A few weeks ago, I released the first Everly Heights book, Infinite Tina: Worlds Apart.
While I wait on the audiobook to get approved by Audible, I figured I’d share a free preview of the book! These chapters set the stage for Tina’s adventure, and introduce her to the world of W.E.I.R.D.E. and Jim Colvin. Give it a read, then pick up the full book at the link above! Or wait a couple weeks for the audiobook read by a Very Special cast member.
Into the multiverse!
CHAPTER 2
Torn
November 5, 1997. Dixon Park. Everly Heights, Ohio. 8:00 PM.
Long before the streets filled with shadows and the secrets of the universe whispered through the trees, Dixon Park was a place of legends—a staging ground for children whose imaginations shone brighter than the high-seated Ohio sun. Ken Sako and Tina Infantino did a lot of growing up playing at this park, in both body and mind. The games they’d play… That swing set? Why, that’s a time machine. The old picnic table? No, that’s the secret lab of a mad scientist. Years ago, back before they did something as stupid as growing up, this park was filled with infinite possibilities. Even as the years passed, and their legs stretched and their bodies changed, the magic of those summers held a cherished place in both their hearts.
But magic doesn’t last forever. Friendships change. People drift apart, like leaves carried by the wind. Sometimes, they blow back together, only to be swept away again, like a melody you can’t quite remember, the notes growing fainter with each passing second. Time brings its own rhythm, revealing secrets hidden in the quiet spaces between moments, places we rarely look, until it’s too late.
∞ ∞ ∞
Tina knew she was blowing up a lifelong friendship over kid stuff. She knew Ken was slipping away. She could feel it happening, slowly, like a tide slipping away from the shore. It wasn’t that she didn’t care about Ken anymore—he was her best friend 4 life. But they’d already grown in different directions. She was starting to think about life outside of Everly Heights. About colleges, careers, and adventure. Ken, meanwhile, seemed happy with his increasingly nerdy existence. If it didn’t involve aliens, comic books, or computer games, Ken wasn’t really interested.
“Earth to Tina! Tina, are you with me?” Ken asked, nudging her shoulder as they walked through Dixon Park that cold, doomed November evening.
Tina snapped back to her reality, shrugging. “Yeah, just thinking.”
Ken smiled, but there was a weight behind it. Ken Sako was burdened. “You love our night walks in the park. Remember when we found that old map under the slide?”
Tina rolled her eyes. “Yeah, we thought it would lead us to pirate booty, but it was just some dumb blueprint for the sewers.”
“To you and me, it was treasure.” Ken’s grin widened, the memory hitting him like the musty smell of an old book. “You can’t tell me that wasn’t fun.”
Tina turned away and kicked a pebble down the path. “We were kids, Ken. It was different back then.”
Ken stopped walking, his sad eyes staring into Tina’s. “It’s not that different. We can still—”
Before Ken could finish his sentence, a faint light flashed behind him. Tina pushed Ken to get a clear look underneath the swing set. Something was stuck in the sand. Something with a strange seductive orange glow.
“What is that?” Tina asked.
Ken nodded. “Let’s leave. That thing looks like it’ll curse us with a 2,400 baud modem or something.”
Tina rolled her eyes. “You’re really hung up on the Internet, huh?”
“Look, it’s probably just some kid’s dumb Game Boy or something,” Ken said. He puffed out his chest. “Stay here. I’ll check it out.”
Tina rolled her eyes at Ken’s false bravado, but she kept a healthy distance all the same. The orb grew brighter as Ken brushed wet sand off the intricate symbols hand-carved into its rough onyx surface. It was a unique device—smooth, round, and impossibly cold—a small sphere, no bigger than a Koosh ball, but a lot more risky to throw around. Its light pulsed softly, like it had a heartbeat of its own.
“Careful, Ken. That thing looks like something Alex Mack would accidentally melt into,” Tina said. “Maybe you shouldn’t—” Tina started, but before she could finish, Ken’s hand closed around the orb.
∞ ∞ ∞
The world explodes in a burst of color.
Ken’s vision warps, twisting into a strange, kaleidoscopic cascade of images—tall, gleaming towers, swirling skies of violet and green. A shadowy figure lurks in the distance. Ken’s heart pounds in his chest as the air around him thickens. A sound, like a low hum, echoes in his ears, growing louder and louder until it fills his head, pushing everything else out. He feels weird, like something far beyond the nostalgic comfort of Everly Heights has reached out and touched him…
∞ ∞ ∞
And then, just as suddenly, it was all gone. Ken was back in Dixon Park. Tina stood frozen, watching her friend with growing concern.
“Ken?” she asked, hoping he’d respond. “Stop messing around. You scared me, you jerk!” She stomped over and grabbed him by the arm. “Are you okay?”
Ken blinked, trying to steady himself. “I… I saw something. It was real, Tina. Another world. A magical land…”
Tina’s eyes narrowed. “A magical land? Are you high?”
Ken shook his head, still processing what he had seen. “It felt like whatever that thing was, it knew me. I think it was waiting for me.”
Tina stepped back, crossing her arms. “Dude, you’re high.”
Ken was most definitely not high, but he was lost in thought, staring at the orb. “I need to figure out what this thing can do for me… Us. For this world…”
“You’ve either been watching too much X-Files, or you’re seriously sleep-deprived,” Tina said as she took Ken by the arm and dragged him to the park entrance. “Come on. I’ll get you home before your mom freaks out and comes looking for you.”
Ken took a few steps with Tina, then stopped and turned to her. “So, we’re friends again?” he asked.
“Sure thing,” Tina said as she put her arm around him. Together again, at last, the two friends left Dixon Park, but the evening followed them home.
∞ ∞ ∞
After that night in Dixon Park, something changed in Ken.
Tina had never seen him like this before. He became obsessed with the orb and carried it with him everywhere, always glancing at it in his backpack like it might take him back to his “magical land” at any moment. He never talked to Tina about anything else and stopped caring about anything else.
And Tina? She felt like she was watching her best friend slip away, again, and once again she was powerless to stop it.
“You okay, weirdo?” she asked him one afternoon, sitting across from him at Gaston’s Diner, a local greasy spoon. The place was half-empty, the smell of stale coffee lingering in the air. “It’s like you’re not even here when you have that thing.”
Ken didn’t look up from the orb hidden in his backpack. His finger traced its textured surface. As far as Tina knew, he never left home without it. “I can get it working. I just need more time.”
Tina sighed. “It’s just some weird computer or something.”
Ken finally looked up, his eyes wide and angry. “It’s not a computer, Tina. It’s a doorway to something else… out there.”
“You two ready to order?”. Thelma, the waitress, asked, chewing on a wad of Trident gum with a bored expression.
“Just a peach Snapple, please,” Tina replied, glancing at Ken. “And maybe some answers.”
Thelma raised her eyebrow. “Answers, huh? What’s the question? I got all sorts of answers—holy spit! What’s that in your backpack? It’s glowing!”
Ken hesitated, but then something in the waitress’s smirk made him feel like maybe she knew more than she let on. He opened the flap on his backpack so Thelma could get a good look. “I don’t know. We found it in Dixon Park. It’s really weird.”
Thelma’s smirk faded, replaced by a more serious expression. She reached into her apron pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper, scribbling down something quickly before handing it to Ken.
“If you kids found something weird, this is the guy to call.” She tapped the paper, her voice dropping to a near whisper. “Jim Colvin. He deals with… weird.”
Tina frowned. “Jim Colvin—who’s he?”
Thelma shrugged. “You wouldn’t know him unless he wanted ya’ to. But trust me. You ring Jim up; he’ll know what to do.
CHAPTER 3
Rift and Ruin
Ken and Tina didn’t waste any time. As soon as they left the diner, Ken called the number on the scrap of paper from the payphone out front. A gruff man answered, his voice rough and curt. “Who gave you this number?” he barked.
“The waitress at the Gaston’s Diner,” Ken replied, his pulse quickening. “She said you could help with something we found in the parking lot. Something… weird.”
There was a heavy sigh, followed by a long pause on the other end of the line. “Meet me at the old Everly Heights Steel Mill. Tonight. And bring everything.”
CLICK.
The line went dead. Ken hung up the phone, his heart racing.
“What did he say?” Tina asked. “Can he help?”
“We’ll find out tonight,” Ken said. “If you want to tag along.”
“An adventure with you?” Tina said with a smile. “How could I say no?”
∞ ∞ ∞
That night, Ken and Tina pedaled their bikes out to the old steel mill, its towering, rusted frame poking the storm clouds lurking in the night sky.
“You sure about this?” Tina asked, hiding her bike in a bush out front.
Ken nodded. “I need answers.”
Jim Colvin was already waiting just inside the steel mill’s main entrance. He was older than Tina had expected, with graying hair and a hard, lined face that told tales of years spent fighting things most decent people couldn’t imagine. His eyes, though—sharp and piercing—never left the orb in Ken’s hand.
“Give it to me,” Jim said, his voice low and measured.
Ken handed him the orb, watching as Jim examined it closely, turning it over in his hands. After a long moment, Jim let out a breath, then handed it back.
“This is a breach,” he said simply.
Tina frowned. “A breach? What does that even mean?”
Jim’s eyes flicked toward her, then back to Ken. “An inter-dimensional breach. We used to call them incursions, but nobody knew what that meant, either. Point is, the thing is tied to you. Like it or not, wherever you go, it goes.”
“So, I’m stuck with it?” Ken asked.
Jim put his hand on Ken’s shoulder. “Right, son. By touching it, you opened the door.”
Ken swallowed hard, his mind racing. “The door to what?”
Jim’s face darkened. “Something I’d rather not think about. You’re in danger. A breach doesn’t close on its own. And whatever is on the other side—it’s coming.”
Tina’s breath caught in her throat. “Coming for what?”
Jim didn’t hesitate. “Your friend.”
∞ ∞ ∞
The next few days did nothing to quiet Ken’s frantic mind. He could feel it—the Presence—just beyond the edges of his consciousness—watching, waiting, commiserating. He couldn’t sleep. Every time he closed his eyes, the visions came—the towers, the skies, the shadow man in the distance. The breach was growing stronger, and it was pulling him deeper.
Tina was also pulling away. She didn’t say it outright, but Ken could see it in the way she looked at him—like she didn’t know him anymore. Like, maybe she didn’t want to. The orb certainly hadn’t repaired their strained friendship. One morning, after another sleepless night, Ken called Tina. His weary voice cracked over the line. “I need to see you. Please.”
There was a long pause on the other end before she replied. “Fine. The swings. Ten minutes.”
∞ ∞ ∞
When Ken arrived at Dixon Park, Tina was already sitting on the swings, her legs kicking out slow and steady, her head tilted back to see the stars. She didn’t look at him as he walked up.
“You’re slipping away, Ken, into all this multiverse junk,” Tina said softly. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
Ken looked at Tina like a ghost, his eyes sunken and dark with worry. “There’s something out there,” he said. “Something bigger than either of us.”
Tina shook her head. “But what about here? What about Everly Heights? ‘Stuck here, together,’ right?”
Ken didn’t know how to answer that. He had felt the distance growing between them for a while now, but he hadn’t wanted to face it. Maybe this odd adventure would be a chance for him to run away and start fresh on some other world where he hadn’t screwed up. Or maybe it was the only thing he had going for him, to his mind.
“I don’t know,” he whispered. “But I need you to trust me.”
Tina closed her eyes, her hands gripping the chains of the swing, her breath fogging up the air in front of her. “I just don’t know, Ken. Those mean IMs you sent me, that dumb game you made about me that you sent out to the whole World Wide Web… You make it hard to trust you.”
Ken’s chest tightened. He tried to find something to say to make her trust him again. But, before he could say anything, a sharp gust of wind whipped through the park, sending the swings clattering against the metal frame.
And then he saw it.
The breach.
It hovered in the air just beyond the swing set, a swirling vortex of light and shadow, pulsing with dark energy that pulled at Ken like a magnet. The orb in Ken’s hand grew brighter, its light matching the rhythm of the breach.
“He’s here,” Ken whispered, his eyes wide with hunger.
Tina grabbed hold of Ken’s arm, her heart pounding in her chest, and tried to shake the orb out of his hand. “Throw it away, Ken. Now!” she shouted.
Just then, as if summoned by the orb itself, Jim Colvin appeared from the shadows, his face grim. “It’s too late to stop it. The rift is open, which means the incursion has already started.”
Ken gripped the orb tighter. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means,” Jim said, pulling a thin, slender device from his coat, “that… thing… presence…? That ‘whatever’ is already here.”
Tina’s breath caught in her throat. “Ken—”
But Ken was already stepping back toward the vortex, the orb in his hand pulsing with an eerie light. He could feel the connection again—stronger than ever. It was pulling him in, calling to him.
“I know what I’m doing,” Ken said, his voice shaking. “You haven’t seen what I saw.”
Tina grabbed Ken by the shoulders, gripping him tight. “Ken, you don’t know, like, anything, dude. Don’t do this. We’ll find another way to stop this thing.”
Ken looked at Tina, his heart breaking. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to stay. But he knew he couldn’t stop himself.
“I’m sorry, but this is the end,” Ken said.
And then, before Tina could stop him, he stepped into the breach.
∞ ∞ ∞
Time seemed to slow as Ken fell into the swirling vortex. The air around Tina crackled with energy, and the ground trembled. Tina could feel the breach pulling at her, too—like it wanted to swallow the world.
“No!” she screamed, running toward the breach, but Jim held her back.
“You can’t save him,” Jim said, his voice steady but heavy with regret. “He’s already beyond our reach.”
Tina’s heart shattered. “No! He’s still in there!”
Jim shook his head. “That thing connects to a realm where the rules of fantasy are in play. It’s too dangerous.”
“Screw that!” Tina shouted as she struggled against Jim’s grip, her eyes fixed on the breach, hoping—praying—that Ken would pop right back through. That this wasn’t how their friendship ended.
And then, with the sound of tinkerbells, the breach began to close. The light dimmed, the swirling shadows faded, and the air grew still.
Ken was gone.
Tina fell to her knees, her hands trembling. Her world felt too quiet, too empty, without Ken in it.
Jim stood by with an unreadable expression. “You should know… Your friend—”
“Ken…” Tina said.
“Ken saved us,” Jim said. “Not just me and you. He saved all of us.”
Tina barely heard him. All she could think about was that Ken—her best friend, her brother in all but blood—was gone, forever.
And she had let it happen.
CHAPTER 4
Free Your Mind
In the days that followed, Tina wallowed through life in a trance. Ken’s mother, Kumiko, came to her house one morning, her face etched with worry.
“Tina,” Kumiko whispered, “have you seen my Ken? He hasn’t been home in too long.”
Tina’s throat tightened. She wanted to tell Kumiko. She wanted to scream the truth to anyone who would listen. But instead, she shook her head, forcing a small, bitter smile. “No, I haven’t seen him, Mrs. Sako.”
Kumiko nodded, her gentle eyes filled with tears. “Thank you, dear. If you hear from him, please let me know.”
Tina watched Kumiko go, the weight of guilt pressing down on her chest like a stone. Ken was gone, and she only had herself to blame. She’d been ready to walk away from their friendship over a stupid computer game, after all. And now she couldn’t take it back.
∞ ∞ ∞
Weeks passed, and Tina’s world grew smaller, darker. The dreams started soon after the breach closed—visions of other worlds, with shadowy figures moving just beyond her reach. She saw Ken sometimes—standing at the edge of the worlds, watching her with sad eyes as she struggled to reach him.
It was Jim who finally pulled her out of her spiral. He came to her one evening, while she was sitting on her and Ken’s swings in Dixon Park, his eyes weary but kind.
“I know what you’re going through,” he said quietly. “I’ve lost people, too.”
Tina didn’t respond, her gaze fixed on Jim’s dusty brown dog peeing on a ‘No Dogs’ sign.
Jim sighed, pulling a small device from his coat—the same one he’d used to close the breach—and fiddled with it as he spoke, like a kid with a pencil before an exam. “There’s more out there. More breaches, more threats, more worlds. W.E.I.R.D.E. could use someone like you.”
Tina turned to him; her eyes were dark and hollow. “Why me? I got my best friend killed.”
“I want you because of that guilt you’re feeling. You can see it now—the arbitrary nature of the multiverse,” Jim said. “Bottom line, you have an innate desire to make it right. We could use somebody like you.”
“Fine,” she said. “For Ken.”
“For Ken,” Jim said with a comforting smile, though Tina didn’t see it. “Welcome to W.E.I.R.D.E.”
∞ ∞ ∞
The sun set over Everly Heights as Tina stood at the edge of Dixon Park, staring out at the swingset where it had all started. The air was still, the night quiet. But she could feel it—the hum of the breach in the ether, echoes of worlds beyond her own.
Ken was gone, but his memory lingered here—in the park, in the town, in the spaces between dimensions. Tina had to believe she could carry the guilt of his memory. And maybe she could even save him, someday, somehow. But thanks to Jim, Tina finally felt like she had a purpose. The worlds beyond Everly Heights were vast, full of danger and wonder, and Tina was ready to visit every last one of them if it meant getting Ken back. Somewhen, on some world. Somehow, she’d find him.
Alternate realities. Unseen threats. One girl to set it right.
Tina Infantino thought her life was a mess—her parents won’t stop fighting, and her best friend Ken has been acting distant since the “Space Camp” incident. But things take a turn for the worse when Ken vanishes into another dimension. Suddenly, Tina’s thrust into a mission across alternate realities to save him—and maybe the multiverse too. Recruited by the W.E.I.R.D.E. Task Force, a team of oddball government agents tasked with protecting the multiverse from their secret base beneath the streets of Everly Heights, Tina must confront enemies from beyond her world while juggling her collapsing life back home.
With the unpredictable troll wizard Nosloo the Great and strait-laced W.E.I.R.D.E. agent Jim Colvin by her side, Tina races against time to stop the dimensional incursions threatening her reality. In Infinite Tina, you’ll dive into a thrilling, reality-hopping adventure packed with courage, loyalty, and the fight to hold onto what really matters—even when your whole world is falling apart.