Resonance (10 page)

CH
APTER SEVENTEEN

Days until Tacet: 22

H
EADING INTO CCM THE NEXT
morning, I felt like I'd been hit by a train too. The late night with Eliot, the fear of discovery, the deepening realization that Ms. Powell was gone, all combined to make my hands shake. But no one looked twice as we checked in at CCM's front desk; no one was waiting to take me into custody. For now, we'd gotten away with it.

“What have you two been up to?” Callie asked when I slunk into the room behind Eliot, head bent and shoulders hunched.

“Nothing.”

“You look like shit. Both of you.” When Eliot didn't respond—or look at me—she leaned in and whispered, “Fight? Are you two . . .”

“No,” I said firmly.

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that why you're fighting?”

“We're not fighting.” Fighting would clear out the wound. Despite showing him the cut site, Eliot was still angry, and with every clipped answer, our relationship festered.

I'd thought working together would help. We were always
a good team, but helping the Free Walkers wasn't a common goal, proof or no proof. If anything, I'd made things worse. He'd tolerated my obsession when he could chalk it up to a delusion, a part of the grieving process. Knowing it was real—and that I hadn't trusted him despite all we'd been through—was a blow we might not recover from.

“Work it out fast, whatever it is,” Callie said, and gestured to the board. Our team assignments for the day were written out, and as usual, Callie, Eliot, and I were together. “I'm not losing my ranking because you two can't get your act together.”

“Thanks for the support,” I muttered.

She nudged me. “Your name's still not on the leaderboard. Should I be worried?”

“About me?” I made a brushing-off gesture, laughed too loudly. “Cal, I'm touched.”

Her smile was as forced as my own.

Shaw strolled in, followed by my father and the rest of his team, Cleavers named Clark and Franklin. “Dad?”

“Cleaving Day,” Shaw called, and the air crackled with anticipation. “We have a team here—led by Del's father—who are going to walk us through a real cleaving, step by step.”

I gaped at my dad, who gave me a cheerful wave. His smile faltered when I didn't return it.

“But—”

Across the table Eliot coughed loudly, a warning to stay calm.

I gripped the arms of my chair. He was right. I couldn't afford to draw any more attention to us. Somewhere in this
building, Ms. Powell was locked up, or worse. Unless I wanted to join her, I needed to look like a team player. So I shut my mouth and avoided my father's gaze while Shaw reviewed the ground rules and target frequencies. Eliot leaned back and took notes, as always, but I couldn't hear over the drumming of my pulse.

“Remember,” Shaw said, “your role today is strictly observation. For safety reasons, we've chosen a relatively stable world, instead of one that's badly deteriorated. Even the most routine cleaving can be dangerous, so it's important we stay together and follow directions exactly. Got it?”

All around the table, heads bobbed agreement, but I held still, feeling as fragile and wavery as antique glass. Eliot cleared his throat, and I nodded in time with the rest of the class.

“Great. Let's roll, kids.”

Shaw strode to the coatrack and shrugged into a canvas duster, clamped a cowboy hat on his balding head, and beckoned for us to follow. Everyone scrambled up. Only Eliot and I hung back.

“Can you handle this?” he asked as I struggled into my coat.

“Nothing I haven't seen before.” But my jaw was clenched so tightly, it hurt to speak.

My dad caught us at the door. “You don't look happy to see me, kiddo. Are you too cool to have your old man visit?” His voice was teasing but his expression was worried.

“Just surprised,” I managed. “You didn't say anything this morning. Aren't you supposed to be swamped?”

“Not so busy I couldn't make time for my little girl.”

I managed not to snort, but before he could respond, his Second Chair, Clark, called him over.

“Let's get moving,” Shaw said.

The elevators ferried us downstairs in groups. When we reassembled in the lobby, Shaw played our target frequency one last time, and led us out into the city.

The Consort worked hard to keep CCM as pivot-free as possible, so we had to leave the building before crossing over. Today Shaw had selected a passage inside the Pedway, a series of pedestrian-­only tunnels that ran beneath the city. Some parts were well-trafficked, but on a clear, sunny, windless day, the corridors were pretty much deserted—which meant nobody noticed when, in groups of two, we started down the covered stairways and vanished from sight. It was classic Walker logic, using expectation to camouflage the inexplicable.

On the other side of the pivot, we arranged ourselves in a half circle, Shaw at the center. He did a quick headcount and then led us aboveground, emerging along Michigan Avenue.

I bit my lip. This Echo sounded fine. It looked exactly like Chicago should on a winter weekend—noisy and crowded and cheerful as tourists made their way to the Art Institute or skated on the pop-up rink the city constructed each year. Earnest young lawyers and finance guys, with their canvas messenger bags and wool overcoats, dodged the crowds impatiently. There was nothing wrong with this familiar bustling world.

Except that we were about to destroy it.

“Where's the target?” I asked Eliot as we followed Shaw,
who was deep in conversation with my dad and his teammates. My feet refused to keep pace with the rest of the class. Eliot kept dropping back to check on me, but the best I could do was hover on the periphery.

Several yards ahead, Callie called back, “Were you asleep? Millennium Park.”

“That's five square blocks. Be specific.”

“The pavilion.”

I winced. I loved the Pritzker Pavilion, the futuristic outdoor concert hall, with its undulating curves and shimmering metal finish. It looked like music felt, rippling and twisting and alive.

Eliot and I saw concerts here every summer, stretching out on the lawn, lying back under impossibly blue skies with the sound of the lake and the city throwing the music into sharp relief, our fingers sticky from eating caramel corn. He might not believe me that Echoes were real—not yet, anyway. But his fingers brushed mine in silent understanding, and I knew he didn't want to watch it fade any more than I did.

“All right,” boomed Shaw, when we reached the amphi­theater. Despite the tourists wandering the park, we went unnoticed as we took center stage. “I'll hand this over to Mr. Sullivan.”

“Call me Foster,” my dad said. “Who can tell me the first step in a cleaving, once it's been officially sanctioned?”

Someone called out, “Find and fix the inversions.”

“Yes. For today, assume that we've handled them. What's next?”

“Locating the breaks,” Callie said. “You want to start the
cleaving at the weakest spots, so you can maintain proper tension on the threads.”

“Excellent. You can be first up to check the break we're using today.”

She followed him stage left and touched the handrail of the stairs leading offstage. The instant she made contact, she shuddered dramatically, then grinned. “It's not that bad. Like swimming in cold water.”

“Del? Eliot? Give it a try.”

We made our way over, both of us taut with nerves. I could hear the twang of the break before I touched it, and once my fingers brushed against the icy metal, an erratic pulse traveled up my arm. A shock, like Callie had said. Instinct took over and I hummed, trying to find the right frequency for the string.

Eliot stepped on my toe, breaking my concentration. “Sorry!” he called as I yelped.

Callie was staring. My father was staring. I didn't dare look to see what the rest of the class was doing. Instead, I elbowed him. “Klutz,” I said loudly. “Your turn.”

“You okay, kiddo?” my dad asked, motioning for Clark to take over. He guided me away from the group, and I braced myself against an angular steel post. “You look white as a sheet.”

“It hit me harder than I expected. I'm good.”

“If you're sure,” he said, peering at me in concern. I waved him off, and he went back to the break, helping each kid find the correct strings.

Eliot joined me at the edge of the stage. “What were you doing?”

“Tuning, I think.” I'd corrected the pitch of a world plenty of times, but it had always been deliberate and difficult. Here, in a relatively stable world, the effort was minimal. “Not on purpose—it was a reflex.”

“Yeah, well, quit having that reflex. Not in front of this many witnesses.”

We rejoined the group just as my dad pulled a slender metal disk, the width of a matchbook, out of his pocket. “You've all seen one of these before, yes?”

“It's a divisi knife,” Logan said, edging forward. “For cutting the threads.”

My dad handed him a piece of linen twine. “Hold it taut,” he said, and addressed the entire class, holding the silvery circle for us to see. “The edges are notched, with blades hidden inside. This allows you to manipulate the divisi without slicing off a finger, or wasting time opening and closing the blades. Once a cleaving begins, there's no stopping it. Your only recourse is to keep cutting and weaving. If you don't,
both
sides of the cut site will unravel.”

I shuddered. A Consort team had finished the cleaving I'd started in Park World. If they hadn't, the damage would have been worse.

But there was a better way. Simon had strengthened Train World after we'd broken the strings, holding it together long enough for the Free Walkers to cauterize. He'd saved countless Echoes.

Simon was proof of the Consort's lies—lies my father believed. He had no idea what he was teaching us to do.

With a last, puzzled look, my dad continued. “The idea is
to separate the strings you want to cut, and fit the blade around them, like this. . . .” He demonstrated with the length of string Logan was holding out, the divisi tucked in the curve of his forefinger and thumb, slipping it into place. “In a real cleaving, you'll cut a handful at a time. Take the side that connects to the stable Echo, the one you're trying to preserve, and trap it against the heel of your hand, maintaining the tension.”

My classmates crowded around to get a better look, Callie towing me along.

“What do you do with the other threads?” asked Eliot.

“Nothing. Once you've cut enough of them, the cleaved world will unravel. Your focus should be on the Key World side of the strings so you can weave them back together. Watch.”

With a twist of his wrist, he sliced cleanly through the twine. The upper half dangled limply from Logan's left hand, but the lower half was held taut between his right hand and my father's.

“That's the basic technique,” Shaw said. “We'll be practicing it in class, so don't worry. By the time we're done, you'll be able to cut the strings in your sleep.”

“What about the weaving?” Callie asked. “When do we get to see that?”

“Right now,” my dad said. “Reweaving is the trickiest part, because the unraveling has already begun—”

“Excuse me?” Maddie raised her hand. “Why don't we cleave from the stable side? Wouldn't it be safer?”

“It would,” my dad said. “But in this case, it's a trade-off. We need to maximize the energy transfer of a cleaving, and
working from the stable side limits the amount we can harvest. Additionally, we want the fabric to be as seamless as possible, to minimize weakness.”

We must have looked pretty clueless, because he chuckled and continued. “It's like this stuffed panda Del had when she was a baby. Remember that thing, kiddo? You loved that little guy. You used to take him everywhere, and your mom was constantly having to fix pieces that were falling off, or spots where the stuffing came out.”

“Dad. Seriously?” The tips of my ears burned with embarrassment.

“I remember that panda,” Eliot whispered, grinning. “Stewie, right?”

“Anyway, no matter how carefully Winnie stitched that poor bear back up, those were the parts most likely to split again. How many times did Mom reattach his ear, Del? Five? Six?”

I closed my eyes and wished for a lightning strike.

“Cleavings are the same way,” my dad continued. “Exposed seams are the most likely to fray again, so the goal is to complete as much of the reweaving as possible before you cross the exit pivot, leaving only a tiny amount of finishing on the stable side.”

“Stewie,” Logan mouthed, and I flipped him off.

Callie took mercy on me, asking, “Will we be able to see the reweaving today?”

“You'll see the effects of the cleaving, but not the actual thread work. It's done by touch, not sight.”

“You won't be staying until the end, either,” Shaw said.
“We'll cross back and finish watching from the stable side.”

Logan groaned, but Shaw simply adjusted his hat and said, “Sorry, guys. Safety first. Ready, Foster?”

My dad glanced at the other Cleavers, who nodded, their divisis in hand.

“I'm going to initiate the cuts here, at the break. Once that's handled, we'll work our way back to the pivot we used to access this world, cleaving as we go.”

He reached into the break with one hand and held the divisi lightly in the other like a magician would hold a coin, for the audience to admire. His hands were broad, but they moved with astonishing delicacy, twitching as he sorted through threads too fine to see. When he found the ones he wanted, fingers crooking in a familiar gesture, he transferred them to his divisi hand and spoke over his shoulder.

“As you watch, take special note of how the unraveling spreads—where it wants to go, how we shape it.”