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  “So you told them all a lie.”

  “Coming here is a one-way ticket.”

  “I’m not supposed to be here.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I can’t let you expose us.” Regret was clear in his voice.

  “You may be a triplet, but you’re not our brother.” With that, Denefe left the conversation and blocked him from her mind. It was childish, she knew, but she just couldn’t help herself. She actually hated him. How could someone so genetically close to her be such a liar?

  She felt miserable all over. There she was, trapped in the past with a brother who wasn’t. She couldn’t find her way home, except through a locked passage that she may or may not be able to access. Her sister might as well be on another planet for all the closeness they could share with someone spying on them, not to mention the danger stalking them all. Her boyfriend wanted to be with her forever, but only if it was on his terms. Her parents were totally different than what she’d been told.

  That about summed up everything. Sputtering her lips, she paced her floor and then bolted out her door for the peace of exercise.

  By the time she returned to her room, a comm lay on her bed with the note, It’s an old one, but it still works. Put it to good use. J.

  Denefe smiled. She intended to put it to very good use. She turned it on and ran through its programs and operating system. It wasn’t just old. It was a dinosaur. As much as she hated speaking to Ardense again at the moment, she should alert Mik not to make the program too difficult.

  “Ardense.”

  “What do you need, Denefe?”

  “Please tell Mik that the comm I have is a relic.” She actually hoped Torenz listened at that moment. Let him wonder what she was doing.

  “Got it,” he began. “Denefe, I—”

  “Gotta go. Bye!” She hoped he would just leave. Even though she could block him from her mind, some small part of her didn’t want to draw that final line. Didn’t want to force the relationship to be over.

  After a moment, his voice came again. “Okay, then. Love you. Bye.”

  When he’d gone, longing filled her just to hear his voice again. She wanted to be home and feel his breath on her hair while he held her the way only he did. Why did her relationships always come to an end?

  Tears suddenly overwhelmed her. She twisted on the bed and burrowed her face into her pillow, letting the sobs come. She hated this place!

  The emotional drainage and her sleepless night took their toll on her and soon she found herself fighting to keep her eyes open. After the fifth time of jerking herself awake, she finally gave in and tucked herself under the blankets, cradling the comm in both hands, close to her chest. Her last thought was of Kaleen and the expression on Hallen’s face when the two of them would eventually expose him and this whole mess to the world.

  Chapter 38

  Shut out

  Torenz snarled in frustration. He jumped to his feet, sending dust bunnies scuttling across the floor. He stared into the depths of the violet wormhole, ignoring the painful tingles all across his skin and the harsh ozone smell. “What do you mean it isn’t my concern?”

  The telepath from the future said, “Exactly what I said. The troubles your sisters are causing and our plans of action are none of your business. Your job is to ride herd on Denefe. When you need to sleep, another telepath will take over with her. That’s the extent of your worries. Do you understand?”

  “Perfectly!” Torenz gritted his teeth and stormed away from the whirling anomaly, out of his office, and through his father’s old lab, pressing the laser remote for the wall. Why wouldn’t his boss, Bade Hallen, want his help? He was the strongest telepath they had, bar none, even stronger than Denefe.

  It wasn’t until he crossed the threshold of the wall and it reappeared, hiding the lab, that he realized the answer—because Denefe was his sister.

  The other telepaths spied on him too.

  Chapter 39

  Puppy

  Kaleen stared at the message on the comm. Black letters on a pale background. She’d portioned Mik’s instructions to different members of Denefe’s team, asking them to insert innocuous words in place of the mathematical elements.

  She’d used the physical layout of Brazil Base as the frame reference for the equations, thereby lessening the danger of telepaths learning their mission. The result was a story such as she might tell her sister while just chatting. The message was too long for their normal code. All she had to do was read directly from the comm screen. True, it was daytime, but the spies could be listening any time.

  She looked at Ardense, who stood at a large window overlooking the rainforest outside their building. After a moment, he turned and, catching her eye, nodded.

  Stepping closer to the silver rift and hoping any listening spies wouldn’t understand the conversation, Kaleen reviewed the words written on the comm again. It wasn’t a code or ruse they’d ever used, but she felt confident Denefe would understand the hidden message. There was only one thing in the world her twin was allergic to.

  “Denefe, are you there? Guess what, I got a puppy on my way to Brazil Base. The moment I put it down, it ran all the way to the cafeteria…”

  Chapter 40

  The rift

  In the early pre-dawn hours of Denefe’s ninth day at Definitive Headquarters, and a full day after she received the code from Kaleen, she stood in front of the plain lab wall, holding her comm. The way home could lay behind there.

  She was giddy from exhaustion and the emotional overload, still, from Ardense. Twice, while she’d been entering the initial code, she’d had to erase what she’d typed and begin again, without thinking on what she was doing. Not to mention the many breaks and confusions she’d thrown in for telepathic listeners. Finally, the program had come to life on the small screen. Now she was about to test it on the wall.

  She typed in the activation code, pointed the comm, and pushed her thumb onto the execute button.

  Nothing happened.

  She snapped closed the comm and then flicked it back on again. The seconds clicked by painfully slow. Torenz was still asleep, but he was restless and could wake up. The comm whirred to life, and she once again typed in the activation code.

  Stepping closer, she pressed the execute button and held the comm’s face toward the wall. Still nothing. Slowly, she walked forward, still holding the comm aloft. Four feet away, the wall suddenly dissipated.

  “Alakazam,” Denefe whispered and stepped through. Dim lights came up immediately. Rift spiders increased ten-fold, swarming across her skin. Turning behind her, she waved her magic comm and the wall reappeared. She smiled.

  “Take that, Torenz!”

  Turning around again, she surveyed the room. This had been her father’s lab. It looked like the one she’d just left. Same tables, same cabinets, same sink, but it differed with the sheer ton of dust and lack of any equipment. The place was devoid of any personality that suggested her father too. It almost disappointed her, but then, there was a door on the back wall. The closer she came to it, the quicker the rift spiders crawled across her skin.

  The door opened into a short bay, complete with a skimmer parked near a large utility door at the far end. There was a passageway to the right, leading to what the rift spiders told her was the correct direction. She followed that until she came to another door.

  Opening it, Denefe found herself facing a small metal desk and chair. Next to it was a tall, empty bookcase. Footsteps tracked in the dust back and forth and across the room. On the left wall was the wormhole. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it was massive, much bigger than any she’d ever seen, and brilliant violet, like the sparks had been in the Brazil Base facility. That wasn’t good.

  Jileah had said it had splintered, shooting off sidewinders everywhere. This was the reason for all the rogue wormholes that ripped across the planet, destroying property and killing people like Starry. Something had to b
e done about it, but first, she had to test if it really was one-way.

  Seeing nothing to throw, she backtracked to the lab, but found nothing there either. She searched the bay. The giant door at the end tempted her. Was it the way out? The skimmer suggested so. It would be an exploration for another night, if need be. Denefe continued her search. Inside the small craft, she found a small piece of clotted sand. It would have to do.

  She returned to the giant anomaly, took a deep breath, and chucked the clod.

  It ricocheted violently off the surface of the rift amidst violet sparks, whizzing so close past Denefe’s head she was powdered with dust when it embedded in the wall behind her. It was very one-way. No exit.

  The rift spiders intensified, becoming painful bites. What was coming next couldn’t be good.

  Denefe lunged out the door, glancing behind her, just as a writhing violet vortex shot out and swept the room, scoring across the floor. It disappeared.

  She leaned against the doorjamb, staring into the room, her limbs shaking as if they remembered the prior journey on their own. If she’d been caught in that, who knew where she would have landed, if she survived.

  The original rift had turned a darker, royal purple with streaks of blue in it. She’d damaged it further with one test. What damage had she done to the planet?

  Dejected, she returned to the bay and what lay beyond it.

  Other than being dusty, the skimmer seemed to be in good working order. She powered it up and gave it a quick run around the bay. The fuel cells were full and the steering moved with easy motion. Someone took care of it.

  She could do it. Just run away. Carefully, Denefe turned it off and regarded it. The skimmers didn’t have a lot of distance to them. Kaleen’s had reached its limit during the trip to her Siberian camp.

  Denefe had no idea the distance to the nearest settlement, nor did she know which direction. She could end up stranded with the skimmer. There would be no way to rescue her this time. She’d die from exposure. No. Once was painful enough. She needed a plan and a few supplies

  Denefe stepped away from the skimmer before temptation overran her and she bolted with it, heedless of the consequences. Besides, it was nearly morning. There wasn’t much time before people would wake up and find her.

  She turned to leave, but spotted a DNA lock hidden in the recesses of the handle holding the giant door shut. She needed to return to her room right away, but still she stooped and rubbed her hands in the dust. She’d beaten those kinds of locks before. She just had to confuse it enough. It helped that her DNA was similar to Torenz’s. It should be a snap.

  Grinning, she pressed her filthy thumb against the pad on the lock. The lock flashed a blue light—not approved. Wiggling her thumb a few seconds brought the desired result. The lock turned green and the door opened, exposing a long, curving hallway with muted light at the end. Chill night air gusted into the bay, carrying with it the smells of sand and desert creatures. This was definitely the way out. To be explored another time. For now, she had to get back to her quarters before people started roaming the halls.

  Chapter 41

  Trapped

  Denefe listened with her ear pressed against the coded wall. Just when she decided the room outside was clear and she could take down the partition, she heard a man softly mutter.

  Her luck had run out. Someone was in the lab on the other side.

  What now? She couldn’t stay locked up all day. Jileah most likely would come looking for her. Not to mention Torenz. Sooner or later, she would be missed.

  She leaned against the flat gray of the wall, keeping her ear firmly pressed to it. Time ticked by slowly. Twice she was convinced the scientist had left his lab, only to be startled by some noise of his the moment before she pressed the execute button. After the second time, she slumped to the floor, her head against the wall. It was getting to be a long wait. The man had the constitution of a camel. It seemed he didn’t need a break to eat or use the facilities.

  Then she heard Torenz.

  He and the scientist engaged in an animated conversation, almost as if they argued. Torenz sounded as if he gave orders, and the scientist didn’t like them. The voices traveled back and forth throughout the lab, and Denefe pictured the scientist moving around, still working, trying to avoid her brother while Torenz followed him around the lab.

  At one point, their voices sounded right on the other side of the wall and she jerked back. Torenz said, “I don’t care what it costs you professionally. You’re never leaving here, so getting papers published is moot for you. You won’t be able to lecture on them, anyway. If you continue to stonewall us, any advancements you hope to make will disappear under your name and reappear under someone else’s. Do you understand?”

  “You can’t do that.” The scientist sounded sullen.

  “We can and will, buddy. So get off your high horse and get moving on our project.” The voices moved off and drifted to a mumble. The scientist sounded contrite and subdued. Torenz became soothing and giving and then disappeared altogether.

  Silence once again fell on the lab, with the exception of the occasional mumble.

  At last, she heard the scientist yawn long and loud. His muffled footsteps left the lab. Like a shot, Denefe was on her feet, pressing the execute button. The wall evaporated, she stepped through, and rematerialized the wall behind her. At the door, she paused and checked for sounds before bolting into the hallway. If she went directly back to her quarters, she was sure to be caught. Torenz was somewhere close, but there was nothing else that way but the labs.

  Where to go?

  At the first junction, she turned to the right, keeping to the outskirts of the compound. Eventually, she’d come to someplace that was conceivable she’d visited. What she was looking for came in two more junctions—the gardens. Denefe turned into them.

  Leaves scattered the paths. She picked up a few, crushed them, and sprinkled them onto a bench. She sat on them, wiggling a bit to get the flecks imbedded into the seat of her pants. On her comm, she wrote a few lines of drivel about home and lonely love.

  All that done, Denefe stood again and walked slowly toward her quarters. How could she be related, a triplet no less, to such a cold man as Torenz? What were he and Hallen doing? Who else was involved? She was so preoccupied in her thoughts she didn’t see Torenz until he appeared right in front of her.

  “What I’m up to is none of your business. Neither are my associates.” He smirked at her start. “Where have you been?”

  “Writing in the garden.” She lifted her comm by way of explanation.

  “Writing, huh? What kind of thing?” He took her comm and read what she’d tossed onto it. “Not bad. I can’t write to save my soul.”

  “It’s poor writing. I don’t much care for it, but it’s kinda how I feel right now.” She tried her best disarming smile.

  He turned to walk with her. “So, where did you get the idea I was up to something?”

  “Aren’t you?”

  He pursed his lips and then asked again.

  Instead of answering, she said, “Torenz, I’m trying really hard to ignore the fact that you read my thoughts uninvited again, even after your promises to the contrary. I’m also trying to forget that you lie to me whenever you see fit. You avoid me most of the time. When we do get together, we seem to do nothing but argue. You’re my brother, and I’m trying to remember that. Do you think you can too?”

  He shrugged. “Sure, but I need you to answer my question.”

  Continuing her walk, Denefe passed him while she weighed her options. She couldn’t really tell him the truth. There were people in the future who could be hurt. She said, “Didn’t you hear what I just said? You lie to me, to everyone, and you seem to spend great amounts of time alone. Doesn’t that sound suspicious to you?”

  Falling in beside her, he asked. “The Hallen connection?”

  “Who else could it be? He’s the only one who’s
military.” She tried her best to make it sound as if it were common knowledge. A dubious expression crossed his face and then disappeared, but he didn’t deny it.

  She continued, “I’m serious, though, about what I said. We’re brother and sister. We need to stop bickering and start acting like we’re important to each other, because I think we are. I know you’re important to me and I want to get to know you better.” It surprised her that she meant it.

  “Okay, but I still can’t let you leave here.”

  “Fair enough. I still can’t let you keep me here. We’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that point.”

  He smiled. “We can do that. Do you know you have leaves all over you?”

  Chapter 42

  Love by any other name

  Denefe spent the morning with Torenz. He trailed her to breakfast and then exercised with her and Jileah. Somehow, the three of them managed to turn it into a competition until Denefe had to beg off because of the remaining weakness in her limbs and belly. In truth, she felt fine, worn out like an old rag, but fine. She just really needed time to adjust to having a brother. When she wasn’t suspicious of him, she found she actually liked him.

  He seemed intent on staying with her, so she let him walk her to her quarters.

  “We should do this again tomorrow,” he said. “I had a great time.”

  “Or we could go bowling. Or go to a baseball game. Or even play in a baseball game. Oh, wait. We can’t. That’s right.”

  He frowned, white brows underscoring the harsh creases in his forehead. “Do you have to spoil it?”

  “Torenz, I realize you grew up here, so you may not be aware, but there’s a whole world out there and it’s filled with things to do. Things for you to explore just because you can.”

  His gaze roamed and then he focused back on her. “Maybe tomorrow you’ll be in a better mood.” He pivoted on his heel and walked away.