesh. He turned his head.

No one in sight.

Gwynn made his way to history class. The sensation of being watched didn't lessen. No matter how many times he searched, with both eyes and heightened senses from the Veil, he still couldn't find the source.

I'm getting jumpy. Better keep it together, or I'll never hear the end of it from Brandt.

Arriving at the classroom, he knocked on the door and waited for the teacher to motion for him to enter. He handed a slip of paper to her, explaining he belonged in the class. She indicated an empty desk at the front.

It's going to be hard to go unnoticed when everyone is staring at the back of my head.

"So, we were discussing the importance of the date April Fourteenth, Eighteen-Sixty-Five. Can anyone tell me the significance?"

"It was the date of the attempted assassination of President Lincoln and the successful assassination of Vice-president Johnson," a student behind Gwynn said.

"Very good. Is everything all right Mr. Smythe, you look confused."

It took a moment for Gwynn to recall she was speaking to him when she used the name Smythe.

"No ma'am, I just… I was just thinking it was bad I had forgotten that date."

"Well, it is an important date. After the coordinated attempts on the President, Vice-president, and Secretary of State, President Lincoln became even more bold in his plans for the reconstruction after the Civil War. This riled some Southerners who became, what we would call nowadays, a domestic terrorist cell called the Brothers of the Confederacy. Over the past one-hundred and fifty years, they've claimed responsibility for a number of assassinations and public acts of terror. Though at this point it's hard to see why they still bother."

So it went. Names and dates, as they were explained, demonstrated a significant number of differences in this world from his own. Though things still seemed very similar. Chancing the odd glance at his classmates, he saw cell phones, MP3 players, and the odd brand name logo he recognized. Flipping through the text book, he saw major events occurred in common with his own world. The rise of the Nazis, 9-11, they'd all happened, but with slight variations. Did this indicate a world in proximity to their own, or did fate ensure some events always happened?

Two more periods passed before Gwynn reunited with Jason and Alice in the cafeteria.

Unlike the cafeteria at Suture and his old school of Northfield, this one had its tables laid out in a chaotic pattern. There was no attempt to maximize the space by lining the tables in straight rows, instead they seemed to encourage small groups to congregate around individual tables. Was it due to low enrolment, or were they actually encouraging the creation of cliques? Along one wall ran a food counter. The smells were familiar and the kids walking away had trays filled with burgers and chicken fingers. Gwynn regretted his standard issue bagged lunch.

"So what have you found out?" Jason asked.

Gwynn filled him in on some of the historical variances. He'd found fewer clues regarding differences in his other courses.

"Wanna hear something weird?" Jason said. "There's no football field."

"What?"

"There's no football fields. They play straight rugby and soccer. When I mentioned football, they just talked about soccer."

"Woo and hoo," Alice said. "We're in an alternate dimension and your biggest discovery is there's one less game where grown men chase a ball and beat each other?"

"Not a fan?" Jason asked.

Alice shot him a dirty look.

Jason leaned over the table closer to Gwynn and lowered his voice. "Looks like you've got an admirer. To your left. Don't make it obvious."

Gwynn did his best to look nonchalant as he turned. A red-headed girl was looking his way. When she saw his eyes, her own darted down to a book lying on her table.

"Maybe that's why I've been feeling like I'm being watched all morning."

"She's cute," Jason said. "Maybe you should make first contact. Be like an inter-dimensional Romeo and Juliet."

The sound of foot striking a shin came from beneath the table. Well, it just sounded like a blunt thud, but Jason's reaction made it obvious.

"Dammit, Alice, what was that for?" Jason fumed.

"Just trying to keep your head in the mission. And making sure you don't get Gwynn distracted."

They ate the rest of their Suture packed deli sandwiches in silence. When the bell sounded at the end of the period, Jason hastily gathered his things and bolted.

"I don't think he likes me," Alice said, a laugh in her voice.

"I think he's just afraid you'll kick him again."

"Hey, Gwynn, do you trust me?"

He pulled the garnet pendant from beneath his shirt. "I'm still wearing this, aren't I?"

She smiled. "Then do me a favour. Keep this and don't read it until after your last period, ok?" She slid a folded note across the table to him.

"A folded note? Wow, kicking it old school, huh?"

"What can I say?" Alice shrugged. "I'm kind of an old-fashioned girl. Promise you won't open it until after school?"

Gwynn looked at the folded piece of paper in his palm. Could he resist its allure until the end of school? Still, he felt this urge not to disappoint Alice.

"Ok, I promise."

Her smile widened. "Great. I'll see you later. Bye, Gwynn."

Gwynn slid the paper into his bag and made for class. By the time school came to a close, he'd managed to forget all about it. Until he and Jason arrived in the parking lot to meet at the car.

Which was missing.

"What the…?" Jason spun a full three-sixty, surveying every car left in the lot. "We did park here, didn't we?"

"Yeah. I'm sure we did," Gwynn answered.

"So either someone's jacked our car…"

"Or Alice took it." At the mention of her name, he recalled the letter. He walked to some benches set along the walkway up to the school and rooted around his bag. When he found the note, he unfolded it. A few minutes later, after having finished it, he swore.

"Ok," Jason said, "don't leave me hanging, what's it say?"

"She did take the car. She won't say why, or where she's going, she just said it's really important and the next time I see her she'll explain everything."

"That's just friggin' great." Jason kicked at some stray rocks. "So what, we're hoofing it all the way back? Dammit, that's gonna take hours."

Gwynn held up the wrist where he wore his Tether. "We could hit the panic alarm."

"And have Njord give us shit for letting Alice bolt with the car? No way. You know, I was suspicious of her coming on this mission. I mean, it just didn't fit why all of a sudden they want to throw someone onto the team from another branch. You said you thought she was good, so I went with it. Man, I should learn to trust my own gut more often."

"Hey. She blindsided me too."

"Besides the fact you had a note in your bag the entire time telling you she was going to do it. Geezus, why didn't you read it sooner?"

Gwynn couldn't look Jason in the eye when he admitted, "I promised I wouldn't."

"Man, you really have it bad for her, don't you? You know what," Jason cut Gwynn off before he could say anything more, "don't even try to explain it. It doesn't matter. You're a nice guy and she used that against you. Not your fault, it's all on her. Let's just get walking."