Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

Madison curled up on one of the sofas, arms crossed over her chest, staring into the recesses of the warehouse. Her hatred seemed to taint the air, and the whole atmosphere felt heavy and unwelcoming. Josie had viewed the warehouse as a safe haven, the only place in this world where she could actually be herself and not Jo. Without realizing it, she’d actually been looking forward to coming back to that place where people, regardless of whether they believed her, actually knew her secret. There was a sense of comfort in it that had now vanished in the face of Madison’s cold, impenetrable disgust, and despite herself, Josie yearned for Nick’s presence.

“So do I have this right?” Penelope said, breaking the uncomfortable silence. “You’re not actually Jo Byrne?”

“That’s right. I’m Josie.”

“Huh.” Penelope wasn’t quite convinced. She stood behind the table with a haphazard stack of books open in front of her, eyeing Josie with suspicion. Physics, quantum mechanics, string theory. Some were titles she recognized; some were completely foreign.

“Wow,” Josie said, examining one of the spines. “You have Feynmann here too?”

Penelope tilted her head to one side. “Yeah,” she said slowly, suspicion dripping from the long, drawn-out syllable.

Josie flipped through the book. “I’d never really thought about it before, but the laws of physics should—in theory—be uniform across both of our worlds. Which means the conclusions of science should be at least similar.”

“Einstein?” Penelope said. “Relativity?”

“ E equals mc squared,” Josie recited.

“Quantum mechanics?”

“Copenhagen Interpretation or a many-worlds theory?” Josie asked quickly.

Penelope arched an eyebrow. “Unifying theories between the two?”

Josie smiled. “Too many to list. You want my favorite or should I give you the greatest hits?”

Penelope stared at her, eyes wide and gleaming in excitement, yet her face was still tense, her body closed off, and she stood angled toward the door as if she might make a break for it at any moment. She opened her mouth to say something, paused, then slowly scratched her cheek. Josie couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” Penelope said sharply. “Why are you smiling?”

“You’re scratching your cheek,” Josie said. “My friend Penelope always does that when she’s trying to figure out a problem.”

“Your friend Penelope?” Madison said with a breathy laugh. “That’s a good one.”

“Why?” Josie asked.

“Give it a rest,” Madison said. She shifted her position on the sofa to face Josie. “You’ve done nothing but bully Pen into doing your homework since sixth grade. Then when her dad lost his job last year, you promised you’d keep them off the No Access For Nonpayment list at the Grid, if she helped you pass physics. Not exactly the foundations of a friendship.”

“The Grid actually cuts people off for nonpayment? With the Nox out there?” Josie asked, horrified. “I thought Jo was just bluffing. What do you do if you can’t get power?”

Madison narrowed her eyes. “The shelters, duh. Like debtor’s prison for people who can’t afford to pay to keep the lights on.”

“We cut back on everything to keep up our Grid payments,” Penelope said softly. “Sold Mom’s car, shut off the cable, even cut back on food. We’re still barely making it.”

Josie felt sick. “That’s awful. Pen, I’m so sorry.”

“Sure you are.” Madison chortled. “Really sorry you have someone doing all your homework for you.”

Josie set her jaw. “Do I sound like someone who needs help with their homework? Or perhaps you’d like to explain the differences between the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and Schrödinger’s cat? Or riff on quantum field theory and how it might explain quantum gravity and, eventually, how the hell I ended up here in the first place?”

Madison shot to her feet. “I don’t care what words you memorized or how you’ve managed to fool Jackson and Nick and even Penelope over there.”

“Hey,” Penelope said, sounding hurt. “I’m in the room.”

Madison barreled on. “But you aren’t conning me with your sci-fi bullshit, okay? So give it a rest.”

“Just because you can’t wrap your brain around complex physics,” Josie said, “doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

Penelope slapped her hand against the table. “Enough. Both of you.”

Her voice was so forceful it caught Josie off guard. She’d never so much as heard Penelope raise her voice, let alone snap at her. Madison must have had the same reaction. Both of them sat back and stared at Penelope.

“Good,” Penelope said, slightly out of breath. “You didn’t bring me here to referee, did you?” Her voice squeaked and her face was flushed pink.

Josie laughed. She couldn’t help it. “No.”

“That’s what I thought.” Penelope cleared her throat and took a deep breath. Josie watched with some amusement as Penelope muttered under her breath, as if she needed to calm herself down, then lifted her chin and smiled. “Now should we talk about quantum gravity?”

There was something inexplicably hilarious about Penelope’s statement. Just the facts, plain and simple. Josie was trying hard to suppress her laughter, struggling to keep the giggling under wraps. She looked up and saw that Madison was smiling too, her body jerking every second as she tried to keep from erupting into laughter as well.

Madison caught Josie’s eye and as the two girls looked at each other, Josie felt the tension between them ease. She wasn’t sure if she’d earned a smidgen of respect or if Madison was just tired of fighting, but with an almost imperceptible nod of her head—a cease-fire in the heat of battle—Madison swung around and got to her feet.

“I guess quantum gravity it is.”

5:47 P.M.

PENELOPE PUSHED THE BOOK AWAY AND SANK her head into her hands. “Which still doesn’t explain exactly how the portal was created.”

Josie and Penelope had been at it for well over an hour, poring over a variety of books as they searched for anything that might explain how the portal had opened between Jo’s and Josie’s worlds. They’d covered everything from theoretical extra dimensions to pseudoparanormal studies, and still nothing quite explained the flash, the mirror, and the portal that opened every twelve hours.

Madison had been quiet, flipping through the discarded books, but she was far from disinterested. She watched Josie closely, listened to every word that came out of her mouth, and Josie couldn’t help but wonder if her reticence to believe Josie’s story had faltered in any way.

“Okay,” Josie said, closing the book in front of her. “Let’s start crossing things off the list, at least.” Her mom always taught her that when faced with a seemingly unanswerable problem, the best tactic was to eliminate impossible answers first, and whatever you were left with, however improbable, had to be the truth. She picked up a book on time travel and chucked it onto the sofa. “It’s not a time loop. Our worlds are too dissimilar to be replaying themselves.”

“Right.” Penelope grabbed two more books and walked them over to the sofa. “I don’t think it’s a holographic multiverse either. Same reason: our worlds are too different.”

“A what-what?” Madison asked.

“It’s a theory of parallel universes,” Josie explained. “Based on the holographic principle. Meaning that every universe has a mirror image, exactly the same in every way.”

Madison stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “I swear you two are speaking a foreign language.”