“Sort of.” Rasmus squints at me. “I cracked the phone.Got in, managed to read most of the data on it though none of the weblinks worked.”
“No?” And now I know why they only wanted me. “What did you find?”
“Well, first of all.” He leans his hands on his knees. The jeans are threadbare. His T-shirt looks old and somewhat stained. “Everything of mine has been confiscated, and that includes a copy of what I found and thought. Everything in that phone was simply wrong in a one-step-to-the-left wrongness. Operating system, wrong. Coding, weird though readable. Links, went nowhere, suggesting the whole web was down.”
“And?”
“You’re not from here, are you Kail? It said you were dangerous, but we know that. But this other stuff, and that you were sent by our institute—the same name, same logo as ours—to kill Simon Tarrant when he was already dead here?”
I wait, knowing there is no way to refute or deny this.
“I think you’re from an alternate timeline. From another world. Is this true, Kail?”
I’m pinned between their intent appraisals. “Yes. That is what I decided too.”
“Wow.” He sits back.
Esau gasps and says, “Fuck me.”
“Sorry.” I shake my head. “I never figured out how to prove it. Was never sure it was a good idea to say it, even. And tonight, in case you’re wondering, I told her I would fix her problems and then leave this town.” I look up. “So, if that dangerous label bothers you?—”
Rasmus scratches his chin. The bruising on his face is noticeable. Did the cops rough him up? “Not as much as youbeing a Frankenstein manandfrom another timeline. These are crazy times.”
I smile, tilt my head. “You get used to the craziness. Sorry you got that done to you. My fault all this happened. Nothing has gone down how I wished it had. Nothing.” I sigh then elevate my chin toward him. “The cops, I guess?”
“Yep.”
“No sorry needed, Kail,” Esau says slowly, drawing out the words. “You’re from another world? You’re leaving? I feel like I should nail you down and stare at you. What does that evenmean?”
“I’m leaving. Yes. My world?” I sigh. “It’s the same as yours, but it’s like got strange differences.” I purse my mouth, thinking on that. “But I have a question for Rasmus. An important one since it might let me help you weirdos nail down Clay Skinner and the institute for murder, body snatching, and whatever else you feel like accusing him of.” I pull out the USB. “We got this off a hacker Zedder vouched for. I need to know if it really will let me get through security at the Revenant Institute.”
I pass it across to Rasmus, and he stands and goes to the PC.
“There is a chance that this has a virus or some other malignant code on it, Esau.” He holds the USB on the flat of his palm. “I can try to mitigate whatever it might do, isolate it, but I can’t?—”
Esau rises from the desk chair. “Do it. Kail, if you go there because you want to find out about the cryo and how the research is happening…I’m coming too. And don’t tell me it’s too risky for me. I’m coming.”
I frown at him while Rasmus kicks the computer into gear and the screen warms up. “Why?” But I think I figured it out.
“Niamh. If Clay took her, there’s a chance she is there. Her body has never been found.”
Cryogenically preserved. The image that conjures is macabre, even for me, and I was once on a slab.
“If he did that, that man deserves an evil death, and I will help you deliver him to it.”
“Amen. Thanks, Kail. Mr. Future Man.” He grins at me as he shakes my hand.
“One day,” Rasmus murmurs, as he stares devotedly at the screen and types on the keyboard. “I am questioning you in detail about how you got here, Kail.”
I grunt at that. “If I knew, maybe I’d have gone back the other way?”
“Back to Narnia?” Rasmus is joking, of course.
“Narnia.” Esau laughs. “Do you even have a Narnia story over there?”
“Yes, we do.”
I wouldn’t have gone. I’m dead there, and Hailey is here. If only things had gone right. If only I was not a good man with an evil one hiding at my core. If he ever emerges properly, I will kill myself, fast. My jaw tightens, and I think that through. What if I can’t? What if I’m the one relegated to the back of my brain?
