Edge of Nowhere Read online

  Food disappeared from the fridge all the time, too. Lange had been obsessed with it for the past few weeks, accosting each of them and demanding to know exactly what they’d eaten. It had become a joke among them, Lange and his conspiracy theory about some food-stealing poltergeist. When it came to vanishing food, Emil suspected his team. There, at last, was a thought that made him smile. It had only been eight days since he’d seen them, but he missed them all the same. He’d get back to them and then together, they’d figure out what to do.

  Kit slept for twelve hours and woke up ravenous. He pulled on a pair of obscenely tight teal jeans and a grey tank top with a moving pink print on it and went down one floor. If you were going to do something out-of-control reckless, you might as well dress for it. It was nine at night and the lights from the freeway outside flooded his room. Whatever time it was, he wanted coffee. Barefoot, he padded down to Zin and Louann’s kitchen. Emil was asleep on the couch in the living room, bent in a way that couldn’t possibly be comfortable, with his hair mussed and his face slack. He seemed younger in sleep, and Kit realized that the entire time they’d known each other, Emil’s expression had been tight with worry.

  Well, maybe not the entire time.

  Kit had to stop staring at this huge fucking stranger on Zin’s couch. He shook his head, trying to clear it, and opened the fridge. He made himself a couple of sandwiches, inhaled both, and then started a pot of coffee. At some point, he turned around and Emil was looming in the doorway.

  Not looming, exactly. Leaning up against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Kit with sleepy eyes. His feet were bare. They were proportionate to the rest of him—giant—and the same shade of warm brown and Kit didn’t care about feet. But something about it made Emil seem vulnerable. Exposed. Kit felt like he was crossing some kind of line by noticing anything at all about Emil’s body, and he escaped the intimacy of the moment by turning his attention to the coffee. He poured himself some, took a drink, and scalded his tongue.

  While he coughed and put a hand to his mouth, Emil’s eyes went wide with sympathy. “Do you need—can I—”

  Kit waved him away. He gathered himself up and said, “Coffee?”

  “No, thank you. Is there tea?”

  Ugh. What was the point of tea? But Kit reached into a cabinet and pulled out a box of tea, then heated some water. “We can leave whenever you want,” he said.

  “About that,” Emil said. “How precise are you? You know, when you… land?”

  “How precise do you want me to be?” Kit was a goddamn professional who always hit his mark, provided some freak thing didn’t push him into another reality.

  Emil looked like he wanted to sigh. Instead he poured boiling water over the tea bag in his mug. “There are some people at the facility I’d rather not run into. Just a precaution. It would be nice if we could arrive in my quarters.”

  “Draw me a map.”

  Kit opened the junk drawer and rummaged through it until he found a notepad and a pen, which he handed to Emil. They could have used a display to draw it digitally, but paper felt safer. Unhackable. Emil picked up the pen and started drawing right away. As his pen moved, he said, “And Kit—I think—I think you should jump right back.”

  That was Kit’s plan, but he resented Emil telling him what to do. How many more times would he have to say I’m not a part of your team? “I’m not some stupid kid you have to protect.”

  “I know. I just don’t want you anymore mixed up in this than you already are,” Emil said. “Which reminds me—I never thanked you. For saving my life.”

  “Saving your life? When?”

  “Any number of times. When that thing attacked us in the Nowhere. When we were stranded in some unknown place that might not even have been in this reality. And you could have dumped me anywhere after that, but instead you brought me here.”

  Kit hadn’t had any control over coming here. He’d panicked. “All I did was not leave you behind,” Kit said. “Not a big deal.”

  “Still.” Emil drank his tea and finished sketching a map of Facility 17. The asteroid was oblong. A hallway looped around the first floor in an elongated hexagon. “This is lab space here and here, and this is medical, and here’s the gym, and the common room, and the kitchen, and the greenhouse, and here’s where we sleep.” With his pen, he tapped one of a series of identical rectangles on the right side of the map. “This one’s my room.”

  “What’s all that over there?” Kit asked. The map Emil had drawn took up a little over half of the asteroid he’d outlined. There was a blank space beyond the labs and medical exam rooms at one end. “Rock?”

  “And metal. Whatever’s left of the asteroid. I guess Quint Services saved some space for possible future expansions.” Emil looked up from the map and examined Kit. His gaze was intense and assessing. There might as well have been a cartoon lightbulb above his head. “So you can jump a long way. But could you jump, say, from here to the other end of the living room?”

  “Sure. But why would I bother? It would take less energy to walk.”

  “A jump like that—it would be easier than what you did this morning, right?” Emil asked. “So you could do more of them in a day without wrecking yourself, right? Even if you were carrying something?”

  Kit knew where this was going. “You want me to sneak you in somewhere. But ten seconds ago, you told me you didn’t want me mixed up in this. Whatever ‘this’ is.”

  “No, I’m just… thinking,” Emil said. “Never mind.”

  “You gonna tell me what’s going on at Quint Services Facility 17?” Kit intoned the name and waggled his eyebrows.

  “There was an accident in one of the labs.” Emil described the incident in Solomon Lange’s lab that had bruised him and caused him to get sent down to the surface for questioning. “I just don’t like the way this thing was handled.”

  “Yeah,” Kit said. He hadn’t liked the sight of the Quint Services facility he’d seen, with Emil sedated and blindfolded in what amounted to a cinderblock cell underground. “And you didn’t have doubts about your mission before?”

  “Weird things happen at Facility 17, but they’re mostly harmless. When you move into a secret facility in space to train for a mission to some other reality, you sign up for things getting weird. I wanted—and still want—to be a part of the exploration. I trust my team, and that’s what matters.”

  “Huh,” Kit said. He never would have signed up for that shit. He was fine down here on Earth, riding his bike and shopping for shoes and eating tacos and watching goofy scripted dramas on Zin and Louann’s couch. What did it matter what else was out there in the universe? There was plenty to worry about already. Emil was brave. And stupid. Mostly stupid. “How come your whole team isn’t runners? Wouldn’t that make more sense than exploding a lab trying to make a door?”

  Something passed over Emil’s face so quickly that Kit almost didn’t catch it. He looked down for a fraction of second, like he didn’t want to talk about this. “We have one. Considering how rare runners are, one out of six is pretty good.”

  “Nobody in the Runner Corps wanted to sign up for this? I thought that was what they were into, serving their country, being government lab rats, whatever.”

  “No. And it’s a private enterprise,” Emil said. He didn’t even bristle at the insult—he might not be in the Runner Corps, but Kit hadn’t missed his half-interrupted reference to the Orbit Guard earlier. Emil was a former federal employee. And not just that, but a former member of a branch of the military that was decidedly antagonistic toward runners. The Orbit Guard provided space station security, and they didn’t like it when people showed up unauthorized. Now Kit was sure he’d hit on a subject Emil didn’t want to talk about.

  Naturally, he said, “So. You were in the Orbit Guard.”

  “And?”

  “You spend a lot of time trying to catch runners?” Kit emphasized trying. He knew they weren’t any good at catching. They’d
never even caught Travis, and Travis loved to stroll around up there, taunting them.

  “I worked search and rescue. Saving people from vessels that had hit space debris or broken down. I don’t have anything against runners, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Kit pulled his mouth to the side. It was hard to get too mad about that. Still, it didn’t change his feelings about the rest of the Orbit Guard.

  “I understand why you might hold me in suspicion,” Emil said, like they were about to have a heart-to-heart, and Kit rolled his eyes hard enough that Emil gave up and changed the subject. He put his empty mug down on the counter and pointed at his hand-drawn map. “You need anything other than this?”

  “My shoes,” Kit said dryly. He didn’t need any other information. Sometimes when clients wanted him to go somewhere new, he asked them for descriptions of the place—any sights, sounds, smells, or even general feelings that might help him focus on it—but there was no way in hell he was asking Emil what his bedroom smelled like. Jesus. The thought gave him hives.

  But far worse than not wanting to ask those questions was not needing to. Kit wouldn’t have any trouble concentrating on Emil and directing them both to the place where he slept. No need to bring that up.

  “Let’s not put it off any longer, then,” Emil said. “I’m ready.”

  He was not fucking ready. Emil could never be ready for the Nowhere. He handled it worse than any other member of his team—they’d all benefitted from months of treatment. Beck could even run now. Emil hadn’t been so lucky.

  At least this trip was shorter than his last. That meant it only felt like a thousand years of head-squeezing, gut-churning misery, instead of ten thousand. How did Kit do it? What must it be like?

  Like last time, Emil kept his eyes shut. He tried to retreat inside himself, to be as unaware as possible. And yet when Kit jerked them both to the side, he was conscious enough to know something was wrong.

  Had that thing come back? Just at the moment Emil dared to squint into the Nowhere, there was a flash of blue light and then they were standing in a small, white, rectangular room. Emil breathed a sigh of relief, and then a familiar voice yelped, “What the fuck, Emil?”

  Chávez’s voice startled Kit, who jumped toward Emil instead of jumping away. He muttered “fuck,” then his arms constricted around Emil and he actually hid his face in Emil’s chest.

  And then Emil glanced to the side and saw why.

  His longtime friend and colleague Clara Chávez, a steadfast, loyal, ridiculously charming goofball of a woman who would flirt with a rock given the chance, was sitting in bed with her arms around a dark-haired woman Emil recognized as Dr. Jennifer Heath, Quint Services medical researcher. It took Emil a second to put the whole picture together—he wasn’t accustomed to seeing Dr. Heath with her hair down and with no glasses on. Or with no pants on.

  “Where the fuck have you been?” Chávez demanded. Heath gaped at her. For the first time in his life, Emil wished he was back in the Nowhere. “No, wait, don’t tell me. Get out!”

  “We were just going,” Emil said calmly. His voice came from some other person. He took a step backward toward the door, hoping Kit would let go of him so they could speed up their escape.

  It was too late. Dr. Heath was reaching for her glasses. “You were supposed to be back yesterday,” she said, for all the world as if she wasn’t in the middle of a make-out session with one of her experimental subjects. Whose idea had this been? She disentangled herself from Chávez and picked her pants up off the floor. She pulled them on while she talked. “What happened? Who’s this?”

  “I, um—” Emil’s fake calm failed him. He wanted Kit to leave right now, but there was no way to tell him. He wished Kit had whisked the both of them out of here the minute they’d realized where they were, but that was foolish. Kit had just brought them a long way and he had to save his strength for the run back to Earth.

  “Put some clothes on, Chávez,” Dr. Heath snapped, mistaking the cause of Emil’s discomfort. He’d seen Chávez in a t-shirt and underwear before—and less. They’d roomed together on Franklin for a few months and she’d been extremely cavalier about their shared space. Politely averting his eyes hadn’t always worked.

  This wasn’t even the first time he’d walked in on Chávez making out with someone. That had never bothered him. She was a grown woman who could do as she pleased. It was Dr. Heath herself—and Kit, poor Kit—who were the problem.

  Dr. Heath clipped her long, straight hair back and looked almost like her usual self, except for the circumstances. She stuck out her hand toward Kit as if this were a normal introduction. “I’m Dr. Jennifer Heath.”

  Emil quashed an urge to hug Kit tighter. They shouldn’t still be touching each other. He dropped his arms to his sides, and slowly, Kit let go of him. His skin was just brown enough that the darkened flush in his cheeks wouldn’t be obvious to most people, but Emil knew.

  He shook Dr. Heath’s hand. “Kit Jackson.”

  “Can you explain to me why you’re a day late with this run, Mr. Jackson?”

  “We encountered an unknown entity in the Nowhere,” Kit said, cool and professional.

  He did this for a living. Emil ought to give him more credit. Kit probably dealt with intimidating people on a regular basis.

  Dr. Heath leaned in. “What sort of unknown entity?”

  “You understand why it’s difficult for me to answer that question,” Kit said, with a hint of an insubordinate smile. He wasn’t panicking like Emil was. He can get out any time he wants, Emil reminded himself.

  “Can you describe it in more detail?” Dr. Heath asked. “Did it harm you or Mr. Singh?”

  “Nothing major,” Kit said.

  “Would you mind if I examined you? If you made contact with it—”

  “I mind,” Kit said. And then he vanished.

  Emil would have been relieved, but Dr. Heath turned her attention to him. “I’d like to examine you as well.”

  “The rest of us have a few questions too,” Chávez interjected. She’d put on pants in the few minutes since Emil had looked at her. God, but it was a relief to see Chávez. Even in the current circumstances, she was smiling. She nodded at Dr. Heath. “Don’t worry, man, the bark is worse than the bite.”

  “As I recall, you enjoy both,” Dr. Heath replied. Then she glanced between them and said, more seriously, “I’m just doing my job. If the two of you were doing yours, you would have stopped that kid from leaving.”

  Chávez laughed. “Stop a runner? I’m flattered that you think we ever had a chance, Jen.”

  Jen. How long had this been going on? They definitely weren’t supposed to. Emil wouldn’t mention it to anyone, but it troubled him. Pot, kettle, said a voice in his head. He shouldn’t judge them. The small room, with its single bed and metal desk, felt cavernous since Kit’s departure. Dr. Heath had pulled on a sweatshirt and was bending down to tie her shoes. Emil had to go with her. Not that it mattered if she examined him—it was in his contract that Quint Services oversaw all his medical needs. And he could tell her the truth, now that Kit was safe.

  “You’d better bring Emil back quick,” Chávez said. “We have catching up to do.”

  Dr. Heath shot him a look that Emil understood all too well—he knew what it felt like to get interrupted in the middle of… business. He said nothing. She walked out of the room and Emil took the instant that she wasn’t watching to hug Chávez. He also shoved the plastic bag full of berries into her hand.

  It was his job to share that material with Dr. Heath. Some impulse made him want to keep the secret. Heath and Winslow had dragged him out of that lab and hadn’t told his team the truth about what happened. He could hold back a detail or two.

  Chávez knew better than to react to Emil’s unexpected gift. She tucked it away without a word.

  “Just so you know, what you walked in on—it was her idea,” Chávez said into his ear. “I wouldn’t have instigated things. But she’s p
ersuasive.”

  “That’s the problem,” Emil said, letting go of her but keeping his voice low. “She has all the power.”

  “Are you defending my virtue? I’m touched.”

  “Clara,” Emil said. “Are you really okay? This is what you want and not just a thing you can’t say no to?”

  “You know ‘hot and mean’ has always been my type. Besides, don’t we have bigger problems?”

  Emil frowned. He couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t tread perilously close to hypocrisy. He had to let it go.

  Heath was waiting for him in one of the medical examination rooms, so he went. She made him change into a gown and poked and prodded him all over.

  “Your black eye is healing.”

  “Yes.”

  Heath adjusted her glasses and fixed him with a stare. Seated on the examination chair, he was still taller than her, but she had an air of authority. “Tell me what happened between last night and now, Singh.”

  “What Kit said. He took off and we were attacked by something in the Nowhere. I was sedated at the time, so I didn’t see it. He said it looked like bluish light.”

  “You can’t possibly have spent nearly 24 hours in the Nowhere. Where were you?”

  “I don’t know. I woke up in a desert. We were there for a few hours, waiting for Kit to regain enough strength to jump us back. He intended to come here, but we saw the thing again. Or rather, he saw it again and I saw it for the first time. Not that I’d trust my own observational skills in the Nowhere. He jumped back to his apartment and we spent some time recovering there. As soon as he was able, he brought me here.”

  “Not here. Clara’s room.”

  “An accident.”

  “Where was he planning to land?”

  “Definitely not where we landed. I am sorry about that.”

  She huffed, blowing her bangs off her forehead. “You’ve always struck me as discreet,” she said. Then she narrowed her eyes. “Too discreet. There’s something you’re not telling me. You said a desert. Which desert? American Southwest? North African? Middle Eastern? Given a few hours, I know you’d have tried to ascertain what continent you were on.”