by Barry Lyga
“So what I described to you is real here? It’s some kind of superadvanced science that seems like magic?”
“In past centuries we thought it was magic, but that term is hardly fashionable these days. Do you truly have no wild science where you come from? No telepathy, no astral projection, nothing of the sort?”
Khalid shrugged. “Not really. Some people think we do, but no one has ever proved it. I never saw anything remotely like it until Zak started having visions. And then we came here and…”
“I see,” Dr. Bookman said, nodding. “There have long been theories that other universes could exist beyond this one.”
“That’s what Moira said. Alternate universes.”
“Yes. Your friend is very smart. It’s too bad most people in this world can’t or won’t appreciate it,” he said darkly. “It’s different where you come from?”
“Girls are okay over there.” Khalid thought about it. “I mean, there’s stuff that goes on, but not like here.”
“Given the choice between living in a world with wild science and living in a world with equality between the sexes,” Dr. Bookman said gravely, “I would choose the latter. I’m sorry you’ve come here, Khalid.”
It was weird—this world had been frightening at first, but once Khalid had been able to calm down, it had become something almost magical. The strange, soft lighting everywhere. The canal and its gondolas. The Wonder Glass that was like the world’s best iPad times a million. He could have settled in and gotten to enjoy it … and that was before learning that “magic” was real here.
But now, knowing what he knew …
Yeah, he would give up magic to keep Moira safe, too.
“It’s a shame for many reasons,” Dr. Bookman went on, “beyond even the simple premises of human dignity. Some preliminary evidence suggests that women may have a greater facility in manipulating and understanding some of the concepts behind wild science. Such studies are, of course, suppressed.”
Khalid sensed a great sadness in Dr. Bookman, and normally he would have had no problem listening to more of the man’s talk. But the blood on the plank was still there, and Zak and Moira were still missing.
“Dr. Bookman? Sir? About my friends…?”
Dr. Bookman snapped out of his melancholy reverie. “Yes. Of course. My apologies. Where were we?”
“Alternate universes…”
“Right. Well, as I said, they’ve long been theorized. There’s even a theoretical construct for them. We call it the Secret Sea. The idea is that the multiverse is composed of a sort of quantum foam, with our two universes bobbing in it, almost like corks on the water.”
“Or islands in the ocean?”
“Yes, something like that. And it’s possible that the laws of physics work differently in each universe. In ours and in yours, we both have what here is called true science. Gravity, electricity, atomic power, and so on. But yours lacks wild science—magic—whereas here, the M-field allows for a different physics. We have supersymmetrical particles like the M-electron and the M-proton, which can bond into M-hydrogen, which is then combined with extracts of interuniversal quantum foam to form the basic building block of electroleum, for example.”
Khalid thought about it. M-this and M-that flew over his head, but he got the gist: Science was different enough here that it could seem like magic. “But how could Zak be having visions in our world? And how could Godfrey get over there in the first place? How did his ship end up there?”
Dr. Bookman pondered this, but only for a moment. “My universe and yours are only microns apart in one of the compactified extra dimensions of string theory … which allowed you to tunnel through in the first place and could account for some leakage of wild science on your side. While most universes are distinct and discrete, it’s theoretically possible that similar universes such as ours mutually exert a subtle repulsive force on each other, a force that serves to make them more dissimilar.”
“You lost me at microns.”
“Very well. Imagine the two islands in the ocean, our two worlds. Imagine that they are shaped like two capital Cs, facing away from each other.” He cupped his hands to show what he meant. “Now imagine that they are close enough that the backs of the Cs have only a small waterway between them. Narrow enough that it can be crossed.”
He thought back to Moira’s description of an apartment. Maybe most of the walls were reinforced concrete, but a few were just cheap wallboard. That made more sense to him, but since they were talking about a boat, maybe the island metaphor was better.
“You’re saying Godfrey’s boat went through that waterway?”
“I’m saying that the metaphor may not account for this but that the distance between your world and mine may be narrow in certain places. Especially places of great import or great tragedy. Didn’t you say a great many people died at the place where he crossed over?”
Khalid thought of the 9/11 memorial, of the Freedom Tower, of the terrorist attacks that had happened before his birth. “Well, yeah. But that was in 2001, and Godfrey crossed over a long time before that.”
Dr. Bookman chuckled. “You think time is linear? That events follow one another like a mother duck leading her ducklings along a path? Not so. Time is simultaneous. Everything that has happened or will happen is happening at the same moment. It’s just that we lack the ability to perceive it thus. Time is folded onto itself.”
“Okay, sure, fine.” Science mumbo jumbo. “But in your world, is it actually possible to bring someone back to life? That’s what Tommy said. He said that here we could use that electroleum stuff to somehow bring him back.”
Dr. Bookman thought for a moment. “That is the part of your tale that gives me pause. It’s been attempted, of course, in the past. Before the wild-science regulations strictly curtailed such things. No one has ever claimed to succeed. But the circumstances you describe … a spirit from another universe, connected to the world of the living by an identical twin … There are certain theoretical, nearly massless M-particles that could interact weakly with the corporeal world while still retaining a spiritual form. If exposed to the energies of the Secret Sea and then, say, supercharged with some kind of monumental energy release—”
Khalid shook his head. “Look, I have to be honest with you: Science was never my big subject in school. Whether it’s true or wild or whatever. I just want to find my friends and get Zak healthy. Everything else is … I don’t know. You and Moira can talk about that stuff.”
With a self-reproaching frown, Dr. Bookman nodded. “You’re right, of course. I’m so sorry. This happens to me: I get so excited by the possibility of something that I forget to mind the probability of something. Helping your friends is our first order of business.” He gestured. “Come along.”
“Where are we going?” Khalid wanted to get moving, but he didn’t want to go just for the sake of going.
“Back to my office,” Dr. Bookman said with a gleam in his eye. “We are going to indulge in some wild science, my boy.”
FORTY-FOUR
The X was part of an EXIT sign after all. At the end of the hallway, Moira discovered a fire door. Fortunately, the wiring up by the ceiling was disabled, and when she pressed the bar to open the door, no alarm sounded.
So far, so good, but what would she do once she was outside? Six months earlier, she could have passed as a boy—maybe—but not now. Taking herself in, she gnashed her teeth and rued the day her mother had looked her up and down and said, “Time for someone’s first bra, I believe.”
Once she was outside, whatever she did and whichever way she went, she would instantly be identified as a girl. A frau. An uncompanioned female, subject to who knew what in this awful world. Escaping the cage and the building did not mean instant freedom.
Think, Moira. Think. You can’t just stand around and wait for something to happen. You have to get moving.
Her heart thrummed and her breath quickened, and for a moment the holding cell with the other
women seemed almost cozy and homey and safe. She cursed at herself for entertaining the thought for even a fleeting instant. She wasn’t like the women she’d shared a cell with. Born free, raised free, she wouldn’t let a little thing like an alternate universe with a blinkered attitude toward women get in her way.
Such immoral attire, Salazar had said. She could see his point, from his perspective. Her T-shirt and shorts probably seemed indecent in this universe. They would attract all manner of unwanted attention as soon as she stepped out onto the street. Not good.
Her legs burned to run as far from the Dutchmen’s hideout as possible, but her mind braked them. She had to think, not react.
Gnawing at her bottom lip, she made her decision and retraced her steps down the hall. She wanted to run but feared the noise it would make.
Back in the office, she scrounged quickly in her former hiding space, recovering the coveralls she’d kicked aside.
Returning to the exit door, she slipped into the coveralls. They were baggy and hung on her in large, sexless folds, the chest area in particular dragged down by the weight of fabric, covering precisely nothing. She sighed and, not giving into panic, used one of her last buttons to pin back some of the material so that it covered her properly.
There. She looked lumpy, but in all the wrong places. Not feminine at all.
She heaved open the fire door and stepped outside, emerging into a sunken concrete stairwell that led up into an alleyway. The sun was out, and it blinded her for a moment. She cowered down in the stairwell, too aware that if her makeshift camouflage didn’t work, anyone who saw her alone—the word uncompanioned filled her memory like sludge—would report her to the police. Or maybe try to take her for his own.
Or maybe the Dutchmen had guards and lookouts.
Or maybe …
Or maybe you should pull your socks up and not lie about, her mom scolded.
Moira scrambled up the stairs, breathing hard not from the exertion but from the fear. She’d lived in this world for a day and was already terrified of being caught outside by a man. What must it be like for women who lived here all the time? Now that she was almost free, she could allow herself a pang of sympathy for her poor former cellmates, a brief flare of shame for judging them so harshly. They couldn’t help it. They were products of the world in which they lived.
At street level, there were no guards that she could see. Certainly no crying for attention or alarms. She scanned the alley quickly—walls rearing up on either side of her, ruts running down the macadam, opening to streets on both ends.
She thought her disguise might work, if not for the smoothness of her face and the length of her hair. A nearby Dumpster overflowed with several bags of garbage. With a wrinkle of her nose, she began pawing through them. The idea of actually wearing anything that had been thrown out nauseated her, but fear of capture trumped the churning in the pit of her stomach.
She found an old ball cap that said Breukelen Dodgers in a fancy font. Tucking her hair up into it, she settled it on her head, pretending it hadn’t been sitting in a garbage heap for who knew how long.
She smeared some grit from the alley floor on her cheeks and forehead, soiling the softness of her skin, making it less feminine. It was a makeover in reverse. She tucked the flask into one of the coverall’s enormous pockets, slumped her shoulders, and ambled out of the alleyway, onto the street.
Her disguise seemed to work, for the first block at least. People stared at her, but they were staring with surprise and amusement, not with shock or outrage, so Moira figured her “disguise” was working about as well as could be expected. She absorbed the odd glances and stares and smirks. On the streets of this New York for the first time without having to run for her life, she was able to notice the women: dressed conservatively (where conservatively equaled nigh Victorian) as compared to their companions, with hats, skirts down to the ankles, long sleeves, no matter the heat. They were all too painted, their makeup serving almost as masks, not as enhancement. Concealer suddenly had a second meaning.
She tried not to stare at them as she walked, forcing herself instead to concentrate on figuring out where she’d left Zak.
Think it through, Moira. The Dutchmen aren’t some secret government agency. They don’t have resources. They’re a street gang. The first one saw you and left and came back pretty quickly with the rest of them. So they hang out near that alley where you left Zak. Which means you’re probably not that far away from him.
In the distance, she recognized the Washington Arch, which meant she was near Washington Square Park. A sign with an arrow pointed in that direction, announcing that it was ART SQUARE PARK here. Name aside, it seemed like she wasn’t terribly far from where she’d left Zak.
The glowing lights on the buildings, she realized now, were the same as the substance in her pocket—electroleum. It seemed like some sort of strange hybrid of jelly and neon gas, but based on what she’d heard from Jan and what Tommy had told them at the Conflux, it had other uses as well.
In her mind, she plotted their course from the Broadway Canal to the alley where she and Zak had hidden. She remembered three turns and a few of the street names they’d passed. Fortunately, with the exception of the Houston Conflux (and the missing lower portion of Manhattan) and the Broadway Canal itself, the geography of this Manhattan was similar to her own. She was able to orient herself by the Empire State Building in the distance, though she wondered if it was called by the same name here.
I’m coming, Zak. Hold on. If they don’t stop me, I’m coming.
FORTY-FIVE
Zak’s vision blurred, doubled, then focused and blurred again. A woman who looked a lot like his father’s mother—Nana—peered down at him, her face fuzzy and indistinct, but he could tell she was wearing too much makeup. Her skin was very smooth, unlined, and it made him think of a brand-new leather jacket.
He was in bed, obviously not in a hospital—the smells and sounds and the tin-inlaid ceiling told him that. He relaxed and found that his breath came easily to him. His chest no longer hurt.
He’d passed out at home and now he was in bed, finally waking up from the craziest dream ever. Alternate universes and dead twins and ghosts.
The woman smiled and said, “Oh, good,” her voice slightly accented. Almost … German? Did that make sense?
Wait.
He bolted upright in bed, and the woman who was not his grandmother hopped back a step.
“He’s awake,” she called, and leaned in to mop his forehead with a cool cloth.
Zak tried to push her away; she held him down with a gentle but strong pressure on his shoulder. “Not yet,” she said. “Soon. Let him look at you first.”
Zak looked around as best he could. He was in a small bedroom, on a comfortable bed, covers pulled up to his chest. There was nothing remarkable about the room. Except for the large sheet of thin, clear glass mounted to one wall and the sort of artificial light he was becoming accustomed to, it could have been a room back home, not on a parallel earth. Sunlight poured in through open curtains.
“How long have I been here?” His voice croaked and crackled. He swallowed with difficulty. The woman held out a cup with a built-in straw, and Zak sipped gratefully.
“Not long,” said a new voice. “Just long enough for me to fix your heart.”
* * *
Sure enough, Zak realized that his chest—which had been pounding arrhythmically when he’d finally collapsed—felt fine. At least, he assumed this was what fine felt like. He wouldn’t know, having had his heart condition his whole life.
The new voice belonged to a small man with wisps of gray hair; all of the lines and wrinkles the woman had avoided creased his chestnut complexion. He pulled a chair over to the side of the bed and sat down. The woman—Zak saw now that she wore an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform, but with a skirt that came down to her ankles—stepped back and stood nearby, hands clasped together.
“I’m Dr. White-eagle,” the man said
. “You can call me Edwin. Or you can call me Doc, which is what everyone ends up calling me. And I’m going to need to speak to your parents.”
Zak’s head spun. He was still only half-conscious, and without thinking, he rattled off his dad’s name, then started on Mom’s. Dr. White-eagle held up a hand and said, “I don’t need her name.” To the nurse, he said, “Hand me my Wonder Glass, my dear.”
The nurse fetched something from a nearby table. It had the surface area of a large cell phone, but only a fraction of the thickness, and was made out of a frosted, translucent substance. To Zak’s surprise, an Apple logo was etched into the back of it.
“Find Michael Killian,” Dr. White-eagle said, and the gadget responded with a chirpy, “Sure thing, Doc!”
“Where am I?” Zak asked.
“You’re in my home,” Dr. White-eagle said. “There was no time to get you to a hospital, so I had to help you with what I had at hand. Fortunately for you, you passed out on the doorstep of the one of the city’s premier heart doctors, albeit retired.” He smiled crookedly and nodded almost apologetically toward his nurse. “Still dabble, of course. Can’t keep an old sawbones away from the stethoscope.”
Fortunately … Zak didn’t think luck had anything to do with it. Godfrey had led him here deliberately.
“Four Michael Killians in the metro area,” the gadget piped up. “Here are addresses and recent photos.”
“This one looks like you,” the doctor grumbled, and tapped it. Zak realized—too late to stop him—that Dr. White-eagle was calling his dad. Or some version of his dad who lived in this universe.
A moment later, a familiar voice came out of the Wonder Glass.
“Hello?” said Dad.
For a moment, Zak expected his heart to jump. Or a lump to form in his throat. Tears. Something. But he surprised himself. The only reaction he had to his father’s voice was anger.