The Fold: A Novel Part 36

Mike shrugged. "And yet..."

"It's open," she agreed. "We didn't know why it opened at all, and now we're trying to figure out why it's staying open, even though we've got no idea what made it happen." She waved a hand at the screen.

He studied her face. "And...?"

"And the only d.a.m.n thing I can think of is that I'm not smart enough to figure this out, but she'd probably know the answer already."

"She?"

Jamie smacked the quarter out of the air with two fingers, and it clattered onto her workstation. "The one who had a cat named Spock. The one who's supposed to be here. The...the real one."

He shrugged. "You're not that different."

"You're not really good at this whole comforting thing, are you? You're just supposed to hug me, maybe squeeze my b.u.t.t, and-"

"Not different in the important ways," said Mike. "The Jamie I met, the one who was here before you, she could be a little bitter. I think she thought that motorcycle crash was the defining moment in her life, that it was why she ended up working with computers rather than doing, I don't know, something else. I think she regretted it sometimes. Like she'd been forced down a path instead of having a choice."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. But you didn't have the crash. And you still went into computers. You still decided using your mind was the best way to go in life. Because that's who you are."

She swept up the quarter and flipped it into the air again. "I take it back," she said. "You're better at this than I thought."

"I have moments."

"You do."

"If it's any consolation, I think you may be a bit smarter than her. You seem to get your mind around things a lot faster."

"My 'mind.' How polite of you." She took the quarter between two fingers and flung it at him. It whizzed through the air, hit him in the arm, and chimed to the floor.

"Okay," he said, "I deserved that." He bent down, scooped the coin off the floor, and pushed it into his pants pocket.

"Hey," she said. "Quarter. Mine. Give it."

"You gave it to me."

"I threw it at you."

"Same thing," he said.

"Not quite."

"This is not the way to get your b.u.t.t squeezed."

"If I have to pay you to squeeze my b.u.t.t we're both doing something wrong."

He slid the coin free and tossed it to her. She caught it one-handed, switched it to her thumb, launched it back into the air, and caught it again. "Is Mike sleeping alone tonight?" she asked the quarter. She glanced at him. "Call it."

"There's more to this than a coin toss, right?"

"I don't know. We'll see what the coin says."

"In that case, tails."

"An a.s.s man. Good to know. Don't get your hopes up." She flicked the quarter into the air, s.n.a.t.c.hed it as it dropped, and slapped it onto the back of her hand. "Tails?"

"Still, yes."

"Are you using super-memory powers?"

"Yeah, they let me predict it before you tossed the coin."

"Wisea.s.s." She looked at the coin. "And a thief. Give me my quarter back."

"What?"

"You're sleeping alone." She held up the quarter. "Fake."

He peered at it. "It is?"

"New Amsterdam?"

Mike frowned and held out his hand. She reached out and pressed the coin into his palm, letting her fingers glide back along his.

The quarter showed the familiar outline of New York and the Statue of Liberty. The curving text was identical to all the other state quarters he'd seen, except this said NEW AMSTERDAM.

"Where'd you get this?"

She smiled. "You just pulled it out of your pocket, Mister Photographic Memory."

"Is this one of the quarters we threw through the Door?"

Jamie shook her head. "It's just pocket change. I've been carrying it around for a couple days now."

"Did it come through the Door with you when you crosswalked?"

Her brow furrowed. "I don't think so. Pretty sure I got it over at 7-Eleven yesterday morning."

He reran the past few minutes in his mind. The coin had been facedown on the floor when he'd picked it up. It had said NEW YORK then.

When he pulled it out to toss it to Jamie it had been in his peripheral vision. His fingers blocked some of the surface, and the diffuse light of the main floor made it hard to pick out details. But he could see enough. NEW YO was visible for almost a tenth of a second. The ants moved forward with a dozen slices of time until he caught a glimpse of the Statue of Liberty as the coin spun toward Jamie.

"This isn't the coin I threw you," he said.

"Yes it is."

"No," he shook his head, "it isn't. I gave you a New York quarter."

"That's the coin you gave me."

Mike frowned. He set the quarter down on the workstation. Tails up, so NEW AMSTERDAM was visible.

He looked up at the rings. The red lights were still out of sync. His eyes drifted down to the white lines painted around the platform. Olaf hadn't been able to draw a new safe zone because there was no magnetic field to measure.

Jamie held her hands out, palms up. "I couldn't've switched it. It was in plain sight the whole time."

"I don't think you did," he said. He slid the coin back into his hand and stood up. "I think we need to get off the main floor."

"Why are you whispering?"

"Because I'm nervous, and I think we need to get away from the rings right now." He moved away from his workstation and tugged her out of her chair.

Her eyes went from the rings to the line and ended on his fingers wrapped around the quarter. "Oh, s.h.i.t."

"Yeah."

Inside the rings, Site B flickered. Then the room beyond the Door went dim. Red light continued to pulse out from the other side of the rings.

They reached the big door. He pulled it open and pushed it shut behind them. "Is there a way to disable the card reader?"

"I don't know."

"Wait here. Don't let anyone go in."

Mike ran to the front desk. "Hey," said Anne. Her hair was pulled back in a flawless braid today. "What can I do for-"

"We need to make a sign. Right now."

Her mouth twitched. "I can make something up in Office and-"

"No. Right now."

Her eyes brightened a bit. She tugged open two drawers. A collection of Sharpies came out of one, a cardboard envelope for Priority Mail came out of another.

"Tape?"

Anne reached back into the second drawer and came out with a heavy roll of packing tape on a red spindle.

Mike tore one of the envelopes open along its seams. He flattened it out on the desk, blank side up, and wrote DANGER with one of the markers. He underlined it three times and then added DO NOT ENTER. "Thank you."

"No problem."

He scooped up the sign and the tape and jogged back down the hall to Jamie. He covered the card reader with the sign and held it in place while she taped. She leaned back, took in a breath, and shouted "Arthur!"

He appeared out of the cross hallway as she finished taping. "What-" He paused to wheeze out a breath and suck in more air.

"Problems," said Mike.

"It's growing," Jamie said.

"We need to seal off the other building," said Mike.

"What do you mean? How are the rings growing?"

"Not the rings," said Jamie. "The Door."

"The Door," said Arthur, "is inside the rings."

"Not anymore," she said. She stuck her hand through the packing tape and wore the roll like a bracelet.

Arthur shook his head. "That's not possible. It has to be contained within the rings."

"Why?"

"The field's generated within the rings, so it can only...Ahhh." Arthur bit down on his tongue.

"Yeah," said Mike. "We need to find Olaf and Neil. We need to make sure all the doors onto the main floor and Site B are locked solid."

"I think Olaf's already over at Site B," said Arthur. "He was going to check readings there."

Jamie glanced at the stairs. "What about the control room?"

"I don't know. It's probably safe." He looked at the big door. "If the field's reaching the control room, it's reaching out here into the hall."

"How do we know it isn't?"

Mike glanced at her. "For now we just have to hope."

THIRTY-SEVEN.

Arthur spread the blueprints across the conference room table.

Mike sifted through them. "This is for both sets of rings?"

"The two sets are identical," said Sasha. "We used the same blueprints for each one."

"Are they?" asked Mike. "No other little secrets or hidden changes?"

Arthur shook his head. "We might not know why the Door works on a scientific level," he said, "but the engineering behind it is honest."