Don't miss today's announcement on my home page about Down World becoming a PAID STORY! (The sequels, Yesterworld and Everworld, will still be FREE! So enjoy.) Love you all!

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Dinner was served at a large wooden table in the courtyard, under the looping strings of fairy lights. Every now and then a dragonfly would land on the serving bowl of rice or the tureen of spiced chicken stew, and Principal Farghasian, perched like a queen at the head of the table, would shoo it away.

Brady wasn't there; he'd gone to lie down. So I was sitting opposite the girl, Layla, who still refused to make eye contact with me and instead looked to her mother, as though waiting for permission to speak. Or maybe that wasn't it at all. Maybe she was just looking at her with love. But there was something about her demeanor, about the whole meal, that felt a bit too much like a ritual.

It wasn't until we'd already been eating for a few minutes, and I was waiting for someone to begin explaining to me why I was there, that we were interrupted by a late arrival.

Aunt Amalia descended from the porch steps like she was entering a baptismal river: slowly, shoulders back, her eyes as wide as they had been in those old headshots buried behind her kitchen. She was wearing a dress that looked like she had borrowed it from Principal Farghasian, all flowing silk in shades of gold that brought out the fresh blond highlights in her hair.

"Hello, Marina," she smiled.

I nodded but no sound came out of my mouth. She took the empty seat kitty corner from Principal Farghasian and took her hand. "Sorry I'm late," I heard her whisper.

"Did you check on Brady?" Principal Farghasian asked in a low voice, almost in Amalia's ear.

"Mm. He'll be all right." Her hand squeezed Principal Farghasian's with a noticeable pump before letting go and helping herself to some rice. And that was when I knew it beyond a doubt: the two of them were lovers.

It suddenly made complete sense. They weren't that far apart in age, maybe seven years. And my face grew hot with the realization that it was only slightly bigger than the age gap between myself and Adam.

Also, Amalia had been secretly obsessed with her since high school, and had lied about it when I asked.

One more realization clicked into place while I watched Amalia help herself to a ladleful of Elaheh's stew. I had gotten the feeling that Amalia had never really cared much for men, and not just her late husband who had cheated on her and then died. During that childhood trip to "comfort" her after his passing, it had been clear that she couldn't have cared less. She was just happy to have the house to herself.

The house. Of course. Because the house had a secret portal. A portal she would now have been free to use without any curious eyes on her back.

And Farghasian—she had bricked off the doors beneath the school. Not so no one could find them, but so only one person could: herself.

They had been planning this for a long time.

But if they were so happy—and they certainly looked like they were, holding hands like honeymooners in this ethereal palace Farghasian had built for them and her daughter—then what did they need me for?

"Can someone please tell me," I said slowly, putting down my fork, "why I am here?"

Amalia smiled. "Of course. I'm sorry I was so cryptic. The truth is, we were hoping we wouldn't have to call you here. We were waiting until we were sure."

Farghasian gave her a loving smile, and Amalia cleared her throat.

"You see, we have a little... a technical problem that we were hoping you could help us with."

"Is it my invention?"

"Yes."

"Do you wear one too?"

Amalia's eyes darted to Farghasian again, like heat-seeking missiles, restless until they locked on her. She pulled back her hair and I could see the red light beyond the hairline. I noticed, with more than a whiff of relief, that hers was not blinking.

"I didn't invent a red light," I stated, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.

"Well, it's a third generation—"

"Don't—" Farghasian whispered in Amalia's ear, and my aunt blushed and nodded in response. I had never seen her like this. A schoolgirl with a crush. She was deeply in love, that was clear. I would have been happy for her under different circumstances.

"Sorry," Farghasian said, turning back to me. "It's just we don't want to tell you more than you need to know. Hopefully you won't be here long."

"Look, Principal Farghasian—"

"Please call me Elaheh." She smiled at her daughter, who was steadfastly staring at her rice and refusing to acknowledge my existence. "We're all adults here."

"Elaheh. You've got me here now. And you're right, I won't be staying long. I have to—I have to get back. So why don't you tell me what your technical problem is?"

"They're breaking down," she replied. "See, no one had really tested them long-term before they were implemented. When you two first introduced the ICDs—sorry, they're called intercranial devices—when you introduced them, it was so groundbreaking. It was like a magic switch that made everyone stop lying, and it just felt like a brand-new day."

"Brave new world," Layla finally spoke, still staring at her rice.

"Layla, that's enough," her mother scolded.

Layla went back to eating her rice. But I couldn't stop hearing the words. I knew what she meant by referencing that book—it was an accusation. And she was right to be skeptical, even angry. The invention was monstrous, the stuff of gothic legends. It was mind control and it broke every law of science ethics.

What I couldn't figure out what was how on earth I had actually built it; I didn't know anything about brain chemistry. I was studying robotics. I had wanted to make fuel-free airplanes and wind turbines attached to drones. Save the world through carbon-free energy.

But is this really what I had done with my life instead?

"I was never going to actually invent it," I protested weakly. "It was a concept design for a class. I was trying to impress my teacher. I didn't... I would never have actually built something like that."

"But you do build it," Amalia said, and I could hear that she was trying to keep her voice on an even keel. "Did build it, I mean."

"Wait, who are 'we two'?" I asked, replaying her words in my head.

"Hmm?"

"You said 'when you two introduced them.' Did I have a partner?"

Amalia looked caught. She put her fork down in her bowl, but it slipped out of her fingers at the last second and landed with a resounding clank. "Sorry."

Elaheh took over for her. "He was a neuroscientist. You did the mechanics. You, um... you worked together for many years. They called you the Dynamic Duo." She smiled. "I probably shouldn't tell you more."

Okay, well, that explained the brain part. I had had a partner. But she was right—the more she told me, the more I wanted to know. The answers were dangerous, though. In fact, Sage had always warned me that Tomorrow was the most dangerous door, and I could see now that she was right. The more you know about your future, the more you want to know. Until... until it seems inevitable.

But this wasn't inevitable, I reminded myself. Like all the doors, it led to a possibility. There were billions of realities. This was the one Amalia and Elaheh had wanted, the one they had returned to over and over again.

And that made me realize something that took my breath away.

"The portal only leads here," I said numbly, almost more for myself than for them.

"What?" Amalia asked.

"The portal in your house—it's not like the ones under the school, where you need the right token to go to the right place." I could see by their frozen faces that I was on to something. And it made sense. When my mother and John had built the portal under the lake, it had only led to one reality—the dark world that Adam and I had destroyed last year. So it was possible to build a door that only led to one dimension.

But if that was true, then it wouldn't have mattered that Adam had crossed without a token. He would have ended up here anyway. Which meant maybe he was here—hiding in the woods with those children. Or—

No. He wasn't here. My ring was gone. He was somewhere else.

Dear God, Adam, where the hell did you go?

"That's correct," Elaheh said. "The door leads here, so long as you have an ICD with you."

"What if you don't?"

"Well, then you would end up... outside of our neighborhood. That's all. There are many rules governing these things, as I'm sure you can imagine. We are in a protected neighborhood, and there are filters that keep anyone from entering without it. Technically yours is supposed to be implanted as soon as you arrive, but..."

"You said we weren't doing that," Aunt Amalia whispered to her.

"I know," Elaheh assured her. Then she turned back to me. "Like you said, you're not staying long."

"All right," I nodded, hoping to get to the point. "So tell me what's wrong with Brady then. Why is his light blinking?"

Elaheh let out a small strained note, almost like a hum. "Well, that's what we were hoping you could tell us. All we know is that it's breaking down, and it's—it's making him sick."

"So take it out."

"We can't."

"Why not?"

Elaheh was the only one still looking at me. Amalia had sat back a bit, her hands folded nervously over one another on the table, like she was praying.

"Over time," Elaheh said slowly, her words carefully measured, "as it turns out, the wires become, well, enmeshed in the brain. Interwoven. And they can't be removed without serious damage to the prefrontal cortex."

"Jesus," I sighed. "Look, I'm not a brain surgeon, okay? I'm nineteen. I really don't even know how that thing works. Frankly, I'm having trouble believing I would ever actually build something so irresponsible."

"You were desperate," Amalia said under her breath, and for a second I wasn't sure if she said 'you were' or 'we are.'

I looked around at the three sullen women at the table, and it occurred to me that they weren't just trying to save Brady. They all had these devices—and not just them, the children in the woods, those children's parents. You needed one to live in this neighborhood. And I was willing to bet that if this neighborhood existed, there were probably many more. How many? Thousands? Millions? What weren't they telling me?

"I don't know how to fix it," I said truthfully. "I'm sorry, I wish it did. If it's so urgent, maybe you should track down the Dynamic Duo or something."

As the words left my mouth, I could see a tendon in Amalia's neck pull taut. She opened her mouth slightly, but then buried her head in her hands.

"What?" I asked.

But Elaheh didn't say anything either. Instead she put a comforting hand on Amalia's shoulder. Neither one of them seemed to know how to respond.

"Tell me," I demanded, but I was greeted by more silence.

"You're dead," Layla finally said.

"Layla, stop," ordered Elaheh.

But Layla didn't stop. "They tried a thousand dimensions. They looked for you everywhere."

My throat clenched around the question as it seeped out of my lips. "And?"

Layla looked directly at me for the first time all night. And I couldn't help but notice a glint of superiority in her eyes as she said it. "You're dead in all of them."

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