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  She stopped pretending to tie her shoe and rested her elbow on her knee, staring at the house. Did they ever think about her? Or had they just moved on with their lives without looking back, as she had? Perhaps that was a characteristic she’d inherited from them. Perhaps she had some kind of genetic mutation that didn’t allow her to dwell on what had already happened—she could only focus on the present and the future. Perhaps. Yet here she was, kneeling in the middle of the sidewalk and staring at her childhood home like an idiot, wondering whether her parents had been relieved when she’d left.

  Passerina was pretty sure she’d never see this house again. And if her parents were still alive, she’d probably never see them again either. She was determined to make a new life for herself as a bridger at SafeTrek. In Missouri. There wouldn’t be any reason to come back. She’d complete her training and then spend the next twenty years bridging to alternate worlds, making more money than most people ever dreamed of earning. She’d sock away her earnings and retire rich at the age of forty-five. In a place that had green grass instead of rocks and sand. Maybe a place where it snowed now and then, or where she could see the ocean through her window. And she would only fight for enjoyment, not because she had to. Now that was something to look forward to. And looking forward was all she knew how to do.

  She finally got to her feet. As she stood up, she saw something move beyond the kitchen window. Was it a person? Was someone standing at the old rust-stained kitchen sink, where she had washed dishes by hand for a dollar per load because her parents had refused to buy a dishwasher?

  Passerina suddenly felt exposed, vulnerable. She wavered, again thinking about approaching the house. But it was getting late. She had to be at the airport in the morning. She’d never flown before, so she assumed it would take extra time to figure things out.

  She turned back the way she’d come and started walking away. House after house, row after row, mile after mile. With any luck, she’d never have to look at another pastel ranch house again.

  5

  Transit

  For the past two years, Passerina had been splitting the rent on a crappy apartment with three roommates. But she didn’t much like any of them and didn’t bother to wake them before heading to the airport. She’d already told them SafeTrek would be paying her share of the rent for the next few months in case she washed out of the training program and had to return home. But she had no intention of washing out. She grabbed her backpack, which was already packed with most of the clothes she owned, slipped out quietly, and walked to the bus stop at 7th and Townley. Armando Doyle had actually given her a hundred-dollar bill to pay for a cab to the airport, but she’d decided to buy a four-dollar bus pass instead and pocket the rest. Easy money.

  After a forty-minute bus ride, she entered Terminal 4 at the Sky Harbor Airport, supposedly where Southwest Airlines was located. Scottie was waiting for her just inside the automated sliding doors. He had taken a cab, having made it clear he intended never again to use public transportation now that he had a real job.

  “I’ve got it figured out, Passie!” he said, grinning. “All we need to do is pick up our tickets over there.” He pointed to a zigzagging line of over a hundred people, leading to a row of smiling, mannequin-like airport workers, each stationed in front of a computer screen.

  Normally when Scottie said something like, “I’ve got it figured out,” Passerina knew to be suspicious. But she was already feeling overwhelmed by the sheer size of the airport and its seemingly chaotic procedures, so she took a deep breath and gestured for him to lead the way.

  With the help of one of the mannequin ladies, this one wearing purple lipstick, they managed to work their way through screen after screen of crap on a touch-activated computer. As Doyle had promised, their tickets had already been purchased, and in spite of the fact that Passerina had no driver’s license or any other ID besides her social security number, the machine finally spit out some cards that Mannequin Lady called boarding passes. She asked them whether they had any bags other than their backpacks—they didn’t—and then she pointed them in the direction of Gate 41 and smiled her mannequin smile.

  As they walked away, Scottie blew out a puff of air and said, “I think I’m allergic to fake people.”

  She elbowed him. “I think you’re too critical of everyone.”

  “I prefer to think of myself as a teller of uncomfortable truths.”

  “Well, you’re about to start a job where you work with paying clients. You might even be expected to be nice to them.”

  He shrugged. “Crossland warned us the job wasn’t going to be easy.”

  She walked in silence for a few moments, thinking. Finally, she said, “Do you really think we’ll have to fight off animals? With our bare hands?”

  He waved his pointer finger in the air, correcting her. “You mean nonhuman animals.” He then became more serious, apparently considering her question. “Alternate versions of Earth. Nonhuman animals. Quarantine periods after every excursion. What the hell are we getting ourselves into, Passie?”

  The same question had been on her mind since the moment she’d accepted the job. But whatever lay ahead had to be better than the life she was leaving behind.

  Before they could get to Gate 41, they had to go through a stupid security check procedure. Security guards scanned their backpacks, and then Passerina had to remove four items from her pack and give them up—a water bottle, a full bottle of shampoo, and two knives. One of the knives, her favorite, was the one Eddy Chastain had used to stab her when she was sixteen. Several of her friends had seen it happen, and then they had beaten the living shit out of Eddy. Later, after Passerina had snuck out of the hospital, her friends had given her the knife. So now she was pissed about being told to give it up. But the guards were starting to act like they wanted to arrest her, so she relented. How was she supposed to have known knives weren’t allowed on planes? While laughing at her expense, Scottie reminded her that if she’d had a phone, or a TV, or just about anything else from the 21st century, she would have known this.

  Following the security fiasco, she and Scottie made their way to Gate 41, where they waited for over an hour. Finally, people started lining up, so they got in line and waited their turn to board, only to find out it wasn’t their goddamn turn to get in line. When they finally boarded the plane, they found that the seats were smaller than those on a Valley Metro bus. Passerina had no idea how much SafeTrek had paid for the plane tickets, but it was probably more than these seats were worth.

  “So I have this theory,” Scottie said once they were seated. “Bridging ain’t even real. I mean, it can’t be, right? And these SafeTrek people, they just created this thing that looks high-tech, and they tell people it will send them to an alternate universe. Sounds cool, right? I mean, who wouldn’t want to do that? They charge a buttload of money for them to come and get inside this box. Bridgers get in the box with them. You know, to protect them. Then gas gets pumped into the box—puts them to sleep. But not the bridgers because they hold their breath until the clients pass out. The bridgers get out of the box, and then the box gets moved, to somewhere out in the desert, or into a jungle, or some other weird kind of place. The bridgers wake the clients up. They get out of the box, spend thirty-six hours looking at monkeys and snakes and shit, and then the bridgers tell them to get back in the box. They go to sleep, get hauled back to SafeTrek, wake up, and eagerly pay for the privilege.”

  Passerina had been half-listening while struggling to stuff her pack under the seat in front of her as she’d been told to do. Finally, she glanced at him. “I’m sorry, I tuned out when you said you had a theory.”

  “Screw you, Passie, I’m serious. You don’t really think they can bridge people to alternate universes, do you?”

  She fumbled with her seatbelt until she got it snapped together. “Why would they need fighters like us if they’re just taking people out in the desert?”

  “They gotta make it look real, don
’t they? They gotta make the scientists think they’re really in danger.”

  “I think scientists who study monkeys and snakes would probably know that the monkeys and snakes were from their own world.” She sighed. “Look, I don’t know how bridging works, or if it even works at all. I’m not sure yet what I think of Reed Crossland, but I do think we can trust Armando Doyle. I don’t think he’s a swindler or a liar. And if this job pays like they say it does, I don’t even care whether bridging is real or not.”

  The plane jerked into motion, and Scottie turned away from Passerina to watch out the window. She had made him take the window seat because she didn’t want to see the ground drop out from beneath the plane. She stared at a scar on her right hand between the thumb and index finger for several minutes as the plane slowly made its way toward the runway. She’d gotten the scar from a fight with a girl who had thought Passerina was making moves on her boyfriend. The girl’s name was Maritza or something like that. Passerina had hit her so hard that her thumb had pushed all the way into Maritza’s mouth. But then the girl had bitten down and refused to let go. Passerina’d had to really mess up the girl’s face to get her to open her mouth. The funny thing was, Passerina had never even met the girl’s boyfriend.

  The plane accelerated, pressing her into the seat. The sensation was thrilling, and she liked how the jet’s engines roared with immense power. She changed her mind about looking out the window and leaned over Scottie to watch the ground as it zipped past and then dropped away.

  After a minute or so, Scottie turned to look at her, his face inches away. “You want to sit on my lap?”

  Passerina pulled back. “Don’t be a creep, old man.”

  6

  SafeTrek

  A SafeTrek employee was waiting for them when they stepped off the plane in Springfield, Missouri. He was a young guy with slicked-back hair, dressed in an expensive-looking suit. He was holding up a card with Passerina’s and Scottie’s names on it. Next to their names on the card was an odd black and gold triangle.

  The guy introduced himself as Leland Rigg and then said, “Well, you two were certainly easy to pick out in this crowd.”

  Passerina and Scottie exchanged a glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Scottie.

  The guy’s eyes widened a little. “Um… nothing. Just that you look like the type of folks SafeTrek has been recruiting to be bridgers. And I already knew that one of you was a woman.”

  “Shoot, we don’t look any different than your average married couple,” Scottie said, putting an arm around Passerina’s shoulder.

  Passerina shoved him off. “Don’t make me put you on the ground.” She turned to Leland. “What he meant to say was that we don’t look any different than your average father and daughter.”

  Leland forced a nervous smile. “Okay, well… baggage claim is this way.”

  “No need,” Scottie said. “Everything we own is in these two packs. Lead the way to our ride, my man.”

  Minutes later they were in a white passenger van with the same black and gold triangle printed on the side, heading east out of Springfield. Leland was driving, and Passerina and Scottie were sitting in the first row of seats behind him, with a cooler of water and soft drinks at their feet.

  “What’s the deal with the triangle symbol?” Passerina asked.

  Leland glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “It’s an infinity triangle, sometimes called a Penrose triangle. It’s SafeTrek’s logo. You know, because there are infinite possible worlds you can bridge to. A few months from now, pretty much everyone will recognize the logo. And the name SafeTrek.”

  “How do you figure?” Scottie asked.

  Leland glanced in the mirror again. “We’re the first bridging center. Others will be built before long, but we’re the first. Most people still don’t believe bridging is even possible. We’re going to show the world that it is.”

  “Scottie here is one of those people,” Passerina said. “He doesn’t believe it’s real.” Scottie glared at her, but she kept her eyes forward and grinned.

  Leland let out a laugh. “And you still took the job?”

  “Sounded good at the time,” Scottie mumbled.

  Leland laughed again. “Well, we’ve got a team bridging back from an excursion tonight. Mr. Doyle wants all the new bridgers to be there. I think after tonight, you’ll believe it’s real.”

  Finally, after over two hours of driving, they turned onto a narrow road surrounded on either side by endless green forest. Passerina had never seen so much green in her life.

  “This is like a jungle,” she said. “I’m used to sand and rocks. This place is beautiful.”

  “Not to me it isn’t,” Leland said. “Especially this time of year. Chiggers, ticks, and mosquitoes, not to mention poison ivy. And you guys are going to be training out in that mess.” He gave an exaggerated shudder.

  Apparently nobody at SafeTrek was capable of giving a decent pep talk.

  The van passed through an open gate with an underwhelming sign beside it that simply said Welcome to SafeTrek.

  As if he sensed what Passerina was thinking, Leland said, “Mr. Doyle had commissioned a more impressive entrance. It was awesome, kind of like the Jurassic Park gate. But he was encouraged to remove it, and for that reason. You know, because it made the place look like a tourist attraction instead of a scientific research center. But some of us here at SafeTrek believe that’s exactly what we’ll be before long—a place for tourists. So I’m betting Mr. Doyle will eventually get to pull that gate out of storage and put it back up.”

  “Why do you think this will become a tourist attraction?” Passerina asked.

  Leland eyed her in the mirror for a moment. “I’m not sure how much I should say. You’ll find out soon, anyway. For now, I’ll just say bridging isn’t exactly conducive to scientific research.”

  After they’d passed through the gate, the road curved several times through dense forest, and then after a quarter mile or so, the forest opened into a wide, park-like setting, and a large, blocky structure came into view.

  “Welcome to your new home!” Leland said with genuine enthusiasm.

  Passerina stared at the building. It had no windows that she could see.

  “Huh,” Scottie huffed. “I expected something a little more—you know—modern-looking. That thing looks like a concrete cube.”

  Leland pulled up beside two other identical white vans and stopped. “Maybe so, but it’s built to withstand just about anything. Earthquakes, tornadoes, anything short of a direct hit from a nuke, probably. See, a portion of the funding for this place came from the federal government—probably in case bridging turns out to have some kind of military value. And the feds insisted that the structure be almost indestructible. Any excuse to increase the cost, right?”

  The three of them got out of the van, and Passerina was surprised at how warm and humid the air was. She had assumed Missouri would be much cooler than Phoenix had been.

  Leland pointed to a gravel road winding its way farther into the forest. “Down that way is more parking, maintenance and storage buildings, and the like. But you’ll be doing most of your training in the main building and the training field around back. SafeTrek owns over four hundred acres of the surrounding land—all of it forest like this.” He seemed to consider this for a moment, and then he shuddered again.

  After Leland punched in a security code, Scottie and Passerina followed him into the main building through a pair of doors made of glass at least two inches thick. The inside of the building was as stark and minimalist as the outside. They passed through a wide room with concrete walls painted white. Apparently this was the lobby, although the room was bare except for a few trees growing in barrel-sized pots. Set into each of the three interior walls was an opening to a hallway, each with a pair of thick metal doors that were standing open. Not a soul was in sight, but Passerina could hear voices coming from down the hallway to the right.

  “Sounds li
ke we made it in time for lunch,” Leland said with a smile. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.” He led them down the hallway toward the voices. After a quick restroom stop, they continued until they came to an open door to a cafeteria filled with chattering people.

  As they entered, Armando Doyle rose from one of the tables and approached. As before, he was wearing a bowtie and a white, button-down shirt. “Oh, happy day!” he exclaimed. Apparently this was his catchphrase. “You two didn’t change your minds. How wonderful.”

  Passerina realized the other thirty or so people in the cafeteria had fallen silent. A few of them were wearing white lab coats, but most were in shorts and polo shirts embroidered with the SafeTrek triangle on the left side of the chest. Passerina was relieved to see that they weren’t all in fancy suits like Leland was.

  One table stood out from the others. The people at the table were wearing the same shorts and polo shirts as the rest of the crowd, but they were all men, and they all had the unmistakable look of fighters—square, stern faces and a self-assured posture. Reed Crossland was with them, and since there were ten guys at the table, and since there were seven other trainees besides her and Scottie, she assumed two of the others were additional trainers. In fact, she had a good idea which two they were—the two guys with shaved scalps and no eyebrows.

  Passerina and Scottie exchanged a few idiotic pleasantries with Doyle, and then Leland left them and went to fill a plate with food. Doyle asked if they wanted to put their things away and freshen up before eating. They didn’t, so he pointed them toward the counter of food and told them they could sit wherever they wanted.

  The food looked good—much better than what Passerina was used to eating. To save money and keep her body healthy, she had narrowed her diet to fruits, vegetables, and cheap sources of protein such as peanut butter, canned tuna, and lentils. Before her now was a buffet filled with a confusing variety of salad choices, numerous rice and noodle dishes, and several kinds of meat, including her favorite occasional splurge, chicken breasts.