Interdimensional travel wasn’t as cool as I thought it would be.

A lot more nausea. A lot less feeling like an astronaut.

My entire being was smeared into the consistency of applesauce as we were flushed down a tunnel of swirling lights. I had no perception of how fast we were moving, just that we were.

The experience lasted for a dozen seconds before my legs reassembled beneath me, and I found myself landing ass-first in a white chamber.

Mist rained down from the ceiling in a heavy spray until it fogged the entire room in a rainforest shower. The few sticky plaques of blood remaining from my fight with Magrue melted and dripped off my fingertips.

“Breathe it in,” Lannon grunted next to my mother and me.

I took a deep breath, feeling the mist sting my mouth and lungs like freshly-ground pepper.

My mother and I rose. We helped lift Lannon off the floor.

“This is a disinfectant chamber,” he growled through renewed pain. “Cleans off any foreign germs we brought from your Earth. Drink those, and we can exit.”

He gestured with his eyes to a row of glasses on a table by the doorway.

We carried him to the table, leaving stains of red on the polished white flooring. I drank a glass of the stuff. It tasted like carbonated water, bubbling in my stomach like pop rocks.

The label read: Gastrointestinal disinfectant solution.

I helped Lannon drink from his glass, and we approached the exit. Two massive sliding doors pulled away as they sensed our presence.

A cool breeze washed over us. Warm incandescent lights replaced the formal whiteness of the disinfectant chamber.

We were in a cave.

I could tell that much right away.

Irregular rock faces comprised the walls, floor, and ceiling. Stalactites perched overhead like sleeping bats, and sunlight trickled in through a yawning mouth a short distance away.

There were other people in the cave with us.

Revella was there, along with two men and a woman, all wearing brown robes. One of the men had a rifle jammed directly against Revella’s spine.

They turned their attention to us the doors hissed open.

“Lannon!” someone shouted.

“I’m going to need some life support,” he said, apologetically.

He jerked his head at my mother and me.

“These two are friends, from Earth five hundred ninety-six beta.”

And he let himself go limp in our arms, shutting down to focus on staying alive.

The man and woman rushed to us.

“Steaming curds,” the woman murmured, accepting Lannon’s left shoulder from my mother.

“Let’s get to base,” one of the men said, leading us outside.

His partner prodded Revella with the tip of his gun.

“Let’s go.”

Our steps clacked on the rough stone, echoing around the throat of the cave.

We stepped out into a barren landscape. Mostly sand, with a few skeletal shrubs fighting not to be ripped away by the low-swinging breeze.

“Is this…” Revella began.

“Putting it together, imperialist?”

The robed woman grinned wolfishly.

“The widow’s nest,” Revella whispered.

“The widow’s nest,” the woman affirmed. “Also known as Earth three hundred forty zeta prime.”

“So, this place is real.”

“Oh, it’s real.”

“But Lannon wanted to take us to Earth two hundred seventy-seven kappa.”

“The widow’s nest has a secret bridge as it’s multiverse access point. The bridge diverts off the pathway to two hundred seventy-seven kappa and brings you here. If you know the right access coordinates.”

“I assume you’re telling me this because you don’t expect me to leave this planet alive.”

I frowned.

These people were going to kill Revella?

“It’s not up to us to decide your fate,” the woman responded, betraying nothing with her expression.

The man leading our group climbed into a limousine of a dune buggy and wheeled it over to where we stood. We piled in, with my mother and the driver in the front two seats, Revella and the armed man in the middle row, and myself in the back. Lannon’s unconscious body laid over my lap. I could peer past the loose fabric stuffing in his wound and see that his heart and lungs were still moving, although his heart rate was much faster, struggling to cycle through the little blood he had remaining.

“I’ll stay here to keep guarding the portal,” the woman said. “Carmollo, step on it. Lannon’s running out of time.”

With a gentle thrum, we accelerated across the desert scrub.

To my mother’s credit, she held her tongue and rolled with the unfolding events. For her, the woman who only left her house for groceries and hair appointments, that was a miracle.

We skimmed over the surface of the desert. The Tempur-Pedic suspension in the buggy kept us floating overtop the harsh terrain. The wind blasting in our faces helped soothe the charbroiling heat, but my hands and ears still sizzled under the barbeque sun. Our surroundings were bleak. A nature documentary would’ve struggled to find enough terrestrial life to fill an entire episode. All I saw were a few weeds, thorny scrubs, and a tree with sagging branches that looked like it wished someone would cut it down and put it out of its misery.

After twenty minutes of driving, our destination appeared behind the slope of a sand dune.

An outpost of maybe a hundred buildings sprouted up out of the desert. The structures were made of a white plaster material, and the entire community was enclosed by a thin wire fence.

We arrived, and the doors of the fence opened with a motorized whir.

The man at the wheel drove us straight to the center of the community. Men and women stepped out into the heat to watch us drive past. A group swarmed through the front doors of the main building to receive us.

We slammed the brakes, throwing a spray of sand into the air.

After that, everything was a blur.

A group with a gurney heaved Lannon’s frame onto it and whisked him away. My mother and I were hustled out of the car by more robed figures. Inside the air-conditioned building, we were patted down and skimmed with a dozen different scanners. A woman asked for my gun. She promised I’d get it back later. I chose to believe her and handed the stolen weapon over.

Finally, we were shuffled along to be medically evaluated. My mother was sent into the room next to me. More scans. A blood draw. I was given a pill to swallow and a new medication patch to place over my ribs.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

The medicines were warm and fuzzy in my chest and limbs. The drugs draped themselves over me like a weighted blanket. I knew the sun was still bright overhead, but sleep thrust a lead-fingered hand through the mattress and wrapped its grip around my midsection, pulling me down deep into oblivion.

I awoke to find a woman sitting in a chair by the open doorway to my room.

I pushed myself out of the bed, and she noticed that I was awake.

“Laura?”

“Yeah?”

“Hi. I’m Mack. How are you feeling?”

I studied her. She wore parachute pants and a flowing top that resembled the robes I’d seen on the portal guards earlier. The lip of a handgun poked a curious eye out from underneath the hem of her top. She looked to be in her early twenties. Not much older than Kiara.

I hoped my intern was alright. I’d never had a chance to check in on her, and I doubted I’d be able to while I was on an alternate Earth.

“I feel fine,” I said. “Nothing hurts.”

“Good. The doctors took a look at your labs and scans. Looks like some bruised ribs plus a few scrapes and burns. Nothing that won’t heal on their own over the next couple weeks.”

I nodded.

“Are you…is this MEAD?”

Her face brightened.

“You’re currently sitting on our home base. Our own secret Earth outside the control of the Republic.”

“The widow’s nest.”

“Yeah. The widow’s nest.”

She continued, “Lannon woke up once we got him connected to life support. He explained most of what happened back on your home. Earth five hundred ninety-six beta.”

“Is Lannon okay?”

“He should recover just fine. He’s scheduled for reconstructive surgery tomorrow morning. He’ll probably need two or three weeks before he’s up on his feet again.”

I should’ve been happy to hear he was going to survive, but the news dismayed me.

“Two or three weeks?”

“Is that too slow?”

“I mean, compared to what we have on my Earth, it’s a miracle he’s alive at all. But I need to get back home as fast as possible to catch the radish demon before it starts spreading. I was hoping Lannon would help me gather up some assistance.”

Mack bit her lip, and I knew I was going to dislike whatever she said next.

“So, about that. I don’t think it’s possible for you to go home right now.”

I was right.

“What? Why not?”

“Okay, so all the Earths in the connected multiverse are linked together with bridges. These are well-established pathways with lots of anchor points and protective layers. A bridge is permanent and takes a lot of energy to build, alright?”

“Alright.”

“And since it’s not been integrated into the multiverse, your home Earth doesn’t have a bridge. So, when Revella and the imperialists needed to travel to your planet, they put down a thread. A small pathway that’s designed to be stabbed into a new reality and pulled out after a week or two.”

I waited for her to drop the hammer.

“When she put in the coordinates to take you here, Revella set the thread to collapse. It dissolved away, as it was designed to do, minutes after you passed through.”

Fucking Revella. I seethed.

“So you’re telling me there’s not currently any way back to my Earth?”

“I’m sorry. There isn’t. And the Republic controls all the bridgemakers, which are required to connect two realities. We don’t have the technology here to create a new access point for you.”

“So how am I going to get back?”

“The only way to get back would be to get our hands on a bridgemaker.”

“We have to do that. Fast. If we don’t get back to my Earth soon, that radish demon is going to destroy everything.”

“I’m sorry,” Mack said. “But I don’t know how feasible that is. I’m just assigned here to be your guard.”

“Where’s Revella?” I said, already climbing out of bed.

“Woah, Laura. Are you…”

“Take me to Revella,” I demanded. “I need to speak to her.”

Mack studied me for a moment before deciding to indulge my demand.

“This way.”

I followed her down the hall and into an elevator. We ascended and walked to a room with a heavy metal door and a guard sitting outside.

“She wants to talk to Keyes. I’ll escort her in.”

The guard nodded.

He said to me, “remember, everything you do and say in that room is recorded.”

I shoved the door open. Revella was sitting on a hard-backed chair, watching a small television screen. Her broken hand was inside a cast of foamy material. She used her good hand to click off the TV when we entered.

“Ms. Parsons.”

“You destroyed the portal to my home!” I shouted, jabbing a finger at her.

She nodded, refusing to rise to my anger.

“Why? Why would you do that?”

“Because we lost. I was down two of my men and the radish demon put me out of commission. We lost, and so the only option left was to seal off our exit to prevent the demon from infecting other realities.”

“You mean you’ve given up on my home? You’re condemning it to death?”

Revella sighed. It was not a sympathetic sound. It was one of annoyance.

“Yeah. Sorry. We tried to save it, but we were late to the punch, and hampered by your interference, so our only option was to abandon the mission and quarantine off your planet.”

I wanted to yell at Revella, but I couldn’t summon the right words.

“This happens to Earths all the time all over the multiverse,” she said. “Remember that surgery analogy? If a piece of tissue can’t be salvaged, the only option left is to cut it out so it can’t spread the infection to anywhere else. Your home is valuable but letting a radish demon access the connected multiverse would be disastrous.”

“You didn’t have to tear down the thread to my Earth,” I said. “I came here to find more reinforcements and come right back. We took my mom off the planet. The demon’s going to be weaker now.”

Revella looked over at Mack and back at me.

“You think these people will help you?”

She scoffed.

“Why not?” I demanded. “Lannon tried to help.”

“Lannon doesn’t care about your home. None of these people do. They only care about their crusade.”

“So what? They’ll still help me!”

“What are you shouting about? You’re not the one who’s going to die at the hands of these terrorists.”

I looked over at Mack.

“Are you guys going to kill her?”

Her expression didn’t change.

“I don’t know. That’s for Lannon and the rest of leadership to decide.”

I hated Revella. I didn’t necessarily want her to die, but I did hate her guts.

Mack sensed that I was at a loss.

“Why don’t you check on your mother?”

I groaned involuntarily.

“Is something wrong with that?” Mack asked, concerned.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

She hesitated, but I started out of the room anyways.

“Let’s go get it over with.”

I turned to regard Revella one last time before closing the door.

“My husband and daughter are on the Earth you just left for dead. I will get back to them.”

She sighed.

“Don’t let these terrorists skew your perception of reality too much.”

The guard slammed the door between us.

Mack led me to my mother’s room. She was propped up in bed and reading a book when I entered.

“Laura!” she exclaimed, rising and rushing to embrace me.

“I can’t believe all this has happened to you. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“I’m fine,” I managed, waiting for the embrace to end.

My mother stepped away, sitting down on the edge of the bed. I sat down on the couch beside her. Mack pulled up a chair next to the man assigned to guard my mother.

“Jeffir spent most of the last three hours explaining everything,” she told me, gesturing at the male guard. “It’s all so…crazy, right? A multiverse? Radish demons?”

“Yeah,” I said. “So now you know? That Michael’s not human?”

She smirked.

“Honestly, I knew he wasn’t normal after a few weeks of living with him.”

The spinning record in my head scratched sharply to a stop. I gaped at her.

“What?”

She shrugged.

“I’m not an idiot, you know. There were a few hints.”

“The radishes?”

“That was one, without a doubt. No normal person can eat that many radishes every day. Plus, there was the time he spent a half hour asking me how to use shampoo. And the fact that he called dogs ‘four-leggers.’”

I wanted to leap off the couch and shake her.

“Then why didn’t you say anything? Why’d you keep letting him live in your house?”

She shrugged again.

“I didn’t mind it.”

“What are you talking about?”

She set her jaw defensively.

“I knew there was something he was hiding, but I didn’t mind. It’s lonely being by myself. And Michael was nice to me.”

I stared at her long and hard.

“Really?”

“Yes. Really. Obviously, he turned out to be more dangerous than I realized, but at the time, I didn’t know about radish demons or any of this multiverse crap. It was just nice to have someone to talk to.”

I took a long breath and blew it out slowly.

“You wanted to set me up with him.”

“I…”

“Don’t deny it. Please.”

She swallowed.

“Sure, there was something off about him, but he was nice. He seemed accomplished. I thought it wouldn’t hurt seeing if you two hit it off. I was hoping he might be able to vouch for me, too. Maybe if you trusted him, he could explain how much I care for you.”

I pursed my lips, sloshing around the words before forcing them out.

“I know you care for me.”

She frowned.

“Then why are you always so angry with me?”

“I know that you care,” I repeated. “But you never put in the work. You know? Demanding perfection from me, but never expecting it from yourself. That doesn’t make for a healthy relationship. It just breeds resentment.”

“I’m sorry.”

“We’ve done this dance dozen times,” I said. “We don’t have to do it again.”

“No,” she insisted. “I mean it. I’m sorry.”

I stared at the floor and back at her.

She continued speaking.

“You needed me to do the work of two parents after your father died, and I just didn’t have it in me. I’ve never held down a real job. I’ve never been good with crowds or strangers.”

“You could’ve tried,” I jutted in. “You could’ve worked from home. You could’ve saved money rather than buying fancy cars. You could’ve done something other than nag after me about my grades while I was trying to earn our only income working at Sonic after school.”

She blinked away a tear.

“You’re right. I could’ve.”

I’d always expected the day my mother finally acknowledged her failures as a parent to have a sweet catharsis. A total Maury-style vindication. I was rather disappointed to find that it just made me feel like I’d eaten bad shellfish.

“Will you forgive me?” she asked.

I leaned back against the couch and scrunched my eyes shut, letting my brows hang heavy over the bony outcrop of my orbits.

“I don’t know, Mom.”

I opened my eyes.

“That’s twenty years of being a shitty parent you’re asking me to forget about. Eight years of trying to sabotage my marriage.”

Her face hardened. She was retreating behind her shell.

“I just wanted you to be better than me,” she said. “I didn’t want you to get stuck with a man who would drag you down or prevent you from doing great things.”

Well, we’d had a small breakthrough, but now we were back in our usual trajectory. I might’ve had a part in it, but I’d only spoken the truth. Maybe I was bitter and being a grudge-holder, but I couldn’t drop all the misery my mother had inflicted just because she was frightened and actually reflecting on her mistakes now.

I rose from the couch, shaking my head.

“You know what, let’s forget it. Jack and Violet are both stuck in a different universe, and unless I find a way to get back, they’re going to be dead soon, along with everyone else.”

I turned toward the door and found myself hoping that my mother would stop me. Would ask how she could help. Surely, she wanted to save her granddaughter.

I walked all the way to the door, but she never raised her voice.

Mack followed and shut it behind us.

“What now?” she asked.

“I need to find a way home.”