Out of Nowhere Read online

  “I’m okay,” he said, getting out of bed. “Let’s go.”

  “This place is so creepy. Aren’t we basically on the Moon?” Anna asked. He’d declared himself fine, so now her curiosity was getting the better of her. “Everyone thinks I took a cab home, and instead I’m in space. I was magnificent tonight, by the way, not that you care.”

  “Shh,” Aidan said. On the mattress on the floor, Caleb was stirring in his sleep.

  “Oh my God, is that Caleb? We’re in space and you’re finally sleeping with Caleb?”

  That was the opposite of being quiet. Besides, Caleb was clearly using a different bed. Aidan glared at her. She probably couldn’t see it, but it was also possible she was ignoring it.

  “I’ve missed you.” Anna wrapped her arms around him and rocked from side to side in her excitement. She smelled like citrus perfume and champagne. Her hug transitioned instantly into travel, and after a passage through the Nowhere, they showed up in the unglamorous meeting location, a church basement in Omaha. In the middle of the low ceilings, dim lighting, and four long tables arranged in a square in the center of the room, Aidan’s sweatpants and rumpled hair looked more at home than Anna’s sleek updo. The scents of cigarettes and stale coffee were woven into the carpet and painted on the walls.

  Anna let go of him, then kissed him on the cheek. “I want to hear everything.”

  “You will,” Aidan said darkly. These meetings rarely lasted longer than a few minutes, especially when they were called with so little notice, but Aidan might need more time to explain himself. Everyone understood the necessity of meeting in the middle of the night so they didn’t have to rent a room and record their location, but no one liked it, and he hated to keep people there.

  Lisa was already present, her springy black curls covered by a silk bonnet and her infant daughter in her arms. She gave Aidan a tired smile. “I was up anyway.”

  The other union members were wearing whatever they’d slept in, if they were coming from nearby timezones, or whatever they’d worked in if they were coming from farther away, so Anna’s silver dress stood out even more. No one stared. Meetings were always motley.

  Still, this one lacked the small-talk chatter that preceded the others. The silence was apprehensive. They’d all been following his communications from Facility 17; they knew what he and Laila had been through at Quint’s hands. The experiments. His powerlessness.

  A few more people materialized, and when Aidan did a headcount, he came up with thirty-seven. The Runners’ Union had a hundred and seventy-eight members, but they never all met in one place. Thirty-seven was an impressive showing. He wished it were a better occasion.

  It would have been thirty-eight if he’d brought Laila, who was a new but enthusiastic member. But she didn’t need this warning.

  “Let’s get started.”

  Aidan’s chosen career put him in the public eye all the time. Speaking to crowds didn’t make him nervous. Still, he wasn’t enthusiastic about announcing his own failures.

  He took a breath. Fiddled with the hem of his t-shirt. He should’ve brought Caleb. Caleb wasn’t technically a member and thus couldn’t be present at meetings, but Aidan really wished he was here right now. If he were here, he would squeeze Aidan’s shoulder and give him a reassuring smile. He’d point out that Aidan hadn’t failed. Not yet.

  “Everyone here is aware of my efforts to expose Oswin Lewis Quint and bring him to justice through the press. There’s no shortage of evidence, but the articles that have surfaced so far haven’t received the attention I expected.”

  “Every time one pops up, it disappears a few days later like it was never published. No redaction. Nothing. He’s burying them,” Lisa said.

  Aidan nodded. She kept her eyes on him, willing him to go on.

  “What will you do?” Craig asked. Thin and freckled, with sandy blond hair, Craig was one of the oldest members, both in age and in how long he’d been part of the union.

  “I have a plan, but it’s unorthodox. First, what I need you all to know,” Aidan said, bracing himself for the shock, “is that we recently discovered that the Nowhere is not only a conduit to other places in our reality, but also to other realities, including one very similar to this one, where there are people who look nearly identical to people you may know.”

  “Doubles?” Lisa asked. “Does everyone have one?”

  “Something like that, and no, as far as I can tell, we tend not to. The proposed explanation is that we’re usually born from a union where one parent had crossed through the Nowhere accidentally. We have matter in our bodies from more than one reality.

  “That’s why so many of us grow up without one parent, or as orphans—one of our parents accidentally crossed through the Nowhere, and it damaged their body in some way. They didn’t live long after that."

  Most of the room gave solemn nods in response to that. Aidan had never known his father. He felt lucky to have known his mother for twelve years, even though her absence hurt that much more because of it. His whole life, she’d struggled with an illness no doctors could explain. Aidan stared down at his trembling hands, splaying his fingers and then closing them into a fist, wondering if he’d been the explanation all along.

  He glanced around. He knew these people and their stories, and in this room, knowing one of his biological parents—getting to spend twelve years with her, no less—made him an outlier. Not only that, but Caleb’s family had taken him in until he was eighteen. Aidan had suffered, but he knew what it was like to live with a loving family. Plenty of people in this room only had the Union. Aidan couldn’t protect them from their pasts, but he could make sure Oswin Lewis Quint didn’t threaten their futures.

  Aidan said, “It’s only people who aren’t born runners who have doubles.”

  “What do you mean, born runners?” Craig asked. “What other kind are there?”

  “They seem to be able to give people access to the Nowhere,” Aidan said. “I don’t know how it works, but they recently did it to my friend Caleb. A lot of you know him.”

  People nodded.

  “This doesn’t answer the question of what we’re gonna do about it,” Anna said. “So you know a way to get your ability back, maybe. That still leaves us the problem of Quint Services.”

  “Yes,” Aidan said. “It does. I don’t want this to be official union business. It will be dangerous, and I can’t pretend it’s not personal. But I hope some of you will be willing to help anyway.”

  “Of course,” Anna said, her dress shimmering in the fluorescent light as she sat up straighter. “Whatever you need.”

  “I’m going to find Quint’s double and get him to confess to Quint’s crimes,” Aidan said.

  Instead of the volley of questions he’d expected, there was a beat of silence.

  Trying to pretend he wasn’t daunted, Aidan continued, “I don’t think they use the same currency as us, so I can’t pay him in money, but I bet they still value the same rare elements. Gold. Platinum. I’ll figure out some kind of compensation, and hopefully Quint’s double will want it. If he agrees, it will only be the work of a moment to switch him out with the real Quint before the police arrest him, provided I have enough runners helping me.”

  “What if he’s already rich and doesn’t want what you’re offering?” Craig asked. “If he’s Quint’s double, won’t he be a trillionaire, too?”

  “So far my experience suggests that people resemble their double, but their personalities diverge,” Aidan said, shoving away thoughts of Caleb’s double touching his thigh. “I’m hoping that either Quint’s double will be motivated by a reward, or, possibly, that he’ll be moved to help me when he hears what Quint has done.”

  “You think people will pay attention to Quint—or someone who looks like him—confessing, even though the articles haven’t produced a criminal investigation?” Lisa asked.

  “They will if you do it with enough drama,” Anna said. “You need a platform of some kind.”
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  “Yes. I’m hoping we can all use our connections to find one. And I’ll need logistical support, since I can’t access the Nowhere myself. Like I said, I don’t want this to be official Union business, but I wanted everyone to be aware of my plans. Participating is optional.”

  “I’m in,” Anna said, and several other people nodded and murmured their agreement. “Quint hurt you and Laila. I don’t want him to get away with it.”

  The whispering woke Caleb up, but by the time he was awake enough to process language, Aidan and whoever he’d been talking to had vanished.

  If Aidan wasn’t getting up in the middle of the night to rifle through Heath’s papers, he was disappearing for Runners’ Union meetings. Caleb’s recommendation that he rest had gone unheard.

  Caleb closed his eyes, hoping for sleep, but none came. The secrecy surrounding the Union meetings was necessary, he knew that. And even though he’d helped Aidan found the organization, he wasn’t a runner and couldn’t attend.

  Except he could have taken Aidan to this one. It would have been good practice. He could’ve waited outside the room and not listened to the meeting.

  When Aidan came back, Caleb caught a whiff of cigarette smoke and some kind of perfume. It was too dark to see the runner who’d delivered him, but after a moment of squinting, Caleb could make out Aidan’s outline. He stood rooted to the floor like he’d been caught.

  “Union meeting?” Caleb asked. He already knew the answer. It wasn’t his intention to act like a parent waiting up for a delinquent kid, so he kept his tone friendly.

  “Security check first,” Aidan said, half-apologetically. “Tell me something only the real you would know.”

  Caleb tried not to bristle. They’d agreed to this policy, and it was logical, even though Caleb had been in bed the whole time. Aidan was the one who’d run off in the middle of the night.

  He might as well take the opportunity to tell an embarrassing story.

  “Fine. Some time in eighth grade, we went to a bodega—not ours, but one in another neighborhood—and shoplifted as many Zings as we could stuff into our pockets. It was your idea. It’s a miracle we didn’t get caught, laughing like we were. Afterward, back in my room, I said ‘I don’t even really like these, they’re too spicy’ and you thought I was daring you to eat all of them. You ate like twelve in a row and ended up rolling on the bedroom floor moaning in pain. I’ve never seen anyone turn that red.”

  Aidan gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah. Turns out I don’t really like them, either.”

  “I bet,” Caleb said. “You believe it’s me now? Willing to answer my question?”

  “Yes, I was at an emergency Union meeting.” He paused for a long time, still standing at the foot of Caleb’s mattress, obviously wrestling with how much to reveal. Finally, he said, “I have a plan. But it’s dangerous.”

  God, he was a stubborn idiot. Caleb threw off the sheet and went to him. Shaking his shoulders would be overkill, but that didn’t stop Caleb from wanting to. “Aidan. Do you think me lying my way up here to bust you out of that cell was safe?”

  Caleb couldn’t make out his expression, but he heard Aidan swallow. He waited for a response, but none came.

  Giving in and grasping Aidan’s shoulders came so naturally it was a relief. “I can help you, Aidan. Let me help you. I know it’s dangerous. Why are you willing to let everybody in the Union take risks, but not me? I used to think it was because I wasn’t a runner, but that doesn’t apply anymore. Do you not trust me?”

  “No. It’s not that.”

  Aidan sounded miserable. Caleb would’ve thought he was afraid, except Aidan lived for reckless risk-taking. Even before he could access the Nowhere, he’d always had a penchant for sneaking into forbidden places and pissing off bigger kids. Caleb had seen Aidan leap out of tall trees and skateboard down flights of stairs without blinking. Caleb was the reluctant, fearful one. Not Aidan.

  Caleb slid his hands down, intending to let go. Instead, his hands came to rest on Aidan’s upper arms. His skin was smooth and surprisingly cool to the touch.

  “I do trust you. Of course I trust you,” Aidan said.

  “So whatever it is you want to do, let’s do it together,” Caleb said. He let his hands travel farther down, his fingers pausing at the insides of Aidan’s wrists. His pulse beat light and fast, possibly a lingering symptom of dehydration. Caleb set aside the flicker of worry that lit in him. He couldn’t cajole Aidan into taking better care of himself right now, not if he wanted Aidan to accept other kinds of help.

  Caleb brushed the pad of his thumb over the knuckles of Aidan’s left hand, the round knobs of bone under chapped skin, and thought about how every articulation of the skeleton was its own little miracle. Every branching vein. Every fingerprint whorl. Caleb had a double, but there was only one Aidan. What would it be like to kiss him?

  Caleb dropped his grip and stepped back so abruptly that his heel caught on the mattress.

  It had been a long time since either of them had spoken, but as soon as Caleb moved, they both felt a need to fill the silence.

  “Sorry, I—”

  “Yeah, okay, let’s do it,” Aidan said, speaking quickly. “I figure if you have a double, then Quint must have a double, right? So let’s find him and see if we can convince him to confess in Quint’s place. That’ll get the public’s attention. I just need you to help me retrieve him and then I’ll do the rest. Should be simple.”

  Not a single one of Aidan’s suggestions—starting with their childhood climb up the school fire escape and continuing right up to this present moment—had ever been simple. This one certainly wasn’t.

  And yet Caleb said, “Sure.”

  “And then, you know, when this is over, things’ll go back to how they were.”

  Caleb had no idea why Aidan sounded so grim about that, but he felt like the rope he’d been tugging on had suddenly gone slack, so winning and falling on his ass were one simultaneous action. He wasn’t used to persuading Aidan.

  Then he felt the inexorable pull of a smile. He knew what he had to say next. Aidan had said it before their ill-fated shoplifting and countless other misadventures. “Get in trouble with me?”

  Aidan’s soft laugh was a mercy. “Yeah. Just this once.”

  5

  Practice

  When Aidan woke up the next morning, he wondered if the space-distending breach in Lange’s lab could also make human relationships go haywire. The idea wasn’t any weirder than anything else that had happened around here lately—secret experiments, people getting trapped in the Nowhere—and it was more plausible than Caleb wanting to kiss him.

  They had known each other for almost two decades, during which Caleb had dated forty-two people, one hundred percent of whom had been women. He’d had plenty of time and opportunity to explore other options. Had the whim taken him to kiss a man, he could’ve had any man he wanted. Aidan, a perpetual grouchy mess, currently pasty and underfed, wasn’t going to be anyone’s sexual awakening. Whatever had passed between them in that long strange silence last night, it wasn’t Caleb embarking on a journey of self-discovery out of nowhere. That shit only happened in Aidan’s more shameful dreams.

  Still, it was hard to stop thinking about Caleb’s hands.

  Aidan might have done more with his own hand if Caleb hadn’t been lying awake a few feet from him. He shouldn’t have indulged that urge in the first place. Now the guilt he felt was sticky with desire. He’d never be clean of it.

  He got up and took a shower anyway. A cold one.

  He crossed paths with Caleb on his way out of the bathroom. Even knowing exactly where Caleb had been for the past ten minutes, when he returned to the room, Aidan said, “Security check.”

  Caleb had dressed in the bathroom. He must’ve been in a hurry, since as he turned to hang up his towel, his t-shirt clung, half-transparent, to the skin between his shoulder blades.

  Stop looking, Aidan thought, and didn’t. Caleb showed no sign of noticin
g Aidan’s stare once they were face to face again.

  Caleb said, “You first jumped when we were twelve or thirteen years old. I woke up in the middle of the night and you were standing next to my bed in your pajamas, with no coat or shoes. I could tell from the streetlight outside my window that it was snowing. I hadn’t heard the door open or the floorboards creak. You were just there.”

  He was picking embarrassing stories on purpose, damn him.

  “You were terrified and I thought it was the coolest thing that had ever happened. I remember getting excited, asking if you could take me with you, and saying that if you could, we’d never get in trouble again. Neither of us had any idea what a runner was. I got out of bed to touch you, and then you were gone. That was when I realized maybe the whole thing was a little scarier and more complicated than a lifetime get-out-of-jail-free card.”

  That was accurate, although Caleb had excised all the mortifying details of the memory, like the damp spot in Aidan’s boxers. Maybe he hadn’t noticed. And it wasn’t true that neither of them had any idea what a runner was. By that age, Aidan had heard enough to form a frightening mental image of unstoppable, inhuman criminals. It had only been six months since the Orbit Guard had caught Laila robbing Franklin Station Bank, and the question of how to sentence her had still been in the news.

  “Guess you’re you, then,” Aidan said. “Let’s get to work. Access to the Nowhere isn’t worth anything unless you can use it reliably. That means instantly, whenever you need it, and with accuracy. You don’t want to land in the wrong place.”

  Like most runners, Aidan had discovered the Nowhere in early adolescence. At first he’d only disappeared into the Nowhere for a moment or two, reappearing exactly where he had been. As Caleb had described, his first jump had been from his own room into Caleb’s, a distance of two blocks. There’d been a number of accidents after that. It had taken him a couple of months to get the hang of it. Two long, terrifying months.