Page 44

The Plan

“I think we lost him,” Marsh finally says as she and Dylan stumble to a halt, her voice ragged with exhaustion. Her legs wobble, and Dylan doubles over panting.

“Who knows for how long, though,” he says once he’s gotten his breath back. “What do we do now?”

“I have no idea!” Marsh replies. “I was hoping you would! You’re the physics genius, aren’t you?”

“But this is your show!” he replies, glancing around. “Why does it look like this?”

“I don’t know,” Marsh admits.

They’re standing on their old street in Phoenix, in front of their suburban house, but everything looks like it’s two-dimensional—the homes, the trees, the cars—like a wooden, wallpapered backdrop on a movie set instead of the real thing.

“I think we’re behind the scenes or something,” she finally says.

Dylan shudders. “That’s creepy.”

Marsh nods.

Even as grim as the situation is, she can’t help but notice that the flower garden next to their front door would look better with pink or yellow blooms, not red. The urge to tinker prickles, a thorn in her side.

“How much time do we have left?” she asks, turning away.

They’re just flowers. But they do look better now, vibrant fuchsia and marigold against the light blue wall.

Dylan, oblivious, checks his watch. “Fifteen minutes, maybe,” he answers. “Twenty, if they’ve cut the commercials.”

“Shit,” Marsh frets, tangling her fingers in her sweaty hair.

“They wouldn’t just... end the show without letting you make your last choice, would they?” Dylan asks her.

She shrugs nervously. “I don’t know.”

Dylan rubs his face. “Great,” he mutters. “Just great.”

Marsh fidgets as he begins to pace.

“I’m so sorry,” she finally says, but it comes out weakly. “I just thought, there were so many things I wish I’d done, and...”

“No, I’m sorry,” Dylan cuts her off. He faces her square on, and looks her in the eyes. “For a lot of things. But especially the affair.”

Marsh is so surprised, she can’t speak. She actually can’t remember now—did he never apologize for it? If he did, not well enough, anyway.

“Part of it was Ren’s fault,” she offers, a small olive branch.

“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But the rest of it was mine. I should have been better.”

She makes a small sound, like the start of a cry being smothered, and bites her lip to stop the tears from escaping.

“I hurt you, and I hurt Harper. I was weak, and greedy, and wrong. I...”

But suddenly, Dylan trails off midsentence.

“Goddamnit, Dylan,” Marsh snaps, throwing up her hands in disgust. “Are you kidding me? I mean, what did I expect? That you were actually going to take the blame for something, for once? That—”

“Shh,” Dylan interrupts, waving his hand.

Marsh gasps, floored. She’s about to unload on him for that, but she stops short when sees his expression.

He doesn’t look upset or guilty anymore. He looks excited . His shoulders are hitched up right around his ears—just like whenever he’s midlecture at school, or hovering over his research, and has just thought of something new.

“Tell me you have a plan,” she says desperately.

Dylan turns to her.

“What if instead of trying to escape Ren, we beat him at his own game?” he proposes.

“What do you mean?” Marsh frowns.

Dylan is pacing again, faster now, deep in thought.

“What did you say, back in the midseason special?” he asks. “That Talia has some kind of book that contains every choice you’ve made, or could make?”

“The Show Bible,” Marsh answers.

Yes! she realizes.

Dylan wants the two of them to steal Marsh’s huge binder from RealTV. With that book, they would have access to every single piece of information from this season to help make Marsh’s final choice. And with Dylan’s understanding of physics, they might still be able to pull off a perfect ending after all!

“But it’s a mess, because of Chrysalis,” Marsh frets. “Thousands of pages, so big that Talia can no longer move it around. Who knows what it looks like now. Even if we can reach it, what if we flip to the end, and the choices there are—”

“No, no,” Dylan says. “Not the end of the Show Bible. I want us to do the opposite.”

“Flip to the beginning?” Marsh asks. “But why? We’re in the finale. We’re out of time. Don’t we want to change the end?”

He shakes his head. “I mean, maybe we could do that, but with only one choice left, even with the book as a reference, we still run the risk of having some of these other negative changes remain when the Bubble opens.”

Marsh studies him for a moment.

“You think there’s a better way out,” she says.

“Maybe.” He pauses. “This whole mess we’re in is because Ren tried to cheat the system by manipulating your season three, right?” He takes a breath and steps closer to her. “But what if he hadn’t?”

“Hadn’t cheated?” Marsh asks.

Dylan shakes his head. “Hadn’t made a season three.”

Marsh stares at him, trying to follow his train of thought, but she doesn’t get it at first.

Then she understands.

Holy mackerel.

“If we can get ahold of the Show Bible, instead of trying to control the path forward like Ren did, we can use it to go back .” He makes a fist. “All the way back, Mallow. All the way to the pilot episode. To... reality.”

“Before I made any choices,” Marsh says.

He takes Marsh’s hand. “We could undo everything that’s happened. Our lives will be back to the original version again, and you and Harper”—he looks hesitantly into her eyes—“and me. Imperfectly, but together at least, could start over again. We could have a chance.”

He stares at Marsh, begging her to agree, as her heart hammers in her chest.

It’s a ludicrous plan. Ren is still chasing them, they’re almost out of time, and RealTV is on lockdown.

It seems impossible. And probably very dangerous.

“You’re sure this will work?” Marsh finally asks him.

“No,” he confesses. “But do you have a better idea?”