One (One Universe)

and I whip it off and hand it to her. Daniel takes it when she shoves it in his face and pulls a tiny screwdriver out of his pocket, going to work on the cuff and muttering about how he’s only doing this because he loves Leni. I can’t help but smile.
    In just a few minutes, he’s got the cuff put back together, and I strap it back onto my wrist, praying that his clearance hack is good enough to get me where I need to go.
    A soft “thank you” is all I can get out, and then Leni reaches to pop open her door. We stride silently, shoulder to shoulder, toward the elevator that will take us into the Hub.
     
    The elevator opens into a long hallway, the white shining surface barely reflecting back the dull grayish light. It’s on low lights status and doesn’t automatically change when we walk through, to my surprise and relief.
    “We’re before the checkpoint, so the building doesn’t care what we do. Not yet,” Daniel explains. “But right at the end of this hallway…” he gestures to a box on the wall right before the doorway to the entrance. I remember it from the Symposium.
    “Facial recognition and serum,” Daniel whispers. “You have to let it scan you, then give it a drop of your blood.”
    My thumb rubs against my middle finger, which is the one I used to get the blood sample for Mr. Hoffman.
    “Shit,” I say. “Dammit.” No way can we pass this scanner. The way the two of them look at each other, I can tell they’re thinking the same thing.
    “Okay, Merrin. That’s enough.” Daniel’s eyebrows squeeze together, and he puts a hand on my upper arm, trying to turn me back toward the way we came. I shrug away from him, my face screwing up with the tears and anger I’m trying to keep from flooding out of it. “We’ll figure this out back home,” he says, his voice dropping even more. He turns toward the door, back from where we came.
    I plant my feet firmly on the floor. “I know he’s here, you guys. I know it. He told me he needed me.” I dig the white slip of paper out of my pocket and wave it in front of me. “Daniel, he texted you. Trusted you. What else could M will need you mean besides ‘Help Merrin get into the Hub?’”
    “A lot of things,” Daniel says, clenching his jaw, although he stops, facing the wall, not ready to go back or to continue.
    Leni’s eyes turn sad again, and she grabs Daniel’s upper arm.
    “Helen,” his voice is soft. “My parents…”
    “Merrin is serious. Elias needs us. Elias, who we’ve known since we were little. Okay? If he’s really in trouble…your parents won’t care.”
    I want to ask them what the hell they even think they can do, but I’m so grateful for Leni, that she’s even making Daniel hesitate at all, that I bite my lip.
    He looks up, his eyes burning a hole in me. “Do you know where to go?”
    I close my eyes for a moment, and I can imagine where the hallway curves around, can visualize where it leads into the main lobby and the demonstration rooms. Can remember the hallways I sped past with Elias and the one he pulled me into that night at the Symposium.
    “I have an idea.”
    “Okay,” Leni says. “After we do this, you just…go. We can take care of ourselves.”
    “What are you going to do?” I hiss in a whisper. I’m almost as worried about them as I am about Elias. Almost.
    Daniel closes his eyes and shakes his head. Leni snakes her arm around his waist and puts her forehead up to his while she extends her palm out toward the retina scanner. “This is Elias. He would do it for us.” I can’t tell whether she’s speaking to me or Daniel or both of us. “He would do it without thinking.”
    I nod, watching her, knowing what she’s going to do and half-wanting to stop her because I know that nothing that comes from it will be good. Not for them, anyway. Not for any of us, but at this point, I don’t really care what happens to me.
    A low whoosh emits from Leni’s hand, followed half a second later by the most intense column of blue-fading-to-white fire I’ve ever seen, three times denser and brighter than a blow torch. She targets the column behind the retina screen where all the computers are.
    The metal glows hot and red, and Leni winces. Something bubbles out from the joints of the box and melts down the sides. She’s completely destroyed the insides, and the plastic has melted and is oozing out of the scanner.
    It’s surreal how quiet the whole thing is except for the low, steady whisper of