Page 122 of Under Story

Beneath the table, Laurel nudges Eli’s ankle.

“I’ve read your book. The Duoverse,” Harry continues. “The anomaly must have felt like the find of a lifetime. I would think you’d still be at McMurdo, instead of paying to play like the rest of us.”

Eli spreads his hands. “No proof.”

“Pity. But you know,” Harry says, “it might have been under your nose. If I were you, I wouldn’t give up.”

Someone shouts from the deck—a pod of seals has been spotted—but Harry doesn’t move.

“See how you like the Lagavulin,” he says.

Laurel has resolved not to drink it. “I wish I could,” she says. “Seasick.”

“What a shame.” Harry rubs the pads of his fingers together. His attention drifts to Silas. “Hello, young man. What’s your name?”

Silas looks at Harry shyly.

“No name? Well,” says Harry, teasing, “I’ll have to introduce you to my Pippa. Very few children get to see Antarctica.”

—

In bed that night, Eli whispers, “What the hell was that, with Harry?”

“Clearly, he’s looked into us.” Laurel lied to Harry about feeling seasick, but she’s queasy now.

“Why would Harry Cooke care about the anomaly?”

“You’re being naive. Remember what Mr. Nakamura said? There are people who want to control the pathways between universes,” Laurel says. “The overtakers can’t be the only ones who have that information. Stories travel. Maybe they’ve reached Harry.”

“Well, he can nose around all he wants. In a few days, we’ll be gone.”

His certainty unnerves her. The screening that evening had been a superhero movie. Laurel was annoyed by the hero, an unmemorable man in a cape. She was annoyed by the familiar villain—a robot with reptile features—and by the number of plot holes. She was annoyed that she had once believed in her own far-fetched solution.

“Maybe we aren’t heroes,” she says.

“What do you mean?” asks Eli.

“Well, we’ve both kind of been thinking it, haven’t we? We did this impossible thing. We discovered a portal, and we made it through alive. We found Silas. Until now, almost everything has gone our way.”

“Because we worked for it. We figured it out. We haven’t just been lucky.”

“But we have been lucky. We act like we’re different from other people, like we aren’t subject to the same rules. What if, now that we’re here, we have to live like everyone else? We beat the system once. Maybe we don’t get to do it twice.”

“We have to do it twice,” says Eli.

“There’s so much risk. If Silas panics, we won’t be able to help him. He’ll be stuck in that goddamn case. What if the respirator fails?” Laurel asks. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

“I’m terrified. But the risk is greater if we stay.”

“We don’t know that. Silas was born in this universe. Who knows how he’d react to ours?”

“Look at us. We’ve adapted.”

“We also had a choice. We were adults. We knew what was happening.”

Eli closes his eyes. “What are you saying?”

On the cot, Silas snores lightly.