A Little Tuning
an excerpt

“So this is your chance to see the world,” said Yuuki, grinning. “Worlds.”

“Well it’s turned out a little more interesting than I expected, but...”

And then Aria was in the middle of the room. “Judah? Are you... oh.” She could make a rather fetching chastened expression, at least.

“Aria, I’m pretty sure we covered the no hopping into boys bedrooms, but didn’t Manny tell you something about no hopping at all for the next forty-eight hours?”

“He did say something,” muttered Aria. “But I think he was just playing around, he made this big thing about how he couldn’t tell me why because it might get too scientific for my teenage mind. I know it wasn’t directed at me but it was kind of annoying...”

She wasn’t there any more.

Yuuki leaped across the room faster than any person in Judah’s world ever would, pouncing on Marty and yelling, “Up! Up!”

By the time Marty stopped screaming, Manny was in the doorway, fighting for position against a couple other people Judah had seen wandering about their wing of the building before they’d all retired. They didn’t seem to be part of the group, so Judah hoped they’d clear off back to bed once they found out what had happened. ...What had happened, anyway?

“Aria’s gone into loop,” Yuuki announced. Marty and the other bystanders winced; Manny looked as though he might need to borrow the room with the sink any moment.

Judah edged over to Marty, using Yuuki’s back as cover. “Hey... where’s loop? I don’t...”

“No, it means she can’t stop hopping from place to place until she dies,” said Marty, fumbling for his clothes. “And she’ll be impossible to trace, too - looping doesn’t send out much of a signal.”

“I told her not to do it!” Manny was wailing.

Yuuki shook his head. “And perhaps if you’d told her with less added sarcasm and more fact, she would have believed you...”

“You told me not to waffle on about facts!”

“Told you not to waffle on about vibrating bits and pieces, yes. Matters of life and death are a little different!”

One of the males at the door broke them up before anyone could start swinging punches. “Now is not the time for your little lovers’ act! Are you sure it was loop? Who knows her best?”

“Judah,” said Yuuki at once, turning towards Marty’s pallet. The better for him to hear it, too... “Judah, when she was in here, knowing her as you do, did she seem particularly relaxed? I know it’s a leading question,” he added over his shoulder, “but he’s a smart kid. He’ll live.”

Judah tried to remember. It wasn’t easy, with Marty’s words prancing about in his head and Marty himself asking why Aria had been there in a hundred different ways, calling her Ariadne each time. “Yes,” he said finally. “Well, she sounded a bit sleepy. And she was rambling. Before she disappeared...”

Yuuki had shut Marty up with a few words in his ear, and as soon as he moved away Marty moved over to grab Judah’s hand. Hard. Not complicated to work out what that conversation had been about.

“Judah and Marty can look out for one another,” Yuuki said, confirming it. “Manny, you come with me.”

“We’ll post,” said someone at the door, and there were running feet in the distance. Obviously they hadn’t put as much thought into soundproofing the floors as the walls - or maybe it was for effect.

“You two go ahead of us,” Yuuki said to Marty. “Out the front, and then follow Judah.”

Manny thumped Yuuki in the shoulder. “But they can’t...”

“Go!” said Yuuki, and Judah felt a tingling that he might have felt before, though not as strongly. They were outside now, the sky above seeming almost to press down on top of them, glowing amber.

Marty yanked on his arm. “You, you know her so well you say. What’s in her mind?”

“What?” If the answer to this question was meant to save Aria’s life, they might as well give up and head back in right now.