24. Jennifer
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Jennifer


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No gap or gulf however vast cannot be bridged by love,
Though stretching 'cross an ocean or the mound of soil above
Yet still there's something to be said for crass proximity
And all the daily debts accrued and paid by you, and me.

It was hard not to be selfish.

The last time she'd experienced a containment breach — though she only intermittently remembered it — she had found herself here. Alone. Unloved. Was it too much to ask for this reprise to reverse the situation?

Probably it was. And it wouldn't do her friends any good if she disappeared.

Not that she was doing them any good in here. She'd returned to the Salt Mines (not to be confused with the salt mines, any inside joke you have to explain to outsiders this often is a bad inside joke) to grab a folder for Chey, and then the bombs in the walls had gone off. Both the north and south walls were nothing but rubble now.

Where she'd come from, they'd torn the charges out. "Defeatism," her father had said. "Doesn't help anybody."

Of course, he also hadn't known what the damn things were for.

It took her some time to wrench the remains of the Chair's bookcase out of the way, and for a moment she thought the effort wasted. But no, no, the passage was still here. Only the door was more nearly matched to the surrounding wall than she was used to. She wondered if this Harold Blank even knew she knew about it.

The electrical main was already shorted, so all she needed to do was turn on everything electric in the room — computer terminal, stereo, PA system, silent alarm, lights, dictaphone, air conditioner, plug in that 3DS for good measure how old are you, man? — and wait for the overdraw to knock out the local transformer.

Snap. Just faintly audible behind the splintered wall panel. The door did not slide open as she'd expected; maybe that feature was unique to her home reality. In any event the runners were greased well enough that she could manhandle it aside.

The short doglegged tunnel was mostly intact. The difference between that and "entirely intact" meant she had to dig fallen soil out of a narrow aperture between the ceiling, the south wall, and a massive menhir of stone which had imposed itself from the north, then wriggle through. She was filthy by the time she made it to the other side…

…and realized the limits of her plan. The door to Blank's dorm was closed, and there was no way to induce it to open from this side.

The door opened, and something grabbed her.

The something was her boss. Harold Blank was shaking like he had something caught in his throat. "You're okay. You're okay."

"I know." She managed to pull back, but only barely. The old man looked frantic. "Where's Dr. Bradbury?"

"I have no idea." He pulled her by the hand, out of the bedroom and into the living space. Scout the Burmese cat was squatting on the ancient, hideous couch, ears pressed flat to his skull.

Probably he was reacting to the giant bear protruding from the wall behind him. It was a miracle the couch hadn't been vaporized. Or the cat.

"Wait. What do you mean, you don't know?"

Blank was across the room, rummaging through an emergency case he'd hauled out of a hatch in the wall. "I haven't looked. Went straight to A&R when…" He stopped, as though someone had briefly turned off the lights inside of him, then continued as though that hadn't happened. "When there was nothing else to do. Saw the walls were down, so I came back here to try the tunnel."

"Why were you going to A&R?"

He paused his search to stare at her.

She stared back at him.

The door to the hall swung open, spilling smoke and a sickly smell into the room, and there was Melissa Bradbury. "Oh," she said, "thank god." This hug was absolutely brutal. The little old lady could clutch. "I hoped you'd be here. How did you get in?"

"Hey." Blank gently separated them. He was holding a band-aid, and a cotton swab. A moment later, her forehead was stinging and a wound she hadn't known she'd had was bandaged.

"Oh," said Bradbury. "You're here, too."

"Don't sound so relieved," he grinned.

She looked back and forth between them, baffled. "Did you both…?"

They glanced at each other, as though realizing the same truth presently rocking her world.

"I guess we did," her mother said.

"Huh," said her father.

She could have blamed the smoke in her eyes. She had an out.

She didn't take it.

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Michael

Indivisible

Howard

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