one another at the other end of the car, pretending not to stare at us with masks of indifference, their body language saying, I don’t see anything, as if they’re trying to blend into the background. As it is, the waves of panic coming from that end of the train add a tangy scent to the air.
“Let’s go,” I say, my voice raw.
Barclay nods and pulls out his quantum charger.
When the portal opens, I go through it first. I don’t even register how it feels or what I’m doing when I go through. It’s just another portal, and after everything else I feel numb to the fact that I’m slipping through a black hole and ending up in a different world.
I’m waiting for Barclay, on my feet in his abandoned overgrown jungle of a world, when he comes through behind me.
“Hey, you went through relaxed,” he says. “I knew you’d get it eventually.”
I don’t care about that. “Tell me what happened,” I say. “I need to know everything.”
“It might not be as bad as it sounded, Janelle,” Barclay says, but even I can tell that this is him playing hopeful and optimistic.
He doesn’t believe what he’s saying.
“Just tell me.”
Barclay recounts what he heard. He starts at the beginning with the parts I already know, but I don’t stop him. I said I wanted everything, and I do.
If these are the last moments of Ben’s life, I want to be able to picture it all. I want to commit it to memory.
Ben and Cecily went into IA headquarters on cue—they headed up the back stairwell to the second floor and waited for everyone to leave after Barclay pulled the fire alarm. They didn’t make it to their computer, but as soon as Barclay told them he’d gotten the email off, it didn’t matter. They kept their heads down and walked out with the crowd, allowing the people around them to dictate how fast they moved and where they went.
Only they ran into Deputy Director Ryan Struzinski. He seemed surprised but not alarmed when he recognized them. Of course, both Cee and Ben recognized him, too, so they went into his office and he promised to listen to them.
Cecily told him everything. She started with her abduction and didn’t leave anything out. And then Ben filled in what he knew.
The deputy director was impressed but skeptical. He asked to see the drive with the evidence from the processing center. He put it in his computer and looked shocked at what he saw. He praised Ben and Cecily for everything they’d done, and Ben sighed in relief and said he was so glad he could trust Struz.
Silence followed.
Then the deputy director asked if they had been worried about who to give the information to. Cecily said, “You have no idea,” with a laugh, and all three of them chuckled.
Then the deputy director asked, “So you mean you haven’t shown this to anyone else?”
That’s when Barclay stopped. Because he knew that wasn’t right—that shouldn’t be the next question.
Ben didn’t say anything, but Cecily started to answer.
Barclay isn’t exactly sure what happened, but it was clear to him that Ben had the same sudden realization that he did. The deputy director wasn’t on our side. “You know the rest,” Barclay says. “The next thing I heard was the gunshot, you ripped the com out of my ear, and now no one is on the other end.”
My body feels heavy, like it’s already dead and is just waiting for me to notice. I can’t keep fighting—keep moving forward, keep trying to win against something like IA, not after everything. Barclay never should have come to me for help. We’re up against something that’s too big, too powerful.
Now both Cecily and Ben are gone.
00:16:51:44
I think of Cecily on the back soccer field, standing with her hands on her hips, her hair lit up with the sun, as she looked at Ben, as serious as a heart attack, and said, Who’s your favorite superhero?
Ben stepped back like he’d been wounded, and laughed. That’s it? That’s all you got? That’s easy.
And then he looked at me. His eyes dark, his lips curled into a slight half smile as he said, Wonder Woman.
Cecily threw a grin in my direction before grilling him on his choice, and Alex offered his two cents about the wonderfulness of her costume, and I just felt light-headed—in the best possible way.
It feels like it could have been yesterday. I remember it all so clearly.