3:59

FORTY-EIGHT

12:05 A.M.

NICK SLOWLY LOWERED THE PHONE. “IT’S A trap,” he said simply. “No way they’d just let us all waltz out of there.”

“I know.”

Nick handed the phone to Josie and pulled down the garage door. Then he slowly walked around to the door of his car and climbed in. Josie followed, and they sat in Nick’s SUV, silently lost in their own thoughts.

Josie’s eyes were fixed on the phone. Something wasn’t right. How had it gotten inside the rim of the tire? Even in the chaos of a Nox attack, it couldn’t have bounced off the concrete and into the tire, especially since Penelope was right there, huddled against that side of the car.

Unless she put it there.

Of course. Penelope had been trying to hide her phone, a last act of defiance. But why? Josie clicked on the phone and scrolled through the recently opened applications. Phone. Messaging.

Camera.

Josie caught her breath.

“What?” Nick asked.

Josie opened the photo gallery on Penelope’s phone. There were three new photos, all of equations. “Holy shit,” she said.

Nick leaned over her shoulder and squinted at the photos. “Math equations. Any idea what they mean?”

Josie scrolled through the photos, a lump rising in her throat. “Yeah,” she said hoarsely. “Yeah, I do. This is what she was killed for.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We were trying to figure out a way to use the X-FEL laser to open a new portal, and Pen had an idea of how we could get it to work without killing us all. Then she had another idea. Long story short, she thought we might be able to apply the same principle to the antidote, using it to phase-shift the antidote itself, before the subject’s been inoculated. Which would make it about a million times easier to get rid of all the Nox.” She looked at the equations again and laughed. “It’s like crop-dusting on an epic, quantum level. And the only way the injectable might actually work. I can’t believe no one thought of it before.”

Nick whistled. “That’s enough to kill for.”

“Yeah.” Josie paused, thinking about the various pieces of this conspiracy: Dr. Byrne and the Grid, Tony’s formula, everyone’s missing family members. A plan was forming in her mind. “If we go to the warehouse, we’re dead, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“Nox again, would you guess?”

Nick nodded. “Most likely.”

“So what if,” Josie said slowly, “what if we’re ready for them?”

Nick looked at her sidelong. “What do you mean?”

“We have Penelope’s equations. We have the formula. Why not just zap the Nox right out of the universe?”

Nick scratched the back of his neck. “We’ll need a laser,” Nick said. “You heard my brother. The one in the storage shed isn’t powerful enough.”

“Then we get him a laser. There’s one up at Fort Meade?”

“Josie,” Nick said, eyeing her cautiously. “We cannot break into Fort Meade. No way.”

“Of course not.” Josie smiled. “But Mr. Byrne has security access, right? You two can go borrow it.”

“Mr. Byrne?” Nick looked skeptical. “I don’t know if we should get him involved.”

“What choice do we have?”

Nick was silent for a moment, mulling over the idea. “We don’t,” he said at last. “Make the call.”

Josie pulled out her phone and powered it up. She’d turned it off at the warehouse and completely forgotten about it. As soon as the network connected, the phone beeped a dozen times in rapid succession. Voice mails, all from Mr. Byrne.

“Dammit,” she said. “He’s probably scared out of his mind wondering where I am.”

“Well,” Nick said with a sly grin, “maybe he’ll be so relieved you’re alive he’ll do whatever you ask?”

Josie dialed Mr. Byrne’s cell phone. “Or ground me for the rest of my life and ban me from ever laying eyes on you again.”

“Josephine!” Mr. Byrne gasped, picking up a half second into the first ring. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Oh, thank God. I had no idea where you were.” His tone changed from relief to anger. “Why was your phone off? Do you have any idea what time it is?”

“Daddy, I’m so sorry. Something happened and—”

He gasped. “Something happened? Where are you? Where’s Nicholas?”

“Is he pissed?” Nick whispered.

“He’s here with me,” Josie said, smiling weakly at Nick.

“Well,” Mr. Byrne said, his voice stern. “I’m seriously questioning his decision to keep you out this late. I thought he was more responsible than this. My phone has been ringing off the hook tonight with reports of elevated Nox attacks, and I can’t get a hold of you; I don’t have Nicholas’s phone number. We’re going to have a long talk when you get home tonight.”

Josie looked up at Nick. “Yeah, he’s pissed.”

“I have every right to be pissed,” Mr. Byrne said, laying special emphasis on the last word.

“I know. Daddy, let me explain.”

“Where are you right now? Where are you calling from?”

Nick made a circle movement with his hand, motioning for Josie to get on with it. Right. They were running short on time.

“Daddy,” she said, her voice crisp and businesslike. “I need your help.”

“I knew something was wrong. Where are you?” She heard a jangling of car keys on the other end of the line. “I’m coming to get you.”

“Daddy,” she said slowly, trying to calm him down. “Daddy, you need to listen to me, okay? This is important.”

Something about her tone must have struck a chord with Mr. Byrne. He paused, and when he spoke again he seemed calmer. “What is it, princess?”

Josie took a deep breath. She wasn’t exactly sure how to say it gently, so she just blurted it out. “Mom needs our help.” Well, at least that wasn’t a lie. “But what I’m going to ask you to do could get us all in a lot of trouble.”

“Princess, what is going on?” Mr. Byrne said slowly.

“It’s about Project Raze,” she said. Nick nodded, encouraging her to go on. “And the experiment Mom was working on when the accident happened.”

“Okay.”

“Well, long story short,” she said, glancing over certain details like your real wife’s in a parallel dimension and she might be a traitorous fugitive, “the explosion wasn’t an accident. It was sabotage and . . .” Oh man, was she really going to lie to Mr. Byrne about this? The truth was stranger than anything she could make up.

“Yes?” Mr. Byrne prompted.

“And she needs us to prove that she didn’t do it.”

“Princess, how do you know all this?”

“Tony Fiorino,” she said.

“Dr. Fiorino passed away,” he said slowly, like he was talking to a three-year-old. “Remember?”

“No, he didn’t.” Time to go for broke. “Okay, I know this sounds crazy, but Tony isn’t dead. He survived the explosion, but he’s altered. Atomically altered. We saw him tonight, Nick and I. He saved us from a Nox attack and—”

“A Nox attack?” Mr. Byrne roared.

“Yeah, we’re fine. I promise. But Daddy, I think the Grid sent the Nox. I think they knew we were going to try and help Mom. Tony saved us and he says he knows a way to help Mom too.”

Silence on the other end.

Nick gave Josie a thumbs-up, but guilt ate at her conscience. Here she was, asking Mr. Byrne for help with something that might get him into a ton of trouble, and she was lying to him. She’d told him part of the truth. The important parts, more or less. It was true that they needed his help to save Josie’s mom, and it was true that the experiment had been sabotaged. It was even true that Tony was still alive. Leaving out the other details was just her way of saving him a tremendous amount of confusion and grief. Wasn’t it?

“What do you need me to do?” Mr. Byrne said at last.

“We need to use the X-FEL laser. The one up at Fort Meade.”

“When?” Mr. Byrne asked.

“As soon as possible.”

She heard Mr. Byrne let out a slow breath. “All right, princess. Whatever you need. I can probably get them access for a few hours.”

“Actually,” Josie said, wincing at what she was about to ask, “we need to get the laser out of Fort Meade.”

Mr. Byrne cleared his throat. “You want me to steal the X-FEL prototype from a highly secure military base?”

“Um, yeah.” It sounded so awful the way he said it.

“You realize I could be charged with treason if we’re caught.”

Josie sighed. “It’s the only way to save Mom.”

More silence. Josie bit her lip. Her entire plan hinged on whether or not Mr. Byrne could help them. What was she thinking? There was no way in hell he was going to help them smuggle a top secret laser out of Fort Meade. This was the stupidest idea she had ever had and now they’d have no way to—

“Okay, princess. Just tell me when.”

Josie’s heart raced. “We’ll be there in ten minutes. I . . .” She hesitated. “I love you, Daddy.”

And she meant it.