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was perfect. Well, almost everything.
He realized he had no idea what to do next.
He couldn't break Dad out of jail singlehanded. If he owned any brains, he wouldn't get anywhere near the
jail. The Tongs and the Germans would both be watching it. He thought about going to see Stanley Hsu.
The jeweler could tell him what was going on. He thought about it... and then shook his head. Here he was,
free, and he wanted to go tell the man from the Tongs that he'd shaken his followers? How stupid was
that? Stupid enough, for sure.
Then he thought about going to see Lucy. He laughed at himself. He really was dumb this morning. She'd
be working. She liked being a clerk better than running a sewing machine. It paid better, too not well, but
better. Even so, it didn't seem right that somebody younger than he was should be working a fifty-five-hour
week at a deadend job.
Nothing about the United States in this alternate seemed right. The country wasn't free. Nobody except the
handful of rich people could hope for a decent education and they had to suck up to the Germans. There
was no chance of anything better. Back in an old book he'd read in school, somebody'd called tyranny a
boot in the face of mankind forever. The home timeline was lucky. It hadn't worked out like that there. The
home timeline had its troubles, but most people were free. Here . . . Here was the boot heel, right in the
kisser.
Something else that didn't seem right was leaving somebody as smart and as nice as Lucy Woo stuck in a
miserable place like this. Because of what she'd figured out, she was a security risk for the home timeline.
But if he ever got the chance, he wanted to show her a Sunset District where even the stray dogs didn't
have to look over their shoulders every few minutes.
He walked along for half a block. Then he stopped, kicking at the bumpy, uneven concrete of the sidewalk.
He was thinking about what he wanted, not about what Lucy would want. This was her home. Her family
was here. Taking her away would be kidnapping, even if it were possible. And she couldn't go for just a
visit. That would be what did Shakespeare call it? the most unkindest cut of all. She'd know things could
be better, and she wouldn't be able to tell anybody. What could be more unfair to her?
And she'd know the whole crosstime secret, not just most of it. That wouldn't do, either.
Could things get better here? Could the United States be free again, after close to a century and a half of
getting its nose rubbed in the dirt? Could the Chinese help? Would they help, or would they just want to be
top dogs instead of the Germans? Those were all good questions. Paul had answers to none of them.
He wondered what Lucy thought. Everything kept coming back to her. That was . .. interesting. He hadn't
realized she'd got so far under his skin. He'd never kissed her, never even held her hand. She wasn't under
his skin like that, exactly. But he liked her. More than that, he admired her. She had problems bigger than
any he'd ever imagined till now, anyhow. She didn't even know how big some of them were, because they
were the problems of this whole alternate. No matter how big and how tough they were, she carried on.
She didn't complain or make a fuss. She just did what she needed to do. He admired that, too.
What about me? Paul wondered. What do I need to do? How do I need to do it? Lucy seemed to know
without even thinking about it. Paul had an idea of what he needed to do: get Dad out of jail and get back to
the home timeline. How? That was a different question.
He also didn't know what he ought to do now that he could do it without leaving the Tongs any the wiser.
He realized he should have thought that out before escaping his followers. Now he was all dressed up with
no place to go. And if he had to get free of them again, it wouldn't be so easy. They'd know he could, so
they'd keep a tighter watch on him.
Maybe I ought to go back. Maybe I ought to pretend I didn't know they weren't keeping an eye on me. Paul
shook his head. He couldn't stand that. He had managed to get away. Not doing something with his
new-found freedom seemed a criminal waste.
Casually, his hands in his pockets, he ambled in the direction of Curious Notions. Who could say what might
turn up? If he didn't go and take a look around, he'd never find out.
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