Page 74 of Under Story

“Hush,” says Louis. “Open it.”

The tin has rusted; Nita has to use her nails to pry it apart. Inside are three silver ovals. They remind Laurel of Tamagotchis, the virtual pets that were popular when she was a teenager. Each has a small inset screen and a single black button.

“Holy shit, Louis,” Nita says. “Where did you find these?”

Louis beams. “In this tin! One of the military guys must have brought them over accidentally. Poor fellow didn’t know what he had on him.”

“What are they?” asks Eli.

“Spy equipment,” Nita says. “They’re called placemakers. I’ve never seen one in the flesh.”

“Invented during the last North American War,” says Louis.

Eli pales. “How many have there been?”

“North American Wars?” Louis bites his lip. “In total?”

“I think Eli was asking how many placemakers were ever made,” says Nita, smoothly, “but no one really knows, because they aren’t traceable. You can’t track them via satellite. And since they rely on solar energy, they’re rechargeable.”

“What exactly do they do?” Laurel asks.

Louis rolls his eyes. “You two need to review your American history.”

“They generate a meeting place,” says Nita. “To link them, you press the button while everyone is still in the same location.”

Louis scrapes the filling out of an Oreo. “I did that bit already.”

“Then you hand them out, and everyone disperses. The next time someone presses the button on their device, their coordinates appear on the screens of the others.”

“The thing is,” Louis says, “they only work once. After that, you have to sync them all over again. So we should save them for an emergency.”

“Darling,” says Nita, “don’t take this the wrong way, but if there’s an emergency, you aren’t the first person I’d call.”

“Who would you call first?”

“9-1-1?” says Nita.

Louis waves a hand. “There are things that you can’t tell those people.”

“That’s true,” says Laurel. She knows that this gift isn’t meant for her—it’s for Laurel Two, wherever she is—and she misses her Nita, her Louis, her Charlie. But this Louis is a balm, and suddenly she does feel pained to leave them: Louis and Nita Two, her only friends in this universe.

“One last thing,” says Louis. “Let’s take off our clothes.”

Nita chokes on her cookie.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Louis says. “We’re doing a polar plunge.”

“I don’t like the sound of that, either.”

“Oh, come on. We’ll be bonded for eternity. Besides, I already reserved the sauna, so we can warm up afterward.”

“I think we’re sufficiently bonded already. And you can’t reserve the sauna,” Nita says.

“You can if you put up a sign that says Warning: Rodent Infestation.”

“I say we go for it,” says Eli. Laurel turns toward him with surprise. “I mean, you can’t go to Antarctica without doing a polar plunge. We’ll suffer now and spend our lives as champions.”

Laurel blows on her hands. “Then we’d better do it right away, because my fingers are going numb.”