by E. C. Myers
“And a thousand years of peace will reign over the multiverse.” He cocked his head. “You suppose he can actually fix everything?”
“I don't know. If I were taking bets, my money'd still be on you.” She pressed the button to call the elevator back down to ground level. Ephraim watched the numbers count down from 10 to 1.
“I couldn't even hold onto the coin,” Ephraim said. He clenched his hand into a fist. “Without it, I'm just…a kid.”
“A kid with courage and a good heart. Now, if you only had a brain…”
“Ha ha. But I didn't do much. I'd still be in 1954 if not for you, and Nathaniel really came through with that backup controller.”
“You think maybe you've been unfair to Nathan?” Zoe asked.
Ephraim pictured Nathaniel beating up Dug Kim. He closed his eyes.
“What's wrong?” Zoe asked.
He couldn't tell her that he'd seen their older friend brutally work over a defenseless man, her grandfather no less.
“I'm surprised that you suggested that, considering how much you despise Nate,” Ephraim said.
“The way I see it, Nathan has the potential to become Nate or Nathaniel, and we can help him choose the right path,” Zoe said.
Neither of those options looked all that appealing right now.
The elevator arrived and they stepped in. Zoe's finger hovered over the buttons.
“Food or sleep?” she asked.
“I'm not sure if I'm more tired than I am hungry.” He yawned widely and covered his mouth.
“That answers that,” Zoe said. She pressed buttons 1 and 3 together. “I'm taking you to bed.”
He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “You wish,” he said.
“Wishing doesn't help anything,” she said softly.
The elevator deposited them in the secret basement, and they walked down the corridor to the mansion.
“I wasn't sure you'd make it back,” Zoe said.
“Me neither.”
“It got me thinking.”
“Uh-oh.”
She stuck her tongue out at him.
“I'm not kidding. Ephraim, I have a confession.” She certainly sounded serious.
They walked a while before she said anything else.
“I reassembled the controller a long time ago,” she said. “Before I said I did.”
“Zoe! Why?”
“My Ephraim was dead. Mary Shelley left. My dad's never around either, off with one of his strumpets practically every night, and when he was around, if I wanted to spend any time with him it had to be with the television on.”
“You were lonely?” he asked.
“More than that. I missed you, dumbass,” she said. “So I decided to go after you.”
“We talked about that.”
“I didn't care anymore that I don't belong in your universe. I wanted to be in your life.”
“Was Jena right? You used the controller at prom?” he asked.
His pulse quickened with sudden panic. What if it hadn't been the multiverse hiccuping? What if Zoe had set this whole catastrophe in motion?
“Give me some credit. I was truthful about that much. For whatever reason, the controller didn't work—like all the other times.”
“Other times?” he asked.
“Ephraim, I tried it every day. And it never worked.”
“Zoe.”
“It couldn't find your coin—it was like you didn't even exist. And then I started worrying that something had happened to you, and it was torture not knowing.” She balled her hands. “I know it's pathetic. I hate to admit it, but I thought you should know.”
They reached the stairs leading up to the house, and he gestured for her to sit down. He sat next to her.
He pulled at a loose thread from a tear in the knee of his jeans. His analog's jeans.
“When the coin went blank, I thought it was all over,” he said. “And I wasn't sure if I was relieved or disappointed. But I carried it with me every day, too, and I kept checking it, like I was waiting for it to start working again.” He wiped his sweaty hand on his knee and let it rest there. “Hoping.”
She put a hand over his. “If the coin had started working, where would you have gone?”
He knew what she wanted to hear, but he couldn't say it.
“Nowhere.” He took a deep breath. “I meant it when I said we shouldn't use the device anymore. I'm sorry. I wish—” He shook his head. “I'm sorry things were so awful for you back home, but things were going well for me. My mom was getting help, she started dating Jim. I had my Nathan back, and I had…”
“Jena,” she said.
He nodded.
“Why'd you give her the coin?”
“I knew if I didn't get rid of it, a part of me would always be waiting for something else.” Someone else. “I had to put everything behind me and commit to my life, in my universe.”
Zoe stood and walked backward up one step.
“So how is she different from me, really?” she asked.
“That's irrelevant. It's…a feeling,” he said.
“You're happy? With her?”
Ephraim licked his lips. “I've always wanted to be with her.”
“That's not what I asked.”
“Zoe, if I hadn't met you—”
“Don't say that,” she said. She walked up another step. He wasn't sure if he should follow.
“Do you believe in Fate, Ephraim?”
“I've been thinking about that a lot lately. It's kind of hard to believe in Fate, when the multiverse proves that everything happens.”
“But you and I met. That's not supposed to happen. Maybe there's a reason for it.”
Ephraim stood and turned to face her. “You still aren't over him,” he said.
He wanted to take the words back right away, but it was too late.
“Good night, Ephraim.” She spun and ran up the rest of the stairs. A few moments later he heard a door slam.
“Good night, Zoe.”
Ephraim, you are a world-class idiot.
While the first floor of Greystone Manor resembled a hotel, the second floor felt more like someone's home. Ephraim wandered through furnished rooms with worn-out Persian carpets, dusty mahogany tables, and plastic-covered couches.
He found Jena in a drawing room at the back of the west wing—a library—curled up on a red velvet sofa. The plastic tarp had been crumpled up and kicked under its clawed feet. She almost blended into the fabric because she'd changed into a matching red dress.
“Hey,” he said softly.
She bolted up. When she saw him, she started crying.
“Easy,” he said. He sat down next to her, and a cloud of dust rose in the air around them. She hugged him tight.
“You made it,” she said in a low voice. “I was so shocked when I realized what had happened. I would have gone back for you, but Hugh was sick,” Jena said.
“It's okay,” Ephraim lied. “How is he?”
She nodded at the closed door across the room. Loud snoring emanated from the other side.
“Sleeping,” she said.
Jena drew her feet under her legs, draping the short dress over them carefully. She was barefoot.
“What's wrong with him?” Ephraim asked.
“He blacked out after the shift,” she said. “He nearly choked on his own vomit. So much vomit.”
Ephraim made a face.
“You didn't have to drive in a car with that smell,” she said. “I called Dr. Kim and she told me to bring him back to Crossroads right away. Thank goodness Nathaniel has a convertible.”
“Using the coin makes Everett that sick?” Ephraim asked.
“Apparently, it gets worse the more he travels. Ironic, huh? He invented a technology he can never use.”
“That's why they needed Ephraim to operate it,” Ephraim said. He bet it ate Hugh up that he couldn't travel through the multiverse on his own. It had driven Nate mad with jealousy.
&
nbsp; “Who lives up here?” Ephraim asked, looking around.
“Dr. Kim,” Jena said.
She pulled off her glasses and polished them with the hem of her dress. Ephraim tried not to stare as she lifted it.
“How did you get back?” she asked.
“Nathaniel basically whipped out an ACME portable hole,” Ephraim said.
“Never leave home without one,” Jena said.
For the second time that night, he highlighted how they'd used the second controller to communicate with Zoe by ham radio, leaving out the part where Nathaniel beat the crap out of Dug Kim.
“Damn,” Jena said. “So she got to save you and talk to Grumps.”
“He's a really nice guy,” Ephraim said.
“I wish I could have seen him,” Jena said. “I barely got to spend any time in my favorite decade.”
“I thought you hated it,” Ephraim said.
“There are drawbacks to any era in history. We just trade one set of problems for another. Things are as imperfect in 2012 as they are in 1954.”
“I thought I was going to have to live there,” Ephraim said.
“Dr. Kim would have come back for you.”
“Even Nathaniel wasn't so sure, and he's practically in love with her,” Ephraim said. “If it hadn't been for Zoe, we'd still be there. She really came through.”
Jena pursed her lips. “What is that supposed to mean? Leaving you was an accident.”
“I know. You did the right thing, taking care of Hugh.”
“Damn straight. Not everything's about you,” she said.
“This isn't—” He sighed. “What are we even fighting about?”
She leaned forward. “It's always ‘Zoe this,’ and ‘Zoe that.’”
“I only mentioned her once.”
“Well, I feel like I've been living in her shadow since you came back from her universe.”
“You shouldn't feel insecure about our relationship.”
“I'm not insecure,” Jena said. “I know I'm awesome.” She got up and walked toward the large windows on the other side of the room.
He followed her. “So what's the problem?”
The windows faced the Summerside Library. He bet Dr. Kim had chosen these rooms for her own for that exact reason.
“I'm worried you'll forget how awesome I am. I'm not used to feeling…jealous.”
“Jealous?” He frowned.
“I'm jealous of the two of you and your history together and the fact that she kissed you and that she's some kind of hero who swooped in and is going to save the multiverse.”
“We're going to save the multiverse. All of us. Together.”
Ephraim knew what it was like to be jealous of his analog. He'd felt the same way about the other Ephraim and Zoe being together. No, he didn't want to think about that, especially right now.
“It's hard when someone else has something you want, and you ask, ‘Why him? Why not me?’ Especially when that other person is you,” he said.
Ephraim had always been envious of other kids' families, friends who grew up with two parents who got along with each other. But in the last year, he'd had the chance to see how other people lived, to actually live some of those other lives, and he'd found he preferred his own.
As imperfect as she might be, his mother was his alone and if anything had been different in his life, he'd be different too. His experiences, in the universe he'd been born in, were what made him unique.
“Zoe's just a friend, okay? There's nothing between us,” Ephraim said. “You and I have been together a lot longer than I've even known her. And we have twelve years of history on top of that.”
She leaned against the window and stared over at the Library.
“Since we're being honest with each other, I was feeling a bit jealous of Hugh earlier tonight,” Ephraim said.
Jena feigned shock. “No kidding.”
“Come on,” he said.
Jena tucked her hair behind one ear. “He's incredibly hot,” she said.
Ephraim laughed, but he stopped when Jena's face got pink. “Wait, you're serious?”
“I like a man in glasses,” she said. “And a suit.”
“You never told me that,” Ephraim said.
“You don't wear glasses.”
“Poor vision is a sign of inferior genes, which makes for a less desirable mate.”
“Really.” Jena glared at him over the top of her glasses.
Oops.
“Don't worry, you're plenty cute even without glasses. Especially in a tux.” She sighed wistfully. “I was looking forward to taking that off you.”
Ephraim cleared his throat. “You know, Everett's going to lose his hair. You saw the pictures in those biographies. And he's going to gain a lot of weight.”
“Sexy isn't only about appearances,” Jena said. “He's also a super genius.”
“Which makes you ‘Tastyus supersonicus’?” Ephraim asked. Since he and Jena could never agree on whether to watch Daffy Duck or Bugs Bunny cartoons, they settled on a happy medium: Road Runner cartoons.
“Poor Wile E. tries so hard,” Jena said sadly. “But he never catches the Road Runner.”
“You really do like the underdog,” Ephraim said.
“Coyote,” she said. She turned toward him and leaned closer.
“Don't worry, there's a first time for everything. Somewhere in the multiverse, the coyote always gets his bird,” he said.
Ephraim kissed her.
“Meep, meep,” she said dreamily.
“You look great, by the way. Why are you all dressed up again?” he asked.
She looked down at her dress.
“I needed a change of clothes, after Hugh was sick. This was the first clean thing I grabbed.” She didn't pull the neckline up this time. “Prom part two?”
“I'll be right back,” Ephraim said.
“Don't go,” she said, holding onto his hand.
“It'll just take a second,” he said.
He ran back to his room and changed quickly into his tuxedo. On a hunch, he opened the drawer of the night table in his room and found a strip of Trojans stashed inside a worn copy of the The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens. He tore one of the condoms off and tucked it into his jacket.
But when he got back to the drawing room, Jena had fallen asleep on the couch. Her fingers were curled around something in her palm.
He pulled at her slender fingers gently, and the coin tumbled into his hand. He found an afghan in the linen cabinet beside the bedroom and covered her with it, then went back to his room, turning the coin over and over in his hands. Heads. Tails.
Does she love me, does she love me not?
Heads. Tails.
Do I love her? Do I love her not?
The next morning, Ephraim found Hugh Everett studying the LCD in the atrium, making notes on a yellow legal pad and occasionally glancing none too subtly at Jena and Zoe over by the door to Everett's lab.
“Feeling better?” Ephraim asked Hugh.
“One hundred percent,” Hugh said.
Jena and Zoe had changed back into their matching tank and shorts combos. They were even harder to tell apart because Zoe was now wearing an old pair of Dr. Kim's glasses; her blue contacts were only supposed to be temporary. In fact, Ephraim recognized the gold-rimmed spectacles as her grandfather's.
Still, Zoe stood a little straighter than Jena did, and there was always her nose piercing to give her away, which completely fascinated Hugh.
Hugh reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small point-and-shoot camera. He snapped a quick picture of the girls and thumbed a plastic wheel to advance the film. He dropped it back into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.
He tilted his head back to watch the rings of the LCD slowly oscillate. Ephraim could practically see him running the equations through his head.
“Ingenious,” Hugh said. “It seems incredible that I could have designed this.”
�
��Well, it's the product of modern technology and years of research focused on interdimensional travel,” Jena said, wandering over with Zoe.
“And Nathaniel helped,” Zoe said.
“In other universes, the US has visited the moon, sent probes into deep space, brought back photographs of the surface of Mars and from beyond Pluto,” Jena said. “Which isn't a planet anymore, by the way.”
“Don't get me started on that,” Zoe said.
“I know, right?”
“Space travel is a waste of time and resources.” Hugh lit a cigarette. As he walked around the LCD, smoke drifted up and swirled around the turning rings of the machine. “We already know those planets are out there. We can see them with our eyes. But other universes…” He pressed his hand against the base of the gyroscope. “It feels alive.”
He continued walking around the base, and Ephraim followed.
“I have no idea why this contraption works,” Hugh said softly.
“You and me both,” Ephraim said.
“But I'm supposed to have invented it. I'm supposed to explain what's going on in the multiple universes, yet I can barely grasp the basic principles of this machine's design.”
“You'll figure it out,” Ephraim said. “We'll help.”
Hugh shook his head. “I've been reviewing Everett's theories all morning.” He stopped. “That still sounds strange.”
“You get used to it.” Ephraim smiled.
“I feel like my understanding of his probability state theories only scratches the surface. I've read the debates about whether parallel universes exist, and I find myself agreeing with Niels Bohr's theories of the collapsing wave function. Imagine that! My other self would roll in his grave.”
Ephraim didn't mention that in all likelihood, Everett was standing on one of his counterparts' graves.
“Maybe I was never meant to share his particular insights. Especially considering what I've learned about what's happening in the multiverse right now,” Hugh said.
“What does that mean?”
Hugh threw his hand up and pointed at the LCD. “That this is impossible!” His voice echoed in the atrium. Jena and Zoe looked over at them.
“But multiple universes do exist,” Ephraim said.