Page 17 of The Other World

It took me longer than I’d have liked, but before the next test started, I had all the cameras offline and was halfway to disabling the rest of the tests. I was almost done when Nikolai started pulling me away from the keyboard.

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

With my attention pulled away from the screen, I could hear something, a high whining. Engines, I realized. I swore.

“I just need a second,” I said, shrugging him off.

By the time I finished typing the string of code that would corrupt not-dad’s system enough to stop the testing, Nikolai was halfway down the ladder.

“Come on,” I said, jumping down the last few rungs. “This way.”

I figured our best bet was the south-west potential-Sams. Since there were two of them, there was twice as much chance that one was the Sam I was looking for.

The forest floor was muddy from all the toxic acid that had been dumped during the tests, and the air was hard to breathe. The engines whined even louder but I doubted they could track us through the thick trees, not now that I’d disabled more of their scanning equipment.

“You’re going to get us killed.” Nikolai was right behind me. I thought maybe he’d struggle to keep up but he was fine so far.

It was impossible to know if I was keeping to the right direction, or even if the potential-Sams were in the same place, but either way, I had to keep going until I found them. There were only eight of the test subjects left, and I’d get them all out if I could, but my main priority was Sam.

It became impossible to run. The forest was so thick and the ground so uneven that it was too dangerous, and actually faster to go at a slower but steadier pace. The sound of the engines grew more distant, and as we thrashed our way through, Nikolai decided it was safe enough to talk.

“Who are you?” he demanded.

I decided to play dumb. “You know who I am,” I said.

He snorted. “I knew from the start something was off but at first I thought maybe Lucy was just…” He trailed off.

“Just what?” I asked.

He shook his head. “But you’re not her.” It wasn’t a question. “You’re nothing like her. So, what are you? A spy? One of her father’s creations?”

I sighed. “If I tell you, will you answer some of my questions?”

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously that depends on who you are.”

That seemed fair. Maybe I shouldn’t have trusted him. HewasNikolai. But he was Nikolai. Even if he wasn’t the Nikolaifrom my world, he was so alike that I couldn’t help but think of him as pack. So, I told him the truth.

“I’m Lucy from a parallel world.”

I didn’t expect him to believe me, but he just shrugged. “Seems legit,” he said. “Explains a lot, actually.”

“So now it’s your turn,” I said. “What were you planning to do to take down evil Dad?”

“Taser,” he said simply.

I snorted. “You’re kidding.”

“What?” he said. “You were going to taser him. He electrocuted himself a few weeks ago and was out for a few minutes, that’s what gave us the idea. He’s so heavily protected, it was the first weakness we could find. We were going to tase him then tie him up, change all the access codes and then lock him in his own dungeons.”

I raised my eyebrows. “You really think that would have worked? Hasn’t he been siphoning off the power from all the people he’s been torturing? You really think you can just shock him and take over his evil empire? That is literally the worst plan I’ve ever heard and I have heard some terrible plans in my time.”

“Pleasetell me I’m not dating you in this other universe,” he said.

I snorted.

“Good,” he said. “So, what are you even trying to do here?”

I hesitated. There was no way he’d told me the whole story about their lame plan, so I wasn’t going to give away everything either. I told him about Sam, about how he’d fallen into this world and I was here trying to save him. Nikolai nodded thoughtfully, then tripped over a tree root.

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