Sherry Ficklin - Extracted

“Lex, please don’t let go,” Stein pleads.

Breaking into a sprint, I run as fast as my leg will allow, but neither has seen me, seen us. Ember and Nobel rush past me. Ember lunges for the cliff, grabbing Stein with two hands. Ethan is only half a second behind her, clutching Stein by the back of her shirt. Nobel attacks the Gear Head preoccupied with greedily cutting off my leg. He shoves a screwdriver into the base of its clear dome skull. Sparks fly and it hisses like a ticked-off snake. Nobel pries the pincers from the other Lex’s calf muscle and throws it to the side. It lands in a heap against some rocks, like a broken toy.

Nobel is pulling the other Lex away from the cliff as he flails, confused by what is happening. I dive in beside him, grabbing the hand that just let go of Stein. Ember, Ethan, and I pull Stein up the rocky cliff face to safety. Stein lies there, breathing heavily, looking to me, then to the other me, and back again. Ember and Ethan stand up. Stepping back, she clutches herself to him. He wraps his arms around her, kissing the top of her head. Nobel makes a quick tourniquet for the other Lex’s leg. I lie by Stein, wishing I could hold her like Ethan is holding Ember. But I don’t reach out to her. She’s looking confused and a little scared, her attention rapt on where the other me is being patched up.

“Stein,” I say gently. “Look at me.”

Stein slowly turns her head in my direction. Our eyes connect and she throws her arms around my neck. I breathe in the smell of her and close my eyes.

I take her hand and we stand. Nobel crouches by the side of the other Lex, putting pressure on the leg wound while that Lex goes in and out of consciousness.

“What’s going on?” Stein finally asks. She can do the math. Two strangers, one Nobel, one Stein—and two Lexs.

“We came to save you, Stein,” I say, brushing her cheek with my fingertips. “I stole some tech from Tesla so I could come back for you.”

Stein looks down at my leg, then back up at me like I’m some kind of freak. She drops my hand and backs away, going to Nobel’s side. The shock is fast and hard. It feels like I’ve just been sucker punched, and it’s hard to breathe. I tense, squaring my shoulders and trying to keep my expression neutral.

She bends over the other Lex. “Nobel, would you be so kind as to fill in the blanks for me? I feel like I may have missed some minor details.”

“Lex and I came back to save you, just like he said.”

Stein frowns, pointing at me. “I’m gonna need more than that.”

I walk over to them. My leg hisses at Stein as if it doesn’t approve of her.

“You died. You fell off the cliff, and I got my leg sawed off by a Gear Head. But I didn’t want to lose you. I couldn’t lose you. So I—we—came back to save you.”

“Nobel, help me up,” the other Lex demands.

Nobel and Stein each hold out a hand and pull him to his feet.

He limps forward, looking me over.

“Oh yeah. This can’t be good,” he says with a laugh.

It’s strange. It’s like looking in a mirror, only…not. I agree with him. This can’t be good. “Yeah, well, you think that’s weird. I never thought I’d see myself with a leg again, albeit a mangled one.”

I also never would have thought in a million years that I’d have to compete with myself for my own girlfriend. I shake my head. “I have got to think these things through better.”

The alternate Lex turns around to look at the strangers in his periphery.

“Anya?” he asks, stumbling toward her.

“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. So, our sister is alive, too,” I say with a shrug, still staring at my alternate self. Maybe I can toss him off the cliff.

As if reading my mind, Stein looks at me and glares.

Ember steps between us, blocking me from view.

“But, how are you here? I thought you were dead.” The other Lex turns to me. “The tech you used to save Stein, did you use it to save our family as well?”

The hope in his eyes is like a knife in my chest. I shake my head.

Just as the hope dies, Ember reaches him and throws her arms around him, hugging him tightly. But behind his back her eyes are locked on mine in a silent question.

What now?

“How did you escape the fire?” he asks Ember.

“I was with Tesla Institute,” she tells him.

“Look, we should probably get out of here,” the other Lex says, looking at me. “I’m getting a little light-headed from the blood loss.”

“That might be easier said than done,” Ember says, pointing beyond the cliff, where the sky is moving like ripples in a pond.

EMBER

Lex pulls his backpack over one shoulder and fumbles to unzip it while staring at the strange waves. In a flash of white light the sky splits, tearing open like a burst seam. Inside the gaping wound is darkness and swirling wind. For a moment we are safe, but then the vortex begins to pull us forward. Dust flows toward the cyclone, giving it substance. A bolt of lightning crashes to the ground in front of it. Loose dust and small gravel rush past my boots and are eaten by the darkness.

My hair whips into my face. I glance at the others. A tornado of sand and stone taller than a building is sucking us forward. Beside me Ethan braces himself, grabbing me with one arm and holding the other out for balance. Nobel steps up behind me, pulling me by the shoulders while Stein wraps herself in the other Lex’s arms. Lex pulls the Dox out of his pack, looks up, and sees them.

A look of unexpected pain washes across his face. Maybe no one else sees it, but I catch it, and it makes my heart ache for him. After everything he’s gone through to save the girl he loves, he still might end up without her. It doesn’t seem fair. I want to comfort him, but before I can the vacuum doubles in strength and we all skid forward in the dirt, leaving tracks behind us. In his hands, the Dox glows faintly.

“Now what?” he asks, looking to me.

I shake my head. “I have no idea. It was never tested, remember?”

The vacuum intensifies again and I pitch face-first into the dirt. Ethan’s not far behind me. I hit the ground so hard my teeth ache from being snapped together. Ethan rolls over, covering me with his body, pinning me to the ground. Something about his weight makes me feel safer, less frantic. But there’s something else, too. Another sensation I’m not completely familiar with. It’s almost… wonderful, even in the chaos. It feels like, as long as we’re together, everything will be all right.

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast,” Ethan orders Lex, who is violently shaking the Dox. It glows for a moment, then fades like a jar full of dying lightning bugs. Lex is chewing on his bottom lip and perspiration beads on his face. His jester’s hat is sucked off his head. He reaches back to catch it, but it’s useless. It’s gone. Vanishing into the void.

“Maybe we have to get it closer to the tear,” Nobel chimes in from where he crouches beside me. I want to slap him. The last thing I want is for Lex to get closer to the blackhole. My brother slaps the Dox with the palm of his hand. He looks to me, his eyes full of helpless frustration.

“Maybe we should have stolen the directions, too,” he jokes uncomfortably.

It’s how he hides his fear. Something he learned from our father. He looks like our father to me now. Older. Harder. And with a grim smile that tells me he doesn’t expect things to end well.

Stein screams, but the sound is eaten by the blackhole, which is now the size of a house. The other Lex has slipped from her grip and is skidding out of control toward the tear as if being pulled by an invisible rope around his ankles. His arms flail as he gropes for something to hold on to. But there’s nothing. Just loose gravel and sand.