Road Less Traveled (19 page)

“Oh, what's he doing here?” Fargo whined as Jo half
led, half dragged him back into Dr. Russell's lab.

“Just lending a hand,” Zane replied, glancing up from the keyboard he was hunched over. He gave his patented lopsided bad-boy grin. “Hey, JoJo.”

“Hey, yourself,” she replied, her voice going a little bit more husky-raspy at the sight of him. She could feel the way Fargo stiffened in response, and scolded herself mentally. It wasn't his fault he still had a thing for her, and she knew that seeing her with Zane was killing him. And while she did enjoy tormenting Fargo sometimes—and while he certainly deserved it a lot of the time—she also felt a little bad for him. Nobody should have to see the object of their affections—or at least someone who had been for a long time—doting on someone else.

And dote she did. Try as she might, she couldn't keep the smile from her face when she looked at Zane, who was tall, well built, and way too good-looking with those dancing eyes and short black hair and boyish face. They'd butted heads when he'd first arrived in Eureka, a barely reformed criminal who'd traded prison time for work here. But over time she'd come to see the good man lurking behind the rebel mask, and he'd begun to tame his wild ways and show the decent, caring, hardworking person he really was. Sparks had continued to fly between them, but now it was in a good way, and Jo could no longer imagine a life without him.

A part of her wondered if her other self was involved with that world's Zane. She wasn't sure she wanted to find out.

“Zane is helping me check the energy readings,” Russell explained. “I told him about your Thunderbird theory.”

“Makes sense,” he agreed, nodding to Fargo. The two of them had gotten along a lot better since the time they'd been forced to work together to help Carter and Nathan Stark break into GD's secure executive bunker, though Zane still made cracks at Fargo's expense sometimes. But who didn't, really? “I don't know a lot about that project, but if it was generating the kind of energy output you'd expect from a compacted thunderstorm, it could definitely play havoc with the circuits in here.”

“If it could pierce the shielding,” Fargo pointed out, echoing Russell's earlier thought. “If only we had a reading to compare it to.”

“Ah, but we might.” Zane grinned.

“The lab's systems all got fried when the Thunderbird hatched,” Fargo argued. “And the thief had shut down the cameras and monitoring systems before that, and blanked them all the way to the front entrance. We've got nothing.” He said the last belligerently, daring Zane to prove him wrong.

“Nothing from that lab,” Zane agreed, surprising Fargo and Jo both. He was still grinning, though. “But what about the labs next door?”

Jo saw Fargo's eyes widen. “Of course! They wouldn't help us figure out the thief's identity, but if all we're looking for is the Thunderbird's energy signature, it would have bled through those walls easily because the bio labs aren't energy-hardened like this place. We can take a reading from Dr. Wilder's lab, or Dr. Hemming's, just before the hatching, and then just after, subtract the first from the second—”

“And know exactly what wavelengths we've got for your little winged stormbeastie,” Zane agreed. His fingers danced across the keyboard, manipulating information with deceptive ease, and Fargo stepped up beside him, their animosity forgotten as they tackled the problem together. Jo crossed her arms and watched them, trying not to laugh.

“There!” Fargo jabbed a finger at the screen they had commandeered for this. “That energy spike has to be when it hatched!” The readings were displayed on the screen, with a clear spike at seven twenty-five in the morning.

“Yeah, energy levels're off the charts.” Zane nodded and typed in something else. “And here's that lab's energy levels right before that.” A second reading graph appeared on the screen. Then he did something, and the second one floated upward to overlay the first. It winked out after a second, taking most of the first graph with it.

“And there we have it,” Fargo announced. “The energy signature of one infant Thunderbird!” He turned and held his hand up to Zane, who high-fived him. Then they both glanced at each other, and at their hands, before dropping the offending limbs, backing away, and pretending the other didn't exist. Jo swallowed another laugh. Boys.

“We can check this against your logs,” Zane told Dr. Russell, but she was already shaking her head.

“Seven twenty-five?” she asked. “Don't bother. I didn't even have equipment powered up at that point. I got in around seven fifteen, but I spent half an hour going over my notes and checking my calculations. My crew didn't get here until seven thirty, and we had a short meeting before we started flipping switches.” She sighed. “It definitely wasn't the Thunderbird.”

“How's it going in here?” The question made all of them look up, even the other Dr. Russell on the monitor, as Allison entered the lab. “Any progress?”

“Well, we've worked out what it isn't,” Zane answered, displaying his usual lack of concern for authority. He treated Allison like he would any co-worker or friend, except that he generally did at least vaguely what she told him to do. And he sometimes called her “boss” or “chief.” “It wasn't the Thunderbird.”

Allison frowned, then nodded. “I hadn't even considered that possibility,” she admitted, “but it would have made sense. It's almost a shame that wasn't the answer.” Her gaze took in Jo and Fargo's presence. “I assume that's why you two are here?”

Jo nodded. “Fargo thought we should check around GD again, see if anything turned up,” she explained. “And we overheard Dr. Russell talking about some kind of electrical trigger. Fargo thought it could have been the Thunderbird.” She wanted to make sure Fargo got the credit for the idea. He deserved it. “Since it wasn't, I guess we'd better get back to our investigation. Come on, Fargo.”

“Right.” He nodded to the others, then as an afterthought held out his hand to Zane. They shook, both looking a little awkward. “Nice working with you.” It was clear he'd had to force the words out.

“Same here.” Zane glanced up at Jo, and his eyes twinkled. “Later, JoJo. Dinner tonight, maybe?”

Again, that smile appeared all on its own, and she even felt herself blush a little. “Dinner sounds great,” she agreed. “I'll call you.” She turned and marched out before she could embarrass herself further. But not fast enough to miss the
harrumph
Fargo uttered in her and Zane's general direction. Well, whatever. She was being nice to him, but that didn't mean he got to interfere with her own happiness.

Now if they could just find this stupid Thunderbird egg, and whoever took it, she'd really be happy.

 

“Okay, so it wasn't the Thunderbird,” Allison repeated
after Jo and Fargo had left. “What was it?”

“We're checking,” Dr. Russell assured her.

“I think I've got something, too,” Zane offered. He leaned back so they could both see the monitor behind him. “These are the energy readings for this lab, from yesterday morning.” He indicated where they ramped up. “Eight oh-three, right about when you said you began switching things on.”

Allison let her eyes skip along the visual record of the lab's energy input and output. “What's that?” She indicated a spike. It was from eight fifty-two.

Russell frowned. “I don't know. We were supposed to start the demonstration for you at nine, so that was still a few minutes early.” Then she brightened. “Oh, right. That was when we had that energy surge, remember? One of the fuses burnt out, overloading the safeties. Sheriff Carter noticed, and leaped to the rescue.” Allison noticed that Russell's smile widened and her pupils contracted slightly as she remembered the incident. She was interested in Carter! Allison had a strong urge to say something, to object somehow, but forced herself to swallow it. What right did she have to interfere? If Dr. Russell liked Carter, and he liked her—well, good for them.

Which didn't jibe with the way the thought of them together made her suddenly nauseous.

She shook that off and concentrated on the here and now. They were talking about Carter and the energy surge. Then she gasped.

Carter!

“How big of a surge was it?” she asked, her eyes going to the screen again. “Could that have caused the problem?”

Zane was running diagnostics. “Wow, that had to have been one hell of a jolt!” he muttered. “Remind me to ask Carter the next time I need somebody to hold a lightbulb for me!” He lost himself in calculations for a minute or two, typing furiously. Finally, he nodded. “Yeah, I think that was it.” The screen shifted to show the readings from Russell's energy inputs. “Check it out—that zap supercharged your arrays, giving them a serious suction grip. They didn't just analyze the energy from the other Eureka; they drew it toward us.”

“And created the link between our two realities,” Russell whispered.

Allison shook her head. And, of course, Carter was right there at the middle of it all.

Then another thought occurred to her. “When was the first instance we had of anyone from the other side appearing here?” she asked Russell. She was wracking her own memory, and the two of them came up with the same answer at roughly the same time.

“Taggart!” Carter had mentioned seeing Taggart in the stairs on the way out after the demonstration had seemingly failed, and had said that the lanky Australian hadn't stopped to chat. Later he'd realized that was because the other Taggart didn't actually know him at all.

Okay, but who was the next one?

There was Vincent; Allison had seen him in the hall herself.

On her way out of this lab.

Shortly after Carter had gone.

Taggart had run into Nathan—when Carter was here in the building, talking to her in her office.

Sheriff Fargo—she still laughed picturing that one—had been in town. Only those boys had seen him.

But Carter had just left.

And when
she
—the other Allison—had appeared in this lab, Carter had been standing beside her.

“It's Carter,” she whispered, then repeated it more loudly when both Russells and Zane glanced at her. “It's Carter. He's the key. The transferences all happened when he was around, or when he'd just been there.” She shook her head. “Somehow, it all revolves around him.”

Why wasn't she surprised?

“All right, I'm here,” Carter huffed as he burst through
the door. “What's the big emergency?”

Allison, Zane, and Russell all turned to study him. Something about the look in their eyes made him feel like a lab experiment. He had a sudden urge to make sure they weren't holding stickpins and little paper tags behind their back. For a second, they just studied him. The back of his neck itched. His heart hammered in his chest, and only part of that was because he'd raced through the corridors to get here after receiving Allison's urgent message. Then, finally, she spoke.

“You are.”

“Huh?” He looked behind him, but nope, no sign of people sneaking in to shout “Surprise!” or “April Fools'!” or “You're on
Candid Camera
!” Which made sense, since it wasn't anywhere near his birthday, or April first, and as far as he knew they'd canceled
Candid Camera
years back. Plus, Allison didn't look even remotely like she was joking.

Which just made him want to say “Huh?” again.

But he was the sheriff here, duly elected, and he couldn't let himself look like an idiot. He had to be a calm, cool, competent professional at all times. So he straightened up, took a deep breath, hitched up his belt, opened his mouth—

—and stuttered “Wh-what're you doing? Hey now, slow down!” as Allison, Zane, and Russell all moved toward him with that strange gleam in their eyes that you only ever saw in bad science-fiction movies, the kind with crazed scientists about to enact some horrible scheme on the unsuspecting public.

There, or every day here in Eureka.

“Oh, quit being such a baby,” Allison scolded as she grabbed him by one wrist and led him down into the lab proper. Russell latched on to the other, and Carter might have enjoyed being dragged along by the two of them if Zane hadn't chosen that same moment to plaster something small, round, and cold to his left temple. “Hey!”

“It's a sensor, Sheriff,” Zane assured him, though the laughter behind his words was clear. “We're just going to take a few readings. Sheesh, you're jumpy. Switch to decaf, why don't you.”