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her. In spite of her help, she had kind of ruined my life. Looking back now, I can at least appreciate how shetried to make up for it. I don’t think she’s in Zeropolis anymore. My understanding is she returned to Creon.”
    â€œYou got stuck here,” Jace said. “Then what?”
    â€œI found a hospital,” Joe said. “Since I’m a paramedic, they became very interested when they learned I was from Outside. They hired me, and we taught each other some techniques. The medical care in Zeropolis is pretty good. Some of their technology surpasses what we have back home, though our medicines are more advanced.”
    â€œHow’d you get involved with the Unseen?” Cole wondered.
    â€œGradually,” Joe said. “I began to notice how controlling the government is here. I could never shake the hope of finding a way back to Monterey. You meet a lot of people as a paramedic. I kept my eyes and ears open. I started to hear about thruports that could connect to our Internet back home. When I met the right people, I started asking questions. Within a couple of years, I connected with some members of the Unseen who helped me get online.”
    â€œThat’s so weird they can get our Internet,” Dalton said. “Are we even in the same universe?”
    â€œIt takes help from a Wayminder,” Joe said. “Under normal conditions, a Wayminder can only hold a way open for a limited time. But some can open tiny ways for a really long time. The Wayminder opens tiny ways near a wireless router in our world, a tinker makes gear to pick up the signal, and before you know it, they’re online. Some tinkers even own routers in our world and pay the access fees and everything.”
    â€œDid you try to contact Gwen?” Mira asked.
    â€œWhat do you think?” Joe replied. “Nonstop. She never opened a single e-mail from me. None of my friends or family did either. I went through some of my obscure contacts and tried them. Sometimes I’d hear back. We’d make idle chitchat. I never tried to tell anyone where I was. I knew how it would sound.”
    â€œThat must have been so frustrating,” Cole said as his hopes of e-mailing his family crumbled. This story was creating a dark, anxious pit in his stomach.
    â€œStill gets worse,” Joe said. “See, I know the password for Gwen’s e-mail. She had mine, too. She never changed it. So even though I couldn’t contact her, I could peek at her life. I could see the e-mails I sent, sitting there unopened. She opened everything. Even half of the spam. But nothing from me.”
    â€œMan,” Dalton said.
    â€œBummer, right?” Joe said. “I’d check up on her from time to time. Meanwhile, the more I learned about the Unseen, the more I believed in their cause, and the more involved I became. I began to understand how completely Abram Trench wants to control life in Zeropolis. And I came to realize the tyranny of the High King. If I was stuck here, I wanted to help this world become the best it can be. I mean, slavery? Are you kidding me? As a fringe benefit, the Unseen gave me access to thruports so I could keep peeking at my world.”
    â€œBecause thruports are illegal,” Dalton said.
    â€œThe Grand Shaper does all he can to shut them down,”Joe said. “But the Unseen are well organized here. I had good access.”
    â€œHow’d it get worse?” Jace asked.
    Joe sighed. “About six months ago, I started to notice some of Gwen’s e-mails taking a turn for the worse. I can read her pretty well. I know how she gets when she’s frustrated. She’s type A—works hard, plays hard, and takes things hard. She internalizes every little failure. I helped balance her out there. I helped her have fun. I helped her shake stuff off. We’d listen to music, or I’d play my guitar, or we’d get Italian, or we’d ride bikes along the