“How many times have you gone through the tandem?”
“A dozen or so,” Thomas told me. “Not a lot, but more than most people. Nobody knows about the tandem except a handful of KES, and the scientists who work on developing many-worlds technology, like that anchor you’re wearing. It’s a highly classified project. In the scheme of things, you’re actually pretty special. There are probably only twenty or so people who’ve even passed through the tandem, and you’re one of them.”
“Where do I send the gift basket?” Like getting kidnapped was some kind of honor! Still, I did want to know more about how moving between universes worked.
It turned out there was a limit to what he could tell me. “I’m not so good with the physics of it,” he admitted. “I know what I need to know—what happens when you pass through, and, of course, how to use the anchor.”
“And how does the anchor work?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “Nice try.”
“Okay, then tell me about the disruptions,” I pressed. “Do they happen every time?”
He nodded. “As far as I can tell, they’re proportional to how much mass you’re bringing into the universe, or removing from it. The more massive the object, the more energy it takes to bring it through, the greater the disruption. When it’s just you and me, the mass is tiny, especially by the universe’s standards. So all you get is a little quake, something you’d barely notice if you weren’t standing right at the epicenter.”
“What if you wanted to bring through something bigger?”
He ran his fingers through his hair, rumpling it. He seemed tired, and all of a sudden he looked young to me, with his hair sticking up in the back and the moonlight picking up the wrinkles in his suit. “Like what?”
“I don’t know. A skyscraper.”
“Not sure why you’d want to do that.”
“It’s hypothetical,” I said.
“I’m not even certain that you could do that,” Thomas said, after pausing to think it over. “It’d require a huge amount of energy, and unless it landed in exactly the right way, the whole thing could just fall apart. The disruption would be big, too, which would cause major structural damage to the building and those around it. Why do you ask?”
I shrugged. “No reason. I was just curious.” I’d never been good enough at science to consider making a career out of it, even though, as Thomas had pointed out on the beach, it was the family business. But I knew enough to be interested, and it delayed the start of my performance as Juliana.
It was just two weeks ago that I’d last dreamt about her. I’d woken up full of apprehension. She’d been experiencing something difficult and painful, but I didn’t understand what, or why, until now—she’d been busy getting kidnapped. Another question pushed its way past the walls I’d erected against these strange sensations and lodged itself in my brain: would I continue to see life through her eyes now that I was in her world? Only time would tell, but I had the distinct impression that I’d had other dreams while I was unconscious—both times—though I didn’t remember them. But I couldn’t count on that now. I had to dredge my memory for any lucid details that could be useful to me here, and hope for the best.
“Now what?” I didn’t want to bring up the future; the conversation about the tandem and its idiosyncrasies had relaxed me a bit, and Thomas’s earlier stiffness and formality had given way to something much more human, much closer to the boy he had been on Earth, when I’d thought he was Grant. I didn’t want to scare that all away by calling his attention back to the situation at hand, but there wasn’t a choice. We had to move forward—I had to, if I was ever going to get home.
“Now,” he said. “We call Gloria.”
TWELVE
“Who’s Gloria?” I asked. All the easiness I’d felt in talking to Thomas before dissolved in the face of meeting someone else from this world.
“Gloria is Juliana’s personal secretary and aide-de-camp,” Thomas explained. I tried to imagine what this person might be like, but couldn’t. “She knows who you are.”
“She does?”
“She has to,” Thomas said. “I’m going to give you as much help as I can, but there’s only so much I can do—there’s only so much I know. Gloria’s been with Juliana since the princess was twelve. She keeps her schedule and manages her staff. She’ll be an invaluable resource for you.”
“How many other people know?”
“Of the ones you’ll actually meet, it’s just me, the General, and Gloria. And Fillmore, of course.” I grimaced. I thought I saw him smile, but it might’ve just been a trick of the light. “There are a few others, but nobody you need to worry about. I would save all your energy for the people who don’t know who you are.”
He pressed a button on a small console to the right of the door. It beeped and he spoke into it. “Send Gloria in.”
In moments, the door slid open and a tall, brown-skinned woman entered. Her hair was pulled back into a tight French twist and she was dressed professionally, despite the hour, in a gray twill pencil skirt, perfectly pressed black blouse, black sheer tights, and a pair of high black stiletto heels. She carried a square glass tablet in her hand and wore a serious expression.
“Gloria Beach,” Thomas said, stepping aside to let the woman pass. “This is Sasha Lawson.”
Gloria allowed several seconds of silence to go by, fixing me with a penetrating look. “I would say it’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lawson, but I don’t think that would be true for either of us. That said, I hope you understand that I’m here to help you. Nobody wants Juliana back more than I do, but until the General manages to locate her, I’m afraid we have no choice.”
“Well, I certainly didn’t.” The words came out harsher than I’d intended, but Gloria nodded in understanding.
“Thomas, turn the lights on,” Gloria commanded. “I want to get a good look at her.” The fluorescents flickered for a moment before dousing the room in bright white light.
Gloria walked a circle around me, regarding me closely. “It’s amazing, really, how much you look like Juliana.”
“I’m not her,” I insisted.
“No, of course not,” Gloria said. “But how you look is the single most important factor in whether or not people will believe that you’re Juliana, which is the ultimate goal. With the right clothes, hair, and makeup, even her own mother couldn’t tell the difference.”
“Where is Juliana’s mother?” I asked. Thomas had mentioned a stepmother, the queen regent, and her incapacitated father, but surely Juliana had a mother as well? My heart burned with jealousy. It wasn’t fair that she had two parents—three, counting her stepmother—while I had none. It’s one of the differences, I imagined Thomas saying. To me, at least, it was the greatest difference of all.
Thomas looked to Gloria, who explained. Juliana’s parents had married when her mother, Alana Defort, was very young; up until then, the king was considered to be a confirmed bachelor, and everyone was shocked that he had not only decided to marry, but also that his wife was so dramatically his junior. She was from an old Commonwealth family that had made millions in textiles several generations earlier, and the only heir to their considerable fortune. Their marriage had lasted just short of ten years, and they divorced when Juliana was eight because the king had met someone else.
“Her name was Evelyn Eaves, then,” Gloria said. “She was a lawyer with the Royal Counsel. Everyone knew that the king had affairs, but to actually marry one of his mistresses was nothing short of scandal. Needless to say, Juliana and her stepmother don’t get along, especially since the king had Juliana’s mother exiled.”