Ping.

“Damn it!”

I’m standing in the kitchen holding a small stack of plates. Plates that belong on the top shelf. A shelf that is distinctly out of my reach.

I’d been lucky on the job lottery this week and gotten lunch dishes. Since it’s a school week, that means I only have to do them Saturday and Sunday. That means that this is my first time on kitchen duty since I became a ticking bomb.

I’m ninety-nine percent sure that the shelves haven’t changed since the last time I had kitchen duty. I hadn’t had trouble putting away the dishes before. I hadn’t even particularly noticed that the shelves were out of reach. I hadn’t noticed this time, either, until I’d reached to put the dishes away and pinged.

I can’t even figure out what I had been doing before. It’s obvious I can’t reach without using a stool or climbing on the counter, or, I suppose, jumping. But I hadn’t thought about it before. I had just done it.

“What’s wrong?” Cindy comes in from the dining room. She’s been studying out there, waiting for me to finish. “That’s the first time I’ve heard you swear.”

That was probably true. My father swore all the time, so it was another thing I tended to avoid. “I’m short,” I say.

“You’re just now noticing that? What clued you in? The fact that every single kid here is taller than you?”

“What about Zoe?”

“Fine, sixteen out of seventeen. Maybe,” she concedes, “Now, what’s going on?”

“I can’t reach the top shelf to put these dishes away.”

“There’s a stool right over there. How did you do it last time?”

“I don’t know!”

I tell her about the meter. And the pings. I still leave out the part where I could depopulate the greater Austin area. I need a little sympathy.

She bursts out laughing.

“Oh no! It turns out being short actually has some disadvantages! The horror!”

I glare at her until she settles down.

“Was it a big ping?” she finally asks.

“No. Why?”

“So you won’t melt into a puddle or anything.”

“No . . .”

“I want to see you do it,” she says, “Just don’t think about it, and ignore the ping.”

I think about it.

“Please?”

“Fine.”

I clear my mind, take the stack of plates, and not giving myself the chance to think about it, put them on the top shelf. Huh. I’m still not sure what I just did. I turn around to ask Cindy.

She is staring at me with a stunned look on her face.

“What?” I ask, “What did it look like?”

“Never do that in front of me again.”

“But you---”

She turns and walked out.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

The rest of my afternoon is not looking exciting. I get a text from Valeria saying she is going to take a nap, to rest up for tonight. I have to admit it’s a good idea, even though I’d been hoping to maybe hang out and do something with her other than fight monsters or make out while floating over the city. Although the making out is pretty nice.

Most of the other kids are doing homework or studying for midterms. I’m caught up on both, since even with the random monster generator running at full, I still have a lot of empty hours at night. I’m saving my allowance to pay Rachel back, so I don’t want to spend it on a movie, even at the dollar theaters because a) they suck, and b) what’s the point in going to a movie at a theater by yourself?

That leaves moping, which I happen to be well prepared for. I start with feeling sorry for myself because I can’t use my abilities at full strength anymore. Then I sort of segue into feeling guilty about feeling sorry for myself. I ease back into self pity by thinking about the fact that my Aunt Tabitha’s wife hates me so I won’t get to see much of my Aunt. Of course then I get to feel guilty about not being more grateful that Aunt Tabitha is alive. It makes for a tight schedule, but I manage to fit it all in by dinner.

The one break in my one-girl pity party happens around three. Suddenly, Valeria isn’t there. I’m not sure what that means. I hadn’t been thinking about her in particular, and definitely hadn’t been orienting on her. I just get the sudden feeling she’s gone.

I look up her location on my phone, and it says that she, or at least her phone, is still at home. The feeling only lasts a minute or so, then it goes away. I almost call her to check on her, but she really needs her rest. I chalk it up to my general anxiety and let it go.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

“Okay, what happened?” Kristen finally asks.

We’re done eating, but are still sitting around Table D. Cindy and I have been avoiding each other’s gazes all evening. We’re dragging the whole table down.

“I put some plates on a high shelf.”

That just isn’t enough of an explanation for some people. Rather than give any more detail, I look at Cindy, waiting for her to give her side.

“It was creepy, okay?”

That isn’t enough either.

“It’s just,” Cindy continues, “She was standing there, and she put the plates away. She didn’t get taller. The shelf didn’t get lower. She didn’t jump or fly. She just reached up and put them away. She didn’t go all elastic-stretchy, or anything.”

“So why is that so creepy?” Henry asks.

“It just didn’t make any sense.”

Of course, the others all want to see it. I stand firm on this one. If it freaked Cindy out this much, I’m going to risk getting the whole gang weirded out by me. So dinner ends on a grumpy note, with everyone except Kelly pissed off or freaked out by me.

I make a mental note to use the stool from now on.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

I’m already lying on the roof watching the stars, what I can see of them through the city glare, when the chime sounds for the evening. I spot Valeria above me before I fall straight up.

For a few minutes, the world is perfect.

“We should be paying better attention.”

“Yeah.”

We switch to our back-to-back position. It’s comfortable, if a bit chilly up here. I hadn’t really noticed, but Valeria is bundled up and still shivering.

ping.

I wrap a blanket around the two of us.

“Thanks,” she says, “You know, I had the weirdest nightmare while I was napping.”

“Yeah?”

She had woken up, not in her bed, but in a dark, tight compartment. There were little dials in front of her, but they were marked in a strange language. And she ached. Her body just felt tired and achy, with lots of sharp little pains all over. She even had trouble thinking clearly.

I’m getting a bad feeling about this.

“I don’t usually feel things in my dreams. Not much, anyway,” She says, “Anyway I started freaking out and pushing on the, I don’t know, lid, I guess. I heard voices, then suddenly I woke up back in bed.”

“What time did you wake up?”

“Just after three.”

Crap.

“What?”

I guess being pressed up against someone is almost as good as being able to see their face.

“You went away around three.”

I explain about the sense of connection I feel with people I’m close to. It hadn’t come up again since the night over the library, especially since I can’t safely use it anymore.

She shifts our positions so we’re face to face again.

“So what are you saying?”

“I think I know why you’re all young and good looking.”

Her phone rings with the tone she has set for monster alerts. She reads the message.

“Tell me on the way. It looks like a big one.”

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

“It” is a pack of spider-lizards, or possible lizard-spiders. Technically neither, since they have ten legs, but, close enough. The metallic scales covering their bodies remind me a little of the minotaur.

Sitting this one out is not an option. There are at least fifty of them, moving along the river, headed for downtown. Right toward the club district where thousands of people are out partying.

On our way, we had passed over some police setting up barricades. A couple of S.W.A.T. vans were there, and cops were setting up with heavy weapons on the roof. I really hope we can stop the things before they get there.

Helen and Tim are both there, zapping around, frying spider-lizards left and right. Alan is dealing with one at a time, lifting them high up and dropping them. He must not be practicing as much as Valeria, because he doesn’t have anywhere near her finesse.

Valeria doesn’t bother setting me down before we get there. There’s no time for games. She swoops in low to drop me off, then immediately regains altitude. As I roll to my feet, I ignore the light pinging as I let myself slip slightly into the zone. Just enough to increase my edge a bit.

I wade into the mass with TMI swinging like a machete. The spider-lizards are three feet tall with a leg-span of six feet or so. They’re fast, but I’m faster. I decide that the safest place to be is on the back of one. Which says something about my decision making abilities, I’m sure.

It works pretty well. I leap onto one, bring TMI down on its skull, and as it collapses, jump to the next. I get a rhythm going pretty quickly.

Valeria, in the meantime, is dealing with more than any of the rest of us. She focuses on one of the leading spider-lizards and sweeps it back at five g’s or so. She even manages to give it some spin, so it’s cleared a six foot path through the herd by the time it comes apart and she moves on to another one.

Tim also makes a respectable showing. He stands off to the side of the herd, sending bolts of lightning at dense patches of spider-lizard. A bolt generally takes out the one it hits, and slows the ones next to it. As we eliminate the leading edge of the pack, he zaps himself into position to attack the remainder.

There are way more than the fifty we’d first heard about. I take care of at least fifteen (okay, I know that I’ve killed exactly eighteen at this point) myself, and they are still coming. At some point in there Jay had shown up, along with Beth (the girl with the same powers as him) and they are now both in the thick of it.

Beth is being efficient, stab one through the brain with a crystal sword, move on to the next. She ignores their jaws slipping off her glass shield. Jay on the other hand picks one and hacks it to bits before moving on to the next. There might be some anger issues there. As a result, he’s eliminating about a third as many as Beth.

There’s no end in sight. We’ve slowed them down, a lot, but the goo from dissolving monsters is piling up, and they just keep coming. I take a moment to swing up onto a street light to get a better look.

They’re coming up out of the lake about ninety yards away. Great. So far as I know, none of the chosen can breathe underwater. Neither can I, but I know that I can hold my breath for at least fifteen minutes (ah, those boring nights before the nightly monster attacks), so I seem like the best candidate to trace them to their source. I smash a couple of spider-lizards on my way to the shore and dive in.

It’s dark under the water. This might not have been my best idea ever. I pull out a waterproof flashlight and flick it on.

Luckily, the spider-lizards aren’t swimming. They’re walking along the lake bottom, like lobsters. Lobster-lizards? Too late, they should have mentioned that before I named them. I trace the line of creatures across the lake to the other side, under a railroad bridge. I climb ashore fifty feet away and blink my clothes dry.

The spider-lizards are coming out of a hole under the bridge. Aside from the purplish-white glow, the odd thing about the hole was that it floats two feet off the ground. Okay, it doesn’t actually look like a hole at all. More like a glowing disc. But it is a hole. I know.

I watch for a few seconds. A spider-lizard pops out about every quarter-second or so. They mill about , then run off in the same direction as the others, in groups of five to eight. I need to close the hole.

I’m about twenty feet away when I start to ping. I stop. Take a step backwards. The ping stops. Forward. Ping. Backwards. No ping. Crap.

This is worth spending my precious minutes on.

I get out my phone and dial Valeria.

“Sort of busy here,” she answers.

“So, multitask. Anyone else show up yet?”

“The gang’s all here. Where are you?”

“Across the lake by the bridge.”

I look back toward the main fight. I can see Valeria above the trees. I wave the flashlight and blink it on and off. Like old times.

“Gotcha. Hold on.”

There’s pause, and some cursing in the background.

“That idiot got himself dog-piled. I pulled him clear.”

“Jay?”

“Who else?”

I give her a description of the source of the spider-lizards, including the fact that I need to stay back.

“Can we maybe get a few of you guys over here to try to close this thing?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

I hack away with TMI to kill time, and spider-lizards, until reinforcements can get here. I make a dent in their numbers, but the creatures are popping out too fast for me to completely stop the flow.

A few minutes later Valeria lands beside me with a guy in tow. I hadn’t met him yet, but I recognize him as the living statue from the videos of the first night (and a couple since). Beth comes in on a glass slide seconds later.

“Michelle and Tim will head over in a minute if we still need them,” Valeria says.

I look at Beth and the boy. Mark, I think.

“Hi, I’m Parker.”

“We know.”

Okay, then. I point at the hole.

“That’s it. Any ideas?”

Valeria started slamming the spider-lizards into one of the concrete supports of the bridge. She’s only getting every fourth one or so, but I figure the folks left on the other side will take care of the remainder.

“I’ve got nothing,” she says, squashing another spider-lizard.

The others shake their heads. Fine.

“How strong are you?” I ask Mark.

“Strong enough.”

“Strong enough to lift that?”

I point at a large fallen tree half in the water. It’s pretty huge; too huge for Valeria to do a full gravity reverse on. He studies it.

“It’s sort of awkward, but weight wise, maybe.”

I look at Beth.

“Ever do any tree trimming?”

I use TMI and Beth uses her glass swords to hack the bigger branches off the tree, rendering it into a very large log.

“Will that work?”

Mark walks over and tries to heft it. He pushes himself into the ground up to his knees.

“Hold on, I’ve got an idea,” says Beth, “Step back.”

Mark pulls himself free and takes a step back.

Beth walks up next to the tree and glass spreads out from her feet, coating the ground.

“Now try.”

It works. Mark stands on the glass and hefts the tree. He walks toward the hole with Beth paced him, keeping the ground in front of him coated with her glass shield. Mark looks at me.

“Now what?”

“Throw it in.”

Beth lifts a little ridge in the glass for Mark to brace against. He takes careful aim, and throws.

PING. The lights go out.

Or maybe they come on. All of them. Everywhere. That’s what it seems like to me at least. Just for an instant, not long enough for me to go critical. As best I can tell, there was a temporary bleed through from the other side of the hole when the tree went in.

When I can think again, the hole is gone, along with half the tree, and twelve people are staring at me. More than an instant, then.

“Oh good, you’re all here.”

I’m all about the good opener.

“I’ve got something I need to tell---”

Ping. But I’m not doing anything. ping. ping. ping. ping.

I can sense a little line stretching off from each of them, at ninety degrees to everything. I try to follow the line. Ping.

Crap.

I can see something else, too. Swirling around and through them. It’s when Jay stretches the glass field on his arm into a blade (ping) that I realize what I’m seeing. Their powers.

Jay’s and Beth’s are similar. So are Tim’s and Helen’s. And I’m getting a ping every time one of them uses them. Even when they don’t use the powers, I feel a connection to them. Like I’m drawing on their strength. I need to leave. Immediately.

“What is it?” ask Valeria.

“Why are we listening to him anyway?” Jay breaks in, before I can answer. Ass.

“ThepeoplewhogaveyouyourpowersarelyingtoyouandgoingtostealyourbodiesandIhavetogoawaybeforeIexplodeandtakethewholecitywithmebye.” And I run. There have been awkward situations where I have not panicked and run away. There have to have been. Not that I can think of any at the moment. I’m busy figuring out the best place to go.

I have no idea if any of them will chase me. I need to make sure they can’t find or catch me if they try, even if it means pushing myself closer to the edge. I hit sixty miles per hour before I’m out of their sight.

I can feel the people in the cars as I pass. Not like I could feel the other kids, but it’s still unnerving. That connection is what is going to drag everyone else along if I go nuclear.

I need to get away from people. Fast.

It is probably not a good idea to make a phone call while running at eighty-plus miles per hour, but I get away with it.

“Ms. Parker,” Deputy Marshall Miller answers, “Are you alright? How can I help you?”

Of course he’s awake.

“I need to get away from people.”

I reach my temporary destination, St. Edward’s Park. Aside from an unpaved parking lot, it’s undeveloped land, away from the heart of the city.

“Which people?”

I have to slow down in the park. It’s impractical to run at anything much over forty miles an hour through a wooded area, while talking on a cell phone.

“Ms. Parker?”

“Sorry. Busy. All of them. As many as possible.”

I reach the back end of the park. I can only feel the people familiar to me now, and none of them are more than a bright spot. I consider the possibility that I might not destroy the city tonight. That would be good.

“Ms. Parker?”

Right. The deputy marshal. I review the last few seconds. Ah. He’d asked what I was talking about. What was going on. I tell him.

“You probably shouldn’t try shooting me,” I add.

“We wouldn’t---”

“Oh come on. You have to at least be thinking about it. The life of one weird girl against a few million?”

He doesn’t say anything.

“It wouldn’t do any good, though. At this point I’d see it coming, and I don’t think I could make myself let it happen. It would probably tip the balance.”

“A helicopter is on the way. Where do you want to go?”

I tell him.

⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯

While I wait for the helicopter I call Aunt Tabitha.

“Hi Parker. Are you okay?”

She’s good.

“I’ve been better. Don’t worry though, it’ll work out soon.”

“Is it anything I can help with?”

“Not this time. Thanks, though. I just wanted to tell you that I love you.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“No, but I’ve got someone coming to help me out. I better get off the phone.”

“Hey, before you hang up. I wanted to let you know Rachel and I took our first class tonight. In just a few weeks we’ll be certified!”

“For what?”

“For the adoption. What else?”

“You’re adopting another kid?”

In my defense, I am very self-absorbed.

“Very funny, little one.”

“Wait. Me?”

“You and Rachel talked. She told you about the paperwork.”

Oh, that’s the paperwork she was talking about. Huh.

“You do want that, right?”

Is she crazy? Of course I want that. Just one little problem.

“I really, really do,” I say, “But I have to go now. I love you.”

“What’s going on, Parker?”

“Call me tomorrow, okay? Bye.”

I can hear the helicopter coming in. I have maybe fifteen seconds. I press another number on my phone.

“Parker, are you okay?”

I’m going to start answering the phone like that. Everyone else seems to.

“I’m fine for the moment, Val. What did the others say?”

“Once I translated from Parker to English?”

I knew it had been a long shot. But I had had to at least try to tell them.

“Yeah.”

“They’re skeptical. But they want to know what to do about it, if it’s true.”

“Wait, what? They’re actually considering it?”

“Well, Jay isn’t, but that’s because you’re the one who said it. Everyone else agreed that it made more sense than anything else we’ve thought of. But it’s still crazy. It helped that I told them about this afternoon.”

“Wow. Okay, then. Actually, I have no idea how to stop them. Maybe don’t go to sleep?”

“That’s not helpful. When are you coming back?”

“I don’t know.”

The helicopter is close now.

“My ride’s here,” I continue, “If I can, I’ll call you later. Thanks for everything.”

“What are you about to do? Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I just have to be away from everyone for a while. I love you.”

I hang up. Either she would have said it back or not. Either way, it would have hurt too much.

The beam of the helicopter’s searchlight stabs down through the trees. I jump straight up. I don’t want to crash the thing, so I jump just high enough to grab the landing strut, and roll into the cockpit.

“Holy shit!”

The pilot is a little surprised.

“Get as high as you can!” I yell, over the sound of the rotors, “And try to avoid populated areas!”

He nods. I’d already told that to Miller, but it won’t hurt to repeat it.

I don’t know what to do. As far as I can tell, I have exactly two sane options. Both involve reopening the Door. With either one, I need to be far away from anyone, in case I can’t hold myself together long enough to step through.

The simplest option is just that. Step through, and blow up out of the world. That would be that. No one else will get hurt. Maybe the gang at Table D would light a candle for me in a couple of weeks.

The second option is harder. I can try to step through the door back into my old self. I’d left myself instructions that will probably work. If they do, I’ll be Parker 1.0 again. I won’t even remember the last month. The best month of my life. It isn’t time travel. It will still be now. Everyone else will still remember the last month. But it will be like the Parker 1.0 that disappeared from my bed all those nights ago just got shifted to now, to take my place, and I’ll softly and silently vanish away.

Both options feel like a kind of suicide.

And in either case, I’ll be no help to anyone. The chosen kids are expecting me to come up with a solution. Valeria is expecting me to find a solution. You figure out how to close one monster-emitting interdimensional portal and uncover an evil body-stealing plot by humans from a parallel universe, and suddenly everyone thinks you’re the expert.

I need time to think.