After a few more minutes of silence, Jasper laughs softly to himself.
“What?” I ask.
“I took these plans, but do either of us know what the plans for a time machine would look like, even if they were sitting right in front of us?” He motions me over. On the screen is a set of diagrams. Components and directions. Notes about energy transfer and?—
“I don’t think that’s a time machine.” As I lean in toward the screen, Jasper vacates the desk chair and I slide into it. I zoom out so the whole document is visible.
“Would you know it if it was?” he asks.
“I’d have to see one to say for sure.” I follow the path of couplings, but where the familiar reducer should be, something else—something labeled amass converter—has been drawn in. “But it looks like the Ziro Machine. Jasper, Walter Wolfe stole our plans.”
“He has your climate change machine?” Jasper bends in, shoulder brushing mine.
“Yes. But no.” I point at the converter... “I don’t know what this is, but it’s not in our design. Or not all of it. Someone’s made changes. “Here... this open chamber here? That’s where the charging station is. You can’t leave it open. That much power with nothing to absorb it would be highly unstable.”
“So it could be a time machine?” he says.
“It could be an intergalactic popcorn maker for all I know.” I squeeze my eyes shut as the glare from the screen makes my head ache. I have to call Ezekiel. Ask him more questions about that conversation he had with Wolfe. Tell him someone’s broken into the system to steal the plans, or else someone who works with us has betrayed our trust. Jasper opens up other files, showing me more and more diagrams. They’re all of a modified version of the Ziro Machine, but there’s no clear confirmation that the changes mean it’s a time machine. If it is, it leaves me with this dreadful feeling that somehow, I’m responsible for what’s happening to me and Jasper. Even if time travel isn’t what the Ziro Machine was built for, so much of what’s in the documents is familiar.
“Did you find anything else? Any indication of where they might be building this?” My head is swimming.
“No.” Jasper leans forward and closes the image. This near, I can smell him. Sawdust and earth. I go to inhale further, but he clicks off the monitor and slumps back to the bed again, yawning widely.
“I’m beat,” he says.
I stare at the black screen, waiting for the strain to fade. “Uh-huh.”
“Oh, wow. Hey!” Jasper’s hand on my shoulder makes me jump, and he smiles as I spin. “Sorry.”
“Something wrong?” On reflex, I yawn too, hiding the inhale behind my palm.
He shakes his head. “It’s after midnight. That’s the longest you’ve made it in a while.”
It’s faint praise and I laugh. “‘Congratulations on not dying horribly’ doesn’t really feel like something to celebrate.”
His smile fades. “We celebrate it every six months with Lexi.”
Jesus. Shit. I rest my forehead on the heel of my hand. “I’m sorry.”
“No. No, that one was on me. Sorry. I’m tired. Verbal filter shuts down around eleven forty-five.”
“Right.” I stand, stretching my arms overhead. “We should get going.” But I stop halfway to the door, because where are we going to go? I feel like a video game character who’s walked himself into a corner and can’t figure out how to turn around. We have nothing. Plans for a machine we don’t understand. No indication of if it’s been built or where it might be. Jasper’s family is sleeping next door, and by now Wolfe’s people must know what we did in his office. We can’t stay here, and yet where are we going to go? There’s a supervillain at my house, and anywhere else I’m liable to get crushed by a falling anvil or drop into a pit of rattlesnakes, probably taking Jasper with me.
“Come lie down,” Jasper says, patting the bed beside him.
My ears burn. “What?”
His eyes are closed, and he smiles sleepily. He looks totally relaxed. “Just for a few hours. We need some rest. I’ve hardly slept in the last sixtyish days.”
I want to say no. Not only because arguing is what Jasper and I do best, but because sleep is scary. Vulnerable. The last time I slept, I woke up with Indigo in my house.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say.
Of course, Jasper misunderstands. “Are you worried about your reputation? You can sleep in the apartment. I can go crash in the house.”
I may not be completely comfortable with the idea of sleeping here, but Idefinitelydon’t want to sleep here alone. And I really am very tired. My many deaths must be catching up to me. All of me hurts and my eyelids feel like they’ll never open again when I finally let them close.
“I can sleep on the floor,” I say. “You don’t have to go.”
