“Oh, can’t we? Then who is to blame?” she erupted. “We are scientists! We should have considered all the variables, and we didn’t. This epidemic is our doing,” she declared harshly. “We brought the virus with us; our dog infected the first patient. Everything that happens as of now will weigh on our consciences.”
“Let’s try to look on the bright side,” Wells protested feebly. “What is the worst thing that could happen? A few poor wretches will jump into parallel worlds and be forced to rebuild their lives there. No easy feat, I admit, but not insurmountable either. We managed it, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but what if it isn’t as simple as that? What if that affected . . . the fabric of the universe? What if we were all carrying the virus, and it was only a matter of time before everyone started jumping uncontrollably? Heaven help us if that happened . . . It would be chaos.”
“But it needn’t be like that, Jane . . . For example, the first patient never developed the disease. This could mean that the number of cases in which the virus becomes active is small. Granted, it might spread fast, but the majority of those infected may never develop the disease. Besides, there is no way of knowing whether we have all been infected. So let’s not jump to conclusions, my dear . . .”
“I don’t know why, but something tells me we have been,” Jane whispered. “Goodness me! The colds we had!”
“What? People catch colds all the time, Jane. That doesn’t mean anything.”
“Or perhaps it means everything.”
Wells looked at her uneasily.
“Think back, Bertie: since the first infection, all the twins we have connected with were either suffering from or recovering from that strange cold we caught, or their relatives were . . . and they all showed identical symptoms: the sudden onset of the illness, a fever, followed by a swift and complete recovery . . . Your fellow teachers at the school all came down with that same cold last term . . . And our twins in this world had a cold when we went to see them last month!”
“But, Jane, it is winter. Lots of people get colds!”
“And do lots of people get colds after being bitten by a dog from another world?” she asked ironically.
“We don’t know whether that cold was caused by the virus, damn it!” cried Wells, springing out of his chair.
He went over to the fireplace and, turning his back to his wife, leaned on the mantelpiece and buried his face in his hands. But Jane was not about to back down.
“While we’re on the subject, you say the first patient hasn’t developed the disease . . . ,” she went on, adopting a falsely sweet tone. “But how can you be sure? Have you connected with him this evening?”
“No, Jane,” murmured Wells wearily through his fingers. “I didn’t connect with him this evening because . . . well, I really don’t know why.”
Jane smiled wistfully. She stood up slowly and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist, resting her head on his beloved back, stooped now like an old man’s.
“Is it because deep down you are as afraid as I am?” she asked gently. “He is the first patient, and if he has developed the disease and started jumping . . . then the chances of controlling this epidemic would be almost nonexistent. You know that, don’t you? You know . . . ,” she repeated in a whisper.
Wells remained motionless for a moment, feeling his wife’s warm body pressed against his. Finally, he turned round and, very slowly, moved his forehead toward hers until they were touching. The couple abandoned themselves willingly to that ancient, symbolic gesture from their old world that honored the mind of the other. Their fingers intertwined but afterward, obeying the urges they had developed in their adopted universe, moved tremblingly up each other’s arms, turning into a cascade of caresses down the other’s curved back. Wells cupped his wife’s face, kissing with a sudden fervor her lips, now salty from her tears, which still seemed to him like a genetic miracle.
“What have we done, Jane?” he asked, burying his face in the warm crook of her neck like a frightened child. “What have we done? And what are we going to do? We wanted to save one world and now we are going to destroy them all . . .”
For a few moments, Jane stroked his wispy hair. Then she dried the tears running down her cheeks and stepped away from her husband with gentle determination.
“You have to find the first patient,” she insisted with renewed vigor. “Do it, Bertie. Find him and connect with him. I want to know what he is doing right this minute . . .”
Wells sighed. The woman was indefatigable. He sat down again in the armchair and closed his eyes while Jane stared at him intently from the fireplace, rubbing her hands impatiently. After five long minutes, her husband opened his eyes.
“Did you find him?” Jane asked. “Has he jumped?”
“Er . . . no, he hasn’t jumped. He is still in his universe . . .”
“That’s wonderful news! . . . So why are you pulling that face?”
“I . . . I don’t know what to think.”
“Why?” Jane demanded. “What is your twin doing now?”
Wells looked confused.
“He is fleeing a Martian invasion.”
• • •
THIS ASTONISHING STORY DISTRACTED them for a while from the threat posed by the epidemic they themselves had caused, which, after all, was equally extraordinary, if not more so. In the world of the Wells with the scar, the Martians were razing London, and there was nothing the empire’s crude weaponry could do to stop them—exactly as the author himself, together with many of his twins, had described in one of their novels. And over several evenings, instead of spying on the other universes to check on the spread of the epidemic, the couple couldn’t help following with amazement the adventures of that Wells, who, besides being the first patient, was currently being forced to confront the terrifying fantasy he himself had concocted in The War of the Worlds. Until the thing he and Jane most feared took place. One day, pursued by Martians through the sewers of London together with a motley group of survivors, Wells’s twin had jumped into a parallel universe. And this, apart from depriving them of the end of the spine-chilling tale, had also destroyed any hopes that the consequences of the epidemic would be less catastrophic than they feared. Apparently, all those infected ended up jumping sooner or later.
From then on, they made it their duty to seek out and watch over other twins who had also developed the disease, to measure the effect their jumps might have on the fabric of the universe. And so, every night, they became privy to dozens of fantastical adventures. But as we all know, every good adventure must have a villain. And that was how they came across Marcus Rhys.
The name may possibly be familiar to some of you, dear readers, as he made a brief appearance in my first tale. He was a ruthless killer who had developed the disease of cronotemia almost from the moment the virus entered his body, as if his evil blood were greedy for power. And, unlike other sufferers, due to a natural talent, which was as unique as it was sinister, he had learned to master where his jumps took him. Naturally, Rhys had no understanding of the nature of his disease. In the world he came from, which was in a relatively advanced future, governments were aware of the epidemic, but, as in a lot of the other parallel universes, they had confused it with a mysterious mutation that created time travelers. To combat the obvious threat this posed, they had banned time travel, hunting down anyone in breach of the law. Rhys, of course, was one of those. He considered himself the most prominent specimen of Homo temporalis, of that evolutionary link he believed was destined to rule the world. But rather than putting his amazing talent to good use, he had squandered it wandering through the centuries like a mischievous tourist: he blasted the Vikings with machine guns, sacked the tombs of the pharaohs, appeared in the guise of the devil at the Salem witch trials, bedded Marie Antoinette . . . When he grew bored of subverting History at his whim, he decided to steal his favorite authors’ most celebrated novels before they had time to publish them, and to kill them, in this way creating
a unique library for himself of famous works of literature, whose pages he alone could read, because for the rest of the world they had never existed. The Observer Wellses knew Rhys precisely because the Wells from whom he tried to steal the manuscript of The Invisible Man had luckily managed to escape by jumping into another universe, for he, too, had developed the disease. There began a frenzied chase across many parallel worlds, which the Observer Wellses followed with bated breath, clapping their hands like children every time Wells’s twin managed to escape from his evil pursuer . . . Or did he? Because in fact dozens of Rhyses were chasing dozens of Wellses through dozens of parallel worlds, all of them believing they were unique, all of them believing they were traveling in time, galloping through the centuries, and persecutor and persecuted had crossed paths and interchanged so many times without knowing it that even the Observer Wellses were no longer sure who the first Wells was who had started that infernal relay race.
The one thing they knew for sure was which of those Marcus Rhyses deserved the title of Villain. You will know him by his wickedness, Wells told Jane each time they lost track of him in the chaos of the multiverse. And by his cunning, Jane added, unable to conceal the fear his attributes instilled in her. With good reason: the Villain was the only one among his evil twins who never gave up the chase; he was so obsessed with finding the wretched scribbler who had slipped through his fingers that he had sworn he would not stop until he had caught him. He went on searching tirelessly, and whenever he found one of Wells’s twins he would brutally murder him, convinced he had killed the only Wells that existed. However, each time he returned to what he mistakenly believed was the future or the past in his own world, eager to contemplate the fruits of his vengeance and to savor a world where the only trace of the exasperating H. G. Wells was a forgotten grave, he would bump into a live version of the author again. Unable to comprehend how this was possible, he would kill him again. Thus, many Wellses died in many parallel worlds at the hands of the Villain, who was growing increasingly angry and disturbed. Not only that: he was becoming transparent.
By following the trail of that deranged killer through the unfortunate Wellses whom he killed, the couple discovered that another side effect of jumping between universes was molecular loss: Marcus Rhys was becoming more and more translucent in what appeared to be a one-way journey toward invisibility. This could only mean that each time one of the cronotemics jumped, he left some of his molecules in hyperspace, causing his body mass to realign, eventually giving him that extraordinary see-through quality. The molecular loss resulting from one jump was negligible, so that the cronotemics who had jumped only two or three times in their lives barely noticed it. In contrast, those firmly in the grip of the disease, who were subjected to an unending succession of leaps, could only watch in horror as first their skin and eventually their muscles, their organs, and finally their blood became more and more transparent, until the light pierced their bodies like a lance. Fortunately, by that time, the majority had already lost their minds and no longer remembered who they were or where they came from.
The Villain, however, never forgot who he was or whom he was chasing. And if he had any inkling of the terrible havoc his burning desire for vengeance was wreaking on his body, it did not seem to bother him in the slightest. On the contrary, he appeared to welcome his progressive invisibility as an unexpected boon, which made him feel even more powerful and intimidating. That accursed Wells would have nowhere left to hide once Rhys attained complete invisibility. What other tricks could he resort to in order to escape from him? None. When Rhys became Invisible Death, Wells would finally be trapped.
• • •
ALL THESE FRESH PERILS lying in wait for their twins had cast a pall over the wonderful stories the Wellses exchanged by the hearth as they took an increasingly sinister turn. The couple could not help shuddering at the thought of the as-yet-unknown effects the epidemic might have on the fabric of the universe, or simply when contemplating the travails of those cronotemics forced to rebuild their lives in parallel worlds, without any clue as to what was happening to them. They could consider themselves fortunate in comparison to those whom the virus forced to jump endlessly from universe to universe, their minds and bodies unraveling until, in the most extreme cases, they ended up dissolving in hyperspace like the vague memory of some deranged universal consciousness.
Many of those poor wretches spent their final days prey to a phenomenon that was related to the nature of parallel worlds, which Wells referred to as the Maelstrom Coordinates. He had discovered that in many universes there were certain places that acted like gigantic ocean sinkholes that sucked toward the centers of their powerful vortexes any strange elements that fell into them from other worlds. So, when a cronotemic jumped, instead of reappearing in the same spot, or wherever the equivalent coordinates might be, one of those cosmic whirlpools often dragged him to a different place. The Maelstrom Coordinates might be located somewhere specific like a house, a moor, or a cave, but also could be in a person. A cronotemic might leap from a snowy peak in the Himalayas or the scorching dunes of the Sahara Desert and reappear in a parallel London through a haunted house or the body of a medium conducting a séance.
Wells could not help smiling to himself when he discovered that this epidemic of leaping through worlds was responsible for the obsession with spiritualism and the hordes of mediums blighting so many parallel worlds in that multiple universe. Those worlds, which were so removed from the Supreme Knowledge, did their best to make sense of the strange plague, whether by designating those infected as Homo temporalis, as in Rhys’s world, or mistaking them for lost souls, spirits doomed to haunt bewitched places and communicate with the living through mediums until they laid to rest their unfinished business. In actual fact, all those haunted houses and those remarkable people with an apparent gift for speaking to the dead were simply each universe’s Maelstrom Coordinates sucking up the cronotemics in mid-leap only to regurgitate them later as terrifying apparitions, whether in the form of a woman in black suddenly appearing at the top of a tower in a deserted house or a nebulous ectoplasm emerging from the body of a medium in a trance.
The Wellses also discovered that once a cronotemic had been sucked up by a Maelstrom he would remain bound in some way to that universe, doomed to return there again and again, and always through the same portal. As a result, some cronotemics became trapped in a crazed vicious circle made up of a few worlds, forced to appear in the same haunted houses, or through the same mediums, shedding with every jump an increasing number of molecules and memories. Many ended up in the thrall of the mediums, their virtual slaves, pathetic puppets who believed blindly everything the mediums said: that they were dead, and that their hazy memories were merely visions of the Hereafter, where they now belonged, and that was no doubt an exact replica of the world of the living. Until one day, during a jump, their delicate molecular structure would fragment into a million scattered apparitions. When that happened, the curse of the haunted house would be lifted, until another cronotemic took up the vacant post of resident ghost or a medium would lose contact with her enslaved spirit, believing that he or she had at last found the path into the light.
For five long years, the Wellses watched the epidemic spread, tormented by the terrible fate of their twins who had developed the disease and wondering anxiously how it would all end. Occasionally, eager to retain some hope amid that madness, they told themselves the situation might resolve itself: the day might dawn when those actively infected would end up disintegrating, including the evil Villain himself, leaving only the harmless carriers, who would develop some kind of immunity that they would then pass on to their offspring, and the universe would heal itself. But on the days when they were plagued with guilt, all they could tell each other was that Chaos, always inevitable, might come to that universe as predicted, but not for thousands of millennia, thanks to H. G. Wells and his wife.
27
THE ANSWER TO THEIR OMINOUS musings c
ame a few weeks later, when Wells infiltrated the mind of a twin who had just jumped for the fourth time in less than two months. His first jump had interrupted a peaceful stroll through the streets of London, leaving him stranded in the middle of a deserted plain, where, trembling behind a rock, he had heard the distant blast of hunting horns and the thunderous gallop of a hundred horses. But before he could take a look, he had been dragged back to London scarcely two years before his own birth. There he had stayed for almost two months before being plucked afresh, this time while crossing Grosvenor Square, and transplanted to a London reduced to a heap of rubble from which plumes of hot vapor rose. He was expecting any moment to be devoured by one of the monstrous creatures resembling giant crabs that were scuttling amid the ruins, when another jump had sent him back to Grosvenor Square. And that was where Observer Wells connected with him, just as he was wondering when that crazy journey through time would end.
The square had changed a lot—a few of the houses surrounding the garden in the middle had been replaced by more functional-looking buildings—but at least it was still standing. At that moment it was filled with people. A large crowd had gathered in the square, mostly youngsters sitting in rows on the grass or huddled in the corners, singing and playing the guitar and waving banners bearing the slogan “Make Love Not War’ and other expressions Wells didn’t understand. The youngsters’ harangues were directed at an exceptionally ugly building on the west side of the square, in front of which was posted an army of policemen, many of them on horseback, who were observing the youths hostilely. For several minutes, Wells’s twin was content to wander, dazed, through the noisy crowd, staring in astonishment at the youths’ garish clothes and the flowers that seemed to blossom from their long, scruffy locks. Vaguely intoxicated by the sweet aroma of the cigarettes they were smoking, he accidentally bumped into one young lad.
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