Chaos. Part 8

A faint smile crossed Mira's mouth. "You love him."

"I do! More than you know!"

"Just like that?"

"Don't you see? He's used this invention of yours to call out to Darsal and Karas. You said this will be seen by many,"

"By half the world. And you'll be lucky if they don't lock you up,"

"Without Darsal and Karas our mission is lost. If they're alive, I hope they will have seen us on this Net of yours. Take me to Johnis."

Mira didn't jump and run for the door as any weaker captive might have. She studied Silvie with what could be interpreted as empathy. Mira was a true romantic at heart, likely what inspired her performances on stage.

"You're in a predicament, honey."

he stood in the main library, eyes fixed on the large screen that replayed the events half a world away in Las Vegas, Nevada. So then, he was right. They weren't the quiet type, these chosen ones.

Desire sliced through her chest. It had begun, hadn't it? The fate of so many after so much time rested in what so few would do in the next few days.

A voice spoke behind her, soft but as definite as a hammer to the forehead. "Bring them to me."

She turned casually. He was dressed in the black cape.

"The books and Johnis, as planned."

"I know my role," she snapped. "Concern yourself with yours."

"Yet you're still here."

She strode toward the door.

"Remember, Mirandaaaaa a" He let her name fade in a breath. She stopped at the door but did not face him. "If you fail me now, you'll be dead before they are. I don't need you."

She resisted the temptation to explain to him how wrong he was. Useless. In the seven years they'd known each other, she'd never known him to make even the slightest miscalculation in his judgment. Except this one.

"G.o.dspeed," he said.

Oh, the irony of it all.

ohnis and Silvie sat in the same jail cell, waiting for the authorities to make some sense of the psychiatrists findings, though Silvie couldn't imagine that the results of such an absurd test could have any bearing on guilt or innocence.

The fact was, they were both guilty of all of it. They had stolen a Chevy. Fled the police. Driven recklessly. Caused a disturbance at the Excalibur. Kidnapped a world-famous pop star. And lived to tell.

This morning their faces had filled the Net screen nonstop. It was now afternoon, and already the attention had s.h.i.+fted to other interests, which was fine by them.

"The doctors a charlatan!" Johnis snapped, walking the length of their ten-by-ten cell. They'd been permitted to share the cell, as negotiated by Johnis as part of Silvie's surrender.

"Agreed." Silvie said.

"Boxes and triangles and a bah!" Johnis dismissed the examination with a flip of his wrist.

"So we just wait?"

"What else?"

Johnis had explained his reasoning. Silvie'd been right: he'd used the Net to reach Darsal and Karas. But neither had.

"For all we know, they're dead," Silvie said.

"Then so are we."

"You don't believe that. We've been in worse predicaments. In Teeleh's lair. In the Horde city."

"Did Teeleh have shotguns? Or flying cars? Do you see Roush or the Guard rus.h.i.+ng to our defense? We don't even have the books we came with. The authorities took everything!"

Their battle dress and the books had been confiscated, along with their knives. They now wore the white-and-brown striped slacks and smocks common among all prisoners here.

Silvie walked up to the bars and gripped them with both hands. "We have each other."

No response from Johnis. When she turned, she saw that he was nibbling on his fingernail, lost in thought.

"You forget so quickly?" Silvie demanded.

"What? Whata"no. Yes, we have each other. It'll have to do."

"Have to do? You threw yourself in a cage for your mother. You nearly gave up your life for Karas. But for me it'll just *have to do ?"

"No." He gripped his hair and paced. "That's not what I meant."

The poor boy was reeling; she had no business testing his love at such a time. But the urge to act on her emotions felt irresistible.

She closed her eyes and bit her lip. You're as frantic as he, Silvie. Control yourself. Then she felt his hand on her shoulder, pulling her close. Warmth filled her belly. He'd seen her disappointment and rushed to her side.

Johnis held her in his arms and spoke quickly into her ear. "I'm stronger and faster than I was before. They can't know, but there's a chance we may be superior to them." A few breaths in her ear, enough for her to realize that his embrace was for communication rather than consolation, "Have you noticed?"

She swallowed. "Yes, but not strong enough to take them on."

"But fast enough."

"You said yourself, we don't stand a chance!"

No response. His suggestion was one of raw desperation.

A bang on the bars startled them. "Okay, love birds, I've got good news for both of you."

The guard they called "Guns" grinned at them from beyond the cage. He slapped his palm with a black stick. "The Kook says you two are not. Kooks, that is. You're as sane as I am, which, to be perfectly honest with you, ain't saying a lot."

He twitched, and nearby another guard chuckled.

"Now the bad news. Seeing as you aren't headed to the fruit form right quick, they're going to s.h.i.+p you down to the main jail, where they send the hard cases." His twisted grin said it all. "If I was you, I'd think twice about this *we're from another world' routine, *we got no money, no kin, no guilt' junk, and start making sense."

"Back off, Guns." The detective who'd struck the deal with Johnis spoke from down the halla"Cramsey. "Open it up."

Guns sprang the latch, pulled the gate wide. Cramsey stepped up and stared at them. "Seems you have attracted attention from a friend in high places. Mira has suddenly decided to drop all kidnapping charges, and the DA has inexplicably dropped the others, paid off, if you ask me. They've made arrangements to release you. But if I see your face again, it wont go easy, you hear? And drop the stupid act. It never works." Then to someone down the hall, "They're all yours."

A woman walked into view, and Silvie felt her muscles tense. She was slightly older, perhaps in her early twenties, though she carried herself like someone who'd been around much longer.

Short, well formed, dressed in the blue trousers so many here wore, wearing shoes with high heels, which was also customary in this world, no matter how crippling they seemed. Her blouse was black; she wore a silver necklace with a large onyx pendent in the shape of a circle. Long, brown hair. Green eyes staring at them in wonder. Stern. Silvie knew this woman. She couldn't place her name, but they'd met.

For a moment neither spoke. Then the woman dipped her head enough to acknowledge a bond. "h.e.l.lo, Silvie." Beat. "It's been a long time."

Johnis took a step forward. "Karas?"

"h.e.l.lo, Johnis."

s soon as Johnis said it, Silvie knew he was right. This was either Karas or her twin sister, ten years older! "What a how?"

"Not here," the woman said. "I have transportation waiting." Then to Cramsey, a bite in her voice, "Bring them!" "Of course, Ms. Longford."

Silvie exchanged a wide-eyed glance with Johnis and followed. The woman walked with clean steps, elegant despite the tall shoes, as those with privilege and authority walked.

"We came through after she did," Johnis mumbled to himself. "So long?"

Karas looked over her shoulder. "Not now."

They followed her through the station, out into the open, to a long, black car that waited at the curb. An attendant opened the door for them.

"Climb in. After you."

Silvie and Johnis slid into a richly upholstered chamber with two feeing leather benches, Karas took the seat opposite them and waited for the attendant to close the door.

Silence engulfed them. Karas stared for a long time, still not smiling, and for a moment Silvie felt more alarm than relief. Then the girl's eyes flooded with tears that spilled down her cheeks. She lowered her head into one hand and sobbed quietly.

The car began to move.

"Is it really you?" Johnis asked.

Karas lifted her face and beamed through her tears. "Yes, it's me, you sc.r.a.pper!" She fell forward on her knees and threw her arms around their necks, pulling them into an embrace that threatened to choke them.

"You have no idea how long I've waited for this day! Elyon, dear Elyon, I knew it would come!"

The last of Silvie's lingering doubts fell like loosed chains. Karas slid back on the leather sear and wiped her cheek with her fingers. "I could hardly believe my eyes when I played the tape last night. I'm sorry; I would have come sooner, but I was at a concert in Amsterdam, How long have you been here?"

Johnis still looked like he'd been kicked by a mule. "Two days?"

"Two days!" Karas cried, then cackled with laughter. "So, then, you think the worlds turned inside out."

Johnis swallowed. "It has."

"What do you know? You've seen the lights, the cars? Well, obviously the carsa"you're riding in one. And you were both on the Net. A bit overwhelming, I'm sure."

"I've mastered the Chevy," Johnis said.

She smiled wide. "So I heard." She began to cry again. "I knew I hadn't lost my mind. For ten years I've had to wonder if it really was all a dream. The forests, the Horde, bathing in the lakes. All of it! But it's true, isn't it?"

"True?" Silvie looked out the window, "The question is, is this true?" She turned back to Karas. "Are you true? I mean, you're real, of course, but a look at you!"

"You're a woman," Johnis said. There was more than a hint of wonder in his voice, and Silvie wasn't sure she wanted to share his enthusiasm. She wasn't just a woman; she was a beautiful woman of significant wealth and influence.

"How old are you?" she asked.

"Twenty-one. But I tell them ail I'm twenty-foura"it suits my place as an entertainment manager in this world. They have a hard enough time believing that someone in her midtwenties could have accomplished what I have. If they knew how young I really was, they'd dig even deeper than they do."

"Younger?" Johnis said. "You look old enough."

"There's so much to cover," Karas said, smiling through her tears. "I've hoped for this day for as long as I can remember. Nothing else matters. I've done it all hoping that one day I would find you. I just had no idea you would both be so a young still."

"We're sixteen," Silvie said. "Is that so young?"

"No. Although in the United States, sixteen isn't the age of marrying and waging war." She stopped, clearly overwhelmed. "It's so a refres.h.i.+ng to talk to someone besides my therapist about Other Earth. Did you know that Thomas Hunter was once a great hero here?"

"So, he was here?" Johnis asked in amazement. "This is the place from his dreams?"

"From what I can tell, Other Eartha"that's what I call ita"is the far future of Earth. At some point in the future here, this Earth is destroyed and everything starts over. Thomas Hunter found a way from this reality into that future."

"Then a can we?"

"I don't know. Not with only one book. Maybe with all four."

Karas reached into a box on the seat beside her. She carefully lifted out the brown book Johnis had used and then the green one that had brought Silvie through.

"I have the black one," Karas said, brus.h.i.+ng her fingers over the covers as if they held the essence of her very lifea"which they might well.

"And Darsal?" Johnis asked.

She lifted her eyes. "I don't know."

"Then we have to find her,"

Once again, tears filled Karas's eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to be such a sap. So much has transpired in these last ten years. It's so good to see you."

It occurred to Silvie that, for her and Johnis, only two days had pa.s.sed since they'd left their world to find themselves here, in the Histories. But Karas had survived here, in this h.e.l.l, for more than ten years. She wouldn't have guessed such a thing was possible, especially for a ten-year-old. The poor girl had suffered enormously.

"So much has happened." Karas looked at the two Books of History on her lap. "I hardly know where to start."

"Tell us everything," Johnis said.

"In good time, my friend. In good time." The car slowed, then stopped. "We're here."