Converge

Converge by Chris Owen Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com Copyright ©2007 by Chris Owen First published in www.torq...

Author: Owen Chris

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Converge by Chris Owen

Torquere Press www.torquerepress.com

Copyright ©2007 by Chris Owen First published in www.torquerepress.com, 2007 NOTICE: This eBook is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution to any person via email, floppy disk, network, print out, or any other means is a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment. This notice overrides the Adobe Reader permissions which are erroneous. This eBook cannot be legally lent or given to others. This eBook is displayed using 100% recycled electrons.

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Dedication For S.C. who taught me to live life large. ~C

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Prologue In a sunny park, a young child played with his trucks, one yellow and one red. He'd found a small spot of sand that wasn't already taken over by the bigger boys, and he was content with that. The older boys didn't seem to pay him any attention, letting him drive his trucks around in tight circles, his quiet vroom noises drowned out by their louder shrieks and booming sound effects as they worked. His mother and aunt sat on a nearby bench, keeping an eye on him and talking to each other in soft tones. He ignored them for the most part, his too big hat falling down over his forehead as he pushed the nose of the red truck into the sand and moved the yellow truck in to rescue it. The trucks interested him; conversation did not. Without warning there was a huge noise, both sound and sensation, and everything around him stilled. The children sharing the sandbox with him looked up; the mothers, fathers and other watchful adults all stopped talking. The birdsongs stopped, and even the wind seemed to cease rustling the leaves. As a unit, a collection of marionette puppets, everyone in the park turned to look. They had not heard the scream of metal tearing, or the horrible crash and boom of rock; it was a gong, almost pleasantly musical if it hadn't been so dark and deep. The sound of terror and pain vibrated through all of them and, unable to stop themselves, they looked. The boy knew that the sound had come from the other place, the place where the people and structures were gray. 4


He knew he wasn't supposed to look there, that there were rules about it, and that he was supposed to ignore the other people. He'd been told that for months, for over a year. His aunt had told him many, many times not to pay attention, to do his best to pretend the other people and the other place were not there. It was hard, but mostly he tried, because it made his mother happy. But this time he looked, just like everyone else, even those who were old enough to know better. Most of the geography was the same, save for the fact that the other place had an addition of a small stone bridge over the creek. It was from that bridge, gray rocks in orderly formation from a gray bank, that the noise had come. The stones had tumbled, shaken from their mortar by a truck that had barreled into the side of the bridge. And from the truck, dark gray metal twisted into a hideous wreck, came the sound of the gong, and a lighter, airy tinkling of bells. The two sounds had different feelings to them, one scary and tight, the other hopeful and happy. Sound whooshed around the boy, enticing and entrancing him as he took a few wobbly steps toward the scene, peering through the overlay of color and not-color before his hands were both grasped. On one side stood his mother, on the other his aunt, and they were both as silent as the solid, colorful people around him. In the other place, people were screaming and running, some toward the wreck and others away. Mothers scooped up children, fathers ran toward the wreck, a woman shrieked that there was a person in there that needed help. 5


Time dilated and then shrank, and the boy watched curiously as emergency trucks came, their flashing lights not red and blue and orange, but still somehow bright in their gray drabness. A woman cried out, unseen but certainly felt; it was the first time the boy had felt terror, and he had no name for the taste of it, the sound of it. The firemen, in their light gray uniforms with reflective tape, yelled that she was having a baby, right there in the wreck, and all around the boy people swayed a little closer, as if they could see. No one spoke. The voices from over there seemed to pick up on the sounds of terror and then hope, adding to the sound of the gong and the tinkling of bells. The boy, curious, tried to move forward but was thwarted by the hands holding him back. With a sigh and a little bit of a struggle, for he was only three years old, he stayed where he was and watched. There was the excitement of the men cutting parts of the truck away, and the confusion of the people there shouting for the lady to hold on, and then, suddenly, to push. She had pushed the bridge right over, what else was there for her to push? And then the tinkle of bells and the boom of the gong met. People in both places drew breath and held it, and even the boy stilled. When the baby wailed and a fireman yelled for help to get the mother out, lifting the new infant high, cheers erupted, almost overwhelming the sound sensation of the baby's birth. Almost. "It's a boy!" someone said, in one of the places. 6


"When can I play with him?" the three year old asked, looking over his shoulder as the baby was wrapped in a blanket and his mother tried to lead him away, back to the sandbox. "You can't, honey. The baby isn't for you to play with." That didn't seem right at all, and the boy looked back, once more. He saw the mother being lifted from the wreck, and he saw her reach for her child. "Ari," she said. "My son, Ari." He saw her reaching, saw a tiny baby in the fireman's arms, and didn't understand the sudden yelling that she was slipping away, that they were losing her. She was right there, he could see her. As his mother and aunt turned him once more, the boy decided that Ari was a good name. It was the perfect name for a new friend.

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Chapter One He wanted a chocolate bar. Ari not only wanted a chocolate bar, but he wanted a specific brand, and he wanted it immediately, intensely, and suddenly. At some point between running the final calculation on the spreadsheet he'd been working on and actually saving it, a pure haze of chocolate need had descended over him like a warm wool blanket. Blinking, Ari looked up from his computer and then around his office. "That's weird," he said to his assistant, who was sitting at the table in the middle of the room, also wrangling spreadsheets. "What is?" Duncan didn't even lift his head as he clicked around on his own laptop. "Tell me the calculation isn't off by three million dollars again." Ari glanced at the spreadsheet to make sure. That one error had made him slightly paranoid. "It's fine," he said, reassured. "But I want chocolate. You know, the kind with the peanut butter in it." Duncan snorted. "Right. Because little cups of death are good when they have peanut butter in them." "Chocolate isn't death," Ari said dryly. "It's vomiting and an unattractive skin rash. But that's what's weird; I don't even like chocolate. But I really, really want it. Right now." "You're just hungry." Duncan looked at his watch. "It's after eight. Actually, I'm surprised you haven't gotten a—" He broke off and nodded as the phone rang. "You or me?" Ari shrugged and reached for the phone. "It's for me." 8


"It's always for you; it's your office." "Yeah, yeah." Ari rolled his eyes and picked up the phone. "Ari Sloan," he said, just in case it was a client despite the late hour. "Hey, coming home soon?" For a fraction of a moment, Ari wondered if he'd ever heard Ben say hello before diving into a conversation. "Soon." He glanced at the spreadsheet. "I think we reached a stopping point. Depending on traffic, I should be home in about half an hour." "Okay." Ari could hear the TV in the background. It sounded like a sitcom laugh track. "Are we going out or ordering in?" Ben asked. "It depends what you feel like," Ari said, not caring either way. "We could cook." "It's late. I'll order in some Italian; we have wine." Ari nodded, watching as Duncan began to shut down the laptop. "Okay. Are we celebrating something?" Wine early in the week wasn't really typical of them. "Nah, not really." Ben's tone was far too casual. "Just relaxing." "I see. All right, then." He started closing programs on his computer and waved as Duncan left. "You order supper and I'll be home as soon as I can manage it." "Okay, see you in a bit," Ben said, and then the line went dead. Ari hung up, looking thoughtfully at the phone. He wasn't sure what Ben was up to, but he was reasonably sure he'd find out when he got home. 9


It took Ari ten minutes to actually leave the office, between shutting down the computer, locking copies of the data in the safe, and double checking his appointments for the following morning. Duncan, at least, was a help. He'd color coded and prioritized the meetings, and left little notes by each one with reminders of what files Ari would need and where they were. As an assistant, Duncan was worth his body weight in stock options. Traffic wasn't bad, and Ari thanked the stars that he'd missed rush hour. He always missed rush hour, really, getting to the office before seven and usually not leaving again until early evening, or even late evening. It didn't leave a lot of time for other things, but he liked his position, the work, and the people he worked with. He was in meetings often enough that he felt social, and a great number of those meetings were over meals, so he went out a lot, as well. Ben wasn't really fond of the hours, but he could hardly argue. It seemed to Ari that the nights he wasn't working late Ben was, and it was Ben who worked at least one full day a weekend, usually from home, though he did go into the office and work on briefs as well. At least his law office did mostly corporate work and he didn't have to add in court dates, but Ben still billed a lot of hours. And then there were the unbillable hours on top of that. For his part, Ari had spent most of his twenties working his way up the ladder until he'd gotten to where he was, full division head in his corporation. He was a wunderkind of sorts, the youngest person to ever sit on the board of directors. He had the ear of the CEO, and he rarely worked 10


fewer than seventy hours a week, doing a couple of hours in the evening when he was home and over the weekend if he absolutely had to, which was more often than one would expect. But he couldn't deny that he liked it. For a couple of workaholics, it was a wonder he and Ben had even started dating, let alone gotten to the point where they were mostly living together. They simply made the most of what time they had, and that was that. Ari was pretty sure that if Ben was opening wine on a Tuesday they wouldn't be working as they let the TV drone in the background. It would be a refreshing change, actually. He got home and drove into the garage, hoping that he'd beaten the meal delivery; Ben could get cranky if he had to wait too long to eat. Worse would be if he'd started eating without waiting for Ari. That had happened more than once, and it usually led to a fight. Ari closed the garage door with the remote and looked at his briefcase on the passenger seat before getting out of the car and leaving it where it was. If he needed it he could come back for it, and it might appease Ben if he didn't take it into the house. "Hey," he called, stepping from the garage and into the kitchen. "Smells good." Damn, the food was there and already on plates. Ben nodded from where he was leaning on the counter, a glass of wine in his hand. "I got the salmon for you, the one with the penne. How was your day?" He was still mostly in his work clothes, only the jacket and tie gone, and his dark hair hadn't lost any of its immaculate styling. 11


Loosening his own tie, Ari crossed the kitchen and glanced at the plates. "Fine, thanks. You?" He poured himself a glass of wine and went to kiss Ben before sipping, not terribly surprised when Ben turned his head and Ari wound up kissing his cheek. "Busy," Ben said, his warm tone completely contradicting the cold shoulder. "Let's go to the dining room with this, shall we? Or do you want to eat in front of the TV?" Ari picked up the plate with the salmon and eyed Ben's lobster. "The dining room." Ben would appreciate the gesture, much like leaving the briefcase in the car. Ben led the way into the over-decorated formal dining room and put his plate down on the table. "Ta da," he said, stepping back to let Ari past him. Ari took one look at the table, dressed in brilliant white linens and set with silver and china he'd never seen before, and frantically tried to remember what date he'd so clearly forgotten. It was months until Ben's birthday, and his own had been a few weeks earlier. It was only a couple of months past their second anniversary together, and it was May, so Valentine's Day was out. "You look terrified," Ben said with a wry grin as he set his wine glass down in front of lit candles and seated himself. Ari held his plate and his wine glass and tried to find a graceful way to save his ass, but there didn't seem to be one. "I have no idea what the occasion is," he confessed. "I'm sorry, Ben." Ben snorted a laugh and smiled at him, the kind of smile Ari hadn't seen a while. It made Ben's mouth twist up a little 12


higher on one side, an expression Ari had always thought particularly endearing, and Ben's eyes crinkled a little at the corners, hinting at what a handsome man he'd still be as he aged. "It's not an occasion, as such," Ben said, pointing to the chair next to him instead of at the place across the table, already set. "I got a verbal offer of a promotion today." Ari's eyebrows shot up, and he took the seat next to Ben, his plate thudding a little more heavily than he'd planned. "You said we weren't celebrating!" He kissed Ben quickly, getting his mouth this time instead a cheek, and leaned across the table to fetch his own silverware. "We're not," Ben protested, looking pleased. "It's more of a pre-celebration. I'm not about to party or start plans until there's an actual offer in place and I look at the particulars. But I kind of thought a fancier dinner than our usual take-outand-eat-in-the-living-room might be nice." "You are so right," Ari said, grinning at him. He lifted his wine glass in a salute. "To you and your success. You've worked hard. Good for you." "Thanks." Ben's smile turned almost shy as he lifted his glass and sipped his wine. "Anyway. We'll see what happens. It might fall apart." "Sure, it might." Ari nodded, knowing that a verbal offer was nice but a contract was nicer. "But it might not. Let's go with that one, okay? And enjoy the food before it gets cold." Ben nodded, still smiling, and they dug in. It was nice to have their supper at the table for once, even if it was in a room that looked like the decorator had been on drugs while reading too many magazines about colors. Ari wasn't sure 13


why he never got around to redecorating it, but it could have been because he so rarely used the room. He'd bought the house, had it furnished, and promptly made use of only four rooms. The living room was for watching TV, the huge cabinet always open. The den-turned-study and home office was for working. The bedroom was for sleeping and reading and sex. And the kitchen was for eating in, standing over the sink at eleven at night when he'd just come home from work. Sure, Ben had wound up bringing a lot of his things over, too, but it was mostly still Ari's space. Maybe that would change, though, once Ben knew what was going on at work. Ari flaked his salmon and reached for his wine, looking at Ben carefully. He looked well rested, which was good. He'd been putting in a lot of hours in the last month, but it seemed to suit him. "What's the promotion?" Ari asked, taking a bite. Ben smirked a little, the cocky pride finally showing a bit. Ari liked that look, too. The casual self-confidence had drawn him in neatly, but the flash of arrogance kept him interested. He'd been even more fascinated when he found out the arrogance was well earned. "Partner," Ben said, winking at him and smiling broadly. Ari stared. "Not junior?" Ben shook his head. "Nope. Which is why I expect it to fall through, honestly. One does not skip over junior partner to partner in a firm our size. Still, though. It means they're talking about me. I'd accept junior partner. I bet the bonus will be amazing." 14


"I am so glad I didn't eat that chocolate I wanted," Ari said, his fork hanging in mid-air. "I would've missed this." Ben's eyebrow arched. "You wanted chocolate?" "Like nothing else I've wanted before. Except maybe you. That night at the coffee bar on Brown?" "I remember that." Ben put down his fork and leaned forward. "You dragged me into the bathroom and jacked me off in the stall. You wanted chocolate that bad?" "Well, I didn't get hard for it." Ari set his own fork down carefully. "But I'm getting hard now." He was, the familiar tight pull in his groin changing rapidly into something tangible and in need of attention. Ben grinned and leaned closer, licking across Ari's lips before kissing him. "I'm glad I turn you on more than something that makes you sick to your stomach," he said, laughing softly. "We're done with supper, aren't we?" "Bring the wine." "We can get it later." "I like the way you think." Ari kissed Ben, one hand curled around Ben's neck, holding him place as Ari pushed his tongue in, hungrily sweeping through Ben's mouth. Ben tasted of wine and the creamy sauce on his lobster, heady and rich. Ben dove into it with him, his hands gripping Ari's tie, tugging him to his feet without breaking the kiss. For a moment Ari thought they'd wind up going for it right there on the dining room table, but Ben tugged again, moving them toward to the door. Ari was just as glad; the immediacy of 15


doing it on the table was hot and all, but he wasn't sure if he was up to using condiments or sauce as lube. Stumbling and kissing, hands grasping, they made their way back through the kitchen. Ari's tie came off and was tossed away, and before they reached the living room they were both fighting with each other's shirt buttons. Ari got Ben's shirt untucked and stopped fighting with the buttons after the top three. He dragged the fabric of the shirt up so he could touch Ben's skin, teasing at his belly and then at his chest. "Shirt cuffs." Ben gasped and fell back against the wall by the stairs. "You'll get me stuck." Ari leaned in and dipped his head to lick over one of Ben's nipples. "You fight with them. I'm busy." He bit lightly, his cock flexing when Ben moaned, chest pushing against Ari's mouth. Ari bit again, teased the hard nipple with his tongue and teeth as he groped Ben's erection over his trousers. "Jesus." Ben hissed, his arms looping around Ari's neck. "Don't stop." Ari laughed against Ben's chest and didn't stop. He tugged at Ben's belt, jostling with him as Ben worked to get his cuffs unbuttoned, and suckled at the nipple in his mouth. Ben was breathing hard, making the occasional quiet noise, and Ari wasn't far behind him. Ben's skin tasted clean and warm, comforting; when Ari slid his hand into Ben's boxers and brushed his knuckles along the hard length of Ben's prick, there was suddenly a hint of salt as Ben began to sweat and his skin began to goose pimple. 16


Ben was perhaps the most physically responsive lover Ari had ever had, his entire body a barometer of his arousal. Even after more than two years together it was still a bit of an adventure learning to translate all the little signs and signals, but Ari had the obvious ones all figured out. The flex of Ben's hips, the strength of his erection, the way he'd given up on his cuffs—or perhaps finished with them—and had his fingers in Ari's hair, holding Ari's mouth to his chest ... they all spoke loudly to Ari. He was pretty sure they weren't going to make it to the bed before Ben got off. "Want?" Ari lifted his head to nip at Ben's jaw, his hand slowly moving over Ben's erection. "What do you think?" Ben asked, the words breathless. He put a hand on Ari's shoulder, heavy and warm, and urged him down. "Please." "I like it when you ask." Ari grinned and nipped at Ben's jaw one last time. "I know. That's why I do it." Ben pushed harder and Ari went to his knees, hands slipping around to Ben's hips and easing his trousers and boxers down. When Ben's cock was exposed, stiff and ruddy, Ari leaned closer still and inhaled. He loved the slightly spicy smell of Ben's skin when he was turned on, the hint of pepper mixed with the salt of the light sweat. "Nice," he murmured, nuzzling Ben's hip and scraping him lightly with stubble. "Ari, please," Ben repeated, his hand moving from Ari's shoulder to his hair and back again. Ari spread his own legs and settled back on his heels. "Shh, honey. I've got you." He darted out his tongue and 17


licked at the very tip of Ben's prick, pushing lightly at the slit before licking again, just under the head. He curled his hand around the base of Ben's cock, holding him lightly as he began to lick and tease. He grinned when he heard Ben's head thump against the wall. With one palm flat on Ben's trembling thigh, Ari said, "Easy. You're kind of wound up." "It's stress." Ben carded his hand through Ari's hair and gripped the back of his head, fingers tangling in Ari's hair as he laughed. "Teasing might not be a good idea." Ari nodded and sucked lightly at the crown of Ben's cock for a moment, tasting. "I was beginning to suspect that." He looked up and grinned. "Ready?" "Been ready all damn day." Ben looked down at him, his eyes wide and dark. "You left early this morning." "Sorry," Ari said. "I'll make it up to you." "I'm counting on it. Now, shut up and suck me, honey." Ari laughed roughly and got to it. He dug his fingers into Ben's thigh, feeling the muscles strain. He usually held onto Ben's hip to keep him still, but this time he let Ben move and thrust as he wanted. The hand in Ari's hair tightened almost painfully, and Ari's cock thumped with his heartbeat as Ben took charge, pushing into his mouth and then dragging his head back and forth. Ben fucked his mouth, sounds flowing out to surround them both with a soundtrack. Ben moaned, panted; Ari answered him with noises of his own, grunts and whimpers mingling with the wet, sucking sounds of his mouth. Ari 18


pushed hard with his tongue, teasing at the slit and then sucking Ben in deep. "Ari." Ben gasped, and the shaking of his legs increased. Ari moaned and did it again, pulling hard and going all the way down, his mouth stretched wide. He could taste Ben, strong and healthy and wanting, and he could tell by the gentle swell of the prick in his mouth that Ben was close. With another moan he palmed Ben's balls, his fingers teasing at the skin behind them and pushing up as a hint of more to come. "Yes!" Ben cried, his head or shoulders thumping on the wall again as his hips jerked. He pushed deep and froze, his hand keeping Ari there, forcing him to swallow around the head of Ben's cock. Ari could feel the swell and pulse, spunk pouring down the back of his throat, and he swallowed again, shuddering as he willed himself not to reach down and rub himself off. He wanted to fuck, and he only had to hang on a bit longer, just had to resist the urge for a moment. When Ben started to relax, Ari moaned softly. He sucked, easing off slowly as he licked and kissed until Ben was ready to let him go. "Thank God for the wall." Ben panted, one hand petting Ari's cheek as he came off Ben's cock. "You melted my bones." "That was the plan," Ari said, his own breath coming quick and strong, lifting his chest. He forced himself to stand, his entire body thrumming. "Kiss me."

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Immediately, Ben clung to him, kissing him hard and licking through Ari's mouth, still trembling a little. "Bed," Ben said into the kiss. "Let's go to bed." Ari nodded and pulled back a bit, helping Ben get his pants back up before he tripped. "Hurry," he said, pointing up the stairs. "Don't know if I can, actually," Ben teased. He gave Ari a sultry smile and started up the stairs. He peeled off his shirt, letting it slide from his shoulders until it fluttered to the stairs between one riser and the next. Ari was spellbound, following and watching. He knew he was staring, had always stared when Ben stripped, but he was far past caring or being even slightly self-conscious about it. Ben was built to show off, and Ari was willing to look his fill. Usually, though, his need to touch took over, and this time was no different. They reached the top of the stairs and Ben sped up, laughing as he turned into the bedroom. "I've got my second wind," Ben said with a grin. "Good thing." Ari stripped in a rush, not caring that his clothes wound up in a crumpled heap on the floor. "Bed." Ben shoved his pants down, lifting his feet to take off his socks, and almost stumbled before he added his clothes to the pile. "How do you want me?" "Usually, any way I can get you." Ari tumbled to the bed and sprawled as he reached for the lube in the nightstand drawer. "But this time, I think I want you on your hands and knees to start." 20


Ben laughed and joined him on the bed, rolling on top of Ari and snatching the tube of lube from his hand. "You think so, do you?" "You asked," Ari pointed out, trying to shove Ben off him and only becoming distracted by the rub and grind. "Do you have a better idea?" "You know, I think I do." Ben kissed Ari with a wet and almost indecent mouth, all provocation and invitation. Ari would have told him that he was very interested in hearing Ben's idea, but between the kiss and the way Ben was pushing him against the bed, arranging Ari's body with his own arms and legs and nudges of his knee, Ari was pretty sure he'd find out anyway. The cap of the lube popped and Ben pulled away slightly, shifting to straddle Ari's hips. "Help me with this," he said, sitting up and squeezing a dollop into his palm. He smoothed it over Ari's cock, stroking him lightly and grinning down at him. "I think you're doing okay," Ari said with a gasp. "Sure, from your side. But this isn't going in me without a bit more effort on your part." "Effort?" Ari's eyes almost crossed as Ben's thumb rubbed under the head of his cock. "You're addled," Ben said, sounding pleased with himself. "All right. We'll do it the complicated, yet stunningly hot, way." Ari took a breath and made himself focus. "Huh?" he asked, grateful only that he didn't moan as he spoke, even if 21


he did sound stupid and sex-drunk. He hadn't even gotten off yet; it was far too early in the game to lose his senses. "Just lie there, honey." Ben moved one leg so he could kind of hover over Ari's body. "I'll take care of it." "What are you—oh." Ari watched, eyes wide, as Ben reached down and back, opening himself with slippery fingers. "Right. Hot." "Uh-huh." Ben's eyes closed and he probably didn't do a great job of making himself slick, but suddenly Ari didn't really care. He hadn't been all that into this part of it anyway, mostly because his brains had landed in his balls about the time he'd bounced onto the bed, but now the distraction was something else altogether. Ben's fingers sank into his body again and again, the back of his hand rubbing along Ari's cock in feather-light brushes. "Ben." Ari's chest rose and fell as he started to pant. "Please." "You know," Ben said, his own voice strained, "I like it when you ask." Ari hardly cared. All he cared about was that Ben was moving again, knees alongside Ari's hips and Ben's hand guiding him. The crown of Ari's prick, wet and slippery, brushed against Ben's ass and then he was pushing in, Ben sinking down onto him. They both gasped, Ari's sound more needy than Ben's, and Ben slowed a bit. When Ari looked up at him, Ben took a deep breath and nodded, lowering himself the rest of the way. "Okay?" Ari asked, his hands clamped around Ben's hips. 22


"Gimme a minute." Ben leaned forward, bracing himself with one hand on Ari's chest, the other on the bed beside Ari's head. "Okay. God, yeah. Okay." Ari nodded back and lifted his head to kiss Ben's mouth, sloppy and not terribly accurate with his aim. "Feel good." "Feel better if you move." Ben shifted again, gliding up on Ari's cock and grinning wickedly. "Oh, man." The drag was sending shivers through Ari's body and back down to his balls. "You asked for it." "I'm still asking." Ben pushed himself back down, fucking himself on Ari's dick. Ari growled and braced his feet. "Jerk off for me," he said, thrusting up hard. Ben groaned and cried out as Ari went deep. "Jesus Christ." "Come on. You can get it up again," Ari said, fucking him steadily. It was maybe not completely true, but Ben liked the talk, and it might happen. Ari wasn't sure if it would happen before he came, though. "Big talker," Ben accused, but he sat back, and held himself up with the one hand on Ari's chest. He started using the other on himself with quick, tight motions. Ari watched, looking down his body to see. Ben's arm was in the way most of the time, but from what he could tell it was working. It was working on him, anyway, and he sped up, his back and neck arching as he thrust faster, lifting Ben's hips and slamming them together again and again. He couldn't even breathe properly, let alone speak, but Ben didn't seem to care. 23


They both gasped and grunted and swore half words as they moved. Ben's legs started to shake, and Ari's hips pushed up, making tight circles before he went back to the fast, shallow strokes that would bring him off. "Not waiting," he confessed, eyes on the ceiling as heat moved through him. "Sorry." "S'okay," Ben managed. "Doesn't matter." He grunted once more and his ass clamped down around Ari in tight, rhythmic squeezes. "Shit!" Ari's eyes closed and he froze, coming in long jerks, his stomach muscles contracting hard. He could feel Ben's come making pools on his skin, warm and then cooler. "God." Ben panted, slowly lowering himself down to lie on Ari. "Where the hell did that come from?" Ari tried to get his breath back as he held Ben to his chest, one hand stroking down Ben's back. "That was freaking fast." "Dunno." Ben laughed weakly and rolled away, making a face when Ari slipped out of him. "But I'm not going to complain." "Complaining would be stupid," Ari agreed, taking a long kiss. Ben smiled and curled up along his side, one arm grabbing for tissues to clean them up with. "You know what we forgot?" he asked, looking at Ari through his eyelashes. "The wine." Ari laughed softly. "Gimme a minute. When my legs work, I'll go get it and clean up the dishes."

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"You're the best." Ben grinned at him and winked, staying where he was and looking at the TV on the dresser. "Any idea where the remote is?" "Your side." Ari patted Ben's ass and rolled his eyes. "One nice dinner and a stellar orgasm does not earn you a houseboy." "Darn it." Ben sighed and kissed him again, then rolled over to turn on the TV. "Is there a chart that'll tell me what does?" "I'll make one," Ari offered. "I am not doing all the laundry and cleaning the bathrooms from now until forever." Ari grinned. "No houseboy for you, then." Ben snorted and pulled at the covers until he could crawl in. "There's something wrong with the logic of this conversation." "There is," Ari agreed. "No wine. I'll be right back." He got up and went into the bathroom for a quick wash of everything sticky, then pulled on a pair of sweatpants. "Need anything else?" he asked, walking past a re-run of Law and Order on the TV. "Nah, just the wine. Thanks." Ben had stolen all the pillows—again—and was making himself cozy. "Be back in a few," Ari said, shaking his head fondly. He walked down the stairs and into the kitchen, where he could still hear the faint sounds of the TV, muted by distance and the hum of the refrigerator. Smiling to himself, Ari got out containers for the dinner, then went to the dining room to ferry the dishes and wine back to the counter. He made two 25


trips, and when the food was packed up he wrote a note to himself to not forget there were leftovers for their lunches and stuck it on the front of the fridge with a magnet. Wondering once more where the china and silver had come from, he ran water in the sink to wash them, pretty sure that the silver shouldn't sit with food on it. His back to the room and his arms in soapsuds almost to the elbows, he smiled when Ben came in the room behind him. "I thought you were sleeping," he said, not turning around as he washed one of the forks. When Ben didn't say anything in reply, Ari turned to look behind him. "Where did you go?" he called, looking around the empty room. "Ben?" From upstairs, Ben's voice yelled back, "Yeah? Did you call me?" Ari shook his head. "Nothing. I thought you were down here." "Nope!" Ari looked around the room again, slightly uneasy. He was sure he'd heard Ben come in, but the more he thought about it, the more unsure he became. Quickly, maybe too quickly to do a good job, Ari finished the dishes and set them to dry on their own in the rack. He double-checked the windows on the first floor before setting the alarm, a step he usually skipped, and put a cork in the wine bottle. Glasses and bottle in hand, he went back to the bedroom and Ben, pausing on the stairs to look back down. There wasn't anyone there. He knew that. 26


Chapter Two Finn Cormag rushed back to his lab, barely noticing the shifting flicker of the buildings and people he passed. His mind raced, and he had to shove his hands into the pockets of his lab coat to keep himself from grabbing the small notebook he had jammed into the back of his waistband, under his shirt. He really wanted to make notes, but he knew full well that it was a bad idea to linger in Between. He'd never actually run into a patrol, but he had no doubts at all that the security forces existed and that they were there. It would be a very bad situation if he were to be stopped and questioned. He had clearances of course, but he assumed that any security patrol worthy of being assigned to Between would find the leeway in his papers to be a poor excuse for being where he had been. So instead of frantically making notes like he wanted to, Finn moved himself among buildings that were gray and skirted the edges of his awareness, and others that were more tangible, going faster than the people in either dimension as he traveled the energy between them, unhindered by a true physical presence in a physical place. Moving his body was an easy thing in Between, and he'd never been so happy for that fact as he was then. It took only moments to get to his building, one of the ones that displayed its duality in a confused mix of signs and odd angles. What was an Institute of Technological Research in Alpha was a deli and office complex in Beta. Some walls only existed in Alpha, some in Beta. The walls that were 27


duplicated were his guide, simply because it was easier to find his door that way. Relieved that he'd gotten back in a reasonable time, but frustrated that he couldn't safely stay longer, Finn took a breath and prepared to slip back to Alpha. The change had been slightly unnerving in the beginning, but after a few years of work Finn had decided that the discomfort was purely psychological. Once he'd figured that out, it didn't bother him any longer. Now it was merely a matter of aim and not exhaling too soon. Finn opened a door in Between and stepped through to Alpha, into what was a rather boring room slightly larger than a closet. The door, and, indeed, the room were completely unnecessary. The room had been a sort of odd little hallway at one time, leading from Finn's office to the coffee room, and at some point before Finn had started working at the Institute, the men in suits had put doors at both ends. The door to Finn's lab had likely once been fitted with a kind of tracker, and one of the very first things Finn had done when he'd taken the position was to send a variety of electrical charges through the door and its frame to destroy any such tracking system. It wasn't in his contract that they know how many times, precisely, he went Between. The other door was merely a convenience; it gave a person something tangible to aim at when they were traveling from Alpha to Between or vice versa. Such a visual cue often helped people to pass through, although it was far from necessary. 28


Usually, Finn didn't use the room, he just went Between from his lab; that was on record, too, as he'd done it often with his colleagues. In point of fact, anyone could go to Between at any time, from anywhere at all; thus, there were the security patrols to oust trouble makers. The only reason Finn used the small walkthrough room was so that when he returned from one of these less than legitimate forays he didn't knot himself up by popping back into his lab to find someone there, waiting for him. At least if he walked through a regular door he could say he'd used the walkthrough as a shortcut from the coffee room. That much was true, thankfully. This time, he walked from Between into the room and then on out to his lab, which was empty. "Thank God," Finn murmured as he reached under his lab coat and pulled out the notebook. Hurriedly, he turned on several computer monitors and made sure they were all showing work files from his actual funded research, and then he sat in a corner chair to make some quick notes about what he'd learned. Ari did not hear my voice. He did want chocolate, bad enough to say so. Verbal reaction excellent; choice of test poor. Note: Ari is allergic to chocolate. How he didn't know that, Finn wasn't sure. But he sure as hell wouldn't ever yell, "You want peanut butter chocolate cups!" at him again. Went to home, after time lapse. B. there as well. Missed conversation, but by dinner uneaten and left out, doesn't 29


matter. Ari washed dishes, turned as if he could hear something. Thought it was B, called to him. Looked worried. He also looked freshly out of bed and kind of smug. Finn wasn't sure if he was sorry or glad he'd missed what had happened. But the really exciting thing, the thing that was driving him like nothing had since he'd found out there was a legitimate way to work in Between, was that Ari wasn't one of the Sensitive. He should have displayed no reactions at all. Will need further study. Concentrating on office for a day or so. Note—ask Dorry if there is any way the Closed can become Open, if there are stories of verified—or close to it— contact. Finn closed the notebook and shoved it in a drawer of his table, thinking about that. Honestly, he was starting to see why there wasn't any documentation about this kind of thing; the laws about contacting Beta were strict, and the punishment was rightfully harsh. But that meant that if, in fact, one did manage to establish contact or even get a reaction from a subject who wasn't Sensitive, it would never be written down anywhere. But there might be stories, disguised as myth. Finn nodded and looked at the clock, wondering how it had gotten so late. He hadn't really been over there for that long, and he'd rushed back. Still. The hour meant it was time to get home and get some sleep if he was going to go to work with Ari the next day. Maybe he'd even get up early enough to be at Ari's house in the morning.

30


Chapter Three Ari was whistling as he walked into his suite at work, which was a step up from the humming he'd done in the elevator. He knew he'd gotten some glances from the few people he'd seen, but when he merely smiled even more broadly, he got grins in return. There was nothing wrong with a little morning cheerfulness in the elevator, Ari thought. "Good morning, Duncan," he said, sweeping through Duncan's domain in the outer office and heading into his own. "Morning, Ari." Duncan got up, his planner in hand, and followed. "I see you decided against the chocolate." Ari laughed as he hung his overcoat and suit jacket up in the closet. "Yes. I had salmon, Ben had lobster, and we went to bed early." Duncan snickered and got them each a cup of coffee from the machine working quietly in the corner. "That explains why you're late, then," he said, stepping to the side so Ari could put his leftover salmon penne in the small fridge. "No." Ari shook his head as he got his own planner off his desk, taking it to the table in the center of the room. "Thank you," he said when Duncan joined him, putting the mug at Ari's right hand. "I'm late because there was an accident on Fifteenth. It was a mess—two cars and a delivery van. I only left the house about five minutes after my usual time, or it could have been me." Duncan nodded and sat down, opening his book to the current date. "It's amazing how many things we narrowly avoid by chance," he said, getting his pen ready. 31


Ari nodded and found his first appointment on the schedule. "Yep. So, we have Lorthan at ten. Are the hard copies ready?" "Collating now." Duncan nodded at him, and thus the workday began. **** At lunch, Ari ate the leftover salmon without even tasting it as he navigated his way through a complex conference call. He took comfort in the fact that Ben would be too busy to really enjoy his lobster, and thus he didn't feel guilty. When Ben's promotion offer was more solid, Ari would make sure to treat them both to something extravagant. At three Duncan stuck his head in Ari's office. "The people from Miami are held up in Atlanta and won't make it in until late tonight. I've put them on the schedule for eleven tomorrow morning." Ari glanced at his calendar and snorted. "Nice of them to let us know. They were expected in an hour." Duncan shrugged one shoulder and nodded. "At least they called." "Options?" Ari scrolled through the running list he kept going on his desktop, his own personal version of the day's events in a simple text document. "Well, you can sneak off to the gym, if you like. Or we can finish up the presentation for Wodell, instead of working late tomorrow."

32


Ari grinned, knowing full well from Duncan's tone which scenario would sit better with him. "Call Tyson and see if he can come up. If he can, we'll get that out of the way now." "On it," Duncan said cheerfully, vanishing as one of the phone lines started ringing. Laughing to himself, Ari pulled up the files he'd need and went to the bank of filing cabinets to get the hard copies, half thinking about the gym. It had been almost a week since he'd been, and that was just a little too long for comfort. He didn't move enough during a normal day to justify slacking off to that extent. After he'd dumped the papers from the cabinet onto the conference table, he sent an e-mail to Ben, inviting him to meet for a late workout that night followed by an even later supper. Then he made sure there was fresh coffee on and got to work organizing things for the impromptu meeting. "He'll be about twenty minutes," Duncan said, coming in with his laptop. "Would you like me to put the files on the jump drive?" "Sure," Ari said. "Might as well just use the one computer." He left Duncan to transfer files and went to wash his hands in the tiny bathroom that was part of his suite, suddenly feeling a little restless. There was no reason for it, and he wasn't even sure if it was a need to move that had him buzzing. There was an itch between his shoulder blades, a muted tingle that he couldn't place. Looking around the small space while he dried his hands, Ari tried to remember if he'd had the feeling before. 33


"Duncan," he said as he came back out, "Have you heard the weather report today?" "No, but I checked it online," Duncan was looking at Ari's computer screen as he moved files to the jump drive. "Chance of showers overnight, sunny and warming tomorrow. Why?" "No reason, I guess. I just feel a little like the barometric pressure is rising or falling or doing something odd. Kind of like I could possibly get a headache, but the tension is in my back." Duncan looked over at him, one eyebrow up. "Maybe you really should hit the gym," he said. "Stretch a bit." "Yeah, I guess. I probably will tonight." Ari shook his head and turned his mind back to the project, forcing himself to ignore the way his shoulder blades wanted to meet in the center of his back. **** Ben had replied to the e-mail with regrets about making it to the gym, but he was definitely interested in supper or drinks, so when Ari left the office at seven-thirty he headed to the gym and parked in the garage across the street. As he walked out of the garage, he took out his mobile phone and dialed Ben's direct line to set up a time and place, listening to the ring as he joined three or four people at the corner light. "Hey, you," Ben said when he picked up. "I was just thinking about you. Still going to the gym?" "Yeah." Ari took a moment to admire the thighs of the man just in front of him, jogging in place and clearly on his way to 34


finishing up his run. He had a V-shaped sweat stain on his back, ear buds in his ears, and a nice, steady pace. Ari could only wish he had muscle definition like that. "I'm almost there now, just crossing the street, if the light would change. Do you want to meet me when I'm done?" "Sure. How does Regina's sound?" Ari nodded and looked away from the jogger's butt. "Sounds just fine. Cocktails and a decent menu. About two hours? Or earlier?" "I have another hour at least." "I can do an hour and a half, if you'd like," Ari offered. "Okay. It's getting late; we should try to be home by eleven if we can. I have an early morning. Breakfast meeting at seven." Ari winced, knowing Ben would be up at five. "We can try for earlier than that, honey." "We'll see." Ben didn't sound bothered either way. He really was thriving on the long hours. "Okay, an hour and—" The light changed and Ari stepped forward reflexively, right behind the jogger. Without thinking, Ari shot his arm out, grabbed the back of the man's T-shirt and pulled him straight back, hard. Less than a second later, a truck that Ari had been completely unaware of flew past, running the red light at full speed. The jogger looked back at Ari, clearly stunned. One of the earbuds dangled free, the tinny sound of music loud enough to hear over the screech of tires as the oncoming traffic with the right of way squealed to a halt and horns began to blare. 35


"Jesus Christ, thanks, man," the jogger said, turning to look at the vanishing truck. "I didn't even see him." "I didn't either," Ari whispered. "Ari?" Ben's voice came from the phone. "Ari?" "Sorry," Ari said into the phone. "There was a ... thing. You know what? I need a drink. I'm going to Regina's. Meet me when you can." He hung up before Ben could answer and turned back to get his car, putting his phone away with a shaking hand.

36


Chapter Four Finn was shaking when he got back to his office, trembling so hard he had to grab the back of his chair as he lowered himself to sit. He hadn't meant to do anything other than watch, he told himself over and over. He hadn't. Yet, there he was, staring blankly at the table top and making a mental tally of all the laws he'd broken, the felonies standing out in his mind like they were written in seventy-two point fonts, with bold and italics. Huge black letters, elegantly scripted, condemning him. "Shit," he whispered, trying to shake it off. No one had seen him. No one. There wasn't any way that he'd be found out. He knew that intimately and with the surety of a man who had spent his entire career studying Between and what could be tracked and what couldn't. Before he'd started his career, in fact; hell, he'd gone into his field because it offered him a legal and legitimate reason to go to Between, would give him the clearances and paperwork to do so. He hadn't seen anyone else there this time. He had before, often—the colorful people who ignored him as studiously as he ignored them as they spied and watched TV and looked in on Beta. He wasn't the law, they had nothing to fear from him. But if he'd been seen, or heard, and then picked up by a patrol ... well, they could hurt him. Definitely. Destroy his career, send him to prison. But he hadn't seen anyone, he reminded himself. He was okay. No one had to know how deeply he'd interfered with the natural order of things on Beta. 37


Still more than a little unsteady, Finn got up from his chair and got his things together to go home, hoping the routine would leave him calm enough to get out of the building without anyone noticing anything peculiar about his manner. He hung up his lab coat, donned his jacket, and made sure his notebook was in his satchel. He'd make his notes at home, confess it all with a ballpoint pen, and then burn the damn thing. There was already too much on paper. After locking his lab behind him, Finn started walking, wending his way through the long hallways toward the only exterior door the building had, aside from the fire doors. With only one way out or in, the Institute had a very good handle on security. They could also monitor, Finn knew, who was working what hours and who was in the building at any given time. Not that it mattered much for Finn's department, but there were other departments housed in the complex, as well, dealing with technological advances and top secret research. Having his movements noted for trivial things such as when he was at work and when he wasn't was a small price to pay for the ability to get to Between, though. Finn knew that some people found the sign-in procedures grating, but it was becoming more and more common all over the world, in every industry. Alpha learned a lot from Beta's experiences. Terrorism and espionage weren't things anyone was willing to take lightly. Finn was almost to the lobby when a familiar voice called his name. "Dr. Cormag! Oh, Dr. Cormag!" Finn sighed and ground to a halt, knowing that if he pretended not to hear, Blake would only yell louder and 38


possibly even run after him. "Dr. Foskey," he said, turning and waiting for Blake. Breaking into a jog, Blake closed in on Finn, grinning broadly. "Heading home, doctor?" Finn resisted the urge to point out the time of day, the fact that he was going to the lobby, that he had his coat on and his bag over his shoulder, and merely said, "Yes, actually." As an afterthought he added, "Was there something you needed?" "No, no, not really." Blake fell into step beside him, clearly on his way out, too. "Did you get the e-mail I sent this morning about the paper I found?" Nodding, Finn walked a little faster. "Yes. I was astonished you'd gone to the trouble, actually; that paper was some of my earliest work and is, therefore, wholly out of date now." "I look for all of your papers." Blake smiled at him. "You had a lot of good theories in that one." Finn shrugged. "Some of them panned out, I suppose." He got to the desk and signed himself out, then moved on, heading to the doors without waiting for Blake. He knew he was being rude, but he also knew that Blake would either not notice or just speed up. Sure enough, Blake was by his side before Finn had cleared the entry, turning with him to walk to the parking lot. As Blake didn't own a car, preferring his bike or the bus, Finn knew that it was only so he could keep talking. "Do you still have me on the schedule for the morning?" Blake's smile turned hopeful. 39


Finn thought for a moment, trying to find a completely acceptable reason why he needed the whole morning for his own project, and finally had to admit defeat. "I do," he said. "Ten o'clock, right?" "Yep!" Blake almost bounced. "There's some really interesting data I want to show you. I think some of it might be applicable to your research." Finn arched an eyebrow. "All right, then. I look forward to seeing it." He unlocked his car and tossed his bag onto the passenger seat. If Blake really did have something new for him, it would help get his mind off the mess he'd been making in his other research. The research he was going to have to force himself to stop. "I look forward to seeing you, too!" Blake beamed at him and walked away, almost skipping. Finn rolled his eyes. "I didn't say that," he mumbled under his breath. There was a world of difference between wanting to see data and wanting to spend time with a junior colleague who vibrated with that much enthusiasm. In his car, Finn stared out the window for a long moment, one hand on his satchel. It wasn't going to be easy, giving Ari up. He'd been watching him for a long, long time. **** At home, behind a locked door and with a glass of amber courage to back him up, Finn sat with his notebook and read each page as he tore it out and tossed it into the fireplace. He didn't even have a proper fire going, just a box of wooden 40


matches and an empty grate, the flue wide open to take the smoke. There really wasn't a lot in the notebook, much less than Finn had expected. His notes had been so perfunctory, so clinical. He hadn't even used Ari's name until halfway through, referring to him instead as "the subject." He'd taken notes on mundane things like when Ari went to work, what his job was, where he lived. He'd noted when Ari had started dating Ben and when it had become apparent that they were developing a serious relationship. There were two or three pages about Ben and what he did, too, taken in the interest of developing a more complete picture of Ari's life, but the data was dust-dry. All of it was. There were dates and times and matter-of-fact statements, but nothing of the reasons why, none of the details about why Finn watched. The longer Finn read and the more pages he burned, the more he needed his drink. He'd constructed a project, a minute pile of data, for the sole purpose of justifying to himself what he was doing. And he'd never even noticed. Disgusted with himself, Finn tore the notebook in half and sat on the floor in front of his fireplace, lighting matches and making sure every shred of paper was destroyed. Then he poked through the ashes and re-burned any scraps he found. It was an abomination, a scientific embarrassment. It was a humiliation he was only grateful no one alive knew about. It made it slightly easier to bear, that he'd only maintained a false front for his own sake, and that he hadn't 41


shared it with anyone. There wasn't anyone to smile and nod and be pleasant about what would have been so obvious to another person. Finn swallowed the last of his drink and turned off the lights in his apartment, pausing to feed his fish as he went to bed. The glow of the aquarium light was comforting, the cool blue glow of the water and the scenic plastic background of the tank giving him enough light to walk down the hall. The timer would turn off the light before he'd fall asleep, but that was fine; he'd enjoy the dimness while he could, before darkness came. In bed, staring at the ceiling, Finn wished he'd had another drink, or maybe six. Something to numb him, to take away the sharp edge of awakening. He'd fooled himself well, thinking that what he was doing was about furthering his knowledge of how people from Alpha could potentially interfere with the people of Beta and how to stop that. Now he could see that the mask was slipshod at best and that his own motives had been transparent. Even dressed in the garb of scientific research, he couldn't really hide the fact that at its root he was really just becoming a stalker. Had likely been one for a long, long time. He didn't like that much. Finn rolled over and tried to sleep, his eyes closed and his ears hearing nothing but the usual night sounds. His fridge hummed. The analog clock in the living room ticked away the seconds. His upstairs neighbor walked softly to ... the bathroom? It hardly mattered, really. 42


Restless, unable to settle, Finn rolled onto his back again and tried counting. He got bored with that after reaching seventy-two and switched to thinking about work, but that only brought both Ari and Blake to mind, a combination guaranteed to either keep him awake or give him unsettling dreams. With a sigh he finally reached down and fondled his balls half-heartedly, not really in the mood. But it would help him sleep, and why the hell shouldn't he? He rolled them slowly, tugging every now and again as he ran through his meager store of fantasies. Usually he just did what he had to do and left his mind out of it, but his body was slow to respond. Settling on a former lover with a fantastic mouth, Finn slid his hand up a bit, fingers stroking his balls and his palm rubbing at his shaft. He thought about Keith's tongue and rubbed harder, his hips rocking slowly as he got hard. If he tried really hard, he could remember what it felt like when Keith teased at the head of his cock, strong hands holding Finn's hips down. "That's it," Finn whispered into the silence, curling his hand around his prick, mimicking the tease with his thumb. His free hand went to his balls before his skin could even cool, and he kept his eyes closed, working himself with practiced ease now that his body seemed to realize what was going on. He jacked himself slowly and then with a varied rhythm, thinking about a mouth on him, sucking and kissing and licking. His legs spread and he pushed against the skin behind his balls, rubbing there, too, teasing at his hole with one finger until his leg started to tremble and his cock gave up a 43


little fluid. He was holding his breath and he made himself let it go, squeezing and stroking, feeling his cock get even harder. He kept it going as long as he could, wanting to need it, wanting it to be more than just getting off so he could sleep. His feet were braced on the bed, his legs spread wide, and he could hear himself moaning, could almost feel the blood rush through his veins, his pulse thudding in his prick. Finn dragged the palm of his hand over himself again and again, circled his hole with a fingertip and took a breath, his gut hot and his legs twitching, his body starting to spasm. His orgasm hunted him, bright and shiny, and with a long groan he let it come. Relief swept over him, his shoulders lifting off the bed as he shot onto his stomach. Breathing heavily, Finn lay in the dark and waited for his heart to stop pounding, waited to feel languid and warm and sleepy. He reached for the tissues and wiped up, his throat feeling raw like he'd been yelling. As he fell asleep minutes later, curled up on his side, he found himself thinking of Ari again and hoping he wouldn't dream.

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Chapter Five Ari spent the whole next day waiting. He had no idea what he was waiting for, exactly, but he waited. He expected strange compulsions. He anticipated a feeling, a sound, or anything else unexpected. He spent the morning in his office, distracted through his meetings, missing key figures and relying on Duncan to not only come through for him but to do it so suavely that the clients didn't notice. By the time the Miami people—three women and an exceedingly metro man who kept sitting too close—left, Ari's nerves were utterly shot. He stood, shook hands, made promises, and saw them out, his smile firmly in place until the door closed behind them. And then he walked right past Duncan and into the bathroom to splash water on his face. "Do you feel all right?" Duncan asked, leaning on the doorframe and watching him. "Fine." Ari hung his head over the sink, water dripping off his nose and chin. "I'm sorry. You saved my ass about three times today. Thank you." He grabbed the towel and dried his face without looking up, suddenly not sure what he'd see in the mirror. "I know." Duncan moved away, into the office to gather up papers and files. "I wrote it in your planner, in November. Right before my review date. 'Duncan saved your butt with the Miami people.' I thought it would be a good thing for me." Ari laughed roughly and went out of the bathroom, trying to gather himself. "Good idea. Very forward thinking of you." 45


"I thought so." Duncan leaned on the table and looked at him. "Are you sure you're feeling all right?" Ari nodded. "A little tired is all. I missed the gym last night." He wasn't sure why he added that. He'd made an attempt to explain to Ben what had happened, but Ben hadn't gotten it. He didn't want to try with Duncan, too. It was bad enough being paranoid without everyone knowing. "Okay." Duncan looked at him doubtfully. "I'll get things ready for your three-thirty. Let's see if we can manage another early day." Ari nodded and waited until Duncan had gone back to his own desk before sitting down with a sigh. He'd had dreams all night of strange things happening to him, of premonitions that came true and of being able to guess numbers, people's weight, and how many children they would have. He'd dreamed of places he'd never been before, like New Orleans, and of masked people talking about him. It wasn't any wonder he was tired. He picked up the phone and called Ben's direct line, not really hoping for an answer. Ben was usually too wrapped up in his work or with clients to pick up his phone, but Ari could at least leave him a message. "I was hoping you'd call," Ben said after the second ring. Ari smiled and leaned back. "You could have called me," he pointed out. "Miami?" "Oh, right. They left." "I figured." Ben laughed at him. "You don't usually take personal breaks in the middle of meetings." 46


Ari grinned. "Good point. So, why were you hoping I'd call?" "Good news, I think. I have a meeting in half an hour with DeWitt." Ari's eyebrows shot up and his grin grew. "Really. That's fantastic. There's really only one reason the senior partner would call you up, isn't there?" "There's a million reasons," Ben corrected, but he sounded pleased. "But this time I think it's a good one." "Well, all right, then." Ari nodded to himself, cementing his plans to leave at a reasonable hour. "I'm making it a short day, hope to be out of here by five. Call me when you know, okay? I'll take you out to supper." "I knew I could count on you. And if there's any street corners, you can save me. Oh, a contract just landed on my desk, gotta go. I'll call you later, Ari." Before Ari could say anything, Ben hung up, and Ari was left staring at the phone. He sighed and disconnected, teetering between being annoyed and amused by the comment about the corner. A shudder rolled down his back, and once more he wondered exactly how he'd done it. Ben's theory was that a primal part of his brain had been aware of the danger and he'd reacted instinctively. It made sense to Ari, but it didn't feel right. It hadn't felt right when Ben said it so plainly, and that was why Ari hadn't told him about the other things, like feeling someone in the house, or the way his back was tense. Maybe he was overtired after all; he hadn't felt anything at all since the night before, and maybe it was only his own 47


tension that was interfering with his life since then. Taking a breath, Ari resolved to concentrate on his job, to forget about weird things, and to just make it to dinner and a good night's sleep. **** It was almost five when Ben called Ari's private line, and Ari barely let the phone ring once before scooping up the receiver. "Well?" "Well," Ben said slowly. "Well, we have a few things to talk about over dinner. Where are you taking me?" Ari tilted his head. "Is this a Gregory's kind of talk over dinner or more a Club 33?" Ben snorted a laugh. "You got me there. I honestly don't know. It's better than Chinese take-out, how's that?" "Very uninformative. The question is moot anyway because it takes weeks to get into Club 33, and we have about two hours. I'll call Gregory's, if you can meet me there around seven?" "Perfect. I'll see you then." "Ben?" "Mmm?" Ari closed his eyes. "Is it good?" There was a long pause. "It's good. It's ... going to take some thinking, but, yes. It's very good." Ari smiled. "Congratulations, honey." "I love you," Ben whispered, the line going dead as he hung up. 48


Ari rolled his eyes and hung up the phone. Ben never said goodbye, and he never said anything about love if there was a chance Ari could respond. It was vaguely annoying, but Ari had gotten used to it, just as he'd gotten used to Ben using kisses and nuzzles to reply to his own rare declarations when they were together. "Duncan," he called, going to the closet to get his jacket and overcoat. "Mark this one down, too. We're done just before five." "It's a banner day," Duncan said dryly. "Is this supposed to counter the ass-saving?" "No." Ari laughed, buttoning up. "Just call it a perk. I'll even try not to leave everything a mess over the weekend." "Let's not go crazy and turn my world upside down," Duncan said, getting his own coat and pausing to shut down his computer. "I don't know if I could take the shock. Besides, we still need to get through tomorrow." "There, there. You're strong," Ari told him, grinning. He opened his mobile phone and scrolled through the contacts to Gregory's and made his reservation, nodding when Duncan looked impressed. "Ben got a promotion offer," he said as he hung up. "Good for him. Pass my congratulations along." Duncan locked the door to Ari's office and then the main door as they entered the hallway. "Do you know anything about it?" "Not yet." Ari pushed the call button on the elevator and looked at the numbers, relieved that they were the next floor on the car going down. "I'll find out at supper." 49


"Fantastic." Duncan stepped to the side as they heard the car approach. "It would be nice if all those hours paid off." "Exactly what I'm thinking," Ari admitted. "Though he seems to do better at them than I do, and I love my job." "You do fine. Today was the first time I've seen you off since that horrible week you fell in love. That was a mess." "It was not!" Ari laughed. "It just made your job a little spicy for a bit." "I can do without that kind of spice," Duncan said. The elevator doors slid open and they went down to the main level, crowding against the back wall as the building began to empty. Ari so rarely kept regular business hours that he found it almost novel to be riding in a full elevator, though he was more than happy to get out of it as soon as possible. He wished Duncan a good night, laughing about how dining at Gregory's assured him of a good meal if nothing else, and headed to his car. He had time to go home and shower before meeting Ben, assuming that traffic wasn't an absolute nightmare, so he headed out of the downtown core, taking city roads in hope of avoiding any jams on the freeway. He was pleased with himself for finding his focus after the awkwardness of the meeting in the morning, and he was aware of the fact that he hadn't had any odd experiences at all. He hadn't felt watched, hadn't done anything peculiar, and he'd eaten exactly the same sorts of things that he always did. By the time he got to his house and into the shower, he was feeling pretty good about things; Ben had an offer, Ari's weirdness had backed off for a total of almost twenty-two 50


hours, and there was a nice meal ahead of him. The shower was hot and strong, and Ari casually brought himself off, thinking that it might give him an edge later in the evening. Plus, there was nothing bad about an early evening orgasm in the shower. Dressed in a fresh suit and ready to celebrate Ben's offer, Ari locked the house up—making sure the windows were secure, just in case—and went to Gregory's. The restaurant was elegant and designed to give each table as much privacy as possible, the walls lined with booths and the center tables set up in what amounted to be very showy cubicles, high walls bracketing each table from the others. The music was low and pleasant, what Ari liked to call ignorable ambience, and the serving staff never made the mistake of referring to the patrons by their first names. Ari made sure that their table would be ready when Ben arrived, arranged for a particularly expensive bottle of wine to be on hand, and crossed to the bar to wait. He sat at the corner of the bar, one foot on the brass foot rail, and sipped his drink. The back mirror of the bar was convenient for people watching, and he amused himself by assigning professions to the people he could see. Lawyer, doctor, computer programmer way out of his league trying to impress the lady he was with, one call girl who was probably a designer of some sort during the day, and the usual selection of managers, brokers and tourists. There was also a man he couldn't quite see, back by the door. He stood out, dressed in a white lab coat and looking extremely out of place, but when Ari turned around to get a 51


better look, the man had moved, probably into the restaurant. Ari did two rounds of his guess the job game and then moved on to assigning the most unlikely jobs he could think of to the same people. He'd just made the call girl/designer a fry cook at a fast food place when Ben arrived, leaning over to kiss his cheek as he sat down. "You just made someone work a horrible job, didn't you?" Ben asked suspiciously. Ari grinned. "The lady at the fourth table from the door. Sitting with the guy in last year's Armani. What do you think she does?" Ben glanced around and then smirked. "You mean the hooker? Probably in advertising." Ari laughed and stood up, taking Ben's hand. "Let's go sit," he said, leading him to the maitre d'. "You can have a drink and tell me all about your offer." Ben nodded but said nothing as they were taken to their table, ordering a martini to match the one Ari had carried in from the bar. "How was your day?" Ari raised an eyebrow. "Oh, all right." Ben laughed, shaking his head ruefully. "You're not going to let me drag this out at all, are you?" "Why would you want to do that?" Ari tilted his head a little. "Actually, you've been pretty closed mouthed about it since it first came up, what with the dinner that wasn't a celebration and all. By the way, where the hell did that china come from? It's been driving me nuts." 52


"My place. You know, that condo I still pay rent on even though I haven't slept there in months?" "You could just move in with me," Ari said, not for the first time. "You have china?" He leaned back as a waiter brought Ben's drink. "The things I'm only now finding out." Ben looked away for a moment, nodding. "Yeah, I have china. And silver and a bunch of other stuff. But that hardly matters, really." "True, I suppose," Ari said thoughtfully. "And clearly you don't want to tell me about your treasure trove of possessions, so let's move along to why you don't want to tell me about your offer." Ben shot him a look. "It's not that I don't want to tell you, it's that you're not going to like it." Ari blinked at him and reached for his martini. "Oh?" He drained his glass and carefully set it back down. "What's not to like?" "Location, mostly," Ben said with a sigh. "They weren't kidding about the partner bit. But the catch is that they want me to move to the Seattle office and take over one of the divisions there. There's been a bit of a major mess and they've had to clean house. Paid out some very impressive compensation packages to people who don't want to be involved in the three-way litigation that's about to explode all over the place. It's kind of hush hush, but it's huge and messy, and they think I can stabilize the office, given resources and a year or so." Ari stared at him and wished he'd saved the last of his drink. "Seattle." 53


Ben nodded, not looking at him. "Are you going to take it?" Ari blurted. Ben shrugged and finally met his gaze. "I have two weeks to let them know. The compensation is good, and it's a good promotion. A lot of work, but if I can do it..." He trailed off and shrugged again. Ari made himself nod. "I know." What he didn't say was what they both knew; he wouldn't go to Seattle, and it was almost certain that their relationship would not survive the distance. "I guess you have a lot to think about." "I do," Ben agreed. He sighed again and looked around the room, what little they could see from their isolated spot. "But for right now let's just put it aside and enjoy ourselves, all right? Think about the offer as being something worth celebrating, regardless of the details. Please." The spot between Ari's shoulders itched, and he made himself ignore it. "Of course," he said, shaking himself mentally. "It is worth celebrating, Ben. You've done an amazing job, and you deserve the recognition." He was sincere about that, completely. Ben smiled at him, momentarily looking delighted, probably how he'd looked on the walk back to his office from the meeting with DeWitt. "Thank you," Ben said, leaning forward. "Now, let's get some wine, some food, and spend hypothetical millions on cars and trips." "Trips?" Ari laughed. "We don't take enough vacation time to go on actual trips."

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"It's hypothetical. Work with me here. First, there's the sunny spots. Name three and we can move on to the more exotic places we'll never see." Ari shook his head, smiling, and started playing the game. The feeling between his shoulder blades faded, and when the wine came, he began to truly relax, ignoring the fact that Ben was almost certainly going to leave him. **** Ben had taken a taxi to Gregory's, so they both rode home in Ari's car, arguing back and forth about whether Jamaica was an exotic location or merely one of the hot spots. There were points in its favor both ways, and with the added discussion of whether either of them would actually try the local crops while they sat on the beach at sunset, Ari was in a fine mood when they walked into the house. Ben peeled off his tie in the kitchen, curling himself around Ari's back as Ari reset the alarm, one arm looping around from behind and holding him close. Ari didn't miss the feel of Ben's erection pressing against his butt. "Hey, there," Ari said with a grin, wigging back against him. "Still in the mood to celebrate, I see." "Call it what you will." Ben nuzzled his neck. "It's all the same thing." Ari laughed and leaned back. "Are we going upstairs?" "Yeah." Ben dragged his teeth gently over Ari's neck. "I'm not in the mood for the kitchen floor. It's cold."

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"Mm. It has that tendency, yes." Ari turned and kissed him, tasting Ben's mouth and trying to work Ben's shirt free of his trousers. "Let's move," Ben mumbled, kissing him back, hands on Ari's ass. "We start here, it'll be the kitchen floor before we know it." Ari reluctantly let Ben go and followed him through the kitchen, not bothering to keep his hands to himself. Ben groped back, laughing, and they made their way up to the bedroom in a nearly perfect re-enactment of the night they'd skipped eating dinner, minus the blowjob against the wall. "Naked," Ben said, pulling Ari to the bed and making it just that much harder to actually undress. He palmed Ari's cock, squeezing and stroking over the fabric and drawing out Ari's gasps. Ari pushed against Ben's hand, his own fingers fumbling with what was left of Ben's clothes. He moaned as Ben's fingers traced the seam of his pants, back between his legs. "Want it?" Ben asked, his voice a low growl. "Uh-huh." Ari's legs spread, his eyes closing as his dick flexed against his boxers, making the silk damp and clingy. "You got it." Ben sat up, swiftly getting Ari's trousers off, leaving the silk boxers in place. He went to his knees beside the bed, tugging at Ari's socks, then mouthed Ari's cock until the damp spot on the silk was a huge, warm wet patch, the silk like a second skin. He licked and Ari moaned, his back arching as Ben went lower to soak his balls. "Ben," Ari whispered, his hand petting Ben's hair. "Please." 56


Ben nodded and laughed, nuzzling the inside of his thigh. "You love it." "I know," Ari said, because it was true. But it also made him needy and desperate and wanton, none of which were bad things, really. "And you like me to beg." Ben crawled up him, grinning. "You know, I think you're right." He shoved his tongue into Ari's mouth. When he let Ari breathe again he said, "Do it. Beg me." Ari shuddered, hands clutching at Ben's back as he tried to rub his aching erection on Ben's hip. "Please," he said roughly. "Please, Ben. Fuck me." Ben kissed him again, rolling them over on the bed and shoving a hand down the back of Ari's boxers to squeeze his ass. "Again." "Fuck me." Ari whimpered, his legs spreading and winding around Ben's. "Please. Want your cock in me, Ben. Please." Ben snarled and let him go, yanking at the rest of the clothes and skinning Ari's wet boxers off him. "Hands and knees," he ordered, reaching for the drawer. Ari groaned and got himself into place on the middle of the bed, his body vibrating. He heard Ben rummaging and then the familiar sound of the lube top. Ben's hand curled around Ari's cock and Ari looked down to see the leather of their cock ring circle him. When Ben snapped it on, Ari shuddered again, his hips lifting. "Double feature?" he asked, having to clear his throat. "Call me greedy." Ben let lube drip onto Ari's ass, right from the tube. 57


"Greedy," Ari obliged, gasping as the cool gel slipped over him. He arched, ass high, and closed his eyes tight as Ben started working the lube in with two fingers, stabbing at him. His hands made fists in the sheets, and he tried to imagine what they looked like, as if he were standing and watching two people on a bed. His skin heated and he felt goose bumps rise up, lost in actual feelings and his own imagination. When Ben breached him with his cock, Ari shoved back, taking him in and crying out at the burning stretch, wanting it. His consciousness swung wildly from feeling and imagining seeing, until he was adrift in sensation. His mind clung to the idea of being watched, though, and he could almost feel an unseen gaze on him. Ben fucked him with intent, hard and fast, gripping Ari's hips and slamming into him before pulling out and leaving him empty for long seconds before doing it again. Each time, Ari yelled, rejoicing in it, loving the roughness, the crudeness. His awareness grew more fractured, flashes of heat in his balls and ass, the restriction of the ring around his dick, and all the while knowing on some level that he was putting on a show for whoever was watching them. He begged. He begged with spread legs and grasping hole, and he begged with the words he spat out with every thrust. He could hear Ben panting, could feel the dig of his fingers, and knew that it wouldn't be long. Ben was going to go, and then it would be his turn, Ben pliant and relaxed and ready. "Please," he said again, voice broken and his hands losing their grip on the sheet until he had to bury his head in the mattress. "Please, Ben." 58


"Jesus fuck!" Ben yelled, banging into him again. "Ari!" For a moment Ari was sure that Ben was going to pull out and come on his ass, but then he felt Ben's cock twitch in him, felt the tremble in Ben's thighs as they pushed against his own. Eyes closed, Ari whimpered and waited for Ben to finish, his own cock starting to hurt, his balls tight and throbbing. "God," Ben whispered, pressing kisses along Ari's spine. "Love your ass." Ari grunted and lifted himself up. "Sweet talk later. Double feature." Ben groaned and pulled out, rolling to his back. "That might have been a mistake." Snorting, Ari grabbed the lube, felt Ben's come trickle down the back of his thigh. "Tough. If it helps, you won't have to take it long." "Got you riled up?" Ben grinned and draped his legs over Ari's thighs. "What was your first clue?" Ari asked, swiping lube onto his cock and yanking the ring off. "The begging. The pleading. The way you threw yourself into it like you were putting on a fucking show." Ben's eyes flashed and Ari flushed harder, hoping to hell that he hadn't said anything about his own little fantasy. "Just lie there and take it for all of the two minutes it's going to take me to get off." Ari leaned close and rubbed the head of his cock against Ben's ass. "Give it to me," Ben whispered, hands skimming over Ari's chest. "Don't care why or how. Just give it to me." 59


Ari groaned and pushed in, slick heat taking him in. He tried to go slow, but found it impossible, his body too far gone to keep any kind of pace other than the one that would get him off fastest. He fucked much the way Ben had—hard, deep strokes— and was panting harder within moments. Ben leaned up and bit at one his nipples and Ari yelled, pleasure sweeping right to his balls. He pushed in again, rotated his hips, and felt Ben's teeth clench tighter. It was sharp and hot and he was almost there, riding the wave and about to crest, about to pour out his energy and lust, and in the middle of it all, between one thrust and the next, when his cock swelled like iron and his balls spasmed, he knew beyond doubt that someone was watching them. He looked up, wanting to yell a warning, an invitation, anything at all that would make sense, but his orgasm flashed in staccato bursts, taking breath and coherency from him. Weak and shaking, utterly boneless, Ari rested on Ben, held in his arms and accepting his kisses, wondering if he was going mad.

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Chapter Six Finn's resolve to let Ari go and to give up everything he'd been doing had lasted most of the way through the day. He went to work as usual, not particularly looking forward to his meeting with Blake, but secure in the knowledge that if nothing else he had a lot of work to keep his mind busy. He plowed through some data entry, wishing not for the first time that his workload warranted hiring an actual assistant, and steadily made his way through a pot of coffee. He had every computer booted up and was running a historical comparison on one thread of data when Blake arrived promptly at ten, a folder in one hand, his mug in another, and a jump drive almost falling out of his pocket. "Good morning, Dr. Cormag," Blake said, standing in the open doorway. "Hey, come on in." Finn glanced up from his laptop. "Have a seat, I'm almost done here." "Thanks." Blake beamed at him as he came in and closed the door. He set his folder down, saved the jump drive from falling, and perched himself on the stool at the end of the table. Finn nodded toward the coffee maker. "Help yourself," he invited, then scrolled to the bottom on his graph and made a change to one of the dates to pull data from the internal servers. "Thank you, doctor," Blake said, clearly delighted. "Please." Finn tried not to roll his eyes. "It's Finn, okay?" 61


Blake's eyes went round and he nodded, pouring coffee into his mug very carefully, like he was afraid he'd drop the carafe, the mug, or even both. "Blake," he said after a moment. "Call me Blake." Finn didn't comment, but he finished setting up the data retrieval and grabbed a pad of paper. "So," he said, turning his chair to face Blake. "What do you have for me?" "Well." Blake paused dramatically. "There's some interesting work coming out of the Medical Research department these days, keyed into the disparate demographics. We're only getting the data before it's published because the Department of Interdimensional Security had it flagged for potential technological advancement and because it's tied into the psychological awareness funding—" "Whoa!" Blake froze, one animated hand still in mid-air. "Slow down," Finn said mildly. "Start at the beginning." "From ... the beginning?" "Yes." Finn looked up at the clock. "We have time." Blake took a deep breath and blinked, looking confused. "No two objects can occupy the same space at the same time unless we take into account the existence of multiple dimensions of time and space," he said in a rush. Finn rolled his eyes and pointed around the lab. "I know that," he said. "Everyone knows that part. I meant about the demographics." Blushing, Blake looked at his coffee mug. "From the beginning?" he asked tentatively. 62


"Well, if it helps, I'm fully aware that the population of Beta is over six billion and ours is not even one billion, though we should reach it within two years. And I know that the reason for that is unknown, because—" "We can't get to Beta, just to the space between the dimensions," Blake finished. "Right. And because Between is energy based, so space and time don't have as great an influence—" "We can see any space in Beta we wish to, making observation over a wide area possible, and thus we can see the effects of the population disparity." Finn nodded. "Do you always do that?" Blake nodded, blushing again. "It drives people nuts, but I can't seem to help it. Sorry." "It's all right," Finn said with a sigh. He got up and poured himself another cup of coffee. "Okay, so medical is doing what?" Blake turned to watch him, playing with the jump drive. "Well, the assumption has always been that we started with a lower base population, but studies have shown that we simply don't have as many babies, either. Our population growth is steady, but where it's not uncommon for families in some parts of Beta to have five or more children, it's unheard of here. We don't have multiple births at all. But it's still a huge difference in population, and medical is, of course, sure that it has to do with genetics." "Of course," Finn said, nodding. He sipped his coffee and made a face. "That coffee is horrible; I didn't mean to poison you." 63


"It's fine, thanks," Blake assured him, even though he hadn't had a mouthful of it since his first sip. "Anyway, there is no actual way for medical to prove their theory, of course." "Right." Finn went back to his chair and sat, pleased that Blake didn't launch himself into a spiel about how people from Alpha couldn't get any closer to Beta than Between, and how no one from Beta even knew that Between or Alpha existed, so they weren't about to cross over and offer up their DNA for study. Everything Blake had said so far was, if not common knowledge to everyone in Alpha, at least known to anyone who worked at the Institute. "So, they've been doing what, exactly, that caught the eye of security?" "Here's where it gets interesting," Blake said, tapping the file in front of him. "Someone in medical was doing a side project in her spare time for the folks in charge of Cultural Monitoring. Basically, she got to watch of lot of TV from Beta on the up and up, had clearance passes and everything." Finn was more than a little envious. Most people spent their teen years sneaking off to watch movies and TV from Beta, simply because the higher population meant there was a lot more variety to choose from. It was highly illegal, of course, but that didn't keep people from doing it until they were old enough to apply to schools and suddenly realized that an arrest for being in Between and spying on people without their consent—even if it was just to see their TV—was a lousy thing to wreck a life over. "Lucky her," Finn said. "Yeah, really." Blake nodded. "Anyway, she watched a lot of these unsolved mystery shows and came up with this weird theory that maybe some of the people from there actually do 64


get at least to Between, if not here. There've been so many Beta people over the years that just vanish, and we know that a lot of the people who are seen as crazy there—for talking to themselves or seeing people who aren't there—are really victims of our own jerks and assholes." Finn raised an eyebrow at the unexpected vulgarity but nodded. He knew it was true. Some of the Sensitive people of Beta were indeed preyed upon by people who went to Between to talk to them, not caring that they were interfering and potentially destroying lives. The victims thought they were talking to angels or ghosts or aliens, and no one believed them. Some were medicated, some managed to hide it, and some had their minds wrecked when what they were told didn't match their reality. That was one of the primary reasons why there were so many laws against going to Between and why the penalties were so harsh. It was unconscionable to allow such things to happen. And it was why Finn could no longer see Ari. He had interfered. He had spoken and reached out, and he had affected the natural order. He had stopped at least one death, perhaps even Ari's own. Ari would have been run over, and the car accident he'd missed on his way to work would have been so much worse. Finn had broken the law and his own moral code. Something Blake had said drew him back. "She thinks they can get to Between?" he said, sitting up. "Yeah." Blake nodded. "Which got her research flagged by security." 65


"I just bet it did," Finn said, his eyes wide. One of the many reasons that Between and everything related to it was so heavily regulated was because of the differences in population. If there was passage between the two worlds, chaos would reign. One world reaching for over-population, another that was its twin but with far more available space. The saving grace had always been that Beta simply didn't know about the plurality and was therefore completely free of any desire to expand, unless they really did manage to put a colony in outer space. Alpha was in the interesting position of having to maintain the fine lines between respecting Beta's integrity, fear of being discovered, and still trying to learn as much as possible so it could survive and flourish. The government's laws helped, setting a strict standard, but those laws had to be enforced. Finn bit his lip as he thought. "Okay, so there's a theory that Beta people may be able to get to Between. What's security doing?" "Recruiting." Blake opened the folder. "They'll need more people who are able to patrol just so they can see if the theory has any merit at all. Frankly, I doubt it, and having read your research papers from the last few years, I know you agree." Finn resisted the urge to tell Blake that there was quite a lot that never made it into academic papers. He was personally a lot more complex than Blake might think, but saying as much would only invite questions and a discussion Finn would rather not have. "I suppose," he said thoughtfully. 66


"Aside from stepping up patrols, what is security planning for the next step? Do you know?" It would be helpful to know, if he were ever to go back into Between on less than legitimate pretexts. Which he wasn't. "That's where the psychological research comes in," Blake said, taking another sip of his coffee. He barely hid a grimace as he put the mug down. "Me, in other words, and you." Finn raised an eyebrow. His research mandate was only peripherally attached to both psych and medical. "Me?" Blake turned the open file around and edged it closer to him. "It has to do with how we feel, how we're Sensitive. Not just them." "How did you get this?" Finn asked, leaning forward to pick up the file. "This should be classified." "It will be, very soon," Blake admitted. "I happened to be on a message board where people were making fun of the original research, debunking the theory based on the government's studies from decades ago. You know, when all the stuff came out proving that we can't actually cross from Between to Beta and why." "Which is perfectly reasonable." Finn scanned the first page of the file. "We can't. We try, we die. Or close to it, as I kind of assume that being either imploded or whatever they call it is as good as death. Stuck in the energy fields, never able to get out or come back?" There was a long pause, long enough that Finn looked up.

67


"There are some who think that the studies are just so much propaganda." Blake fiddled with the jump drive and didn't meet Finn's gaze. Finn made a non-committal noise and went back to reading. He hoped that Blake intended to work on his demeanor if he was going to go around saying stuff like that; he'd wind up out of work or worse if the wrong parties heard him. He scanned the first few pages of the file and was about to pass it back when he finally saw a few choice phrases that meant something to him. "Wait," he said, his eyes widening. "They're going to try to scan for emotional spikes? Why the hell would they do that? Even if they could come up with a way to do that—which I sincerely doubt—all they'd get is noise. We get emotional feeds from Beta constantly, it would blow out their equipment." "They want to refine it to only sense what actually happens in Between." Finn blinked and stared at the file, then flipped through rapidly. "That kind of tech is years away," he said, mostly to himself. "Yes. And in a matter of days, if not hours, this whole thing will be buried. No one will know anything about it until security reveals whatever they develop, be it four years from now or fifteen. And by then the spin on it will be incredible, all about protection for Beta as well as for us." "Well, it is about protection for us." Finn closed the file and pushed it across the table. "As well as for Beta. As it is, security can find solid matter in Between, thus directing 68


patrols to find people hanging out and watching Beta. If they have the added bonus of finding high emotion—and I admit, I have no idea how they'll manage it—they'll be able to find anyone who goes there, assuming there would be joy or despair." "And they'll also find anyone who discovers a breakthrough in research, or anyone who happens to be there and sees something that sends their emotions rocketing," Blake pointed out. Finn frowned. "But if someone is in Between with clearance, that's fine. Just show the papers." Blake frowned back. "And if they don't have clearance, what happens?" "They'll be detained," Finn said. "That's obvious." "Yes," Blake agreed, looking troubled. "And then what?" "They'll ... be arrested, questioned, and—" He stopped short, not exactly sure what the immediate procedure was after being found in Between without papers. "It would depend upon the infraction," he mused. "Watching TV or spying is one thing. Influencing citizens is another." Blake shook his head impatiently. "You're thinking about our citizens. What would happen to someone from Beta? Seriously. What would happen?" Finn stared at him. "I have no idea." Blake nodded slowly. "It's going to be a nightmare, if it happens. Toss them back? Attempt to bring them to Alpha to ... do what? Imprison them? Leave them in the energy stream if they can't actually get to Alpha from Between? Worse?" 69


"Why did you show me this?" Finn whispered with dawning horror. "Because your research is about filters, emotional ranges, how the difference in population size affects people who live in corresponding areas. I hoped you might be able to find a way to prove that this won't work." Blake stood up. "Stop them, Finn. Please." Finn watched as Blake left the office, wondering how the hell he was supposed to put the brakes on research he didn't have clearance for, or even the first idea about what they were trying to accomplish.

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Chapter Seven Finn sat in his lab for almost an hour after Blake left, thinking over all the possible ramifications of what was really only a hypothetical situation. Yes, the picture Blake had painted was grim, but everything Finn had studied, everything he'd experienced, told him that it wasn't within the realm of actual probability. Unless the government really had been lying to them for decades. Finn shook his head and reached for the phone. It simply wasn't true. He'd never heard of anything like it. There was no historical basis for any of it. Of course, he'd recently been made aware that even those on Beta who exhibited no sensitivity could be influenced, so what did he know? Finn dialed and waited for his mother to answer, hoping that she'd actually gone out so his Aunt Dorry would be able to pick up the line and he could bypass all the questions about why he never stopped by for dinner anymore, why he hadn't brought anyone home to meet the family, and was he eating enough. His luck was against him, however, and it was his mother's voice that answered, her abrupt hello signaling that she was a busy woman who had much better things to do than gab all day on the phone. "Hey, Mama," Finn said, sitting back in his chair. "How are you?" He adjusted the brightness on the nearest monitor, going up and down with it just so he had a button to stab. 71


"Finnegan," his mother said. "I'm fine, thank you. Do you need money?" Finn closed his eyes. "No, Mama. I don't need money. I'm sorry I haven't called in a while." "It's been a month, Finn. You should come by." Finn nodded. "Okay. Today?" His mother fell silent for a moment. "What are you up to?' "Nothing," Finn protested. "I'd just like to talk to Aunt Dorry a bit, about some folklore." "You can do that on the phone." His mother sniffed dismissively. "But why don't you come for supper tomorrow? I'll make a roast." Finn smiled. "All right. I'll be there by six." "Bring a friend, if you want," his mother added, as if it were an afterthought. "Not this time, Mama," Finn said with a roll of his eyes. "That was very subtle." "Thank you. Hold on, I'll get Dorry." The phone clattered as she set the receiver down, and he could hear her calling his aunt, who was likely buried in a book somewhere. In a few moments, though, the phone rattled again and his aunt came on the line. "Finn?" "Hi, Aunt Dorry," Finn said, smiling. "How are you?" "Fine, thank you. It's nice to hear from you. Your mother said you wanted to talk about a story?" "Not a specific one," he clarified. "More a general query. Have you ever come across anything that would suggest that 72


people from Beta have come here? Or that they are capable of it?" There was a long pause broken by the gentle pop of Dorry biting at her thumbnail, and he could picture her standing in the kitchen in her classic pose of deep thought. "No," she finally said. "There are some myths about strangers arriving, but they all finish with the visitors being from our world or being ghosts of ancestors. Why?" Finn winced. He really hadn't thought that far ahead. "I was poking through some data stores," he lied, "and came across a theory that was tossed out about fifty years ago. I couldn't find any follow up, so I just thought I'd ask. From my own research, though, I've been seeing some signs that it's possible to ... well, not communicate with those that aren't Sensitive, but there's definitely a possibility of influence. I'm going to have to look further, of course, but if that's true there's going to have be some refinement in the legal structure eventually." "Oh, that's come up a lot," Dorry said immediately. "In fact, there's been transcriptions of oral history that reflect it. When I was compiling stories for the University I brought it up, but no one took it anywhere. Said it was fairytales." She paused. "You're not ... doing anything, are you, Finn?" "No," he said hastily. "Just observing." "Mmhmm." "Really," he said, hoping for some measure of sincerity. "Okay," Dorry said warily. "Let me just say this. If your questions are related, I will be very cross if you talk some poor person in attempting to reach Between." 73


"Dorry!" Finn was honestly shocked. "You helped raise me!" "I did," she said, her tone warming. "And I spent far too long teaching you right from wrong and how to filter out the noise from Beta, and Lord knows I dragged you away from watching that one boy often enough ... You don't want to get attached to someone with that much resonance from birth, Finn. You'll just get your heart broken." "I know." It was an old conversation, dating back thirty years. "Don't worry, I'm not mucking about in anything I shouldn't be." Anymore, he added to himself. "Okay, then." Dorry huffed into the phone line, back to business. "You'll be around for roast tomorrow?" "Yes," Finn said, stabbing at the buttons on the monitor again. "I look forward to it. If you have any more questions, we can sneak away to the study for a while." Finn grinned. "I'd like that. See you tomorrow night." They hung up and Finn looked around the office, once more telling himself that it was all moot. It was impossible, and he wasn't about to go looking for Ari again, anyway. He was going to follow the rules and be a good little scientist. Resolved, he put the file Blake had left him away in his satchel and went back to work, putting everything out of his mind. He worked on data entry for most of the rest of the day, sitting at his computer and constructing comparison charts, pulling up historical data from the Institute's archives, and in general keeping himself busy. His mind, however, kept going 74


back to the information Blake had brought him and what his aunt had told him. Finn was very much aware that his reasons for watching Ari had never had a solid basis in science; it had been going on far too long, and the blanket of research that Finn had constructed to cloak his spying was merely a smoke screen. It bothered him, made him blush with shame, as he admitted that the screen was only for himself. It would never have held up to scrutiny and had been mostly for his own comfort. That comfort was gone, and any time Finn's work slowed, when he allowed his mind to wander off the task of filling in data and creating pretty graphs to show his results, he would find himself thinking about it. About Ari, about why he watched, about his own motives for fooling himself. It wasn't a pleasant line of thought, and he resolved that if he had to think about it at all, it would be on his own time, in his own home. Late in the afternoon he was roused from his monitor by a knock at the door. "Dr. Cormag?" an elderly voice asked, his tone differential. "Yes?" Finn looked up and tried to place the visitor as he rose, going to the door to offer his hand. The man was definitely a researcher, the Institute's color-coded identification tag on display over the man's lab coat. "I'm Dr. Healy. I'm hoping you can help me out with a small matter of data." "I'll certainly try," Finn said, ushering Healy in and gesturing to a chair. 75


"Thank you." Healy sat down with a sigh. "It's a long walk from the east wing." "It can be," Finn agreed, smiling. "I try to avoid it. But then, I usually don't cross paths with the environment section." "That'll be changing, I'd say," Healy told him with a roll of his eyes. Finn nodded. "Likely." The environment on Beta was changing more and more rapidly, and as a result almost every department was gaining interest, as there wasn't just one cause. "But not today. Today, you've come to me." Healy grinned. "Lucky you. Actually, it was almost chance, as I merely did a fast search to narrow down the list of names of people who have clearance for the correct geographical area, and yours was at the top of the list. One of the things my project and team are looking at is the effects of certain manufacturing techniques, and our information on a specific site is out of date by about forty years. With the way buildings and neighborhoods change in Beta, I'm hoping you can confirm for me if there is still a plastics factory on the lower end of Third Avenue?" Finn tried his best to look merely thoughtful while he tried desperately to remember if he had a legitimate reason to know that the factory was gone. It had, in fact, been torn down when they cleared a whole city block. That block now had office buildings—including the one Ari worked in. "I believe it's gone," he finally said. "But I'm not sure if I have documentation for that. I can look, if you'd like." He turned to 76


his computer and tried to remember what folder that would even be in. "It would be helpful," Healy said mildly. "None of us has clearance to simply go and look, you see. There's a jam in the paperwork somewhere. Some raving bureaucrat actually suggested we hire someone with the proper papers, instead of just modifying the files for one of the team." Finn raised an eyebrow. "That's slightly ridiculous. Not to mention expensive." He opened a document about the city zones in Beta. "It really doesn't make sense that no one working on your project has passes." "We had someone," Healy explained. "But she got snared by political, curse them. Damn good scientist, too. The frustrating thing is that we don't even need hard data at this point about when the factory was taken down, just if it is or is not there." Finn turned and looked at him. "Oh," he said, surprised. "I can do that much for you, no trouble. What do you need?" Dr. Healy beamed at him. "Just a statement that says that on today's date you looked where we indicated and found no evidence of a manufacturing site. Or, conversely, that you did, whichever is true. Once we get that, we can secure our own clearances and move things along." "That's easy enough." Finn glanced down to make sure he had his passes in the back of his identification holder or at least stuffed in his pocket. "I'll be back in a few minutes, if you don't mind waiting." "Not at all." Healy almost rubbed his hands together in delight. 77


Finn grinned and skipped the walkthrough passage. He had the feeling that Dr. Healy didn't go to Between very often, so he left from right there in his lab, staring into the middle distance until he could see properly. When the space around him seemed slightly out of kilter, colors muted, Finn took a step and went there. He knew where he had to go, could almost do it in his sleep, given how often he'd been there in the past. Finn let the not-entirely-physical reality of Between carry him along as he worked through the energy fields, his strides amplified as he passed people leaving their jobs and heading home. He noted the upswing in traffic and realized he almost never went to Ari's office near the end of the business day; Ari always worked late enough that Finn could usually finish his own work first. At the correct block, Finn halted and grinned. There was no factory, as he well knew. He wrote a note, however, and wished there was a way to capture images. That was one thing that had never been done by anyone, aside from sketches. Any other method of saving visuals, such as photography or video, invariably failed. There had been hopes that digital imaging would work, but that had failed as well. There were entire offices in the Institute filled with broken hearted scientists who dreamed of reliable ways to document what they saw. Finn was just about to return, fighting the part of him that naturally wanted to go up to Ari's office, when Ari himself came out alongside his assistant, Duncan. Immediately, 78


surprised to see Ari and going on instinct, Finn went closer to them. "Have a nice dinner," Duncan said, already moving away from his boss. "It's Gregory's," Ari said with a laugh. "That means it will be nice. See you in the morning." Duncan grinned and waved as he walked away, and Ari continued on to the garage where he usually parked. Finn followed along in his wake, thinking quickly. He had no idea where Gregory's was, why Ari was going there, or what had spurred another dinner out. He assumed it had something to do with Ben, but other than that, he was in the dark. Following Ari to his car was no help, but he did learn that the restaurant must be uptown, if the direction Ari drove was any indication. Unless he was going home first. Frustrated, Finn knew he was out of time and had to get back to his office and to Dr. Healy. With a last look at Ari's vanishing taillights, he headed back, forgetting to impress Healy by appearing in his lab and going the usual way instead. "No factory," he announced as he walked through the door. If Healy was disappointed by either the manner in which Finn reappeared or the news, he didn't show it. "Wonderful," he said. "Would you be so kind as to—" "I'll just draw up a fast document," Finn said, already going to his computer. "Would you like me to e-mail it to you?" 79


"That would be most helpful. My e-mail address is, of course, here at the Institute. And I thank you for your time and help, Dr. Cormag." Finn remembered his manners long enough to shake the man's hand and see him out before whipping off a fast e-mail and locking his lab door. Then he went back to Between, not even pausing to take off his lab coat. It took him a long time to find Gregory's, a lot longer than he'd hoped. That he could move freely and quickly was a bonus, as was the fact that there was a limited number of areas where one would find a fine restaurant. Still, when he found the place, it was obvious that Ari had been sitting there at the bar for a while, his drink more than half gone, even if there was no sign of Ben. Finn stood in the doorway to the bar area and looked at Ari, wondering once more what the hell he was doing there, watching. He should be in Alpha, out of his lab and heading to his own home. He should have been anywhere but in Between. Anywhere but where Ari was. When Ari, looking in the mirror of the bar, seemed to be watching him back, Finn started. He moved back into the restaurant proper and wandered around for a few minutes, admiring the layout and the food, and was about to leave when he saw Ben come in, so he stayed, unsure why. Ben paused to talk to someone at the door, then smiled and went to the bar, and still Finn lingered, arguing with himself. Some minutes later he was still arguing, repeating his own reasons for leaving over and over, and Ari and Ben were at their table. They were talking quietly, earnestly, and Finn 80


couldn't help himself. He drew nearer to the table, completely unable to stop himself. Ari was staring at Ben, looking shocked. "Seattle." Ben nodded, and Ari asked, "Are you going to take it?" "I have two weeks to let them know," Ben said, then talked a little about the promotion he'd obviously been offered. Finn watched Ari and saw his face go subtly blank as he tried to hide his emotions. Ben seemed to see it as well and said, "Let's just put it aside and enjoy ourselves, all right? Think about the offer as being something worth celebrating, regardless of the details. Please." Ari nodded. "Of course. It is worth celebrating, Ben. You've done an amazing job, and you deserve the recognition." Sighing, sad for Ari and wondering what the hell had made him stay to witness this, Finn backed away until he could turn and leave the restaurant, almost fleeing back to his lab. He regretted knowing, regretted seeing. He didn't have affection for Ben, but he couldn't deny that he did for Ari, and he hated to see him ache. It was especially unpleasant when he couldn't even offer any support at all—not a word, not a kind look. Nothing at all. One of the very first lessons the children of Alpha learned as they were taught to filter out Beta was not to look when they felt the emotional resonance of pain or sadness. Watching joy was one thing; bearing witness to grief while being helpless to offer support was unpleasant at best, heartbreaking and soul damaging at worst. 81


Watching the end of a relationship wasn't quite soul damaging, but it wasn't fun, either, and it was with sadness in his heart that Finn took himself home. As days went, his had sucked in many, many ways, and he just wanted to be home with his fish. **** A couple of hours later, his apartment clean, his fish tended to, and his body showered and in bed, Finn could not rest. It was too early to sleep, but there was nothing on TV; nothing could keep his attention no matter how hard he tried. He would read a few sentences, and his mind would go to Ari, wondering if he was all right, if he and Ben had talked further. He wondered if Ari would follow Ben after all, and that thought had him sitting up in bed. Finn got up and paced, walked around his apartment for a few minutes, growing more and more agitated. He had to know. With only a glance at the clock to check the time, Finn tossed out a quick wish that no patrols would stop him and went to Between, the landscape rushing by as he went to Ari's house and on in. It was wrong in so many, many ways, but Finn didn't care. He wanted to know, needed to see if Ari was packing, as illogical as it was. Barely aware of his own overreaction, Finn rushed through the empty lower floor of the house and then up the stairs, stopping short in the doorway. There was nothing for him to grab, no walls in Between for him to lean on. His breath rushed out of him as he stared, watching Ben fuck Ari with an intensity that should have been 82


frightening. But Ari was clearly loving it, his back arched and gleaming with sweat, his words obscene and filthy and ultimately, shockingly, powerfully erotic. Finn watched, unable and unwilling to look away. He saw everything, heard it all, and reacted. He made himself stand still, watching Ari's face as Ben came in him, captured by the beauty and the command of his lust. He'd never seen Ari like this, like a man in complete and total sexual bliss, creating energy and desire out of the very air he breathed. When Ari took Ben, drove into him, Finn gasped, his own body in near pain. He wanted that, wanted that attention, that look, that experience. He wanted to taste Ari's skin and to bite, to lick and devour. He wanted Ari, and that knowledge wasn't nearly as shocking as he thought it should be. Finn stayed until the end, until the two bodies were satiated and sprawling, and then he lingered longer, waiting to hear them speak words of love and devotion and to say that they were not going to part. When that didn't happen, none of it, Finn left, dazed and aching, and went home to attempt to piece his life back together.

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Chapter Eight Ari was gritty-eyed and troubled when he got to the office on Friday morning, having spent a night of sleep disturbed by dreams that made far too much sense. His body had been tired, but his mind had been restless. One dream after another had plagued him, showing him Ben moving away, excited and eager, and a faceless stranger watching, silent in the background and always just out of his vision. Duncan wasn't at his desk when Ari let himself into the office, which only added to Ari's sense of unease. It always seemed that no matter how early Ari arrived, Duncan was there, sitting at his desk and ready to go. It was just one more thing to unnerve him and make his day start off on a discordant note. Ari went into his own office, taking off his overcoat as he walked. The sleeves caught on his jacket and he tugged, almost snarling as even his clothes conspired against him. "Bad morning?" "Yes," Ari said, his heart racing at the unexpectedness of Duncan in his office. Almost immediately he relaxed, noting that Duncan was getting the coffee on; something was going right, finally. "Sorry. I didn't think you were in yet," he added, tugging his coat off and hanging it up. "You're early," Duncan agreed, starting the machine. "But not much. I've only just arrived myself. You look tired." "Bad night's sleep." Ari went to his desk. "I'll be fine in a bit; just pour coffee into me, and all will be well. I hope." 84


Duncan smiled and nodded, walking out the door. "I'll leave you to it, then," he called out. "I'm going to check the messages; be with you in a few minutes." "Take your time." Really, he could do with a bit of time to just sit and get his head together. He listened to the coffee maker as it gurgled and spat while he booted up his computer and flipped through his day planner to see what was coming up. It looked like a typical day, really, with meetings and project updates, but no huge deadlines looming. Thank God. When the coffee machine gave one last splutter and wheezed pathetically, Duncan appeared in the door with his own notes and his empty mug. "Ready?" he asked, going first to the table in the middle of the room to put his planner down and then back to the coffee stand. "Ready." Ari sighed and fetched his own mug on the way to fill it, meeting Duncan at the table. "Hit me. Anything waiting to bite me on the ass?' Duncan peered at him, one eyebrow raised. "I don't think so," he said cautiously. "You sound like you expect there to be, though. Bad night? I thought Ben's thing was good news." "It is." Ari shook his head. "Not really a bad night. I just didn't sleep very well, and the morning so far has been a series of things being slightly off. One of those days where you spill coffee on yourself, find you've magically run out of shampoo, don't have any granola bars left, hit every red light, and get caught in the rain, I guess." Giving him a sympathetic look, Duncan nodded. "If it helps, you don't have any coffee stains, the rain is letting up, and I have granola bars in my desk." 85


Startled, Ari laughed suddenly. "You're just angling for a raise, aren't you?" he said with a grin. "I bought the granola bars by accident," Duncan deadpanned. Ari shook his head, still smiling, and opened his planner to the next week. "Okay. Let's get some work done before the morning's gone." Duncan nodded. "Yeah," he said as he uncapped his pen. "It's almost seven-thirty. Damn near lunch time. Actually, there was an e-mail this morning, requesting an eight-fifteen for Laura. I said eight-thirty, so we really should get this in order." "What does Laura want?" Ari raised an eyebrow. Although technically his superior, Laura Pesina was the head of international operations and rarely dealt with Ari directly. The most they saw of each other was at the monthly board meetings. "She didn't say," Duncan told him, leaning back and sipping his coffee. "But the grapevine says that she's been scouting for a new vice." "Not me." Going to second in charge of international operations wasn't even a lateral move, but a half-step down. "No, not you. But she might want to run some names past you." Duncan shrugged. "The courting might be internal, too." "Poaching." Ari rolled his eyes. "Fine, how long does she want, and am I going to her or is she coming here?" "She's coming to you," Duncan told him with a grin.

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Ari grinned back. It was always nice to know who had control. "Well. We'll be sure to make sure it goes smoothly, then," he said. "Unless she's after someone I need." "Oh, the joy of office politics." Duncan turned a page to the next Monday and pointed to the afternoon. "Now, about this one. I need to send a reminder about the latest numbers..." **** At noon Ari took stock of his day, sitting at his desk with a salad and a chicken sandwich that was well below par for his usual meal. His meeting with Laura had been fast and easy; she'd floated a couple of names past him, neither of which belonged to someone vital to his own division, and left with his honest opinions. Duncan had retrieved necessary numbers from a data jam and had gifted him with the box of granola bars. And he hadn't once felt like someone was watching him. He had, however, been waiting for it, and the wariness he had was making him tense. His shoulders ached, and every time his back protested how he was holding himself, Ari tensed further, waiting for the muscle sensation to either prove to be physical pain or the odd tingle of being watched. It hadn't gone unnoticed. Duncan had given him searching looks and, finally, just as Ari finished the salad and turned back to his computer to read the news online, Duncan came in and handed him a slip of paper. "What's this?" Ari looked at the name and phone number. 87


"Massage therapist." Duncan shrugged when Ari raised an eyebrow. "It helps me sometimes." Ari snorted a laugh. "I'm fine. Just tired." He gave Duncan a long look while he debated with himself. "Ben's promotion offer is for Seattle," he finally said, setting the paper down. "And I've been off balance for a couple of days. Strange things keep happening." Duncan's eyes widened and he pulled up a chair. "Seattle? That's ... wow. What are you going to do?" "Wait and see." Ari shrugged. "That's all I can do, really. It's a good job for him." "He's going to take it?" "He hasn't decided. I suspect he will, though." "I guess that'll disturb your sleep," Duncan said slowly, nodding. "I'm sorry." Oddly, Ari found himself shrugging again. "I suppose." Duncan looked like he was going to say something further about it, but as Ari had suspected he would, Duncan let the matter drop. They didn't often discuss their personal lives, but as they worked so closely together, Ari had thought it best to let him know about a potential major change. Instead, Duncan tilted his head to the side and asked, "What kind of strange things?" Ari leaned back in his chair and looked toward the door. "I've been having odd feelings. Like someone's watching me when logically no one can be. Like in here, for example, or at home. And I grabbed a guy off the street just before he could be hit by a car. I get ... feelings like I should wait a while 88


before I drive, or I should go another way to work. Just weird things like that." "Stress," Duncan decreed. "Too much work, not enough gym, and now Ben's thing." He stood up and nodded firmly. "Get a massage. Learn to meditate. Get some sleep." Ari smiled weakly, not sure if he was glad that Duncan had dismissed the issue or not. He didn't particularly feel better for saying anything out loud, anyway. It was easier to just put it all away again. "I used to try to meditate," he said as Duncan left. "I kept falling asleep." "Good," Duncan shot back. "Try it tonight." That wasn't such a bad idea, Ari admitted. If nothing else, he could bore himself into resting. And maybe he wouldn't have dreams.

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Chapter Nine Finn spent the entire day at the lab pretending that he wasn't freaked out. That he wasn't becoming a voyeur, that he wasn't intruding, that he wasn't already in so deep he'd need a bomb and three psychiatrists to get him out of the mess he'd made. Mostly, he pretended that Dorry wasn't going to kill him dead and then lecture him until shame made his corpse apologize to the universe at large and to Ari in particular. He hid in his lab and worked desperately, hiding from people and hoping no one was going to come in and see his tired eyes or note that he was looking particularly disheveled in his wrinkled clothes. Honestly, he had no idea how he'd even managed to get to work dressed at all; he was just grateful to have pants on, never mind that they were picked up off the floor and likely could use an iron, if not a wash. Finn had two e-mails from Blake that he ignored and a slew of requests to finish up a paper he'd started more than a year ago about emotional resonance; he'd shelved the paper, but apparently there was interest being piqued somewhere. The last thing he really wanted to do was hit the conference circuit, but it looked like he'd have to or risk a funding drought. But then again, he thought as he stabbed at his keyboard, maybe it was just what he needed. He should bury himself in research, write his papers, and go schmooze for a year or two. Who knew, maybe he'd actually discover and prove something worthwhile. Maybe he could figure out that dump 90


of intel that Blake had saddled him with. Maybe he could even figure out why Blake had done it in the first place. But that line of thought only led to more confusion, primarily how Blake appeared to be two different people. He was at once an over-the-top eager research geek and also a passionate scientist who could be damn near eloquent when he got fired up. When he talked about what could happen in Between he'd seemed different, more focused and serious. Finn wasn't sure what to make of that, so he put the whole thing from his mind and tried to think of other things. The one thing Finn did not do was go see Ari. He remained firmly rooted in Alpha and didn't even allow himself to daydream for fear that his filters would slip and he could get a hint of what lay beyond Between. He was rigorous about remaining completely and utterly focused. Which meant, of course, that when he presented himself at his mother's for dinner, he was tired, a little cranky, and a world more irritable. "Hello, darling!" his mother said, pulling the kitchen door open before Finn could even lift a hand to the latch. "You're almost late." Finn glanced at his watch, which said he still had ten minutes until his six o'clock promise. "No, I'm not," he said, going in and taking off his shoes. One did not wear outdoor shoes in his mother's house. "I said almost," his mother pointed out. "Go see your father."

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Finn nodded and went through the kitchen to the living room, following the sound of the television. "Hey, Papa," he said, heading right to the couch. "Finnegan." His father nodded at him. "You look good. How's work?" Finn was pretty sure he looked like hell, but he let it go. "Not bad." He sank into the couch and shifted to make sure he had the cushion behind him just right to avoid the one spring that always tried to get him in the back. "How've you been?" "Same." His father lifted his chin at the TV. "Can you believe this shit?" "No, Papa." Finn barely glanced over to see what was on. It didn't matter, really; his father always said the same thing, and Finn always agreed. It was just easier that way, had been for years. His father had worked hard all his life, and now that he was retired he was making a new career out of disagreeing with everything on television, from the news to the game shows. Finn suspected that he did it mostly to stay out of the way and avoid being forced to attended all of the volunteer functions Finn's mother went to. "Where's Aunt Dorry?" Finn asked, looking around the comfortable room that hadn't changed much since he'd left home ten years before. "Around." His father glared at the TV. "She said she had some books to show you, I think. She's probably in her study." 92


Finn nodded and wondered if it would be incredibly rude to just go find her. With a sigh he decided it probably was, so he stayed and watched TV with his father, joining in on the vocal derision of what the broadcaster thought was political commentary. When he figured he'd done the paternal bonding as far as it was going to go, he excused himself and went back to the kitchen to meet the maternal requirements. "Can I help with anything, Mama?" he asked, standing in the doorway and waiting for her to point him to where he would be out of her way. "I do not need help," she said firmly, pointing at the kitchen table. "Sit yourself down and talk to me." Finn smiled and sat dutifully. "Okay. Sitting." It was kind of a ritual, really. He'd sit, she'd cook, and he'd evade questions about his love life. With a wry grin he realized how ritualized it really was, right from the way he and his father maintained their own relationship to the way his mother took over conversations and how Finn let her. It was comforting, really, to have one place in his life that nothing ever changed. "So," his mother said as she mashed potatoes. "Are you seeing anyone?" "No." Finn rolled his eyes behind her back. "Why not?" she asked reasonably. "You're a nice looking boy. You have a job and a car and a home. What else could anyone want?" Finn blinked. "You know, you're right. Plus, I can cook." She turned around and gave him a suspicious look. "Are you teasing me?" "No, I'm agreeing with you." 93


"Huh. No wonder I didn't recognize it." Finn laughed and sat back. "Seriously, I'm a great catch," he went on expansively. "I've got a degree or two, I can feed myself, and I can keep up a conversation. My jokes aren't rude, I don't smell, and I have a job. I'm perfect." He could see his mother's shoulder shake as she started to laugh. "You should totally set me up with someone. Someone with a job, a car, a home, who doesn't smell and can keep up his end of the conversation." "You're one of a kind," his mother said, getting food into serving dishes. "There is no one left like you. You're doomed to spend your life all alone, or possibly with someone less perfect than you." "That would be a shame." Finn grinned broadly. "But now you see why I'm not dating and we don't have to discuss this ever again. I've been excluded by my perfection. It's all your fault for raising me right." "Heaven help me," she said, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. Dorry suddenly appeared in the doorway, looking slightly dusty. "With what?" she asked, looking at her sister. "Hello, Finn." "Hey, Aunt Dorry. Mama's just realized she raised me to be too perfect to find a man to be my equal." "Oh, that," Dorry said, rolling her eyes. "Of course." She gave Finn a long look and then shot one at his mother. "Come with me," she said to Finn. "Dorry!" Finn's mother turned and gestured to the dinner that was almost ready. "Less than two minutes." 94


Finn waited for them to sort it out, noting not for the first time how different they were in appearance. Dorry was stout and strong looking, her dark hair liberally sprinkled with gray, while his mother was more willowy, her lighter hair once golden blonde and now lit with white. That they were sisters often confused people, the assumption usually being made that Dorry was sister to Finn's father. Of course, Finn had inherited his father's looks, his hair and eyes dark enough that people often thought that Dorry was his mother. It made for confusing introductions every once in a while. "All right," Dorry relented. But she gave Finn another searching look and nodded sharply. "But right after dinner I'm dragging him away." A shiver ran down Finn's spine, and he remembered his worry from earlier that she'd lecture him to death. It didn't seem unlikely at all. The family ate in the dining room, and Finn suffered through the family gossip from his mother, his father's stream of opinion about the state of the world, and Dorry's continuing looks. By the end of the meal he could barely meet her eyes, and it was with mounting reluctance that he helped clear the table and put the dishes in the dishwasher, the TV once more droning in the background as his father retreated. "Upstairs, Finnegan," Dorry said, taking a mug of tea in her broad hands. "Yes, ma'am." Finn tried not to cower meekly as he followed. Up the stairs and down the short hall, he followed in her footsteps until he was in her study, the door closed behind his back. 95


Dorry put her mug down on her desk and adjusted the lamp to make a pool of light on the surface. "Now," she said, sitting down in her chair and looking up at him. "What the devil have you been up to?" Denial was impossible. Finn sighed and leaned on the door, his gaze fixed on the floor to the right of her feet. "I've been watching him," he said softly. "And I'm not sure if I can stop." Dorry tsked and nodded. "You know better. God knows I spent most of your childhood dragging you away from him." "I know," Finn said with a groan. "But it's ... he's ... Shit." He slid down the door and sat, his legs straight in front of him. "I didn't, for a long time. For years I didn't even look for him, let alone keep tabs. And then there I was, in Between for work, and I saw him." Dorry said nothing for a long moment. "Does this have anything to do with the questions you asked about the ones who aren't Sensitive?" Miserable, Finn nodded. "He reacts if I yell loud enough. He doesn't hear me, can't see me, but he can ... I don't know. He reacts, and he seems Sensitive sometimes. Only a tiny, tiny bit." "Oh, Finn." Dorry sighed and picked up a book on her desk. "In the old stories, there's a lot of talk about connections people sometimes make between the dimensions. Romantic twaddle, most of it, but it's not unheard of. There hasn't been anything in modern times—at least, nothing recorded—but I'm sure it happens. What are you going to do about it?" 96


"I don't know," Finn admitted. "I was planning on never going back, especially given the way security seems ready to ramp up, but I just don't know." Dorry gave him a curious look. "Security has their knickers in a twist?" Finn nodded. "There's a theory out there—admittedly a poor one—that people from Beta can pass to Between. Security is getting themselves ready just in case. I got the information on the sly, and if it holds water my research might be flagged as pertinent. They want to start ... they want to scan in Between to find high emotion, not just physical matter. And then yesterday a guy from environment sent me to Between to check out the site where's Ari's building happens to be, and I saw him. The next thing I know, I'm running around in Between looking for him, watching his relationship with Ben start to end." He didn't see the need to add in the part about watching Ari have sex. "Back up," Dorry said, her eyes narrowing. "You're getting leaked information. An unrelated department is sending you to Between. You're being placed in a position where you yourself are likely to have emotional spikes, just as the Department of Security is taking an interest in such things." Finn blinked. "But that's coincidence," he protested. "Blake—they guy who passed me the research—doesn't know about Ari. Hell, no one knows about Ari. The only reason you know is because you're you and you taught me all about filters when Mama couldn't get me to understand." Dorry nodded slowly. "Just ... be careful." She absently tapped the book in her hand. "And I strongly urge you to let 97


Ari live his life. If you absolutely must watch, try to do it from here and not Between." Her look grew grim. "And don't you ever, ever try to talk to him again. Hear me, Finnegan?" "Yes, ma'am." Finn stared at the floor again and didn't even bother trying to pretend he was a big enough man to take on Dorry. "Good." She tossed the book back on her desk and picked up her mug. "So. What's young Ari Sloan been up to since he was seven years old, then?" **** Finn fed his fish and looked at the tank for a long time, just sitting in the dark and thinking about what Dorry had said. It made his blood run cold to think that unknown people might be aware of what he was doing, and colder still to think that he'd been oblivious to any spying. The irony did not escape him. Part of him was actually comforted by the thought that the care Alpha took to protect Beta from just what he'd been doing was effective and working. It was a small part of him, however. If he was truly above reproach, he would have rejoiced. But he wasn't above reproach, and possibly not even above a second glance before being seen as tainted and slightly murky. He wished his fish could talk and tell him what to do. "Probably just tell me not to go there again," he mumbled to himself. "Same old, same old. And yet, here I am, more or less damned. Because I know I'm going, and I know I'll get 98


caught at some point, and if I'd known when I was three years old that watching Ari being born was going to wind up ruining my life I would have ... been insanely smart for a three year old." Finn rolled his eyes and stood up, stretching. His circular arguments sounded even worse out loud, and he was tired of thinking about the whole thing. He was just plain tired. "Bed," he told himself, making sure the light in the fish tank was set to turn off on its own. "Right after I say goodnight." He walked toward his bedroom, his footsteps silent on the carpet, and went smoothly through to Between. Between at night was pleasant and quiet, the rush of traffic and chatter from both sides turned down. The light was shiny and gray, almost silvery, and he made his way quickly to Ari's, casting frequent looks about himself to spot any other people in Between. As usual, there were none, and he went into Ari's house, listening for talking or the TV, or anything at all. If Ari and Ben were having sex again, though, he was leaving. The TV was on in the bedroom, but Finn couldn't hear Ben or Ari; he wondered if they'd gone to sleep already, although it was early for them. He walked up the hall and stood in the doorway, looking in. Ari was sitting on the bed, making notes in a file and with more paper scattered around. Ben wasn't there, and the bed was still made. It actually looked like Ari hadn't been home long, still dressed in his suit and minus only his tie and shoes. 99


Finn looked at him for a long moment, watched him jot something down and look up at the TV before reaching for the remote. Then Ari froze, staring dead ahead and apparently listening to something. He muted the TV and sat silently for a moment, his head still cocked. Listening, too, Finn turned to see if Ben was coming up the stairs, though he hadn't heard the door. Seeing nothing, Finn looked back at Ari, who was deathly pale and staring right back at him. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my house?" Ari demanded. Finn's jaw dropped, and he was unable to speak for heartbeat, maybe two. It was hard to tell, because his heart seemed to skip a beat entirely. "You can see me?" he managed to say, and he stepped forward, out of the doorway and into Ari's room. Ari blinked and stared but didn't answer. In fact, he seemed to grow even paler. "Can you see me?" Finn said again. "My name is Finn Cormag." "What the fuck is going on with me?" Ari said softly, looking at the door but ignoring Finn. "This is so not good." Finn stopped moving and looked at the door, then Ari. "Hello?" he said. But Ari merely closed all his files and sat on the bed looking pale and worried.

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Chapter Ten Ari's stomach hurt. His head was pounding and he didn't trust himself at all. There had been a man in his house, his house that was equipped with very expensive, very reliable security. A man had stood in his doorway and looked at him, had seemed surprised to be seen, which was just ridiculous given that he was right in the fucking doorway, and then the man had vanished. He was unsure how long he sat on the bed, the TV silent and flickering outside of his awareness. He only knew that he refused to look at the door to the room, and he wasn't too happy with being alone in the house. Well, mostly alone. Apparently he had a ghost. Ari had always kind of thought that a ghost would look creepy, though, not be quietly normal in appearance and his own age. And in kind of a need of a haircut. He'd also thought that a ghost wouldn't wear track pants and T-shirt that advertised for a soft drink company. It must be a modern ghost. "Hey, sorry I'm late." Ari yelped and jumped, staring wildly at Ben. "Jesus, you scared the crap out of me." Ben stopped where he was and looked at him, blinking rapidly. "Sorry. I didn't mean to. You didn't hear me come in?" Ari shook his head and hoped his heart was going to slow down a bit before he stroked out. 101


"God, you look stressed," Ben said sympathetically. "Hard day?" "I saw a ghost." Ari watched Ben start to undress. "Right here. In the doorway." Ben glanced at him and took off his shirt, tossing it into the laundry hamper. "Yeah? What did it look like?" "A man. About our age." "Was he all see through and creepy?" Ben asked with a grin. Ari glared at him. "No, he was kind of cute, but the point is he was here. And he shouldn't have been." Ben paused and looked at Ari, his grin fading. "Hey," he said softly. "Are you okay?" "Are you listening to me?" Ari gathered up his files into a pile. "I saw someone, right here, and then he vanished." Ben stopped undressing and went to him, taking the files from Ari's hands and putting them on the nightstand. "Hey," he said again. "That's impossible, honey. You're just tired and over-worked, and your mind is playing tricks." Ari sighed and let Ben sit next to him, let himself be held for a moment. "It seemed real," he said, starting to feel foolish. "It's been a strange week." "I know." Ben rubbed his hands over Ari's arms. "I know. Stress and work and doing brave things like saving joggers. You need to relax." Ari nodded, not sure what else to do. He was sure he'd seen someone; it had been far too vibrant to be an illusion, a trick of the TV, but he knew he'd never convince Ben of that. It was silly to even try, and it would just make him look 102


crazier if he pushed the matter. "Yeah, I guess," he said softly. "But I don't know if that's going to be easy." His hands were still shaking a bit, and he knew that adrenaline was hitting. "I'm going to take a shower. Come with me. It'll help." Ari nodded. A shower would be good. Hot water and steam; if nothing else, he could be clean before he went to bed. He was reasonably sure that his body would be relaxed by the end of it, even if his mind was still a mire of confusion. Ben kissed him again and stood up. "Shower," he said firmly, starting to undress again. "And I'll see if I can take your mind off just about everything." Again, Ari nodded. He turned off the TV and put the remote on the dresser, then followed Ben to the bathroom, leaving a trail of clothes behind him. He wasn't sure that he'd even be able to get it up, but if Ben wanted to try, Ari was willing. Anything to take the image of the surprised man out of his head. In the shower, Ari let Ben scrub him down and wash his hair, Ben's fingers digging in and massaging his scalp. It felt good, almost decadent, and Ari fell into it, the tease of suds sliding down his back a tickle. He rinsed when instructed and even laughed softly when Ben lathered up with shower gel a second time and washed his chest. "I didn't think I was that dirty," Ari said, leaning back against the wall. Ben's hands were warm and slippery, sliding over his chest and belly.

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"You're not, but you feel good like this." Ben leaned in to kiss him softly. "Really good." A warm and silky smooth hand curled around Ari's cock, the other smoothing over his hip. "Uh-huh," Ari agreed, kissing Ben again and tasting his mouth. He did feel good, warm and safe and getting harder as Ben stroked and played. Ben knew how to touch him, how to get him going. A thumb brushing over the head of his cock, a finger sliding down the shaft and pressing at the base; all of Ari's favorite things. "There you go," Ben whispered, tugging at his cock again. "That's it. Want to get off this way?" Ari nodded, holding on to Ben's shoulder. "It's good," he said against the wet, warm skin of Ben's neck. Ben hummed in agreement. "It's good." The hand on Ari's hip drifted down to his balls. "Could be better." Ari felt one of his eyebrows lift. With a hard kiss, Ben stroked him again, squeezing and touching him until Ari gasped. "Better," Ben repeated, going to his knees. Ari nodded. Better. Blowjobs were better. Well, hands were nice, too, but he wasn't about to turn down Ben's mouth. A moment with the spray on him, needles of hot water hitting his dick and sending shocks to his balls as the soap rinsed away, and then Ben took him in, licking and sucking. Moaning, Ari looked down. His cock, hard and curving, slipped between Ben's lips and along his tongue. Ben was looking up at him, watching his face, and Ari nodded. "Better," he whispered, his voice breaking into a groan when Ben sucked hard. "Oh, God." 104


Ben's legs splayed for balance and Ari's hips jerked, pushing himself deeper. Ben's eyes closed for a moment and then opened, sharp and dark as he nodded, welcomed him. When Ben let go of Ari's hip and reached for his own erection, Ari did it again, plunging in and dragging his cock back out against the suction. Ben jerked himself off, moaning and looking up as Ari panted, wanting. He fucked Ben's mouth not unlike the way he'd fucked his ass the night before, fast and selfish and nearly desperate, his need to get off coiling in his gut. When Ben pushed along Ari's dick with his tongue, scraping at the soft skin and tonguing the tip, Ari groaned and plunged in again, needing. One finger teased at Ari's hole, and Ben's other hand flew on his cock, jerking roughly. "Yes," Ari whispered, his body twitching. "Yes." Ben's finger pushed into him, deep and searching and Ari yelled, his eyes closing. He held onto Ben's shoulder and then his hair as he worked himself between mouth and hand, feeling every sound Ben made like it was right in his balls. His eyes were closed so tightly that he could see green and purple shapes, bright against the dark, and when Ben's finger pushed against his gland Ari yelled and came, shuddering. Ben was still sucking him softly when Ari opened his eyes. He wasn't stroking himself anymore, and Ari assumed he must have gotten off; he certainly looked content enough as he let Ari go with a final kiss to his thigh. "Better?" Ben asked, smiling up at him. Ari nodded, leaning on the wall and trying to get his breath back. "Thanks." 105


Ben laughed and got up, kissing him once before turning off the water. "Every day should end with shower sex," he said, reaching for towels. "Now you'll sleep and you'll see that everything is better in the morning." Ari took his towel and hoped that Ben was right. He didn't hold out much hope, however.

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Chapter Eleven Ari slept because his body had to, and if he dreamed he had no recollection of it in the morning. He awoke in the early hours, briefly, to find Ben out of bed and dressing quietly in the half-light. "Working today?" Ari asked, his voice thick with sleep. "For a few hours," Ben said softly. "Then I have to go to my condo for a while. I'll call you before I leave the office, okay? Maybe you can come over, if you have time." Ari nodded, already drifting back to sleep. "Mobile phone, in case I'm at work," he mumbled, eyes closed. When he woke again it was considerably brighter in the room, but it was still before nine. He stayed in bed, his mind already planning his day; if he'd been on top of things when he left the office the night before, he'd have everything he needed to get a few hours in, working from home instead of dragging his ass downtown. He rolled over, feeling warm and lazy under the blankets, not ready to get out and face the mundane tasks of dressing and feeding himself, let alone finding his papers and booting up the computer. Coffee would be nice, though; he wondered of Ben had thought to set the machine up for him. Yawning, Ari stretched and tugged the blankets a bit more snuggly around himself and drew up a knee, one hand absently fondling his cock. "Oh, man. Please don't do that," a voice said from the door. "I can't hang out here all day, and the more often I show up, the higher the risks—" 107


Ari spun around hard, the sheet tangling in his legs as he flipped over to stare at the doorway to the hall. The ghost was back, looking worse for wear, though dressed differently. "Who are you?" Ari demanded, fighting back a scream. "Oh, good, you can see me." The ghost looked insanely relieved. "Of course I can see you, you're right there." Ari held the sheets in his fist and stayed as still as he could, waiting for his heart to either explode or slow down; he really wasn't sure which way it would go, and the indecision was upsetting his stomach and giving him a headache. "What do you want?" The ghost held up both of his hands, palms out. "My name is Finn Cormag," he said slowly and clearly. "And I'm a scientist." Ari blinked and stayed exactly where he was. "A scientist. Who wears T-shirts that need laundering and jeans with holes in the knees and appears in bedrooms unannounced and uninvited." The ghost glanced down at himself and frowned. "It's clean." He plucked at the T-shirt. It was white and had a logo on it for some school Ari had never heard of. "Wrinkled, yes, but clean." The absurdity of the situation pretty much convinced Ari that the ghost wasn't real. "Go away." Ari rolled onto his back and looked at his ceiling. "You are a figment of my imagination and you can just shoo. Shoo." "Ari." The man was almost pleading. "I'm real, I promise." "I don't want you to be real," Ari said through gritted teeth. "I do not want there to be a ghost in my house. Go 108


away." He wasn't sure if he could just will the figment to vanish, but he was sure as hell going to try. "I'm not a ghost. I'm not something your imagination made up." Ari sat up and let the blankets pool around his waist. Whatever the guy said he was, he wasn't coming any closer and that was good. Ari looked at him, taking in the wrinkled shirt, the ripped jeans, and the mussed up hair. "Angel?" he asked suspiciously. The ghost blinked at him and shook his head. "God, no. Human. Just like you." "I can walk around a room and not vanish," Ari pointed out. "What did you say your name was?" Maybe it was best to just humor the vision a little. "Finn. Finn Cormag." Finn looked encouraged by the question, smiling nervously. "Well, Finn Cormag, I happen to know that you are not real because there is a very good security system in this house, and the last time I saw you I blinked and you disappeared. Actually, I didn't even blink, you just vanished. Therefore, you're a ghost, an angel, or a figment of my imagination." Finn looked slightly exasperated. "I can prove I'm real," he said, still not moving from the doorway. "I know about when you were born, I know where you went to elementary school, I know you had a puppy named Duke when you were a kid—" "A figment of my imagination would know all that because it's in my own head," Ari threw back the covers and got out of bed—on the far side because he wasn't an idiot—and glared. 109


"And my birth was in the newspapers and on TV. Everyone knows about that." Finn's eyes went wide and he looked away, off to the right. "Um. Okay," he said, plucking at the hem of his T-shirt again. "Can you maybe put on some pants?" "No. You're in my head and so you've seen it all before." Finn looked pained, his gaze flicking around the room and onto Ari for short moments. "I've seen it," he muttered. "But this isn't the time." Ari didn't even want to consider what that meant. He stood there by the bed and glared at the stubborn apparition in the doorway, steadfastly refusing to be swayed to cover himself. On the up side, the fact that Finn was also refusing to leave meant that his morning erection had faded, so at least Ari didn't have that to deal with. "This is ridiculous," Finn said with a sigh. "Look, I'm real, I'm human, and I've been up all night. What will it take to convince you I'm not something imaginary?" Ari narrowed his eyes. Absurdly, he was annoyed that Finn would no longer look at him, but he wasn't about to cover himself just to make the intruder comfortable. Hands on his hips, Ari watched as Finn turned very slightly to look down the hallway toward the stairs. "Tell me something I don't know," Ari finally said. "Something I can't possibly know but can verify. Then, maybe, I'll start to believe you. And after that, you can explain how the hell you got in my house and what's so damn important that you've turned my life upside down, made me paranoid, and have made me doubt my sanity." 110


Finn closed his eyes for a moment and then looked at him, his gaze firmly above Ari's waist. "Something you don't know," he said, running his hand through his already messy hair. "That I can find out," Ari agreed. Sighing, Finn nodded. "If that's what it takes." "It's just a start," Ari told him. "Frankly, I hope never to see you again." Finn looked pained, almost hurt. "I didn't mean to mess up your life," he said softly. "This isn't exactly a picnic for me, either." Ari frowned, not sure why he wanted to apologize for being so hard-headed. The whole thing was crazy; he was crazy. He was developing a headache, and he felt like an idiot standing there naked in his room and talking to a man who wasn't supposed to exist at all. Slowly, hoping it looked casual and mentally cringing that he even cared about that, he crossed to his dresser and got a pair of boxer shorts. "Come back with information." He stepped into them and didn't look at Finn. "Later. I need to work." "Okay," Finn said, his voice still soft. "I'm not sure when. It could take a while." Ari stood up and shrugged. "I'm in no rush." "I might be. This is..." Finn closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'll try to explain it later. But this is important, Ari. And I won't be able to stay long, maybe not even long enough to explain it all." Ari had no idea what to say to that; he'd already been honest about how displeased he was in the first place. He 111


nodded sharply and stayed where he was, far from the door, wishing he could just go past Finn to the hall and then the bathroom. The shower seemed like a safe haven, far away and unattainable. Finn stood a bit straighter, his shoulders back like he'd made a decision and set a course for himself. "I'll find you." Ari wished he could feel as sure about anything as Finn looked. "I'll be here." He decided not to mention the fact that he might not be; if Finn showed up and he wasn't home, that was okay with Ari. "I'll find you," Finn said again, a little harder, the emphasis clear. It sent a shiver down Ari's spine. "Later," he said firmly. He was beginning to feel that "never" was out of the question, no matter how hard he wished it. Resolutely, he turned his back to the door, getting clothes from the dresser to take with him to the bathroom, something he never did in his own home. When he looked back, Finn was gone. "God, this is fucked up," Ari whispered to the empty room. For a rash, uncentered moment he contemplated calling Ben to tell him the ghost was back, but stopped himself before he'd even started to reach for the phone. Ben wouldn't believe him, and Ari wasn't sure if he wanted to be believed. If he managed to convince Ben that the ghost was real, that he was actually seeing people where none should be, he knew he'd be in an even bigger mess. It was best to keep his divorce from reality a secret, to just put the whole thing out of his mind until he couldn't anymore, to bury himself in the normalcy of work and 112


Saturday housework. If Finn and whatever he was, be it a specter or something tangible, began to interfere with Ari's ability to function, he might then consider talking about it. But for the time being, Ari was determined to ignore it and get on with his life. Mind made up, Ari tossed the clothes he'd gathered onto the bed and went to shower. He had work to do and a Saturday to fill with the minutia of life.

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Chapter Twelve Ari, to his own surprise, worked for three hours without even thinking about Finn more than two or three times. He wondered if perhaps the fact that he'd closed the door to the study was a help with that. He had no idea if Finn's appearances were limited to the door of the bedroom or if any door would do—or even if doors had anything to do with it at all—but it made him feel better to have solid wood barring the way. He sat at his desk, the small TV tuned to a news channel for background noise, and did some paperwork. Ari checked his e-mail and sent a series of notes to the office for Duncan to find on Monday morning. It was a pretty typical Saturday morning, really, aside from the fact that he didn't do any of his usual light cleaning and laundry. Instead, he merely glanced toward the closed door and dove right back into his work, pulling up a new project folder to review his notes and the data. He told himself that he wanted to get a head start on the coming week and firmly ignored the way his head started to ache whenever he thought about opening the door and leaving the study. Ari stopped when he got hungry, the gnaw in his stomach helping him to get stubborn enough to declare that no ghost—or inexplicable vanishing human—was going to keep him trapped in a room of his own house. He'd skipped his coffee and breakfast when he'd gotten out of the shower, more or less going right to the study and locking himself in. He'd thrown himself into work as a method of blocking out 114


everything weird, and now he was definitely hungry and getting cranky. Eyeing the closed door with distaste, Ari walked to it with determination that was mostly show; his back might have been straight, but when he flung the door open and glared at the hallway he had a moment to feel elated at his own bravery before the sheer idiocy of it all occurred to him. Then he was just glad that Ben wasn't there to laugh at him. Cheeks hot, Ari went down the kitchen and made himself something to eat, then ate over the sink. It felt good and normal, and he'd almost regained his usual even-tempered mood by the time he was done. But when he went back to work, he closed the study door again, and he didn't do anything at all around the house before Ben called to say he was finished at his office and was going over to his own place. Ari accepted Ben's invitation to meet him there with enough eagerness that Ben laughed and his voice dropped almost an octave when he said he'd be waiting. It wasn't until they hung up that Ari realized Ben had made certain assumptions. Not that he entirely minded, but he did feel a trifle guilty when he realized he wasn't going to correct the impression Ben had about Ari's eagerness. There wasn't any point, and it would just annoy Ben that Ari still thought there was a ghost. Chances were, such a discussion would also kill off any ideas of messing around, too, and it was a lot easier to just go along with that than spend any more time thinking about Finn. 115


Not that he had been, he reminded himself sternly as he eyed each door before he crossed the threshold. Not at all. He'd been working. It was with a distinct feeling of relief that Ari got in his car and pulled out of the garage. He was almost sure, given the way Finn said that he would find Ari, that it didn't matter where he went, but it still lightened his heart to leave. The sun was out and the breeze was warm, and for a moment he wished he had a convertible so he could put the roof down. Then he got into traffic behind a delivery truck and remembered why he didn't. Convertibles looked nice, but they didn't really live up to the promise of fresh air when one was driving in the downtown core. At Ben's building Ari had to think for a moment before he could remember the key code for the underground parking. It had been probably three months since he'd been there, though Ben stopped by more often, usually to make sure nothing was stolen or to get different clothes. They'd never really talked seriously about Ben giving up his condo, mostly because Ari had found Ben reluctant to take the step. Eventually he'd stopped even thinking about it, and decided that it was Ben's money to waste on rent. What they had worked for them. Well, had worked in the past. Now that Ben was considering the move to Seattle all Ari really felt about their living arrangements was a bit of relief. If Ben did decide to go, there wasn't going to be any really messy details. Just ... the end. 116


With a sigh Ari locked his car and walked to the elevator, pressing the up button with more force than was probably necessary. He didn't particularly want Ben to go, but he hadn't been prepared for his lack of devastation, either. He loved Ben, he knew that. He'd always kind of assumed that if Ben suddenly packed up and left, he'd be heartbroken. It kind of worried him that he wasn't, and it bothered him that he'd spent so long in a perfectly comfortable relationship without realizing that his lover was not, in fact, the love of his life. The elevator pinged, signaling that it had reached his level, and Ari stepped back in case there was someone waiting to exit. It wasn't until the doors began to slide open that he wondered if maybe, just perhaps, Finn would be inside. His heart pounding wildly, Ari took yet another step back, eyeing the widening entry to the elevator car. When he could clearly see in the interior, with its subdued lighting and shiny brass railing, he wasn't sure if he was more relieved or disappointed to find it empty. Making a conscious choice to be relieved, and even a little smug, he got in and pushed the button for Ben's floor, then examined his key ring until he found the right key for Ben's apartment. The elevator didn't make any stops on the way up, rising smoothly to the ninth floor, and Ari waited, key in hand. When the doors once more slid open after a soft chime, his heart raced again, unexpectedly, and Ari could feel his face coloring with the stress. "Jesus Christ," he whispered. "This has got to stop." 117


He almost ran down the hall to Ben's door. He unlocked it and went right in, not even pausing. It was one jerky move, and for once that day Ari completely missed the fact that he was going through a doorway. "Ben?" he called, as he locked the door again behind him. "It's me." He had to take a deep breath to steady his voice, but at least his hands weren't shaking. "Hey, you." Ben's voice came from the end of the short hall and around the corner in the living room. "You didn't waste time coming over." He was smiling when he appeared, walking toward Ari with bare feet poking out from under artfully frayed jeans, a smudged T-shirt tight across his chest. "As a matter of fact, you must have damn near rushed," he added, the strides of his walk becoming slinky, like he was stalking Ari. Feeling a little bewildered, not to mentioned trapped with his back against the door, Ari said, "Just drove, that's all." "If you say so, honey." Ben leered and was right there, in his face, smiling and kissing him hard, Ben's body pushing Ari up against the door. "Matter of fact," he whispered, transferring the kisses from Ari's mouth to his neck, "You've been rushing to get to me for a couple of days now. Hot for it, aren't you? You've been wild for me." Ari wasn't sure that any of what Ben said was entirely true, and right at that moment it was wildly inaccurate, but given the choice of telling Ben about Finn or nailing Ben to the wall, Ari knew which way he was going. His brain stuttered for a moment, and then both brain and body got with the game, helped along by Ben's hand working at him over Ari's jeans. 118


"That's it," Ben said, his voice teasing as much as his hand was. "Want to fuck here in the hall or should we find somewhere else? I think the bedroom is tidy enough, and that's where the lube lives." "It's a plan." Ari gasped when Ben's fingers moved between his legs and pushed up hard behind his balls. "Bedroom." Ben didn't wait for a more detailed invitation. He let Ari go and backed up, pausing only long enough to grab Ari's hand so he could pull him along. They went down the hall and through the living room where piles of clothes covered the couch and a stack of books was on one of the chairs, and then left into the bedroom. Ari had a moment to realize the bed had different covers than the last time he'd been there, and then he was flat on his back on the bed, with Ben crawling over him. "Naked," Ben said, his legs on either side of Ari's. "At least the pants." He yanked his own shirt off and then tugged at Ari's fly, batting Ari's hands away. Ari laughed and batted back. "What's the rush?" he asked as he lowered his zipper. Ben ignored the question and lifted himself up so Ari could get his jeans off, then stripped off his own. "Gimme," Ben demanded, proudly naked as he sprawled on the bed. "No underwear?" Ari asked. He leaned over Ben and bit at one dark nipple while he finished kicking off his jeans, his boxers tangled up in them as he added to the growing pile of clothes. "Not a necessary item. God, do that again. Harder." 119


Ari nodded and did it again, biting down on Ben's nipple until he heard a sharp cry and felt Ben's cock flex against him. "Hang on." He scrambled up to his knees to get rid of his shirt. "On your hands and knees," he ordered, reaching for the lube he knew was in the nightstand drawer. Ben did as he was told, shoulders down and ass high, knees spread wide. "Come on," he said roughly. "Fuck me, Ari." Ari nodded, crawling around behind Ben and popping the lube open. "You know it." Between his legs, Ari's cock swung, heavy and thick, wet at the tip. "Hard and deep?" he asked, teasing a finger around Ben's hole. Ben whimpered, his body twitching. "Jesus, have you been thinking about this all day or something?" Ari slicked his cock and shoved two fingers into Ben's ass, smearing lube. "Yes," Ben cried, though Ari wasn't sure if it was an answer or if he just really liked being fingered. Ari watched himself open Ben, watched his fingers sink in and pull back, and he jacked himself slowly, letting the wet sounds and Ben's panting carry him along. He half expected to feel the tingle in his shoulder blades, but it didn't come, at least not yet. Before he could allow himself to once more get lost in the fantasy of being watched—now that there was a face to put the fantasy—he pulled his hand away and waited. Ben started pleading immediately. His hole flexed and his knees spread even wider. Ben looked like a whore, begging for it, and Ari's cock thudded in his hand. "Fuck me," Ben whispered. "Please, Ari. Get your cock in my ass and do it. I 120


wanna feel you, deep inside. Wanna come with you driving into me." Ari groaned and moved, his hand guiding until he could rub Ben's hole with the head of his cock, spreading lube and precome all over. "In, in, in," Ben chanted, giving up on his arms entirely and putting his head on the bed. "Fuck." Ari groaned and thrust, plunging in all the way to his root. Ben's body took him easily, heat and slickness surrounding his dick and wrapping him in softness. "Jesus, I love your ass," Ari said, panting right along with Ben as he pulled all the way out and slammed back in. "Ari!" Ben yelled. He grabbed for his cock, swaying and dripping, and started stroking off, his arm jerking. "That's it," Ari managed to say, though he was biting his lip. "Touch yourself. I like watching you, you know. Like to watch you masturbate, like to watch you fuck yourself with toys, with your fingers. Like watching you jerk off in the shower, and I like watching you do it when you suck me off." He slammed in again, his own cock rigid and aching. Ben yelled and twitched, his whole body shuddering and a flush working its way around to his back. "There!" he said, apparently in case Ari missed his reaction. Ari moaned and nodded, suddenly unable to speak. He watched his cock going into Ben's ass and did it again, aiming for the spot that made Ben yell. Two more thrusts like that and Ben was writhing, twisting and throwing himself back to get Ari as deep as he could, and then he froze. 121


"Wait for me," Ari ordered, feeling Ben tense. He fucked him furiously for all of about ten seconds before the train hit and they were both yelling, the smell of Ben's come thick and heady in the room as Ben's ass went tight around Ari's cock. Ari yelled, buried himself in Ben, and let go, coming in long, slow pulses that rocked him from his toes to his shoulders, every joint in his body going limp in the aftermath. They fell to the bed, Ben into a puddle of his own come and Ari nowhere near ready to pull out. They lay heaped and panting, saying nothing, and Ari closed his eyes, wondering why they'd stopped actually talking. It seemed like they'd stopped using words and the sex had gotten desperate and demanding without them even noticing. It also occurred to him that the change seemed to be something that neither of them had resisted.

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Chapter Thirteen Finn Cormag met the crossroads of his life without thought and with only the barest glance at the consequences. Once he started, there wasn't any going back, not really. He knew full well that the option was there to just stop, to stay where he was and to close off the part of him that was driven to connect with Ari, but he discarded that road without hesitation. The moment he'd realized Ari could see him, could talk to him, Finn was irrevocably committed. Sleepless, with gritty eyes and hands that shook with excitement and exhaustion, he spent Saturday trying to come up with information that would convince Ari to give up his idea that Finn was a delusion. He barely took the time to grab what permits he had before he dove back into Between, moving through the dimensional rift with as much speed as he could manage. He had no idea at all if there were heavier patrols on the weekends or not, and he didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it. He just moved and watched and tried to do what he had to do as fast as he could. When he returned to his apartment, overwhelmed and twitching with both personal excitement and with scientific fervor, Finn threw himself onto his couch and fell asleep. He slept deeply, not moving at all for hours, dreamless and so completely tired that he was almost unconscious. When he awoke it was fully dark outside his windows, night long since having fallen. Stiff from not moving, his muscles protesting, Finn made his way to the bathroom for a 123


quick shower and he didn't care that the knocking of his shower pipes likely woke up his neighbors. He needed the water to wake him up, and he added an extra blast of cold water at the end to finish the job. It was three-thirty in the morning, he noted as he dressed. Even with his permits, and if he wore his lab coat as well, it would be damn hard to explain his presence in Between to any security force. But he was going anyway, and he'd just have to trust his luck to hold out a while longer. With a glance at his shirt to make sure it was a clean one, he buttoned his lab coat and put his paperwork in his pocket. "All right," he said out loud, looking at his living room wall. "If nothing else, waking Ari up will be interesting." Then he blinked, suddenly realizing he'd have to deal with Ben. "Shit." Finn paced his living room twice, weighing his choices. He could go right then, hoping that Ben wasn't there, which was very unlikely, and try to wake Ari up. Or he could wait until morning and hope that Ben left early. Or he could go to Ari's office at the start of the day and pray that he could establish contact in a place that wasn't Ari's bedroom doorway. Except it was Sunday, and the chances of Ari going to the office were hit and miss. Closing his eyes, Finn threw himself back onto the couch and reached the phone. Dorry might know. Of course, Dorry would kill him, too. Maybe. Likely. Or his mom would, for waking the house up in the middle of the night. Frustrated, awake and ready to do something, anything, Finn took his lab coat back off and booted up his computer, 124


thinking that maybe some of his reference material would help with the doorway puzzle if nothing else. He logged onto his account at the Institute and started searching, absently checking to see who else was up and doing research. It was a habit he'd fallen into when working from home, kind of keeping track of other people who just couldn't let it go when they were off the clock. Unsurprisingly, given the time and the day of the week, there were only three usernames active. Two he didn't recognize, but the extension codes identified them as computer service techs. The third was Blake. "What are you up to?" Finn murmured. There was no way to tell, of course, just as there was no way for anyone to find out what he was doing; as long as he—or Blake—wasn't actively working in the structure of the web design itself, they were simply noted as being logged in. It was even possible that Blake had forgotten to log out when he'd left work on Friday, but Finn doubted it. All the computers were to be shut down when the labs were closed, which created a furor when experiments ran long, forcing someone to stay in the lab to baby-sit the programs. Nothing turned up on a basic keyword search for "doorway contact" so Finn broadened his scope and looked for articles about contact with Beta, period, which immediately spit back hundreds of results, most of them theoretical papers. He began to weed them out, looking for statements of firsthand experiences, and he wished that he'd thought to ask Dorry for some of her books. 125


The Institute's accounts of Between and contact with Beta were mostly papers he'd read before and declassified reports from security about people they'd convicted for interfering with the population with Beta; the people who'd preyed upon those who were sensitive to voices—and more—from beyond their dimension. It was interesting if disheartening reading, and by the time the sun came up Finn was once more becoming depressed and having to struggle with his conscience. But as his apartment flooded with the gray light of dawn, he put his lab coat back on, fed his fish, and made himself ready to go to Between and to Ari's house. If Ben was there, Finn would just have to hope that Ari would cope a little better with Finn's arrival than he had the first time. On an early Sunday morning there wasn't much traffic in either Alpha or Beta, and it made Between seem desolate. There were no cars moving on the streets in either dimension, and Finn hurried along to Ari's house, skipping over intersections and through buildings with ease. When he got to Ari's, Finn stood in the kitchen for a long moment, just looking around. Everything was still and silent, as he'd expected, and there was a drinking glass standing alone in the sink, the only sign that the kitchen had been used since it was last cleaned up. The green light on the dishwasher blinked, signaling a completed cycle, and the refrigerator hummed quietly. With a last look around, not sure why he was putting it off, Finn went up the stairs to Ari's bedroom. 126


Surprised to find the door open, Finn looked in and wished his body was in one dimension or the other, just so he could lean on the doorframe instead of having to stand more or less where he was. Fidgeting wouldn't exactly put Ari at ease. But then again, Finn thought as he looked at Ari, sitting on the edge of the bed fully dressed in jeans and short-sleeved shirt and looking back at him, Ari seemed to have himself pretty much together. "Good morning," Ari said calmly. "Uh, hi." Finn wanted to slap himself on the forehead, but restrained himself. "You're up early." "I kind of thought you'd be around last night. When you didn't show up by midnight, I went to sleep. Then I figured you'd turn up early, so I got up and dressed to avoid a repeat of yesterday." "Oh. Uh, thanks. I appreciate that." Finn really hadn't expected the conversation to be going the way it was. Ari looked slightly amused. "So," he said expectantly. Finn looked around. "Where's Ben?" The bed was neatly made and the shower wasn't running; but it was early on a weekend, so he knew that Ben hadn't rushed off for a breakfast meeting. Ari looked around, too. "His place," he said. "You can talk. I can talk. No one will come in and tie me to a gurney and take me to the hospital." "You're not crazy," Finn said seriously. "Prove it," Ari shot back. "Tell me something I can't know but can find out. And then you can explain what exactly you are, if not me having a breakdown." 127


Finn took a breath and made sure he didn't move out of the doorway. "Okay, I found a couple of things. Uh, Duncan is taking weekend and evening classes at the university. He's finishing up an undergraduate degree in accounting." Ari blinked. "How does he find time to study?" "I assume that's why he's at work so damn early sometimes," Finn said. "And he probably uses Sunday to sleep. Yesterday he had class in the morning, checked his work e-mail, did a few things, and then settled in to study." "I see," Ari said slowly. He looked thoughtful for a moment then shook his head. "Okay, I can't sit here trying to figure out if I'm going to lose my best admin assistant ever. Anything else?" Finn nodded. "One more thing. But you might already know, 'cause I didn't check in with you or Ben after about two-thirty yesterday. In which case, all I have is Duncan and I hope to hell that's enough." "It's enough to make me want to talk to him. Later. After he's slept." Ari looked at Finn steadily, but his hands twitched and finally gripped the edge of the bed. "What's the thing I might know? Something about Ben?" Finn really didn't know if there was a delicate way to put it, and there was a very good chance Ari already knew, so he just said it, bluntly and without any window dressing. "Ben accepted the promotion yesterday, in writing. He's moving out to the Seattle office in about ten days, less if they need him to."

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Ari looked stunned for a moment, only a second or two, as his hands flexed on the mattress edge. "I knew that," he said, and Finn knew he was lying. Finn said nothing more, just stood there and waited to see what Ari was going to do. He half expected Ari to lunge for the phone, even noted when Ari looked toward it, lying on the nightstand, but apparently the lie had legs and Ari didn't reach for it. "All right," Ari said at last. "You said you're a scientist, and at least this time you look the part. Tell me what you're doing here, and how." Thrust into the heart of things at last, Finn found himself unsure where to begin. He remembered telling Blake to slow down and start at the beginning, so he took his own advice. "I live on the same world you do," he said carefully. "The planet Earth. And I'm human. But you and I live in slightly alternate dimensions. The same, but different." Ari stood up and pushed his hand through his hair. "Alternate dimensions," he said weakly. "You know, that's one thing that didn't occur to me." "I'd be surprised if it did," Finn said, wishing he could go into the room, could get closer. "We actually go to pretty good lengths to keep our existence from being known here. See, theoretically, there's an infinite number of dimensions, but yours and mine are close enough that there's a bit of ... of bleed through. Everyone in my dimension is aware of yours, can see what's going on, can even feel the emotions of your people. But your dimension is pretty much entirely unaware of us. And that's good, for all of us." 129


Ari stopped holding his head and stared at him. "What?" "Those differences I mentioned." Finn spoke faster. The longer explaining things took, the more time he was spending where he could be caught, but it was important information and he had to risk it. "We have the same geography, the same cultures. But our population is a fraction of yours, thus we don't have any of the environmental impacts. We have the same technology, the same basic history—it seems that there's a certain amount of individual duplication of key historic figures—but we have a lot more natural resources available and a huge amount of land still to be cultivated." "So..." Ari looked blankly at him. "So you're not going to invite us all to move over, huh?" "Well, no," Finn admitted. "But there's a whole other thing, in that we can see you. Watch you. In some cases talk to you. And that's strictly against the law for a bunch of reasons, mostly founded on moral grounds. We are forbidden to interfere, trained from birth to filter you and your people out." "And how's that working out for you?" Ari said acidly. "I don't suppose me calling the police here will do any good?" "Probably not." Finn made a face. "But if it makes you feel better, the chances of a security patrol coming by are going up every moment I'm here." "Okay, so you're not supposed to be here, you're breaking the law, and you're determined to tell me about another dimension," Ari said, ticking the items off one by one on his fingers. "Why? I mean, why me? What do you want? What's so important that you've left your own dimension and come to mine?" 130


"Actually, I haven't," Finn said, dodging the entire question of what he wanted. "I can't get to your dimension and you can't get to mine. It's an impossibility, we think. Although, lately I've been hearing about a theory—" "Whoa!" Ari yelled, one hand up, palm out. "You really are a scientist, aren't you? Slow down. If you're not in my dimension, where are you?" "There's a kind of space between the two. It's called ... uh, Between." Finn hadn't realized how silly that sounded until he said it out loud. Ari stared at him. "Between. You're in Between. And where is your body? In your own dimension? You look pretty real." "No, no. I'm all here. Between. It's possible to observe from Alpha—where I live—without going to Between, but I don't think I could talk to you from there. And I have permits and passes to be in Between because of my work. But if I get caught doing unauthorized research, I'll be in trouble. If I get caught actually communicating with you, I'll be in a very huge amount of trouble." Ari's head tilted. "How much?" "Uh, lose my job, go to jail for a very long time, pretty much have my life destroyed." "I see." Ari sat on the bed and looked at him. "And yet, you're here. Okay, I'm listening. Let's just assume for the moment that I believe all this. Why are you talking to me, of all people? I'm not in charge of a government, I'm not a scientist. I'm just a businessman." "You're Ari Sloan," Finn said simply, unaware of the way his voice grew richer when he said the name. "I've been 131


watching you your whole life. And when suddenly you could see me, hear me ... I had to talk to you. You've been a big part of my life, Ari, and I didn't have a choice. Not really. You're why I do what I do, and why I want to protect the people of your dimension."

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Chapter Fourteen Ari was glad he was sitting on the edge of his bed and didn't have to try to stand through the awe in Finn's voice. "That's quite the stalker vibe you have there," he said, not really meaning it. No one had ever looked at him like he was something remarkable like that, at least not that he remembered. It wasn't the same as admiration in a business setting, and it was more intimate feeling than even the look on a lover's face. It was like Finn knew him, through and through, and was still captivated by him. It was unsettling, to say the least, and wildly flattering. Finn blushed red and looked away, first at the floor and then down the hall toward the stairs. "I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to scare you." Ari took pity on him. "I'm not scared," he said softly. "Just confused. What do you mean by me being responsible for you doing what you do? And what protection are you talking about." After he took a deep breath, Finn's color evened out, the blush fading a bit. "That's a long conversation," he said, "and I'm pretty sure we can't go over all of it right now. But I can give you the basics, I think. Then I have to go, for the rest of the day at least, and maybe longer, if I can't figure out this whole doorway thing. I vanished when I moved from here, right?" "Right." Ari nodded in agreement. "You did. And you're avoiding my questions." 133


"The vanishing thing is important, too," Finn said reproachfully. "Yes, I'm sure it is. We can work on that later. Right now, I'd rather know why you're here, rather than how." Finn sighed and looked for a moment like he was going to lean on the doorframe but stopped himself. "Remember when I said we can feel your emotions?" he asked. "Sort of. I was kind of ... trying to deal with a lot right then. Not unlike now. I really should be taking notes." "There's a thought." Finn smiled wryly. "But then you'd just have to hide them or burn them, so." He shrugged and stood a little straighter, like he was ready to give a presentation or a lecture. It was a look Ari knew well, though he hadn't really expected to see it in his bedroom. "Anyway, here's the thing." Finn put his hands behind his back and looked at Ari, his face intent. "In our dimension we can pick up high emotion from your dimension. We don't know why, it's just the way it is, just like we're born being able to see you and your world. Our world is bright and loud and in full color, but yours is there as well, kind of gray and a soft buzz of noise underneath. Buildings are sometimes the same, and they look normal but with a faint glow, and where the buildings don't match up, there's this weird overlap. Right from birth, almost, we're taught how to filter you out. There's ways we can train our minds to just not see the gray people, not to hear you, and it's considered very bad manners to eavesdrop on Beta. Uh, that's what we call your world. We're Alpha, you're Beta, and please don't get all upset about some kind of implied hierarchy." 134


Ari laughed and shook his head. "Frankly, that's the last thing I'm about to lose my temper over." "Oh, good," Finn said, apparently relieved. "Where was I?" "It's rude to be nosy." "Right, it is. And it's against the law, but to be perfectly honest, it happens a lot. I mean, we all go through long phases in high school where it's just way more fun to zone out during class and watch the real live-as-it-happens soap opera that's Beta." "You can go to ... Between? When you're in class?" "No, no," Finn said hastily. "We can just kind of drop the filters and watch. It looks like we're stoned, but we're still physically in Alpha, just busy watching Beta." "Huh." Ari thought about that, about how weird it would be to see a room full of spaced out teens, then laughed. "I wonder what the people here are looking at when they just sit and stare?" "Some of them are actually being talked to," Finn said bleakly. "Sad but true. And very much a no-no. Even worse is when one of ours goes to Between and talks some poor misdiagnosed person into doing things." His voice and eyes both dropped. "You'd be amazed how many street people talking to themselves are actually talking to someone who's in Between. And how many people are diagnosed and treated for mental illnesses just because they're sensitive enough to pick up on us the way we can pick up you." "I see," Ari said quietly. "I'm not quite sure what to do with that information, to tell you the truth. What happens if the people doing the talking are caught?" 135


"Jail, classes about how what they do ruins lives here, restrictions on their movement, monitoring. It's a big deal. Of course, the security department has people patrolling Between to stop that kind of interaction. Which is why I can't stay much longer." "You said you have passes," Ari said, his brow furrowing. "I do, but only for my legitimate research." "Which is what?" "I conduct studies to quantify our ability to sense emotion, then use the data to fine tune what our government sanctions as legitimate, non-invasive surveillance. We monitor things like population growth, industry, the environment. As well, I conduct studies about how our people learn to filter Beta out, and attempt to find better, easier ways to help that happen. Basically, I research how we pick up on what you feel, and then find applications for that knowledge that will benefit both dimensions." Ari's eyebrows went up. "So you watch, but you don't. Have your cake and eat it too, learning from our mistakes?" Finn winced. "It's not really like that." "You'll have to explain it to me," Ari said, waving a hand. "And you still haven't told me why you've been watching me." Finn looked away again, shifting his weight. "I'm running out of time," he said. "Look, the basics are that when you were born, everyone who could possibly feel it, almost the whole damn city, felt it. We can feel the differences between good emotion and bad—happy feels different than sad. When you were born I was three years old, and your coming made noise, man. Even people who'd been filtering for years heard 136


it. There was joy and anguish and we all looked. We couldn't help it. For years my Aunt Dorry had to pull me out of Between because I kept going off to look at you, to check that you were okay. I wanted to play with you, and when I finally understood that I couldn't, I didn't care. I saw you being born, in all that wreckage. I saw the miracle of your existence and I felt it deep in my soul. I've felt just about every high you've had since then, and every plummet. It brought me to research, to learning more. I do what I do because of you. And now you can hear me and talk to me and I'm so fucking trapped by this doorway that I don't know if I can keep sane if I don't figure out a better way." Ari stared at him, stunned by the fervor in Finn's voice and the obvious passion he spoke with. "I. Wow." He had no idea what to say, and no idea what most of it meant. "Um, maybe it's not just that doorway," he offered feebly. "Have you tried other ones?" Finn stared back, suddenly looking drained and pale. "No," he admitted. "Not yet. I was going to try your office tomorrow morning. I'm pretty sure I can't come back today; it's too risky." Ari nodded and stood up. "Okay," he said. "I have no idea what's going on, or if this is real, though if it's all something I made up I'm pretty impressed with my imagination. I'm going to call Ben and find out if we broke up when I wasn't looking, and then I'm going to do some work. I'll probably manage to get some research in, too, because I'm like that. You..." He waved his hand. "You try to talk to me at the office tomorrow. Wait until Duncan isn't around, if you would." 137


Still pale, Finn nodded, one hand lifting as if he was going to try to touch Ari, or move closer or something. "Okay," he said softly. "I. God. Thank you." He turned carefully, clearly trying not to vanish, and looked back at Ari. "I'll try to tell you more tomorrow. Think of questions, if you want." Then he moved, one foot lifting, and between one step and the next he slid away and vanished. **** Ari thought of a lot of questions, and threw most of them away, thinking they'd take too much time for Finn to explain. He wanted to know everything he could about the dimensions and why Finn's people could see Ari's world but not the other way around. He wanted to know more about the feeling of emotions, about filters and Between and watching. He wanted to know about the police and how they found people in Between. Eventually, maybe, he'd get all of that. But the way Finn stood and the way he held his body, afraid to move and looking for people who might find him where he wasn't supposed to be ... Ari didn't know if he could really demand the time that much information would require of Finn. But Ari really wanted to know if Finn was right about Ben. After a shower and a cup of coffee Ari figured he was about as ready as he could be, so he took the portable phone to the living room and sat on the couch. He didn't use the living room for much other than watching TV, and he kind of thought he'd rather not have this conversation from the bedroom, where so much of Ben was spread over the place in heaps of clothes and his possessions on the dresser. 138


Ari didn't want to have the conversation over the phone, either, but there he was, calling Ben by one-touch dialing at eight A.M. on a Sunday morning. Some things, it turned out, were hard to put off until a reasonable hour. The phone rang twice before Ben answered, his voice muffled and sleepy. "Ari?" he said. "What's up, honey?" Ari bit his lip. "Hey, Ben. I know I woke you up, I'm sorry. But I kinda want to ask you something." "Oh, hey." He could hear the sheets and blankets move as Ben shifted, probably to sit or even get out of bed. Like a true workaholic, keyed into the ring of the phone, he was good at waking up fast. "If it's about me staying here last night, it's no big deal. I just have to let the super in at eight-thirty so he can measure for the new sink in the bathroom." Ari snorted. "Ben. Supers in your building are hardly going to be measuring bathrooms on a Sunday morning. If you're going to make something up—" "I'm not!" Ben protested. "He has to do it this morning because I can't be here tomorrow. Work, remember? Christ, what's got you so wound up this early in the day?" A headache started with a little warning throb behind Ari's right eye. "I want to talk to you about something," he said again as evenly as he could, stomping down his immediate, well-schooled defensiveness. Ben had a way of making everything Ari's fault, Ari suddenly realized. Granted, he hadn't exactly been delicate, pretty much accusing him of lying, as it were. Things were not going well. He should have waited. 139


"So talk," Ben snapped. "I need to shower before I give up my bathroom." "It'll take them all of four minutes to measure." Ari sighed. "Listen, just ... go. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have called. I just had a feeling about something and wanted to find out if I was right or not." "Seeing ghosts again? Have a sudden urge to jump out into traffic?" "Nice." Ari frowned, surprised at Ben's rudeness. "Very nice. And no, I haven't seen ghosts, but I am getting a pretty strong feeling that I should just hang up now." "Christ." He heard Ben sigh and more sounds of fabric. "I'm sorry. Okay, I'm awake, and I'm out of bed. Let's try this again. What is it that you wanted to know?" Ari closed his eyes and leaned back. "Never mind," he said wearily. "It's no big deal. I was just wondering if you've given any serious thought to the promotion offer." Putting it that way, Ari thought, was better then demanding if Ben had accepted the offer without talking to him; it might not get him the information he wanted, but at least it wouldn't make Ben get even more annoyed. "Oh." There was a long pause and then Ben said, "Of course I have. Um." In the next pause Ari felt his world tilt a tiny bit farther, the weight of finality settling down on him. "You haven't said much." "No. No, I haven't, I guess." Ben sighed quietly. "I don't know if there's really a lot of point in talking it all out with you. We both know what the options were." 140


Ari opened his eyes and looked at the far wall, noting the tense Ben had used. "Yeah," he agreed. "Kind of obvious. Still, you haven't said a word." He shrugged mentally and decided to plow on. "But you have more than a week. So." To his credit, Ben didn't take the easy way out. "I accepted yesterday," he said quietly. "In writing. I don't know if anyone's read it yet, though." "Why didn't you tell me?" Ari asked, unsurprised at both the information and his own non-reaction. He'd react later, though likely not until Ben had left the state. "I don't know." The line seemed almost still, if such a thing was possible, and Ben's voice remained low. "Actually, maybe I do. Because if I told you, that would be it. The end, all done, and there wouldn't be anything more. It's not easy finding the place to close a book when you're not sure if you want to stop reading." "Interesting metaphor," Ari said. "Generally, I close a book after the last page. And I also think that, as we're the ones writing this particular book, the ending should be fairly clear. If you didn't want to finish it, you wouldn't have taken the offer so fast, or would have at least talked to me—maybe even asked me to go with you." That part kind of stung, the absolute lack of any sort of invitation. "You would have said no, so there was hardly a point," Ben pointed out. "Sometimes it's nice to be asked. Practicality has its place, but this wasn't really the time for it, Ben." Ben said nothing, but once more Ari could hear him moving. 141


"Are you going to come over today?" Ari asked. He suddenly wanted to go back to bed and start his day all over. "So we can break up in person instead of over the phone? Will you have my things already in boxes?" "Yes to the first, no to the second. Two years and then some, Ben. I think we can be in the same room to say goodbye. We're hardly the sort given to huge drama, are we?" Ari was actually beginning to have some doubts about that. "You're right." Ben sounded tired and sad, which actually— shamefully—made Ari feel better. "And, to tell you the truth, I'm going to be insanely busy this week, getting things in order and passing my cases along. A couple I won't be able to give up and will have to spend extra time on. Between that and the actual packing to move..." Ari nodded and stood up. His living room was quiet, the drapes still drawn so the light was dim. "I understand," he said softly. "Well." "I'll be over in a couple of hours." "Okay. I'll be here." Ari hung up and looked around the room, wondering if he had boxes in the garage. With a deep sigh he went to see how much stuff Ben would have to take with him.

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Chapter Fifteen After staying with Ari for as long as he'd dared, and perhaps a bit longer, Finn hurried back to his apartment. He went as fast as he could, almost skipping over whole city blocks and keeping both his hearing and his sight as finely focused as he could. It was hard to see, going that fast, but he heard almost nothing. Traffic was still light, and the muted buzz of people moving had only the familiar sounds of people in both dimensions, not in Between. He didn't look around when he reached his building, he merely hurtled himself homeward and threw himself across the barrier to his living room, closing his eyes to avoid the visual disorientation of the doubled walls. "Okay," he muttered as he paced back and forth between the couch and the window. "That didn't go too badly. It could have been worse. It could have been pretty fucking awful. And, as an added bonus, I could have landed my ass in jail. So let's just think about that for a while. It might be a plan to find out more about how security does their thing. I don't suppose I know anyone who can check with them and find out their schedule? I don't suppose I could stop pacing and talking out loud." He sat down abruptly and put his head between his knees, a sudden panic attack making his head swim and black spots float in his vision. "Oh, God. Oh, man. I'm so screwed." Before Finn could regain a sense of balance or even try to stem the tide of confused thoughts, the intercom by his 143


apartment door buzzed sharply, the electronic whine frighteningly loud. Finn started and jerked, his heart pounding. He wasn't expecting anyone, and no one ever just stopped by his apartment—especially at eight in the morning on a Sunday. The buzz came again, ominous and insistent, wreaking havoc on his nervous system. "It's too soon for security," he whispered, making himself get up and go to answer the call. "And they wouldn't come to my house when they can yank me out of Between. It's a door-to-door salesperson. A charity canvasser. A religious missionary." Hoping it was only one of those mundane nuisances, Finn pushed the intercom button and said, "Yes?" "Dr. Cormag? It's me. Uh, Blake Foskey." Finn leaned on the wall as tension drained out of him and left him limp, his legs shaky. "Come on up," he said, pushing the door release. He had no idea why Blake would be at his door on a Sunday morning, but he didn't care; Blake wasn't the police, wasn't the force of security officers he was beginning to half expect. Blake was just a guy, an eager scientist. A fellow geek who took things to extremes. A quick glance around reassured Finn that he hadn't left anything embarrassing in the living room, and another glance born of a guilty mind made sure that there wasn't any evidence of where he'd been or what he'd been doing. Not that there was any, but he looked anyway. When a knock sounded at the door Finn opened it, finally starting to wonder what exactly Blake was doing at his home. 144


Blake stood in the hall, two paper cups of coffee in hand and a slightly uncomfortable looking smile on his face. "Good morning," he said, lifting the cups. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by." Finn stepped back, both of his eyebrows going up as he let Blake in. "Uh, thanks," he said, taking the offered cup of coffee. He looked at the lid and noted the grease pencil writing: two sugar, no milk. Just as he liked it. "This coffee shop is six blocks away," he pointed out, leading Blake to the living room. "Not really in the neighborhood." Hell, there was another place on the corner, in sight of his building. "Oh. Uh, yeah." Blake smiled brightly. "I was riding my bike. You know, getting out early before the traffic picks up and stuff. And so I stopped and got coffee." "That must have been interesting, trying to ride and carry two hot cups of coffee." Finn went to his fish tank and made sure their light was on. "I have this neat cup holder thing." Blake sat on the couch and sipped his coffee. "I made it myself." "Oh." There really wasn't anything to say to that. Finn sipped his own coffee and took a long look at Blake. "Well, thanks. I'm not used to people delivering me drinks. Early on a Sunday. When most people are sleeping." Blake flushed. "I should have called," he said, looking at his knees. "I just kind of thought that if you were asleep you wouldn't answer the door." "True enough." Finn sat down and studied Blake, who was picking at the cardboard wrapper around his cup. "Anyway, thanks for the coffee." He looked around, feeling vaguely 145


uncomfortable, which was probably part reaction from his time in Between and part reaction to Blake's presence. Blake didn't seem about to start talking, so Finn took matters into his own hands. He cleared his throat and looked at his coffee cup. "Uh, Blake?" he began. "Why are you here? Actually, how did you know where I live?" Blake looked up, his face coloring again. "Um, you're listed in the directory at work, of course. Everyone is. Well, in the departmental listings, anyway. I'm pretty sure that the whole Institute can't just look you up and see where you live, God, could you imagine? I mean, we need to have some level of privacy, but there's the departmental handbook and the internal directories, and I just looked you up in there once. A while ago. And I guess I just remembered. Did you get my emails on Friday? You didn't reply." Finn opened his mouth, but nothing came out. So he blinked and took another mouthful of coffee and tried again. "I did get them, yes. Sorry, I was doing a lot of data entry on Friday and I thought they could wait until tomorrow." "Were you doing data entry in the middle of the night last night, too?" Blake asked, his eyes suddenly sharp. "You know, if you're having to be up and online at three in the morning, you'd probably qualify for an assistant." "You, too, apparently." Finn raised his eyebrows and looked at Blake, hoping he wouldn't actually have to answer the question. "I saw your username." "I was doing some research." Blake waved a hand and drank his coffee in three fast gulps. "Looking up some old 146


theoretical papers about why we can sense Beta but they don't seem to sense us." "Why?" Finn asked curiously. "There's a lot of recent documentation, as you're well aware. You've added to it, in fact. Are you working on a new theory?" "Not really." Blake carefully put his empty cup on the coffee table and sat back, his gaze on the fish tank. "Just had a random idea in the middle of the night. I couldn't sleep." He looked at Finn and smiled a tiny bit. "You know what that's like, I'm sure." Finn made a non-committal noise and took his cup and Blake's to the kitchen to throw them out. "I suppose so," he said over his shoulder. "I'm surprised you got up early to ride, though." "I didn't go to bed." Blake's voice was right behind him. Surprised, Finn turned a little too fast and bumped right into him. Even as part of Finn's mind wondered at how fast and quietly Blake had moved, his hands flew to Blake's shoulders, instinct kicking in to keep them both from falling. "Sorry—" Blake kissed him, inexpertly and quickly. It was too fast and too hard and far, far too surprising for Finn to do anything about it. And then Blake gasped and let him go, before Finn was really aware what was going on. Finn stared, his eyes wide. Blake was looking back at him, his eyes just as wide, and his face growing pale. "Uh, okay." Finn pushed his hand through his hair. "Um. Yeah. No." 147


"I'm sorry," Blake stammered, stepping back. "I just. Oh, man." Finn watched as Blake seemed to fold in on himself, the paleness giving way to a red flush. He looked mortified, completely embarrassed. And when Blake turned to leave the kitchen, Finn's heart lurched when he saw his downcast eyes. "Hey," Finn said softly. "Don't go, okay? I mean, that was pretty brave. Misguided, but brave." "Misguided." Blake stood next to his kitchen table and winced. "That's a very nice way of saying stupid." His color seemed to be fading away a little but, but he didn't look up from the floor, and Finn watched as Blake shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. "You're anything but stupid." Finn slowly walked closer, half afraid of spooking Blake. "Sit down, okay? We can talk about this. But I gotta say, man. I sure as hell didn't see that coming." Blake's head lifted and he gave Finn an incredulous look. "Are you serious? That's ... Well. I thought you were more observant than that, I guess." Finn grinned. "Nice way to say I'm stupid." "Yeah, well." Blake shuffled his feet and looked away again. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that. I mean, you've been so worked up lately, the last thing you needed was for me to do something stupid like that. That's not why I came here." Finn was glad he was sitting down. "I haven't been worked up," he said carefully. "Just busy. And I'm still not sure why 148


you're here, if it wasn't to ... uh, show me that you've been thinking of me. Like that." They both winced. "I could have phrased that better." Blake shook his head. "I'm not sure how, really." With a sigh he pulled one of the free chairs out from the table and sat down. "Actually, you're being really good about it." His gaze flicked up hopefully. Finn had absolutely no idea how to let the man down easily. He'd never in his entire life been hit on like that, nor by someone whom he wasn't in the least bit interested in, romantically. So he tried to smile as he slowly shook his head. "I'm sorry, Blake." "I figured," Blake said with a sigh. "Oh, well." There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment and then Finn, desperate to change the subject, said, "So. Can you tell me the other reason you stopped by?" To his surprise, Blake lifted one shoulder in a half-shrug. "I think it might have been easier to tell you about it if I hadn't just screwed up so bad." "You didn't screw up." Finn wondered if he could say it enough so that it would be true. "It's kind of my fault, too, I think. I mean, you confuse me, honestly. I had no idea; I just thought you were ... um." Blake looked at him. "I'm not sure if I want you to finish that sentence." Finn swallowed and looked at his hands as he fought back a blush of his own. It probably wouldn't do anyone much 149


good for him to say that he'd thought Blake was a little socially inept. "That much of a dork, huh?" Blake said softly. Finn looked up. "No! I totally don't think you're a dork," he protested vehemently. Blake gave him a long, searching look and Finn found himself staring back, startled by the depth and calm intelligence in his eyes. Right then, he didn't look dorky at all, but more like he had in Finn's office when he'd told him about the new theory. Thoughtful and focused, Blake appeared calm and intelligent, nothing like the guy who was too bright and chipper and trying too hard. "My filters," Blake said slowly, "don't seem to work like everyone else's." Finn thought about that for a brief moment. "What do you mean?" He leaned forward a tiny bit, like they were sharing a great secret. Maybe they were. "Do you know ... No, of course you don't. The very first time I heard about you was in high school. You were giving a lecture at the university and my class went to hear you. You stood on the stage and talked about filters and how we all had them, how they were learned and something we could control. Basic things that we all knew. And then you went on to describe some of the new research the Institute was doing, about levels of emotional bleed and how you were all looking into the various ways we auto adjust for higher bleed through. Tragedies and things like that. It was fascinating."

150


"Thank you?" Finn wasn't sure exactly what to say. "I must have been in my first year out of school if you were in high school. Or even still in graduate school." "Probably." Blake smiled at him. "Anyway, that's why I went on to study filters and resonance. That's why I'm at the Institute. I'm looking for answers." "About what?" "I can feel emotions from people on Alpha. I know that you're going through something huge, Finn. And I'm worried for you."

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Chapter Sixteen Finn looked at Blake, not sure exactly where to start dealing with all the questions flooding his mind about Blake's revelation. There was the instinctive drive to deny that he was dealing with anything at all, which he immediately dismissed as useless. Scientific curiosity was also vying for a voice; he'd never heard of anyone in Alpha truly being an empath the way Blake seemed to mean. And then there was the idea that Blake, despite Finn's earlier rejection, genuinely seemed worried for him. "What?" The word blurted out of him, useless and unfocused. It didn't even begin to sum up his confusion, but at the same time it seemed to be the only reply he could come up with. "I can sense," Blake repeated. "Here. In Alpha. For as long as I can remember. And I know that something is going on with you and I can feel it growing. You're scared of something and at the same time you're excited and driven and almost..." He tilted his head and seemed to study Finn's face. "Almost joyful." Finn leaned way back in his chair, suddenly needing the support. "Uh." "You don't have to tell me about it," Blake said, looking at the top of the table again. "I probably wouldn't be able to help anyway. But I'm concerned, about the fear part, at least. I could feel it when I was coming up the stairs to your door; thick and ashy, like it was sludge clinging to you. Weighing you down. You can't be weighed down if you're going to run." 152


"God." Finn stared at him. "You can feel all that? All the time?" He was awed by the enormity of what that must feel like, how horrible it would be. Blake shrugged one shoulder. "Sort of. I feel all the time and I've never been able to manage to filter it all out like we can with Beta. But I can kind of ramp it up, sometimes. Isolate a person and feel them more than the rest. It's pretty much all background noise unless I pay attention or something big is going on near to me." "And which am I?" Finn asked quietly. "Did you choose, or did I overwhelm you?" Blake shifted uncomfortable. "Both, I guess. Lately, I've been able to feel you from down the hall. But I suppose I kind of ... narrowed in on you a few times. You've got to understand, I was looking for answers. I wanted to learn how to make filters work for me, and I hoped you—and the Institute—would be a place to do that. And you're nice, and you do good work, and I kind of..." Finn didn't force him to articulate his crush or whatever his feelings were called. Blake was turning red again as it was. "You haven't tried asking people in psych about it?" Blake shook his head. "God, no. Think about it. An honest to God ability to sense and read emotions that they can actually study and prod? Ask questions, run tests, quantify and label? I'd spend the rest of my life as a lab rat, starting about two hours after I walked in the door of any doctor and said anything about it. No, thank you." "But they might know what to do about it." 153


"Do about it?" Blake gave him a long look and stood up. "I don't want to do anything about it, Finn. I'm me and I like being me. I've had this my whole life. It's not something that needs to be cured like an illness. It's an ability. I'm not damaged, or broken, or sick." Finn stood up hastily, the chair scraping on the floor. "Of course not. I'm sorry. I just ... wow. It's." He waved a hand. "You've never told anyone? Ever?" Blake walked back to the living room and peered at the fish. "Not since I was a kid. My family just put it down to me being a kid who cared about people. They liked to say I was in tune with my environment. I figured out when I was six or so that it made people uncomfortable if I said anything about how they were feeling in their heads, so I didn't say anything. It wasn't great, knowing that people were upset and then having them grow more upset when I brought it outside of themselves." "We feel in our minds?" Blake gave him a pitying look. "A heart is a muscle. Don't be obtuse. And yes, we feel in our heads. Love is a thought. People don't like when I lay their thoughts out to be seen." Finn sat on the couch and tried to regain his balance, though he failed miserably. He was completely out of his depth and he knew it. "Okay. So seeing someone is out. How far have you managed to control it?" "Like I said, I can turn it up and I can narrow it. But I can't turn it off. I can turn off Between and Beta, though." Blake sat down on the chair across from Finn and stared hard at him. "What I really don't want is the Department of Security 154


to find out. If I'm the only one, that's likely. But if there are more ... Well." He made a face and sat back, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee. "Security will make psych look like a joke." Confused, Finn narrowed his eyes and tried to think. "I'm not on the same page." "Well, let's break it down." Blake held up a hand and started ticking off points. "From a pure medical science angle, I have something no one else does, and therefore it needs to be explored. From a security standpoint, I'm either a resource or a weapon—if they put me in Between. Think of the hunting I could do. From a professional standpoint, the Institute itself would love to have access to what I can and can't do. Think about that, Finn. Your research is all about filtering Beta out. But there are other departments that are all about making sure that our windows stay open. And then there's the entire other side of things." Finn's head swam. "You ... God, how do you do that?" He wished he had more coffee. "Look, I don't know half of what you seem to think I should—" "That's got to change. It has to. Because this world we're living in, what it's becoming—it's not what you and everyone else seems to think it is. It's getting close, Finn. The questions need to be asked, and we need to really think. Look at it, head on. Why are we different from Beta?" "I don't know!" Finn closed his eyes and wished Blake, this new Blake with the intelligent eyes and intense personality, this person he'd never really met before, would just go away. 155


"No one knows why we're different. Does it matter? We live in different dimensions. Therefore, we have to be different." "But there also has to be a reason why we can see them and they can't see us. We didn't learn how to, Finn. We're born to it. Why? Why can we feel them? What use is it to any of us, them or us, that we can do that? There must be a reason." Finn kept staring at him, speechless. "Everything we know is what we've been told," Blake went on, his voice low and serious. "Not what we learned through our experiences. Every book we read in school, every lesson we learned at our parents' feet can be traced back to one government study or another. Even folklore has been vetted. Oral histories were transcribed by historians who were funded by government. What are they hiding, Finn?" "I don't know," Finn whispered. "I don't think I want to know. Do you?" "Maybe not. But I think there needs to be some questions asked. There are changes happening. Paperwork on standard permits is getting held up, there's rumors of stepped up patrols, and theories that show any innovation are getting buried as soon as they're articulated. It worries me." Finn nodded slowly, thinking of Dr. Healy from the environmental department. "Okay. So what are you going to do?" "Keep whispering, I guess." Blake sounded suddenly defeated. "I don't know what else I can do. I'm just me." They sat in silence for a long time, Finn turning things over in his mind and trying to make sense of it all. He had 156


thoughts that started out on one subject and wound up on another, the lines crossing every which way and nothing pulling up to the surface. He sighed and rubbed his eyes, suddenly tired. "You said you can sense what I'm feeling. Maybe it's in poor taste of me to ask, but why on earth did you kiss me?" Blake flushed again. "Sorry." Finn shook his head. "I know. But seriously. You're like two different people. You're all intense and sharp when you talk about this stuff, and you're a good scientist. But then you're also over-the-top chipper and bright, to the point where you had to know that I wasn't going to take you seriously. And then you kissed me. I don't get it." With a vaguely embarrassed look, Blake sat up. "I know. And I think part of it comes down to me being a bad actor. I really, really wanted you to like me and want to help me with the filter thing. So I kind of..." "Tried too hard." That made a bit of sense. "And kissing me?" Blake snorted. "I just said I like you. I'm a scientist, but I'm no more a robot than you are. God." "Oh." Finn looked away, blushing and feeling like an idiot again. "Well. Um. I can honestly say that I like you, too. I'm not so sure how I feel about what you're telling me, but I like you more this way than the other. And I'm not looking for a relationship at the moment." "Yeah." Blake sighed. "Besides, you seem to have enough on your plate, what with the blind terror you seem to get hit 157


with now and again. Is it security? Are you doing something in Between that you shouldn't be?" Finn gave him a level look and said nothing. "Secrets are secrets," Blake murmured as he stood up. "All right. You should get some sleep. I'll see you at work tomorrow?" Finn nodded and stood up as well. "More than likely," he agreed. "Thank you for the coffee." "I'd say any time, but I kind of think that early Sunday morning might not be something you want a repeat of." "Well, no. But you can stop by my office." Finn smiled at him as he opened the door. "It was interesting. I'll think about your filters, if you want, and see if I can come up with anything." Blake smiled back, but his eyes weren't in it. "I've probably tried it all. I'll deal with it. I've made it this far, haven't I?" He walked away, down the hallway, one hand waving in farewell though he didn't look back. "Yeah," Finn said softly. "You have. But you're opening doors and peeking behind blinds and you're going to get noticed if you're not careful." When Blake went through the doorway to the stairs Finn closed his apartment door and leaned on it, wondering if there were enough hours in the day sort out everything that was going on in his life. He doubted it. And he knew that he'd keep going, the same as Blake, until he got noticed or a miracle happened. There wasn't really an option left anymore. 158


Chapter Seventeen As usual, Duncan was at his desk when Ari arrived at the office on Monday morning. "One of these days I will get here first," Ari said as he walked to the inner office. "I don't doubt it. But I'll be dead, so I'll miss it." Ari laughed and kept on going, reasonably sure that Duncan was right. "I know you went home," he called back as he hung up his jacket. "It was the weekend." "I did indeed." Duncan came in behind him, his planner in his hand. "But I like to start off the week entirely on top of things. Coffee?" "Oh, God. Yes, please." Ari fetched his own planner and met Duncan at the table. "Did you have a nice weekend?" "Busy." Coffee mugs at their hands, Duncan settled himself in his chair. "And you?" Ari started to nod, but stopped himself. "Interesting," he said instead. "I did a lot of reading." "Too much, by the looks of your eyes. Seriously. Call the massage therapist or something; you look like you could use some sleep." Leaning back, Ari picked up his mug and took a sip. "Ben signed on for the promotion. He's leaving next week." "Oh, Ari." Duncan ignored the planners on the table and looked at Ari. "I'm sorry." Ari shrugged. "Yeah. Yesterday kind of sucked. He came over for a couple of hours, but it was hard. We didn't talk a 159


lot. A bit, of course, but mostly we walked around the house and gathered up his stuff." "So it's over?" The sympathy in Duncan's eyes made Ari ache in a way that saying goodbye in his kitchen hadn't. "It's over," he confirmed softly. "I expect we'll talk again before he goes, but yes." "Is there anything I can do?" With a smile Ari pointed to the planners. "We can get to work. I noticed that the Madrid project is entering its final stages." "The final stage is projected to take two years." Duncan took his cue, though, and opened his planner. "I expect a lot of conferencing the next couple of weeks." "It might be a thought to go for a couple of days." "You could," Duncan agreed, flipping through a few pages. "But don't forget that Ashton is entering negotiations in three weeks. That's going to tie you up for a while. They want top level liaising." "Of course they do." Ari sighed and put his mug down, his mind already pulled into work and away from Ben. But at the back of his mind was the list of references he'd e-mailed to himself, just in case Finn showed up. He had questions. **** Ari was in his office for the entire day, a miraculous Monday without any meetings with any of his colleagues. The other days of the week were usually free of running around— 160


though he often had people coming to him—but for some reason he always wound up doing the moving on Mondays. This Monday, though, things were quiet, so he and Duncan worked away on assorted things in the office and completed a few conferences via the phone and computer. The day passed in both a quick rush as one item after another was checked off the task list and also as slowly as possible as Ari kept glancing to the doorways in his office, waiting. He made sure not to look when Duncan was around, but he did look. Each time, the doorway stood empty. Finn didn't appear at the opening to Duncan's space or in the dark entry to the bathroom, which Ari had left open, apparently by negligence. If Duncan noticed, he said nothing and made no move to close it. At noon Duncan once more passed him a slip of paper with the massage therapist's number on it. "If you insist," Ari said with a sigh, reaching for his phone. "I hope they have late evening appointments." "When do you think I go?" Duncan rolled his eyes and left, saying he was going to leave for his meal instead of eating at his desk. "I have some errands. Do you need me to pick up anything while I'm out?" "No, thank you." Ari dialed the number, his attention caught by the fact that he'd have the office to himself for an hour or more. It would be a perfect time for Finn to stop in. But he didn't, and at the end of the lunch break all Ari had was an appointment for a massage and several windows open on his computer. He's spent his time probably less than 161


wisely, continuing to troll the Internet for hints and signs of people reaching beyond their own world. It wasn't until almost four-thirty, when Ari was reading over a report from one of his department heads, that a quiet voice spoke from the doorway to his bathroom. "I thought maybe I'd try this one," Finn said, standing with his hands behind his back. "So you can close the connecting door to Duncan's office. Assuming, of course, that I'm not talking into a void and you can actually hear me." Ari, to his own satisfaction, didn't jump. He merely nodded and raised a hand to Finn, his eyes still on his computer. He'd thought about that, about the problem of apparently talking to himself, even behind closed doors. "Duncan?" he called, his voice raised so Duncan could hear him. In a moment Duncan looked in at him. "Yep?" "Why don't you knock off early today?" Ari turned to face him, doing his best to ignore Finn, who was once more dressed in his white coat, although the tennis shoes he wore looked incongruous. "I've got a pile of reading, but I don't think I'll have anything more for you today. Tomorrow looks fairly calm, too. Might as well take our breaks where we can." Duncan's eyes widened slightly. "I'm not going to say no. I'm sure I can find some way to fill a few hours. Laundry, maybe." "If that's what you need to do," Ari said with a laugh. "I'll see you in the morning." "Don't stay too late. And make sure you get some sleep, okay?" "I will. Promise." 162


Duncan nodded and backed away toward the exit. "Thanks, Ari," he called from the outer office. "No problem." Ari looked at Finn while he listened to the sounds of Duncan closing things down, one machine after another going quiet. Finn stood there silently, watching back, a half smile on his face. Then Duncan looked in at him again. "I forwarded the phones to you, but I suggest you ignore them altogether. Night." "I just might." Ari nodded and pointed to his screen. "But then, I might want a distraction. Go on." He hoped that he sounded as natural as he could, given that he was doing something extraordinary. Aside from having a specter in the office to make him a little off his stride, he couldn't think of the last time he'd sent Duncan home early. He wouldn't be able to do it again any time soon without raising suspicions. "Going." Duncan left with a wave, and in a moment Ari heard the sound of the outer door closing behind him. "You do look tired," Finn said, his voice still quiet. "Around your eyes." "I had a surprising weekend," Ari said flatly. He got up and walked to the table to sit facing the bathroom. "I'd offer you a seat, but.." "Yeah." Finn sighed and shifted his weight a little, foot to foot. "But at least the doorway thing seems to be working. Just wish I could chance bringing a chair." "Doorways work. I've been thinking about that, a bit. I think I saw you last week, at Gregory's. In the door to the restaurant." 163


Finn looked momentarily surprised, but he nodded. "I wondered if you'd seen me in the mirror." "I did. Why were you there?" Ari didn't mean for his voice to sound harsh, but it did. Cold and brittle, and he knew that once he started talking about being watched, for how long it had apparently being going on, he might well lose his temper. He was too tired and strung out to keep it locked up, and he thought he had every right to be pissed. "I'd been sent to check something out here, in fact. On this block, for another department. I was about to go back to my lab when I saw you and Duncan leave. I was curious why you were leaving so early, and I heard you tell Duncan where you were going for supper. So I went there, when I was done my own work." Ari raised an eyebrow. "Without stopping to change out of your lab coat. To watch me living my private life. But, then, you've been watching my private life for years; why should a dinner out be any different? And you heard Ben tell me about his promotion offer? Of course you did." Without letting Finn get a word in, Ari pushed on, his voice not really getting louder but certainly sharper. "I don't know where exactly you get off, to tell you the truth. You say you saw my birth. I know you've seen conversations, watched me work. What else, Finn? Where else did you let yourself in? Watching me sleep? Eat? Work out? Have you spent your free time watching me have sex? Does it thrill you to watch me pay bills and do laundry? What the hell do you want from me?"

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Finn had grown steadily paler as Ari talked. "I know," he whispered. "I know. I had no right, and I'm sorry." He swayed very slightly, his gaze fixed on the floor of Ari's office. Drained, Ari sat back and pushed the heel of his hands against his eyes. "Okay. That got us nowhere. Let's start again." Finn nodded, still white and unhappy looking. "I can ... do you have questions?" "A million." Ari dropped his hands into his lap. "How much time do you have?" "I don't know. Start with the important ones. And I'm sorry. Very. I do understand that I invaded your privacy." "We can talk about that all day, but the bottom line is I don't like it. However, it's done and I don't suppose it's going to stop, so let's just move on. I've been doing some reading." "Whoa." Finn held up a hand, palm out. "You can't just say stuff like that and move on. You don't know anything about me. You can't make assumptions on nothing and condemn my character to hell already." "Like hell I can't. You spied on me for years, witnessed my most intimate moments." Ari stood up and leaned over the table, his palms flat on the surface. "You were three when I was born. You said you didn't understand yet that it was wrong to go to Between. But you also said you kept doing it anyway, because of me. Correct?" Finn nodded. "Yes." His mouth was a thin line and his hands were both behind his back once more. "Have you watched me work? Followed me? Listened while Ben and I talked over dinner?" 165


Again, Finn nodded. But he didn't look away this time, his gaze meeting Ari's. Ari nodded as well, slowly as he stared hard at Finn. "And did you stand in my bedroom and watch me with Ben?" he asked, his voice almost a whisper as anger welled up in him, his throat burning with it. Finn flushed. "Once," he admitted. "And did you like that?" Ari's voice grew silky smooth, but it did nothing to disguise his disgust. "Did it turn you on?" "Do you really want an answer to that?" Finn's back got ramrod stiff and his shoulders squared. Ari froze, still as stone and forced himself to take a breath. "I guess not," he admitted, sitting back down. "But my point stands. As a first impression, yours sucks so far. So give me a different one." "What do you want to know?" Finn remained as he was, rigid and flushed and looking entirely grim. "Why don't you tell me?" Ari invited. "I have questions and I've been doing some research, but right now I want to know what you want." "Fine." Finn licked his lower lip and reached into an inside pocket of his coat, pulling out a notepad. "If you'd be so kind. Can you tell me if, barring the last week or so, you have ever experienced a sensation of being watched?" "By you?" "By anyone." Finn looked only at his pad, taking notes in quick, jerky pen strokes. "Are you pissed at me?" Ari wasn't sure if he was dismayed or amused at the idea of Finn being angry. 166


"No." Finn glanced at him and then back at the notepad. "I understand that you're angry and why. What I did is without justification, and there isn't any way that I will be able to convince you that my intentions were benign. Because, intentions aside, I was wrong. However, if you're willing to answer questions, I might be able to clear up some research. I won't bother you again." Ari's eyebrows shot up. "You think you can just take off after this? Walk in and turn my life upside down, tell me about another world just inches from my own awareness, and then vanish on me. It's not going to work like that, doctor. You owe me." "What?" Finn almost dropped his notepad in apparent shock. "You don't want me to just go away forever? I mean, you're sure saying that. I think. Aren't you?" "It's a little late for that," Ari said dryly. "You had your chance. You're stuck with me now. So. Ask what you need to for this scientific research of yours. But it's my turn after that. Clear?" Finn nodded and clutched his pen. "Clear." He opened his mouth, maybe to say something, maybe just because he didn't know what else to do with himself, but then closed it again with a snap. He grinned broadly, looking like a huge weight had just fallen off his shoulders. Ari was smiling back before he realized it, looking forward to something for the first time in days.

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Chapter Eighteen Finn took a steadying breath and looked at his notes. He had no idea what he'd been writing, but he was pretty sure that the strokes he'd used had nothing to do with any alphabet he knew. Deciding it hardly mattered since he'd only asked one question and not gotten an answer, he turned the page. "Take two, then." He looked at Ari, waiting for a nod before he went on. "So, before I started ... uh, making highly unethical choices, can you remember a time in your life when you felt inexplicably like you were being watched?" Ari shook his head, but looked thoughtful. "No," he said slowly. "Not that I can recall." "Have you ever heard a voice or thought you could hear someone talking when you thought you were alone? Um, like outside in a public space but without anyone around. A parking lot, or a city park, or something like that?" Again, Ari shook his head. "If I did I probably assumed it was someone I couldn't see, or the wind was carrying voices. Or I just didn't register it." Finn wrote it down. "Have you ever had premonitions?" "No. Not until I suddenly knew I shouldn't rush to work and then later found myself hauling a jogger out of traffic." Finn couldn't miss the hard look Ari gave him. "Sorry," he muttered, taking notes and avoiding Ari's eyes. "Can you see into the future?" Ari asked. "No. Have you ever had dreams that seemed entirely outside your experience?" 168


"I once had a dream about a girl named Katie who gave awesome head. Trust me, that never happened. How did you know about the accident I wasn't in?" "I was on my way to your place and saw the truck being loaded and starting on its route. Then I saw a man get in a car a few blocks farther on. He looked mostly asleep. And then I realized they were both heading on your usual path. I figured better safe than sorry and that Duncan wouldn't mind if you were late. Have you ever had intrusive thoughts? About anything other than chocolate, and I'm really, really sorry about that." "You should be." Ari grinned at him. "Actually, that was probably your biggest error. I knew it couldn't have come from me. Were you in my kitchen later that night?" Finn inclined his head very slightly as he wrote down a lack of intrusive thoughts. He assumed that if Ari had any, he would have said so. Beside his note he made another, to double check later, just in case. "I thought so," Ari went on. "I could feel something. Was that the night you watched me and Ben?" Finn looked up. "Uh, no." he could feel himself blushing. He was almost positive he didn't want to follow Ari's line of questioning. "I'm pretty sure I know when you did," Ari went on blithely, leaning back in his chair and looking utterly relaxed. "Why are you asking me all these questions?" "Well, you're kind of an anomaly." Finn smiled ruefully. "Sorry to put it like that. But I've been working in Between and studying communication between the dimensions for a 169


while now, and I've never heard of someone who wasn't Sensitive or open to us suddenly becoming that way. So right now I'm trying to get a feel for what your baseline was, and eventually I'll try to figure out what happened." "Do you think that if I keep talking to you, learning about this stuff, I might someday be able to see Alpha? Or even get to Between?" "God, I hope not," Finn said in a rush. "Promise me you won't try. I don't know what would happen if you did it; it's supposed to be impossible. You might wind up trapped in the energy stream, okay? Stuck nowhere, or imploded, or something equally horrible." Ari's eyes widened. "What?" "Physics." Finn looked at Ari and wished he could pace. "Not the physics you know, obviously. There's this kind of energy boundary between each dimension and Between. Between itself is a boundary, but there's something else keeping Alpha and Beta apart from Between. We can pass through it, but you can't. We don't know why; theoretically, your DNA is different, but again, we obviously can't actually test that to be sure. All we know is that it's impossible and something very, very bad happens if it's attempted." Ari folded his hands very carefully in front of him on the table. "If no one has ever tried, how do you know it's impossible? Also, I don't think that merely attempting to see Alpha will result in a catastrophic accident of energy physics." "You sound like Blake," Finn said with a groan. "Just what I need. Two of you." He closed his eyes in exasperation. "Who's Blake?" Ari sounded mildly curious. 170


"He's someone who asks a lot of questions." Finn rolled his eyes and looked firmly at Ari. "Do not attempt to cross to Between." Ari's lips narrowed and his jaw set stubbornly. "Do you think that attempting to see is dangerous?" "I don't know. And that's the point. I have no idea what will happen, I only know what's in the research I've read. But I would be exceedingly unhappy if you tried it and vanished into oblivion." After a long pause, Ari nodded with apparent reluctance. "I can't really argue with that." "Oh, good." Finn turned another page in his notebook. "I've been doing some reading," Ari said casually, his fingers tracing a design on the table. Finn paused, his pen poised. That sounded unsettling. "What kind of reading?" "Oh, you know. Random things about other worlds. Aliens. Lucid dreaming. Meditation. Astral projection. Assorted hallucinations, both created by the mind and by pharmaceuticals. Spirit journeys." "You've been busy," Finn said, lowering his notepad. "I think that scares me. Did you have time to eat yesterday?" "I did," Ari said with a nod. He stood up and walked around the table to lean on the other side, facing Finn. "I ate. I called Ben and found out that he did, in fact, sign the offer. I read for a bit, he came over and moved out. Then I read more. Around one this morning I went to sleep. I came to work and did what needed doing, all the while with an extra browser window as I cruised the Internet for any thing I could 171


find to show that people here are not entirely oblivious to the existence of you." Sure that "unsettled" was an understatement of epic proportions, Finn lowered the notebook all the way and gripped his pen hard. "I see. I'm ... not really sure where to start with that." Ari laughed, the sound fractured and sharp on the edges. "Me neither." "I'm sorry about Ben," Finn offered, hoping that he sounded sincere. He might not have cared either way about Ben himself, but he did care about Ari. "Thank you." "Did you find anything promising in your reading?" Finn asked, not sure what he wanted the answer to be. "Well, possibly." Ari frowned, his arms crossing over his chest. "I know that you said some of the people talking to voices really are, so there's that. I kind of suspect that some of the hallucinogenic compounds can open the mind to Beta, although the visions seem to be nothing like what you describe. Perhaps the drugs confuse things even more?" He looked at Finn with an eyebrow arched high. "Possibly," Finn agreed. "But I can't say for sure. We can actually take it as a given that any theory you come up with I won't be able to prove. But I do think the idea is sound." "Okay." Ari nodded, looking pleased. "Further, then." He looked thoughtful for a moment. "I'm pretty sure that aliens don't have anything to do with you and that lucid dreaming is just that. However, I do think there's a basis for further research in the areas of meditation and astral projection." 172


Finn blinked. "Astral projection." "Yep. People's spirits going out there. To me, it sounds like Between." "Then I've done a piss poor job describing it." Ari grinned at him. "Maybe. I've only been reading for a couple of days. I reserve the right to change my theories." "Very wise." Finn grinned back and put his pen in his pocket. "Keep me posted." "Sure. I'll just phone you up." Ari snorted and pushed away from the table. "When are you coming back? This oneway communication thing is gonna suck." Finn nodded. "It is," he agreed. "Sorry." Ari waved it off. "We'll deal. Bring a chair next time." "Very discreet." "Just trying to be helpful." Ari grinned at him. "Anyway. When?" "I'm not sure, honestly. What location works better for you?" "Home," Ari said immediately. "I won't be able to send Duncan home early again. Only come here if you have to, okay?" Finn nodded and looked around, at both Beta and Alpha. "I have to go," he said, oddly reluctant. Lately he'd been rushing to get his ass back to safety. "I'll see you soon," Ari said softly. "But you have to promise me, okay? No more stealth stalker shit. If you're in my home, you make yourself known." Finn nodded quickly. "Right. Speak up. Got it." 173


"I'm taking your word for that, Finn," Ari said seriously. "Don't let me regret it, please. I think you're an okay person. Prove it to me." Finn smiled again and nodded, one hand up in a half wave as he stepped back a step. He watched Ari blink and then shake his head, then Finn did as he was told. Not lingering to watch, he turned and left, heading back to his office in a rush.

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Chapter Nineteen Finn sat at his desk and thought hard for about five minutes. He'd just left Ari at his office, and Finn's mind was flying from one idea to another, faster than he could really keep track. Astral projection? God, he really should have realized that convincing Ari that the whole thing was true wouldn't be the problem; convincing him to just let it be was the real issue. He'd underestimated Ari's curiosity and natural instinct to master everything he could. There were damn good reasons why Ari was as successful as he was. One didn't become the youngest ever member of the board and the division head of a major international corporation by just leaving things the way they were. Ari was a go-getter of nearly legendary proportions. Of course he wasn't going to let thing lie. Several points were crystal clear to Finn, despite the racing thoughts. Ari would, no matter what, attempt to train himself to see Alpha. He'd given in too easily for that not to be the case. Finn was reasonably sure, however, that Ari wouldn't try to get to Between. At least, not yet. And Finn really, really needed a better handle on what security was doing and how they managed their patrols. With a look around his lab and growing dread in his gut, he reached for his phone and dialed an internal number. "Doctor Foskey," Blake said cheerfully when he answered. "Hey, Blake. It's Finn. I'm glad I caught you before you left for the day." 175


"Finn!" Blake sounded pleased, which was nice. Finn hadn't really been sure what his reception would be like. "It's not quite time to stop for the day, so I'm still here. What's up?" Finn glanced at his door to make sure it was closed and then shut his eyes. "I need to talk to you. Away from here, if we can." "I see." Blake's voice actually seemed to drop a few notes, deepening and becoming serious. "Off the phone, I assume, and out of the building. I hope I can take that to mean that you're going to tell me—" "You told me something important about you," Finn interrupted. "Can we go get something to eat? I might need your advice about ... a project I've been looking at." "Of course." He sounded just as he would have if Finn had asked him to double check a file for statistics. "I'll be done here in about ten minutes." Finn nodded and stood up. "I'll meet you at my car," he said, waiting only until Blake agreed before he hung up. Finn took a couple of minutes to shut down his computers and make a fast note about work related tasks he had to do in the morning, then he hung his lab coat on its hook and left his office. He had the notebook in his pocket, but he left his usual satchel full of random notes and things behind, knowing that there wasn't any point in taking it with him. He wasn't going to work from home; he'd be lucky to sleep, let alone concentrate on anything so dry as statistics and academic papers. At his car, Finn unlocked the doors and leaned back on the trunk instead of getting inside. His leg was twitching, and it 176


was all he could do not to pace, so he made himself lean and wait and nod to anyone who acknowledged him as they walked past on their way to their own cars. He'd started to bite at his thumb nail when he finally saw Blake hurrying toward him, his backpack over one shoulder. "Hey," Blake said as he approached. "Are you all right?" Finn nodded sharply. "Fine, yeah. Ready?" Blake gave him an odd look and tossed his pack in the backseat. "You don't feel fine," he said in a low voice. "You feel like you're going to fly apart. Come on, let's get out of here." He opened the passenger door and climbed in. With another nod, Finn got in the car and started it up, backing out of the space before Blake even had his seatbelt done up. "Okay, not so fine," Finn said, watching the traffic as car after car headed to the main gate. "All right. Where do you want to go?" "Somewhere where no one's going to hear us. Take out and the park. We can sit in the car." Blake snickered and looked out his window. "Maybe we'll start a rumor." "Better that than the truth, in this case." Blake said nothing more and Finn drove them right to the nearest fast food place and then to the closest city park that had street parking. He was silent and determined, not saying anything to Blake at all, not even when he ordered their food. He hoped Blake liked burgers. When he'd parked the car and they'd divided up the food in the bag, Finn looked out the front window and began. "When I was three, a baby was born in Beta..." 177


**** Finn ground to a halt, his throat and mouth dry from talking, his hamburger long since grown cold in his hand. "And that's what's been going on," he said, well aware that Blake's eyes would have been even more huge if that was humanly possible. "God." Blake blinked at him a couple of times and looked away. "That's ... wow." Finn sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Wow." He picked up the take out bag and tossed his burger back in. "So. I need some help." "I guess you do," Blake blinked a few more times and nodded. "But I'm not sure what you want me to do." "Well." Finn shifted in his seat, not sure he had any right to ask what he had to. In point of fact, he knew full well that he didn't have the right, but he was going to ask anyway. "I know you took a risk, telling me what you did. About being empathic. And I've taken a huge risk telling you this, trusting you with it. You haven't broken any laws, being what you are, but I sure as hell have." Blake looked him in the eye. "It hardly matters if I've broken the law or not; once we tell someone, anyone, about our secrets we're opening ourselves to risk. It's just the way it is. What do you want me to do?" Finn looked right back. "First, I want you to know that I won't tell anyone what you told me. I'm not using your ability for leverage. This isn't blackmail. You can say no, and that's it—I'll deal with this on my own. Okay? In fact, you probably 178


should say no, because there's likely a risk to you. I don't know for sure." "Just ask," Blake said with a smile. "I'll take your word as good. You forget that I can get a pretty good read on people; I know you're telling the truth, about all of it. About Ari and about keeping my secret." Relieved, Finn took a breath. "Okay." He picked up his cup, now full of mostly flat soda. "I need information. I need to know about patrols in Between—how often, what they're doing these days about finding people. I need to be absolutely sure that they're only tracking physical bodies and not emotional spikes. If they have a schedule would be good to know, too. And I need to know if they're actually looking seriously at the possibility of people from Beta coming through, at least to Between." "I see the logic in that," Blake said thoughtfully. "But I'm not sure why you're asking me." "Because you found out about that woman's theory. You're apparently a lot more in touch with things than I am; I kind of hide in the lab and do my thing and you're ... talking to people. At least online." Finn gave him a pleading look. "Someone, somewhere, must know these things or at least know how to find out." Blake finished his own drink with a noisy rattle, the straw and ice making an aural punctuation mark as Blake's face cleared. "Okay," he said with a firm nod. "I'll see what I can do. Have you given any thought to what you're going to do with the information, though? I mean, you love the guy, but 179


you're not exactly going to spend the rest of your lives in any kind of happy relationship." Finn almost choked. "I don't love him." "Yes. You do." Blake gave him a sympathetic look. "Why else would you be doing this?" Finn stared at him, unable to come up with an answer. **** Fish fed, living room picked up, and the kitchen swept free of crumbs, Finn had little choice but to go to bed. He'd dropped Blake off back at the Institute so Blake could retrieve his bike, and Finn had gone home to sit by his computer, hoping Blake could find out what he needed and give him the information. It was ridiculous, he knew. For starters, it would likely take more than an hour or two of online poking around to access what Finn needed, and then there was the whole matter of passing it on to Finn. Blake was hardly going to simply e-mail Finn a roster of security's information. Frustratingly, Finn had no idea what else to do with himself. He felt like his mind had been spinning for months, and his body was tense, every muscle taking its turn at twitching and shaking. He was exhausted, at least mentally, though he suspected his body wasn't that far behind. Finn had debated going for a run or doing something, anything, physical so he could sleep, but had ultimately rejected the plan for fear of getting lost in his head and running out into the street by accident. He figured staying inside where there weren't any cars to run him over was safer. 180


In the dark, Finn moved around his bedroom. He stripped, tossing his clothes toward the hamper and didn't really care when they missed. His skin was too tight, but he could hardly shed that, so he threw himself onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. He did not love Ari Sloan. Except he did. He'd been attached to Ari since just before Ari's mother had pushed him out. A lifetime of being Ari's watcher, his unknown friend, his benign stalker. Everything Finn was, everything he'd learned and researched and theorized about was formed around keeping Ari in his life, some way. That it had taken Blake to put a name to his lifelong folly was something Finn decided not to think about. "Shouldn't think about anything," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut. "Thinking bad. Sleep good. Tired would be good. Oh, God. What a mess." Not thinking was a difficult, if not impossible task, and within minutes Finn had given the effort up for lost. With a snarl of frustration he rolled over on the bed, reaching for his nightstand. If he was going to think, he was going to do his damndest to exhaust himself. It felt to Finn like someone had cranked the heat up in his room. Naked, the sheets somehow already bunched up at the foot of his bed, he heard the sticky slick sounds of his own skin as his legs shifted restlessly. His imagination painted pictures, gave up snapshots of Ari and Ben and morphed them ever so slightly. "Video edit," Finn whispered, sliding his hands over himself, finger tips dragging on his damp belly. He 181


had lube; he had a pale representation of what he wanted in him. He had a damn good memory. He had an even better imagination. A flip, a roll, legs spread and up, and there wasn't anyone there to hear him pant and swear or mutter pleas in the dark. There wasn't a hand to help him move the toy, but that was okay; closed eyes and frantic stroking could make almost perfect illusions, if one really wanted to believe. Writhing, moving, Finn could bear a little awkwardness if it meant he got what he had—a slippery, hot fist around his cock, something to hump on his sheets while his legs stuttered on the mattress, looking for purchase. One hand to fuck, one to fill, and Finn abandoned reality in favor of the slipshod construct in his own mind. "There," he whispered, biting down on the pillow, muffling his groans. "Right there, yes. Yes, oh, God, harder." Harder and faster and deeper, and Finn's sheets were soaked by his sweat, by what he was leaking, and he didn't care. How could he care, when in his mind there was heat inside him, a hand on one hip, digging in, and teeth at his shoulder. Grunting, Finn bucked and fucked, twisted and moaned and made it all coalesce, made it all perfect, and with a final, impossibly right thought, he yelled Ari's name and came in a painful rush, the smell of his climax bitter and too tangy, like unripened oranges.

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Chapter Twenty Ari wasn't sure if he actually liked the massage, and it hadn't even started yet. He was wearing his boxers and a soft cotton blanket, lying in a very pleasant room, and waiting for a stranger to come and ... Maybe that was the problem. He didn't know exactly what was going to happen. The door opened and a man with a friendly smile came in. "Hey, I'm Jim," he said, holding out his hand. "Ari." He shook Jim's hand, awkwardly holding himself up off the table with his other arm. "How are you tonight?" Jim moved around the room, turning on one light and turning another off, then put on a CD, the volume down low. "Did you have a good day at work?" "It wasn't bad, I guess." Ari watched him curiously. "Just like most Tuesdays." "How's Duncan?" Jim picked up a bottle and poured something that smelled really good into a small bowl. "Still studying too hard?" Ari smiled. "I'm not supposed to know about that, I think." "Ah." Jim grinned at him. "But you do?" Ari grinned back. "The boss always knows." "I suppose that's true. Don't let him know I said anything." "I wouldn't dream of it." Jim nodded and came to stand where Ari could see him without having to twist or turn. "Okay," he said. "Let me tell you what I'm going to be doing, then we can get started." 183


Ari rested his head on his folded arms and hoped that, if nothing else, he'd get a decent night's sleep out of the whole thing. **** By the time Finn shut off his computers at the end of the day, he was almost to the point of pacing his lab. He'd gotten pretty much no work done, not even mindless data entry. He'd been doing that particular task for a week because his mind was utterly fixed on Ari, and he'd almost run out of raw data to enter. If he didn't get it together soon someone was bound to notice that he was distracted. With his work done—what little he'd managed—Finn hung up his lab coat and grabbed his bag, making sure to lock his office behind him. But instead of heading to the lobby he went the other direction, toward Blake's office. The door was open when he got there, Blake working at one of many computers in the tiny space. Finn leaned on the door frame and looked around. "They don't give you much room, do they?" "Nope." Blake didn't even look up. "I think I'm still paying my dues. There should be a lab-annexed office opening up in about ten years or so. Are you done for the day?" "Yeah." Finn didn't say anything else, just nodded to himself as Blake immediately started shutting down computer programs. "We really are going to start rumors," Blake said under his breath as people started walking past the office door on their 184


way to the lobby. "Just my luck. Look like I'm dating, and I don't even get the fun parts." "Sorry," Finn murmured as they left the office and started walking down the hall. "I'm just a little anxious. I'm not actually trying to make your life awful." Blake waved it off. "Hey, maybe it'll be easier to get a date, eventually. Anyway, here's the thing. I have someone working on getting that data you requested, but it might take a while." To his credit, Blake seemed to all outward appearances like he was discussing any work-related matter. "How long?" Finn asked. "Tomorrow? Next week?" "Probably tomorrow, for the easy part. Maybe even tonight." Blake's gaze flicked over to Finn. "That's the schedule data you requested. The R and D will be a little longer, but I know it's vital to your project so I stressed that to the researchers. They said they should have what we need all ready for you to look over by Friday, though they might not have the technical readouts. Just basic information, but accurate." Finn nodded. "Impressive," he said as they joined the flow of bodies funneling out of the building. "Thank you, Blake." "Not a problem. Do me a favor, though?" "If I can, sure." Blake stopped walking and reached for Finn's arm, turning them both to face each other in the hall. "Stay home tonight," he said firmly. Finn searched his face and found warning there in his eyes. Slowly, Finn nodded, not liking it. "The subject might get ... confused," he said softly. 185


"The subject can deal with a night or two on his own, given the alternative." Blake let him go and started walking again. Following, Finn had to admit that Blake was right. He didn't like it much, though. **** At lunch on Wednesday Duncan came into Ari's office, his body and head hidden behind a spray of flowers. "How far am I from the table?" "Good Lord." Ari got up and helped Duncan put the arrangement on the table, searching through the blossoms until he found the card. "It's not my birthday. Wager?" "Ten dollars says Laura Pesina is going to steal someone vital for her VP." Ari snorted. "Please, she wouldn't send flowers, she'd send booze. Fifteen says Miami closed early with Mr. Frederik or at least called him and told him he's signing this week." Duncan grinned at him. "Nice for you if that's true. But, no. Twenty says they're from Ben." Ari stared at the card. "Twenty on Ben? I'll take that bet. No way they're from Ben, and you just bought me lunch tomorrow." "Open the card and get out your wallet. By the way, the massage must have done wonders for you; you look much better today." Ari rolled his eyes and opened the small envelope. "Jim says hi. He also told me to go to the park on Saturday morning for Tai Chi at a stupidly early hour." "Huh, I thought he'd push you into yoga." 186


"He said I'd be too competitive. Competitive! At yoga, for God's sake." Ari rolled his eyes and yanked the card out. "Ha, you owe me lunch. It's not from Ben." Duncan took the card and peered at it. "Oh. Right. Okay. Lunch tomorrow, on me." He turned quickly and started out of the office, shoving the card into his pocket. "Duncan?" "Yes?" Ari picked up the envelope and made sure that it did, in fact, have his name on the outside. "Did that card say that the flowers were from Adrian?" Duncan sighed and didn't look back. "Yes." "Thank you. You might want to close the door on your way out." Ari was already reaching for his phone, pushing one of the many direct dial buttons on the side. By the time Ben answered his mobile phone, Duncan was gone. "Ari?" It sounded like Ben was in a large open space. "Adrian just sent me flowers. Where are you?" "Uh..." "About six hundred dollars worth of orchids, lilies, and gardenias. This is not a spray of flowers that says, 'Hey, sorry I won't be hearing your voice leaving Ben messages anymore,' this is a spray that says, 'My boss is an asshole who's already moved without even calling to say goodbye.' So. Where are you, Ben?" "At the moment? O'Hare." "I see. And?" Ben sighed. "Do we really have to do this?" 187


"No." Ari hung up and looked at the flowers for a long time, then called Adrian and offered to find her a job, if she wanted one. **** Finn yet again paced through his apartment, but he took Blake's warning to heart and didn't go to Between, no matter how much he wanted to. He wanted to see Ari. He wanted to let Ari know what was going on, but he couldn't escape the fact that he didn't know what that was. He was stuck, pacing, waiting for either sleep or an e-mail or a phone call. Anything at all from Blake. Finn didn't like relying on anyone, he realized. He had complete faith that Blake would keep his secret, though he wasn't sure why he was so sure. Avoiding thinking about that, he cleaned his fish tank and watched them swim around for a while, then checked his e-mail again. At eleven his door buzzer rang, and he jumped off the couch to sprint to the intercom. "Yes?" "It's Blake." He buzzed Blake through without a word and opened his apartment door, waiting. When Blake came up, an eternity later, Finn waved him in, not caring at all that he must look frantic or at the very least overeager. "You know," Blake said, walking past him and into the living room. "Once upon a time I dared to think about you greeting with this much enthusiasm. But when I got to that part, I usually froze up and got stuck." 188


Finn felt himself turning red and tried to back off a bit. "Sorry." Blake laughed and sat down. "It's okay. All right, here's what you need to know. In a nutshell, security is primarily watching industry locations and government installations. They're making sure that anyone watching technical or political movements has all the proper paperwork. Anything that is deemed 'sensitive intelligence' is heavily patrolled. Less patrolled are areas of residence. They do go through and boot out people watching TV or spying on the common citizens, and they do make arrests, but the patrols are limited and fewer. Think in general terms of when kids spy—after school and evening until about eleven at night." "Corporations aren't watched?" "They are, yes. But not all of them are routinely patrolled. Those places that manufacture weapons or electronics are watched, and anything political. I suspect that Ari's company is watched just because they're highly lucrative, but I think they're low down on the radar. It would be riskier to be caught at his house than his office." Finn nodded and tried to think. "Is there anything like set patrol times?" "Sadly for you, no. They never keep to a schedule that's predictable, and apparently each team gets its orders each shift. For them, it works well. Not so much for you." "Damn." "You should have assumed that," Blake pointed out.

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"I did, but I was hoping for something better." Finn sighed and paced a little more. "Okay, if I go to his house the risks go down late at night." "Correct. It's not a sure bet, not by a long shot. If you want my advice, keep your papers on you at all times, make sure they're up to date. If you get caught at his office you might be able to slip your watching in under some sub paragraph or something." "Right." Finn nodded and stopped moving. "Thank you, Blake." Blake stood up and grinned at him. "Thank me when I get the information about the tech they may or may not be working on. That's where the interesting predictions will come from." Finn rolled his eyes. "And theories and scare tactics, and God knows what else. Do you really think they'll be able to find people by what they're thinking or feeling?" After a long pause Blake nodded. "I do," he said softly. "And then I'll pray that God can help us all."

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Chapter Twenty-One Ari sat on his bed and watched TV in the dark, wishing it wasn't a weeknight. It would be a very bad idea to get drunk at almost midnight when he had to be at the office at his usual time. He'd even gone over the schedule for the morning, hoping he could cancel his meetings and take a personal day, but he had to be in the CEO's office at eleven, and one did not cancel on the CEO. Not for such a lame ass reason as his ex being an ass and current dimensional weirdness. "Hey." Thinking of dimensional weirdness ... Ari turned his head to face the door and nodded. "Hey." "You look like shit," Finn informed him. "What's wrong?" "Bad day." Ari looked back at the TV and picked up the remote to mute the volume. "Do you drink?" "Occasionally," Finn said cautiously. "Not very often. A beer once in a while. Why?" "I want a drink. But I have to work in the morning." "Can't help you there, I guess." Ari sighed and looked over at him. "So. Where've you been? Did you find out anything about why I can suddenly see you?" "Not yet, no," Finn said, looking thoughtful. "I want to get a hold of some books. The files at work haven't spit out anything helpful at all, but there might be something useful in more non-scientific sources. I've been mostly trying to figure 191


out when it's relatively safe for me to talk to you. Have you been doing any more research on your own?" Ari shrugged. "A little more reading. Did you know there are whole cults who appear to be dedicated to finding a way off the planet?" "That's a little disturbing." Finn put his hands in his pocket. "And you're not trying to find out how to get here?" "I'm not a fan of dying." Ari made a face and slid down a little on the bed. "I had a massage and was told I needed to find a way to relax. Duncan's been pushing me to meditate, and it's crossed my mind that it might be a way to see beyond what I can now. But no, I'm not looking for a way to get to Between or Alpha." Finn looked relieved, enough that he smiled. "I'm glad to hear it." Ari shrugged a shoulder and asked, "So, it's safer for you to come here in the middle of the night?" "Frustratingly, yes. It's not exactly foolproof, just slightly less risky. Why was your day rough? Work?" Ari shook his head. "Ben. And if you're taking huge risks to come here, maybe you..." He stopped, not wanting to tell Finn he shouldn't come. Finn had made it clear that it was important to him, for reasons Ari didn't really understand, but despite not really getting it Ari wasn't about to disrespect Finn's choice. The man seemed to know the risks. "Can you hear people coming? Police, I mean. Hey, do they have cars in there?" Finn laughed and shook his head. "No cars. Just people. It's an energy zone, kind of. We can move in it—kind of fast, 192


actually—but we can't build here or anything. Every once in a while I find random things like paper cups, but I don't think anything with a combustion engine would work here." "Why not? I assume there's breathable atmosphere?" "Because if they could have cars in here, they would." Finn shrugged. "Some things just are, Ari." "You don't ask a lot of questions, do you?" Ari immediately regretted saying it when Finn's back went stiff. "I'm a scientist. I ask a lot of questions." Ari winced. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" "It's a place that we can get to, physically. But we're in a kind of suspension. Our clothing comes through, objects that we have with us." He pulled a key ring out of his pocket and shook them, the jangle of the metal somehow muted. Like Finn himself was muted and pale and not quite in full color. "Like these, or my notebook. But we don't really walk on the streets or drive on the roads. It's a construct that our minds create to keep us sane. I could probably appear to walk through your walls, if you could see it. But you can't, and I don't. I imagine it would be uncomfortable. I don't open your door to come in here, I just ... walk in. So I don't really see how police cars would work." "Fine." Ari looked back at the TV. "I was just asking. It's not like I know any of that, is it? I don't know anything, Finn, you have to remember that. I know my own world, and parts of that not very well at all. You know everything, can compare and contrast and go by what you experience or see or hear. I don't even know the basics, and it's frustrating as hell. So 193


don't snap at me when I ask. You want to talk to me, fine. I'm here, I'm all for it. It's got to go both ways, is all." There was a long pause, long enough that Ari looked back to the doorway to see if Finn had left without saying another word. He was there, however, looking down at his shoes, his hands once more inside his pockets. "Finn?" "Yeah." Finn looked up and blinked. "Yeah. You're right. I was out of line. Sorry. If you have questions, ask. I'll do what I can." Ari looked at him, saw the way his shoulders hunched and his eyes looked tight. "Hey," he said softly. "It's late. I had a bad day. You look exhausted and worried. Can you come see me tomorrow? I'd like it if you can." "Really?" Finn tilted his head, and Ari discovered that he'd already absorbed that as Finn's look when he was trying to figure out the nuances of something. "Yeah, really. When are your safe hours? Safer. You know what I mean." "Uh, if I'm going to see you at home, early morning and late at night." He shrugged and looked rueful. "Sorry." "Hey, if it's safer for you, I'll deal. I have to get some sleep right now, though. Do you think you can come by tomorrow morning before I leave?" Finn nodded and stood a little straighter. "Yeah. Okay." "Good." Ari turned off the TV with the remote and lay back on the bed with a sigh. "Finn?" "Yeah." Ari closed his eyes, one hand stretched out to the empty side of the bed. "I hate sleeping alone," he whispered. 194


"Me, too. Goodnight, Ari." "Goodnight, Finn." Ari curled onto his side and listened to the silence of his house, trying to imagine Finn going through wherever he was to get to home.

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Chapter Twenty-Two Finn slept but dreamed often enough that when he finally got out of bed, long before dawn, his sheets were a tangled and kicked mess at the foot of his bed. "Shit," he muttered, dragging his ass to the bathroom and into the shower. Twenty-five minutes later he was in Between, dressed for work and with his satchel over his shoulder, heading to Ari's. He'd wind up at the lab without his car to drive home, but there was always the bus. At Ari's with the sun not even up over any horizon he could see, Finn went up the stairs and stood in his usual place. His place, he thought to himself with bemusement. "Time to wake up," he said to the lump in the bed. Ari rolled over and groaned. "Early. It's too goddamn early." His alarm went off and he groaned again. "Hell." Finn grinned. "Up and at 'em. You have a full day of numbers to crunch and lists to make for Duncan." "You're not nice." Ari pouted and smacked his hand down on the alarm. "I didn't peg you for a morning person." "I'm not, trust me. But I've been up for almost half an hour and I showered. That helped." "Shower." Ari stretched, his back arching off the bed. "Want a shower. Yeah." He rolled to his feet and looked down at himself. "Ta da." "Nice boxers." Finn ignored the part of himself that was disappointed at the lack of nakedness, reasoning that things would go a lot better if Ari wasn't trying desperately to cover himself. 196


"I always dress for company," Ari said through a yawn. "Experiment time. Ready?" Finn raised an eyebrow. "We are going to try the doorways of the house. Starting with the bathroom." Finn grinned and winked. "Lead on." He swept his hand toward the bathroom. "I'll meet you there." "You better, man. This thing with you vanishing and then just being there is kind of creepy." Finn supposed it had to be. He stepped back out of the doorway, watching Ari watching him, and had a sympathy pain as Ari tried—and failed—to look nonchalant. He followed Ari down the hall and into the bathroom, stopping in the doorframe just as Ari turned to face him. "Well, that worked," Ari said with a satisfied nod. "Now, back away so I don't have to see you while I pee. And try not to watch." Finn rolled his eyes and laughed, but stepped back and turned around, whistling to himself until he heard Ari do what he had to do and flush. Back in the door, he watched Ari wash his hands and looked around the bathroom. "We're going to talk while you shower?" Finn looked doubtfully at the clear glass doors of the shower stall. "Crap." Ari sighed and leaned on the counter. "This is just weird. But we work with what we have, I suppose." He looked at Finn. "I want to know about you. Not Alpha, or research, or whatever. I want to know you. You know me." "That's fair." Finn once more wished he had a wall to lean on. "Ask away. And I promise not to ogle you in the shower." 197


Ari gave him a look of utter disbelief. "Are you married?" "Uh, no." Finn blinked twice, rapidly. "I got the impression that you're gay. What with watching me fuck Ben. Or Ben fuck me, depending." Finn felt himself blush. "Both, actually." "Precocious." Oddly, Ari didn't seem upset. Maybe he was getting used to the idea of Finn being around. "I also got the impression that you liked what you saw." The blush kicked up to possibly dangerous levels, Finn's face feeling hot and tight. "Um." "So, really," Ari continued, "saying you're not going to ogle is a little like closing the barn door after the horse is out." And with that Ari tucked his thumbs into the waistband of his boxers and shoved them down, leaving them on the tile floor when he stepped into the shower. "You'll have to yell so I can hear you over the water," he said calmly as he turned on the taps. "Okay," Finn said faintly, watching him. Looking away would have taken a lot more strength of character than Finn had, or a lot more stupidity. Ari was really a lot more fit than a man should be after spending all his time at a desk. His body was trim and lean, chest hair scattered lightly in dark wisps over his pecs. His arms weren't huge, but they were strong and defined, and his legs were longer than expected. Abdominal muscles that were firm without being rigidly cut blended down to the funnel of his hips, and— "You're ogling." Ari turned around and Finn bit his lip. "Ass man?" Ari looked at him over his shoulder and laughed. 198


Finn, confused and utterly out of his depth, nodded. "I like it all," he said without thinking. "Let's start there, then," Ari called, lathering up with shower gel. "You're not married, but do you have a boyfriend?" Finn shook his head before he remembered to speak. Ari's back was to him. God, was it. "No. No boyfriend. Not for a while. I work too much." "I know that one," Ari said with only a trace of bitterness. "Does your family know you're gay?" "God, yes. They keep hounding me to bring someone home. I haven't though, not since ... Man, not since I was an undergrad. I had a boyfriend for a couple of years once after that, but for some reason he always found things to do when it was time to go meet my mother." "That's because mothers are scary. Or so I've heard." Ari rinsed off, and Finn watched every bubble slide down his ass, around the curve where his thigh started and down his leg. "How many brothers and sisters?" Finn dragged his gaze off Ari's ass and watched his shoulders for a bit as Ari washed his hair. "None," he said, raising his voice a little more. He had to clear his throat before he could speak again. "Growing up it was just me and my parents and my Aunt Dorry. She's a historian and folklorist." "That sounds interesting." "Yeah, it is." Finn took a breath as Ari scrubbed at his hair and more bubbles started the long journey down. He hoped it was going to be a very fast shower; he wasn't sure he could 199


will himself not to get hard for very long. "She was a big part of my life. And a big part of my ... uh, how am I supposed to refer to watching you?" Ari turned around before Finn was expecting it. "Eyes up," he said mildly. "Oh, forget it. I'll just close mine." He tipped his head back to rinse his hair, grinning. "And we can skip the apology every time we talk about it, I think. Just call it watching, I'll know." "Okay." Finn swallowed. Hard. Twice. "Um. Where was I?" "Watching my ass and telling me about your family." "I'm not now!" "Of course not," Ari said, lowering his head and blinking at him through water and the glass pane of the shower stall. "Now you're looking at my dick, and the conversation has taken a sharp turn I'm not dealing with before I have coffee. You like coffee, right?" "Yes." Finn nodded, probably far too vigorously. "Ask me something else," he demanded, closing his eyes tight. "Uh, okay. Worst subject in school?" "Civics. You?" "Geography. Favorite book?" "You've never heard of it." Finn heard the water shut off and kept his eyes closed. "Or my favorite movies, but I can tell you I like action movies and historical fiction, I'm not fond of romantic comedies; the men are useless and the women frightening." Ari laughed, an honestly amused sound that Finn couldn't ignore. He opened his eyes just as Ari wrapped a towel around his waist and stepped out onto the mat by the 200


shower, his face lit up with a smile. He walked to the sink and started filling it with hot water. "Electric razor or blades?" he asked, looking over and winking. "Depends on if I'm in a rush or want a decent shave," Finn said, smiling back. "I like blades." "Me, too." Finn thought there might be a few things they had in common, if they could just manage a lot more time together. Although possibly not in the bathroom. "I should go to work," he said, watching Ari spread shaving foam on his chin. Ari's eyes met his in the mirror. "Tonight?" "If I can." Finn resisted the urge to sigh. "I'm sorry you have to wait on me. Or that I can't at least call." "That part does kind of suck," Ari agreed. "Not as much as you being stuck in doorways, though." He looked thoughtful for a moment and rinsed off his hand. "One more experiment before you go. Please." Confused, Finn nodded. "Sure, I guess." Ari walked toward him and Finn reflexively stepped back. "Shit! Damn it, Finn." But Ari laughed and walked through the door anyway. "You better be with me. We're going to the study, come on." Finn followed and stopped in the doorway, watching the edge of Ari's towel flutter. "You're looking at my ass again," Ari said, not even glancing back. "No, I was looking at your knees. You seem pretty proud of your butt, though." 201


"I should be," Ari said with a wide grin. He stopped walking at his desk and turned the wheeled chair around in his hands. "Okay, experiment. You stay right there. Okay?" Finn nodded slowly. "Okay." Like he was going to go anywhere. Ari started pushing the chair to him, slowing down to barely moving when he got close to the door. "Okay," he said softly, his face serious and intent. "Slow. I'll push the chair to you, you reach for it. Concentrate. I have a theory." Finn didn't let himself sigh. He knew it wasn't going to work, but after the night before he kind of owed it to Ari to at least try. "All right," he said, willing to give it a shot. "Ready when you are." By tiny, fractional increments Ari moved the chair closer, until the back of it crossed the threshold. Finn looked at it creeping toward him, keeping a sharp eye on when the physical nature of the chair would occupy the same space as himself so he could avoid it. "There," he said softly, just before the chair arm touched his sleeve. "Okay," Ari said, just as softly. "Now. Reach for it. Just try, Finn. Please." Finn nodded and waited for Ari to let go and step back, but he didn't. "Oh. Oh, man." Suddenly Finn could see what Ari was thinking, what his theory was. "This is so not a—" "Do it." Finn took a breath and held it, then reached very slowly for the chair, concentrating hard on the object and nothing else, not even Ari. He knew the theory, knew the rhetoric, knew that it wouldn't work. 202


But it did. His hand felt leather. Nothing else, no zing of electricity, no charge, no pull. Just cool leather under his hand. Still holding his breath Finn looked up across the bridge that Ari built, and smiled. "You can touch it," Ari whispered, grinning broadly and looking like a completely adorable idiot, his mouth ringed in shaving foam. Finn nodded and looked at his hand, his fingers spread wide over the brown leather. "This is a very dangerous thing." He was still smiling, though. "It's not actually possible. And yet..." "And yet." Ari nodded, his hair dripping a little shower water onto the seat. "Can you pull it to you?" "Maybe." Finn looked at him and shook his head slightly. "But I'm not going to try. At least, not yet. There's things going on that I don't understand, stuff that's classified. I'm going to take the day off, I think, and go see my aunt. I'll read as much as I can, and check in with Blake. He's got some connections I'm exploiting. I'll come back tonight, and maybe we can try then. It would be nice to sit, I think." The sitting thing was hardly even the barest tip of what it could mean, and they both knew it, but Finn wasn't in any state of mind to start talking it out. He'd be there all day and into the night if he began to explore what it meant and what the ramifications were. Best he do that with Blake, and possibly his aunt. "God, Dorry is going to kill me." "Why?" "I kind of promised never to come back here and to stop watching you." 203


Ari snickered. "Oops." "Hell, yeah." Finn carefully lifted his hand off the chair and sighed. "That's ... really kind of cool in an incredibly terrifying way. I have no idea what we're going to do with this, Ari." "We'll figure it out." He sounded so sure, standing there in a towel and looking like an off-kilter shaving cream ad. "Come back tonight, late. If you can." "If I can. I'll try." He took a last look at Ari and nodded. Just before he backed up the one step necessary to vanish from Ari's view, Finn winked and said, "Clear shower stalls are the best idea ever." He was still laughing at the way Ari's blush had made the shaving cream look even sillier as he headed off to find Blake at the Institute.

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Chapter Twenty-Three Ari looked at the empty doorway and grinned wildly before dragging his chair back to where it belonged. He hadn't had any real hope that it would work, but it had. Of course, he had no idea what it meant, or what they could do with it, but it was a start. Still grinning, Ari threw himself into the chair and looked around the room. He was buzzing, completely wound up, and as soon as he realized that he wondered if it had anything to do with energy fields. A moment of panic later he decided no, it was just his natural reaction to everything that had happened; the chair, the discussion, the moment when he was proven right when he'd thought himself likely wrong. The fact that he'd intentionally taken a shower while Finn watched. That had been pretty hot. Ari looked down at his towel and laughed softly at himself. "Shameless," he said softly. He'd known as soon as Finn arrived that he was going to do it, and it had taken all of his willpower to keep from getting hard. It seemed that being watched was more of a turn on than he'd realized it was. The towel fell away with only a gentle tug, his cock helping to nudge the folds apart. He was hard and getting harder, adrenaline pushing through him and mixing with arousal; it was a relief to touch himself. Eyes closed, Ari replayed it all, the water and the bubbles and Finn's eyes on him as he showered. His grip was firm and fast, too dry to be what he wanted. A lick of his palm took 205


care of that, and he stroked himself faster, imagined doing this when Finn would see. He'd brace his feet in the shower and lean against the wet tile, fuck his hand and let Finn watch. From the doorway Finn would join in, lab coat parted and trousers undone, just his cock out as he stared. Ari knew it would happen, maybe soon, and the thought spurred him on. He pushed against the head of his prick, slippery with precome, with his palm, and felt his balls lift. Watching and being watched, and not a hope of touching when they did it, got off together, and that was it, right there. Ari gasped as his back went stiff, his hips lifting off the edge of the chair when he came. Panting, he used the towel to clean up, his eyes still closed as he waited for his heart to slow. It was a nice fantasy, a safe one, but ultimately unfair. It was clear that no matter what his passing physical attraction was to Finn, no matter how much he liked it when Finn watched him, it wasn't anything close to what Finn felt. It couldn't be. Finn had been watching him for years, had known him and cared about him. Ari had only met Finn a few days ago, really, not even a week. An attraction on a physical level was one thing, something Ari was comfortable with to a certain point. His heart still ached over Ben. He had the impression that Finn's heart ached, too, and not over some past lover. Sobering, Ari went back to the bathroom to finish shaving. It was unfair of him really, to tease Finn. Frowning at himself 206


in the mirror, Ari shaved his face and put the whole matter of orgasms and emotions out of his mind and returned to the other half of things; being able to push matter to Between, one step away from pushing a body through. He rinsed the last of the shaving foam off, thinking that the first thing he had to do was figure out a way to see Alpha. It made sense to him that he should look before he leapt, and even if, in the long run, it proved true that he would be able to pass from where he was and into Between, he wasn't about to ignore Finn's warnings. There was still danger, and apparently some serious matters of legality. If Finn was scared of getting caught in Between when he had training and permission to be there at least some of the time, Ari had no idea what would happen if someone caught him there. It was a mess he didn't really want to cause. But that didn't stop him from imagining the possibilities. Like, for example, what would Finn do if Ari could step through to Between? Ari assumed there would be a lot of panic and probably some lecturing, but what would they do? Ari would want to take a look around, of course. It would be interesting to see his world through a filter. He wanted to know if he'd be able to see Finn's world as well, if the overlap Finn had told him about would be visible to him. It was useless to ponder those things, however. He dressed himself for work and left, resolving to do this step by step. The first thing to do was watch from afar. Clearly, he needed Duncan's help. 207


Chapter Twenty-Four Finn almost came out of Between right into his lab before he remembered he had to get his security pass checked as he signed into the building. Finding a place to suddenly appear without being seen by anyone was a bit of a headache, but he managed it in a far corner of the parking garage. As he walked toward the main entrance he saw Blake locking his bike to the rack between the garage and the Institute. He hurried over, hoping to catch Blake before he went inside. Finn had very little doubt that there was sound recording on the innumerable security cameras in the building, as well as video. "Hey, Blake." Finn reached him at a near jog and hoped he didn't look as frantic as he felt. "Hey." Blake looked up at him from his lock, his eyebrows shooting up. "You're—you look excited about something." He self-corrected without batting an eyelash, but there was definitely a questioning tone in his voice. "Yeah." Finn glanced around and adjusted the strap on his bag. "I'm going to take the day off and do some research out of the complex. Any chance you can join me?" "What happened?" Blake stood on the other side of the bike, his own backpack at his feet. "I probably can, but you're going to fly apart at the seams. Take a breath." Finn nodded and did as he was told, holding himself still until he could breathe without wanting to gasp or shake apart. "I just came from his place." 208


"I'm shocked and amazed." Finn snorted. "You know, I liked you better when you weren't a smartass." "No, you didn't." Blake grinned at him and winked. "I know these things. So tell me what happened. Was he naked?" Blinking hard, Finn willed himself not to blush. "Awesome." "Cut it out! God." Finn looked around them again and tried very hard to look like he was merely participating in a very important and academic discussion. "He moved a chair through the barrier between his dimension and Between." Instantly Blake's face grew serious. "He what?" Finn held up both of his hands, fingers together and straight up. "I was in the doorway—that's the only way he can see me. He was in his office." Finn tilted one hand and brought the tips of his fingers to the opposite palm, in a sideways time-out sign. "He held an office chair, pushed it as close to me as possible, and then I touched it. And could feel it." Blake's eyes narrowed. "You both had tactile contact?" "Yes." Finn dropped his hands and put his bag on the ground. "I didn't feel anything at all, in terms of energy or vibrations or anything like that. It was just a chair. The color of it grew a bit more intense, but that was it. He didn't say that he felt anything, either." "You didn't ask?" Finn shook his head. "I was too freaked. That's not supposed to be possible, man. I told him I'd be back tonight and got the hell out of there." 209


Blake looked relieved. "Has he managed to see Between yet?" "Nope." "Okay, and you told him not to try to—" "God, of course. But he's pushy, Blake. I need to find a way to tell him how dangerous it is, so it'll sink in. And the whole time, I'm thinking about that theory you brought to me. If they really can pass to here, the whole freaking world is going to explode. And there won't be any of that shoving them into oblivion, either." He knelt down and rummaged in his bag, pulling out the file Blake had given him. "All these names in here, some of them might actually be leads." Blake waved his hand. "I know that," he said, looking distracted, his gaze fixed on some far off point as he chewed at a thumbnail. "What? But you gave me that whole spiel about innocent people being trapped in nothing forever, their brains frying and all that!" He shoved the file back in his bag and stood up so fast he got a little dizzy. "God, keep your voice down." Blake looked around quickly and nodded to someone passing by. "And, yes, I did. Look, we're going on theory here, and we talk in hypotheticals, and frankly I think about things a lot and I phrase things in certain ways, and, God, this is totally not the time to get into the whole mess. Just ... listen to me. It's maybe perhaps possible for people to pass. But what if it's not? What if it's only some people? What if it's everyone? Does it matter? If there's a flood of people going in either direction, do you think that the government will allow that? They'll vanish 210


people and keep telling the rest of us about the evil barriers and that the laws of physics are one way when we know they're not. The outcome is the same." Finn stared at him. "Are we in the same conversation?" "The one I'm in started with a naked guy in a bed." "Boxers in the bed, naked in the shower." "Awesome." "God, stop doing that." Finn pushed his hand through his hair. "Okay. I need to stop him from doing that again. And I need to get a grip on if anyone in authority picked up on this morning. And I need to take a long walk and have a very large cup of coffee. And you need to tell me the truth about people from Beta passing to Between, because clearly you know a lot more than you let on before." "And you really, really need to pretend that your bag is mine," Blake muttered, turning slightly and stepping forward. "So, then I did a cross reference to the paper you showed me, the one from the Tokyo conference last year—" Confused, Finn blinked stupidly at Blake, not realizing what was happening until an Institute security guard and two officers from the Department of Security got close enough to actually tap him on the shoulder. "Excuse us, doctor," one of the officers said. He continued to blink as he looked at them over his shoulder. "Me?" "Yes, sir. Can we have a moment?" "Uh, sure." Finn looked at Blake and nodded to him. "I'll talk to you later, Dr. Foskey." 211


"Of course, Dr. Cormag. Thank you for telling me about your new theory on sleep cycles." Blake bent once more and fiddled with his bike lock, apparently dismissing the four of them from his mind. Before Finn could even start to figure out what Blake had meant, he was led away, back toward the parking garage and out of the flow of foot traffic. "Is there a problem?" he asked, looking from face to face. "Could I have your name, doctor?" the same officer said. "That's Dr. Cormag," the security guard said helpfully. "I sign him in every day." The other office looked pained. "Thank you," he said coldly. "First name?" "Finnegan." Finn finally brought his full attention to the matter at hand and tried very hard to look like he wasn't about to throw up last night's dinner. "Again, is there a problem?" "We hope not," the first man said. "May we see your papers, please?" Finn stared at him, hoping he looked puzzled and not terrified. "Of course." He reached into the inner pocket of his lab coat and pulled out his packet of passes and permissions. "May I ask why?" The guard looked faintly embarrassed. "Camera in the garage, doctor. Saw you come in from Between, and regulations—" "Thank you for your help," the second officer said firmly. The guard fell silent. 212


"My name is Voss, and as I'm sure you know from the uniform we're with the Department of Security. That's my partner, Officer Thaski." He unfolded Finn's papers and started scanning them. "As per Institute mandate," Officer Thaski said to Finn, "we're called in for any unauthorized activity in Between. Mr. Mallick here was just doing his job." Finn nodded slowly. "But I'm authorized," he said calmly. "We just have to check," Voss said, still reading. Finn looked at Mallick, who shrugged one shoulder and looked even more embarrassed. "Sorry, doctor. Coming in where you did just isn't in the books." Finn sighed and tried to look patient. "It's okay, I'm sure we'll get this worked out." "Mmm." Voss folded up the papers but didn't hand them back. "I'm sure we will. You'll have to come with us, however, Dr. Cormag. We can verify a few things at the department. Hopefully you'll be back at work by lunchtime." Finn nodded woodenly and walked with them, not daring to glance back to see if Blake had seen them take him away.

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Chapter Twenty-Five "You want to learn to meditate." Ari nodded at Duncan and tapped his pen on his planner. "Yeah. You keep saying I should, so I figured, why not?" "I see." Duncan came all the way into the office and pulled one of the chairs at the table around to sit across the desk from Ari. "And when do you want to do this?" "Today?" Ari smiled winningly at him. "Today." "Are you going to repeat everything I say?" "Would that piss you off to a horrible degree? Because it might be kind of fun." Ari suppressed a sudden laugh and wound up snorting. "What do you think?" Immediately Duncan said, "So, mediation it is. Not at lunch, you're dining with the CEO." Duncan nodded and leaned back in his chair. "I should be done by two," Ari said thoughtfully. "We've got a telephone conference at four?" "Yes, with Miami. We could, possibly, bump it to just after lunch and then sneak out for a bit..." Ari frowned at him. "Sneak out?" "Well, you don't want to meditate here in your office. Trust me. I know just where we'll go. It'll be nice and calm, and then you'll be in great shape for Miami." Duncan grinned at him and stood up. "It'll be like a field trip. Or 'Take Your Boss to Hobby Day.'" 214


"I think you need a few more hobbies," Ari told him, turning back to his computer. His relaxation nicely scheduled in, he could force his mind to work and off of Finn until later in the day. **** They walked through the park, going right on past all the areas Ari knew. They ignored the bike path and even the walking path as they skirted around the tennis courts and the path to the basketball hoops, turning to cross the wide lawn. "The picnic area?" Ari guessed, wishing he'd left his tie at the office with his suit jacket. It hadn't seemed so warm, but walking in the sunshine had him rolling his sleeves and loosening his tie. "Just to the side of it." Duncan waved his hand a little off to the right. "Past the trees, there. It's a small bit of grass, too small for people to let their dogs off the leash. It's the wrong time of day for either families or teenagers to be around, too, so it'll be nice and quiet. For an hour or so, anyway." Ari nodded and trailed along, feeling oddly like he did when he'd cut classes in high school. It was nice to be at the park in the middle of the day, but there was a bit of guilt mixed in. He smiled, thinking that the guilt wasn't so much weighing him down as adding a bit of spice. He really needed to get out more. "Over here." Duncan walked past the picnic tables and down a short path into a clearing ringed with trees. "Pretty." Ari looked around and approved. "Now what?" 215


"Now we sit and breathe." Duncan grinned at him and walked to the middle of the space, sitting down on the grass and facing away from the sun. "Breathe?" Ari sat next to him, suddenly feeling a little silly. Duncan nodded. "First thing is to get comfortable. Take off your shoes, sit however you want, as long as your back is straight." He toed off his own shoes and crossed his legs, tailor style, then looked at Ari. "Slouching makes it harder to breathe and can hurt your back after a little while. Not that this is going to be long—it can take a few times to manage even a few minutes of real meditation. We've trained our brains to work all the time, and it's hard to make them quiet." Ari said nothing, but took off his shoes and set them to the side, then sat like Duncan. "God, I haven't done this since I was in kindergarten." "Uh-huh. To tell you the truth, if you do manage to get your head quiet, it'll be your legs that make you stop before your back does. The good thing about sitting this way, though, is that it helps to keep your spine aligned." Ari checked his posture, frowning slightly as he pulled his shoulders back. "Okay. Shoes off, back straight, no office or cell phone. Now what?" Duncan mumbled something that sounded like, "I can't believe we're doing this." Then he looked at Ari and said, "Now you close your eyes and pay attention to your breathing. Take long, slow breaths, and just concentrate on that. In through your nose and out through your mouth, nice and deep and slow." 216


"That's it?" Ari had thought there would be a lot more to it than that. "Do I have to close my eyes?" It would kind of hard to try to see Alpha if he had his eyes closed. "Yes, that's it, and no, you don't have to close your eyes, but it helps. If you have them open it's really easy to get distracted. Just breathe and try to clear your mind. Don't pay attention to the birds or the sound of cars or anything, and do not think about work. If you find your mind wandering, just go back to paying attention to your breathing and maybe count your inhale and exhale. One, two. One, two. Like that." Ari figured that if his attention wandered it wasn't going to be to work or negotiations or contracts. He had other things on his mind, not the least of which was whatever the hell had been going through his mind in the study after Finn had left. "Okay, breathing." He decided that he'd start with his eyes closed and that he could try opening them later, after he had the hang of this whole counting breaths thing. "Good." Duncan sat next to him, his hands curled lightly around his own kneecaps, and closed his eyes. He looked still and calm and Ari just watched him for a moment. "Close your eyes, Ari," Duncan said firmly with not even a flicker of his eyelashes. Ari closed his eyes. Breathing was actually kind of cool when he actually paid attention to it. He could feel parts of him relax, bit by bit, and that was neat, too. It wasn't until it dawned on him that he was giving serious consideration to the spot between his shoulder blades that he realized his mind had drifted. He 217


brought his attention back to his air flow and tried to clear his mind again. Meditating was a lot harder than he'd thought it would be. Beside him, Duncan was silent. It took Ari longer than he liked to let everything go, to find a quiet spot inside of himself and sink into it. He'd thought that it would be like a chalkboard being wiped clean, but instead he was simply aware of himself growing heavy, of feeling rooted to the spot. He only felt air being drawn in and released, only heard the place around him in muted tones. He'd expected an altered state, and what he found was rest. Slowly, not even really being aware he was doing it, he opened his eyes. He didn't focus on anything at all, not the trees or the grass or the sky, merely let light in. And there was nothing for him to see other than an ordinary patch of park in the heart of the city.

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Chapter Twenty-Six They put Finn in a room bare of anything other than a metal table, four metal chairs, and a trash can. There was a security camera in the corner, high up by the ceiling, and Finn did his very best to ignore it. He didn't know if it was there for his protection or not, but the camera did the one thing that all his frantic thinking in the car ride to the security department building hadn't: it calmed him down. He folded his hands on the table and sat, waiting. He knew full well that he was likely in a huge amount of trouble, but he sat as still as he could and forced himself to be outwardly calm while he thought. His stomach was in a knot, but he was pretty sure that it would be even if he'd been legitimately caught up in a random checking of passes; security officers tended to generate that reaction just by being who they were. Plus, there was the solid fact that he was obligated to keep his mouth shut and say pretty much nothing. The Institute had a strict policy of sending their own representative to all security interviews with additional paperwork and some sort of system for electronically verifying information. Even if Finn wanted to tell the officers exactly what he'd been doing and why, he couldn't until there was an Institute witness to the conversation. Of course, all that did was buy him time; he had no idea what he'd say even when the time came. The door opened and Voss came in, carefully balancing two paper cups in his hands and a file folder under one arm. He gave Finn a wry grin and left the door open, then put one of 219


the cups in front of him. "It's supposed to be coffee," he said apologetically. "We keep saying it can't be, but they insist." "Oh." Finn looked at the brown liquid and raised an eyebrow at the oily sheen on the top. "I see the problem." "It hasn't killed anyone yet, though." Voss sat across from him and held his own cup with both hands, as if his hands were cold. "Thaski is on the phone with your work representative, at the moment. Hopefully this won't take too long." Finn nodded and took a tentative sip of his coffee. "This isn't terrible," he said in surprise. "It just looks like crap." Voss stared at him and shook his head. "Academics and scientists must have stronger stomachs than I thought." "Or we killed our taste buds in grad school." The odd banter was somehow comfortable, even though Finn knew that a wrong step would turn Voss into a cold and determined hunter. Voss opened the file that apparently had Finn's permission forms in it. "We copied these for our records," Voss said, sliding the folder and a pen over to him. "Please look at each one carefully to confirm that the copies are exact, and then put your initials on the photocopies. Your rep will double check and initial them as well." Finn took the pen and the file and did as he was told, grateful for something actually to do. He kept his eyes down, his stomach loosening as he occupied himself, his attention on the menial and mechanical task of scanning and comparing. It was easy enough to just look at the two sheets of paper side by side and tell that there were no 220


discrepancies, but he read each line as he went, drawing it out. It wasn't like there was anything else to do while they waited, and he had the feeling that if Voss started asking him random, friendly questions, Finn would say too much and get himself in even deeper trouble. Voss waited patiently, drinking his coffee while Finn read through the first sheet and compared it, then put his initials where he was supposed to. When Finn moved to the second set of papers, Voss said, "Just leave both sets in the file; you'll get your copies back when you leave." Finn nodded without looking up and started reading page two, line by line. "You've kind of got blanket permission, don't you?" Voss said casually. "Most forms we see have pretty strict time limits set out." Finn's grip on the pen tightened. "Not really," he said calmly. The knot came back, and he initialed the form without reading the rest of it, then closed the file. He didn't allow himself to point out what Voss knew. Finn's permissions might not have specific time frames but they were tightly and intricately tied to his research. Voss was fishing, and Finn knew it; Finn knew that Voss knew that, too, and Finn picked up his coffee, hoping that by not saying anything at all he could stop himself from participating in whatever game Voss was playing. The interview was both as subtle and heavy handed as Finn had expected. Voss smiled thinly at him. "You know, my job would be a lot easier if the Institute would just let you guys tell us the 221


bare bones. Nothing about research, of course, but the basics. You know, the kind of thing where you can say, "I was in Between working on Project Name X, which is covered by the permission B on this line, here." Then we could just call someone up, make sure that the Institute records have that project and that you're on it, and we'd be done." "That would be nice," Finn agreed. Voss looked at him, clearly waiting for more. Finn sipped his coffee. From the doorway Thaski said, "God, what a headache." He came in with his own cup of coffee and sat down. "Your rep is on her way, should be here in about five minutes. Her car phone is crap, if you care, and apparently she's kind of pissed at you." Finn blinked. "Oh?" "Who is it?" Voss asked, smiling slightly. "Donna Ritchie." Voss's smile grew into a grin. "Don't worry about it, doctor. She's always cranky. Especially in the morning." Finn wasn't sure if that was good for him or bad. "I see," he said, taking another drink from his cooling paper cup. "She's in rare form today," Thaski said to Voss, giving every appearance of ignoring Finn entirely. "She was here half the night and told me in great detail just how happy she was to be called back." Voss shrugged. "That's the way her job goes. If people are where they shouldn't be, especially those who are abusing their position, it's up to her to deal with it. Not our problem." 222


Finn did his best not to react. He wasn't stupid, not by half, but he was beginning to think they thought he was. They were clearly trying to wind him up, and he'd thought they'd be better at it. He spent a couple of minutes trying to puzzle it out, debating with himself if they were the sort of security personnel who worked cases that dealt with serious abuse of watching in Between or if they were merely the fetch and carry sort who got called in for minor infractions. He was leaning to the latter when a third man came in, also wearing the dark security uniform. "All ready for you," he said to Thaski as he passed over an open laptop. "Thanks," Thaski said, looking at the screen. "Okay, doctor, let's see if we can get this underway while we wait for Ms. Ritchie." He turned the computer so Finn could see the screen and edged it across the table to Finn's side. "Please enter your employee password." "You've got to be kidding me." Finn stared at the screen and then at the two men across from him, his nervousness and fear abruptly replaced with indignation. "There is no way in hell I'm going to enter my password in anything without the express instruction of my representative. Those passwords, as you well know, will give you blanket access to anything I'm working on." Voss raised an eyebrow. "You're attached to the Department of Inter-dimensional Communication. Not exactly classified research. Also, isn't that kind of a misnomer?" "It is," Finn agreed, ignoring the computer. "And I'm also adjunct to both medical and psych. Therefore, I have no 223


intention of opening my files to you until and unless I have to." "Fiery," Thaski said under his breath. "All right then, you just sit and wait. And we'll wonder all about what you were doing in Between outside of your mandated 'working hours' parameters on your permissions. Probably watching some poor girl just waking up, all sleepy and mussed, getting your rocks off by peeping." "Man, that's just nasty," Voss said, shaking his head sadly. "Watching people when they're vulnerable and undressed, just trying to wake up." "That's pretty much it," a female voice said from the door, and all three of them turned to look. A woman in a stylish pant suit stood there, looking fairly pissed off. "Back off, you two. Christ. Not only is he authorized to do exactly that, you're out of line with those comments, and I'm in just bad enough a mood to file a complaint if I hear any more." Finn's jaw dropped open, and he closed it with a snap. It wouldn't help him any if he started asking questions and made it clear that he had no idea what on earth she was talking about. She walked in and dropped Finn's bag on the table, then set what had to be her own briefcase down next to it. "I'm Donna Ritchie, and I'll be taking you out of here in about four minutes." "Thank you," Finn said faintly. "Your files are a mess," she informed him. "I had to get your assistant to find your new project list and the department copies." 224


Finn attempted to look apologetic and tried to ignore his sudden acquisition of an assistant. "Sorry. So I don't have to enter my password?" He gestured with his hand at the computer. "Oh, for the love of God." She glared at Voss, who grinned back. "And what exactly would you two have done if he'd actually been stupid enough to do it?" "Laughed at him and told you," Thaski said lazily. "That kind of thing is going to get you two suspended one of these days," she said with a sigh. "Okay, let's do this." She sat and pulled the computer to her and typed in what Finn assumed was her own password. He watched as she navigated to his records and then turned the screen so they all could see. "Dr. Cormag is authorized to go to Between for a variety of projects, all of which are covered by the permissions on his forms. The particular project he was working on today is this one." She highlighted a line and Finn read the project name just before she turned the computer to Voss and Thaski. Sensing Awareness Variations Caused by REM Sleep in the Population of Beta Voss and Thaski looked at the screen and then at each other. "That sounds fascinating." Even Finn thought it sounded more boring than watching paint dry, but he tried to look offended that they weren't impressed with his project. "Fascinating or not, I don't want to spend all morning here." Ms. Ritchie turned the computer back around and 225


plucked an empty form from her briefcase. "Get on with it, gentlemen." Voss sighed. "All right." From the folder that Finn's forms and the copies were in he took a sheet of paper. "Are you Finnegan Cormag?" "Yes." Finn looked at Ms. Ritchie, but she was filling out her own form with information from the Institute's files, such as Finn's project numbers. "And did you cross from Between into Alpha at approximately eight this morning, at the parking garage of the Institute of Technological Research?" Finn nodded. "Yes." "And this was a direct result of your authorized research?" "Yes." "Thank you. Please open your bag for us to inspect." Finn looked at the bag, his gut cramping. All he could see was an image of himself putting Blake's file in there. "Standard procedure," Ms. Ritchie said, not looking up from her form. "It was with you when you were in Between and they have the right to look, as you were brought in for an interview." "But I have work-related papers in there." Finn's voice squeaked and he coughed to cover it, knowing he fooled no one. She looked at him. "You have classified documents out of the Institute?" "No," he said, shaking his head. "Just work related."

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"As your representative I will vouch for those." She signed her form and passed it to Thaski. "There you go. Date, time, project, employee information." "Thanks." He took it and left it on the table, then slid Finn's bag to him. "Dr. Cormag, if you'd be so kind." Finn took the bag, barely noting that Ms. Ritchie had pulled two more pieces of paper out and passed one to Voss. He stood up and flipped the bag open and slowly began taking things out. "Mobile phone," he said, noting that it needed to be charged. "My lunch. A laundry receipt. Shopping list. Three files." The files he pulled out as one, then held the bag upside down. "And a tissue," he added as one fell out. Voss and Ms. Ritchie had each made an inventory list, and Ms. Ritchie reached for the files. "This is a white paper on inter-dimensional communication and filters," she said matter of factly. "As is the second. Both are legitimate and within the scope of Dr. Cormag's research." Finn nodded woodenly, watching as she opened the last folder. "And this is the précis for his current project, the one he was working on. Also perfectly fine." She passed the files back to Finn and nodded at the security officers. "Are we done?" Finn sat hard, his knees giving way as he clung to his files. Blake. Blake had to have switched files. Not only had he switched them, but he'd gotten a project into the system and had a précis all ready to go. 227


"I guess so," Thaski said with a sigh. He seemed almost disappointed. "I'll go get the lieutenant to sign us off." He was only gone a short while, less than a minute, and Finn spent the time stuffing things back in his bag, not looking at anyone. He knew that if he met anyone's eyes they'd see how stunned and confused he was. "Okay, give me the forms." A man had come in with Thaski, and he seemed to be the no-nonsense sort. He had his pen ready and didn't even look at Finn as he started initialing everyone's paperwork. "What's up, Derrick?" Ms. Ritchie said as she initialed the copies of Finn's permissions. "You don't seem happy to see me." "I'm thrilled to see you, Donna," the lieutenant said as he finished scrawling his name on the identical inventories. "Even more thrilled that you're winding this one up fast. I need the room and I need these two back out there. Don't have time to waste on Institute staff who can't follow the rules." Finn bit his lip and closed his bag. "Sorry," he mumbled. Ms. Ritchie rolled her eyes at him. "Won't happen again, Derrick." She handed Finn his passes and stood up. "Will it, Dr. Cormag?" "No." The lieutenant nodded and looked at his officers. "Come on, you two. Meeting in the conference room, now." Finn saw Voss and Thaski frown and glance at one another as they left. He got the impression that the meeting was news to them, and not exactly typical. 228


Ms. Ritchie seemed to think so, too, as she put her copies of the paperwork in her briefcase. "Something going on?" she asked. "Nothing to do with you. See you, Donna." Without even looking once at Finn, the lieutenant left the room. "Interesting," Ms. Ritchie said. "Come on, doctor. Your assistant is waiting for you in the lobby." Finn followed her out and down the maze of corridors, unsurprised to find Blake waiting for him. "Okay?" Blake asked anxiously, bounding out of his seat. "Of course," Ms. Ritchie said, rolling her eyes. "Routine. He didn't do anything wrong other than have the bad sense to come out of Between where he did. And have crappy filing. Thanks for your help finding the project files, Dr. Foskey." "Not a problem," Blake said, waving it off like it was nothing. Ms. Ritchie turned and shook Finn's hand. "Clean up your files," she ordered. "And hopefully I won't have to see you again." "Thank you," Finn said, because he had to say something and his mind was racing too fast to come up with anything else. She nodded to them both and left, not looking back. Finn watched her go and then turned to Blake. "I think we need to talk." "Yes. But not here." "Obviously. And since when are you my assistant?" Blake stared at him and snorted. "Come on. Let's go ... somewhere." 229


Finn nodded and headed to the door. "I need to call work." "We're off for the rest of the day," Blake told him. "I cleared it." "Good. We're going to talk to my Aunt Dorry. And you're going to explain a few things to me."

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Chapter Twenty-Seven They took the bus, which was far from the typical way that Finn usually arrived at his parent's home. As Finn usually arrived without company as well, he was hardly surprised at his mother's reaction, which seemed to be a mixture of politeness warring with intense curiosity. She fluttered her way through the introductions and carefully looked Blake over, probably trying to determine if he was a potential candidate for romance. "It's the middle of the day," she said for a second time. Finn glanced at the clock, about to protest that it was barely into the morning, and blinked. "Huh. I figured it was about ten at the latest." "The bus takes a while," Blake said, apparently unsurprised that it was almost noon. "I suppose it does." Finn blinked again and put his hands on his mother's arms. "Relax," he said. "There's nothing wrong. I just need to see some of Aunt Dorry's books. Is Papa around?" "At the store getting milk for lunch. Dorry's in her study if you want to go up. Will you two being staying for lunch?" Finn nodded. "Sure, I guess. Thanks, Mama." Blake smiled at Finn's mom and thanked her as well, then followed Finn up the stairs. "Nice house," he said when they reached the second floor. "I like the photos of you on the stair wall. Very ... interesting perspective." Finn snorted. The photos were a collection of elementary school pictures and university club award banquets. "When 231


she ran out of wall space she took down the ugly years. High school was not kind to me." "High school isn't kind to anyone." "True enough." Finn rapped on Dorry's study door and opened it slowly. "Hey, it's me." "Finn! Come on in." She was sitting at her desk, looking for all the world like she'd been buried in dusty books for hours. "Oh, hello." Finn led Blake in and closed the door behind him. "Dorry, this is Blake, a colleague of mine. Blake, my Aunt Dorry. She's an expert in oral histories." Dorry shook her head. "Not an expert, I just read a lot and write papers no one reads. Hello, Blake. Have a seat." Finn and Blake moved books off of chairs while Blake said a polite hello, and Finn attempted to ignore the piercing look she was giving them both. "I need a bit of help," Finn said, finally creating a bare spot to sit. "I figured. What've you done?" Blake bit his lip, and Finn thought he looked like he was trying not to laugh. "Um. Well. You see." Finn looked at his hands and then up at her, wincing. "I didn't exactly stop like I told you I would." Dorry narrowed her eyes at him. "I assumed as much by your slinking. You're going to get caught, Finnegan." "He did," Blake said quietly. "This morning." Dorry leaned back and surveyed them both. "I see. And yet, he's here and not in the Department of Security cells. What happened?" 232


Finn gestured to Blake. "Apparently he's a hell of a lot smarter than I am. Someone in this room who isn't me managed to legitimize my watching in the hour between me being taken and when the Institute representative went looking for my project identification numbers. That same someone also removed a sensitive file from my bag and replaced it with a précis I'd never seen before but apparently authored. And that someone hasn't yet told me how or why." Blake nodded. "Correct. And I have no intention of telling you the details. That would be rather foolish. As to the how, that's easy enough. You left your bag. I took it to my office and switched the files. The security camera has always been a bit ... uh, temperamental in there. And the project number was ready to be placed by anyone with the proper access to the low-level filing system." "See?" Finn said to Dorry. "Smarter than me." "Or just plain sneakier. Who do you work for, Blake?" "The Institute," he said serenely. "And?" "You don't expect me to answer that, do you?" "If it has to do with my nephew and his safety, I do." Dorry's face grew hard. Blake looked at Finn and smiled at him. "Finn is a bit of a side project, honestly. Nothing to do with anything else." Finn stared at him, dumbstruck. "Who are you?" he whispered. "Blake Foskey." Blake shrugged and looked back at Dorry. "Finn is in love with a man in Beta. That man is doing, or is at 233


least working himself up to doing, some very dangerous things. Finn needs some help." For a long moment no one said anything. Finn felt like he'd been catapulted from one crisis to another, and he couldn't stop staring at Blake. How much had he told this stranger? Obviously enough to hang himself, but Blake had pulled him out of the breach. Finn had absolutely no idea what Blake's motives were any longer, but at least he hadn't been turned over. Yet. Dorry was looking at them both with a shuttered expression. "I can't do anything to keep Ari from doing something stupid. How could I?" "Finn can," Blake said firmly. "He's probably the only person Ari will listen to, anyway." Dorry stared at him for a long moment then looked at Finn. "I seem to be missing a vital bit of information." Blake bit at his thumb nail. "Oops." Finn looked around the room, utterly unable to focus his mind on anything long enough to make a coherent sentence. "I just. He. I don't understand." "I'll get some tea." Dorry stood up and looked firmly at Blake. "You. Explain as much as you can to him and get him ready to work. You both brought this into my house, and I love my nephew. But I don't want to know anything I don't have to." "Understood," Blake said with a nod. Finn watched her go and then rounded on Blake. "Who are you?" he asked again. 234


"I'm exactly who I said I am," Blake said softly. "I'm a scientist. I can sense in Alpha. I became a researcher because I heard you speak. I wanted you. I'm not anyone different than I was." "But you ... with the files." "You were bound to get caught sometime. Granted, I didn't think it was this soon. But really, this was better. Now you can actually get away with going to see him in the early morning." Finn blinked. "Wow." "See?" Blake beamed at him. "Honestly, we should have legitimized the research long ago. Oh, that does bring one thing up; the files I put in place aren't signed by the department head in ink. It's just an electronic trail. We need to get them in, and soon. If they start poking, it won't hold up." Finn nodded and opened his bag. "I should probably read the précis at some point. You wrote it?" "Yeah, it was something I had in mind last year. I let it go because it wasn't really my area and you were just starting up the work with audio filters. So it was just kicking around." Finn gave him a long look. "Thank you," he said sincerely. "And I wasn't kidding—you really are smarter than me." "There are lots of people smarter than me, too," Blake said, laughing. "I won't keep reminding you of the fact." "Thanks." Finn rolled his eyes and glanced around. When he saw Dorry's chair sitting empty he tilted his head. "She asked who else you worked for. You wouldn't say." 235


"Mmm." Blake nodded slowly. "And I still won't. It doesn't have anything to do with this." His head still tilted to the side, Finn switched his gaze to Blake. "Why did you give me that file? The one you had to rescue from my bag." To his surprise, Blake looked embarrassed. "Tactical error," he said. "I knew you were going to Between a lot, and I could feel that it wasn't for work. I thought you were working on something else and that you could help me." Finn looked at him for a long moment and finally started to laugh. "That's absurd!" "I know!" Blake laughed, too, shaking his head. "I couldn't believe it when you told me what was going on. I seriously thought it was something else, anything else." "So, why are you helping me?" Finn asked, holding his ribs as hysteria attempted to take over. "Because there's no reason not to," Blake said, grinning at him. "And you love him. Call it my good deed for life." "You're crazy," Finn said, smiling at him. There was a knock at the door, and then Dorry opened it slowly. "Tea." Blake got up and opened the door the rest of the way. "Thank you," he said, taking the tray from her. She sat at her desk again and poured. "All right, then. Finn, tell me about Ari." Finn waited until he had his mug and filled her in on the highlights, watching her face as he told her that Ari could see and hear him, and that they'd been talking. At first she looked shocked, her mouth opening and closing, but he could 236


pinpoint the moment the academic in her took over and she started trying to locate information in her mind. "So, what you need is anything in the histories and stories that can explain why he's suddenly Sensitive," she mused. "Well, you need to keep that man's mind and body in Beta, clearly, but you also need to know why this is happening." Blake cleared his throat. "It might be nice to find a way that Ari can reach Finn, as well," he said. "It's hard to have a one-way relationship." She nodded and gave Finn a sympathetic look. "Trust you to fall in love with someone you simply can't be with. I suppose it's kind of my fault for not simply moving the whole family when you were a child. I knew I should have taken that job in California." Finn rolled his eyes. "Mama and Papa wouldn't have moved out there." "I suppose not," she said. "Still. This is an emotional minefield I wouldn't have wished for you, Finn." She sighed and got up, going to her shelves. "We can start with these," she said, pulling down a stack of books. "And after lunch there's plenty more." **** Lunch was fast, and Finn thought his mother might have been a little insulted when they bolted down the sandwiches she'd made and then dashed back up to the study. His father, on the other hand, seemed to take both Blake and the fact that Institute scientists were doing research in his house in stride. 237


"There's this," Blake said at one point, looking up from the huge book he was leafing through. "A team of hunters suddenly appeared in what became northern Virginia one summer. They were dressed for winter and had weapons unlike any the people had seen before and said that they had become lost in a storm and traveled for many, many weeks in strange territory. They thought they were dead and had reached Heaven." Finn and Dorry looked at each other and nodded. "That sounds like they could have traveled in Between," Dorry said. "But not why." They kept looking. For hours they sat and turned pages and occasionally read parts to each other. There were a few incidents that seemed like they could have been examples of inter-dimensional communication, but none of them could find anything that fit what was happening with Ari and Finn. Dorry scoured her files on the computer fruitlessly, and Finn's eyes grew tired and gritty. "This isn't getting us anywhere," he said finally. "And I'm tired." Blake nodded. "As much as I hate to admit it, you're right. We're not finding what we need. Maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe this is unique to Ari. Or you." "Perhaps," Dorry said wearily. "But at least it got my shelves cleaned off." Finn laughed and kissed her cheek as they got ready to go. "Thank you for your help," he said. "Anytime, dear." She looked at Blake and nodded. "But I'd much prefer if you just stayed home for a few years." 238


Finn shrugged. "Won't promise this time." "Love addles the brains," she declared. The three of them went downstairs and Finn went to the kitchen to call for a taxi and say goodbye to his mother, Blake hard on his heels. "But supper is almost ready," she protested, gesturing to the pots on the stove. "Oh." Finn looked at dinner and his mother and then at Blake. "Um." "I think we can stay," Blake said with a smile. "Thank you, Mrs. Cormag." She beamed at Blake. "I like him," she said to Dorry in a loud whisper. Finn rolled his eyes and led Blake out to watch TV with his father, leaving Dorry to field the whole issue. As usual his father was sitting in his chair, flipping through news channels. "Hey, Papa," Finn said as he and Blake put their bags by the front door. "Anything exciting going on in the world?" "Same old shit," his father informed them. "The government's spending too much money on the wrong things, the city is bitching about lack of funding from the state, and someone's dog caused a traffic snarl." Finn laughed. "What kind of dog?" "Airedale, if you can believe it." Blake's mobile phone rang, and he excused himself from the room to take it, so Finn slouched down a little more. "Hey, Papa?" "Mmm." 239


"Would you have moved to California when I was a kid if Aunt Dorry had taken the offer from Cal State?" "Nope." "Cool. Tell her, yeah? I think she's got guilt." His father looked at him. "Why?" "Remember that baby that was born in Beta when I was little?" His father snorted. "The one you kept trying to get to for years?" "Yeah, him." "What about him?" Finn looked back at the TV and shrugged. "Nothing, I guess. Dorry thinks she might have been able to keep me out of Between if we'd moved." "Nothing would have kept you from him," his father said firmly. "The whole continent between you would have just meant we'd have to do a lot of flying to get you back. Never seen a kid so attached to someone before." Finn looked at his father in surprise. "Really?" His Papa looked back and nodded. "That why you're here? Trying to find him again?" "I already found him," Finn admitted. "Never really lost him." His father gave him a long look, his eyes searching Finn's. "Does he have a good job?" he finally asked. Finn nodded. "Yes, sir." "Is he a good man?" Again, Finn nodded. 240


"Good enough for me," his father said, turning back to the TV. Finn sat and stared and didn't point out that there were issues in the way. His father knew. "Finn," Blake said, coming back into the room in a hurry. "We need to go. Now." "Why?" Finn looked at him blankly. On the TV screen a red and black image flashed, signaling breaking news. "That's why." Blake pointed to the TV and kept moving, every line of his body tense. He crouched by their bags and took a file from his own, then a pen. Finn saw him start to write, but his attention was held by the calm voice on the TV screen. "At this hour we are attempting to confirm that the Department of Security has mobilized both the National Guard and branches of the military for special assignment in Between. No one at the Department of Security is willing to comment at this point, and none of our calls have been returned. However, we do have word from both Army and National Guard sources that up to four thousand troops have been mustered as what are being termed 'patrol forces.'" "Jesus," Finn said in a hushed voice as he stood up. "They're shutting it down," Blake said, putting the file into Finn's bag. "Catch." He tossed the satchel to Finn and stood up, holding his own backpack. "The whole thing. Tomorrow morning all passes to Between will be revoked and the patrols will move in. There won't be any leeway, any way to get 241


there. And now that it's on TV, I'd put money on it being stepped up to within the hour." Finn's mind raced. "I gotta go. I have to warn Ari. Blake?" "With you." Finn nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder. "Bye, Papa, sorry about supper. Tell Mama and Dorry." "Finn!" His father stood up. "You take care of yourself, son," he said softly. "I will, Papa." With a long look and a silent nod, Finn stepped into Between with Blake beside him.

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Chapter Twenty-Eight Ari sat on his bed and watched the news with growing confusion. There were people disappearing in large numbers, and the only thing that the police were saying about it was that there seemed to be a massive, worldwide hoax going on, centered around an odd religion. "Ari, you're home." Ari jumped and looked at the door. "Hey! Yeah, I took off early after some time in the park. Who's your friend?" "This is Blake." Finn pointed and Blake waved. "Is that the news?" Ari nodded and looked at Finn. "Yeah, there's something weird going on. Are you all right? You look frantic. And I thought it wasn't safe for you to come here this early." "It's not," Blake said. "What's on the news?" Ari knew that tone of voice. It was the one he used when a huge contract was about to go south. Whatever had brought Finn to him—with company—was big. "There's people vanishing," he said immediately. "All over the place. A couple hundred so far." "Oh, shit." Blake closed his eyes and Finn seemed to sway. "Okay." Blake grabbed Finn by the shoulder and turned him slightly. "Listen to me. There's a file in your bag, read it. I made notes. Got that?" Finn nodded, his face deathly pale. "There's no other options?" "Of course there is, but there's not a chance in hell that I can get the REM project legitimized now. They'll go through 243


the system and find it, and you'll be taken in again. You won't get back out. Security will take you and that will be that." Ari stood up and walked toward the doorway. "Um. Hello?" Whatever was going on sounded important and like it was about to change lives. Possibly his. Finn looked at him, his knuckles white as he gripped his bag. "The security department has called in forces and they're closing down everything in Between. I wouldn't be able to come back and see you, which we might have been able to live with, but I was questioned this morning." Blake nodded. "Because he was taken in, they'll figure out that he was not, in fact, supposed to be here. Made worse because I'd faked the files. He'll be taken into custody and likely disappear into the system." Ari felt the floor slip a little under his feet. "You can't let that happen." "I'm not," Blake said with a sudden smile. "He's going to go through. To you." Ari's eyes went wide. "Finn?" Finn glanced at him and then looked back at Blake. "Explain to my Mama," he said, pulling his keys out of his pocket. "And feed my fish." "Be safe." Blake took the keys and shoved them in his pocket. "And don't ever, ever try to find us. We'll find you. Oh!" He held on tight to Finn and stared at him with an intensity that even Ari felt. "Filters. They will help. Got that?" Finn nodded. "Filters. Okay." "Someday I'll be able to explain. You might figure it out first, though." 244


Ari found himself walking closer to the doorway, his stomach hurting. "Are you sure he can come through?" he whispered. "I am," Blake said firmly, even though Finn's eyes were huge and frightened. "There's probably not another person in Alpha who knows as well as I do. But he can pass. I wouldn't push him through if I thought there was even the remotest chance he'd die. Eventually I would have let him discover it, but there isn't time now. It's now or never." "This better work, Blake," Finn said, his voice shaking. "It will." Blake nodded and turned Finn by his shoulders. "Go." Finn nodded, took a deep breath, and before Ari could even attempt to protest or make sense of things, Finn took a step forward. "Finn!" Ari yelled, his mind full of what Finn had told him. Agony, trapped in energy, brain implosions... And then Finn winked out of visibility for a fraction of second, vanishing just like always. But he came back, suddenly brighter and vibrant, and in Ari's arms. "Finn?" "Ari." Finn started to shake, the color in his face draining out. "That really, really sucked," he said. "Holy crap." Ari looked at the empty doorway, Blake gone. In his arms, Finn shook harder, so he lowered them both to the floor. "Finn?" he said again, brushing the hair from Finn's forehead. "Oh, man," Finn whispered, lifting his head slightly. "That doesn't feel the same at all." He trembled a little more and looked up at Ari, his face white and waxy, his eyes still wide. "Ari. It's really you." 245


Ari smiled at him, unable not to, really. "It's really me." He touched Finn's face again, finally able to see that Finn's eyes were dark blue and not gray. "Hi." "Hi." Finn reached up and touched him back then closed his eyes tightly. "Oh, God." "What?" Ari asked, suddenly panicked. Finn looked like he'd been hit with some sudden pain. What if he needed a doctor? Ari couldn't exactly take him to the hospital, he didn't have any insurance. For that matter, he didn't have anything. He didn't exist. Oh, God, indeed. "Ari," Finn whispered. "Stop. Please, calm down. Don't be scared, not right now. I'll figure it out." Ari stared down at Finn as he opened his eyes again. "I can feel you," Finn said. "God, I can feel what you're feeling." "Well," Ari said looking at Finn's pale face. "This will be interesting."

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TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK TWO: MERGE What will happen to Finn and Ari? How will Finn make a life for himself? Why can he feel Ari's emotions and how will they deal with that? Can they make a life together? Can Finn find his place in a new world? What did Blake write on the file, and who the heck is Blake working for anyway? What will Duncan say? Stay tuned and find out in MERGE!

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