Chapter 10

I feel the difference in the air even before Elijah comes running. Someone new, taking up space where there's none to spare, like a stone dropped into a bucket of water about to overflow.

It's been nineteen years since I felt anything like this. It's lighter than the last time, less intrusive, but I know the panic still registers on my face. Because when Eli skids soundlessly into my doorway, the first thing he says is:

"Don't freak out, but I think one of your girlfriend's pals is here."

I blast my way through the uncomfortably weightless double front doors of the house. A crowd of my crewmates has already gathered on the plain outside, but they barely notice me as I sprint past them, wading through the grass that's at my ankles, then my knees, deeper and deeper, as fast as I can.

There's a figure standing waist-deep in the grass, red hair gleaming in what's supposed to be the sunlight. They're staring at the gathered crew, at our house-prison, at the one wizened tree that marks the point past which none of us have ever tried to go, because there's nothing, because the arid fields would swallow you up. Their mouth is open in awe even though they're shaking with the effort of something. And when I get close enough to see that they're wavering, they're not really here, the ripples I felt weren't a body but a mind and so I can almost see through them to the hazy horizon behind—they look at me, and say, "Billie."

"Ros, wait—" I start to say, but they're gone.

***

Ros blinked their eyes open, ice crystals falling away from their ginger eyelashes, and Cleo could tell it had worked.

"What did you see?" Billie asked. Cleo shot her a wait for them to catch their breath, butthead look, but Ros was already brushing the frost off their uniform and looking excited.

"I didn't lose control," they said, and smiled contagiously.

"No," Cleo said. "You did so good, dude. Told you I wouldn't need this."

She indicated her back pocket, where the tranquilizer gun that Ros had adamantly told her not to put in her back pocket was. But Ros had also insisted that she and Billie build the tranq gun in the first place, so.

("You haven't aligned the striker right, Cleo, you've got to—"

"I've aligned it perfectly, actually."

"No, it's going to catch on the side of the chamber, knocking your aim off by at least three degrees."

"It's aligned perfectly, Billie, which I would prove by tranqing you right now, if that wasn't such an obvious waste of a dart."

"You're just threatening me because you know the striker is—

"Hey, Billie?" And Cleo had turned so their faces were just centimeters apart. She heard Billie's breath hitch, and let her gaze easily and obviously drop down to Billie's mouth. "Shut up." And Billie had.)

"There was a house," Ros said. "Just this off-white house in a big, empty field."

"Spooky."

"And I saw—" Ros hesitated, glancing at Billie, at Cleo, biting their lip. "I saw the, uh, crew."

A muscle clenched and unclenched in Billie's jaw. "All of them?"

Ros nodded slowly. "As far as I could tell. I don't know their faces, of course, except—"

There must have been a warning in Cleo's eyes, because Ros shut their mouth.

"Right," Billie said quietly, her throat working. "Well, Ros, if you're done for the day, I'd say we made good progress, so—"

"Actually, I think I'd like to go again." Ros raised their eyebrows at Cleo. "If that's okay?"

"Um." Cleo could practically feel the anxiety coming off of Billie in waves. "I think, since we're on a roll, yeah, we should keep going."

Billie made an indignant noise at the back of her throat but didn't argue. "Fine. Close your eyes."

Ros did. Billie paced wide loops around them, and Cleo watched as she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin, a bit of the old starship captain demeanor returning to stifle that nagging nervousness.

"I think we have to zoom out," Billie continued. "The house and the field are illusions. You should try and see past them, to what the Other Place really is."

"Okay," Ros said slowly. "So, in practical terms, Billie, what does that mean?"

"Feel for the dark matter web," Cleo said. "That's the true structure of the Other Place. If you can get a feel for that, maybe we can understand the boundary and how to pass through it."

"Right." Ros stood up straighter. "Dark matter web. Boundary. Got it."

"Remember, Ros, focus on shifting your awareness, not on the energy flow." Cleo saw Billie smile, soft and infinitesimal. "You're in control."

Ros smiled too, eyes still closed. "I'm in control."

Ice crystals crept along Ros's fingertips and the ends of their hair, but they didn't seem to notice. Their breathing stayed even.

"Excellent," Billie said. "Do you see anything?"

"Um." Ros screwed their eyes up tighter. "It's a layer removed, like it's shining at me from behind my eyelids. But there's a golden light? Maybe? It might not be light, it's different, it's darker—"

"That's it," Cleo said, balling up her fists. "Keep going, Ros."

Ros lifted their hands, freezing air curling off them around their feet. The frost climbed farther up their hair, and snowflakes began to swirl around them—but in gentle eddies, not a storm, not a hurricane.

"You're doing it," Billie said, something like pride in her voice. "Stay focused."

"I am," Ros said. "I can—Billie, I think I—"

Ros opened their eyes. They were glowing solid gold.

"Whoa," they said with an incredulous laugh. "That was easier than I thought it would be."

"Ros!" Cleo wasn't thinking, she was running toward them, she was reaching for the tranq gun to stop them before—

Ros blinked, and their eyes were blue again. They frowned. "What the hell, Clo?"

"Your—your eyes." Cleo stared at Ros's face, waiting for something to change, for everything to go wrong again. "They were—they were gold, like in the vision."

Ros lowered their hands, and the cold wind around them died down. "Oh."

"Billie, we have to stop."

Billie opened her mouth, but Ros cut her off. "Cleo, it's all good. Does this look anything like the big, creepy room you saw?"

Cleo tried to breathe around the pounding of her heartbeat in her ears. "Negative, doc."

"Maybe the color in their eyes isn't strictly a bad thing, Cleo," Billie said, crossing to Cleo's side and hovering a hand over her shoulder. "It could just be a side effect of a deeper connection with the Other Place."

"Hey." Cleo felt a hand actually come to rest on her other shoulder, and turned to see Ros smiling at her. "I'm here. And not attacking anybody."

They weren't. They looked happier, really, than Cleo had seen them in a long time.

She nodded. "Alright. Can we take a break, at least?"

Ros clapped their hands together. "Absolutely. Let's go see if Kal and Abe have any popcorn left."

***

Communing with the Other Place doesn't require any kind of training montage, something I'm sure would disappoint Cleo immensely. Eli and I don't have to climb a mountain or learn karate or light candles around a big Erebus logo on the floor. The Other Place is all around us, after all, and they've spoken to us before. We just have to ask them.

I've seen other members of the crew talk to them. They take the faces of people we love, and some people need that in here, even if it's a lie. I've never summoned them myself. Because they do dead people too, I've heard, and I couldn't be less interested.

Twice, they've spoken to all of us. The first time was right after they stole us, and they put on the president's face to tell us they were our saviors.

"Halvorsen has taken so much, without regard to our safety or yours," they said, "and would have done much worse if we had not stopped him. You are safe now, as are we. We will watch over you here."

We hated it, of course. Hated that keeping us locked in our little gilded cage was apparently the only solution. But we didn't say that out loud, because we still believed that the Other Place would put us back soon. And that they were watching.

The second time was nineteen years ago, a year to the day—on Earth, anyway—after we'd been taken. No matter how hard they tried, the Other Place couldn't stop us from seeing when Halvorsen used stolen Erebus tech and the powers that had been growing in him since before the launch to shatter through the boundary. So we all watched as they shattered him, and cast him back out.

"You see," they said to us, breathing a little too hard, Mr. Rogers's face slipping a little because they'd put it on too hastily. "It's still not safe for you out there."

They couldn't stop us whispering to each other, after that.

A part of me expects Eli's room to feel different now that Cleo has been there—a thrill where she stepped, a glamour in the air denoting a shift in the polarity of my world—but it looks the same when I walk through the door. Except Eli's got that look on his face like he's ready to fight the whole universe. People always told us it makes him look like me. None of them ever knew that, actually, he has Mom's fighting face, and I have Dad's.

"You ready?" Eli says, taking my hand.

I nod, grateful as always that we can still touch each other, at least, even in this nothing place. "Remember," I say, "no matter whose face they take—"

"We're not letting it get to us." He squeezes my hand. "I won't, Bill."

"Alright. Eyes closed, then."

Eli closes his eyes, and I only take a second to look at his almost-calm face before closing mine too.

"Hey, you," I call out. "We need to talk."

There's no pop, no ding, no Windows 98 boot-up sound. We just open our eyes, and he's there.

They're there, I mean.

It's Neil's face. They're wearing Neil's face, the motherfuckers.

***

"Oh hey, by the way"—Cleo crunched around a mouthful of cheesy popcorn—"what did you see in there, Ros?"

They had found the other two in the rec room, Kaleisha retwisting her locs with Abe's occasional assistance as they watched The Watermelon Woman. Now, all five of them sat on the floor, passing around the bowl of popcorn while Billie stared hungrily and insisted she didn't even want any, actually. Ros munched thoughtfully as their gaze went soft.

"Nothing I could really parse. That same dark-golden light was all around. And I felt like I was, I don't know, suspended in this pool of molasses, and I was looking down on something I couldn't make out. A lot of points of light. In some kind of network, it looked like."

"Maybe the molasses was the boundary," Cleo said sagely, spitting popcorn bits into the carpet.

Billie's head perked up. "We should try and get you further through it next time. Ros, what did you mean when you said it was easier than you thought it'd be?"

Ros frowned. "I meant that the Other Place feels... closer. Like, during the ice storm it was like getting dragged through something thick and substantial, and that's why I felt so far away when I was on the other side. But now..." They shrugged and popped more kernels into their mouth. "I don't know. It's easier to move by myself."

"Huh." Cleo twisted a kernel between her fingers contemplatively. "Practice makes perfect, I guess?"

Billie frowned the way she did when she thought Cleo was wrong, but she didn't say anything.

"Billie," Abe said suddenly, "can I ask you a question?"

"Shoot."

"Were you looking forward to living on Proxima B?"

Billie's eyebrows flew up, like no one had ever asked her that question, like it hadn't even occurred to her to think up an answer. "I was, uh. Proud to be chosen. And hopeful about what the mission meant for—"

Cleo took a deep breath and blew a fart noise into the palm of her hand. "Try again, Captain."

Billie crinkled her nose at her. "I don't know if I was looking forward to it, per se. I was eager to get off Earth, that's for sure."

"So you didn't think at all about what your new life was going to look like?" Kaleisha rested her head in her hands and peered at Billie. "No apprehensions about eating space bugs?"

Billie snorted. "The probes didn't find any space bugs, so no." She looked at Cleo, and something in her eyes made Cleo's heart do an even twistier backflip than usual. "I guess I was looking forward to the perpetual sunset."

"How romantic," Cleo heard herself say, like an idiot.

Kaleisha cleared her throat, and Cleo and Billie both snapped their attention back to her. She looked so smug, it was practically indecent. "Yes, Billie, tell us more about how hot and heavy sunsets get you."

Billie harrumphed and busied herself with cleaning her glasses. "I was excited to see the sky, if nothing else. The auroras. The red sun."

"Hope it was going to be decent compensation for living in a freezing tundra for the rest of your days," Ros said, rolling over to stare at the ceiling.

"I hoped so too, Ros."

"I'm sure we'll get to see the auroras from orbit," Cleo said. Billie smiled at her, and Cleo's toes curled in her boots. "The sunset too, if we angle it right."

"Auroras," Kaleisha murmured, her gaze going soft. "Like, rainbows in the sky?"

Cleo frowned at her. "I guess that's one way to describe them?"

"No, like—" Kaleisha suddenly scrambled up onto her knees, as if she sensed she was about to have to run for her life. "The air will be full of rainbows, Clo. And it'll be cold, and the sky will be red and dark—"

Abe and Ros were still looking at Kaleisha like they were completely lost, but Billie—something was dawning behind Billie's eyes, just like Cleo assumed something was dawning behind her own. She knew (loved) that look so well, but it was horrible to watch this time, because it was a horrible thing to know—

"Halvorsen," Cleo whispered. "I've been wimping him on Proxima B."

***

I hear Eli's breath catch in his throat. I assume mine has too, because I don't seem to be breathing.

"You wish to speak with us, Captain Lucas?" they say, with Neil's voice.

My breath returns, patchy and diluted with a fury that pitches my voice low. "No," I manage to grit out. "You don't get to have his face, you cowards."

Out of the corner of my eye I see Eli shoot me a warning glance, and I don't care because Neil's body is taking a step closer and it's taking everything I have not to jump out the window. "Is there another you would prefer? Anyone else that you care for?"

I think of Cleo, of course. And then I make myself stop thinking of Cleo, because I'm pretty sure they can read my mind, and if the first time I saw her face in front of me was because my depraved space warden was wearing it, I might actually fight the whole universe.

"No," I say. I can tell they know I'm lying, because Neil had a face he made when he knew I was lying. But they don't transform, which is, I guess, a good thing. Gather ye rosebuds while ye fucking may.

"Very well." They incline Neil's head. That one infernal curl flops out of place onto Neil's forehead, and I feel my heart drop into my knees. "Say what you must, then."

Elijah, possibly sensing how pitifully compromised I am, clears his throat. "We need you to let us go," he says, and his voice only trembles a little.

"You know we cannot do that." They fix Eli with a look that's too stern, too patronizing for Neil, which helps nudge me out of my stupor. "It is not—"

"Not safe. Yeah, you said." Elijah crosses his arms aggressively at the Other Place. I'm so proud of him. "But the people headed for Proxima Centauri B, the ones that you inexplicably turned the engine on for and gave abilities to, even though those were big enough no-nos to trap us here for all eternity? They're in danger. You saved us, or so you keep insisting. Let us save them."

The Other Place narrows Neil's eyes at Eli. Which is how I learn that interdimensional dark matter gods can still have terrible poker faces. "What danger do you speak of?"

I remember how to say words again. "There's someone, somewhere, with the power to hurt them. Who's already hurting them. Who's already hurt Cleo."

Neil's face rearranges. His eyes go hard as steel, his mouth twists into a pained snarl, and I instinctively fling an arm out in front of Eli. Not because I think the Other Place will attack, necessarily, but because he shouldn't have to see the mask of Neil's face like this. I shouldn't either, but that's beside the point.

"How do you know this?" the Other Place hisses through Neil's teeth.

I square my jaw. "I figured out how to see back into our universe. I thought you'd have noticed, what with your all-knowing gaze."

They look absolutely wild with rage and panic, and I swear the air grows thicker with static electricity than it already was. I can feel them probing around in my mind, trying to dig out what else I've done and seen. That's unacceptable.

"How?" they growl.

By accident. Because I was bored. Through the power of love, per Eli's theories. They don't get to know that.

"Who is it?" I counter, hoping to distract them. "Who's scary enough to get you all rattled like this? Someone capable of throwing a wrench in your infallible plans?"

"You cannot comprehend our plans, no matter how omniscient you think you have become." Neil's voice is practically a whisper. Maybe they think it sounds threatening, but it just sounds scared.

I laugh, short and devoid of humor. "No, you're right, I can't. Because you don't actually know what you're doing."

They get right up in my face, which is something that Neil used to do sometimes, in entirely different contexts. But Neil never bristled with inhuman anger like this, hair on end and hands curled into claws. And where he smelled like coffee and pine trees, this thing smells like copper wires sizzling with a too-strong current, so it's not as hard to stand my ground as I thought it would be.

"Dr. Halvorsen escaped with his life," they spit at me. "He will be dealt with."

I stop breathing. Everything I might have said slides away, static buzzing at the blurry edges of my brain.

Kris.

Kris is gone. I thought I watched them kill him.

But—

"So you tried to eliminate him as a threat, and failed," Eli says softly. "Now you have something planned for the four of them, but he's getting in the way."

"Once again, you reveal your shortsightedness. You cannot comprehend—"

"Fuck off." I'm getting a few words back, apparently. Just the basics. "Try us."

The Other Place hesitates, blinking slowly. "Dr. Halvorsen will be dealt with," they repeat.

"How?" I ask, because I honestly want to know. "Who's going to deal with him?"

Neil's eyes flicker to Eli. "You were close to the truth. You had it the wrong way around."

Christ. I realize what they mean, just as—

"Oh." Eli shudders out the word, taking none of his usual joy in having solved the puzzle. "He's planning something, so you need the four of them to get in the way."

The Other Place nods, regal and infuriating. "We bestowed their abilities upon them and set them on their current course so that they may arrest Dr. Halvorsen's plans."

Something flashes red behind my eyes. "You're going to sic them on Kris like trained dogs."

They turn their arrogant glare back on me. "Nothing so crude as that, Captain Lucas. Their abilities are precisely calibrated to make them collectively a perfect match for Dr. Halvorsen."

"Bullshit. He's already hurting Cleo, even from a light-year away."

They frown at me. "The one called Cleo McQueary is the key. If the pain makes her stronger, it is a necessary sacrifice."

It's Eli's turn to hold me back. It's probably for the best, because who knows what would happen if I clocked the Other Place in the jaw like I so, so desperately want to. I struggle against his grip, though, just to make it clear that I would if I could.

"Fuck you," I hiss in Neil's face. "Let us go. Let us help her."

"We cannot."

"Why?" Eli shouts at them. "We understand the scope of the danger now. Why can't you let us protect ourselves?"

The Other Place deflates, just a bit, which surprises me into stillness. They chew up the inside of Neil's cheek in a way that looks almost worried.

"Dr. Halvorsen," they say softly, "has not been wasting away these nineteen years. His powers did not disappear when we cast him out; they only changed, becoming twisted and wild. Quietly, in ways you cannot understand, he has been working. Chipping away at us, and deflecting our every attempt to stop him. If we free you, if we open even the smallest gap in the boundary between our universes, he will break through. That is why you must remain."

I feel my breath thick in my lungs, ready to seize up and run away from me again. "Kris is trying to get back in here?"

"No." They look at me, and Neil's eyes are almost pleading. "This time, he plans to do much worse."

***

ARCHIVED: Transcript of Recording by Capt. Wilhelmina Lucas, June 20, 2041

Wilhelmina Lucas:Hey, Kris.

Kristoff Halvorsen:Billie. I thought you had a press conference. What's up?

Wilhelmina Lucas:It's just the two of us in here, Kris. Please tell me what's going on. I swear I won't breathe a word.

Kristoff Halvorsen:I don't know what you're talking about.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Cut the bullshit. I know that you lied to me about the engine.

Kristoff Halvorsen:Excuse me?

Wilhelmina Lucas:I know there's something wrong with it. I know whatever it is has something to do with your sick engineers. I don't know if the board has you covering it up for the investors, or if you just care about this mission too much, but I need to know what we're getting into. You can tell me, or I can figure it out myself, but either way—

Kristoff Halvorsen:You should go home. Get a good night's rest. You're clearly not thinking straight if you would accuse me of... whatever you're accusing me of.

Wilhelmina Lucas:Fuck off, Kris. I know you lied to me. I know you made me lie to the public, to my crew, to my brother. I'll go to the board if you don't—

Kristoff Halvorsen:You won't.

Wilhelmina Lucas:You don't know that.

Kristoff Halvorsen:Yes, I do.

Wilhelmina Lucas:I...

Kristoff Halvorsen:Something wrong?

Wilhelmina Lucas:It's—it's nothing, I just—

Kristoff Halvorsen:I hope you're not recording.

Wilhelmina Lucas:What?

Kristoff Halvorsen:It's very inappropriate to record a colleague without their consent, Billie. Especially while pressing them to reveal company secrets. I hope your tape recorder isn't in your pocket... But I'm sure you'd never even think to do such a thing.

Wilhelmina Lucas:If you're trying to scare me—

Kristoff Halvorsen:You look like you have a migraine coming on. And, oh dear, is that a bit of a nosebleed? Please go home, Billie. I worry about you sometimes.

[A door slams.]

***

Billie had a rock in her lab that one of the earliest Starshot probes had taken from Proxima B decades ago, and she showed it to Cleo like it was the last thing in the universe she wanted to do. It felt like any other rock, when Cleo held it in her hands. No one would have suspected that it had traversed the galaxy. Or that, with any luck, it was about to confirm exactly how fucked they were.

Ros hovered behind her, medical supplies at the ready. Billie chewed the knuckle of her thumb as she watched Cleo run her hands over the stone's rough surface. Cleo wondered how many times, at this point, she had made Billie watch as she leapt into the ravenous mouth of the multiverse. Too many, probably. But there was nothing else for it.

Cleo closed her eyes, and opened them on Proxima B.

It was the place Halvorsen's voice had come from, she knew that immediately. Even through the golden haze of her vision, she could see dry snow drifting across a sky lit up with auroras shimmering in every color of the rainbow. She stood on a mountain, icy and craggy. She turned and saw its peak stretching above her, the valley below, the tiny red sun setting over a frozen lake in the distance, and she kept turning and saw—

A man, tall, not as tall as he had once been. He was now hunched a little with age, though still broad-shouldered and proud, stepping surely over the rocky, slanting ground. Streaks of ashy blond were still woven through his gray hair. Cleo followed him, even though she couldn't think of anything she wanted to do less. She kept a healthy distance, to split the difference.

The man led her to an outcropping in the mountainside that turned out to be the wide, oddly circular mouth of a cave. The walls were smooth and mossy (morelife, there's life everywhere, I'll have to tell Kal), and the floor tilted down as Cleo and the man walked, taking them deep under the mountain.

The tunnel grew wider as they went, and Cleo could feel the air getting warmer, see the moss growing thicker. In fact, right as the last light from the surface faded out, the moss began to blink with its own bioluminescence. Softly, then brighter. Blues and purples and greens, all around the walls and the ceiling of the tunnel, each patch of moss glowing with a pulsing light like it had its own little heartbeat.

Cleo couldn't help it. She gasped.

The man stopped. He half turned like he was listening, like he was sniffing the air. Cleo froze, even though this was a wimp, she wasn't really here, she couldn't be seen or heard or smelled—

But that rule had been broken before.

Cleo crept backward on the tips of her toes, willing the wimp to be over, trying to feel her way back to the world and the stone and Billie—

An unsettling smile crept across what used to be Dr. Dark Matter's cheerful face.

I must admit, I didn't think you would figure it out.Halvorsen turned fully toward her, casting his eyes around the tunnel—he couldn't see Cleo, then, just sense her presence somehow. Great. But you are cleverer than, perhaps, I have given you credit for. Bravo.

Cleo's insides twisted with the urge to spit insults back in Halvorsen's face—I used to admire you, I wanted to be you, every kid on Earth wanted to be you, and now look what you've become, how dare you—but she just kept fumbling backward through the tunnel, through the layers of time and space separating her from her body.

I wish we could work together, Ms. McQueary.Halvorsen's voice was older, rougher, more unstable than it had been twenty years ago, but Cleo could still hear the vestiges of the kindly engineer she'd watched obsessively on TV. You're already bringing me something I desperately need, after all, and I know that we want the same things, at the end of the day. A livable planet. A better world. A happier universe. I don't know why you're so resistant to that.

Halvorsen reached out a hand as if he could grab Cleo by the hair. And Cleo was already meters away and getting farther, and she knew Halvorsen couldn't touch her, and she knew she could probably take an old man in a fight anyway, but she also knew she really, really didn't want to find out what happened when Halvorsen closed that hand.

Halvorsen sighed, looking disappointed in her. It was awful. And he opened his mouth and answered, impossibly, her thoughts:

Unfortunately, no. You probably don't.

And he closed his hand, and Cleo's mind shattered. Again.