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  “Come on, Arizona. You can use the rest room here and we’ll get you something to eat and drink as long as you behave.”

  He knew my name! Well that settled it. This must have something to do with my dad’s debts.

  “What did you do with your hair? I almost thought we nabbed the wrong girl,” he chuckled. “I guess you were trying to disguise yourself.”

  My hair? Why was this stranger going on about my hair? Maybe he did have the wrong girl. But he’d called me Arizona. It was probably a case of mistaken identity. “Look, I’m not who you want. There’s been a mistake. Let me go.”

  “No mistake,” a female voice confirmed from behind Shrek. She had a gun. Priceless. If not for that, I could have easily taken her. I assumed she was my restroom company. I quickly decided that I needed to refuel, and since I really had no option, I may as well go along with this–for now. I asked once again, though. Just to make sure.

  “Are you sure? I’m Arizona Stevens. I don’t have money or anything. What do you want with me?” I asked, confused.

  “Cute! It won’t wash. Nice disguise, by the way,” the woman replied. “Come with me.”

  “It’s not a disguise, but the fact that you think so makes me think you’ve got the wrong person.”

  “Shut up, Arizona,” the woman said, now looking totally annoyed. Her lips were drawn into a thin line and the gun was pointed right at me.

  Yup, good reason to shut up. I followed her into the restroom. We were obviously at a service plaza. We didn’t use the main restroom, but the outside one, which was attached to the gas station. I saw people inside the main building, but there was no opportunity to get their attention–especially with that gun ominously poking my side. The woman didn’t say anything more; she just beckoned me to follow her back to the van once I was done. Shrek handed me a bag of food and then waved at me to get back in. I spied a third person sitting at the wheel before I headed back into the darkness.

  Hours went by and then we stopped again for a similar break. We did this numerous times; I dozed off between the breaks. I had been afraid at first, but the routine became comfortable and I gave in to the boring monotony of it all. I’m sure we drove for at least a couple of days. I never got a good look at the mysterious third man, he always stayed in the van, or so it seemed. I gathered from the conversations between Shrek and the woman that their real names were Dan and Sophie.

  I knew that our journey was over when the third man opened the van door and beckoned me to follow him. He was small and wimpy looking. If not for Shrek-Dan towering behind him, I could have managed to overpower him. For whatever reason, it was clear that he was the leader of this pack of idiots. I could tell from the look of smarmy superiority exuding from his plain, bordering-on-ugly face. There was something familiar about him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

  “Arizona, where are the others?”

  “Others?”

  The expression on his face suddenly changed. The smarmy, arrogant smirk was replaced by an exasperated turn of his lips and a mad squinting of eyes. His rather large nose twitched and he clenched his knobby hands into a tight fist. I did the same.

  “Raj, stop that!” Sophie said, taking his arm and leading him away.

  “Sorry ‘bout that. The boss is a bit short with the temper,” Dan apologized. “Let’s go inside,” he said, pointing to a cottage. “There’s food and drink in there, and you’ve got your own room and all.”

  Sheesh, fantastic… my own room in a run-down cottage where I was being held hostage, just what I’ve always wanted–not. I followed Dan in and we sat down and waited for the other two to come in.

  “We’ve got some beer, want some?” Dan offered.

  I was very tempted, but decided that I needed to remain clear-headed. If I had learned one thing at girls’ camp, it was that I was a lightweight. “Do you have anything else? Water will do.”

  “Yup, lemme see. We’ve got Coke, lemonade and water.”

  “Coke, please.” I guzzled it down.

  “Things will be easier if you cooperate,” Dan remarked.

  “I’m a bit lost. I would cooperate if I knew what you wanted.”

  “Eh, just answer the boss’s questions, that’s all.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Good.” He nodded as Raj and Sophie walked into the house. Raj seemed to have calmed down a bit, his face was back to the same smarmy look he’d had on before.

  “So, let’s begin again. Where are the other kids?” Raj asked.

  “What kids?” I asked, and noticed Sophie put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Ella and Harry.”

  I shrugged. I had no idea who Harry was. “Ella’s with Mom, I guess. Why do you want to know?”

  Raj got up and started pacing, walking up and down the living room. “Sophie, let’s go. We’ve got stuff to take care of. Dan, watch her.”

  I watched them leave in relief, but I was not entirely comfortable at being left alone with Dan.

  “Want to watch a movie?” he asked. “Or play some video games?”

  “Movie sounds good,” I said, and Dan and I settled down to watch Terminator. Dan was totally into the movie, his facial expressions matching each scene, which was kinda odd. When it finished, Dan whipped up some burgers and we sat down to eat. There were no signs of the other two yet. “Dan, can I ask you something?”

  “No probs with the asking.”

  “What’s going to happen to me?”

  “No worries, I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you. Once he gets what he wants, we’ll return you to your mom.”

  “Mom? You mean back to my dad, right?”

  “I guess,” he shrugged.

  I hope he guessed right. Although he probably assumed that I lived with the both of them, I don’t, of course. I live with my dad. Getting shipped off to Mom would probably be worse than staying here.

  Everyone who knows me is aware that my mom and I don’t get along–at all. Now, my dad doesn’t win father-of-the-year by a long shot, but he is way easier than my mom. Mom is a physicist. She and my sister, Ella, moved to California when Mom and Dad separated. Ella is nine, a total pain as well. My relationship problems with Mom go beyond ordinary teen issues. My deep hatred–and I do mean hatred–has been festering for years. I can’t even remember for how long. All I know is that if I never saw her again, it would be too soon. I think of my sister as an extension of my mom, so I don’t want her as a part of my life either. The only time I see them is during their vacations. Mom has an apartment in Princeton, which she stays in when she visits. She usually insists that I at least lunch or dine out with them every vacation, which is thankfully not too often. Lunch is usually spent glaring at each other while she whines on about my schoolwork. More often than not, I end up walking out on them. So, sitting here with Dan was not so bad, well, apart from the fact that loony Raj and his gal pal were going to be back eventually.

  “That’s them, I assume,” Dan announced, when we heard a van drive up. “Yup. Simla should be here soon. Arizona, go to your bedroom and stay there.”

  I nodded, relieved–I was in no hurry to face mad Raj–and got up to leave. I walked into the bedroom that Dan pointed to and shut the door. Well, I left it slightly ajar so I could listen in. I sat down on the oddly out-of-place princess bed. Simla? Ah! That’s why Raj looked familiar. They must be related somehow. Now this made even less sense. Simla was coming here? Why? I heard my door shut and it sounded like it was being locked. I got up and tried it–locked. I tried the windows–locked as well.

  ~

  “So, wassup?” Dan asked, looking at Raj and Sophie.

  “Just waiting for Simla, she should arrive any minute,” Raj said noncommittally.

  “How is she getting here?” Dan asked. She was, after all, in another dimension. The portal was apparently inactive until the energy sources were replenished. So how was she coming over?

  “Through the portal, I’m guessing,” Raj offered, not sure if that w
as indeed the case or if she had learned to wander.

  “How’s that possible?” Sophie asked.

  “It’s possible if a year has passed in the other dimension and they’ve reset the portal to open here– now,” Raj said matter-of-factly, watching the gaping looks.

  Dan shook his head and shrugged in confusion. “It’s October 2009 there? They are ahead of us? How can that be?”

  “No, no, no,” Raj muttered, frustrated. It was so hard dealing with Dan-types. At least Sophie seemed to get it–she was nodding. “The portal can be set to open in any time-dimension continuum. I’m assuming Arizona’s mother, Olivia, has control of it at the moment. All she has had to do is wait a year in her dimension, reset the portal to transport back into this time and dimension and voila!”

  “So, Simla is traveling back from the future to meet you on your pre-arranged date.”

  “Yes!”

  “Why?” Dan asked, still confused.

  “I asked Simla to bring the blueprints. If she doesn’t have them, we’ll send her back with a message from Arizona.”

  “Oh, okay. What if she has them? What do we do with the girl then?” Dan asked.

  “We’ll give her back to her mom or get rid of her.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll leave that up to you, Dan. Just drop her off somewhere.”

  “Drop her off?” Dan asked, his brows furrowed.

  “Oh, for goodness sake. Just drop her off outside Kevin Sanderson’s house; she’ll be fine from there. Okay?” Sophie interrupted. “It’s certain that her mom will ask for her in exchange for the blueprints, though.”

  “Is Arizona locked up safely?” Raj continued.

  “Yup,” Dan assured him. He had personally bolted the windows and doors.

  Raj nodded. “I’d like to talk to Simla on my own, so you two can go for a ride. Get back here in an hour exactly.”

  “Are you sure?” Sophie protested.

  “I am. I haven’t seen my daughter for a while. I want to talk to her on my own.” He wanted Dan and Sophie out of the house for other reasons, but that explanation would have to suffice. They didn’t know about the casualties of the last meeting with Kevin Sanderson. Both Kevin and Erica had been hurt. If Dan and Sophie found out they would probably bail on him. Simla would probably know, especially if her mother had been badly hurt–which was a strong possibility as he remembered sticking the kitchen knife deep into Erica’s chest.

  “Fair enough,” Sophie agreed. “Let’s go, Dan.”

  Raj waited. Simla was already ten minutes late, he was starting to fret. He always insisted on punctuality. He was beginning to wonder if she would turn up at all when he heard a car drive up. Raj immediately recognized Simla’s blue Smartcar. He had made arrangements for her to pick it up outside Ames. He watched her get out of the car. She wore the same haughty look her mother did; it intimidated him. She looked more grown up than he remembered. Her hair was cut short into a messy bob and had red highlights through it. The smart black pantsuit she was wearing made her look much older than her sixteen, well, maybe seventeen years. She was pulling a briefcase out from the car–with the blueprints, hopefully. Raj opened the front door to greet her.

  “Simla! Good to see you,” he said, as she came walking into his outstretched arms. He wrapped them around her and held her tight. It had been over a year for her.

  “Dad, I’ve missed you!” she whispered, her eyes starting to well up. “I can’t believe this worked. I thought I’d never see you again. It’s been awful since you left.”

  “Has your mother been a pain?”

  “A pain? Dad, don’t you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Let’s sit down, Dad,” Simla suggested, dragging her father over to the couch.

  “So, we’re sitting. Pray continue,” Raj requested.

  “Dad, Mom’s dead.”

  Erica dead? “When? How?” he asked, hoping that the incident at Kevin’s had nothing to do with it. He graphically remembered thrusting the kitchen knife right into her, feeling the pressure of her flesh against it. Could he have pushed it far enough to cause such damage? Could he have killed her?

  “A year ago. I don’t know how exactly. She was stabbed. The Wanderer Elders arranged her funeral.”

  Raj put is face into his palms. This was bad. If she was dead, the police could be out looking for him, here in this dimension. She had, after all, been killed here just days ago. Hopefully she had been removed and transported back by the other Wanderers with no one notified at this end.

  “Dad, this must be a real shock. I’m sorry that I was so abrupt. It’s just that it’s been a year for me. I wasn’t thinking,” Simla whispered.

  “No, it’s okay, Simla. And what about you? How have you been managing?” Raj asked, relieved that the Wanderers had kept his involvement in her mother’s death from her.

  “I’ve been living with the Weeks’. The Elders decided that Grayson should look after me until I leave for college. He’s been good to me.”

  “Is everyone treating you okay?”

  “Nothing has really changed. Same old.”

  “Tell me all that’s happened to you in the last year.”

  “Dad, I haven’t got time. I have to leave soon,” Simla said sadly. “Olivia is waiting for me. She brought me through. Come back with me.”

  “Simla, I can’t. Not yet. Olivia brought you through? Didn’t you learn to wander?”

  “I tried, but can’t yet. I’m trying to learn on my own, meditation and all that stuff. The Elders won’t help. They won’t show me how.”

  “You’re resourceful, Simla. You’ll find a way. In the meantime, Olivia can transport you. How did you get her to do it?”

  “Oh, it was easy really, but there was a lot of luck involved. I went to see Olivia in her office to get the blueprints. I didn’t go alone, though. I figured that I would need some leverage, some really heavy leverage. I tried to contact Dillard to see if he would come with me because I wanted to use him as blackmail. I left a message on his cell to contact me. But he never got back to me. I had to think of something else. I convinced–with a substantial amount of the money you left–a guy, an actor, who looked a bit like Dillard to accompany me to Ames. We had to get him a fake driver’s license, but that wasn’t difficult. All he then had to do was sit in the Ames lobby and flash his license if anyone asked.

  “I went up to see Olivia in her office on my own, and left the Dillard stand-in waiting in the lobby. As you can imagine, Olivia was totally uncooperative and practically sneered at me when I asked for the prints. So, I told her to call down to reception, that I had something there for her. I can’t tell you how nail-biting that was, I was hoping she wouldn’t ask him to come up! As soon as she was told that Dillard Stevens was in the lobby, her attitude totally transformed,” Simla laughed.

  Raj couldn’t help but laugh with her. He would have given anything to have seen Olivia’s face.

  “So, I promised her that I would get rid of him if she just handed over the blueprints and arranged for me to transport through the portal. She handed them over very reluctantly and promised that she would transport me through in October when the portal was functional again.

  “I waited, for what seemed like ages, going about my daily routine. Anyway, here I am and here are the blueprints,” Simla said proudly, handing over the briefcase to Raj. “Is your buyer here or back home?”

  “Back home, which is a big issue. A year has passed. I don’t even know if the deal is on the table anymore. I want you to take this slip of paper with you. It has a cell number on it. Call it when you get to the other end. The number will be a year old, but it’s still worth a try. Ask to speak to Dr. Masterson. If you get him on the line, explain to him that you’re my daughter and that you have a message for him. Ask him if he’s still interested in the deal. If he is, let him know that I’ll be in touch soon. No biggie if he isn’t. It won’t be hard to find another buyer for these blueprints, but I wil
l have to come back home for that. All my contacts are in the other dimension,” he said, looking down and smiling at the briefcase.

  “Dad, you should come home with me now. I really have to go, but I don’t want to leave you here. Olivia is not going to wait for me much longer. I can’t risk her leaving me here.”

  “Simla, you should go. I do need a contact over there, so I will ask you to go back for now. Make contact with Dr. Masterson if you can. Have Olivia bring you back here in exactly one week. I’ll figure something out by then. Maybe even go back with you. But don’t tell Olivia that.”

  “Of course not, Dad! Okay, I better go. Take care of yourself,” she said, and hurriedly kissed him on his cheek.