The last of Silvie’s lingering doubts fell like loosed chains. Karas slid back on the leather seat and wiped her cheek with her fingers. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I played the tape last night. I’m sorry; I would have come sooner, but I was at a concert in Amsterdam. How long have you been here?”

Johnis still looked like he’d been kicked by a mule. “Two days?”

“Two days!” Karas cried, then cackled with laughter. “So, then, you think the world’s turned inside out.”

Johnis swallowed. “It has.”

“What do you know? You’ve seen the lights, the cars? Well, obviously the cars—you’re riding in one. And you were both on the Net. A bit overwhelming, I’m sure.”

“I’ve mastered the Chevy,” Johnis said.

She smiled wide. “So I heard.” She began to cry again. “I knew I hadn’t lost my mind. For ten years I’ve had to wonder if it really was all a dream. The forests, the Horde, bathing in the lakes. All of it! But it’s true, isn’t it?”

“True?” Silvie looked out the window. “The question is, is this true?” She turned back to Karas. “Are you true? I mean, you’re real, of course, but . . . look at you!”

“You’re a woman,” Johnis said. There was more than a hint of wonder in his voice, and Silvie wasn’t sure she wanted to share his enthusiasm. She wasn’t just a woman; she was a beautiful woman of significant wealth and influence.

“How old are you?” she asked.

“Twenty-one. But I tell them all I’m twenty-four—it suits my place as an entertainment manager in this world. They have a hard enough time believing that someone in her midtwenties could have accomplished what I have. If they knew how young I really was, they’d dig even deeper than they do.”

“Younger?” Johnis said. “You look old enough.”

“There’s so much to cover,” Karas said, smiling through her tears. “I’ve hoped for this day for as long as I can remember. Nothing else matters. I’ve done it all hoping that one day I would find you. I just had no idea you would both be so . . . young still.”

“We’re sixteen,” Silvie said. “Is that so young?”

“No. Although in the United States, sixteen isn’t the age of marrying and waging war.” She stopped, clearly overwhelmed. “It’s so . . . refreshing to talk to someone besides my therapist about Other Earth. Did you know that Thomas Hunter was once a great hero here?”

“So, he was here?” Johnis asked in amazement. “This is the place from his dreams?”

“From what I can tell, Other Earth—that’s what I call it—is the far future of Earth. At some point in the future here, this Earth is destroyed and everything starts over. Thomas Hunter found a way from this reality into that future.”

“Then . . . can we?”