Road Less Traveled (26 page)

“I have been working,” he assured her quickly. “And I've found out some stuff that'll help us, too.” He thought about it for a second. “Or, at least, some stuff we don't have to worry about anymore.”

“Like what, exactly?” She crossed her arms and tapped her foot, still scowling. Henry had gone back into town to watch for other strays, and Carter had gone with Allison to talk to Russell. Which left her here minding the conference room door.

“I've eliminated Dr. Boggs and Andee Wilkerson as suspects,” Fargo announced proudly. He expected her to be impressed. Instead, the scowl just deepened.

“You what? You talked to them without me?” She shook her head, and he could tell she was trying to keep her voice level. “Fargo, you're not a trained investigator. You don't know how to question a suspect!”

“Maybe not here,” he agreed, just a little hurt, “but the other me sure does.”

“The other you?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, right. Sheriff Fargo.”

“Exactly. We talked. He's already spoken to both of them, and neither of them were involved.”

“You talked? When?”

“Just a little bit ago. I wound up over there, and we ran into each other.”

Now Jo didn't look pissed. She looked worried. “You were there? You got transported to that reality, instead of him being pulled over to here?”

“Well . . . yeah.” Fargo stopped and thought about that for the first time. “Oh, crap. That hasn't happened before, has it?” Jo shook her head. “Which means . . .”

“Which means we have even less time than we thought,” she finished. “All right, assuming I trust your other you's assessment of those two, what else?”

“Well . . .” Fargo took a deep breath. “It turns out the Thunderbird was partially responsible for our current dilemma.” He recounted the recent conversation with Zane and the two Drs. Russell and his other self. It was starting to get confusing with so many people having their other selves around at the same time.

“So we've got to find it before it hatches, or it could kill us all anyway,” Jo summarized after he'd finished. “Great. Just what we needed—more pressure.”

“I know.” He shrugged helplessly. “Keeps us focused though, right?” She didn't bother to answer. “So we know it wasn't one of the three working on the Thunderbird project, anyway. And we know whoever did take the egg hasn't tried to sell it yet. What do we do now?”

Jo shook her head, sending her ponytail flying. “I don't know,” she admitted. “We still don't have anything else to go on.” She growled and slammed a fist into the wall. Then she pushed off and headed for the front doors. “Come on.”

“Where're we going?” Fargo asked as he trotted after her.

“When in doubt,” she answered over her shoulder, “you drive around and look for evidence. This is Eureka—half the time, it blows up in your face.”

“Not literally, I hope,” he muttered as he followed her out.

 

Carter hung up and turned to Allison, Zane, and Russell. They were conferring via the monitor with Stark and the other Russell. “That was Jo,” he explained. “She's with Fargo. Apparently he and ‘Sheriff Fargo' met each other recently.”

“They did,” Russell confirmed. “The two of them came into our labs to ask about the Thunderbird, and whether it could have been involved. That's how we figured out we had to reset the frequencies slightly.”

“Right.” Carter nodded and ran a hand over his head. “But did they mention how they met?” He got blank looks in return. “Fargo went there, to the other side. He was in Sheriff Fargo's Eureka.”

That produced expressions of concern all around. “If our two worlds are close enough that people from here can wind up over there,” Allison said, “we're right on the edge of the two realities overlapping completely.”

“We're out of time,” Stark agreed. “If we're ever going to push our worlds apart again, it's got to be soon.”

“We've been trying,” Zane argued. “Dr. Russell—your Russell—has fired off three sets of energy bursts since we reset the frequency. They should be perfectly calibrated to Carter's energy charge now, and their exact opposite. But nothing's happening.” He indicated the monitor. “None of that energy is returning. Carter isn't deflecting it, and it's not pushing our worlds apart. If anything, it's drawing them even closer, even faster, and binding them tight.”

“Why isn't it working?” Carter asked. “It's not the Thunderbird this time, right?” A thought occurred to him. “Could the other egg have hatched? Would that cause more problems?”

“It could,” Russell replied, “but it would have to be somewhere nearby, or producing enormous amounts of energy, or both. It would have to be masking or warping either your energy signature or the energy coming in from the inputs.” She scanned the readouts again. “We're not picking up any interference, though. Everything's quiet. There's no reason it shouldn't be working.”

“You're absolutely sure the math is right this time?” Allison asked.

“We've triple- and quadruple-checked it,” Zane told her. “I'm absolutely sure.”

“I checked them, too,” Stark added. “And they look right. They should be right.”

“So we've got the math right,” Carter said slowly. “And the equipment's all set up. And I'm a living electromagnet.” He folded his arms and paced. “So what're we missing? What's gone wrong?”

Then he had a bad, bad thought. “What if . . . what if somebody has been messing with it?”

“Messing with it?” Stark stared at him. “This isn't a high school science project, Sheriff. Even if someone could get access, and had a reason to, they'd have to know exactly what they were doing to affect the process.”

Carter almost laughed—Nathan Stark was telling him he was an idiot, though not in so many words. It was just like old times. He sobered quickly, though. “I've seen some of the high school science experiments around here,” he pointed out. “Those things are dangerous in their own right. And it's easy to screw something up. You just have to change one number and it'll do the trick. A lot easier than figuring out how to do it right, believe me.”

“That's certainly true,” Allison confirmed. “But even so, why would someone do that? Not to mention, how would they get access? Once we realized the danger, Nathan and I both put the project on restricted access. Nobody else can tap into the files or the equipment without our direct approval.” Carter noticed the slight pause when she'd said Stark's name, but he didn't say anything. She was dealing with it. And now wasn't the time, anyway.

“Never mind who and how,” he said, though the way his gut was sinking he had the feeling he already had an answer, and it was one he really wasn't going to like. “We can deal with that later. The first question is, did anything undergo any last-minute changes? Equipment placement, energy output, whatever. Anything that could have affected the results.”

Zane and the two Russells were already tapping out commands. Carter, Allison, and Nathan hovered nearby, waiting impatiently.

“Holy—” Zane muttered finally. “You're right! Somebody did throw a monkey wrench! Look!” He called up a screen, which showed a long string of numbers. None of it made a single bit of sense to Carter. Allison was frowning at the screen—she was a genius herself, and she knew the project, but this really wasn't her field. Stark was scowling, however, and gestured to a line on his Dr. Russell's monitor.

“Exactly,” she agreed. “It's in the energy output,” she explained. “Someone altered the frequency.”

Allison shook her head. “I thought you did that,” she asked Zane, “when you realized the Thunderbird's contribution had altered Carter's initial charge, and distorted the later one as well?”

Zane nodded. “I did—that's right here.” He pulled up the activity log and indicated an entry. “But somebody else changed it right after I did.” He scanned back up. “And look, there was a change earlier, too—right after we reversed Carter's charge.”

“I feel like a walking collect call,” Carter muttered, which earned him a raised eyebrow from Allison and a chuckle from Zane. “Okay, so somebody has been deliberately interfering,” he said, just to be sure he understood correctly. “It's sabotage, not faulty math.”

“Definitely.” Zane was scanning the procedure again. “Whoever did this has a pretty good grasp of what we were doing, too. He or she knew all they had to do was modify that frequency, and only by a hair. That's why we didn't notice it before—it looked right.” He glanced at Carter. “How'd you know it wasn't?”

Carter shrugged. “Around here, it pays to be paranoid,” he explained. “Besides, if you and Stark and both Russells say the math is right, it's got to be right. Same with the equipment. Which leaves either operator error, random outside influences—or sabotage.”

“Okay, but who would want to sabotage this?” Russell asked. “If we fail, both our worlds, our entire realities, will be destroyed!”

“I can't tell you for certain who it was,” Zane offered, “but I can tell you one thing—they're standing in this room. These rooms.” He zoomed in on the activity log, and highlighted the entry showing the most recent change. The name field read “Director, GD.”

“What?” That was Allison and Stark simultaneously. But Carter felt his stomach clench even more.

“Why would either of us do something like that?” Stark argued. “That's ridiculous! We've both been working to get this fixed!”

“I know,” Zane agreed. “But you see what it says. Someone with director-level access reset the frequencies.”

“But I didn't, and neither did Nathan,” Allison countered.

“It had to be one of you,” Russell said, a little hesitantly. “No one else has director-level access.”

Carter hated to bring this up, but obviously it was important. “That's not entirely true,” he corrected. He said it softly, but everyone turned to look at him.

“Explain, Sheriff,” Stark demanded.

“You and Allison are the only two with director-level access,” Carter stated. “But that doesn't mean it's just the two of you.”

He saw the understanding wash across both Allison's and Stark's faces. And then Allison's phone rang.

“Hello?” she answered. “Elaine? What's wrong?” She listened for a second, and then suddenly sagged back against the console. “What? No, I—No, that's not possible.” The phone fell from her hands to the floor.

Carter took a step closer, but stopped when she glanced up at him. He'd never seen such horror in her eyes before. Or such fear. “Kevin,” she whispered.

“What happened?” Carter hurried to her side. “Allison, what about Kevin?”

“It was . . . that was his school,” she explained quickly, through sudden tears. “They wanted to know why . . . why I hadn't told them ahead of time that I'd be taking him out of school early today.”

Carter was already racing for the door.

“I'm coming with you!” Allison shouted, but her legs wobbled when she tried to stand.

“No, you stay here,” Carter replied over his shoulder as he reached the doorway. “They need you here. I'll take care of this.” He stopped and met her eyes. “I promise, Allison. I'll get him back.”

She stared at him for a second, and he could see her two sides, GD director and mom, warring within her. Then common sense won out, and she nodded. That was all the permission he needed to bolt.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” Carter cursed as he ran down the corridor, waving his arms to warn people out of his path. He should have seen this coming! The other Allison's shock at learning Kevin was still alive. The way she'd clung to that locket, and eyed his Allison with such longing, such hunger. What Jo had said, about Allison's saying strange things to her in the cafeteria. The fact that she'd been around when they'd magnetized him or whatever had happened, but conveniently wasn't here now. And the fact that her alterations—because she was also Allison Blake, which meant the computer would have accepted her DNA and granted her director-level access—had only pulled the worlds closer together.

Close enough to touch. Close enough to wander back and forth.

Close enough to step over and claim the one thing she lacked. The one thing she had been desperate to get back. The one thing that was here and not there.

Her son.

Carter couldn't even find it in him to hate her, or to blame her. Not completely. If it had been him and Zoe—if he had lost Zoe, and learned she was still alive in the other Eureka—what would he have done to get her back? What wouldn't he have done?

Anything. Anything at all. He would have done whatever it took to get her back.

Even risked two whole realities just to find her again.

He just hoped he could find Allison and Kevin now.

Before it was too late for all of them.

“I see it, I see it!” Jo jerked hard on the wheel, and her car leaped to one side, almost running up on the curb. But the truck in front of her continued on, its driver clearly not noticing that they had almost collided.

Which made sense, since it was only partially there.

They had been driving around town, desperately hoping to stumble across some clue as to the Thunderbird's whereabouts. Fargo was enjoying being out and about again, but Jo was getting more and more irritable. Which was probably for the best, because her nerves were wound wire-tight as a result. So when the air in front of them had wavered, a vague outline beginning to form and then rapidly fill in with color and depth, she had reacted instantly.