Theo runs one hand over his face; his gaze is sharpening back to its usual clarity. “I’m not an addict,” he finally says. “Not at home. It’s . . . more mental, really. Sometimes I need to step out of my head, to silence all the voices telling me what an asshole I am.” The shame shadows his face more harshly. “I hate that I need it. But I do.”
“How long have you been using?”
He winces, but his voice is firm as he says, “Only the last few months, and it never got in the way of the work. Never. I swear that to you.”
Has he forgotten the Accident? Mom and Dad lost it when he told them. I rub my tingling arm, which had almost gone to sleep with Theo draped over it. “Okay.”
“I’m sorry I checked out on you,” Theo continues. He reaches toward my hand, as if to take it, then stops himself. “It’s over now, all right? Totally over.”
I nod as I push myself to my feet. “Just one thing—”
“Yeah?”
“I’m relying on you.” My voice shakes slightly, but I don’t attempt to steady it. Let Theo see how badly he hurt me. “We have to stop Paul, no matter what. I can’t do that without you, and you can’t do that if you’re getting high all the time. So get your act together.”
He looks stung, but I refuse to feel guilty. Theo always manages to wriggle off the hook with those puppy-dog eyes of his—not this time.
“I need you. I need all of you. Don’t you dare check out on me again.” I spear Theo with my hardest gaze. “Do you understand?”
He nods as he looks up at me with something that might even be respect.
“Clean yourself up,” I say, gesturing toward the shower. “You have fifteen minutes. Then we’re out of here. We have a job to do.”
7
THEO EMERGES FROM MY ROOM SCRUBBED CLEAN. HE’S put on a fresh T-shirt from his backpack, a gray one with a picture of some rock band I don’t know, from the sixties maybe, The Gears. He’s freshly shaved and smells of soap; his damp hair is combed back into something that, on another guy, would look almost respectable. When his eyes meet mine, I expect to see lingering embarrassment—but instead Theo seems determined. Focused. Good. I need that more than his regret.
At first, neither of us knows what to say, and he can’t hold my gaze very long. I look at his T-shirt because it’s less awkward than looking at his face—and then I realize I know a couple of the members of The Gears. “Wait. That’s Paul McCartney and George Harrison, but—who are the other guys?”
“No freaking clue.” Theo holds his shirt out as he glances down. “Apparently they never met John Lennon, or even Ringo Starr, so the Beatles never quite happened. These guys seem to have been pretty famous on their own, though.”
No Beatles in this universe. It makes me sad, the nonexistence of a band that broke up decades before I was born. I know all their songs word for word, thanks to my father. Dad was the biggest Beatles fan ever. His favorite song was “In My Life,” and he’d hum the verses while he washed up after dinner.
The memory stings—and I hate that, I hate how all the good memories have turned into things that hurt—but I need the pain.
Aunt Susannah’s blow-drying her hair, so we’re able to escape from the apartment without any more vomit-worthy flirtation between her and Theo. As the elevator takes us back to ground level, I try to get our plans together. “All right. First we have to figure out whether or not Paul’s left Cambridge—”
“Forget it.” Theo slips on his jacket. “If he’s still in Cambridge, he’s not the Paul Markov we’re looking for. If Paul leaped into this dimension, if he’s in this version of Paul, then he’s on the move. Promise.”
That seems like a big assumption to make. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“I know Paul had been acting borderline paranoid about Triad Corporation the last couple of months,” Theo replies. “Like the guys who were funding us would’ve sabotaged the research they paid for. Makes no sense, right? But I guess now we know Paul wasn’t . . . thinking clearly. Let’s put it that way.”
Maybe that’s the secret: Paul spent the past few months slowly going crazy. We thought he was acting normally, but he was always so quiet, so introverted, that there was no telling what might be going on inside. “That makes sense. But how does it help us?”
“Triad Corporation may be one of the world’s biggest tech companies, but everybody knows it all boils down to one guy—Wyatt Conley.” Triumphant, Theo holds up his wrist and projects a holographic image of a news story in front of us. The newness of the technology fades as I read the headline: CONLEY TO SPEAK AT TECH CONFERENCE IN LONDON.
“He’s here,” I say as I read the date. “Wyatt Conley is in London today.”
“Which means we don’t have to find Paul. We find Conley—because if our Paul is here, he’s going after Conley first.”
Stands to reason Conley would be a tech genius here, too. He’s only thirty, but he’s considered one of the giants—mostly because he developed the core elements of the smartphone when he was only sixteen. Triad is probably the most prestigious corporation in the world, has a glitzy, ultramodern office under construction not far from my home in the Berkeley Hills, and makes the kind of gadgets and gear people stand in line for for two or three days before they’re released. Personally I think it’s kind of stupid to get that worked up over a phone that’s, like, two millimeters thinner than the last one, but I don’t knock it, because Triad’s R&D money made Mom’s work possible.
I guess Paul turned against everyone who ever helped him, all at once.
The elevator doors slide open, and we walk out through the chic mirrored lobby. I smile at the doorman as we go out, cool December air ruffling my hair and Theo’s jacket. The doorman seems surprised; I don’t think this Marguerite spends a lot of time being nice to people. Once we’re alone again, I ask, “How do you know Paul’s not coming after us first?”
Theo shrugs. “I don’t. But either way, we don’t have to waste time looking for him. The fight’s coming to us.”
The tech conference is being held at a super posh hotel in the center of the city. Theo and I head in on one of the shimmering monorails that slithers over the crowds below.