Pleased to Meet Me

by S. G. Wilson

  “The controls are dead, and we’re waiting on Resist, remember?” said Motor, taking the panel off my hands. The wires connecting the buttons to all the gadgetry inside were too short to reach the floor, so he had to hold the big hunk of metal as I checked out the steel hoop it had covered. It looked dinged up and bent, but still workable.

  Hollywood peered over my shoulder. “That thing isn’t on, is it?!”

  “Treat it like it is,” wheezed Motor, straining from the weight of the panel. “We don’t understand how it works.”

  “I think I do.” Never mind that Meticulous was far more brilliant and capable than I could ever hope to be. At the end of the day, he was still a Me, which meant I should be able to figure out something he’d made.

  Hollywood squinted at the device. “There’s not even an On switch.”

  I ran a finger along the hoop, and green arcs of lightning sparked inside the rim. The strands of power merged together to form a glowing hunk of energy in the center, just like I’d seen in the holo. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I made out the shape of a giant padlock. I felt hypnotized by the sight of it. Almost in a daze, I reached for the lock.

  A huge crash snapped me out of my trance, and I yanked my hand away. Motor had dropped the panel, ripping the wires loose and knocking out the buttons in the process.

  “Motor?!” said Hollywood.

  Motor’s eyes bugged out. “The green lightning! It could’ve burned your hand!”

  “No, it won’t,” said Resist, stepping into the elevator. She looked battered and bruised from her trip here through the fight, but any Mes who’d crossed her path were probably in worse shape. “Remember the holo-journal? Meticulous touched it and he was okay.”

  Motor looked over the broken panel and slapped his palm to his forehead. “I really messed this up! Sorry!”

  No point in getting mad at myself. “No worries.” I reached out again. When my fingers made contact with the energy, it felt like electric Play-Doh in my hands. I could stretch the stuff this way and that and mold it however I liked. But every time I let go, it snapped into the shape of a padlock again.

  “So it’s stuck like that?” asked Hollywood.

  Resist peered down the hallway. “Just hurry up and figure it out!”

  “I think it’s a lock that needs a key,” I said.

  “Well, that’s great,” said Hollywood. “Where do we get a key?”

  Just then a sheet of glowing green holo-paper appeared beside the padlock.

  “It’s right here!” I snatched the holo-paper from the air. “Or it will be.” I started folding.

  “You’re doing origami?” said Resist.

  I zipped through the first set of folds. “Yeah, it’s an origami drive.”

  “The name of Meticulous’s stupid band?” said Hollywood.

  I shaped the key tip. “It makes sense when you think about it. I found all those failed origami attempts in his office. And at my interview, he was really interested in my origami. Even recorded me making some.”

  “With a holo-recorder?” said Motor.

  “Yep.” I made a few final creases. “It wasn’t much of a leap to realize that origami had something to do with the elevator. I mean, why else would he beat himself up trying to learn something he didn’t even seem to like? At least, I’m assuming he doesn’t like origami.”

  “Sakes alive, you guessed right!” said Hollywood. “It was the only thing he couldn’t master. He hated that.”

  “Couldn’t master?” asked Resist.

  Hollywood winced at the memory. “He had a thing about being able to do all the stuff that other Mes could do. Karate, ceramics, kazoo playing, you name it. If a Me could do it, he had to do it better.”

  “That’s our Meticulous,” muttered Resist.

  With a final fold, I made ta-da hands. I’d just folded a glowing green origami key.

  “Seriously?” asked Hollywood.

  I put the key in the lock, and they fused in a green blob. The light spun faster and faster. In moments the elevator hummed to life.

  “It worked!” said Motor.

  Military School chose that moment to stick his battered head through the door. “The Missing Mes! They’re here!” he yelled over the shoulder of his ripped uniform. “And they got the elevator working again!”

  Resist pushed Military School so hard he hit the far wall of the elevator bank. When she looked down the hall, her eyes went wide. “We have to get this thing moving! A lot of Mes are headed this way!”

  “And why shouldn’t they?” said Military School, struggling to get up. “We have a right to use the elevator too!”

  Resist raised a fist at Military School. That was enough encouragement for him to stay down.

  “Average, do something!” yelled Hollywood.

  As soon as I touched the spinning green energy, my entire being turned into a wave machine. Every atom in my body rippled. Just like when I stood under the Rip, I had the weird sensation of being connected to something bigger, only this time it was a lot bigger. It spoke to me, not in words, but ideas. And one idea in particular came up over and over: an octopus.

  I folded the familiar shape in no time flat. As soon as I finished, the octopus spun in place, its green light almost blinding us.

  “Motor, cover it back up!” yelled Resist. She grappled with three Fit Mes who’d rushed at the door. Hollywood jumped around behind her, waving his arms to distract them while keeping himself well out of punching range.

  Motor banged what was left of the panel into place so we could see again. The elevator door had almost closed all the way when Cowboy slammed his gloved hand in the crack to make it rumble open again. Then a blur of leather and grease knocked him to the floor. Juvenile Hall pinned Cowboy to the ground, giving me a quick thumbs-up. “Go, go, daddy-o!”

  “We’ll come back for you!” I yelled as the door shut the rest of the way.

  Rising up through the multiverse in a rickety box of metal, we four Mes should have been petrified. But we shared a different emotion, one that was written by the same pen all over our faces: guilt.

  “That was cold,” said Hollywood. “Leaving them all behind like that.”

  “Average, why’d you say we’d be back for them?” said Resist. “We can’t promise anything like that.”

  Motor shook his head. “I feel like a turd.”

  I could have said lots of things at that moment. Lots of explanations, lots of excuses. But nothing would have sounded right. So I sighed and settled for the only other words that came to mind.

  “Going up?”

  I always thought butterflies were the wrong bugs to stuff into a nervous stomach. For me, anxiety felt more like dung beetles crawling in my gut, rolling around their little stress balls of doubt, dread, and panic. A whole colony of them filled my digestive system as the broken elevator whined and screamed its way through ninety-nine dimensions. This was by far my worst ride through the multiverse yet, and it would probably be my last.

  To distract himself, Hollywood checked his reflection in the metal of the control panel. The swelling had almost disappeared, though his face was still red and splotchy. “So, let me get this straight: to travel to another Earth, all you have to do is fold a crane or whatever, and boom, the origami drive takes you there?”

  “Yeah, but there’s more to it than that.” I didn’t know how to explain it, since I folded the barrier between our reality and the next isn’t the kind of thing you just bring up in conversation.

  “Basically, you’re saying that each parallel dimension is represented by some animal shape?” said Resist. “Like an origami code? Doesn’t that sound kinda silly?”

  “Here’s how I see it,” said Motor. “It very likely takes some high-level math to calculate the position of each dimension. But if you plot out thos
e numbers graphically—you know, serious geometry—they just happen to look like shapes we recognize. Our eyes fill in the blanks.”

  “Like seeing stuff in clouds?” said Hollywood.

  “Yes!” said Motor. “The fact that they look like animals is just our minds finding patterns in the swirl.”

  “But the basic principle is you fold it one way, you end up in one universe,” said Resist. “Fold it another way, you end up in another universe.”

  “Right,” I said.

  Hollywood rubbed his blotchy temple, like this gave him a headache. “So what’s the origami code for my world?”

  “A donkey?” said Resist. “A baboon?”

  Motor and I laughed.

  “Shut up!” Hollywood didn’t actually sound too upset. He seemed to like any attention he could get.

  “I don’t know what to fold to get to your Earth,” I said. “And I’m only assuming I made the right fold for my Earth. The octopus was an educated guess.” I explained all the octopuses I’d seen in Meticulous’s office, but left out how the multiverse had told me to fold one myself.

  Resist whistled low, hitting the exact same note I always blew. “Meticulous had to calculate and then make the folds for a hundred worlds. Sounds pretty hard for a Me who doesn’t even like origami.”

  “Must have been even harder to fold them the right way in the origami drive every time,” said Hollywood.

  “He just had to fold them once.” Motor nodded at the busted control panel. “He had them preprogrammed in there, remember. But now all those folds are lost, thanks to me.”

  Resist shook her head. “Motor, stop moping already!”

  But moping seemed like the only option any of us had left. Even if we reached Earth Ninety-Nine without breaking the elevator, I had no idea how we’d ever stop Meticulous and the other Mes he’d taken along.

  The elevator screeched even louder as it started to slow. Everyone gripped the handrail, bracing themselves in a similar crouch, as if we’d picked the worst possible time to play monkey see, monkey do. Nothing like extreme terror to bring out the familiar in a quartet of interdimensional counterparts. When the car shrieked to a sudden stop, we nearly fell to the floor. The doors buckled open, and sparks shot from the origami drive. No sooner had we all rushed out into the elevator bank than something thick and clangy snapped up above. Everybody flattened against the far wall as the car broke loose from its cable and plunged down the shaft.

  There, in the Janus Hotel of the Earth I called home, the four of us stared at the big empty hole where the elevator used to be. And as we looked, the fizz faded from my body and brain. I’d gotten so used to the feeling that I’d taken it for granted. Now it was gone, and with it, so were my powers. How could I fight Meticulous as just Average Me?

  Motor tiptoed over to the busted doors and looked up and down the shaft. He whistled the way Resist had a few moments before. Hearing that familiar note from another Me destroyed any scrap of relief I might have enjoyed at making it home. I’d stranded him and the others here. All I felt now was a huge wad of shame.

  “Before you tell us how bad you feel, save it.” Resist looked down the hall to make sure we were alone. “Let’s just focus on finding Meticulous.”

  “Where do we even start?” said Hollywood.

  They all looked at me, expecting an answer.

  “Not a clue,” I said. “I mean, unless there’s some other significant place for Meticulous to set up an elevator out there.”

  “What do you mean by significant?” said Resist.

  I headed for the lobby and they followed. “He chose the Janus for his first elevator because that’s where Mom and Dad met, right? The place has special meaning to him. To all of us.”

  The other Mes looked lost.

  “You mean you never knew that?” I said.

  “Wait, didn’t Mom host her Physics of Traveling the Multiverse conferences here?” said Motor. “I knew she held them at some hotel, but I didn’t realize it was the Janus.”

  “And I didn’t know she was the organizer,” I said. “I just figured it was some annual gathering of physics geeks.”

  We reached the lobby, the same space where—ninety-nine Earths away—we’d survived a massive Me brawl just minutes before. Now it was empty and creepy-quiet. The clock above the check-in counter showed it was just after dinnertime. I checked the time against the MeMinder. “Student Showcase in a half hour,” nagged the device.

  Motor made a beeline for a mostly empty vending machine in the corner. “Mom held two mini-conferences. She claimed she could prove travel between dimensions was possible. She did the experiments in front of all these other physics professors, but it didn’t work either time. Kind of a major embarrassment for her, really. A career setback and all that. She was a laughingstock.”

  Hollywood looked hurt. “Why didn’t she ever tell me that?”

  Motor reached into his pocket and pulled out a disc of dirt with grass on one side, like a tiny clump of lawn. He tried to shove it into the bill acceptor. “This thing doesn’t take green? Anybody else got some other kind of money?”

  Resist scooped blobs of soft dough from her wallet, while Hollywood produced a slice of bread.

  “Uh, sorry, everybody,” I said. “But we use paper money here. And coins. Mostly credit cards, I guess. And I don’t have any of those things right now.”

  Hollywood took a bite of his bread money. “Hard to make change for pumpernickel anyway.”

  Motor shoved the dirt disc back into his pocket. “No problem.” He pulled out a MePad, held it up to the machine, and started tapping buttons. “Anyway, Mom didn’t tell me about her experiments either. I just read about them in her old notes and papers.” He punched the Enter key on his screen, and all the junk food inside dumped into the dispenser tray. “It’s not really stealing if this place is closed, right? Glad you all agree.”

  “So that means Meticulous didn’t actually invent the elevator?” said Resist. “Mom did?”

  Motor scooped out the loot. “Well, Mom laid the groundwork.” He eyed his armful of snacks like a rich person might browse a wine cellar. “She did the math and wrote up the plans, but she couldn’t pull it off and gave up. I’m guessing Meticulous fixed her mistakes.”

  “And took all the credit,” said Resist.

  With a Whatchamacallit clenched in his mouth like a cigar and a six-pack of Oreos under his arm, Motor tossed us the rest of the chips and candy.

  I cracked open the side entrance door and took a peek. My bike was just where I’d left it. I’d known deep down that this was Earth Ninety-Nine, but it was good to get proof with my eyes.

  I bit into a Kit Kat, good old familiar Earth Ninety-Nine junk food. “Now it makes more sense than ever why Meticulous built the elevator at the Janus. He wanted to have a victory in the place where Mom had a defeat. You know, to memorialize her, or whatever.”

  Resist crunched a granola bar. “We get it—you have an uncanny understanding of how Mes think. But that’s not gonna help us figure out where Meticulous is setting up the second elevator.”

  Hollywood gulped down a mouthful of trail mix. “Not without a Me tracker or something.”

  Motor almost choked on a bunch of M&M’s. “That’s it! We can track the new origami drive by using the old one!”

  “I hate to burst your rare moment of confidence,” said Resist, “but the old origami drive is broken at the bottom of an elevator shaft.”

  “But there should be enough life left in it for me to turn it into a transponder. I just need the right equipment. Uh, and somebody has to climb down the shaft to get the drive.”

  We all looked to Resist, but she’d already taken off for the elevator. She came back moments later with the origami drive in her hands and grease smudges on her skin.

  “So where the fudge do we get
the rest of the equipment you need, if you’ll pardon my language?” said Hollywood.

  Resist tossed the drive to Motor like a Frisbee, then broke into another granola bar. “Can’t believe I’m saying this, but Hollywood has a point. Your Earth isn’t as advanced as the ones we come from.”

  “Yeah, you don’t even have holo-TV,” Hollywood said.

  “On behalf of my Earth, you can all get bent, thanks.”

  Motor called up pictures on his MePad, boxes with wires and antennas that looked familiar. “I just need a few simple pieces. But they’re a little pricey. Mom’s lab would have this stuff. It’ll be all locked up for the night, though, so forget that.”

  Hollywood puffed out his chest. “I’m a master thief now. I can get it.”

  Resist rolled her eyes. “All you stole was a voice!”

  “I know where I’ve seen this stuff!” I said. “And we wouldn’t have to steal from Mom’s lab.”

  “What do you have in mind?” asked Motor.

  “How do you feel about dead animals in formaldehyde?”

  It’s not every day you see a set of quadruplets riding on a bus together, especially quadruplets as scuffed up and exhausted as us. We attracted more than our share of stares, lined up as we were along the back seat. But the other Mes hardly noticed as they bombarded me with questions about everything they saw on the streets rolling by.

  Hollywood: “Why isn’t every movie playing at that cinema about superheroes? On my Earth, all movies since the dawn of cinema have been about superheroes.”

  Motor: “Your Earth calls them salad bars? On mine they’re called germ exchanges.”

  Resist: “People here are still burning gas, eating red meat, and using images of Santa to sell soda? Do we have time to get a protest going?”

  I got so distracted trying to explain to them the concept of video-game-watching videos (nobody on their Earths had thought that up?!?) that I almost didn’t notice our stop. We got off and took the sneaky back way to the side of the school, which turned out to be a good thing: scads of students and parents were filing through the front entrance.