Vincent removed his tie and went to Klara, slipping it over her head from behind and letting it fall over her neck. She grinned at him, and he grinned back. Then she gave him a slightly confused look.
“I’m sorry,” he said with a chuckle, stepping back. He unbuttoned one of the top buttons of his shirt, then rolled his sleeves up a little more and fastened them in place. It really was hot. “Forgive me. I… I forget where I am sometimes, and that we don’t really know each other here. We were friends on the other side.” His face darkened a little with sadness. “Good friends.”
She laughed. “Then you do know how much I love to wear a tie.”
Sabine entered and looked around at everything they were doing. “How can I help?” she asked quietly.
Vincent gave her a cocky smile. “I knew you’d come around.”
“Let’s be clear, Vincent. I’m not here for you.”
“Of course you’re not.” His smile stayed on his face. “I need someone to man this part.” He gestured to a print-out from one of John’s machines. “Do you think you can handle that?”
Sabine took the paper and looked it over. “Of course I can,” she replied curtly, then turned to her own table.
Vincent came up behind her and laid a hand on her shoulder. She jerked away. “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his hands up and taking a small step back. There was a brief pause as she glared at him. “I want you to know something. I helped John in the other dimension as well—with you. However, the dynamic in my world was different, so the process here will be a bit experimental.”
He paused as if steeling himself for what he was about to say, his expression reflecting the sorrow of truth. “But Peter was gone. I tried. I tried very hard. Peter is fused with John, but only materially. There is nothing left of his spirit, or…” He fought for words. “John has some of his cells inside of him. But that’s it.”
Sabine’s eyes glassed over, but her expression didn’t change. “You tried to help me in the other dimension?” she asked.
He swallowed and looked down between them, avoiding her eyes. “You helped me once.”
She narrowed her green eyes at him. “How?”
He lowered his voice so no one else in the room could hear. “We both experienced great loss, Sabine. You first, then me two years later… You knew how much it shattered me.” He let that linger.
She stared at him, narrowing her eyes more. Then her expression grew spiteful. “Are you implying that we slept together?” she hissed, incredulous.
“We slept with each other.” He shrugged his shoulders and paused, trying to find the words. There were none. “It was… comfort only.”
Sabine nearly gagged in disgust. “So I’m not like… dating you or something.”
“You were never with me, not even for a moment.”
She crossed her arms over her chest tightly, wanting to rebuke him, call him mad, insane, and a host of other names accompanied with the strike of her palm. But the seriousness in his eyes and his difficulty in meeting her gaze told her it was all true. “Does Marielle know?”
“I will tell her, in time. There are a great many things Marielle does not know.” A pause. “I don’t owe her anything right now.”
“You said you knew all of us on the other side. So, you know her too, right?”
“Of course,” he replied with nod.
Sabine tilted her head and glared up at him, which made her look demonic. “Yeah, we can start with the real reason they’re here to take her.”
He pushed his glasses up. “You think I’m lying?”
She shrugged one shoulder, tapping her nails against her arm. “I know you’re not being honest.”
Both of them turned to see Klara, not five feet away but partly obscured by a network of glass tubing, staring wide-eyed at them. She was in the middle of putting a piece of fruit into her mouth, but she quickly snapped it shut when she saw them watching her. “Ha ha… Don’t mind me.”
Sabine turned her back on Vincent. “Well, that’s going to get out quickly,” she hissed. “Thanks for that.”
“It’s okay, Sabine. You hate me in all dimensions,” he replied with a smirk, then walked away.
She grinned proudly at his last comment, but hid it by picking up a tube and searching for the correct chemical based on the readout.
Hate sex, she thought. It works.
***
The next two weeks were something of a blur for Marielle. Despite her many attempts to spend time with Vincent, it never seemed to happen. Often, after finishing an intensive, sixteen-hour day in the lab, he would simply return to his room, eat, and collapse.
Occasionally, she took him food and watched his head grow heavy before leaving him to sleep. Other times, she finished up her own work and went straight home, trying to distance herself from the situation with John, and all of her swirling feelings. Her frustration with not being close to Vincent was palpable, but she mostly kept it to herself, even though she sometimes caught his eyes on her. The way he looked at her reinforced the idea that he was genuinely interested in her, and more than once, she found herself wishing she had a pearl necklace, a devious smirk on her mouth. Still, Vincent kept his promise to Valorant, and remained at his computer or in the lab developing something to help John.
During those two weeks, she spent some extra time with Austin instead. They texted almost every night—mostly business, a little goofing off. They went to a movie together one Saturday and threw popcorn at each other, ducking down low when someone turned around and glared at them for laughing too loudly.
At a fast food restaurant the next day, Marielle was flabbergasted when he suggested that she steal their order number stand while the cashier’s back was turned. “What? No!”
“Take it,” he growled, a grin plastered onto his face.
“No!”
“Take it!” he coaxed.
“No!” But the moment the cashier started turning around, Marielle slipped it into her purse, and they both grinned innocently at the woman giving them their receipt.
She set the silly thing in a secret compartment in her nightstand when she got home, shaking her head at herself. Okay, she’d stolen, but it had been hilarious, and no one was going to miss a plastic cut-out with the number 42 on it. Those things probably went missing all the time anyway.
She chuckled, closing the drawer on it. How much more trouble are you going to get me into, Austin? she thought. Then she lay back in her bed and petted Felix. You’re my best friend right now, she added dreamily.
Despite his obvious attraction to her, which she was doing her best to ignore, it was true. Austin really was her best friend.
On a Thursday, he surprised her in the kitchen.
“Boo!” Austin said next to Marielle’s left ear.
She jumped a little, coming up out of the refrigerator and glaring at him not five inches from her face. “Are you kidding me?”
“Yeah,” he deadpanned as he tossed a few almonds into his mouth. Marielle chuckled as she ducked back into the fridge to find a Coke. “Bowling tonight? My treat.”
“Yeah, fine, Austin,” she said dismissively.
“‘Yeah, okay, fine, Austin,’” he mocked.
She straightened and smacked him in the arm. He jerked back a little but grinned mischievously as he chewed. “Come on.” She chuckled. “Don’t tease me.”
“Gasp!” He feigned an exaggerated gasp as he said the word. “‘Austin! Don’t tease me!’” Marielle shook her head, found her Coke, and came up for warmer air. “So, bowling?”
She opened the can and took a drink. “Yeah. I said I’d go.”
Jamie ran into the kitchen. “They’re about to try the first serum on John!”
Austin and Marielle exchanged looks, then dashed to the elevator. Mateo joined them, and all four went up to the lab. Once they entered, they found Liam and Barbara already watching at a safe distance. Sabine, Klara, and Vincent were slowly extracting a glowing pink liquid into a large syringe.
“That’s a big needle,” Klara said.
“He’s used to it,” Sabine replied flatly as she removed something that looked like a piece of burnt glass from the table next to her and discarded it. Sabine gave Marielle a strange look. The fact that she was looking at her at all was strange in and of itself, but this expression was definitely something more than Sabine’s normal spiteful attitude toward her. Was it caring? Concern? She filed it for later.
Austin turned his head to Marielle, then glanced at Sabine before looking at her again. He’d caught it, too.
“So, exactly what are you doing here, soldier?” Liam asked Vincent, stepping forward.
Vincent tapped the glass below the needle. “It’s a bit difficult to explain… Basically, what we are attempting to do is give John something of a”—he bobbed his head a bit—“suit. Something that coalesces over his body and interacts with the residue created by his celestial body and builds a bridge between it all with the nanobots here…”
He looked at them, apparently realizing they were lost. Clearing his throat, he started again. “I’m trying to make something adaptable for him so he can exist fully here, or fully not if he so chooses.”
“Fully not? What do you mean, Mr. Fabron?” Barbara asked.
Vincent turned to Barbara, his expression patronizing, as though he thought the answer should be obvious. “I mean he has the ability to teleport now, so why not use it?”
This seemed to make sense to everyone in the room, although it came as something of a surprise to Marielle. Even though John constantly phased in and out of existence, she had never thought of his condition in those terms.
“He does?” she asked.
“In theory,” Klara interjected, juggling empty air with her hands.
“Not just in theory. If we can train him to adapt, he will be able to teleport.” Vincent said with a small, proud smile.
Everyone paused for a moment, looking at one another. At last, Barbara lifted a hand. “Continue.”
Vincent nodded and went to the back of the lab, where the circular room that harbored the shell of a man lay in wait. Klara followed.
“You got a backup plan if something goes wrong?” Liam asked.
Vincent turned to him and held up a second syringe. “I will use this if it seems appropriate.”
“What is it?” Barbara asked.
“Explaining it would be… difficult,” he said, putting it back into the pocket of his white lab coat. He slipped a paper mask on. “Let’s just call it a stabilizer for now.”
Once he was sealed inside the round room, the lights in the lab were dimmed to almost nothing, and the shielding peeled back to reveal tinted glass. Everything was dark, but a blue glow emanated from the glassed-in room and John’s enormous blue eyes.
“I’ve been having nightmares again. They’re me,” he whispered, his voice distant and detached.
Vincent touched his forehead gently, so as not to push through his frail shell. “You will use your nightmares well, my friend.”
Austin looked down at Marielle, and they shared concerned, expectant looks.
Klara took the syringe from Vincent, and he went to the machines along the left side of the wall and read John’s vitals.
Vincent gave Klara a nod, and she stuck the needle into John’s arm and pushed the plunger down.
First, the lights went down completely, creating a moment of total blackness. The lights came up shortly afterward Was it Marielle’s imagination, or had Austin gotten a touch closer to her during the darkness? She sighed and glanced around at everyone else. On her other side, Mateo and Jamie exchanged anxious expressions.
John’s body began to flicker—not in and out of reality, but in varying shades of blue as he partially disappeared, erratically destabilizing and reforming. To everyone’s shock, John began to lift off the table. Then, in an instant, he vanished entirely. They all gasped.
Vincent held up a hand as if urging them to wait while he studied one of the machines. “He’s still here.”
At that moment, John rematerialized against the glass, a lightning-eyed apparition whose guttural screams sounded like they came from the pit of hell itself. One hand slowly crumbled to dust, while the other pressed against the observation window as if trying to escape.
Sabine rushed to the glass, stretching out to him desperately. “Help him!” she cried. Marielle put her fingers to her mouth in despair and shock at hearing Sabine so distraught. Austin tucked her under his arm for a moment, then let her go after a quick squeeze.
Vincent dashed to John and injected his backup concoction into his neck. “Find sleep, friend, sleep. It will be over soon,” he whispered tenderly.
John’s forehead slumped against the glass, then he slowly crumbled to blue dust and vanished. Everyone gasped again, and again, Vincent held a hand up to reassure them.
From the corner of her right eye, Marielle saw Austin glance down and tug his sleeve. Apparently, this made him squeamish. She filed that for later and continued to watch in horror.
Everything was still for a moment. Finally, John’s body reappeared on the bed. He was asleep, breathing well, and seemingly at peace. The machines continued their gentle thrumming.
The entire room seemed to let out a collective breath. Sabine put a trembling hand over her heart.
Liam stepped toward the round room. “What happened?” he asked as Vincent and Klara emerged, the layered shield sliding back into place.
Vincent paused for a moment. “It was a miscalculation, I think.”
“I think it was my fault,” Klara stated.
Vincent shook his head. “No, no, it was mine. Remember, I’m not dealing with the John from my world. I’m trying to adjust, but… échec.” He weighed imaginary scales in his hands. Marielle gave him a pointed look to remind him that most people didn’t speak French. “Failure,” he added. She gave him a half smile.
“Can you reconfigure?” Liam pressed.
“No, God, no!”
That had been Sabine. Everyone turned to her in shock. They were so used to the bitter, blunt Sabine that this sounded like an entirely different person.
“No more. Leave him alone,” she said, shaking. Becoming aware of her outburst, she turned away and moved aimlessly toward the exit, rubbing her temples with her fingertips. She stopped just short of leaving and crossed her arms.
Vincent approached her from behind, his movements precisely timed and calculated, as though he was approaching a viper ready to strike. “Sabine, I told you…” She lifted her head a little, listening to him speak. “Peter is not in there. Not in the way you think.”
Marielle didn’t like this interaction between them, but she let it go. Vincent was so tender that it was difficult not to find him attractive and want to be closer to him despite her mild jealousy. Austin cleared his throat as if telling her not to stare or make herself too obvious. Marielle straightened up.
“I’m going to keep trying,” Vincent told Sabine. Then he stopped, licking his lips as he tried to find the next words. “But Peter is gone. You must accept this if you are going to heal.” Sabine straightened and turned to him, her face wet. Marielle put her hand to her mouth, wanting to reach out to her but knowing she’d be rejected. “Do you promise me…? Do you promise me my son is not in there to pull back out in any way?” she pleaded, her eyes desperate and tired.
Vincent took a deep breath in and out, then slowly got down onto his knees and looked up at Sabine. “I promise you,” he breathed. “And if you ever discover differently for any reason, I will get back on my knees as I am now and let you put a bullet in my head.”
Sabine turned away from him, wiping her eyes. Marielle swallowed, wishing she could go to them both but unable to make even the smallest move. She could see the finality of it all sink in for Sabine. Peter was gone. Particles of him remained forever meshed with John’s body, but he was in no way retrievable. Extracting him would just be pulling out dust… That was more than Sabine had buried, but it didn’t matter now.
Marielle’s mind glossed over the memory of the funeral. Peter’s little coffin had slid down into the earth with nothing inside except a few mementos she had helped Sabine choose for burial. A soft, blue blanket with his name embroidered on the bottom in gold. A picture of him, the last one they had taken professionally at a nearby mall. A glass ornament that said, “Baby’s First Christmas.” A stuffed black cat named Felix.
These were the forever companions of an empty tomb, whispering his name, covering him in the cold and comforting him when he missed his cat. For a moment, she wondered in vain if they were lonely. They rested near Morgan, whose wooden box was also empty. In his, Sabine had put a bottle of champagne they’d received on their first wedding anniversary but had never drunk, a wedding photo, a dried rose he had given her during their first date, several ticket stubs to movies and shows and a baseball game… and last of all, her wedding ring.
Marielle wondered if Sabine was remembering all of this too, and by the expression of grief on the other woman’s face, she thought she was. There was silence for a long time.
“Okay, we’ll try again,” Sabine finally said in a shaky voice. “But not right now. I can’t do any more today.” She looked over her left shoulder at Vincent, then back at the round room. “He was family, too.”
At this, she quickly pushed through the exit door, removing her white coat on the way out. Vincent hung his head for a moment and put a white-knuckled fist to the ground. He stood, taking in a deep pull of air.
“I didn’t want this to happen,” he said quietly.
“It’s okay, soldier. John is all right. You’re working it out,” Liam reassured him, then looked to Barbara. “Take a break, folks. Get some lunch and get back to your daily duties.”
The gathered agents scattered a bit. Liam and Barbara left.
Marielle straightened. “Oh, I forgot! I stopped at the store last night.” She went to Vincent and reached into her pocket, pulling out a small square of foil-wrapped chocolate. Austin looked down and turned, leaning against the wall with Mateo and Jamie, who were whispering about something.
Vincent looked down at the chocolate in her hand and smiled. He opened it and took a small bite from the side. It was dark chocolate with orange peel, a famous French brand. “This is one of my favorites. You read my mind, Marielle.”
She flushed a little. “Is it good?” she asked, wanting him to lean in and kiss her so she could taste it on his lips.
“It’s wonderful, Marielle.” Again, he reached over and tucked some of her hair behind her ear. She bit her bottom lip, feeling warmth blaze in her cheeks.
“Do you want your tie back?” Klara asked suddenly, holding it out to him.
“I forgot all about that,” he replied with a laugh as he took it from her. “I mean, I could never wear that jacket, but on you? Superb.”
“You don’t think you could wear my jacket?” Klara asked, a bit confused. She was already taking it off for him to try on.
Marielle couldn’t hide an amused grin, so Vincent set the chocolate aside, removed his lab coat, and put the jacket on. It was big and awkward on him.
“How did you get into it?” Klara asked, shaking her head incredulously. “I’m not sure what the right word is…”
“Macklemore,” Austin said. “The right word is Macklemore.” And then he stalked out of the room.
Jamie and Mateo burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter. “You’re right, bro!” Mateo shouted after Austin. “He does look like Macklemore.”
Jamie marched off toward the exit singing the chorus of “Thrift Store” under his breath.
Klara and Kirra giggled under their breath, and Marielle couldn’t help but do the same.
“Oh, come on, you guys. I got enough of this at school.” Vincent gave a small, abashed chuckle as he handed the big yellow coat back to Klara.
“Uh-huh,” Kirra said dismissively, then sauntered out to go find some food.
“You were bullied in school?” Marielle asked.
He swallowed hard, taking the rest of the chocolate and popping it into his mouth. “That’s one way of putting it.”
She paused for a moment, processing. “One way?”
He turned, giving her his full, undivided attention. “Marielle, in other countries, bullying isn’t just words. Children are far more brutal. It starts with words, then hitting, then attacking, then hazing.” He paused for a moment as if remembering. “There was a time when I was running. I was ten. There were six, maybe seven of them.” He glanced down. “I was naked. They chased me, and I hid. They found me. I ran again.”
She looked up at him, horrified. He forced a compassionate smile and put his hands on the sides of her face, pressing gently. Then he quickly leaned in and kissed her—nothing fancy, just lips against lips for a half second. It was almost a friendly kiss. Regardless of its lack of romance, her eyes rounded in shock, which melted into something dreamy and drunk.
Vincent tried to contain a smile. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t stand the look on your face, so I had to find a way to change it.” he explained.
He let go of her and turned to a nearby table, pouring a clear liquid with a pink glow from one tube into another. For a moment, both were silent. Marielle drummed her lip, which tingled for more, although she decided not to press it.
“What happened?” she asked instead.
He set down the vials and turned, leaning against the table and crossing his arms. Why was everything he did attractive to her? She steeled herself. “I was running, and I tripped… sprained my ankle. Noir et bleu…”
He shook his head and put the final bit of chocolate into his mouth. “Mmm, so good,” he mused. Then he continued the story. “They were coming. I couldn’t get up. I began to close my eyes and pray. ‘God, let me disappear. Please, God, I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.’ I imagined disappearing… And then it happened. I vanished.”
“Where did you go?”
“I don’t exactly remember, but I knew I had teleported. It was the first time. I was in some bushes near a house. I waited there until nightfall and found my way back home. My mother was… engaged,” he said, making it clear he meant something else. “I snuck in, I bathed, I went to bed.” He smirked. “I teleported, Marielle. I realized everything was about to change. Then one day, I looked in the mirror and I didn’t see myself anymore.”
“Who did you see?”
“I mean, it was me, but the acne had gone. The fear had… vanished. I’d spent the summer hauling boxes and I’d grown.” He squeezed his own arm, and she blushed a little. “I wasn’t me anymore. I was Chamber.”
“And the bullies?”
“What they don’t know is that if they picked a fight with me now, I could easily kill all of them. They all have mundane lives. I found out years later that one of them died in a work-related accident. None of them were brave enough to touch me again after they saw what I could do during recess with a target and practice bow and arrows.”
Marielle took a deep breath, glad to have heard all of this from him. “I am grateful to them, Marielle.” She narrowed her eyes at him, questioning. “They helped to make me who I am.” Her expression remained unclear, and he gave her a small, sorrowful smile. “I am Chamber… and I am also Vincent Michele Fabron. But I would be neither without my experiences and the decisions I’ve made.” He turned back to the tubes and began to shift them around again.
“I’m sorry,” Marielle said quietly, her tone full of compassion. “It—the bullying—it’s not in the profile. Well, not in your personality, anyway. I see it in other ways.”
He stopped for a moment. “I could feel a change happening within me. I knew that if I let them win, they would win for the rest of my life. I removed any hint of embarrassment, bitterness, hatred, scorn, desire for revenge. It was the one thing I refused to hold on to. I just”—he made a small slicing motion with his right hand—“shut it off.”
She looked at his tattoos. “But the tattoos…” Her voice trailed off. People with childhood trauma, notably severe hazing and bullying, often tended to self-mutilate or decorate in some way.
“Oui,” he replied, the ghost of a smile resting at the left corner of his mouth. “I know how the profile works.”
She reached over and gently fingered one of the circular swirls of gold embedded in his lower arm. He smiled faintly, gazing into her green eyes. “Vincent…? You kissed me.”
“Oh, you caught that?” he teased.
Flushing, she nodded. “Okay… I have to go,” she said, feeling hot all over and reminding herself it was the lack of proper AC in this dumb cement building. “I have a few appointments, and you need to get back to work.”
Once she was gone, he tucked in his bottom lip and sucked on it briefly. “Mmm,” he mused, then poured another pale liquid into the tube he had been handling.