by E. C. Myers
Ephraim froze.
“My life would be so different,” his father said.
“You'd still be a loser,” Ephraim said.
The blow came so suddenly Ephraim didn't even see it. His head whipped to the left. His cheek burned and blood filled his mouth. At least it wasn't the same side that his analog had punched. He laughed. Turn the other cheek.
Ephraim got up and stumbled away from the table, holding his hand to his face. The skin was tender and stung.
“Or maybe you'd be dead,” Ephraim said. He spat blood onto the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor. The memory of another, identical kitchen covered in blood flashed in his mind.
“You'd like that, would you? You should have gone with her.” His father stood up. He grabbed Ephraim by the shirt and shoved him against the refrigerator.
“I'm leaving as soon as I can,” Ephraim said. He felt the controller in his pocket.
His father leaned close to his face. His breath stank and tears mingled with the sweat on his face.
“Why don't you fight back?” he asked.
“Because I'm not like you,” Ephraim said.
“I raised a coward.” He mumbled something in rapid Spanish.
“No, a coward is someone who hits a woman when he's drunk,” Ephraim said.
His father dropped him and went back to the table. He pressed his forehead against the table and covered his ears with both hands.
“Shut up, dammit!” he cried.
Ephraim straightened his shirt. He stretched his jaw and heard something click into place. He wiped bloody saliva from his lips and staggered back over to the table, watching his dad guardedly.
“What do you hear?” Ephraim asked.
His father tilted his head, listening. “Maddy,” he said. “And you. Whispering. Voices just whispering, like ghosts. I even hear myself.”
“Maybe you're hearing other worlds,” Ephraim said softly.
“Can you make it stop?”
“I don't know how.”
His father looked up and met his eyes.
“I know it was my fault,” his father said. “I drove your mother away. All of this is my fault.”
“You can't blame yourself for all of it. Trust me, I know.”
His father picked up his mug, saw it was empty, and put it back down again. What was wrong with him? Did his mental illness really let him hear analogs from other universes, or had the voices made him sick in the first place?
“Let me make you tea,” Ephraim said.
“I hate tea. Don't you have a date tonight? Or was that last night?” his father asked. “What time is it? I need my meds.”
He pointed to an amber bottle on the kitchen counter. Ephraim grabbed it for him.
“What are these for, Dad?” Ephraim asked.
“The voices,” he said. “But they don't seem to help.”
Ephraim opened the bottle and handed over one of the small pink tablets. His father popped it into his mouth, dry swallowed it, and winced.
Ephraim really didn't have anything left. Zoe, Jena, his mother…they were all gone. At least his mother wasn't dead. She was out there, maybe even somewhere in this universe, but as removed from his life as if she was dead after all. She wasn't the same person who had raised him.
He missed his mother.
He took a deep breath. He wasn't changing realities this time. The world was changing around him. The controller allowed him to remain aware of the altered universe, but he couldn't do anything about it.
“I have to go,” Ephraim said.
His father went back to his Sudoku puzzle, filling in squares with random numbers and erasing them again.
“Take the car,” his father said.
“We have a car?” Ephraim asked.
“You get this weird sense of humor from your mother,” his father said. He pulled keys from a pocket of the robe and tossed them to Ephraim.
The keychain was made from a US quarter enclosed in a metal bezel that was attached to a ring.
Ephraim turned it over and saw that it commemorated Puerto Rico, his father's birthplace, as an American territory. Ephraim rubbed his thumb over it. It was perfectly ordinary, but the coincidence disturbed him.
“Um.” Ephraim clutched the keychain tightly. “Where's our car parked? And what does it look like?”
“You're so forgetful.” His father swiped his hand over his eyes. “It's the old Volkswagen across from the basketball court.”
“Thanks. Don't wait up, okay?”
Ephraim wondered what would happen to this man if Ephraim never came back. This wasn't his father, this was just one possible version of him, but he still felt protective of him—and sorry for him.
Ephraim had hated David Scott for what he'd done to his mother, and for not being there. There was obviously more to the story than he knew. He looked at the bottle of pills on the counter. He wasn't sure of anything anymore.
One thing was certain: Ephraim wasn't going to stay here. He was going to his date with Jena, but he had to make one stop first.
Nathan was strangely quiet as he buckled into the passenger seat of David Scott's car.
“You okay?” Ephraim asked.
“I'm just thinking about your mother,” Nathan said.
“Nathan,” Ephraim said.
“Not like that.” His friend ran a hand through his hair. “It was bad enough when Mary and Shelley merged, but now Maddy's gone too. I'm sorry, Ephraim.”
“Thanks,” Ephraim said.
“At least you got a car out of the deal.” Nathan reached over and opened the glove compartment. “Too bad it's like twenty years old and belongs to your crazy, abusive father.”
He looked at Ephraim's face and winced. Ephraim had cleaned himself up and changed shirts, but his left eye and cheek were swollen and red.
“Yeah,” Ephraim said. “But I'm glad you remember my mom and the way things are supposed to be.”
“Why is that, anyway?” Nathan asked. “I saw my dad on the way out and I asked him if he recognized your car. He knew it was your father's. Everyone else remembers things differently from us.”
“Before my mom disappeared, she said something about forgetting that my replacement wasn't me.”
“But he was a dick,” Nathan said.
“Even so. She said she remembered what had happened whenever she re-watched that video you sent her. I think that might have something to do with it. Speaking of which.” He handed Nathan his camera from the backpack on the seat between them.
Ephraim started the car and caught his friend up on events since the prom while he drove them to Jena's house. He ignored the camera in Nathan's lap, pointing at Ephraim and recording everything he said.
“I can't believe Jena stole the coin,” Nathan said. “Does she like that Everett guy that much?”
“She thinks she's doing the right thing,” Ephraim said.
“That's even worse.”
“But Hugh sent me the backup controller, so I think he might be on my side.”
“Which side is that?”
“The one in favor of not destroying the multiverse for personal gain.”
“Right. I'm on that side, too. But what can we do?” he asked. “Maybe this Dr. Kim has a point. I mean, she's a doctor.”
“She's a psychologist.” Ephraim clenched the steering wheel. “I really need you to be with me on this, Nathan,” he said.
“I'm just musing aloud. I'm with you, Eph. No matter what wildly improbable scheme you come up with.” He drummed his fingers nervously on the armrest. “But you have to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” Ephraim said.
“Like I have spinach stuck in my teeth and you're trying to find a polite way to tell me,” Nathan said.
“Sorry.”
“I'm not going to disappear or change on you,” Nathan said in an exasperated voice.
“You don't know that. What if the coin and the controller make it happen to the people clos
e to me? Like, physically near me, but not in contact with me?”
“Or realities are cohering completely at random, like everything else in the multiverse.”
“Decohering,” Ephraim corrected.
“Huh?”
“The universes are decohering,” Ephraim said. “‘Cohering’ is when the Charon device stores their coordinates and prevents them from disappearing. Decohering is when they fade away or merge.”
“Okay, well, that sounds backward. Whatever. The bad thing that's happening isn't going to affect me,” Nathan said.
“Why's that?”
“For one thing, I know too much.” Nathan patted the side of his camera.
“And why else?” Ephraim asked.
“I'm obviously the best Nathan Mackenzie in all the multiverse,” Nathan said.
Ephraim laughed. “The very best. No room for improvement.”
Nathan opened Ephraim's backpack and pulled out the audiocassette from Everett's lab.
“Is this that old recording?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah.”
Nathan slid the cassette into the tape deck in the car. “I want to get the sound on the video, too,” he said.
Ephraim shrugged.
The hiss of the tape filled the car. Ephraim jumped when he heard his own voice. The car swerved.
“This is Ephraim Scott. If you're listening to this, then that means I never came home.”
Ephraim pulled over quickly. He cut off a car, which honked as it sped by them.
“Is that your older self?” Nathan asked.
“It must be,” Ephraim said. He turned up the volume on the radio. He was listening to the Ephraim Scott who had started all of this.
“I've made a terrible mistake. I've thought about it every day since I got the Charon devices. And I've finally realized that we aren't supposed to have this technology. I never should have let Dr. Everett convince me otherwise.”
Nathan strained against his seat belt to get a better shot of Ephraim's face with the camera.
“That isn't fair. It wasn't just him—it was my decision to keep all of this a secret. The transhumans lied to me. I think they did something to my mind,” the older Ephraim went on. “The more I use the coin, the more universes I visit, the more I remember. I have two sets of memories, like I lived another life in those three days. They must have brainwashed me so I would do what they told me. So I would bring the machine back and start recording the existence of other universes. I don't know what they're planning, but I'm afraid they aren't trying to help us. They're using us. They're using me.
“Some of those universes we visited shouldn't exist. Maybe most of them.” The older Ephraim took a deep breath. “I haven't told Jena or Nathan what I'm planning to do. If you two are listening to this, then I'm sorry. I have to do this on my own. You would try to stop me or come with me, and it's too dangerous. This is likely a one-way trip.
“I'm returning to the transhumans' universe to find out what's really going on. Whether I'm right or wrong, I don't know if I'll be able to get back to you, but I'm going to do whatever I can to fix this.
“Jena, I love you. I know I tell you that every day, but I want it on the official record.” The older Ephraim laughed. “Nathan…Hell, I love you too, man. I wish I hadn't made you part of all this. Take care of things while I'm gone.
“I told Hugh Two the truth and played Dr. Everett's confession for him. He agrees that I should go, while he tries to figure out more about what the coheron drive's real purpose is. He'll share this recording when the time is right. I hope you can forgive me.
“I hope I can forgive myself.”
The recording ended. The tape popped and crackled until Ephraim ejected the tape. It had been playing the unlabeled side.
“You didn't hear that before?” Nathan asked.
“No. I didn't think to check both sides of the tape. And I'm guessing Hugh Two never played it for Dr. Kim, either. He probably decided it worked in his favor if Ephraim was out of the picture, and better to keep his predecessor's secret and preserve his own reputation. My analog trusted him because he'd trusted the first Everett.”
Ephraim stowed the tape in his backpack. “It doesn't matter anyway, because my analog never went through with his plan. He died in Zoe's universe and stranded Nathaniel there with his coin.”
“It was still a nice message,” Nathan said. “He sounded just like you.”
Ephraim started the car silently. They were pretty close to Jena's house.
He drove past Greystone Park. He glimpsed the lights of the Memorial Fountain through the trees.
“What's this Jena like?” Ephraim asked.
“Piña coladas and walking in the rain,” Nathan said.
“That's not what I meant.”
“I don't want to ruin the surprise.” Nathan grinned.
“I've had enough surprises.”
“You'll like her.”
“Now I'm really nervous.” Ephraim leaned forward and peered through the windshield. He saw his own reflection looking back at him in the glass, but when he refocused, he could see Jena's house ahead of them. He pulled over in front of it. Her parents' car wasn't in the driveway. That should make this easier.
Nathan turned his camera around to record through the windshield.
“So do you have a plan?” Nathan asked.
“Of course,” Ephraim said. “Come on.”
“Are you planning to come up with a plan?” Nathan asked.
“Busted. But we have to start somewhere.”
“Maybe we should consult a physicist like Michio Kaku or Reed Richards.”
“Reed Richards isn't a real person,” Ephraim said.
“In every universe?” Nathan asked.
“Yes.”
“Sue too? She's invisible—you can't be sure she doesn't exist.”
“I'm pretty sure.”
“Do you think Jena will help us? She doesn't know anything about this.”
“I just need something from her,” Ephraim said. “I shouldn't be long.”
“You came here for a booty call?” Nathan swung the camera around and zoomed in on Ephraim's face. “That should help relieve some of the stress of saving the multiverse.”
“You really haven't changed at all.” Ephraim smiled. Though he'd often encouraged his friend to act more mature, at the moment he appreciated something being constant in his life. “Wait in the car until I come out.”
“I'll try not to cohere or decohere while you're gone,” Nathan said.
“Just keep rolling tape,” Ephraim said.
“As if you have to tell me.” Nathan pointed his camera toward Jena's house. “If she starts undressing, try to get her over to the window.”
Ephraim shook his head and got out of the car.
The analog of Jena who greeted him at the door had red and blonde streaks in her hair, which was longer in the front than the back. A small silver bar pierced her right eyebrow, and she had a silver loop through one nostril. She was wearing a cut-off white T-shirt over a black lace bra and black denim shorts. And she had green eyes.
“Uh,” Ephraim said. “Hi.”
“You're late,” she said. “OMG, what happened to your face?”
“I'm getting tired of that question,” he said.
“You've been fighting?” she asked.
“Sort of.”
“That's so hot.” She grabbed Ephraim by his belt buckle and pulled him into the house. She closed the door behind him and pushed him against it.
She leaned close and touched his raw cheek gently with a cool hand. “Does this hurt?”
He winced. “A little.”
She kissed it gently. Then she rose on her toes and kissed his eye.
“Wait,” he said. “I can't—”
“Shhh,” she said. She kissed him on the lips. A moment later, he discovered she had a third piercing.
He jerked away and bumped the back of his head against the door.
Sh
e laughed. She stuck her tongue out and wiggled it at him. Silver glinted on the end of it. “I just got it today. I wanted to surprise you.”
“I'm surprised,” he said. He squeezed past her. “So surprised.”
“You're freaked!” She clapped her hands with delight. “Can you imagine how my dad will react?”
“You should find a different way to tell him,” Ephraim said.
“Ew,” she said. She tilted her head. “Although I am his type.”
“Ew,” he echoed. He moved toward the stairs and put one hand on the banister.
“Guess what? I have a surprise, too, Jena,” he said.
“Is it that you hurt your head and have selective amnesia?” she asked, hands on her hips. “Because I remember telling you never to call me that again.”
He paused. “Zoe?” he asked.
“Good. Your memory's coming back,” she said. “Now I don't have to kill you.” She smiled.
“Zoe, I'm not who you think I am. I don't have time to explain. But I'm not the Ephraim Scott you know.”
“So who are you, then? A clone? Doppelganger? Time traveler?”
“You forgot shapeshifter,” he said.
“Right. You could also be an android.”
“Long-lost twin,” he said.
“Recipient of scientifically implausible facial reconstruction surgery.”
“A wizard did it,” he said.
“Or one of us is hallucinating.”
Ephraim frowned, thinking about his father's analog, who was clearly mentally disturbed. A moment later she realized her mistake.
Zoe put her hand on his arm. “Sorry. I guess I'm the one with selective amnesia. It's all fun and games until someone puts her foot in her mouth.”
“Don't worry. He isn't really my father.”
“I know exactly how you feel,” she said. “We both got a raw deal in the daddy department.”
He folded her hands in his. “Zoe, I'm from an alternate universe. I'm a parallel Ephraim from another dimension that is starting to merge with yours. And time is of the essence.” He flinched. “Did I really just say that?”
“Very convincing,” she said.
“I just came over here for one thing,” he said.
“Oh, good,” she said.
“Keep your pants on,” he said. “Please. I need to borrow your grandfather's old ham radio.”