by Chris Dolley
Annalise blinked—just the one hint of uncertainty before the confident smile returned.
"No, we're not from the publishers. Kevin Alexander gave us your name."
"Kevin Alexander?" Schenck stroked his chin. "The name's familiar."
He picked up a book from his desk and flicked through the index.
"He wrote a book on the search for parallel dimensions," said Annalise. "We're working in the same field and he suggested we talk to you."
Schenck looked up from his book. "The Canadian? I think I met him once. Didn't like the man."
"Well, he sure liked you."
"He did?"
"You bet." Annalise darted a look towards Graham, who quickly nodded in agreement.
"I'd have thought my work was too insubstantial for his type."
"No, not at all. 'Go and see Schenck,' he told us. 'Ask him about his law.'"
"I'm surprised he knew about it. I've only discussed it with a handful of people." He stopped, a sudden look of worry etched in his face. "The publishers didn't give him a copy of my manuscript to review, did they? They said they wouldn't. We agreed to keep everything under wraps until a more suitable time."
"No, I'm sure they didn't. He meets a lot of people. Conventions, you know. I expect someone mentioned your work in passing."
Schenck looked relieved. Annalise continued before he could think any further on the matter.
"Only we really need to know about your law. We really do."
Annalise smiled pleadingly, tilting her head slightly to one side, her eyes widening like a little girl's.
Graham watched in awe. She could threaten, she could cajole, she could plead. How could anyone refuse her?
"And you would be?" Schenck asked Annalise.
"Oh, sorry." Annalise held out her hand. "I'm Annalise, Annalise Svenson and this is my colleague Graham, er . . ." she hesitated, "Graham Smithsonian."
Schenck got up and leaned over the desk to shake hands, nodding to each of them in turn. "Pleased to meet you Miss Svenson, Mr. Smithsonian. You realize my 'law' is purely hypothetical, there can be no proof—at least, not for many years."
"Sure, we understand. We just wanted to hear you explain it to us. In your own words."
He leaned back in his chair, lifting the front legs slightly.
"Well, simply put, it states that once an event occurs on one world then the probability of the same event occurring on a parallel world increases."
Graham waited for Annalise to say "that's it?" and threaten Schenck with the phone. But she wasn't given the opportunity—Schenck's eyes took on a faraway look and away he went.
"It's an idea that came to me years ago. I was attending a lecture on free will and wondering if I should exercise it by leaving the room." He shook his head. "God-awful speaker, we were all bored to tears.
"And then it came to me—out of the blue—all these infinite worlds, overlaid one upon another, how could they not impact upon each other?"
"So you're saying that what happens on one parallel world affects all the others?" asked Annalise.
"In a nutshell, yes. Of course, there's no proof. How can there be? But it fits so well. Take evolution for example. We know that random mutation and natural selection alone cannot account for the entire evolutionary process. There hasn't been enough time for the process to develop. One would need billions of years to account for all the changes. There has to be another mechanism at work and my theorem provides that external influence, without the need to invoke divine intervention."
He let his chair drop back onto all four legs and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk until his enthusiasm for his subject wafted them back into the air.
"You see, evolution is not a process confined to a single world. It's a parallel process with each world influencing and being influenced by countless others. Once a mutation occurs on one world, the chances of that same mutation occurring elsewhere increases. And as more worlds evolve, the pressure on laggard worlds becomes all the greater, the capacity for evolutionary jumps becomes all the greater."
He held his arms out as though they supported a world of their own—an invisible globe, one meter in diameter.
"The last Earth to evolve—if there is such a planet—would find itself pulled into an evolutionary spiral. Life would feel compelled to leave the oceans. Even if land didn't exist, creatures with legs would evolve; they might die off due to natural selection but they'd keep appearing, waiting for the day when that first island pushes up from the deep."
Graham was mesmerized. He'd rarely seen anyone talk with real passion. He'd seen arguments, he'd seen heated debates but there was no anger in this man's words. It was all passion—passion for a subject, passion for an idea that you couldn't even touch.
"But, even more interesting is that it doesn't apply only to mutations. It applies to behavioral modification too. You see, in evolutionary terms, a change in behavior always precedes adaptation. The fish, with the exception of my Last Earth example, will move to the shore before it develops legs. It doesn't develop legs and then search for a place to use them. It finds its niche first and then adapts. But why search for a niche in the first place? Why change a pattern of behavior that has succeeded for millions of years?"
"Competition? Climate change? Looking for a safer environment?" suggested Annalise.
"Sometimes, perhaps, but take the development of the amphibians, why leave an ocean teeming with food to eke out an existence on a shoreline ravaged by waves, where food's practically nonexistent and one can't even breathe?
"There has to be an impetus. An overriding influence that impels that organism to change its behavior."
"So, your law is about evolution?"
"No, it's about everything. I postulate that the law holds for any action or event, from the mutation of a fish to you deciding to visit me today. If I raise my hand now, then the chances that my counterpart on another world will raise his hand too is increased—infinitesimally, without doubt—but if enough of my counterparts raised their hands then a critical mass would be achieved."
"And then what?"
"And then we would have a resonance wave."
Twenty-Eight
"And that would be bad?" asked Annalise.
Schenck shrugged. "It would depend upon the event resonating. The discovery of a cure for a debilitating disease? I can't see many people complaining about that."
"But if it was something bad?"
"Then it could be catastrophic. Once a resonance reaches a critical mass the event is practically preordained."
"Like fate?"
"One could call it that. One could say that fate is another name for resonance. Though I see it more as a series of probabilities. Every second of our lives we are bombarded with fields of resonance generated by events in our sister worlds. Most we ignore, most we can't even sense, but some resonate with the way we feel—strengthen our determination to take a certain path. Others are so strong they can make us change our minds—the gut feeling that flies in the face of every fact, the impulse that forces us to do something totally out of character."
Graham listened. The man was describing his life—his inner voice, the feelings, the certainty that one path was right and all others wrong.
"That's the power of resonance," Schenck continued. "As I envisage it, it works on instinct rather than intellect. In the same way a professional sportsman trains by repeating the same movements over and over again until they become automatic, we, too, can be trained by the actions of our alter egos. Their repetition resonates with our instinct."
"Could you stop a resonance wave?" asked Annalise.
Schenck shrugged and settled back into his chair. "One could always try. I can only speculate about the forces involved but I'd imagine them to be intense. It would be like telling one's teenage daughter to stop seeing an unsuitable boyfriend. Even if, at an intellectual level, she could appreciate the logic of the request, she'd most likely ignore it—every fiber of her
body would scream at her to keep seeing the boy."
Graham nodded. He'd felt that power Monday night at the tube station. Maybe it hadn't been his fear of making a scene. Maybe it had been resonance, and the wake from two hundred billion Graham Smiths tracing their daily route home.
"What about starting a resonance wave?" asked Annalise. "Could someone intentionally create one?"
"Unlikely. They'd have to coordinate the process across countless parallel worlds. We don't even know if there are parallel worlds let alone how we'd begin to communicate with them."
"But say there are parallel worlds out there that can communicate with each other. Could they get together and force some event to resonate across the dimensions?"
Schenck's eyes narrowed as he sat up. He looked at Annalise as though he was seeing her for the first time—no longer the striking girl with the orange hair but something else. Something he wasn't quite sure about.
"What event are you talking about?" he asked. "Have you something in mind?"
"No, I . . ."
Annalise's phone rang.
* * *
"Sorry," she said, turning her body away from Schenck as she lifted the phone to her ear.
"We need to meet," said Kevin Alexander. He sounded anxious.
"Where?"
"Divide the number of girls by four and add six."
"What?"
"That's the number of the place we're going to meet."
"Oh, right! Okay, done that, divide by four and add six. What's next?"
"The street is the name of the month after April."
"Got it. What time do we meet?"
"As soon as you can. And bring your friend."
The phone line clicked dead. Annalise turned to Schenck. "Sorry, we've got to go."
* * *
They thanked Schenck and left, pausing on the stairs to look up May Street in Annalise's A to Z. It was in Brompton. A small street near Knightsbridge tube station—fifteen, maybe twenty minutes away.
They hurried back to Russell Square and caught the southbound train.
"I'm going to contact the girls," said Annalise, as she settled down in the seat next to Graham. "Won't be long."
Graham watched as she closed her eyes and drifted away. She looked almost regal, the way she sat with her back and head so straight—not slouched like everyone else in the compartment—an expression of benign confidence adding to the impression.
The carriage rocked from side to side as the train picked up speed. Annalise pitched forward, Graham grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She smiled and mouthed a silent "thank you," without ever opening an eye.
Graham left his hand where it was, feeling protective—at first—and then self-conscious. He wondered what the other people in the carriage were thinking. Were any of them watching? He let his eyes drift up and down the carriage, feigning indifference while he scanned every face out of the corner of his eye. Some were looking at Annalise. The woman opposite for one; her eyes flicked up and down, resting the longest on Annalise's face—or was it her hair? Whichever it was, she disapproved, and looked away.
Others were not so disapproving. Two youths by the doors elbowed each other and leered. Another man stared at her from over his newspaper.
No one looked at Graham.
Didn't they see his hand on her arm? Couldn't they imagine that he and Annalise could be together? Was it that unlikely?
He looked at their imperfect reflection in the window opposite and filled in the gaps. She was young and exotic and he wasn't. He was weird but harmless. Ten, maybe thirteen years separated them. Thirteen years and three thousand miles.
They came from different worlds—literally.
And yet?
And yet he didn't want to think about it any more. He removed his hand. Only pain and disappointment lay down that particular road.
Annalise opened her eyes. "Are we there yet?"
* * *
"Why Svenson?" asked Graham, four stops later. They'd been discussing the candidates for possible resonance waves and not getting anywhere. They'd agreed it had to be something to do with ParaDim but beyond that they were stumped. There were so many events linked to ParaDim—so many discoveries, so many ramifications. Were they all resonating? Was one resonating stronger than the others? Graham thought he'd change the subject.
"Svenson? Oh, that! First thing that came into my head. It's my mother's name, you know. She's Danish. Came to America as an au pair, met my father and never went home. That's how I got my name—Annalise. It's Danish, too. Do you know I've never met another Annalise? Ever. Except in here." She tapped her head and smiled.
The train pulled into another station, Graham watched the station name flash by the windows—Green Park. He checked their progress against the tube map over the carriage window. He knew there were two stops to go but he liked the confirmation—you never know when a new station might appear.
He froze in his seat. Why had he suddenly thought about unravelling? The world didn't unravel—he knew that now. The world stayed as it was. It was he—Graham Smith—who changed.
And her.
He swung around. Was she still there? Had he flipped? Had he lost her? Panic. Instinctively, he threw out an arm as he turned. Perhaps there was still time to grab hold and keep her with him.
Annalise smiled back. The same orange hair, the same clothes, the same easy smile. "What's the matter?" she said. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
Graham started to say something, looked down, saw his hand fastened around Annalise's, withdrew it quickly and changed the subject as best he could.
"I was thinking . . ." He broke off as he noticed his left hand flash in front of his face in an extravagant gesture—freed of Annalise's arm it appeared to be taking on a life of its own. He clamped it back down to the arm of the seat and tried to fight the rush of blood towards his face.
"How come," he tried a different tack, "how come Kevin Alexander knew about Schenck's Law?"
"You mean before Schenck published?"
Graham nodded and looked away, relieved.
"That's easy; we know that Kevin Alexander can access data from other parallel worlds, don't we? He knew all that stuff about you."
"Ye-es."
"So, what if his Schenck—the one who published Schenck's Law—lives on some parallel world?"
"And our Schenck just happened to come up with the same idea?"
"Exactly. Our Schenck is not THE Schenck. It's one of those resonance thingys. He said himself the idea came to him out of the blue. Way I see it, you have this really brainy Schenck on planet X who comes up with the idea and writes this mega best-seller. Maybe they're more advanced on planet X. Maybe they've already discovered other parallel worlds. Who knows? Anyway, using Schenck's Law, once one Schenck has made the breakthrough. then the probability of other Schencks doing the same increases. There's probably millions of Schencks out there this minute with those exact same words resonating through their brains. One of them probably shouts 'Eureka' every five minutes."
"Do you really believe that?"
"Graham," she paused, catching his eye. "I'm the girl with two hundred voices in her head. I believe everything."
* * *
They turned into May Street, a wide car-lined thoroughfare edged by two lines of grey Victorian terraces, five storeys high. Number fifty-six was on the corner, hiding behind years of grime and neglect which had left its facade dirty, pockmarked and flaking. A state shared by many of its neighbors. There was a line halfway along the terrace, beyond which the houses shone freshly-painted white.
Annalise trotted up the steps to the door and reached out to turn the handle. The door opened before she got there. Kevin Alexander appeared, his eyes flicking left and right. "Quick, come inside," he said, flattening himself against the door, one hand on the doorknob, the other shepherding the two of them inside.
A dank musty smell permeated the hallway. The tiled floor was dirty and covered in recent boot pri
nts—the only evidence that anyone had been in the building for years.
"It's another of ParaDim's new offices," said Kevin. "It's still being renovated."
He turned and led them up the stairs, their footsteps echoing through the empty building—the only sound other than the ever-present hum of traffic.
"How many new offices does ParaDim have?" asked Annalise.
"Three in London, dozens worldwide. The company's awash with money at the moment."
They reached the landing halfway between the floors.
"But why all these old buildings? Why not build something new?"
"Mr. Sylvestrus dislikes modern architecture." A woman's voice—educated, precise, American—rang out from the landing above. "He prefers a more classical style."
Graham and Annalise stopped and looked up. A black woman in her late thirties leaned against the banisters, her eyes fixed on Graham.
"This is Dr. Kent," said Kevin.
"Call me Tamisha," said the woman, "and you must be Graham."
Graham smiled nervously, looking towards Annalise who, in turn, looked accusingly at Kevin Alexander.
"You never said there'd be other people at this meeting," she said.
"We're not other people," interrupted Tamisha. "We're the Resonance project. What's left of it."
Graham felt uneasy. Something was very wrong. The way the woman spoke—he wasn't sure if she'd been drinking or she was just being sarcastic, but there was a hopelessness about the way she phrased that last sentence. What's left of it. Had the Resonance project been disbanded? Was he a day away from being found unconscious on the street?
"What's happened?" asked Annalise.
"We'll tell you inside," said Kevin. "We're in the room at the front to your right."
Twenty-Nine
Graham followed everyone into the room. Everyone except Tamisha Kent, who lingered on the landing. Graham didn't like the way she stared at him. Her eyes had followed him all the way up the stairs, making him feel like a freak.
It was a large room, made all the larger by the absence of any visible furniture. White sheets were draped over objects pushed back against the walls—objects that could have been tables or boxes or just about anything bulky and rectangular. Other sheets—flecked with cream paint and brick dust—protected the floor and what looked like a large fireplace.