CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
HURRY UP,” ADDIE hissed.
“Stop crowding me. And quit whispering. She’ll think we’re up to something.”
“We are up to something.” Addie wrung her hands like a little old lady while I worked the lock picks.
“No wonder you never do anything wrong,” I said. “You suck at it.”
“And you have way too much practice,” she said, as the last pin clicked into place.
I turned the knob and the door swung open silently. “Ready?”
“She’s going to kill us if she catches us.”
“Then let’s not get caught.” I stepped inside the darkened room, Addie tripping over my heels.
Unlike Addie, I didn’t spend a lot of time in my mom’s office. I’d never noticed the snapshots propped on shelves and taped to the wall. Pictures of us on vacations, on Walks. Shots of Addie and me in matching outfits—which we’d stopped wearing, thankfully, by the time I turned four. My dad carrying me on his shoulders while we hiked the Grand Canyon. Monty’s birthday party, when I was a newborn in a pink terry-cloth sleeper. Our family’s history, and she kept it close at hand. The resentment that had been fueling me over the last few weeks ebbed slightly.
Addie put her finger to her lips and tiptoed across the room, sitting down at the desk with exaggerated care.
“It’s soundproof,” I said. “She’s not going to hear us.”
Addie ignored me, scrolling through windows on the computer. “It’s got to be here.”
I stooped to examine the haphazard pile of books on the floor. “Some of these records go back twenty years. They’re totally outdated.”
“Archivists keep baseline readings of an Echo forever. Helps with deep analysis.” She peered at the display, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “They’re total pack rats.”
Her tone was surprisingly affectionate, considering how much Addie hated clutter. “Know a lot of archivists? Anyone special?”
She shot me a dirty look.
I plopped down and paged through the nearest record book. “Two decades of Echoes,” I said. “Can you imagine how many pivots have formed since then? That’s a crazy amount of data to analyze, even for one branch. It would take years.”
“Not if you had a Consort computer,” Addie said. “Like the one Mom’s been using downtown. They must think the problem is in one of the older branches.”
I scanned several reports. “Monty was First Chair on a lot of these Walks. Maybe that’s why Lattimer is interested in him. He thinks Monty knows something about these branches that didn’t get recorded.”
“Monty can’t remember what day it is,” she said. “He’s not going to remember details from a bunch of Walks he took twenty years ago.”
“It’s new stuff he can’t keep track of. His long-term memory is fine—look at how upset he gets when Lattimer comes around.”
“He blames the Consort for Grandma disappearing,” she said dismissively. “He thinks they didn’t look hard enough, and seeing Lattimer again has brought it all back. He’s using our Walks to look for Grandma, you know. He insists on picking which Echoes we visit.”
I’d figured as much. “Do you remember her?”
Addie shook her head, strawberry blond waves rippling. “I was only four when we moved back. She smelled like lilacs, I think.”
“Do you think she meant to leave, or was it an accident?”
“I think she’s gone,” she said. “The why doesn’t matter. Monty’s damaged either way.”
It made me think of Simon, trying desperately to charm people into staying, because everyone who was supposed to love him had either left him or was going to.
She made a noise of surprise. “That’s weird. When the new teams came in, they were averaging six or seven cleavings a day. Now they’re down to one or two. Sometimes even less.”
“They’re making progress.”
“Not according to these maps.” She sifted through the papers next to the computer, comparing them to the display. “Okay, this makes more sense. The teams started out cleaving the most unstable Echoes, but they were fairly recent branches. Two or three years old at most. They’re moving backward now, cleaving bigger, older branches. Cleaving Echoes that complex takes more time.”
“Which increases your chance of frequency poisoning?”
“Exactly. I’m looking at the record of Dad’s Walk, and the Echo was twelve years old. According to Mom’s analysis, the cleaving should have taken four or five hours.”
“Dad’s team stayed a lot longer than they’d planned to.” I paused. “The instability is a sign of an infection, and it’s spreading—newer Echoes to older ones, smaller to bigger. That’s why they’ve brought in so many teams. They’re trying to stop the infection.”
“Monty was right,” Addie said darkly. “They’re going at it backward. They’re treating the symptoms. We need to find the source.”
We left the office as we’d found it, locking the door and creeping upstairs. Addie was taut as a bowstring and as likely to snap. I should have felt relieved. The Consort had discovered the anomaly before I’d cleaved Park World, before I’d started seeing Simon’s Echoes, before he’d triggered Baroque events. Whatever was wrong in the Echoes, it wasn’t my fault or Simon’s. Even so, I was worried. We were symptoms, and that’s what the Consort was hunting.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Rarely, an individual will choose not to participate in the calling of the Walkers. In deciding to leave our community, they forfeit the right to Walk, and in doing so, their freedom.
—Chapter Ten, “Ethics and Governance,”
Principles and Practices of Cleaving, Year Five
HOW ARE YOU feeling?” I asked my dad the next afternoon. He was resting on the couch on orders from my mom, who’d put me in charge while she finished up work. I handed him another cup of tea.
He pushed it aside. “Ready to get off this couch.”
“Good luck with that. Mom’s on a rampage.”
Something between a grin and a grimace crossed his face.
“Are you better?” I asked.
He was quiet for a long time, and the fear opened up like a chasm at my feet. He had to be all right, because that’s what dads are supposed to do: Be all right. Make everything all right. Anything less was unacceptable.
“I’m better,” he said eventually. “It was . . . not a picnic.”
When I was a kid, we’d gone on plenty of picnics. Short jaunts to get Addie and me used to the sensation of Walking. As my parents had risen in the ranks, family outings had fallen by the wayside. Monty had been the one to step in and teach me the basics.
But I’d Walked with my dad enough to know he should never have contracted frequency poisoning. The anomaly wasn’t only damaging the multiverse, it was hurting people I cared about.
“You’re going back out, aren’t you?”
Again, a silence. I’d heard my parents fighting earlier that morning. Mom wanted him to retire, but Dad refused. “The Consort needs me. They need as many people as they can get.”
Monty spoke from inside the pantry. “They’re asking too much. As usual.”
Funny how Monty was too deaf to hear when I asked for help setting the table, but he could eavesdrop with no problem. He added, “We’re cannon fodder to them, nothing more.”
“Nobody’s forcing anyone to Walk,” said my dad. “It’s a choice, like everything else.”
“Until it isn’t,” Monty growled.
“I want to be a Walker.” I squeezed my dad’s hand, a gesture of solidarity.
“Bah. You want to Walk,” Monty replied.
I shrugged. “Same thing.”