Chapter 21
Carly
For as long as Carly had been in Julian, she realized that she hadn’t bothered to explore many areas outside Main Street.
Adam drove them across dirt roads bordered by well-maintained farms, quiet streets with little houses and trampolines in the
front yard, red barns and ancient trees that guarded the sides of the road.
The town was scenic, as her dad had claimed. Outside of the madness, there were pockets of calm. Maybe Bruce had liked this
change of pace; maybe this was a kind of retirement for him.
She glanced over to the driver’s seat, where Adam had both hands carefully placed at the ten and two positions on the wheel,
and said, “This has been an intense morning. You want to talk about it?” Carly was freaked the fuck out about Shireen vanishing,
so she couldn’t imagine how Adam felt.
But Adam wasn’t someone who readily showed their emotions, and his expression remained neutral. “I’m just trying to focus
on collecting evidence, and then we can see what this means.”
But that didn’t really answer her question. Carly supposed he was compartmentalizing his feelings. Maybe that was helping him get through this, and she’d done the same with her dad.
“It’s okay to be scared.” She almost put a hand on his shoulder, but thought that would be too touchy-feely for him. “I would
understand.”
Adam’s jaw clenched as he turned the car down another side street, driving them around Julian in search of the Caltech van.
“There’s nothing to be scared of,” he said simply. “We don’t have all the information.”
And she let it go, because it was clear he probably was scared and trying his very best to hide that. She refocused on the road, which is when she spotted a white panel van with
a blue logo parked in front of a bungalow cottage. “You said Dr. Song drives a panel van? That’s our scientist or someone
who really loves storage.”
“Scientist,” Adam said with relief, parking the hearse directly behind it.
When they got out of the car, they walked the steps up to the bungalow and Carly rang the doorbell. “Can’t wait to see Dr.
Optimism. She’s super fun.”
Heather didn’t answer, though. Instead, two dads and a toddler peered out the door. One held the toddler and the other a bubble
machine.
“Can we help you?” one of the men asked.
“Umm, we’re looking for Heather,” Adam began to say.
“Bore-ING,” the toddler said, and the dad holding her laughed.
“Sorry, she tells it like it is.”
“Is a woman named Heather here?” Carly tried again.
“The only woman here is this little lady, and she wants bubbles.” As if on cue, bubbles began to float out of the machine.
“Good luck?” the dad said as he closed the door and locked it behind them.
Carly scratched her head, but Adam was already heading down the steps and going to the house next door. “Wait up! I have short
legs!” she called out as she hurried to catch up.
When Adam knocked at the next house, it wasn’t Heather who answered, but Rick. Carly stopped halfway up the pavers in confusion.
Rick, though, didn’t so much as pause when he said, “What the hell are you two doing here?”
“We’re looking for Dr. Song.” Adam’s hands found his hips and he rocked back on his heels. “Aren’t you supposed to be checking
the perimeter?”
“The perimeter comes later.” Rick took the worn map from his pocket and slapped it against his thigh. “Heather and I are working
on something much bigger. What do you want with her, anyways?”
There was too much to explain. Carly wasn’t interested in having this back-and-forth with Rick. “Can we come in? I really
need to use the bathroom.”
Adam gave her a grateful look, and she offered a small smile in return. She had his back. They would figure this out together.
Rick opened the door and they stepped inside. “This house has a bidet, in case you’re into that kind of thing, which I am,”
Rick said.
Carly ignored the wink he gave her, mouthed a thank-you, walked to the bathroom and locked the door behind her.
For the first time that loop, Carly finally exhaled. She hadn’t had a moment to herself since the reset. She’d been excited
to spend the day with Adam. Yes, the loop was threatening to potentially kill them all, but she liked Adam. He liked her. That was something real she wanted to hold on to. And a scene had come to her as they left the orchard—a fall meet-cute at a ranch—that she was itching to put to paper.
But Shireen was still missing, and obviously they had to figure out what had happened. The past few hours were fueled by pure
adrenaline, and seeing Adam upset had twisted Carly’s stomach into knots. She didn’t want him to know how scared she was,
though. But alone in this bathroom, she could run the water, shove her face into the hand towel and scream, which is exactly
what she did.
When she finished, she washed her hands and the feeling that she was spinning out of control off, then unlocked the door.
She had to be strong for Adam. She would do this for him.
“How did you and Dr. Song start working together?” Adam asked.
“Probably the same way you and Movie Girl found each other,” Rick said.
Carly rolled her eyes at Movie Girl. If she was Movie Girl, Rick was Flamingo Man.
“We want the hell out of this loop,” Rick continued.
Then Heather’s voice came through. “Adam? I had a feeling we’d reconnect.”
When Dr. Song walked into the room she carried coffees, one for her and one for Rick. “I was looking for a clear field to
examine the eclipse, and that’s when I ran into Rick and his map. We started talking and figured it couldn’t hurt to combine
efforts. He has a history of Julian that I just don’t.”
“And she’s blowing my mind with the science stuff, let me tell you,” Rick chuckled.
“I do wonder if Rick’s bubble theory could have legs.” Heather sipped the coffee. “We’re retracing his last few loop steps
to see if he possibly punctured something that’s releasing that negative mass we need to keep the wormhole open.”
Carly started to fidget. They’d spent half the day trying to find Dr. Song, and now here she was, but Adam hadn’t said a damn word.
She decided to step in and do the heavy lifting for him.
“I think it’s great that everyone loves to geek out on the eclipse, but we didn’t come here for that. We came to tell you something.”
Heather gestured toward the living room area, which had a large sectional sofa and two armchairs surrounding a brick fireplace.
Carly took a seat, and Adam sat next to her; their legs briefly touching distracted her.
Rick sat in an armchair and said, “Go ahead, then, spit it out.”
Adam’s lips had thinned, and he took a deep breath before launching in. “Okay, so every time I reset, I’m in the funeral home.
I’m always standing in my office with Shireen, my ex. When I reset in the room, I am always touching her shoulder. But she
just never showed up. We don’t know where she is, actually.”
Dr. Song put the mug down on a side table and squinted at Adam. “She disappeared?”
“It seems so,” Carly said. Her leg anxiously bounced and Adam’s palm landed on her knee to soothe her. Some of the tension
left just from his touch.
Rick leaned forward. “You’re sure?”
Adam nodded.
“Fascinating.” Dr. Song twisted the star pendant on a long silver chain around her neck.
“Fascinating?” Adam’s nails flexed against Carly’s knee.
“I think we’re both a bit freaked out, like, if she’s gone . . .” Carly carefully chose her words, fully aware that Adam was
listening to all of them. “Does that mean other people can just disappear, too? And when will they come back?”
“If they come back,” Heather corrected her. Carly noted the wince from Adam immediately.
“She’ll come back,” Adam said, though it was clear he was telling himself that more than anything.
“Well, this doesn’t exactly hurt the wormhole theory.” Dr. Song looked to Rick for validation.
“She’s obsessed with this wormhole thing,” Rick said. “I keep telling her we’re all chess pieces, and the game players want
us to think we’re in danger. But I’m not worried. Just got to keep poking around for that door.”
Heather rolled her eyes at that.
“Wait, what do you mean it doesn’t hurt the wormhole theory?” Adam crossed his arms, paying close attention.
“There was no time change in the eclipse,” Heather said, “which suggests something about the loop stabilized enough that the
wormhole didn’t need to shrink in on itself. It didn’t collapse any further. But perhaps that’s because it gained more exotic
matter, more of that negative mass it needs to stay open.”
“Are you suggesting Shireen is the negative mass?” Adam asked.
“It would appear so, yes.”
Carly felt sick. “Are you saying the loop is, like, eating people to stay stable? What would stop it from just decimating this whole place?”
“I imagine nothing would.” Heather drummed her fingers along the arm of the chair. “Unless we found a different kind of negative
mass to feed it.”
“We came here for help,” Adam said, desperation clawing through his voice. “How do we bring her back?”
Heather and Rick exchanged a look, like they shared some secret apocalyptic language. Then Rick said, “We’ve been talking
about this some ourselves—what to do in the event of the unthinkable. I think a person up and vanishing is tipping us into
the unthinkable.”
Rick, to his credit, didn’t look excited by this fact; unlike Heather, he seemed sympathetic to Adam’s cause. “It’s like in Beaches, when Barbara Hershey finds out she has cancer . . .” Rick began to tear up.
Heather gave Rick a knowing series of pats on the back as she said, “We don’t have a way to bring Shireen back. But someone
else might. We have to tell the rest of Julian.”