"h.e.l.lo?" Consuela called back.

"In a minute."

Consuela glanced around, trying to guess where the sound came from, but gave up.

". . . Roughly seventy seconds, or its nearest equivalent . . ." A smiling face appeared through an Escher-angled wall. Abacus adjusted his rimless gla.s.ses as he stepped forward. " . . . depending on your relative s.p.a.ce-time," he said. "Hi."

"Hi," Consuela said. "I'm guessing you're Abacus."

"And you must be Bones." He offered a handshake, which she accepted. William Chang shook her collection of tarsals without a trace of embarra.s.sment or hesitation. He wore his smile comfortably, like an old shirt; his actual shirt was maroon and tugged at a noticeable paunch.

"Consuela Chavez, aka Bones," he said again. "I've been looking forward to meeting you." He looked her over appreciatively. "Wow! You're really something, if you don't mind me saying so." His eyes twinkled. "Come on inside. Let me show you around."

He waved toward his ma.s.s of towers. Consuela squinted up.

"I'm trying to get home," she said as she tried to follow the lines of the building. The light bent and wobbled, trailing prism colors. Consuela's phantom eyes traced the aurora effect as it climbed.

"Well," he said, "you've come to the right place."

"This is quite the place," she said with a smile in her voice. "If you don't mind me saying so."

Abacus laughed. "Isn't it? I call it 'Quantum' and I can honestly say I made it all by myself. I think it's the only permanent artificial construction created within the Flow." He rubbed his hands together gleefully and gave a mad-scientist laugh. "And it's mine, all mine!"

Consuela burst out laughing. "Well, can we go inside?" she asked.

"Sure," he said.

Standing at the base of the structure, she touched the smooth, quicksilver walls. "How?" she asked.

"I could show off and try to explain the math, but it's simpler to say that I took surreality and bent it to my will. Fun, huh? This way." He stepped one foot dramatically through the wall and held it there. "You might want to swallow before entering, the transition can throw off your inner ear, and you still have those-smallest bones in the body." He winked. "Ready?"

"As ever," Consuela said, swallowed, and stepped through the wall. She tilted suddenly upward and to the right, flipping something inside her skull that resettled into almost the same position. She clapped a hand to her forehead with a clack.

"Ow," she muttered.

"I warned you." Abacus chuckled.

"You did."

"But isn't this totally worth it?" Abacus said proudly as Consuela blinked up at the faceted walls. Whorls of formulae swirled over its surfaces, arcing spirals of numbers and symbols in Greek. The writing changed color as it moved, reflecting its opposite, while incredibly thin lines joined and split, connecting tiny points of light like jewels in an invisible chandelier. Abacus reached up and touched one point of light and, with an encouraging push, coaxed it into a small constellation of similar stars.

"Welcome to the Flow," he said, grinning. "My map of it, anyway."

"Wow," Consuela breathed.

"Tell me about it." Abacus laughed.

Consuela looked around, hoping to find what would get her home fast. "So where's your computer?" she asked.

"Here," he said, tapping his temple. "And here." He scooped something off of a hook. Dark wooden beads rattled on the frame.

As she saw the ancient calculator, William Chang's nickname suddenly made sense. Consuela crossed her arms. "You're kidding."

"Nope." He gloated. "It's a suanpan. Faster than a computer. They've clocked it. Now look over here. I think this is what you wanted." He led the way to one of the side towers leaning at a sharp angle to the ground. Consuela ducked when he did and knelt where he bent to enter a new direction. She crept forward, knowing she'd never find her way out of this place if she lost sight of him. Excitement tingled along her limbs. She felt sorry for leaving Sissy and V and Wish without so much as saying good-bye.

They wound deeper in dizzying directions. Fortunately, Abacus waited for her at every turn, a smile crinkling his eyes. When he stopped, she stood up too soon and banged her head on a corner. She might have bit her tongue if she'd had one.

"All right back there?"

She rubbed her skull. "You couldn't imagine a place with right angles?"

"Had to work within parameters," he apologized. "Here we are." He took her hand and guided her to stand. "Look up."

She did. The chamber was full of sparkling lights and alphanumerics spinning in Milky Way computations. Before she could ask, Abacus was already pointing out areas of interest.

"This is one of my pet projects. I have been trying to map causality in the Flow, trying to piece together a pattern based on who we are and who our a.s.signments have been; how it all fits together." Abacus tapped one area and spun his hand around, circling the spiral of proofs and theorems. "Tender's been helping, which is a real plus. He has a knack for inferential outcomes, and I'll admit that I'm pretty good at graphing predictability . . ." He c.o.c.ked his head and gave her a charming smile. "Well, I was. Before you showed up." He knocked a knuckle against the wall. "I thought I had the rules of this place figured out, but, oh well." He placed his hands on his hips and sighed dramatically. "I'll have to sc.r.a.p the whole thing, of course."

Consuela stepped back. "What?" she said. "Why?"

"Oh, don't worry-I love it!" Abacus laughed easily. "I mean, it's awesome meeting you: you're a real anomaly. I've checked, and nowhere has anyone left any record of this sort of thing ever happening before." He bounced on his heels like a kid. "You're like your own comet!" he said. "And I saw you first-or, at least, the possibility of you."

Consuela tried to follow his meaning while being distracted by his work. "But why am I so different?" she asked. "Why can't I just go home?"

"It's not a question of whether you can or can't," Abacus said. "What I mean is that the regular rules don't apply to you, or perhaps they never applied to anyone, really. That's the difference between theories and facts. What makes you different is that you"-he indicated a point over his head with a thick finger-"were on that side of the Flow and now"-he dragged the spot of light over like a cursor under his forefinger and placed it in a new location on the wall, tapping it-"you're on this side." The entire diagram split and roiled clockwise, trying to adapt. The design kept shifting, attempting to compensate while rippling outward. Abacus watched the chaos burn holes in his orderly pinwheel. "See? Throws the whole thing out of whack." He looked pleased with himself.

She crossed her radii against her growing uncertainty. "But people cross over all the time . . ."

"Oh sure," he said. "Regular folks do. But I've never heard of someone who was an a.s.signment crossing over into the Flow." Abacus shook his head, still smiling at a private joke. "It's never happened before."

A little trickle ran over her skull, the feeling of all eyes on her.

An a.s.signment?

Counsuela failed to say the words; something held her back, maybe fear.

I was an a.s.signment.

An a.s.signment that crossed over.

"Never?" she whispered.

"Well, it's a long 'ever,'" Abacus admitted. "But let's say close enough for grenades. But there's always a chance. We can figure out something." He turned and looked at her bones, glittering under the play of light and crystal colors. His voice slid into a bedtime quiet. "You know how sometimes, late at night, you lie awake and think that maybe the whole universe revolves around you?" Abacus asked, and waved his hand; a thread of numbers followed. The cascade danced across the wall, throwing more order atop the chaos. The vortex kept fracturing, breaking down. More galaxies of twinkling light were pulled into the hole. He winked at her. "Well, in your case, you might be right."

Walking slowly in front of his unfolding universe projection, Abacus shrugged his shoulders with casual glee.

"You see, it no longer makes sense," he said quietly as his work bulged in places and collapsed in others. "Save this one thing . . ." He tapped a handful of points. "a.s.signments, on average, affect exponentially more lives than normal people do. Ergo, these are important people who we're saving, meant to do great things in the world. Ergo . . ." Abacus nodded like a salute. "You are important to the world. And you don't belong here."

"That's what V said," Consuela confirmed.

"Giovanni. Yes. I told him that when he asked me," Abacus said. "It was the first time he'd ever shown any interest in any of this. Or me, frankly. Still, I'm glad you two talked, I know he's been anxious about meeting you."

Consuela frowned. "What do you mean?"

His eyes widened under Quantum's collapsing stars.

"Didn't you know?" Abacus said gently, "You were V's a.s.signment."

chapter seven.

"The important thing is to go out, open a way, get drunk on noise, people, colors . . . this fiesta, shot through with lightning and delirium, is the brilliant reverse to our silence and apathy, our reticence and gloom."

-OCTAVIO PAZ.

CONSUELA ran-swam-flew, honing herself like a tuning fork, searching for V in the Flow. This time, she found him. And when she found him, she struck like lightning.

"You!" She didn't have the words to express everything she felt-it was the one sound that had surfaced. The only word in the world.

V glanced over his shoulder, his chin sc.r.a.ping against the crisp collar of his shirt. He watched her come charging across the Maine harbor sand.

* Bones. *

"You did this!" Consuela said.

"I did," he said.

* I'm sorry. *

She ignored the violin-voice, clean and pure in sorrow.

"Why!" she cried.

V held his hands behind him as if offering the perfect shot. The breeze off the water ruffled his hair.

"It wasn't as if I had a choice, finding you," he said. "I had to." Consuela knew what he meant-the compulsion, the pull-but the way he said it made it sound different. Like a confession. Something secret. It threw her anger into confusion.

"I should have done something else," he added. "I should have said something else . . ." Consuela's emotional momentum had nowhere to go. She nearly vibrated in place, energy buzzing along her bones. V tilted his face down to look into the deep shadows of her empty eyes. " . . . I don't know what happened." * I'm sorry. *

As he spoke, the musical voice slipped in between his words. "In the mirror, I can stand behind someone's eyes * Bones * and say the words that they needed to hear. That's how my power works." Consuela shook her head, trying to remember those split seconds between hangers and mirrors and orange juice and floor.

V's voice-his real one-grew more insistent. "When you take a long look at yourself, stare deep into your own eyes-try to talk yourself into something, or out of something, or steel yourself for something about to happen * pain/fear/love/choice *," V's voice fell to a whisper, a sound matched to the hush of waves. "That's when I can whisper* heart to heart, soul to soul * and people can hear me."

She crossed and uncrossed her arms, struggling with what to say, what to think. Soothing crashes lulled behind her. A buoy bell rang softly in the distance.

Know thyself.

"That was you," she said, finally. On the changing room floor, in her bathroom mirror, in the Flow.

V nodded once. "That was me."

The air smelled of salt and wet, green things.

"Why were you there?" she asked.

He sighed, disappointed. "You know why I was there," V said. "I had to be there to try to save you. You weren't supposed to-"

"Cross over," Consuela interrupted. Fear crept up her insides and scattered her breath. "So what happened? " she whispered.

V's hands fell to his sides, useless, defeated.

"I don't know," he said again. "I was there. I saw you fall. I saw you look into the mirror and you saw beyond it. Beyond the gla.s.s and the foil. Like . . ." He ground his teeth, rubbed his face, and tapped his fist against his lips.

* Like you could see me. *

". . . like you were hallucinating," V finished.

Consuela took a tentative step forward. Her own voice was lost, absorbed by the sea and the drum in her ears. "That wasn't what you were going to say."

V shifted on his feet, dropped his eyes. "No," he said. "I thought you could see me."

* I hoped/wondered/wished. *

She closed the distance; knuckles of tension popping one by one.

"And could that be what brought me here?" she asked.

* Me? *

V stared at her. Anguish raked his face like his worst fears confirmed.

* No, please, no. *

"I hope not," he said.

* Is it my fault?/Are there accidents?/Is it all meant to be the way it has to be? *

The Flow strummed on V's electric currents, crackling the salty air between them. It felt almost impossible to Consuela that they stood this close and didn't shatter. It was as if all of time compressed so that this moment could happen.

Consuela gave the barest of nods, the ice on her insides beginning to thaw. V wavered, uncertain.

"I forgive you now."

He started breathing, half surprised that he had stopped.