by Simon Rose
Abruptly, everything stopped in a burst of brilliant white light, forcing Max to shield his eyes. When he opened them, he was standing in the middle of what seemed to be a circular room where haphazard fragments of multiple images appeared as if they’d been flung against the walls, floor, and ceiling in random order like millions of colourful shards of shattered glass. Julia was standing directly in front of him.
“Oh my God, Julia?” Max gasped.
“Yes, Max, it’s me.”
“What’s happening?” he said, struggling to fully comprehend what he was experiencing. “Aren’t you dead, or never existed? I saw you on the deck, at my party, then I went inside and forgot everything. I forgot ever knowing you, everything we did to end Kovac’s experiments and stop Kane, or even how we saved my mom. I even forgot what happened when I went back into David’s life. How is this even possible? I don’t understand what’s happening to me.”
He staggered slightly, and Julia reached out to grab his forearm to help him regain his balance.
“Calm down, Max,” she said, smiling. “It’s fine, you’re not going crazy, believe me. Let me explain. Will you allow me to do that?”
“Where are we? What is this place?”
“This is where all realities intersect, at least temporarily,” Julia replied. “I don’t know how long I can hold things in place like this but I’ll do my best to explain.”
“All realities intersect? Hold things in place? I don’t understand,” said Max, shaking his head in confusion.
“Okay,” she began. “Where you live isn’t the only universe. There are lots of others, an infinite number in fact. These are many other realities, which are created when actions are or aren’t taken.”
Max frowned.
“I don’t understand.”
“Each time you decide to do something, a future set of events occurs,” Julia explained. “Imagine how we altered the timeline by changing what had happened in the past. Now imagine that happening all the time. Whenever you make a decision to do something it sets a course of events in motion. If you decide not to do that particular thing or to do something else entirely, it launches an alternative timeline. Let’s say that you get on a bus to go to the mall or for some reason you miss the bus and don’t make it to an important event. Now imagine if that’s happening to anyone on the planet and has been happening for all time, with a parallel universe being created each time it happens.”
Max nodded, although it was still very confusing.
“So there really would be an infinite number of different realities. Do we, or anyone else for that matter, exist in all of them?”
“Not necessarily,” said Julia. “In some universes, our parents never met and we weren’t born, or we died somehow. It’s obviously all dependent on random occurrences. And of course, we know that there are realities where Kovac still did his experiments or where your mom was killed in the accident at the train station.”
“But I saved her and changed all that,” Max insisted.
“Yes, you did, but parallel realities all exist somewhere at the same time, although obviously we’re not aware of them. There’s a theory that lapses of memory and déjà vu type sensations, as well as dreams, are sometimes the result of us drifting between different realities but obviously there’s no proof about that.”
“So, which one is real?” asked Max. “Which one of these places is the real world?”
“They all are,” Julia replied, smiling. “They’re all perfectly real for the people that inhabit them.”
Max exhaled.
“So, what the hell happened to me?” he asked.
“When we changed the timeline,” Julia replied, “you went back to that party, you know, when we last met. That was a timeline in which I’d never existed but somehow I was able to come back and talk to you for one last time on the deck.”
Max nodded.
“Yes, I remember that now. It seemed really weird, impossible even.”
Julia smiled.
“This whole thing’s kind of impossible, isn’t it, Max?”
“So, what happened to you?”
“After you went back inside,” Julia replied, “I was standing among the trees in your backyard and actually saw myself fading away when I looked at my fingers and hands. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I suppose I just thought that I’d vanish.”
“And did you?”
“There was a period of blackness,” Julia began. “Nothingness really, but then I was in a series of other worlds, moving between them at high speed as it all flashed by. It’s hard to explain.”
“Were they other realities?” said Max.
Julia nodded.
“Yes, I’m assuming so, but I couldn’t control where I was going. At one point I was in a place like this, with everything frozen all around me, but I couldn’t maintain it. I eventually ended up back in the reality where I wasn’t supposed to exist because Kane never had children. Then I lost consciousness when I appeared in the woods at the park. They say that I was there for a few days but I don’t remember. When they found me, I was obviously very confused, shouting and yelling that this wasn’t my world or something like that. I’m not surprised that they thought I was crazy.”
Julia quickly explained what had happened after she’d been taken to the hospital and how she’d overheard Hammond and Bethany talking about other universes and their experiments on patients. She also told Max what she’d learned from her probing of Bethany’s thoughts at the clinic.
“I had visions of your eyes staring at me,” said Max. “As well as flashes of memories that I didn’t understand, like those people that attacked us at the mall, and ones about Kane too.”
“I was trying to connect with you when I first arrived at the hospital in my moments of consciousness,” Julia explained. “That would probably have caused those.”
“I even saw you, or thought I did, at home in the kitchen.”
“Yes, I thought I saw you too,” she replied. “I almost managed to break through that time but it would probably have freaked you out if I’d managed to speak to you.”
“True,” Max agreed, smiling. “Then I had dreams last night, all jumbled up and they made no sense then, like from my time as David, or when I met Carrington, or when I saw my mom’s accident at the station.”
“That was possibly me too,” said Julia. “I knew they were going to bring you in to the clinic for a meeting, and my subconscious mind was probably reaching out to you when I was sedated.”
Max thought for a moment.
“But how did you knock those people out back at the clinic,” he asked. “You never had that kind of power before, did you?”
Julia shook her head.
“No, I never had power like that. I could probe people’s minds, read their thoughts, that kind of thing, and of course, I was able to see ghosts. Then my powers developed quickly once Kane came after us. That was presumably something that I inherited from him, as well as whatever abilities my birth mother had. I had no idea how I was able to do things since it was all so new. You remember in the parking lot, when I fought that woman that Kane forced to attack us?”
“Yes, that’s right,” said Max. “How did you do that?”
“I developed powers as we went along, if you recall,” Julia replied. “They’d become strong enough for me to be a match for Kane at one point. I was also able to absorb your pain. I think the powers had been ready to emerge for a while but it just wasn’t the right time. Just like it was for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Julia began, “you didn’t know what to make of all that had happened with David’s ghost and how Deanna sent you back in time at first, did you? Then you were able to enter Kovac’s memories as well as the ones belonging to that boy at the playground and change the entire timeline.”
“Yes, that’s true,” said Max. “And so, you were able to move between all those different worlds, just like walking into another room?
”
Julia nodded.
“That’s new, and I think it’s an accident. At first, I couldn’t control the movement between different realities but now I think I can. I think our actions, however good our intentions were to make things right and get rid of bad people like Kane and Kovac, have weakened the barriers between different worlds. We both remember all the other realities too, which should be impossible. That’s what’s allowed Hammond to prove his theory, and now he can move between different realities too. It’s also the only way that I can explain my existence in your universe.”
“So, Hammond’s like you?”
“No, he’s using people like me, extracting fluid from their brains to make a special serum that he uses to travel. I have no idea how it works but the patients don’t survive once they get to his clinic.”
“What?” said Max. “But surely someone would know?”
Julia shook her head.
“It’s like how Kovac operated with the homeless people and others that he experimented on. Hammond has a deal with the hospital so that patients are classified as dead before they leave there and most of them have no ID, like what happened to me. Those with families are a little harder for Hammond and Bethany to handle but it sounds as if they’ve got everything in place to cover up their nasty little scheme. I’m lucky to be alive.”
“So, he took fluid from you.”
“Yes, as far as I know,” said Julia. “It sounds as if I’m the most promising victim they’ve had so far, but if I hadn’t got out of there, I’d be dead. And if they find out about you, your life’s in danger too.”
“But what value am I to them? I can’t do what you do.”
Julia smiled.
“Your ability allows you to travel into other people’s memories, Max. At first you needed Deanna’s help to enter David’s life but you went into Kovac’s past and Kane’s childhood all on your own.”
Max nodded in agreement.
“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you last night at the park,” said Max.
“Don’t worry about it,” Julia replied. “You didn’t know who I was. I couldn’t contact you mentally in the interview room because Hammond and Bethany would have noticed if you’d reacted. You’d have been in danger then too, if they had not only proof of what I’m capable of but that you’re also aware of the existence of different timelines. I had to wait for the right moment to knock them out so that we could escape.”
At that moment, their bizarre kaleidoscopic surroundings started to change as the multiple image fragments began to vibrate.
“What’s happening?” said Max.
“It’s starting to shift again,” Julia replied. “We could end up anywhere if we leave it too long. Take my hand.”
“What for?”
“If you hold onto me, we’ll travel together, in theory.”
“In theory?” said Max, in alarm. “So, you don’t know if this will work?”
“Hopefully we won’t get separated before we get there,” Julia replied.
“Get where?”
“You’ll see, now take my hand.”
Max reached out, and Julia grabbed his hand as the vibration of the surrounding mosaic rapidly became more intense. Before he could ask any further questions, the fragments all around them shattered like glass and there was another brilliant burst of white light.
Chapter Twelve
Mission Unaccomplished
BETHANY AWOKE TO find Hammond tugging at her shoulder as he propped her up against the wall of the interview room.
“What happened?” she said, confused. “Where are the kids?”
“Gone,” he replied. “Both of them.”
“Did you alert security?” she asked, struggling to her feet, and then gasped when she saw Mark and his colleague on the floor near the doorway.
“They’re fine,” Hammond assured her. “They’re still unconscious but none the worse for wear, by the looks of them. She didn’t hurt any of you, or me.”
“So, Jane’s gone?” said Bethany. “I don’t understand. What about the security doors?”
“The girl did something,” Hammond explained. “You were talking to the kids, and then suddenly the screen went blank in my room. I was just checking the equipment to see if there was a malfunction when I blacked out.”
“How long for?”
“Hard to say, five minutes maybe,” Hammond replied. “I assume the same thing happened in here at exactly the same time.”
“And you say the girl had something to do with it?”
Hammond nodded.
“Yes, it appears I underestimated her. She has powers that I couldn’t have anticipated.”
“Powers? What kinds of powers?”
“I don’t know yet,” replied Hammond. “We need to get her back.”
“And where have they gone?”
“She really does have the ability to travel to different realities, I have no idea how. Obviously, we’ve perfected a way for me to do that using the drugs from the patients.”
Bethany pondered for a moment
“But she can do it on her own somehow?”
“Yes, and she’s right about what she claimed when they found her in the park. She’s not supposed to be here.”
“And the boy?”
“Well, obviously they have a connection,” said Hammond. “Otherwise she wouldn’t have taken him with her. She pretended not to know him when you were questioning her and I was watching on the monitor. I assume that she didn’t want to give herself away until she could make her move.”
“But how do you know that they didn’t just escape?”
“This is a very secure facility, as you know, Suzanne. There’s no way they’d have got through all the checkpoints.”
“So, where are they?”
“They could be anywhere.”
“What do we tell the boy’s family?” Bethany asked.
“I have no idea. We need to figure that out.”
“Okay,” said Bethany. “Leave that to me. I’ll give it some thought. So how do we track them down?”
“We don’t,” Hammond replied. “We took some samples from the girl earlier. If she really does have the power that I suspect she has, it should be just what I need to enhance the serum. If she’d gone back to her own reality, it won’t matter. The fluid we extracted when she came here will be enough for me to make the longer journey to the other world, where hopefully I’ll finally find my family.”
Bethany frowned.
“We’ve discussed this before. Enhancing the serum could be incredibly dangerous. Even if you do find a way to stay there longer, presuming you succeed in finding the right universe where your family’s still alive, the memories of all the parallel realities could be overwhelming. You could go insane. We’ve discussed this more than once.”
“It’s irrelevant,” said Hammond, with a dismissive sweep of his hand. “Now, let’s get to the lab. I’ll need you to monitor me while I’m there.”
“What about them?” she said, pointing at Mark and his colleague.
“Get one of the other staff members to take care of them. They’ll be fine. Now let’s go.”
IN THE LABORATORY, Hammond and Bethany added some of Julia’s brain fluid that they’d extracted earlier that day to the serum. Once they’d run the usual tests and were satisfied that the enhanced solution was ready, Hammond lay down on the bed. Bethany then connected all the necessary cables and activated the monitors.
“Okay, everything looks good,” she said. “But I’m bringing you out of it at the first sign of trouble, understood?”
“It’ll be fine, Suzanne, don’t worry,” Hammond replied, smiling, as she swabbed his inner forearm.
“I hope you’re right.”
She picked up the syringe and hypodermic needle from the small steel tray beside the bed and quickly injected Hammond with the full dose of the serum. He felt the familiar sensation wash over his body as he gently closed his eyes and was gone.
He then heard the sound of voices coming from inside the house. Carefully, he placed his fingers on the handle and turned it, slowly opening the door. The voices were coming from the kitchen. He glanced over at the oak cabinet, where there were framed photographs of his two children, older than the age at which they’d died, along with one of him and his wife. He’d finally made it. His heart was pounding but he felt none of the serum’s side effects.