Ten Thousand Skies Above You (26 page)

“I forget.” Romola makes a
tsk-tsk
sound. “Your dimension still maintains the illusion of nation-states as the prime political and economic entities. In this world, we've outgrown such notions. Corporate allegiance is a very serious matter for consumers, who should not switch sides lightly.”

I can't even wrap my head around that. Hopefully I won't be here long enough to have to worry about it.

When the doors slide open, Romola leads me down a long corridor and through a series of reception rooms—all deserted, at this early hour of the day. (I left Paris around lunchtime; if it's sunrise here, then this must be the East Coast of the United States.) Each room looks sleeker and more forbidding than the last. These are the barriers visitors have to cross if they want to see the big man himself.

“You must have been looking forward to this,” Romola says. “Finally getting to the root of it all.”

I laugh once, a bitter sound. “Before five minutes ago, I had no idea this dimension was even involved. I should've known, though. Triad means three. Three dimensions are in on it.” We all thought Triad was just a name, any other cool-sounding noun chosen at random by a bunch of twenty-something tech entrepreneurs. Why didn't we ever question whether it meant something more?

Romola gives me an odd look. “The name of the company has nothing to do with the dimensions. How could it? This branch of Triad has existed for years longer than any of the others.”

“Then the name actually doesn't mean anything?”

“It does. Triad stands for the three founders of the company. The geniuses behind it all.”

With that, she presses a panel and the final doors slide open, revealing a spacious but windowless office. Behind the long, narrow desk is Wyatt Conley, his hair longer and tied
back in a sort of tail; he nods by way of greeting. Sitting on either side of him are the two other founders of Triad—the two other masterminds of this conspiracy.

My parents.

“HELLO, MARGUERITE,” MY MOTHER SAYS. “YOU MUST HAVE
many questions.”

Thousands. But I can't ask them. I have no voice. My body reels, and I need to sit down before I fall. The room contains only three chairs, however, and all three are occupied.

“Sweetheart?” My father gets to his feet—concerned and gentle and so like Dad that it makes everything even worse. “You don't look well. I told your other self to take it easy earlier; we didn't know when you'd get here. Of course she stayed awake the entire time, didn't she, Miss Harrington?”

“She did.” Romola smiles at me like I'm something cute and helpless. A kitten, maybe. “As if anyone could stop Marguerite from doing what she's set her mind to.”

“Stop talking about
her
.” Those are the first words I can force out. “You're dealing with me now. Talk to
me
.”

“She's right,” Dad says, stepping aside to make room
for me. He's wearing the same sort of stiff-yet-formfitting clothes as Romola and I are, but in a deep oaky brown. “Come on, sit down.”

Numbly I walk toward his chair. As I sink into the seat, Conley motions to Romola. “Get Marguerite some water. Maybe a cup of tea. I think she could use it.”

If Wyatt Conley thinks I'm going to thank him for that, he's living in a dream world. I look past him, directly at my mother, who sits calmly with her hands folded across the desk. To her I say, “Romola told me you were the founders of Triad Corporation. All three of you, together.”

Mom smiles. “Yes, that's true.”

“That's
impossible
.” My voice breaks, so I make fists beneath the table, digging my nails into the heels of my hands until it hurts. I'd rather claw myself bloody than let Conley see me cry. “You wouldn't. You and Dad would never—you wouldn't want to make a ton of money or rule over the multiverse. That's not who you are.” They wear the same sweaters until the wool unravels; Mom wouldn't know “this year's handbag” if someone hit her with it. It's not that they're stingy, and we're not poor—my parents just don't care about
things
very much.

They all exchange glances, before Mom replies, “Money matters more here, I'm afraid. In your world, and so many others—they pretend other elements of existence are more important. Here, we're more honest. Everyone needs to prove their value to their sponsor or employer. Unwillingness to maximize profit is often considered a moral failing.”

“Not by us,” Dad chimes in. “We recognize the shades of gray involved. But Triad employs tens of thousands of people. Their welfare is in our hands. Their futures, too. We wouldn't want to let these people down.”

My initial reaction is to snap at them:
Oh, so you'll betray me, not to mention
yourselves
, just so Triad's office workers get a slightly higher Christmas bonus. I guess that makes it okay to ruin people's lives.
However, Romola's words of warning echo inside my mind—there's no such thing as a nation here. Only corporations. Your fate rises or falls with your employer.

It's an incredibly messed-up way to live, but at least I see how my parents could've gotten involved.

Dad pats my shoulder. “Triad isn't only about profit. That's simply the only part you've had a chance to see. I
told
you we should have called her here before.”

That was directed at Conley, who nods. His clothes are all in a dark emerald color, the shade associated with Triad and its logo. “I understand why you're upset with me, Marguerite. My other selves can be . . .” He searches for the right words, then finishes, “total assholes.”

I can't help it; I laugh.

Conley smiles, overly encouraged. “I apologize for the way they've been acting. Their worlds don't even have the same demands for money. For them, it's nothing more than a power trip. And I'll be the first to admit their methods leave much to be desired. We began this collaboration assuming that we would all benefit, but I'm the first to admit that it's
turned—exploitive.”

“Why do you work with them, if you think they're so awful? Why did you even start this—this conspiracy?”
Collaboration
, my ass. I push my chair back from the table, farther from Conley, and look past him to my mother. “Why didn't you stop when the other Conleys started
kidnapping
people?”

“Oh, darling.” Mom's eyes fill with tears. “You have to understand. Your father and I—all three of us—by now we're doing this for the same reason.”

Dad quietly adds, “We're doing this because this is the only way we'll ever get Josie back.”

The curving, blank walls of this room turn out to double as enormous viewscreens. On each one, a different video of Josie plays.

On the left: A family video from when Josie and I were younger, one with all of us sightseeing in some kind of glass-domed hovership. Dad's holding the camera. He goes back and forth from focusing on the seashore below to pointing the lens at each of us in turn. Everyone dresses in monochrome, all pink or all yellow. I'm wearing my hair back in a ponytail—as unflattering here as it is at home—and wearing gray. Onscreen I try to ignore Dad's filming while I take my own pictures, maybe to use as sources for artwork later. Mom keeps talking about how coastal irregularities always mirror fractal patterns. Josie just turns her face toward the sunshine, soaking it in.

On the right, Josie and Conley are at some kind of fancy
party. To me his clothes don't look that different from what he's wearing now, but Josie's wearing a long, melon-colored sheath dress, which wouldn't look out of place back in my own world; the fact that she's not wearing jeans would be enough to prove this is a very special occasion. Candlelight flickers from tapers mounted on the wall. Josie's chestnut hair is pulled back on one side with some sort of tropical flower pinned at her temple; it ought to look ridiculous, but it doesn't. Instead, she reminds me of some 1940s movie goddess—sultry and luminous. Conley's arm is linked with hers, and he gazes at her like she's the brightest light in the room.

The broadest screen, the one behind us, plays a video with the Triad Corporation watermark on the lower right-hand side. The brilliant aquamarine color of Josie's formfitting outfit reminds me of one of the wetsuits she wears to go surfing. Around her neck hangs a slightly different version of the Firebird. She's sitting at a desk, talking with her hands; I realize this is a post-mission debriefing. Josie sounds efficient, but enthusiastic. “Apparently Greco-Roman paganism had survived in dimension 101347. Temples to Zeus, Apollo, Athena, and Aphrodite were located on most major streets, but I also saw worship of other cultures' deities, such as Odin and Isis. Various forms of paganism must have coalesced over time as . . .”

I can't take it all in. Overshadowing all these videos, all this information, is the cold truth my parents have told me: in this dimension, my sister is dead.

“She volunteered,” Dad says, in a way that makes me think he must repeat this to himself very often. “Josie
wanted
to travel through the dimensions. Her sense of adventure . . . nothing was ever entirely enough. Always, she wanted more.”

Conley keeps staring at Josie's face on the screen. “So when she offered to be our first traveler—to be this dimension's perfect traveler—it seemed so natural to say yes. Who could do it better? Who would love it more?”

Nobody, I realize. Josie has always looked a little wistful when we talked about our travels in different worlds. At home, though, she's on her own scientific adventure, immersed in oceanography—pun intended, since it makes her and Dad laugh every time. She never volunteered to be a part of our parents' work. In this world, however, she followed in their footsteps.

Until—

“If it had happened in one of the more dangerous dimensions, I think we might have been better prepared for negative outcomes.” My mother's voice sounds thin. Strained. “But Josie was in a world similar to yours. Technology was more primitive, but she enjoyed the easier pace of life. The access to forests, and the sea. So she kept returning—supposedly to test the effects of repeated reentries into a dimension. Really she went just because she liked it.”

Conley closes his eyes. “I let her. I encouraged her. It seemed harmless. She did so much work for us. Why not let her have her fun? I—I never could deny her anything she really wanted.”

Nobody offers the next part, so I have to ask. “What happened to Josie?”

None of them wants to be the one to say it. Dad breaks down first. “A random accident turned—horrific.”

When it seems like Dad can't go on, my mother speaks up. “No doubt you've wondered what happens if a traveler is within another self at the time of that self's death.”

I've definitely had reason to worry. The thought of Josie dying like that—it's terrible, but I've faced dimensions without her. Dimensions where either or both of my parents are dead; dimensions where all of them died while I was still a child. It never stops hurting, but I've learned how to endure that. I think of my own family back home and remind myself,
I'll be with them soon
.

For these versions of Mom and Dad—and Wyatt Conley, weird as that is—there's no such comfort. “That's how Josie died?” I speak as gently as possible. “An accident where she didn't have time to leap out again?”

My mother shakes her head. “In some ways, yes. But the truth was so much worse.”

Realization strikes. “She splintered, didn't she?”

Conley answers me. “Josie attempted to leap out at the very moment of death. She didn't quite make it. Pieces of her mind traveled to at least a hundred dimensions she'd visited earlier, as if . . .” He struggles for the right words. “As if the Firebird was trying to find a safe place for her but couldn't. She probably made an error with the controls—she had no time, and she would have been so afraid—”

By now Dad is sitting, his head in his hands. Conley breathes shallow and fast through his nose, the way guys do when they're trying not to cry.

This seems like a problem with an obvious solution. “Can't you just put her back together again, using the Firebirds? The way I'm putting together my Paul?”

“No,” Mom says. “We tried. We knew the splinters were too small—that we'd never find them all, and they'd be too difficult to extract from the other Josephines—but we tried anyway.”

My parents have always dreamed big. But they don't attempt the impossible; instead, they stretch the limits of the possible. For them to keep trying when they had no chance of success? That was desperation. Or maybe it was the insanity that sometimes follows deep grief, the same madness that made me chase Paul across the dimensions when I thought he was to blame for my father's death. Thinking of how I felt then—how shaken, how
raw
—cracks open something inside me.

These sad, deluded people are what's left of my parents in this dimension. As angry as I am about everything Triad has done, I can't help feeling sorry for them, even for this version of Conley, a little.

I remember what it's like to hurt that much. I also remember that it fades. Grief never dies—I still have nightmares about the night a cop came to our house and told us Dad had been killed, even though he turned out to be fine. But grief changes. It softens, adapts its shape to become a part of you.
That kind of sorrow never gets any lighter, but you grow accustomed to the weight as you carry it on.

In time, maybe, this world's Mom, Dad, and Wyatt Conley might snap out of it. They could realize how crazy this has become.

“I'm sorry,” I say. For some reason, that seems to hurt Dad even more; he actually flinches. “I know it's hard. I do. When I thought my dad was dead, seeing him in other dimensions . . . it helped me, for a while. If you need to keep visiting Josie—different versions of her—that's okay. But that doesn't mean you let the other two Conleys do whatever they want. I mean, they splintered Paul on purpose! Think about what they're doing, would you? Splintering Paul and holding each piece of his soul hostage, letting Theo get sick from the Nightthief—even kidnapping another version of you, Dad—that's so far over the line that nothing could ever make it right.”

They all exchange glances, and Conley sighs heavily. “Things are at the point where we intend to step in. Within a few weeks, the other two of me shouldn't be a problem for you anymore.”

That ought to be a huge relief. Why does it make me tense instead?

Maybe it's because they've done a lot of explaining, without giving me the answers I need most. Time to make my demands. “I want what I was promised. I want the coordinates to find Paul, and I want the cure for Nightthief.”

I expect evasion, or some kind of further bargain. Instead,
Conley smiles as if in pride, and my mom and dad give each other the look that means they forgot something again. (The phrase “absentminded professor” exists for a reason.) Conley's hand moves across the tabletop—which I realize now is also a sort of touchscreen—and after a moment, both of the Firebirds against my chest buzz slightly, receiving new data.

“There you go,” my father says. “You're programmed with your next coordinates, plus we sent you a data file with information about the Nightthief treatment. The minute you move on, you can collect Paul, head on to your home dimension, and see if you can't put Theo right. It
is
Theo who's suffering the adverse effects, isn't it?”

He acts so kind yet is so totally oblivious to the consequences of his actions. “Yes. It's Theo.”

“The formula for the solution you've been given isn't a cure,” Mom explains. It takes me a second to realize she means
solution
in the chemistry sense. “However, it greatly diminishes the toxicity within the body, and gives the patient's immune system a chance to heal itself.”