The Fold: A Novel (15 page)

Jamie bumped into Mike and they stood nose to nose. She stayed there, pressed against him on the pathway. He could feel the warmth of her body. Her hair smelled like talcum powder.

“It was sweet of you to be worried,” she said. Her words carried the smell of sweetened coffee. “But you didn’t need to be.” She swept her hair away and it fell back in front of her face.

“Are you all right? Do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine. It worked. No problems.”

“That was stupid,” he said.

“Trust me. I’m not as dumb as you feel right now.”

“We have forty seconds left on the Door,”
said Sasha.
“Are you going back, or is that it?
”

Jamie smiled at him. A real smile. “Well,” she said, “am I going back, Mister Government Jerk?” She bounced on her toes. For a moment Mike had the odd thought that she was going to kiss him in front of everyone.

“No,” he said. Then he looked over his shoulder and raised his voice. “No. Shut it down.”

Neil glanced at Olaf, then bent to his station. Mike saw Jamie nod from the corner of his eye. Olaf reached down and stabbed at his keyboard.

“Closing the Door,”
boomed Sasha.
“Stand clear.”

Jamie put a hand on his chest and guided him a few steps back. He looked past her and glared at Arthur. The project head ignored him.
Then the air between them rippled and a hiss of radio static echoed out of the rings.

“That was amazingly stupid,” said Mike.

“Seriously,” she said. “Unclench. Everything went fine. I’m okay.”

He turned around and gave Olaf and Neil the Look. Neil cowered from it a bit. Olaf straightened up.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mike asked. “The last time someone went through there he died.”

“And over a hundred and sixty times before that,” said Olaf, “someone went through and nothing happened.” His smug tone was back. Mike hadn’t missed it. “This is what science is all about. Taking bold steps and not stopping the moment you hit a setback.”

“A setback?” Mike marched toward Olaf, waving his arms back at the rings. The other man clenched his fists. “What happened to Bob was a setback?”

“We couldn’t find anything wrong,” said Neil. “We had to run a test to see if it was a fluke.”

“There’s a pet store down the street,” said Mike. “You could’ve sent a rat.”

“No,” said Olaf, “we couldn’t. Going back to animal testing would’ve sent up a huge red flag. It’d be declaring a failure.”

“That’s because it failed!”

“No, it didn’t,” said Jamie.

Mike turned on her. “Bob is—”

“We don’t know what happened to Bob,” Neil said, “but we can’t find anything that says the Door was at fault. We needed more information.”

“We had to run another test,” said Jamie. “So I volunteered.”

The big door hissed open on its piston and Sasha walked out onto the floor. Her eyes darted between them. She moved to stand near Olaf.

Mike looked at Jamie. “You could’ve been killed.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“It made sense for her to go,” said Olaf. His fingers danced on his phone.

“How does volunteering to get killed make sense?”

“Because I had the least to lose,” said Jamie. “Everyone else has family or other commitments. I don’t. It made sense.”

Mike shook his head. “Nothing about this made sense.” He looked around at the team members. “Seriously, what were any of you thinking?”

“I was thinking it’s my life’s work,” said Jamie, “and I didn’t want to see it get flushed away.”

Her words echoed in the big room.

“We’ll need to get you checked out,” said Olaf. “Full physical and X-rays, first priority. CT scan too, just to be sure.”

She nodded. “Of course.”

He pointed at his monitor. “Arthur’s bringing his car around to take you. Do you feel okay to walk?”

“I feel fine,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with me.”

“You can’t just ignore this,” Mike said to them. “This was insanely dangerous.”

“Bob wouldn’t think so,” said Sasha. “He knew what this meant. He’d want us to keep working.”

The door hissed open again. Arthur walked in, car keys in hand. “I’m right by the entrance,” he said. “Ready to go.”

Mike glared at him. “I can’t believe you allowed this.”

“Why not?”

“You could’ve had another body on your hands.”

“Or we could’ve proved the Door works.” He waved a hand at Jamie. “And we did.”

“I have to tell Reggie what you did.”

“Unfortunate,” said Arthur, “but not unexpected.”

“You know this is the nail in the coffin. Even he’ll agree they have to shut you down for this.”

“No,” Arthur said, “he won’t. At this point he’s depending on this project as much as us. He’s invested too much. The Albuquerque Door is going to make or break his career, too, and if he has a choice, I’m confident which way he’ll go.”

“Someone died,” said Mike.

“And we’ve shown that was a fluke. The Albuquerque Door project works as promised. That’s what matters.”

“Can we put this on hold for now?” asked Jamie. “No matter how we look at this, the best thing is for me to go get checked out, right? So
let’s get that done and then we can argue about if this was a mistake or a bold step.”

Mike looked at her. “And if it’s a mistake?”

She spread her arms and then gestured up and down her body. “For the third or fourth time,” she said, “fine.”

“Well, let’s be sure,” said Arthur. He gazed at Mike. “Unless you have any other objections.”

Mike turned his back on them and paced back and forth in front of the rings.

“Let’s go,” Arthur said.

“Back soon with a clean bill of health,” said Jamie.

Their footfalls faded and the door hissed again. It closed with a thump. Olaf and Sasha spoke in quiet tones. Neil moved to join them.

Mike stood alone and took a few slow breaths. He stared up at the rings. There was a certain logic to what Arthur had said, but Reggie would shut the project down. At the very least, he’d put someone new in charge. The next time they opened the Door, who knew what would happen to the person who walked through it?

He turned and headed for the door. An insistent ant held up an image in his mind. Something he shouldn’t see. He rewound it even as he turned his head to look again.

The twin rings stood up on the walkway. He’d moved so far to the right they were almost edge-on. He took a few steps until he could see the far side and the two inside edges of the rings there.

Then he took another step and saw the third ring.

He glanced over at Olaf, Sasha, and Neil. They were debating some point. None of them were near their stations. Behind them, the red light was dark.

Two rings close to him.

Three rings on the far side.

He took a few steps back, then walked behind the platform. From behind, there were only two of the big off-white rings. He traced them with his eyes. Then he walked out to the front again. He stepped to the left and looked through the Door.

Three rings.

His movement caught Neil’s eye. “What’s up?”

Back to the right. Two rings.

Mike cleared his throat. “Guys…”

They all looked up.

“Is the power on?”

“Yes,” smirked Olaf. “That’s why there’s no sound at all.”

Three rings.

Two rings.

He snapped his fingers twice and pointed at the rings. “Is the power on?”

The smirks vanished and Neil shook his head. “No, of course not.”

“We’ve got a problem,” said Mike.

Neil and Sasha walked to the Door with long strides. Three quick steps brought Olaf back to his station. “We’re shut down,” he said. “No question about it.”

Mike stepped up onto the platform and looked through the rings. From this angle, he could see into Site B. Jamie’s sweatshirt was still balled up on one station. Arthur’s chair was still pushed out. The back wall was twenty feet farther away than the one he saw in the corner of his eye. The red light wasn’t on there, either.

Sasha and Neil moved in on either side of him. “Oh, fuck,” said Sasha. “What the fuck’s going on?”

Neil reached out a hand toward the Door, but Mike slapped it down. “What?”

“Do you know how long it’s going to stay open?”

The other man looked at his fingertips and shuddered.

Sasha stared up at the rings. “We’ve never managed to keep it open longer than ninety-three seconds.”

“It’s
not
open,” Olaf called from behind them. “Power’s down, the system’s down, it’s not—”

“It’s open,” said Mike.

“Maybe it just looks open,” said Neil. “This might be some kind of afterimage or something.”

Sasha pulled something from her pocket. She showed a handful of coins to Mike and Neil, then flung them through the rings. They chimed off the ramp in Site B. One quarter wedged itself into the expanded
steel walkway. A pair of dimes rang on the concrete floor and rolled off out of sight.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

Mike dug around in his own pocket and found another quarter. He held it between his finger and thumb, and then flung it like a miniature Frisbee. The coin sailed through the rings and across the other room. It hit the floor, skidded, and pinged against the far wall.

“Are you sure it’s open?” asked Olaf. He was poring over the data on his screen.

“Positive,” said Mike. “We just threw about a buck in pocket change over onto Site B.”

Olaf shook his head. “It can’t be. There’s no power.”

They stared at Site B for a moment. Then Neil stepped back from the rings. Mike and Sasha followed him. They gathered by Olaf’s station.

“It could just be an…an aftereffect,” stuttered Olaf. “It’s possible the magnetic fields have somehow created a…some sort of a lensing effect, like a gravitational lens, and we’re just seeing an afterimage.”

Mike ignored him. “Is anyone still over in the other building?” he asked Sasha.

She shook her head. “Shouldn’t be. Arthur was running things alone.”

“Neil, get over there. Fast. See if it’s open on that end. Don’t get near it.”

“Okay.” He made a wide arc around the rings and headed for the back door.

“And don’t touch anything,” Mike called after him. “Not the controls, not the coins, nothing.”

“You taking charge?” asked Sasha.

“Just trying to make sure no one gets hurt,” said Mike. “Figured someone should.”

“We had good intentions.”

“Just like you did with Tramp?”

Sasha winced.

Olaf’s eyes were still locked on the rings. “We could just be seeing a delayed image, one that’s a few moments off from—”

Mike shook his head. “It’s not a gravitational lens, Olaf. The Door is open.”

“It can’t be.” Olaf shook his head. He had the wide eyes and slack jaw of a man who’d been slapped hard and hadn’t quite accepted it yet. “I mean…I mean Occam’s razor. The power isn’t on, so it can’t be—”

“How the hell do you get to gravitational lensing by using Occam’s razor?” asked Sasha. She walked over to check the readouts from the other station.

“Well, I mean…there’s no other way.”

“The Door’s open,” said Mike. “The power’s off, the program’s not running, and the Door is still open. Why?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Did something like this ever come up in your theories?” asked Mike. “Even the possibility of it?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“You don’t
think
so?”

“No,” snapped Olaf. Getting defensive put him back on familiar ground. “No, it never came up.”

“Get Arthur back here.”

Sasha glanced over from the other station. “What about Jamie?”

Mike paused. So did Olaf. The three of them exchanged looks.

“How far’s the doctor?” asked Mike.

“Not far,” said Olaf. “They’re probably halfway there.”

“He’ll turn right around if he thinks the project’s in trouble,” said Sasha.

“I’ll send him a text,” Olaf said. “Tell him there’s an issue and he should come straight back as soon as he drops Jamie off.”

Mike looked around. “I thought phones weren’t allowed in here?”

“Your phone’s not allowed in here,” said Olaf. His finger moved across the touchscreen. It made him look old. Mike was used to students texting lightning-fast with their thumbs.

Sasha stared up at the rings. “What’s powering them?”

“No idea,” Mike said.

She took a step forward. “The energy has to be coming from somewhere,” she said. “Something like this can’t happen without—”

“Sasha,” Olaf said, “watch the line.”

The tip of her shoe was inches from the white paint. “It’s not…” She glanced at the rings. “Fuck. Is it safe?”

“Let’s not find out the hard way,” said Mike. “We need to make sure
everyone knows it’s open. Until we figure out what’s going on, treat this like a standard run.”

Olaf tapped out on a code on his keyboard. The red lights ignited and began to spin. Through the rings, they could see shifting red shadows over on Site B. It made Mike think of Bob sprawled on the floor in his own blood.

The phone fired off a handful of quick violin notes. The ants identified it as part of the “Russian Dance” from Tchaikovsky’s
Swan Lake.
Olaf tapped at the screen. “Jamie. They want to know what’s going on.”

“What are you saying?”

“That Arthur should drop her off and get back here.”

“It’s a wound,” said Sasha.

“What is?”

She stared up at the rings. “We’ve been ripping and tearing at space-time so often, we made a wound. But we kept ripping, so when it scarred, it didn’t scar shut. It scarred open. Somewhere along the way, the Door became permanent.”

“And we never noticed?” scoffed Olaf.

“You wouldn’t,” said Mike. He pointed back at the spinning red lights. “The Door’s never open without all the warning lights on. They became part of it. You didn’t see the lights, so you didn’t look to see if it was actually closed.”

“But it has to be recent,” said Sasha. “We were looking at it just the other day. It wasn’t open when we stripped the whole thing down.”

“And it wasn’t open when Bob died,” added Olaf.

“It closed after Jamie came through,” said Mike. “I was right up there on the walkway. So it just happened now. Why?”

“The last straw?” suggested Sasha. “If it was going to happen, it had to happen sometime. Why not now?”

They heard the echo of the door hiss. Olaf glanced over his shoulder. Mike looked at the rings. The sound had come from the other side of the room.

From the
other
room.

Quick footsteps echoed from Site B. Neil appeared on the far side of the three rings. “Oh, hell,” he said.

Mike toed the ramp. “You see us?”

“Clear as day. It’s just like the Door’s open, except…”

“It’s open,” said Mike. “What do the instruments there say?”

Neil slid into the chair at a workstation and his eyes flitted back and forth across the screen. “Everything here says the Door is shut down. Power’s at zero, field is at zero, no program running, nothing.”

“Fuck,” Sasha said again.

“What,” said Olaf, “did you think everything there would say it was turned on?”

“Maybe,” she said. She tapped her own screen with two fingers. “It could’ve been an instrument problem.”

Neil was looking at them through the rings. “So,” he said, “definitely not an afterimage.”

Mike pointed at the ramp. “You see the coins?”

Neil’s eyes flitted to the quarter, then around the floor. “A couple of them.”

“They look okay?”

He shrugged. “They look like coins. I can’t really tell from here.” He took a step toward one of the dimes.

“Don’t touch them,” said Mike. “Not yet.”

Sasha’s back pocket let out a musical chirp. Mike recognized it as the Star Trek communicator sound. She tugged out her phone. “Arthur,” she said. “Asking what’s going on. Should I ignore it?”

“If you ignore it, he’ll think something’s wrong,” Olaf said.

“Something
is
wrong.”

“Just ask him if Jamie’s with the doctor,” said Mike. “And then get up to the control room. See what everything says there.”

She nodded and walked away, head bent to her phone. Mike noticed she typed with her thumbs. The door hissed open and thumped shut.

“Neil,” said Olaf.

“Yeah?” Neil raised his head up and peered through the rings.

“I want you to count with me, just to make sure this isn’t some kind of residual image on either side. Count to five, one Mississippi between each number, starting right now.”

“One,” they said in unison. “Two. Three. Four. Five.”

“Damn,” Olaf said.

Mike looked at him. “Any other ideas?”

“A few,” said Olaf. His mouth was a flat line below his eyes. They flitted from the Door to his screen and back again. “We’re going to need to run all our basic tests again. Baseball. Maybe even animals.”

“Once we hear back about Jamie,” said Mike. “Once we know it’s safe.”