She waited for the Remnant.
There was a part of her — a rational side — that knew she didn’t have to do this. That she could choose to ignore the craving to come here, could go do something else, avoiding the pain that was about to envelop her. But in some ways she welcomed the pain. Did she understand it? No. Did she enjoy it? No. But she welcomed and relished it because she knew it had something to do with a life that should’ve been. She knew it like she knew her hands were connected to her arms. And she couldn’t pass up the only opportunities she’d ever have to experience it. Not even if it hurt.
And so, she kept waiting.
It began just a few minutes later.
There was a rushing behind her ears, within her head — a pressure that wasn’t audible but was there all the same. An ache pierced her heart, a sadness that opened like a gate within her, a gaping maw of darkness that wanted to suck the life out of her and pull it down to the depths. She stared at the double barn doors, and even though they didn’t budge, every part of her yearned for them to do so. She could almost see it, could almost feel the breeze that would stir as they swung open and slammed against the side of the barn.
Nothing happened, of course. But something should have. Those doors should have opened and two people should have walked through, calling her name with smiles on their faces.
Sera didn’t understand it. She didn’t understand it in the slightest.
But she knew. Those two people were her parents.
She’d never met them, and she never would.
6. An Iron Door
THE FIRST thing Sera wanted to do when the Remnant faded was go tell Dak about it. She always did. He himself had never experienced a major one — nothing that couldn’t be explained away as déjà vu or a simple forgotten memory — so he didn’t totally understand. But he tried to, and for her that was good enough. Plus, his parents were out of town for the weekend, so she knew he could use the company. Usually his grandma came over when his parents were gone, but she was older than most trees and spoke about as often as one.
Dak was in a lawn chair when she arrived, sitting under the branches of an apple tree as he read from a gigantic book. Normal people used their SQuare for such a thing, but not Dak. He’d search every library in town until he found the printed version of what he wanted, no matter how old it was or how battered.
“What’re you reading?” she asked him.
He didn’t answer, his nose buried in the pages and his eyes’ focused stare moving across and down, across and down. This was classic Dak. She waited a few seconds to be polite, then kicked him in the shin.
“Ow!” he yelled. The book slipped out of his hands and tumbled off the chair to land in a heap of brown leather and torn paper. The book was so old it had completely fallen apart.
“Oops!” Sera said. “Sorry. That’s why you should do your reading on a SQuare.”
“Yeah, because it’d be way better to drop an expensive computer. Mrs. Pierce is gonna kill me!”
An empty chair stood on the other side of the tree, and Sera dragged it over to sit and help collect the destroyed book’s remains. “What was this anyway?” she asked, turning over the yellowed pages to get a look.
“It’s called — it was called — The Rise and Fall and Rise of the Roman Empire. I don’t need to tell you how fascinating —”
Sera held up a hand to cut him off. “Yeah, you’re right, you don’t need to tell me. I can only imagine the magic you felt as you tore through its riveting pages.”
“Quit being a smart aleck,” he said with eyes narrowed. “It was riveting. Only you could think making guesses about junk that’s smaller than an atom is more exciting than reading about evil emperors cutting people up and bathing in their blood.”
She stared at him, blinking once in exaggerated disinterest.
“Hungry?” he asked with a sly grin.
She tried to grin back but nothing came. “I had another one today,” she said.
“A moon-sized pimple?” he asked.
She punched him in the arm. “A Remnant, you jerk.”
His face fell a bit. “Oh. Sorry. I know those are hard on you.”
“Sometimes I think they’re getting worse. It’s so hard to explain. But it hurts like nothing else.”
“Weird.”
Sera had been called weird before, and not always nicely. But she knew Dak meant it in a completely different way. And he was right. “Yeah, it is weird.”
Dak gave up on the pile of paper and leather and shoved it all under the chair. Then he stood up. “I’ve got something that’ll cheer you to pieces in a heartbeat.”
“You do, huh?”
“I do.” He pulled something out of his pocket. “My mom and dad left the keys to the lab out.”
Sera had never heard such beautiful words in all her life. She didn’t even bother responding — she was already on her feet and sprinting toward the back of the house.
The lab was a separate building in the back corner of the Smyths’ property — a three-story brick structure with no windows and a single door made of black iron and sealed shut with about 197 locks by the look of it. When Dak had said that his parents left the keys out, he’d skipped the mundane details — that the keys were usually in a sealed box that was kept in a fireproof safe within a huge wall-sized gun locker. Sera thought it was all a little OCD — but Dak’s parents had always been a bit odd.
Sera got there first, waiting impatiently in front of the imposing door as Dak approached, jangling the keys in his hand. “It looks like something out of the Dark Ages, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“How in the world did they forget to put the keys away?” Sera asked. “I’d expect them to catch their flight to Europe completely nak*d before letting something like that happen.” Dak’s parents went overseas at least once a month for some kind of business venture that no one had ever fully explained to Sera. It was how they made money to support their real passion — the oddball experiments and silly research projects rumored to be taking place inside the lab. Sera couldn’t wait to check them out.
“Let’s just say I helped them along a little,” Dak answered. “I’ve been dying to see what they’ve been up to in here. Dad keeps saying they’ve come up with something really big. Really, really big. Maybe they finally came up with a working model of that regurgitating refrigerator he’s always talked about.”
Sera summed it up in a deadpan voice: “And so you stole their keys so that you can explore their inner sanctum completely against their will.”
“I won’t break anything if you don’t.”
“Pinkie swear?”
“Pinkie swear.”
They hooked their little fingers and that was that. Dak’s grandma was half blind and three-quarters deaf, so she’d never know they were up to something.
Dak flipped through the keys and started matching big ones and little ones with a series of locks that lined the right side of the door. Sera looked on as he worked, trying to hide the impatience that threatened to explode out of her. Here she had the chance of a lifetime to peruse a fully functioning science lab — no matter how silly the things that might be going on within.
Dak was on his knees now, trying to find the key to fit a lock that was only an inch above the ground.
“Is it your goal in life to drive me crazy?” Sera asked. “One more minute passes and I’m going to start ninja chopping your skinny head.”
“You’re awfully loud for a ninja,” he said just as something clicked. “Got it!” The heavy door swung inward with a metallic scrape across the cement floor. Sera slipped past him and went inside before he could even stand up.
“Hurry and close it,” she whispered to him, as if someone were listening in. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. The thought chilled her spine as Dak slammed the door closed.
There was a bank of switches to her right and she flipped them all, then watched in anticipation as lights flickered on one at a time, revealing the beauty of the lab in slow motion. It was huge, filled with everything she’d ever imagined would be in such a place — computers running along the walls, monitors atop every desk, and a jumble of electronics and chemicals and glassware on every available surface. Freestanding whiteboards were covered with a rainbow scrawl of mathematical and chemical formulas. The whole humongous room was a haven of science. It was far beyond what she’d expected from the Smyths.
Something to the left caught Sera’s attention. She walked over to see a glass case, about the size and shape of a small refrigerator. Behind the glass, on a felt stand, there was a silvery band of metal an inch thick, shaped like a figure eight and about a foot long. Except for a small touch screen on one side, the object appeared completely smooth and shiny, almost shimmering like liquid. It looked alien — and very advanced.
“That must be it,” Dak whispered. She didn’t know when he’d appeared at her shoulder. “Their really, really big project. What in the world is it?”
There was a small label affixed to the glass case, three words that made Sera’s heart skip a few beats.
The Infinity Ring.
Sera shifted her gaze to the right. Next to the display case, a whiteboard stood over a large desk on which several SQuares rested. Three more words were written across the top of the board — The Missing Piece — and a series of formulas had been laid out below them. Sera scanned the scrawl of letters and numbers and symbols, her fascination growing, and something tickled in her brain again. This time, she knew, it had nothing to do with a Remnant.
“Dak?” she said.
“Yeah?” He’d already wandered off.
“I’m going to need some time to myself. Your parents left behind quite a puzzle.” She turned her head to look at him. “I want to know exactly what this is.”
7. Hitting the SQuares
AFTER AN hour of wandering his parents’ lab, Dak had had enough. Sera hadn’t moved from the desk next to the Infinity Ring — whatever that meant — where she pored over his parents’ notes and formulas. Dak wanted no part of that, figuring she’d find out some cool stuff then tell him about it later in terms he could understand. So he fiddled around, peeking at diagrams and models of things he couldn’t name, jars full of gross stuff he couldn’t identify, and books that seemed interesting at first glance but proved to be incomprehensible.
Sera didn’t speak the entire time. Every once in a while a grunt or an “Ah!” would escape her, but nothing else. She was onto something, and when that happened, Dak knew he might as well leave her to it.
“Hey,” he said to her. “I’m going to fix something to eat. Want anything?”
She didn’t respond, didn’t even look back at him. Instead she moved from one SQuare to another, flicking on its glowing display and leaning closer to read.
“Hey,” he said again. “I’m gonna go down to Mrs. Jackson’s place and murder her whole family. Then I’m gonna fly to the moon and eat some chickens. Be right back.”