Free Tandem by Anna Jarzab Page A

wasn’t insane. Everything he had told me was true as far as he knew it. I was trapped in another world with no idea how to get back home.

EIGHT
    It was too hot outside for all the clothes I was wearing. I started to unzip the hoodie, but Thomas stopped me.
    “What are you doing?” he demanded.
    “Taking off some of these layers. I’m baking.”
    “Keep it on,” he said. He glanced up and down the street, which was mostly empty except for a few people wandering by. What is he so worried about? I wondered. The street was practically deserted, and anyway I was dressed like the Unabomber—surely that was much more noticeable than just showing my face.
    Since he was looking around, I did, too. It was difficult to describe the Chicago of Aurora. If someone had insisted that I was standing in the city I’d grown up in, it would have been hard to point to anything definitive that would prove them wrong, but I knew instinctively that this wasn’t my home.
    There were some things, though, that were obviously unusual. I squinted to read a nearby street sign: West Eugenie Street. We were in Lincoln Park—or we would’ve been, if we were on Earth—but the neighborhood, which I knew, was unrecognizable. The surrounding buildings were taller than I would’ve expected, given that we weren’t downtown; there should’ve been houses and apartments no taller than four stories, but there were towering high-rises in their place, as far as the eye could see. The basement we’d emerged from belonged to one of three side-by-side redbrick row houses that sat in the center of the block, overshadowed by their larger neighbors, remnants of a bygone era. I wondered at their even being there; it was as if someone had forgotten about them, or they were being protected, although they were so run-down that it seemed unlikely.
    The rest of the buildings were more modern-looking than they would’ve been in my Chicago, as if they’d just been built. They were mostly glass, with elegantly curved edges and tinted windows that reflected the light from the sun in a rainbow of colors like pools of oil. But they were more dilapidated, too, as if they’d been around for ages and not well kept up. The awning that protruded from the entrance of a nearby condominium was torn, the shreds of what remained fluttering half-heartedly in the breeze. There were no trees—I looked up and down the street for blocks without seeing one—and more trash in the gutters. It was as if I’d been transported to a slightly distant future where nobody took care of anything. Cars lined the edges of the street, but they were models I didn’t quite recognize. They were sleeker, and more compact, all except a large, intimidating, black SUV parked a few doors down. Thomas headed in that direction and motioned for me to follow him.
    “Stay close,” he said in a low tone. “If anyone passes by, don’t look at them.” Who is this person that I look like? I asked myself. She had to be someone important, otherwise Thomas wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble.
    When we reached the SUV, Thomas went around to the trunk and pressed his thumb against a small LCD pad the size of a Post-it note near the handle.
    “Yeah, this vehicle isn’t at all conspicuous,” I said.
    Thomas didn’t rise to the bait. He simply opened the cargo door and said, “Climb in.”
    “Absolutely not.” I stared at him in disbelief. “I’m not getting into the trunk, are you serious?”
    “I’m serious. I don’t want anybody to see you, even through the window. You don’t know how recognizable your face is here. If someone sees you and reports it, it’ll be all over the press boards in fifteen minutes and we’ll never get out of here undetected.”
    I waited for him to explain further; when he didn’t, I sighed and asked, “What are you talking about?”
    “You’ve been to Times Square?” Thomas asked. “On Earth, I mean.”
    “No.” Granddad wasn’t big on vacations. He’d