The Switch

by Hill, A. W.

  Gordon was the first to plop down. “Where do you suppose we can find something to eat? Our last food was the Duke’s bacon.”

  “Those lizards looked pretty juicy,” said Mose.

  “They look rubbery to me,” I said.

  “We can’t eat them,” said Jemma. “They’re intelligent.”

  We all just looked at her, neither agreeing or disagreeing.

  Eventually, we found seats on the moss or the rocky outcroppings at the edge. Only in epic movies do you see such dramatic visuals. There was nothing but empty, bottomless blue sky. No clouds, no ocean, no “other side.” Just an endless void of blue, and in the midst of it, the geometrical castle, floating there like an island in the sky, accessible only by that narrow bridge that looked as gauzy as everything else. And sooner or later, we would have to cross it.

  “I have a feeling,” I said slowly, “that once we cross over that bridge, nothing will ever be the same. Just in case, maybe we should make a pact. And talk about what we mean by ‘going home.’”

  I turned to Gordon first. “What about you, Professor Nightshade? Where’s home for you?”

  “Honestly,” he said, “I don’t know, Jake. My family moved around a lot. That bombed out basement was a Syrian Orthodox Christian Church. My mom and dad were aid workers, going overseas to help out in places where people had lost everything. Wars, hurricanes, tsunamis, stuff like that. I saw a lot of misery by the time I was fourteen.”

  “Is that why you hid out in that church?” Mose asked. “I had a place like that back home. An abandoned hot dog stand on Diversey. Used to go there when my mama’s boyfriend was smoked. Just slipped in, pulled up my hoodie, and dropped down to wait him out.”

  “Not exactly that kind of hideout.” Gordon pursed his lips. “There were these Syrian kids, some younger than me, but one, the leader, he was about nineteen. They showed it to me. Said that you could leave the world there. In their language, of course.”

  “Leave the world?” Jemma asked. “Like we just did?”

  “It was a switch,” said Gordon. “My first one.”

  “Wow,” Mose said. “You spoke Syrian…”

  “Arabic, mostly. But I only knew enough to get it wrong.”

  “But that these Syrian kids knew about the switch…” I said. “…that’s nuts. And some of them must’ve really wanted to leave that world.”

  “Yeah,” Gordon agreed. “There were some bad guys in that place. I mean, medieval bad. Just shows you that the switches can be anywhere, in any world. The little kids were too scared to pull it. They’d been warned they wouldn’t come back. But the older guy, Youseff. He spoke English, and he’s the one who convinced me, mainly because he was cool. He seemed to know things. I asked him, ‘Are you sure we can get back?’ and he said, ‘Why would you want to? Look around.’ But then he said, ‘Yeah, you can get back. Look at me. I did. The pigeon always flies home.’”

  “I hardly ever saw my parents,” Gordon continued, “and we never had a place of our own. Always sharing space with other workers. I got stuck in shabby rooms, doing schoolwork…when we weren’t hiding from the bombs. I was proud of my parents and all, but I was a pretty unhappy kid. Now all that unhappiness seems like nothing. In a way, home is wherever my family is. But in another way, it’s wherever I can feel like I belong. There’s some place each of us is s’posed to be.”

  “The pigeon always flies home,” I repeated. “You will. I wonder if Youseff did know something. Some secret about who’s behind all this.”

  “I think he did,” said Gordon softly. “But like an idiot, I never asked him.”

  “I like it, though,” said Mose. “It gives me hope.”

  “What about you, Mose?” I said. “If we stepped inside that castle and a fairy queen asked us where we wanted to go, what would you say?”

  “That’s a tough one. But I’ve been giving it some thought, ever since I decided to crew up with y’all. At first I thought, ‘anyplace but where I came from.’ But now, part of me feels like I might need to put some things right with my mom. Maybe even try and find my dad. Too bad there’s not a way to tweak your worldline just a tiny bit. I’d love to make that dirtbag boyfriend disappear.” He lowered his head for a moment, and then said. “Hell, I dunno. Maybe I’d just go back to Clybourn. I’m not sure.” He looked at me. “What about you, Jake?”

  I rubbed my hand over the soft green moss at the edge of the cliff, and swallowed against a sudden rush of vertigo—not because of the cliff itself, but because when I extended my arm out, it felt like I was reaching into a different spatial geometry. I don’t know how else to describe it. I could feel both places at the same time. “There’s a part of me,” I said, “that wanted to keep floating and see if there was something really better than what I had. As freaky as those first few worlds were, they showed me that the story can go a different way. I mean, there are worlds where kids who die of cancer don’t die. Don’t even get sick. And that tells me that somewhere out there, there’s a world where I’m the happiest kid alive. But then I think…there’d have to be a trade-off, ‘cause things have to balance out. And for all their screwed-up-ness, I miss my mom and dad, my friends…Connor. My heartline leads back to Lincoln Park. But it also—”

  I let it drop, and looked at Jemma. For all I knew, for her, the answer might be more complicated. “What about you, mystery girl? Where’s home?”

  A look crossed her face like the look someone gets when a train or a bus has just left without them, and they’re standing on the curb all alone.

  “I’ve never had a home, the way you guys have. Or if I did, it was taken away so long ago that I can’t remember. All I have are these weird images—images with sounds and smells and feelings. Memories of a place with trees, and a school, and other kids like me. And—” Then she raised her eyes till they were square on mine. “And you were there, Jacobus.” I think she had just at that moment realized that, though I was sure she had felt it before.

  “I know.” I cleared my throat. “—at least, I think I know.”

  “Wow. Wow. Wow!” Gordon spat the wows out in escalating succession. “I think I get it now. She didn’t pull any switches. But somewhere deep in that onion skin, somewhere way back, she got lost. Or maybe…she got abducted.”

  I spoke up. “That’s some deep stuff. That she remembers me. What could that mean if she started out from a different world?”

  “Look.” Gordon’s forehead knitted up like an old man’s. “The way I figure it, the only way there can be multiple worlds is if there’s a singular you. Otherwise, by what measure would they be multiple? You see what I’m sayin’?”

  “You like the Dalai Lama or somethin’, Gordo?” said Mose.

  “Right now…at this minute,” I said, “I just feel like…wherever we go, we should all go together. I know things could change that, and, well, everyone should go where they want to go. But I wish there was some way that home could be the same for all of us.”

  “You never know,” said Gordon. “The pigeon always flies home.”

  “The pigeon always flies home,” we all said together.

  On that cue, one of the grass lizards decided to leap down from his stalk and land right in the middle of us. We all scooted back at the same time, and Gordon nearly scooted himself right off the edge of the cliff.

  “Whoa there, little brother!” Mose yelped.

  We grabbed Gordon’s ankle and reeled him back in. Meanwhile, the iguana thing just stood in the center of our little circle, up on its hind legs, looking from one of us to the next, turning smoothly.

  There was something in the way it turned…deliberate, almost thoughtful. Lizards didn’t do that. Not the ones I’ve seen. They’ll check you out with that wise-lizard gaze that really can’t be all that wise because their brains are the size of a pea. But this creature was truly observing us: cocking its head, looking from me to Jemma, then back again. I would’ve sworn it was making a kind of assessment. Then, without any warning
at all, it jumped right into Jemma’s lap and stared up into her face like a cat.

  She let out a cry, but it was short and held in, as if she’d known instinctively that a louder, longer scream might have scared it away. The creature didn’t look so threatening in Jemma’s lap. Well, let me be clear: it looked threatening, but its behavior wasn’t. It just kept moving its head from side to side.

  “If he could talk,” said Jemma, her body rigid and her head drawn back from the lizard’s flicking tongue, “I think he’d have a lot of questions.”

  Gordon leaned in for a closer look. “Maybe some answers, too. That is no ordinary iguana. I don’t mean the six legs or the color. Look at the size of its head. And the way its forehead wrinkles when he looks at her.”

  “Yeah,” said Mose. “It looks like you, Gordo!”

  “Well,” I said, after a laugh had died down, “you’re the one who said that nature could be different here, Gordon. Maybe his kind is in charge in this world. Maybe he’s the boss.”

  “You mean,” Mose interjected, “like ‘Planet of the Iguanas?’”

  We all burst out laughing again. It felt so good, like letting out a breath we’d held in for years. But after about fifteen seconds, my own laughter quieted a little, because I noticed that the creature had begun to make its strange rattling, clicking sound. Just throwing back its head and clicking away like there was no frigging tomorrow.

  “Goddamn.” My mouth dried. “I think he’s laughing with us!”

  The lizard turned and gave me a look, then kept on clicking.

  “Hey,” said Jemma. “Can you hear differences in the clicks? High and low. Short-long-long-short… Do you think it could be some kind of language?”

  As if to answer the question with style, the lizard hopped off her lap, and in two bounds, was on the bridge that led to the palace of geometrical forms. It turned back to us with a look that could have meant only one thing: What are you waiting for?

  Gordon was the first to stand up, but I hesitated. “Okay,” I said. “I know this story. We’re supposed to follow him over the bridge…like Alice followed the white rabbit down the hole. Only remember—it’s a choice. We’ll be making a new history if we do.”

  Mose stood up and brushed himself off. “I get you, Jake. But do we really have a choice? Seems to me the dice have already been rolled.”

  “You always have a choice,” I said.

  “A probability of a choice,” Gordon corrected.

  “It’s more than that. It’s intention. Until you choose, a world doesn’t happen.” I glanced at the lizard, looking back at me from practically the thin air. “For example, that bridge. It isn’t any more solid than the building it goes to. It could be an illusion. So, one possibility is that our choice to get on it will lead to a history where we fall into an abyss and die.”

  “That’s true.” Jemma rose smoothly. “But there also has to be a history where we don’t, right?”

  “And that’s the only history we’ll know,” said Gordon. “Because you can’t experience any history after you’re dead. That’s the argument for quantum immortality.”

  “Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure of that,” said Mose. “But I see what you’re sayin’, and I say we go.”

  “Okay,” I said, the last to stand up. “But I go first. And you guys wait till I’m across to come. That’s my choice. You all okay with that?”

  They nodded, and my heart pounded with the realization of what I’d committed to.

  The lizard was waiting.

  You’ve probably seen pictures of those rope bridges that Eagle Scouts and Marines use for training, or that crazy extreme sports people string across yawning canyons. Maybe you’ve even been on one. The footpath is just a single strand of thick rope, but then there are other strands looped around in a way that forms a ‘V.’ The uprights of the ‘V’ are your ‘handrails.’ That’s what this bridge looked like, only glowing luminous white and with ‘rope’ that was like spun crystal. Inside the strands of the rope, I could see energy flowing.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said and set my right foot on the bridge.

  The lizard waited, watching my every move.

  The bridge sagged under my weight as I stepped on, just as you’d expect rope to do, except that the overall impression I had was of walking on light. I took hold of the ‘railings,’ and they also bent and bowed as I struggled to find my balance. Beneath me was nothing but blue. In one way, that was more comforting than, say, some vast valley with jagged rocks. In another way, the emptiness was terrifying.

  I took another step, wobbled, found my center, and then stepped again. The electro-virtual rope flexed, but had what they call tensile strength, meaning that when I pushed, it pushed back. About halfway across, my mind finally accepted that it would hold me. My mind accepted it, but my heart didn’t. There was a deep ache in my chest, and for the first time in many years, I heard the murmurings as if they were right against my eardrums. With horror, I felt myself teetering on the edge of a blackout. My body swayed wildly as my right foot slipped off the center cord. And I dropped.

  The blue came rushing up at me in a surge of light.

  Jemma cried out from what seemed a million miles away, and it was her voice that brought me back. My left leg dangled over the abyss. When my vision returned, I pulled myself back up.

  The lizard still had its eyes on me. It seemed it had for the whole time. And when I finally made it to the landing on the far side, it scampered right back out to the middle again to guide the next person across. That was Jemma.

  I found myself standing on an enormous oblong slab of glowing crystal (which after the bridge felt like solid ground). I turned and inspected the quartz-like walls of the towering fortress. Close up, they seemed a bit more solid, but they yielded to the touch, like really stiff Jell-O. I ran my fingers along the surface, feeling for a door of some kind, and came to a slot just big enough for a hand. As I slipped mine in, it shimmered, and before me unfolded an endless hall of mirrored doors. Portal after portal appeared, and instead of shrinking to a vanishing point as things usually do, they grew larger. The basic design of the portals was a little like the big rocks at Stonehenge: two upright slabs of stone with a third laid across the top. Except that these were perfectly formed, as if by some cosmic geometrician, and semi-transparent, like the rest of it.

  “That wasn’t so bad,” said Jemma, behind me.

  She startled me a little. Somehow, hearing another human voice in this place didn’t seem at all natural. “Easy for you to say.”

  “Of course, you were the guinea pig,” she added. “Thanks for that.”

  “De nada.” So, it was only grade school Spanish. It was still far and away the smoothest thing I’d ever said to a girl.

  “You looked like you were in pain,” she said. “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s this thing with my heart. Something with the valves. It’s more weird than painful, actually. The doctors always said it couldn’t hurt me.”

  “The doctors?” she asked, as if the word was new. “You mean you had this in your first world?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Since I was like three years old. Why? Does that seem weird?”

  “Well, honestly…yeah. Look—” She lifted her chin to show me her neck. “In the last world, I was cut. I had a scar. Now it’s gone.”

  “I guess you’re right. It is weird. Gordon says that the essential you—your soul or whatever, stays the same. But how could a heart murmur—”

  There was some shuffling behind us and we turned to see that Gordon had made it, followed shortly by Mose.

  “I sure hope we don’t have to go back that way,” said Gordon.

  “Damn,” huffed Mose. “Where to, great white leaders?”

  We all looked down the endless hallway. About twenty portals down, a small, rusty-gold shape marked the floor. The iguana.

  “Let’s follow him. Or her. The lizard seems to know where it’s going.”
>
  It did, but that didn’t mean we could follow it. About thirty gates down, it suddenly darted to the right and disappeared from sight.

  “Okay!” I said, under my breath. “How are we ever gonna find it in this place?”

  As we got closer to where it had vanished, however, we began to hear its familiar clicking, and I have to say that Jemma was right about it sounding like a language. More like dolphin language than human language, but still. All we had to do was follow the clicks, and they brought us to a passage leading off the main corridor that was like all the other passages in every way but one.

  It gave way into a vast white room, and in the very center of the room, there was a person—or some kind of entity—sitting in a high-backed chair, with hair the color of mercury spilling down the back. As we entered the room, the entity swiveled around to face us. At first glance, I couldn’t have said what or who it was, only that it seemed very old.

  True amazement happens, I think, when you see so many things that warp your mind simultaneously that you can’t possibly focus on any one of them and you go into a kind of trance. The room, as I said, was huge, with a domed ceiling on which all the geometrical forms seemed to dance in virtual space. The walls were made of that crystalline material I’d felt outside, and through them, you could see the infinite deep blue sky. Arrayed beyond the captain’s chair and a NASA-style console were a series of enormous display panels, as wafer thin as silicon chips, as translucent as glass, as big as picture windows. At the moment, there was nothing on those panels but tiny, intermittent points of light, popping up in random locations like quantum particles.

  The four of us, and the lizard, stood there, facing a semi-human form that wasn’t either completely male or female. Or maybe I should say, it kept shifting, the same way the building had shifted in the light outside. At one moment, it would look like some ancient Chinese sage with a white beard to the ground, and in the next, a kind of ghostly queen with hair just as long. Its form was wispy, ragged, fading in and out of our field of vision, not the way the Examiner had, like a tearing video image, but more like something halfway in and halfway out of reality. The person, whom I took to be the master of this place, held up their hand in greeting.