Resonance (9 page)

Anonymity was my only defense.

Where was the second guard? Looking for Ms. Powell's contact, or coming for me? The train started again, and I stumbled, grabbing on to seat backs as I made my way through the car. The conductor's voice crackled over the speaker, announcing that the rest of trip would be a nonstop express into the city. I couldn't get off even if I wanted to.

The doors behind me opened, letting in the Key World frequency. For the first time in my life, it signaled danger instead of safety.

No time to look back. I joined the crowd, careful not to touch anyone, hoping the guard wouldn't be able to pinpoint my signal amid the others.

Through the doors. Into the next car. Another vestibule. Another car, and I hauled on the doors.

They didn't move.

I was out of cars.

But not out of trains.

We'd always been taught that people made a lot of decisions at train stations—but it turned out the trains themselves carried a lot of pivots too. Maybe people were making big life choices
while the car rocked its way toward the city, or maybe they were deciding to nap. I didn't care what decisions the passengers had made, only that they'd made them.

The trick was matching schedules, Ms. Powell had said. But I didn't know the schedules anywhere except the Key World, and if I tried to go back there, this guy would follow me. I'd have to pick a familiar frequency—one where the world was similar enough that the trains probably overlapped.

I reached into the nearest pivot.

The door at the other end of the car opened, and the guard stepped through.

On instinct, my trembling fingers caught Doughnut World's thread, and I stumbled through.

The compartment I landed in was empty except for a group of girlfriends, dressed for a night on the town. I gasped in relief, then sprinted to the other end of the train, scenery blurring.

Ms. Powell was gone. My one link to Simon, gone. I bent over, hands on knees, fighting for air and control.

Behind me, I heard the sound of the pivot opening. The guard had tracked my signal, followed me through. Doughnut World wasn't the refuge I'd hoped.

I took off again, searching for a clear pivot. The train shook, throwing me into one of the seats, but I scrambled up and kept moving.

I found a rift, slender but strong, in the next car.

“Stop!” shouted the guard, twenty feet behind me. “Identify yourself!”

I didn't look. I didn't think. I heard the whine of his Taser charging, and I lunged at the pivot, taking hold of the first string I found. I half-Walked, half-fell into nothingness . . .

•   •   •

. . . and slammed into the wall of a boxcar, landing on the wooden planks, splinters gouging my palms. Pale bars of sunlight shot through the slats onto the floor, and the air smelled of dust and machine oil. A freight train.

I was trapped. There was no door to the next car; no way to get out if the guard followed me. The best I could do was jump and hope I survived the fall.

Over the roar and clatter of the wheels, I heard a scream that ended as abruptly as it started. I pulled myself up and peered through the back slats of the car. A hundred yards away, the guard who'd been chasing me rolled limply along the ground. Then he lay silent and unmoving on the tracks.

He'd Walked into thin air. If I'd waited ten seconds longer, I would have met the same fate.

I always think it's going to be my last Walk,
Ms. Powell had said.

They had taken her. I sank to the dirty floor. She'd been good to me. She'd been
honest
with me, and she'd tried to help, and now . . . either the Consort would kill her, or they'd interrogate her and
then
kill her. All because she'd tried to help me.

I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to hold back tears, but I couldn't help the scream of frustration that burst from my chest.

My only ally, my link to the Free Walkers, my chance to reach Simon, all of them gone. I was more alone than ever.

The train headed into the city, and I sat in the cold, echoing boxcar, trying to figure out my options.

By the time the skyline slid into view, I'd eliminated all the unlikely ones and zeroed in on the most impossible option of all. The only one left.

Monty.

C
HAPTER FIFTEEN

I
ENDED UP IN A
freight yard, somewhere on the southwest side of Chicago, numb with cold and shock.

I'd been so sure of myself. So confident that this time I would fix things instead of breaking them. I would bring Simon home. Now he was farther away than ever.

I wondered what had become of Ms. Powell's contact, or the other Free Walkers involved in the transfer. If the Consort had traced them back to Simon. The worry was like a kick to the stomach.

As the train slowed to a crawl, I threw my weight against the door, forcing it open. Stacks of metal containers, like children's blocks, towered above me. In the dusky half-light, their colors appeared muted, their shadows ominous.

The car lurched, throwing me into the wall and sending my backpack sliding across the floor. At least we weren't moving any more.

Muscles cramped, head ringing, I jumped out. Gravel scattered underfoot. The first step was getting back to the Key World before the frequency poisoning disabled me. I hitched my bag over my shoulder and made my way out of the massive, fenced-in lot. I spotted a highway overpass nearby and headed toward it.
We had a similar one back home, so if I found a pivot, it would be a relatively safe journey back.

Fifteen minutes later I was standing underneath a massive concrete bridge in the Key World, clutching my phone, trying to explain to Eliot how I'd landed so far from home.

He found me in an IHOP, warming my hands on a mug of heavily sweetened tea, pausing only to shovel in bites of syrup-­drenched pancakes.

“This is the most repulsive thing I've ever eaten,” I said as he loomed over me. “It's delicious. Want some?”

He didn't sit down. He didn't greet me. He stood in the bustling restaurant and stared at me like I was a stranger. I set my fork on the plate, tossed a twenty at the cashier, and followed him out to the car.

“Can you turn the heat on?” I asked when we were buckled in, my voice small in the dark interior.

He jammed the key in the ignition and cranked the heat. But instead of checking his mirrors and executing a textbook three-point turn, he glowered.

“Explain.”

I held my hands up to the vents, but the numbness wouldn't go away.

Ever since Ms. Powell had revealed herself, I'd tried separating the various parts of my life: Simon and training and the Free Walkers and Monty and Amelia and my family, each in their own cocoon. But instead of protecting what mattered, the divisions had cost me, time and again.

Now it could cost me Eliot.

Instead of lying, or asking him to trust me, I did what I should have all along—I trusted him. Exhaustion made my words thick and clumsy. “Ms. Powell's a Free Walker.”

Eliot blinked. “Come again?”

“Ms. Powell's a Free Walker. She was sent here to keep an eye on Simon.”

He scowled. “And you know this how, exactly?”

“She asked me to join them.”

His jaw clenched, as if he was biting back words. His eyes took on the cool, distant look that meant he was sifting through possibilities, analyzing data, figuring out the best approach to the problem.

I was the problem, and watching Eliot try to solve me was unsettling.

“When?”

“You believe me?”

He jerked his shoulder, the only outward sign of the anger he was filing away to process later. “Either you lied before, or you're lying now. You had more to gain by keeping Ms. Powell a secret than you do by outing her. And this is your pattern, isn't it? Hide the truth until you're in so much trouble you can't handle it?”

There's always a pattern,
he'd said.

“She told me the day I came back to school.”

His hands tightened on the wheel. “When she held you after class? She wasn't giving you pointers on the Debussy. She was giving you the hard sell.”

“She didn't need to give me the hard sell,” I replied. “You've seen what the Consort does. What they did to Simon's family.”

“What Monty
says
they did. You're taking the word of a lunatic.”

“Amelia's not a lunatic. She corroborated everything he said.”

“Everything Amelia knows about the Consort, she learned from Simon's dad. She's completely biased. It's natural she'd blame them, now that Simon's gone.”

“Simon's not gone,” I snapped. “The Free Walkers rescued him from the cleaving.”

Eliot went very still, eyes closing briefly. When he opened them again, they were filled with pity. “Is that what she told you? Ms. Powell's manipulating you, as much as Monty ever did. I went back to the Depot. I checked the cut site myself. Nothing is broadcasting at that frequency. I know you don't want to believe it, but there's no way Simon survived.”

“He did,” I said. “Because of the Free Walkers. They're not anarchists. The Echoes are alive, Eliot, and every time the Consort cleaves a branch, billions of people die. At our hands.”

His sympathy evaporated. “Prove it. Show me data. Evidence.”

I bit my lip.

“Even if I believed you, the Consort's protecting the Key World. The Free Walkers are saving Echoes at the expense of
reality
. They may have a different goal than Monty, but they're equally crazy.”

“They aren't crazy. They've found a better way to handle the Echoes—one that leaves them alive and still protects the Key World.”

“There is no better way,” he said. “I know you've got issues, but cleaving is necessary.”

“Was it necessary for them to take Ms. Powell?”

His eyes widened. “The Consort captured her? How? When?”

“An hour ago, maybe two. We were Walking to meet Simon.”

He hammered a fist against the dash. “You're like a little kid! A stranger comes up in a big white van, offers you Simon-shaped candy, and you jump right in. You went Walking with a bunch of people you don't even know, and you didn't tell anyone where you were going?”

“Would you have preferred I sent you a text? ‘Out with rebels, back for movie night, your turn to pick'? We were on a train. She was handing me off to a contact who would take me the rest of the way. A bunch of Consort guards got on too, looking for us. Or our contact. Ms. Powell said they've been hunting Free Walkers lately.”

Addie's project, I realized. They'd had more success than she imagined.

He grabbed my arm. “The Consort knows you were there?”

“I wouldn't be breathing if they did. One of the guards chased me, but when I jumped pivots to another train, he fell. I think . . .” I swallowed hard. “I think he's dead too.”

Eliot groaned, dragging a hand over his face. “Better and better. You're involved in the death of a Consort guard.”

“I kept my hood up and my face hidden. The only guard who saw me is the one who fell.”

He took several slow, deliberate breaths. “What about Ms. Powell?”

“I saw them carry her off. I think she was unconscious. But if she's not already dead, she will be soon. I'm not a genius, Eliot, but I can add two and two.”

He peered out into the parking lot, as if someone lurked behind the shadowed lines of cars. “So can the Consort. She's a teacher at our school. You don't think they're going to be suspicious when they realize you had daily contact with a Free Walker? What if she talks?”

“I don't know.”

“You're screwed, Del. They'll bring you in by lunch tomorrow.”

He was right. “We need help. The Free Walkers are still out there. If we can contact them, they'll know what to do.”

“Who's this ‘we'?” He threw the car in drive and headed for the expressway, every movement furiously controlled. “You're the one who drank the Kool-Aid, not me.”

“You don't believe me?”

“I don't know,” he said. “But even if it's true, it doesn't change anything.”

“Are you kidding me? It changes everything! It's like someone deciding that
E
equals
m c
-squared is actually
E
equals
m c
-cubed.”

“You suck at physics,” he said. “Do you have a clue what that formula means?”

I picked at a hole in my sweater. “Light's fast, or something.”

“Something,” he grumbled. “Yes,
something
.”

“My point is, if scientists one day said, ‘Hey, you know what? Light's slow!' You'd have to rethink all of physics. Come up with totally different rules.”

“Except that most physicists won't kill you over the theory of relativity. The Consort absolutely will.”

“And that doesn't bother you?”

“Of course it does! But I'm not going to risk my life for some crackpot theory.”

“They're not crackpots.”

“They're as nuts as the people who think we faked the moon landing, only more dangerous.” I started to protest, but he held up a hand. “You
want
to believe them, so you don't care about facts. But I need proof, and you don't have any.”

“Actually,” I said, trying not to sound smug, “I do.”

C
HAPTER SIXTEEN

W
HEN I'D LEFT SIMON IN
Train World, I'd given him my backpack, stuffed with Walker tools. Since then I hadn't Walked enough to build up a new bag of tricks. Monty had once told me that a good Walker did more with less, and right now my tools were definitely falling on the “less” end of the spectrum. Then again, I didn't feel like much of a Walker.

“I haven't replaced Monty's picks yet,” I told Eliot as we crept toward the darkened school. We'd used Monty's lock picks last time we broke into the school. There'd been a basket­ball game tonight, but no one had stuck around to celebrate a victory. The team's record since Simon disappeared had been nightmarish.

“Better think of something,” he replied. His words were stilted and stiff.

“Here.” I gestured to a pivot hovering a few feet from the back entrance of the field house. He took my elbow, as lightly as possible, like he couldn't stand to touch me, and I led the way through.

The truth can claim as many casualties as a lie. I'd lost Eliot's trust, and he'd lost his hope. I didn't know if we could recover either.

We arrived in the same Echo Ms. Powell had taken me to on
our first Walk—a pitch I would never forget. I rummaged in my backpack.

“I got nothing,” I muttered. My phone, some notebooks, a couple of candy bars. Origami paper and a length of kitchen twine, because you never knew when string would come in handy. The papers we'd used to decode Rose's journals and a half-used jar of raspberry lip balm.

He peered over my shoulder while I cursed the fact that I had twelve different hair elastics and seven pencils, but no lockpicks. Then he reached around me and plucked out the reports we'd looked at the day before.

“What—”

Without a word, he pulled off the paper clips and held them out.

“Genius,” I said. “As usual.”

He didn't reply.

“You have to talk to me eventually.”

“I don't have to do anything,” he said. “And especially not because you tell me to. I'm only here to keep the Consort from coming after us. We
both
had contact with Ms. Powell. Guilt by association.”

I worked the wire into a rough approximation of a lockpick. “I'll take the blame,” I said. “If this doesn't work, I'll make sure they know it was all me.”

“You think they'll buy it?”

“Well, one of us is a fantastic liar. Better I try to sell them a story than you.”

The makeshift picks took more time than I liked, but finally
we were in. We made our way swiftly across the deserted basketball court, the air thick with pivots and memories and tension.

“What are we looking for?” he asked.

“You asked for proof,” I said, leading him through darkened hallways. “I'm giving you what you want.”

He scowled. “I gotta work on my communication skills.”

“Hush,” I said as we stopped outside the library. “I need light.”

He held up his phone, casting a faint, grainy glow. I reached into the air, relying on sense memory to guide my hands, looking for the shift in density that would reveal the cut site.

The only sounds were Eliot's breathing and mine, and the ­rustle of pivots around us. My hands skimmed through empty space, until something caught on my fingertips like a snagged piece of silk. The seam in the world that would restore Eliot's faith in me.

Gently I parted the air, holding it open. “There's your proof,” I said with a nod. “Go ahead. Feel.”

One hand still clutching the phone, he reached into the cut site, skepticism etched across his face. His fingers splayed wide, searching through the strings.

His brow furrowed. His mouth fell open, then clamped shut. “How?”

“I don't know. Ms. Powell didn't get into the specifics. But there's your proof.”

He continued to examine the cut site and the seam. I could see him sorting through theories and analyzing the data. He prodded the air, muttering to himself and to the strings themselves, as if they might answer his questions.

Finally he turned to me. “It's amazing. The Echo's still there, on the other side?”

“According to Ms. Powell, yes. And I believe her. Simon's Echoes still have a signal. They're alive.”

He shook his head, trying to take it all in. “You're saying the Consort's been killing Echoes for years. Since . . . always.”

“Exactly! But the Free Walkers are trying to change things.”

Eliot snorted. “You might not have noticed, but the Consort's not a fan of change.”

“So you think we should go along with them? Keep killing?”

“I think we should be smart. We need to stay alive—and under the radar.” He nudged up his glasses. “And that starts with figuring out how to keep the Consort from connecting Ms. Powell to us.”

I considered this. “Powell wasn't her real name, and I don't think she was carrying ID. She made a crack about traveling light. Besides, she was never a Consort Walker, so they don't have records of her. They might not be able to track her here.”

“What if they put out a police report? Have you seen this woman; please call CCM? The school's going to report her missing. Someone will put it together.”

“Unless the school
doesn't
report her missing,” I said, and set off for the music wing.

He fell into step beside me. “Why wouldn't they?”

“Because she resigned.”

A few minutes later we were back in the Key World, standing in front of Ms. Powell's office.

“Ms. Powell was leaving? Were you going with her?” Disbelief
tinged with hurt. Maybe he hadn't given up on me after all.

“No, and no. She left a letter in the Key World so it would propagate through the Echoes. It explained why she disappeared, so they could bring a sub in faster.” I bent over the lock, working my paper-clip picks as quickly as I could.

“Why would it matter? They're only Echoes.”

“That's the point. She didn't think they were ‘only' anything.”

Once the door swung open, I pulled down the shade and locked the door behind us.

“Not a lot of pivots in here,” Eliot said, surveying the cluttered room.

“She wouldn't have made any, and I doubt she had kids in here very much.” Lying in the top drawer was a pale blue envelope, the principal's name written across the front in navy ink.

It wasn't sealed—the back flap was tucked inside—and I carefully withdrew the letter. “She wrote it by hand.”

“So?”

“So, that's good. More convincing.” I scanned the paper. “She says she has to leave due to urgent family business—an ill relative—and she doesn't know if or when she'll be able to return. She even apologizes for any disruption it might cause.”

“Touching,” Eliot said. “Drop a bomb and walk away. No wonder you got along so well.”

“I'm not bailing on you.”

“Not today. But once you find the Free Walkers, what then?”

“I haven't gotten that far,” I said. “Ms. Powell said they needed my help. So I help them.”

“And leave?”

Rather than answer, I slid the letter back in the envelope. “We need to put this in the office. The sooner they think she's left, the less chance they'll think she's missing.”

“Fine. Let's plant it and go.”

“Not yet,” I murmured, turning in a slow circle. “There's got to be more information here. Some link to the Free Walkers, something we can use to get in touch with them.”

“What kind of link?” Eliot asked.

“A big red folder labeled ‘Top Secret Free Walker Contact Information,' probably.”

He scowled, and I threw up my hands. “How the hell should I know? They're a secret organization, Eliot. They don't want to be found.”

I stared at the gray metal desk in front of me, mounds of sheet music and batons, a tangle of strings and rosin cakes and reeds. A pile of ungraded essays sat on one corner.

“This is going to take forever,” Eliot said, skimming over the files in the drawer. “These papers haven't been touched since the nineties.”

“Then look at the stuff from this year. She had a tuning fork,” I said, striking it on the desk corner. The Key World frequency rang out.

“Most Walkers do. So do music teachers.” Eliot paused. “Hold on.”

“What?”

“This score. It's original. And the notes are in Powell's writing.”

“You think it's a map?”

“Possibly. I'd need to analyze it to be sure.”

“Take it,” I said, and he stuffed the papers into my backpack.

From the shelf above the desk I took down a picture of Ms. Powell at our first orchestra concert. Someone had snapped it while she was in the midst of conducting, her hair swinging wildly, her arms uplifted, her face fierce and proud.

We'd sounded amazing that night. She might have faked her teaching credentials, but in that moment she'd been completely genuine. It was the only personal thing in the room.

“Why do they need you?” Eliot asked abruptly.

I set the picture back. “What do you mean?'

“You said Ms. Powell told you the Free Walkers needed your help. Why?”

“I don't know,” I admitted. “She was about to tell me more when the guards came. I'll be sure to ask the Free Walkers once I track them down.”

“We're wasting our time,” he said.

Exhaustion was creeping in, turning me short-tempered. “Leave if you want,” I said. “But I'm staying until I find something that will lead me to them.”

“You don't need to,” Eliot said. “If you've got something they need—scores, or secrets, or something else—the Free Walkers are going to come for you. It's just a matter of time.”

He was right. I only hoped they found me before the Consort did.