Duke was startled, but watched her take the hardened black tear out of her pocket. She held it to her lips, whispering something he didn't hear. Then she crushed the ball in her hand; it clung to her pale skin like black ink. She blew on her hand and the dust blew away, looking like a flock of tiny birds all headed in one direction.

"What was that, Audrey?" Duke breathed in wonder.

"Aether. I had to stop the meteors. The Troubles will still be active, though. What the hell is going on? Howard and the Hunter I get, but you... how did you get here, Duke?"

"Nate begged me to go after you. I just... I just jumped. Then I was flying or falling, and I landed in the back room."

"That's not possible. Not unless... Duke, I need you to cry again!"

"I'm not an actor, Audrey, I can't just cry on command."

"Duke, think of Nathan." She clambered up, kneeling on the loveseat next to him. The long, streaked hair and nose ring, all the physical changes that made Audrey 'Lexie' were distracting him.

He closed his eyes and she took his hand, squeezing. "Think of Nathan, your best friend, lying there bleeding, needing us, Duke, and we're not there to help him!" She felt terrible for the reminder, but she had to make him cry. She had to.

Duke's breath rasped, he swallowed hard. Saw Nathan, bleeding. Imagined him hitting the ground out there, surrounded by those psychos from the Guard. Would they even help him?

The tears fell, but they didn't roll down his cheeks. His eyes opened in time to see the fat, black blobs disappear into her hand and she shook again, producing four orbs, one by one. They stared at the pile of orbs together, both stunned.

"That's... Duke. You honestly didn't know? All that crap in your family journal and it never mentioned that you're not human?"

"What to you mean, I'm as human as you are!"

"That's the point, Duke. I'm not. Not human, not like you're thinking. Apparently, neither are you."

He looked at her like she was crazy, because she was. She'd obviously been whacked on the head at some point.

"Duke, just listen. You always wanted to know about me. Here's what I know. New things pop up from time to time, like a computer buffering. Too much information to assimilate all at once.

"I wasn't born on your world. I wasn't," she rushed to keep him from interrupting.

"I was born in a world similar, but scientifically more advanced. They'd played around with quantum mechanics, singularities, the Many Worlds theory... everything the scientists you remember are researching. But for them it wasn't Theoretical Physics. It was actual, and they ripped soft spots in the fabric of space-time.

"They're called Thinnies, and people can travel through them, but you have to be born to it. Most people get lost in the Void. It's too much. They get lost, they stay lost. Some people were asked to... volunteer family members, like sacrifices or Tributes. Those of us who passed the physical and psychological testing were sent for further training."

"What happened to the ones who didn't pass?"

"They died." Her voice was cold, angry. "In my world, science is everything. They didn't care how many lives it took, they had their goal. Nothing else mattered. It's not a good place."

She shook her head, playing with her hair absentmindedly as she spoke, curling back up against Duke. She may have been part Audrey, but this woman was very different. She was still brilliant and wonderful, but she was more openly affectionate, less buttoned down. She was different enough that he was fascinated, and because she allowed it- cuddled in, even- he stroked his fingers through her hair, over her skin. He rained soft kisses on her head.

Audrey continued, "We were experimented on, given new drugs and serums. We weren't told what was in them. Those who survived that were given... uh... not partners, but... counterparts? Someone who you were attached to but at odds with. We were set to guard the Void and the towns where the affect of the rips were worst. There were four of us, but... your mother must be Two. I never knew her name, we weren't supposed to discuss our lives with each other. But I can't feel Three or Two. They must be on the Other World or dead. They aren't in the Void, where they're supposed to be."

She jerked to look at him. "I'm not supposed to be here! They said our terms were up! I was supposed to stay!" She shouted at the Barn. "You swore!"

Duke wrapped his arms around her, pulling her into his chest. She crawled into his lap, holding him in return.

"Something is wrong. The Barn wasn't supposed to take me. It was supposed to bring me James back and leave. I needed to find the Barn and get him out before the Hunter came.

"The Hunter isn't just the name of the meteor shower, Duke. It's what they called my counterpart. One. He got through the testing process, but he's unstable, he just hides it really well. Best actor I've ever seen. He has chased me all over creation. He has this idea that we're gods, and that we're meant to be together because of the bond they forced on us. So he hunts me. He uses his abilities to hurt people, to give them Troubles. The rest of us were giving Gifts, trying to lessen the burden on the humans in the fallout zones.

"One thinks of people as science projects. Things he can play with- and he always breaks his toys." Her voice was chilled, it promised horror.

"What about me? What are you saying about my mother?"

"Two and Three aren't here, I could feel them if they were. Not here in the Barn, here in the Void. I should be able to feel them. I don't know how they could just go off-grid. It's not like we can just switch the connections off. There's a chance they just served their term and were released... but I don't think so. Two must have had a child with a Troubled man."

"So did you."

"Yes, but my child is immune to the Troubles, like me. You express your father's affliction, but Troubles are inactive here in the Barn. What you're doing isn't your father's Trouble."

She thought for a moment, her eyes widening as she stared at Duke. "She knew. She knew what One was doing, and she had you, knowing you'd have the power to save everyone! But why is it only working in here?"

She ran her hands all over his chest as she asked herself questions, and obviously she'd forgotten that she was in his lap, now straddling him as she groped him. He, of course, had not, and his traitorous body was going to give him away if she got much closer. He thought about baseball stats and just stayed still, hoping she wouldn't notice.

The damned universe never cut Duke Crocker a break.

She pressed her hand over his heart, squinting as she lowered herself to sit flat on Duke's lap and she froze just before him; he could see the color rising in her cheeks even though she wasn't looking at his face.

Duke scrambled for something to say that wouldn't sound lecherous or embarrassing.

Eventually she looked up at him from under her lashes, cheeks pink as she said, "All this for little old me?"

Duke laughed, relieved, and the tension left Audrey-Lexie-Mara as he did. "You have no idea."

She gazed at him, eyes challenging. "Do you want me, Duke? Even knowing what I am?"

"It'll take me a lifetime to understand what you are. A lifetime I'm more than willing to give."

His conscience creaked at him, and he mentally tried to swat the cricket with a newspaper, but the words came out anyway. The million dollar question, the knife edge his life balanced on.

"What about Nathan?"