Run (The Tesla Effect #2) (19 page)

CHAPTER 22

When Tesla came downstairs, dressed for action in Beckett’s form-fitting gear, her messenger bag slung across her body and her dark hair woven into two thick braids that fell over her shoulders and down her back, the kitchen and the parlor were deserted.

Except for Sam, who sat alone on one of the old velvet sofas with a glum look on his face.

Tesla paused in the arched doorway, wondering where everyone else was.

“Oh, hey,” Sam said when he looked up and saw her. His eyes ran quickly over her slim form from head to toe. “You look like you’re ready to go.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” There was a brief, awkward silence during which they each found their own shoes fascinating.

“Sam—” Tesla finally began.

“Look, Tesla—” Sam said at exactly the same moment.

“Let me, please,” Sam said firmly, getting up from the couch and walking over to where Tesla stood. He took her hand in his and looked intently at her, forcing her to look back at him, to hear him.

“First, if I don’t send you back, how do you plan to return?”

“Bizzy made a small remote for me,” Tesla said gently. “According to her it’s a pretty simple device, not unlike a TV remote control. She’s been working on it for a while. She knows the technology of the time machine inside and out, and she’s tested it, of course. I shouldn’t have any problem.”

Sam nodded. “Okay, but I want you to know that if you get into any sort of trouble, if you need me for anything—don’t hesitate to break the rules. Come and find me. Even though that’s not what happened in the past. Please.”

Tesla had already started shaking her head
no
before he’d finished speaking.

“Sam, you know I won’t. I can’t. I’ll be fine, but we need to know;
I
need to know what happened to my mom that night. I need to know where my father fits into this whole thing, and Aunt Jane, too. After Lydia’s betrayal, the damage she did and would have done if we hadn’t stopped her, we have to know.”

“I don’t disagree with any of that, Tesla, but you shouldn’t be on your own for this. It’s dangerous. And just because we don’t focus on it when we all talk, Nilsen is there too, and you know how dangerous he is. Don’t forget, he knows that your mom died on this date, too.”

“I know, Sam,” she said, taking her hand from his to adjust the strap of the bag on her shoulder. “I’ll be careful.”

Sam’s mouth formed a bitter little line for the briefest of moments when she took her hand back, but he said nothing.

“Where is everyone?” she asked after a moment of awkward silence.

“Finn and Bizzy have gone to the Bat Cave to get everything ready. They said they’d meet you there.”

Tesla deliberately held his gaze as he spoke, refusing to drop her eyes when he said Finn’s name.

“I suppose they were giving me a chance to talk to you alone,” he reasoned, and Tesla knew he wasn’t wrong. They were all uncomfortably aware of his feelings for her, and he had not been able to hide his surprise when Tesla admitted she’d spent the night here rather than at home in her own bed.

Tesla glanced at the front door, and Sam knew she wanted to escape. “Don’t worry,” he said, working hard to keep his voice even, to display no trace of bitterness or jealousy. “What happened last night after I left you and Finn at the physics building is none of my business. I don’t intend to ask you about it.”

“Sam, I—” Tesla began uncomfortably, but he put his hand up and stopped her.

“Seriously, I don’t want to know,” he said. “And relax, this is not a big dramatic moment, and I am not giving you a tearful goodbye. You’re jumping back in time, I just wanted to tell you to be careful, and remind you that if you need me, I’m there.”

“Oh,” said Tesla, clearly surprised. “Well, thanks. Really.”

Sam grinned. “Besides, I’ll be here when you get back. This is where we live, both of us. I’m not going anywhere—some things don’t change, you know.”

Beckett and Keisha came down the stairs then, and Tesla turned to hug her best friend.

“Call me when you get back, T,” Keisha said.

“Ready?” Beckett asked.

“Yeah, I am,” Tesla said. “Bye Sam. See you soon.”

“Yes, you will,” Sam said as he held the door for the girls, who walked out and made their way across campus to the time machine, never once looking back to see how long he stood there watching them dwindle away to nothing in the distance.

“So he seems like he’s surviving the news about last night,” Beckett said.

“Well, it’s not like anything much happened,” Tesla said.

“Much?”

Beckett could pack almost as much innuendo into a single word as Keisha could, Tesla mused. “Yep,” was all Tesla was willing to divulge, and Beckett smiled. They walked in companionable silence for a few minutes, until Beckett stopped, forcing Tesla to stop too, and turn to the blonde with a questioning look.

“Tesla, I’ve been doing research for an academic project, through the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups in the U.S.”

“And?” Tesla asked.

“And, your dad’s name has come up several times in the past year. I’ve seen him mentioned specifically in one group’s internal communications.”

Tesla frowned. “What are you talking about?”

Beckett hesitated, even looked a little nervous. “There’s a religious extremist group called One God One Truth that operates mostly in the Midwest—Indiana and Ohio. But they have a satellite group now in Georgia, as well, and they seem to be growing their membership at a pretty fast rate.”

“What does this have to do with my dad?”

“This group focuses on science—research and development, experimental stuff, both in biology and physics. They’re mostly vocal about corporate developments regarding stem cells, cloning, human genome mapping, that sort of thing. But their less-public attention—the stuff they focus on in their internal communications—seems to be increasingly centered on physics. Your dad’s name came up—and I just found out that they’ve made contact with him.”

“Beckett, you’re going to have to just come out and say it—what’s this about? Has he been threatened by these people?” Tesla was impatient. She needed to be off, there were literally only a few hours before her mother would die, and she didn’t even know if she could handle being there to witness the event. She had enough on her plate and didn’t appreciate the timing of Beckett’s warning, or whatever this was.

“Not explicitly, but in my opinion, yes. This isn’t connected to your mom’s death, but it’s gotten to the point where you need to know. Jane knows, of course, and she’s made your dad aware, but you won’t be surprised, I’m sure, to learn that he isn’t overly concerned, assuming there are always ‘crackpots’ out there.”

Tesla smiled. “Yeah, that’s what he would say.” She sobered immediately, however. “But you think he should be more concerned?”

Beckett hesitated. “Yes, I do. The agency relies on the Southern Poverty Law Center to alert them if a threat begins to emerge, and because I’m digging deeply into this one group, rather than watching larger movements across groups, I think I’m seeing this One God One Truth a little bit more clearly. I think they have become fixated on your dad—on his work with time travel. I think they may have a better idea of what he’s doing than anyone guesses.”

“Well shit, Beckett. I mean, of course I’m glad you’re telling me. Can we talk more about this when I get back?”

“Of course,” Beckett said immediately. “I know my timing is bad, but I didn’t want to wait anymore. The Center intercepted an internal email that called your father’s work “an abomination.” That kind of language is a huge red flag.”

“What do you mean?” Tesla asked, as they began walking again toward the physics building, which was now in sight.

“Because the faithful have an absolute obligation to destroy anything that is an abomination in the sight of God.”

Tesla stopped in her tracks and turned to Beckett, her eyes wide.

“Don’t worry, I’m on it,” Beckett said quietly. “You have to concentrate on your mom right now.”

Tesla stood in the control room looking at the monitors which offered images of the empty time machine from multiple angles. Bizzy sat in her usual chair, ready to send Tesla back in time with the push of a button.
Still so weird
, Tesla thought.

“So, Biz, is everything ready?” she asked.

Bizzy turned around in her chair, spiked hair sticking out all over her head, eyes rimmed in black, metal shining from the various piercings all over her face. “Totally ready,” she said, grinning.

“Good. Thanks.”

“I have something for you—besides the remote I gave you,” she said, standing up and walking over to a tiny wire cage that sat on the other end of the console. She reached in and then turned, and a tiny pink nose and two coal-black eyes peered out from between her hands as she made her offering to Tesla.

“Schrödinger!” Tesla cried, her smile huge. She carefully took the little brown mouse from Bizzy’s hands and cuddled him to her chest. “Where did you find him?”

“Apparently someone thought he’d been misplaced and took him back to the biology labs. But I figured he’s one of us, you know? He’s time-traveled, he’s important. They can do pharmaceutical research on some other rat.”

“You’re not a rat, are you?” Tesla cooed, holding the mouse up to her face, laughing when his whiskers tickled her cheek.

“I-I figured you shouldn’t go alone,” Bizzy said, starting to stutter a bit. “You know, in the nature of a lucky rabbit’s foot, but that’s always seemed totally gross and inappropriate, you know? It’s certainly not lucky for the rabbit. So, take the mouse—the whole mouse. And you won’t be by yourself.”

Tesla looked at Bizzy and smiled, and Bizzy blushed to the roots of her short, raven-black hair.

“Thanks, Biz. This is perfect. It was so great of you to think of it.”

“Well, sure,” Bizzy said. “You’re…you know, I…whatever.”

Tesla took an impulsive step in, leaned toward Bizzy and kissed her on the cheek. “I’ll take good care of him, I promise.”

Bizzy couldn’t meet Tesla’s eyes, so she turned instead to her chair and the controls of the time machine. “Just take care of yourself,” she mumbled, sitting down and beginning her final check of the equipment.

Tesla walked down the metal stairs toward the time machine and saw Finn at the bottom, looking up at her and watching her come toward him. By the time she reached the bottom, her smile was huge.

“Hi,” she said, still cupping the tiny brown mouse in her two hands.

“Hi yourself,” Finn said, his smile softer than hers, but his eyes more intense. “What’s this?”

Tesla opened her hands to show him. “Schrödinger.”

“Ah. Bizzy said she had a surprise for you.”

“Yeah, and he’s still adorable. I’m taking him with me.”

Finn nodded. “Tes, I want to talk to you about something.”

Tesla’s smile faded. “Uh-oh.”

Finn ran his hand through his curls, which sprang back up immediately. “I think maybe I should go with you.”

Tesla closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, Finn was looking at her, serious and concerned. “Don’t think I haven’t thought of that,” she finally said. “I want you to come with me. I’m nervous about this, the idea of stalking my dad through the woods, watching my mom die in a car crash. Seeing—well, whatever else there is to see. It would be easier if I wasn’t alone.”

“Yes, it would,” Finn interjected. “It’s going to be hard for you, and hard for me, stuck here, not knowing what’s happening, but feeling—you know feeling
everything
. We should go together.”

“But Finn, this entanglement is exactly why we can’t jump together. We don’t even understand what’s happened to us so far, or the degree to which this connection might change or grow. It just doesn’t make sense to take this kind of risk by doing it again. We have no idea what the consequences could be.”

“Tesla, wait. Think about it—”

“No,” she said, firmly and with absolute finality. “I have thought about it. I’m going alone.”

He waited a beat, gave himself that time to reach out, to feel what she was feeling, and he knew immediately that she would not change her mind. “Okay,” he said, resigned. “But you have to promise me that you will be careful. That you won’t do anything crazy—you won’t break the rules and you won’t take chances. And you’ll come back as soon as possible.”

“I promise,” she said softly. “Things are just starting to get interesting.”

He smiled, remembering, just as she was, last summer when he said those very words to her, in this spot, just after their first kiss.

“Hello, are you guys ready or what?” Bizzy’s amplified voice came over the loudspeaker.

Finn leaned down and kissed Tesla, a sweet and gentle touch that made her sigh softly and melt into him. His arms went around her and pulled her in tight, his lips pressing hers for more, and then she broke away, laughing.