A Million Worlds with You
Page 23
I wonder about the Egyptverse’s Theo, who might have been a dandy and a flirt but wasn’t a murderer. He’ll come to in Cairo or some other Egyptian city, completely unaware of what he’s doing there. If he’s caught, he’ll go to prison or be executed for a crime he didn’t commit. Wicked’s destroying more lives than just mine.
“Why did you think you could’ve killed me?” Is that a question I really want the answer to? I’m not sure.
Paul crosses his arms in front of his broad chest. “Why did you think I couldn’t have?”
“Even the worst version of you I met”—the Mafiaverse Paul (we both know this; no need to say it out loud)—“even he wouldn’t have done that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like in here.” Paul’s gesture indicates his head, his mind. “I can’t describe it. It’s like . . . like the pathways between my thoughts and my actions have all been ripped apart, or rerouted. Emotions I could set aside before—anger, jealousy, or even hate—now it’s as if they take over my brain. I could have made a mistake, Marguerite. I could have done it.”
A chill traces its icy fingers up my back, but I refuse to give in to paranoia. Somehow I have to help him to believe.
“You didn’t. Okay? You weren’t the person who hurt me. So let’s stop freaking out about what could’ve happened and concentrate on what did.” But now I can only think about the Egyptverse—one of the most beautiful worlds I’ve ever visited—and how it’s just been ruined for so many people I love.
“When the reminder brought me back, I heard Sophia screaming, and the sound of it . . .” Paul winces, shuts his eyes. “I knew you were dead just from that. Just from the sound of her scream.”
“I’m one for three.” My voice sounds hollow in my own ears. “Wicked tried to throw this one into outer space—but I made it back in. At least this one is going to be okay.”
Paul looks at me, gaze hard, as if he might spot some injury I’d missed. “If I can create the device that would help the Firebirds to increase the asymmetry and strengthen this universe, then we can keep her safe. The technology should be at hand here. This could be the first world we have a real opportunity to save.”
Which is absolutely true. Yet to my bruised spirit it sounds a little as if he’s saying, You obviously can’t protect anyone, but I can.
I force myself to stay positive, to think constructively. “So. We’re in outer space. Wow.”
“I used to think I’d like to go into the space program,” Paul says. “When I was small.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I say softly. “Otherwise we’d never have met.”
Paul doesn’t reply. He has withdrawn even deeper into himself.
I try again. “Want to hear something interesting?”
Paul gives me a look. “As bad as the past few weeks have been, they weren’t dull.”
“I guess not. But listen. When the doctor looked me over here on the station, she ran some kind of futuristic brain scan, and they could tell there were two Marguerites in here.”
His eyes widen. “They realized you were visiting from another dimension?”
“No. But they did figure out that this Marguerite’s brain is, like, twice as busy as it should be.”
“Intriguing.” Paul sounds almost like his beloved Mr. Spock. His science-genius brain seizes on this new information, and he’s distracted from his troubles, at least for now. “I want to see those test results for myself. The data might help us come up with a device to detect unwanted visitors.”
“That would definitely come in handy.” If only we could’ve ID’d Triadverse Theo when he first came into our world. We all would have been spared so much trouble.
Paul adds, “And maybe we can see how badly the splintering has damaged me.”
“Hey. Come on.” I can’t stand to hear Paul like this. “It’s an injury. You’ll heal.”
“You don’t know that. We have no template for this. No idea how badly splintering affects the psyche—or whether ‘healing’ is even a possibility.” He stares down at his boots. “Maybe a soul can be broken, just like a destiny.”
“Our destiny isn’t broken,” I snap, before catching myself. We’re both exhausted, we’ve been through experiences we haven’t had any chance to recover from, but we shouldn’t take it out on each other. So I calm myself as best I can before adding, “You walked right through my door, even though it was supposed to be locked to everyone except a few people my parents approved. So we must be together here too, right? If destiny brought us together in outer space, then it has to be pretty powerful.”
“Destiny has led me to hurt you. It’s led you to hurt me. It brings Theo back to us over and over, sometimes so you can love him instead.” Paul looks uncomfortable. His height and his powerful musculature mean that the world often seems slightly too small for him. In this tiny room, he might as well be in a cage. “If our destiny is nothing more than a prediction of a collision, an intersection between two paths, then we don’t have a destiny at all.”
Can that be true? As often as we find each other—as often as we love each other—is it only a matter of chance if we end up together? I don’t want to believe that.
But whatever Paul and I have, it’s not a story with a single happy ending.
“I guess this wrecks your thesis,” I say dully, “about fate and mathematics.” He winces as if in pain. Never joke with a PhD candidate about their thesis, especially not when it’s a stupid time to make a joke. But I don’t know what to do. I wish for magic words, for a spell, for a script. I’d pay all the money I have or ever will have for the right words to say at this moment. Instead, I am powerless and silent.
“There are parallels in the equations.” Paul’s voice sounds as flat as it did back in the days when I was first getting to know him, and his awkwardness was so extreme that I called him the caveman. “But they didn’t mean what I thought they meant. Maybe I believed in destiny because I wanted to believe.”
“We’re more than a set of equations, you know.” I reach for all our best memories, even though they seem so far away. “The night we made lasagna, or the time we went to Muir Woods, or Valentine’s Day—that’s all real.”
“Why did you think you could’ve killed me?” Is that a question I really want the answer to? I’m not sure.
Paul crosses his arms in front of his broad chest. “Why did you think I couldn’t have?”
“Even the worst version of you I met”—the Mafiaverse Paul (we both know this; no need to say it out loud)—“even he wouldn’t have done that.”
“You don’t know what it’s like in here.” Paul’s gesture indicates his head, his mind. “I can’t describe it. It’s like . . . like the pathways between my thoughts and my actions have all been ripped apart, or rerouted. Emotions I could set aside before—anger, jealousy, or even hate—now it’s as if they take over my brain. I could have made a mistake, Marguerite. I could have done it.”
A chill traces its icy fingers up my back, but I refuse to give in to paranoia. Somehow I have to help him to believe.
“You didn’t. Okay? You weren’t the person who hurt me. So let’s stop freaking out about what could’ve happened and concentrate on what did.” But now I can only think about the Egyptverse—one of the most beautiful worlds I’ve ever visited—and how it’s just been ruined for so many people I love.
“When the reminder brought me back, I heard Sophia screaming, and the sound of it . . .” Paul winces, shuts his eyes. “I knew you were dead just from that. Just from the sound of her scream.”
“I’m one for three.” My voice sounds hollow in my own ears. “Wicked tried to throw this one into outer space—but I made it back in. At least this one is going to be okay.”
Paul looks at me, gaze hard, as if he might spot some injury I’d missed. “If I can create the device that would help the Firebirds to increase the asymmetry and strengthen this universe, then we can keep her safe. The technology should be at hand here. This could be the first world we have a real opportunity to save.”
Which is absolutely true. Yet to my bruised spirit it sounds a little as if he’s saying, You obviously can’t protect anyone, but I can.
I force myself to stay positive, to think constructively. “So. We’re in outer space. Wow.”
“I used to think I’d like to go into the space program,” Paul says. “When I was small.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” I say softly. “Otherwise we’d never have met.”
Paul doesn’t reply. He has withdrawn even deeper into himself.
I try again. “Want to hear something interesting?”
Paul gives me a look. “As bad as the past few weeks have been, they weren’t dull.”
“I guess not. But listen. When the doctor looked me over here on the station, she ran some kind of futuristic brain scan, and they could tell there were two Marguerites in here.”
His eyes widen. “They realized you were visiting from another dimension?”
“No. But they did figure out that this Marguerite’s brain is, like, twice as busy as it should be.”
“Intriguing.” Paul sounds almost like his beloved Mr. Spock. His science-genius brain seizes on this new information, and he’s distracted from his troubles, at least for now. “I want to see those test results for myself. The data might help us come up with a device to detect unwanted visitors.”
“That would definitely come in handy.” If only we could’ve ID’d Triadverse Theo when he first came into our world. We all would have been spared so much trouble.
Paul adds, “And maybe we can see how badly the splintering has damaged me.”
“Hey. Come on.” I can’t stand to hear Paul like this. “It’s an injury. You’ll heal.”
“You don’t know that. We have no template for this. No idea how badly splintering affects the psyche—or whether ‘healing’ is even a possibility.” He stares down at his boots. “Maybe a soul can be broken, just like a destiny.”
“Our destiny isn’t broken,” I snap, before catching myself. We’re both exhausted, we’ve been through experiences we haven’t had any chance to recover from, but we shouldn’t take it out on each other. So I calm myself as best I can before adding, “You walked right through my door, even though it was supposed to be locked to everyone except a few people my parents approved. So we must be together here too, right? If destiny brought us together in outer space, then it has to be pretty powerful.”
“Destiny has led me to hurt you. It’s led you to hurt me. It brings Theo back to us over and over, sometimes so you can love him instead.” Paul looks uncomfortable. His height and his powerful musculature mean that the world often seems slightly too small for him. In this tiny room, he might as well be in a cage. “If our destiny is nothing more than a prediction of a collision, an intersection between two paths, then we don’t have a destiny at all.”
Can that be true? As often as we find each other—as often as we love each other—is it only a matter of chance if we end up together? I don’t want to believe that.
But whatever Paul and I have, it’s not a story with a single happy ending.
“I guess this wrecks your thesis,” I say dully, “about fate and mathematics.” He winces as if in pain. Never joke with a PhD candidate about their thesis, especially not when it’s a stupid time to make a joke. But I don’t know what to do. I wish for magic words, for a spell, for a script. I’d pay all the money I have or ever will have for the right words to say at this moment. Instead, I am powerless and silent.
“There are parallels in the equations.” Paul’s voice sounds as flat as it did back in the days when I was first getting to know him, and his awkwardness was so extreme that I called him the caveman. “But they didn’t mean what I thought they meant. Maybe I believed in destiny because I wanted to believe.”
“We’re more than a set of equations, you know.” I reach for all our best memories, even though they seem so far away. “The night we made lasagna, or the time we went to Muir Woods, or Valentine’s Day—that’s all real.”
