Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

story, or even a lot of it.”
    “It’s all the stuff that matters,” Boricio said.
    Luca shook his head. “No, it isn’t. And now I feel sad because you’re lying to me.”
    “Aww, little man,” Boricio said. “It’s not like that.” He squeezed his little brother tighter. “There’s just some stuff I don’t think you need to know. Not because I don’t care if you do, but because I don’t think you need to worry about stuff you don’t need to be worried about, you know?” He didn’t wait for Luca to answer. “A kid should have the chance to be a kid.”
    “I see it all anyway.” Luca said pointing to his head. “If you don’t lie to me, then you can help me understand it.”
    “Oh,” Boricio said, “I forget.” He paused, then added, “How much can you see?”
    Luca said, “I see the what in what you’re thinking, but can’t see the why.”
    Boricio scooted from Luca and pulled his arm back to his side. “Is this about you digging into other people’s minds?”
    Luca nodded, then said. “I can see inside everyone now.” He swallowed. “And there’s more.”
    Boricio could feel it, a special sort of bullshit that wasn’t really bullshit at all. Maybe he was only catching rebounds from Luca’s brain, but it felt to Boricio like they were sitting just seconds away from everything changing. He swallowed.
    “There’s another Earth, mostly just like ours. And I know how to get there.”
    Boricio laughed. “Hahaha, at least that’s funnier than that ‘Charlie Bit My Finger’ thing you made me watch on YouTube.”
    Luca’s face was cool marble, desperately wanting to warm.
    Boricio swallowed again and asked, “What do you mean there’s another Earth?”
    He repeated, “There’s another Earth, and I can go there.” Then probably because Luca knew what Boricio would say next, he added, “I’ve gone there before and I’ll go there again. I can even bring stuff back with me.”
    “No way!” Boricio yelled, loud enough to pull Sarah to the doorway. He turned to Sarah, shook his head, and gestured for her that everything was kosher. Sarah left with a shrug and Boricio turned to Luca.
    “That’s not possible!” he said, even though he could clearly see in Luca’s eyes that it was.
    There was nothing but silence and faster breathing from Boricio, until Luca finally spoke. “You want to believe me, Boricio, but you can’t,” he said. Then after another second, he said, “Dad already saw it. So I can show you too.”
    “Wait,” Boricio said. “Will has seen this?”
    “Yes,” Luca nodded. “And call him Dad.”
    “When did Dad see this?”
    “I dunno, a few weeks ago,” Luca said. “But he didn’t go with me, even though I think I might even be able to take people. He didn’t want to come. Do you want to come with me?”
    “That sounds like six pounds of vanilla ice cream, covered in fudge, kid soldier. Just tell me what to do and you’ll be halfway to having it done.”
    “You don’t have to do anything,” Luca said. “You can close your eyes, but you probably won’t have to. I like to close mine.” Luca closed his eyes as he finished his sentence.
    Boricio had no idea whether he would have had to close his eyes or not, since the millisecond he did, he was already somewhere else.
    He opened his eyes to a chain link fence, a few feet away from where the two of them were standing beneath a stop sign, with patches of grass growing through the cracks in the sidewalk around it.
    “Where are we?” Boricio said.
    Luca pointed to the chain link. “That’s my old school.”
    “Wait…what?” Boricio turned to Luca in disbelief, and then up the puffy white clouds in the perfect California summer sky. “This is Las Orillas?”
    Luca nodded again, then turned around and curled his fingers into the chain link, except for his pointer, which was aimed straight at another Luca, who was on a playground pretending like he was Indiana Jones, swinging from a plastic slider, then onto the rubber mat while loudly humming the theme song. The other Luca sprang up from the mat, then ran to the back of the line of kids, laughing.
    Boricio shook his head. “It’s not possible.” He pointed to his chest. “Can he see us?”
    Luca nodded. “If he looked over, he could. But I think he’s too busy playing. But I talked with my dad, … or his dad, anyway. He thought I was the other Luca, so I didn’t get caught.”
    Luca looked like he might cry, and then said,