When Jeff had phoned her from out of the blue the day before, it had almost seemed like hearing from a ghost. To her surprise, the first emotion she’d felt was anger that he had left her in the dark for so long without anything like a real explanation. He’d then told her that he was with Mitchell Stone, and asked her to join them both in Arizona.
Arizona? She had been sitting in her kitchen when she received the call, her knuckles white where they gripped the table. ‘Why Arizona?’
Jeff’s voice had wavered slightly as he replied. ‘I’d rather explain in person.’
She caught sight of her own face reflected in the kitchen window, eyes wide and angry. ‘Why not just tell me now?’
‘It’s the kind of thing you really have to hear face-to-face, Olivia.’
She swallowed hard. ‘Does this have anything to do with those things growing in the ocean?’
‘Well, yeah, as a matter of fact,’ he replied, a note of surprise in his voice. ‘It has a lot to do with them. You’ll be coming, right?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Jesus, Olivia.’ Jeff’s tone was quietly persistent. ‘You need to come. I didn’t pick on Arizona for the hell of it. Our lives are in danger and I’m trying to keep us both alive. Can you leave right away?’
‘But why Arizona?’
‘Remember the Roses?’
She thought for a moment. ‘You mean Lester and Amy?’
‘Them, yes. We’re heading for their space-port.’
‘And you’re not going to tell me why, is that it?’
‘Olivia,’ he said, ‘we’re going to the Moon, on board one of their ships.’
She started to ask why they couldn’t just go through the Array, then decided she didn’t actually want to know – at least not yet.
‘Did you see the news last night?’ she asked him instead.
‘No. Why?’
‘There was a press conference . . . the heads of all three republics, including Mexical. Tey said there was no way to stop the growths. They said that they didn’t know what might happen next.’
She heard the sound of an engine revving, over the link, a voice muttering in the background. Mitchell, she guessed.
‘They’re lying. They know exactly what’s going to happen.’
‘How could you possibly know that?’
‘Well,’ she heard him reply, from a thousand kilometres away, ‘it’s kind of complicated. But you know how the Array allows for a certain kind of time travel?’
Olivia had felt like a passenger inside her own body as she got into a car, less than twenty minutes later. The surrounding streets had been quiet, with hardly any traffic at all. Somehow she hadn’t expected that, given the recent news. Most people, she guessed, were just staying at home. Where else, after all, could they go?
The car whisked her out of Jacksonville and on to a highway heading west. Half an hour later it pulled in at a regional airport and she boarded an otherwise empty hopper, spending most of the flight scanning through feeds that were all reporting on exactly the same events – the growths and the million and more people currently camped outside the Florida Array.
Aerial video shots made the Array itself look like a space-age castle under siege. Black Dogs and sonar tanks surrounded the main facility, forcing the crowds back whenever they came too close. Sphere governments were meanwhile demanding the resumption of normal gate services, and once again condemning the Coalition’s monopoly of wormhole technology. There were even ominous rumours of war, and unconfirmed reports that some of the growths had already been attacked with nuclear weapons.
She arrived in Phoenix less than two hours later, and soon located the hire car Jeff had sent to pick her up. He had already taken care of booking the hopper flight, with help from the Roses, since it was safer for her not to use her UP any more than necessary.
The car transported Olivia through a busy shopping district, where she saw people going in and out of fab stores, or walking their dogs, while all around them public screens displayed constant images of something enormous and obscenely alien tearing its way through the skin of their world. She realized how people did the only thing they could in the face of such an enormity: they went about their lives the same as always.
In that same moment it occurred to her she had not told Jeff about contacting Saul, and she could all too easily picture his look of hurt betrayal in response.
Olivia rinsed out her mouth and went downstairs, finding Jeff and Mitchell waiting in the motel’s foyer.
Jeff jerked a thumb towards the door adjoining the check-in desk. ‘I scoped out the kitchen,’ he said. ‘Found the refrigerator’s still running and they’re stocked up with eggs and bacon. Who wants to make breakfast?’
A weary-looking Mitchell slapped him on the shoulder. ‘I’ll make the breakfast,’ he said. ‘See you both in the restaurant in ten.’
Olivia stared after him as he strode past, the kitchen door swinging shut behind him. She was still struggling to process everything Jeff had told her, after he’d finished apologizing for treating her as he had. Pretty much anything seemed possible now that every day brought further news of growths, earthquakes and tsunamis. Even duplicate Mitchells were no particular surprise.
Jeff laid his hands on her shoulders and gave her a brief kiss on the lips. ‘Holding up?’
‘I guess.’ She nodded towards the kitchen, through which could now be heard the clatter of pots and pans. ‘Have you told him yet?’
‘You mean what we discussed last night?’ He shrugged and smiled. ‘I figured we could do that over breakfast. Why? Changed your mind?’
‘About Jupiter?’ Shaking her head, she reached out to take his hand. ‘No, if anything, I’m even more certain that it’s the right thing to do.’
Half an hour later, in the motel’s otherwise deserted cafeteria, she watched Mitchell devour a second plate of eggs before washing it all down with his fourth cup of coffee.
‘Sure, of course I remember Saul,’ he responded in reply to her question. ‘But it’s been a while since I last heard from him.’ He put down his knife and fork, and fixed his gaze on them both. ‘Why?’
‘I got in touch with him a couple of days ago,’ she explained, ‘when I was worried something bad had happened to Jeff.’
‘Where does Saul come into this?’
Olivia glanced sideways at Jeff, and saw he was deliberately not looking her way, his lips set firmly in a thin line.
‘I asked him to find Jeff,’ she said, turning back to Mitchell.
Mitchell glanced from one to the other, clearly sensing a tension between them. ‘And you did this when? Before I called you, or after?’
‘Just after. When you called me, that’s what made me sure something very bad had happened.’
Jeff cleared his throat. ‘I still don’t see why you needed to get in touch with him—’
‘For Christ’s sake, Jeff,’ she snapped, ‘we already went over all this stuff last night. There was no one else I could ask for help, so what the hell was I supposed to do? I know you just thought you were protecting me, but I already told you it was the wrong move.’
Jeff raised both his hands as if fendhis lips off. ‘Okay, okay, point taken.’
‘Just wait one second,’ said Mitchell. ‘How can we be sure that Saul is on our side?’
Olivia stared at him incredulously. ‘Oh, come on. You know him as well as we do.’
‘It’s been a long time since I last saw him,’ Mitchell replied tightly. ‘You’d be amazed how much people can change.’
She shook her head. ‘Sure, but not that much. It took me a lot of effort to even get him to listen to me. When he said he’d help, he was being sincere. I’ve always been a good judge of character. You must know that.’