A Million Worlds With You

by Claudia Gray

  The next five minutes are more like being trapped in some kind of video game than anything resembling real life. It would terrify me if I weren’t crushed by grief. Theo zigzags through the densely packed city as if it were a maze he’d run a thousand times before. Once he even steers the car almost completely vertical, vaulting into the air like a rocket blasting into orbit. But he can’t shake the guards pursuing us.

  They’re going to catch us, and if they were willing to kill Paul, they’ll kill Theo, too. My hands can’t bear any more blood.

  “I can’t let this happen.” I try to catch Theo’s eyes. “I can’t let you pay the price for this.”

  Theo simply accelerates. “C’mon. You ought to know by now that I can handle a car in any dimension.”

  I remember the wreckage after the fatal crash in Quito, the way it felt to shut Theo’s eyes for him. “That doesn’t mean you always make it out alive.”

  He doesn’t reply, but he does slow down. Slightly. “I’ve got this, okay? Just hang on.”

  We soar out into a broader traffic way. Now that it’s dawn, more people are out and about, which means other flying cars swoop and swerve around us. Theo swiftly steers us out of the main drag, just over a long building that’s several dozen stories shorter than average. How far are we above it? Not even ten feet. Probably that’s Theo’s idea of “lying low.”

  I see it as an opportunity.

  “Good luck, Theo,” I say, and I grab the door handle.

  “Marguerite—no—”

  His voice falls away as I leap from the car. For one split second, there’s nothing but rushing air, but I remember to tuck and roll. That doesn’t keep it from hurting like hell when I land on the roof, but as I tumble over and over, I remain conscious. Skin is scraped from my arms, and pain tells me where the bruises will be, but my bones don’t crack.

  But I lie there, motionless, even as the guards’ vehicles hover around me to take me into custody. I’m too devastated even to cry. Instead I wonder why I’m not dead. Why our hearts don’t stop beating the moment they’re broken. It feels like my soul has already left me, and my body is just this weight I’ll have to carry forever.

  Maybe he got away, I try to tell myself as I walk numbly through the corridors of Triad, my wrists held together with binders, a guard at either shoulder. Paul did reach for his Firebird. He could’ve jumped out. Maybe.

  But I can’t make myself believe it.

  I’m led into an area of Triad headquarters I haven’t seen before—their labs, I’m guessing. The narrow black-panel computer terminals I’ve glimpsed elsewhere are now enormous panels that nearly cover the walls; their calculations show in faint display of color that shine briefly, then fade, as they continue the long work of determining which dimensions have to die. This complex exceeds our power and sophistication by so great a degree that I can’t believe we ever thought we stood a chance. They haven’t even bothered taking away my Firebird. That’s how little a threat I’ve ever been to them.

  Wyatt Conley isn’t anywhere around, which is a small mercy. But my parents wait here, standing near a long, glass-walled chamber in the very center of the lab, as if it were the altar in this cathedral of death. Their expressions remain sorrowful but fond—as if they were about to ground me.

  “Sweetheart,” my mother says. “I’m sorry this has been so difficult.”

  They still refuse to acknowledge the truth of what they’re doing. “You killed other versions of me. You killed an entire universe. That goes slightly beyond ‘difficult.’”

  Dad shrugs. “Who said it would be easy to raise someone from the dead?”

  “What makes you think you can?” Before they start in with their explanations, I gesture as best I can at my Firebird. “You tore my Paul into four pieces. You splintered his soul. And after that he had to fight as hard as he could to stay in control, maybe even just to stay sane.”

  Paul won that fight. At least he had that moment of triumph just before the end.

  I continue, “What do you think Josie’s going to become after you put the thousand pieces of her back together again? If you think she’ll be your daughter again, the same girl you lost, you’re wrong. She’ll be haunted by lives she never lived. Controlled by desires she never felt. Unable to love the people she loved before or to promise that she can keep from hurting anyone who crosses her path. Your version of me called Paul ‘Frankenstein’s monster,’ but really it was Josie she was describing. Josie is the one you’re turning into a monster.”

  Finally, my parents are speechless. It takes Dad a long time to muster the ability to say, “We’re close, so close—”

  “You’re willing to condemn Josie to a living hell just so you don’t have to grieve anymore. Oh, wait! You are going to keep grieving. Just like I had to mourn my dad months after I knew he hadn’t really drowned. Remember how you made me think he’d drowned?” Tears well in my eyes again. “No wonder you don’t care if Josie turns into a monster. You’re all monsters already.”

  The silence that follows seems to last for years. I wonder dully whether they’ll try again to make me work for them. What else can they do to me? Destroy my dimension, probably. That would be the only way to eliminate me as a risk forever.

  For a moment I imagine our home in the Berkeley Hills, with its cozy great room, the potted plants and the rainbow table, the chalkboard wall of equations, and the constant chatter of scientific theories, geeky jokes, and boundless affection. It seems like the house stands for our entire world, the one that’s about to be lost.

  “Look,” Mom finally says, gesturing to the glass chamber. “Marguerite, please, just look.”

  Look at what? The chamber is empty—or is it?

  My jaw drops as I realize that there’s a translucent shape at the heart of the chamber, the color of fog, almost invisible. After a few moments, I finally recognize what I’m seeing: Josie. She lies there, hands over her heart, the posture she must have been in when she activated her Firebird for that last fatal jump. The universe or universes Triad have already destroyed sent their splinters back, which is just enough to recreate this much of her—a suggestion, a shade, only a hint of the body they’re trying to reanimate.

  When they look at old paintings under infrared light, sometimes they see the shadows of figures the artist painted over, or outlines of people they meant to draw but finally chose to leave out. That’s what Josie is now, just a blurry shadow that doesn’t belong anymore.

  “Oh,” I say. “Not a monster yet. Only a ghost.”

  “Marguerite, stop it,” Dad snaps. “We can’t quit. Not this close to success. Not even if—if—”

  Not even if we know it’s the right thing to do. That’s what he’s not saying. Mom and Dad can’t lie to themselves any longer, but they also can’t turn back. Their maniacal commitment won’t let them—and they can’t let Josie go, not while they can actually see her lying here, so close to resurrection.

  I have to set them free. I have to set Josie free. I have one last chance to stop this, if I act right now.

  While my parents stare, transfixed, at my dead sister’s face, I bring my bound hands to my chest; I have just enough freedom to wrap my fingers around the Firebird. Leaping away would change nothing, and it would save me only for a few hours or days.

  But there’s incredible power stored inside this locket—and in Moscow, Paul showed us all how to set it to overload.

  I close my eyes. I envision his hands, mimic his movements. Did I get it right? A faint vibration between my fingers tells me that I did.

  “Josie would never have wanted this,” I say. “Not your version, not mine, not any Josie ever. She said so.”

  My parents look at each other, more surprised and dismayed than I’d thought they would be. “It doesn’t matter how long we have to work with her,” Mom finally says. “Or how difficult it is. We will put Josie back together again.”

  The faintest warmth emanates from the Firebird in my hands, as though I had j
ust ended a journey. In some ways, I guess I have. “That’s not what I mean. Josie won’t be able to go on, knowing how many people died so she could live. She’ll hate herself for every breath. And she’ll never feel the same about you, or the other me, or Conley. So you’re robbing her of everyone she’s ever loved. Some resurrection. You’re not bringing her back from heaven. You’re making sure Josie’s life will be a living hell.”

  But I can save my sister. I can save my whole world. Everyone but Paul.

  The metal against my palms warms even more—becomes hot—

  “What’s that sound?” Dad, who’s been trying to ignore me, jerks around and looks at me. His eyes widen. “Dear God.”

  As fast as I can, I lift the Firebird over my head and hurl it at the glass. One pane shatters, sending shards flying in every direction. The Firebird itself lands in the middle of Josie’s shadowy half-form—the body that is only just becoming observable again—and for a moment it glows red where her heart ought to have been. My mother screams, and I wonder just how big the boom is going to be.

  When it blows, the explosion seems to roar through all the dimensions at once.

  When I come to, only a few minutes must have passed. Broken bits of glass and metal pepper the floor, and most of the nearby computer panels have gone dully dark, their world-ending calculations concluded for now. I lie on one of the tables, and my hands are no longer bound.

  The absence of my Firebird feels so strange. I’ve become so used to the sensation of that weight on my chest, the metal against my skin. By destroying my Firebird, I stranded myself in this dimension forever—or until they decide to exile me to some other dimension so they can bring Wicked back home. She could return to this body at any time, but I’ll own her consciousness as long as I remain. Will they put me back in my own universe to die along with it? Or will they cast me into some random, unfamiliar place to blunder through my last hours alone?

  My head doesn’t hurt. I don’t feel dizzy or nauseated. My blackout doesn’t appear to have sprung from a concussion. Maybe a human consciousness tethered to a Firebird reacts this way when the Firebird suddenly ceases to exist.

  I hear my parents’ voices before I see them. Specifically, I hear my mother as she says, “Delete all data related to Project Eurydice. Permanent deletion; hard destruction of former data storage to follow immediately. Authorization Kovalenka One.” I turn my head in time to see a green beam sweep past her eye, checking her retina, before the word comes up on the computer monitor in glowing font: CONFIRMED.

  Dad hesitates, then sighs. “Secondary Authorization Caine One.” Again the word CONFIRMED comes up.

  My mother reaches toward the screen before she catches sight of me. To my astonishment, she smiles. It’s the saddest smile I’ve ever seen. “You’re all right, then.”

  “Um, yeah.” I try sitting up. I feel okay, and nobody stops me. Not a single security guard is in the room. “What happened?”

  “What happened is you destroyed Josie’s chance for resurrection.” Dad closes his eyes for a moment, but his tone remains gentle. “Not for revenge—we do understand that. We do.” He says it like he has had to work to convince himself. “You felt you were saving the other worlds, and her too. Didn’t you?”

  I nod. The Firebird’s explosion would affect even the “non-observable” body in this dimension—if it didn’t have that power, it couldn’t bring us back to our bodies to begin with. When I destroyed that chamber, I destroyed Josie’s body forever. They have no reason to collapse any more universes, because the slivers of her soul have no place to return to. Josie can finally rest in peace.

  I know I did the right thing. What I can’t believe is that my parents seem to understand that too. “And you’re not angry I did that?”

  “We’re angry,” Mom says sharply. “Losing Josie will never be anything less than the greatest nightmare we’ve ever known. But what you said—about how she would feel—”

  “We thought about ourselves,” Dad adds. “Not her.”

  My mother continues, “We’re angrier with ourselves for starting down this road in the first place. For bringing Josie and then our Marguerite into this. We’ve been trying to cheat a fate we richly deserve. Did you really do anything we didn’t push you to do? Are we suffering any loss we didn’t earn?”

  “We would never have stopped on our own,” Dad admits. “But we understand why you had to stop us.”

  They can’t have given up that easily. They can’t. Could they have really heard what I was trying to tell them, before? They love Josie so much . . .

  . . . but they love me, too. Maybe, despite the terrible loss they’ve suffered and the renewal of their grief, they can let Josie go if they still get to keep the daughter they have.

  Those mutilated portraits in the Josieverse haunt me still. If the Home Office versions of my parents can give up their quest, I can try to reconcile them to their surviving daughter, even if it means giving Wicked a happy ending she doesn’t deserve.

  I remind myself not to use the name Wicked here. “Your Marguerite is willing to do anything to get you guys to notice her. To love her best. But you were telling her all these other people were replaceable, that anybody and everybody in the entire multiverse could go straight to hell as long as you got Josie back again. Of course she thinks she’s replaceable too. That she doesn’t matter. And she hates herself for not being enough. So she killed all these other Marguerites because it felt like committing suicide, over and over.”

  “No,” my mother insists. “She wanted Josie back too, as badly as we did. You don’t know her like we do.”

  “I don’t have to know her. I am her. Because each version of us is a unique individual who deserves to be recognized for themselves—but something deep down inside is always the same. That’s why I can see inside her when you can’t. That’s how I know this has been destroying her.” I struggle for the words. “When she comes home, you have a lot of work to do.”

  Slowly, Dad nods. “We’ll get her back. One way or another.”

  As long as I never have to deal with her again, great.

  My mother finally turns back to the computer console. “Activate final deletion of all Project Eurydice files on my mark.”

  They’re really doing it. They’re really going to end their quest for Josie. It’s over.

  But why did Paul have to die for this? The unfairness and loss claw at me, tightening my throat again. His death saved so many other lives, I tell myself, but I don’t even care. Not now, not yet. At this moment I know why my parents thought destroying universes was a small price to pay for bringing Josie back. I feel like I could do terrible things, tear the whole horrible world apart, if only it meant I could see my Paul again.

  I wouldn’t. Not ever. But now I know just how bad you have to hurt to feel that way.

  With the Firebird, I could always find him, or at least a version of him, I tell myself. It doesn’t help. Another version won’t do. I want the one who gave up everything to save me, the one I held close in Moscow, my Paul. And he’s gone.

  Mom hits the console. The computer voice intones, “Initiating Project Eurydice shutdown.”

  Relief washes over me in a dizzying wave. It’s over. It’s really over.

  The lights in the room go out. After a split second of darkness, one of the screens comes on. Projected in front of us, ten times larger than life, is the face of Wyatt Conley.

  “Henry, Sophia, if you’re watching this, it’s because you tried to end Project Eurydice.” Conley seems even sadder than they do. “When I swore to get Josie back, no matter what, I had to consider every potential weakness in our plan. One of those weaknesses was the possibility that you would lose your will to continue. So I put measures in place to make sure even you could never stop me.”

  This can’t be happening. But in the projected glow of Conley’s image, I can see how pale and drawn my parents have become.

  “I’m not angry,” Conley says. “I forgive you.
Sometimes hope is even harder to bear than grief. For Josie’s sake, one of us had to be strong enough to bear it. Looks like it’s me.”

  My mother ducks down to look at the computer terminal, where data is now flashing past at dizzying speed. She whispers, “Dear God.”

  Conley brings his hands together in front of his face like a man praying and briefly touches his fingers to his lips before he continues. “I took the precaution of locating some of the single most important source vectors in the multiverse. That information is already programmed into the Firebird, ready for Marguerite to act on at any time.”

  He means Wicked, not me. Her Firebird has been programmed for destruction from the beginning.

  “That signal has already gone out to her, and she’ll be taking action immediately. Of course, this increases the damage we’ve had to do, but I know you’ll forgive me when we have our Josie back again.” Conley smiles. “Until then.”

  The screen goes black, leaving us in darkness again, except for the flickering light from the scrolling data on my mom’s terminal.

  “Bloody hell.” Dad actually sounds like himself. “We ought to have anticipated this. He certainly did.”

  “But he can’t get Josie back!” I protest. “It’s impossible with her body gone.”

  “Wyatt didn’t know that when he set up this failsafe,” my mother explains. “He must have done this months ago. Maybe even years.”

  Dad and Mom both just sit there, slumped, as if in defeat. They still don’t care about the other dimensions, not compared to their grief. Although they are no longer actively trying to destroy those worlds, they won’t fight to save them either.

  But I’m not going to stop fighting. Not now, not ever.

  “We have to save them.” When my parents stare at me, I continue, “Do you have another Firebird? If you tell me what dimensions to go to, what to do, I can still protect them. Still tell them about the stabilizers, all of that. Just tell me you’ve got a Firebird!”