Proteins and Periodicity

"Where are we?" Abbey scanned the horizon for anything other than dunes. But every way she turned she saw the crescent-shaped rising curves and more angular slip faces of an Aeolian desert. They were smallish for dunes, just a bit taller than she was, not like the seven hundred-foot dunes they'd climbed at Great Sand Dunes National Park the summer before.

"This can't be the same place we were yesterday." Abbey placed one toe so it was touching the edge of the stones. Then she unzipped her raincoat and tied it around her waist.

Caleb and Simon similarly disrobed. Simon's pale face looked stark in the sun. The light sliced angles into his features as Abbey's eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness.

"Maybe it's a different part of the same place," Caleb said, squinting. He bent down and let a handful of golden sand sift through his fingers.

"I dunno, but I don't like it." Simon scowled. "We better go back."

"But Mantis could be coming up the hill. He could be looking for us," Abbey said.

"Or he could show up here any second and then he'd have us where he wants us. Miles of sand, no witnesses. All he'd have to do is run us away from the stones and we'd die of thirst before we ever found them again," Simon said.

Abbey pressed her foot harder against the stone.

"We could go hide behind one of the dunes. Wait for a bit to make sure he doesn't come through and then go back," Caleb suggested.

"How will we find the stones again? The sand will cover them. All the dunes look alike," Abbey said, trying to shake off the creepy feeling of Mantis's pincer-like arms on her shoulder.

Caleb ran his hand through his hair. "Maybe we could mark them. Put something into the sand. A stick or something."

"Do you see a stick anywhere?" Simon said.

"Empty your pockets. Someone has to have something."

The contents of their pockets were turned out. All three had house keys. Abbey had a pen, cell phone, and her plastic pocket periodic table. Simon had his iPod and headphones, several quarters, and the crumpled email from the previous day. Caleb had a chocolate bar wrapper, an old movie pa.s.s, his list of clues, and some lint. None of them had their backpacks. Simon had already dropped his off at the house, and Abbey's and Caleb's sat in Mark's bedroom.

Caleb surveyed the supplies. "Okay, we stick the pen in the sand by the stones and then just go hide behind that dune there. Wait twenty minutes and then go back."

"We better not push it, Cale. In this heat with no water, we're gonna be toast pretty soon, literally," Simon said.

They drove the pen as deeply into the sand as they dared, wanting it to still be visible, but not wanting it to fall over and be buried. Abbey looked over her shoulder every few seconds as they scaled one of the dunes and settled behind it. The pen was still visible, curls of sand weaving around its base. An electrical charge held the sand there, just centimeters above the dune, like a magical suspended carpet, marking their way home-a trick of the quantum world. Sand blowing across sand steals loose electrons, creating a static force field. Time travel was also possible in the quantum world, but only backward, and only by electrons.

Simon and Caleb settled themselves into a crouch behind the dune. Abbey sat. Caleb poked his head up every few minutes to see if anyone had come through the stones. Drops of sweat ran down Abbey's back and legs. The heat, initially welcome after the chill of the forest, saturated her skin, insinuating itself into her system. It had a suffocating effect, slowing the movement of her limbs, her breathing, and her thinking, making everything seem slurred and disa.s.sociated. The sand scorched her hands and her throat ached for moisture. She swallowed and closed her eyes against the glare, which slivered into her corneas, threatening to fracture them into a thousand pieces. She wrapped her hoodie around her head and pressed her forehead against her knees.

Abbey jumped when Simon poked her. "Give me your cell phone," Simon said. "I want to check something." She screwed up her nose but pa.s.sed it over. He slid his fingers over the screen to activate it and then stared. Then he looked at Abbey and Caleb.

"It's picking up a signal."

"What?" Abbey asked.

"It's picking up a signal. A cell phone tower signal."

"Try calling someone then, or check Google maps," Caleb said.

Simon's brow furrowed. "Who would you suggest calling? Mom? Our coverage is limited to local calls and data, and somehow I don't think we're local right now."

Caleb lifted his shoulders slightly. "I dunno, but it's worth trying something. Call four-one-one, or nine-one-one. Those are supposed to be free calls. See what happens."

Simon didn't move. Drops of sweat had appeared on his forehead. Patches of wet stained his underarms. He thrust the phone at Caleb. "You do it."

"No prob. You really need to work on your phone phobia, bro. How are you ever going to get a date?" said Caleb.

Simon glared and then looked away out over the dunes. "It won't work anyway," he muttered as Caleb punched in numbers.

Simon's fingers closed around Abbey's arm. "What's that?"

Abbey whirled her head in the direction Simon was pointing. Had Mantis found them? Caleb hit cancel on the phone.

A golf-cart-like vehicle moved toward them over the dunes. As it crested each dune, it rose up out of the sand, first its red roof, then the gla.s.sed-in compartment containing what looked like a man, and finally its shiny, candy-red body and bulbous, black tires. Then it sank, bit by bit, back into the next golden mound, only to rise up again a few seconds later, getting closer each time. The man driving it appeared to be normal-two eyes, albeit hidden behind dark gla.s.ses, two ears, and a nose-all in the right places. He wore some sort of white Middle Eastern garb on his body and head. And he appeared to have seen them, as he waved occasionally and drove straight toward them.

"What do we do?" Abbey asked.

"I dunno," replied Caleb. "He looks friendly. We could ask him where we are."

"Are you daft? Do we really need to have another conversation about stranger danger?" Abbey's voice came out as a croak. "We need to get home. We can't be out in this heat much longer. I don't feel so well and it's getting hard to breathe." Her rubber boots felt filled with pools of sweat.

"Ab's right, Caleb," Simon said. "We can't stay here."

Caleb darted another look at the approaching vehicle. "What do you suggest?"

"Go back through the stones," Abbey said.

Simon suddenly shoved them both down into a crouch, pointing over the dune to the stones.

Abbey stared.

Mark was standing on the stones, rotating slowly to look in each direction. He had an expression of utter dismay on his face and a kitchen knife tucked in his belt.

"What's he doing?" she mouthed to her brothers, hunching even lower.

"Maybe he's with Mantis," Caleb said.

Abbey shook her head. "Mark seemed afraid of Mantis."

Caleb gave a noncommittal shoulder twitch. "Why was Mantis at the Forresters' house though? And what's up with the knife? The bottom line is we can't trust Mark. I say we take our chances with Golf-Cart Guy."

Mark bent and extracted their pen from the sand. He stared at it as if he wasn't quite sure what it was. Then he put it in his pocket.

Simon tightened his lips. "If we're going to go with Golf-Cart Guy, we'd better go before he comes over one more dune, or Mark will see him."

Before waiting for Abbey to say anything, Simon and Caleb took off in a crouch down the dune and over the next. Abbey ran after them, sweat running down her almost-shaking body, calling as softly as she could, "You idiots. How are we going to find our way back to the stones?" But it was too late.

The man in the cart put on the brakes as soon as they reached him. The frames of his sungla.s.ses contained a thick slab of plastic.

"What are you kids doing so far from the bubble? Where's your cart? Where are your headpieces and gla.s.ses? You'll scorch yourselves blind out here! It's forty-eight today and the UV index is through the roof. Good thing your distress signal worked. Get in, get in. I'm Elijah." He practically pushed Caleb and Abbey into the cool, shaded back seat of the cart. Abbey drank deep breaths of the chilled air. Elijah turned to Simon. "Don't tell me you're out here without an adult. You're going to have to tell me where you left your cart, so we can go and get it."

"Um, uh. We're doing a research project," Simon said, finally managing to slip a sentence through Elijah's verbal barrage. "The cart broke down and we started walking."

"Hmpf," the man grunted. "You should always stay with your cart and bring your gla.s.ses and headpieces. Out here you could walk in circles for hours. Are you getting in, or what?" Simon went around to the front and paused for a second before climbing in. For the second time in two days they were accepting a ride from a stranger, yet Abbey was so relieved to be out of the heat that she almost didn't care. Elijah started up the engine and pulled a U-turn. Her lunch pitched uncomfortably in her stomach. The fat, smooth tires picked up speed and spun around and around.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Abbey searched for landmarks. Anything that would help them find their way back to the stones. The sun blistered in the sky behind them, suggesting that the stones were west of where they were headed. That is, if it was afternoon here.

"What were you researching anyway?" Elijah asked.

Simon turned back to Abbey and widened his eyes.

"Heat shock proteins," said Abbey promptly.

"Say what?" said Elijah.

"Heat shock proteins in desert animals. They're chaperone proteins that maintain the structure and function of the animal's cells when the animal is exposed to extreme temperatures. We're seeing if the same proteins can be used by humans so we can withstand higher temperatures. We were out looking for sample animals. You know, lizards and stuff." Abbey hoped he didn't ask any questions, as that was as far as her biochem book had gone. She studied the back of Elijah's head. He seemed human, but what if the skin was just a costume, a cutaneous covering hiding his true form, while they drove through endless miles of desert?

"Our equipment and cart are all still out there. We left the cart to chase after a specimen. So, we're going to need a ride back to the cart with some tools or something," Simon said.

"I can just send a tow vehicle. No need for you to go back," Elijah said.

Simon risked a 'what now' look back at Abbey and Caleb before answering. "Some of the specimens are dangerous. They need to be handled carefully. It's best if we do it."

"Just what kind of specimens are you talking about? The desert's pretty empty the past few years. Used to bag quite a few animals on hunting trips. But not these days."

Simon squinted back at Abbey. She shook her head. He gave her an exasperated look.

"Oh, you know," Simon replied. "Mostly lizards. Nothing you would hunt."

Elijah pressed his fingers against the screen of a computer pad that was attached to the dash beside the steering wheel. "Hmm. Well, I can send you back in the tow truck, but you might have to wait for a bit. It's out on another distress call. And you should call your parents."

"Will do," said Simon.

Abbey was about to add something about the need to hurry, that the specimens would die, when a giant mushroom structure started rising out of the ground ahead of them, getting larger with each spin of the wheels. It was like a translucent tennis bubble on amphetamines, spanning miles from end to end. And instead of being taut and forced into its aloft state by blowers, the bubble surface seemed almost to be floating of its own accord, like a living, breathing skin. Inside the bubble lay a city with a frenzy of colorful, high-density low-rises and greenery overflowing from every crevice. The buildings appeared to be carved out of sand, like they rose up out of the desert floor fully formed. It was strangely, starkly beautiful, but looked so vulnerable in the vast sea of dunes. People walked up and down the sidewalk pathways between the pod houses, their arms full of books or baskets of vegetables. Clothes hung on lines suspended from each balcony. There were no roads, Abbey noted, save for what looked like a few main boulevards with trolley cars on tracks on either side running up and down the length of the boulevard, dropping people off and picking them up.

As they drew closer, Abbey saw that the skin of the bubble, while more see-through than the onion-skin paper Mark had utilized just hours before, had a fine granular pattern to it, and it was with a catch of her breath that Abbey realized that it was a pattern she'd viewed under a microscope many times-the interlocking epidermal cells of a plant.

Caleb sat next to her with his mouth open in a suspended intake of air. Elijah didn't drop his speed, pulling up to a folding red metal door in the dermis. The door opened, and Elijah drove in. Abbey studied the intersection between the skin and door for fasteners of some sort, but there were none. The skin seemed to be fused seamlessly to the door.

Elijah pulled the cart into a parking spot in between two other carts and hopped out. "All right. Wait here. I'll check in on the tow truck."

Elijah went into a small cubic building that resembled the little booths for parking lot attendants back home. Abbey, Caleb and Simon alighted one by one from the cart. Abbey wondered if she would feel a rush of air suspending the skin above their heads, but there was only a whisper of a breeze. It was warm, but not unbearable, not like it had been outside. She gazed at the main boulevard lined with maple trees, their rustling leaves ruddy with the season.

Caleb turned all around. "This is unbelievable. A Bubble City. Look! The trees are moving. It's a bubble with wind. Do you think they make the wind?"

Abbey inhaled the faintly sweet scent of the air. It carried the vaguest whiff of confectionary sugar suffused with a reedy heartiness like fresh straw, or something more substantial, st.u.r.dy, plant-y. "No," said Abbey. "I think it breathes. I think...I think the bubble is alive."

Caleb looked at her, one eyebrow elevated.

Abbey stumbled to explain. "I mean, I think it's a plant, a plant epidermis, modified somehow so it serves as a skin-keeping out what they don't want inside, but permeable, allowing in some rain and some wind. It's ingenious. I wish I'd thought of it."

Simon snorted. "Well, Abs, I'm sure it's only a matter of time." He pressed his lips together into a thin line. "I just thought of something. Obviously, we didn't send a distress signal. So, there must be someone who did. What if someone's in trouble and we just hijacked the rescue vehicle?"

Abbey's sick feeling, which had been suspended for a few minutes by her awe at the bubble, returned. "What should we do?"

"We have to tell Elijah," said Caleb.

Elijah emerged from the hut. "Truck'll be back in an hour. You can hang around if you want, or come back." He'd removed his heavy sungla.s.ses and his eyes lingered on Abbey. She experienced a frisson of unease.

"For sure," said Caleb. "But-well, we just realized that it wasn't us that sent out the distress signal. We each thought the other had. But we hadn't. So, there might be someone else out there."

Elijah scratched his head and looked at the papers in his hand. "Aren't you Abbey, Caleb, and Simon Sinclair? I just a.s.sumed you were, since you matched the description called in. Call came from inside the bubble. Maybe your parents?"

Abbey tried to process what the man was saying. Caleb looked at Abbey and Simon, his eyes slightly widened and spooked. "Must have been," Caleb said. Abbey shuddered at the sudden imagined crawl of eyes on the back of her neck. Somebody here knew them. Elijah continued to focus on her in that strange way. Her cheeks burned and she shifted her gaze to her feet.

"Hey, are you any relation to Dr. Livingstone?" Elijah said, apparently addressing Abbey. "You know, Livingstone Labs. You look exactly like her." The chicken burrito she had eaten at school lurched into an even more precarious position in her abdomen.

She kept her voice nonchalant. "Nope. There's no relation."

Elijah shrugged. "Well, you sure look like her. I'll see you in an hour then." He returned to the hut.

Simon started walking down the boulevard. "Let's go. We can talk down the street."

The outer edges of the boulevard were lined with shops. They pa.s.sed a bakery, a butcher, a shoe store, a tea shop, and a soap and candle store. The street was lively with people carrying bright cloth bags containing wares from the stores. Their garb consisted mostly of muted, loose cotton pants and skirts with tunics layered on top. But there were enough people in clothes that wouldn't have been out of place in Coventry High-although the clothes did look unusually old and worn-such that Abbey, Caleb and Simon's jeans and t-shirts didn't stand out. Only Abbey's rubber boots generated a few mild looks of interest.

"None of this makes any sense," Abbey said. "Who would know us here?" She turned and looked behind to see if anyone was following them-Mantis or Mark, or anyone. But the boulevard remained full of people looking like they were just going about their daily business. "Why do there seem to be Sinclairs everywhere we go?"

"Or everywhen we go," Caleb added.

"What about alternate realities?" Simon asked. "Same time, different place, and we exist in all of them."

"You have to admit that yesterday we definitely went to the future."

"Yeah, but today I'm not so sure," Simon said.

Abbey felt a rasp of goose b.u.mps on her arms. Parallel universes-also called bubble universes, in some quantum theories-were unfalsifiable. There had never been any way to collect physical evidence and no way to empirically test the hypothesis. Some physicists insisted that the most elegant theory, and therefore the most likely to be true, was to a.s.sume they existed. But Abbey wasn't sure. This didn't feel like that, although she had to admit to herself she wasn't sure how an alternate reality would feel. They pa.s.sed a bank of greenhouses where gardeners tended an abundance of tomatoes, strawberries, and lettuces. "And how are we going to get home? Mark took the pen," she said.

"Elijah had a GPS," Caleb said. "He should be able to take us back to the same location. I left your cell phone on the dune we were hiding behind to mark the spot. When we get back, if we can't find it, maybe we can get Elijah to call it."

Abbey put her hands on her hips, suddenly furious. "You left my cell phone?"

"Hey, look at the sign on the greenhouse," Simon interrupted. Livingstone Labs was painted in tidy deep green script on a small white sign. The stylized skeleton of a tree grew out of the letter 'i', its branches dividing and multiplying as it grasped for the sky. It was a balanced tree, beautiful in its symmetry. But there was a fragile haphazardness to it that made Abbey catch her breath-its effortless mimicry of the algorithm of the natural world, the way it captured the surreal perfection and imperfection of a real tree, like a Feigenbaum diagram that stopped just short of chaos. She tried to figure out the Horton-Strahler number, but her eyes got lost in the branches. She thought perhaps nine, but she couldn't be sure. Next to the greenhouses stood a one-story office complex. The building had a creamy exterior made of sandy clay bricks with small portal-like windows, just like the other buildings in the city. The same Livingstone Labs sign hung over the entrance.