by S. G. Wilson
A patrol car sped into the intersection and zoomed toward us, flashing its lights. As the rest of us froze, Resist took off in a run—right for the cops. “I’ll draw them away!”
Before any of us could argue, she jumped in front of the car. It screeched to a halt, and she charged to the left. I dragged Motor and Hollywood the opposite way, cutting through a gravel strip between two parking lots. The officers took the bait and chased after Resist.
I led the others through a cement graveyard for rusting old food trucks with names like Guac ’N Roll and Polenta to Go Around. From there we reached the Janus North in no time. The hotel looked just as deserted as the one downtown. I had started to cross the street for the entrance when Motor pulled me back. “Not so fast!” He pointed to the SecureMe cameras mounted all around the building.
“Smile, you’re on camera.” Resist stepped out of the darkness. The other Mes and I jumped in unison, like we were doing a Zumba workout together.
“You okay?” I said. “Did you lose them?”
“For now. Wait here a second.” She ran around the block in record time, careful to stay in the shadows. When she got back a minute later, her face looked grim. “No way can we sneak in without being seen on camera. Motor, can you hack the security system?”
With a queasy face, Motor broke out a MePad and tapped away. “Nah, it’s too sophisticated. Troll must have put it in place. I can’t match his skills.”
“You can’t or you’re too much of a wuss to try?” said Resist.
Motor threw up his hands just like all of us had done at some point or another that day. “One wrong move and I’d set off an alarm!”
Hollywood butted in. “There was this one Baker’s Dozen episode where we broke into the town library to delete my character’s overdue-book fine. We caused a distraction with some smoke bombs and fart spray.”
I figured Resist would just tell Hollywood to shut up. Instead: “That’s actually a good idea!”
Hollywood went from stunned to stoked. “Awesome! Then all we need is some smoke bombs and fart spray!”
“I have a less moronic distraction in mind,” said Resist. “Motor, instead of shutting down the alarms, can you set them off? I want it to look like we’re breaking into the back entrance.”
Motor brightened. “Not a problem!” He tapped at the MePad some more. “Ready when you are.” He held his finger over the Enter key on the screen.
Resist crouched down and motioned for the rest of us to do the same. “If I’m lucky, the losers in there will be too busy focusing on the back to see me coming from the front. You all stay here. I’ll see you again once I’ve taken down Meticulous.”
“What?!” I said. “No way! We’re in this together!”
Resist shook her head. “None of you are ready. Motor, you have no confidence. Average, you can’t control your weird powers. Hollywood, well, you’re Hollywood.”
Hollywood looked more relieved than offended. “Fair enough.”
Resist grabbed Motor’s MePad and pressed the Enter key. A muffled buzz echoed from the rear of the building. With that, Resist sprinted to the front entrance, leaving us behind.
I didn’t hesitate to set off after her, and neither did Motor, though he took longer. Hollywood came last, and probably only because he was scared to be left alone.
Resist shot us an especially nasty glare as we crowded beside her on either side of the doors. I had a stirring speech ready about how this was our fight just as much as hers, but she raised a finger to her lips. Together, we peeked in through the plate-glass windows.
The most dangerous Mes of Me Con had set up shop in the lobby, and they weren’t getting along. Troll typed madly on a laptop at the check-in counter, screaming at Ren Faire, who screamed at Mobster, who screamed back at both of them as he stormed out of the room. His exit gave Troll and Ren Faire more space to shout at each other.
“Sakes alive, if you’ll pardon the expression,” whispered Hollywood. “Your trick with the alarm worked!”
“Time to take advantage of it.” And with no other warning, Resist jumped up, kicked open the door, and rushed in.
We followed right behind her, which at this point was getting to be a habit.
By the time the rest of us burst into the lobby, Resist had already tackled Ren Faire. He and Troll hadn’t even seen her coming.
Before we could do anything to help, Mobster rushed back into the room. The massive Me yanked Resist off Ren Faire and pinned her to the floor. “Nice try, pretty princess!”
Standing up, Ren Faire drew his sword and pointed it at me. “Prithee, where art the rest of thee?!”
Still at his keyboard, Troll toggled through different camera views of the empty halls on the monitor. “It’s just them and nobody else. The alarm was only a diversion. Can’t believe I fell for Motor’s hack! I’m alerting Meticulous!”
Hollywood knelt in front of Ren Faire. “Hear me out first! They forced me to do this! I didn’t want to! Please! I have information for Meticulous! All about their plans!”
I couldn’t believe it. After all we’d been through, how could Hollywood turn traitor like that? “Oh, come on!” I said. “We don’t have plans!”
“Don’t play dumb!” Actual tears streamed down Hollywood’s face. “You rigged the hotel to blow up!”
It took me a second to catch on and another second to play along. “Quiet! You’ll ruin everything!” I hoped I sounded convincing.
“It’s too late!” Resist wheezed from beneath Mobster’s full nelson. “He’s given our plans away!” She sold the line like a pro.
Motor said nothing, which was just as well, since he looked ready to laugh.
Troll threw up his hands in that frustrated Me way, an unwelcome reminder that he was one of us. “This is a lie! They can’t have put bombs around the building!”
“Yes, they did!” said Hollywood, squeezing out a few extra sobs. “They got them from Dynamite Me!”
“I hath never heard of this Dynamite Me!” said Ren Faire.
Hollywood didn’t miss a beat. “Had you ever heard of Wild Me until today? I tell you, he’ll do anything to get his way! Even kill us all!” He broke down all over again in a new burst of weeping.
Ren Faire looked disgusted. “Thou must be telling the truth. Thou art not a good enough actor to fake a cry like this. Get up, knave, and dry thy unseemly tears.”
Still blubbering, Hollywood struggled to stand, or pretended to. When Ren Faire stepped closer to help him up, Hollywood struck, kicking Ren Faire’s legs out from under him. The Me crumpled to the floor in a rattle of leather and metal.
“And that’s how we did it on Pallin’ with the Shaolin!” said Hollywood. “Bet they don’t teach you that at Shakespeare school!”
Ren Faire didn’t even have time to shout a Shakespearean curse word before Hollywood fell on him. Resist seized on the distraction to push Mobster off herself and flip back on her feet.
The sight of Hollywood and Resist going toe to toe with their least favorite Mes was all the encouragement Motor needed to take on Troll. In moments the two were locked in a tug-of-war for Troll’s laptop. I rushed over to help, but Motor waved me away. “Go find Meticulous!”
“Yeah, we’ll hold them off!” said Hollywood, yanking Ren Faire’s armor and undertunic up over his face.
I looked to Resist as she wrestled with Mobster. She nodded back in a You got this sort of way.
So I ran to the elevator bank for the fight that had probably been inevitable from the moment I read that first note from another world. It was time for a showdown between Meticulous Me and his archrival. The thorn in his side. The bane of his existence.
Average Me.
Meticulous was so focused on fixing up his new elevator that he didn’t seem to notice the half dozen duplicates of himself duking it out
in the next room. Or maybe he just didn’t care.
The new control panel he fussed over looked nothing like the hundred-button original. This rendition was much smaller, with a number keypad and a green digital display screen. Somehow it seemed both simpler and far more sinister.
“Why, hullo, mate.” He didn’t look up from his work. “Such a pleasant surprise!”
“Yeah, and such a welcome home! I just loved having those idiots you brought here ruin my life.”
Meticulous grinned as he plugged in the last loose wire. “You did a number on my world too. The Me Corp. board of directors had a lot of questions about why the police reported someone who looked just like me doing a bunk on them all over town.”
“That’s nothing compared to robbery, vandalism, and whatever else the cops are after me for now. Plus, the evidence is all over the internet.”
Meticulous put the panel in place and started screwing it in. “My assistants have kept busy, haven’t they?”
I had to change the subject before I lost what little cool I had left. “So, this is your new elevator?”
Meticulous tightened the final screw and admired his work. “Lush, isn’t she?”
“What’s so different with this one?”
Meticulous placed the screwdriver back in his tool kit with the fussy care of a florist arranging flowers. He tapped a button on the keypad, and a burning green light blazed behind it. “I’m sure you’ve figured out how the origami drive works, or you wouldn’t be here.”
“It folds the barrier between universes to get you from one Earth to another.”
He beamed at me like I was a dog who’d just done a trick the right way. “Brilliant! And trust me when I say that finding those folds isn’t bloody easy. Took me forever to figure out the first hundred Earths. It’s been a few years now, and I only just found a way to get to Earth Ninety-Nine. I mean, folding an origami polar bear is hard enough, but an octopus? You, however, seem to have an innate gift for it. Those origami you made for me matched my calculations down to the millimeter.”
“Calculations? So then it is geometry, just like Motor guessed.”
Meticulous gave me one of his signature smug looks. “Dumb luck, I’m sure. But it’s true that the folds come from loads of complicated calculations. They only happen to look like animals and other tosh. It’s our minds that see a pattern in the randomness.”
“There’s nothing random about an Atlantic pygmy octopus. You know how long it took me to figure out how to do one of those?”
Meticulous stooped down to line up the tool kit with the elevator wall. “That’s why I needed you and your precision. Your folds are cracking. It’s as if the multiverse itself told you the exact measurements I needed.”
“I doubt that.” Though I’d suspected the very same thing. “I’ve just had a lot of practice.”
“It’s more than that. After all, you were raised here on Earth Ninety-Nine.”
“What’s so special about here?”
“Isn’t it obvious? It’s an Interdimensional Roundabout.”
“What’s that?”
“Like it sounds! An Interdimensional Roundabout acts as a hub between all dimensions. The barrier blocking out other Earths is weaker in a place like this, more porous. Being raised here all your life has given you a unique connection to the multiverse. That’s why you understand how to work the origami drive, even though you can’t even begin to grasp the math behind it.”
I thought about how I’d felt on Earth Zero under the Rip, and later, when I’d touched the energy in the origami drive. My “connection to the multiverse” would explain all the weird stuff going on in my brain and body since I got that first note. Still, I hated to admit that Meticulous might be right about anything. “Whatever” was all I could think to say.
“I’d theorized the existence of an Interdimensional Roundabout, but I didn’t think I’d ever find one. Blimey, I’d thought ninety-nine worlds would be it for me and the elevator. But then I learned how you, the most dull-as-dishwater Me I’d ever met, had been to my Earth, overriding the controls I’d put in place to prevent that very thing from happening. That’s when I suspected your Earth was special. And I was right! By making an elevator here, I can now reach countless worlds!”
“But is it worth the risk? Remember what happened to your elevator the first time around? The way you made the Rip?”
Meticulous shoved a finger in my face. “That’s a load of codswallop! I didn’t bloody well know that would happen! And besides, nobody got hurt! If anything, I made Earth Zero a more interesting place!”
Every nerve in my body wanted to reach out and shake some sense into him, but Mom, Dad, and Twig were counting on me to keep it together. So was all of Earth Ninety-Nine. Plus a hundred other dimensions, for that matter. “But what if it happens again?”
Meticulous brushed imaginary dust off his jacket, acting cool and collected again. “This new elevator won’t have those unfortunate side effects.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because, unlike other Mes, I learn from my bloomers. For instance, I don’t intend to let you slip away again. Once that little kerfuffle’s over in the next room, my assistants will find a place to keep you safe and locked up. Juvenile Hall, perhaps? You could make new folds for me from your cell. It would be rubbish not to make use of your talent.”
“No way! I’m not helping you anymore! And I’m not going anywhere!”
“I thought you might feel that way. But don’t worry, I’ve set aside the next few minutes on my schedule to persuade you.”
And with no warning, Meticulous lunged for me.
Meticulous tried to punch me, but I blocked him with reflexes I had no right to possess. The fizz was back. If I could just control it this time, I might have a fighting chance.
“I knew it!” said Meticulous, more excited than I’d ever seen him. “That really takes the biscuit! You just channeled Resist and her fighting skills!”
I tried to shove Meticulous to the floor, but he spun just out of reach, moving faster than anybody in knickers and a cravat should have been able to. He twirled behind me and clocked me in the back of the head. “I got that move from Bollywood Musical Me,” he said. “Took me long enough to learn it.”
I backed away. “What are you talking about?!”
He crept toward me. “I’ve worked very hard to learn the skills and gain the knowledge of every Me. You, on the other hand, have had them handed to you like a cheat sheet. Been able to run faster than usual? You can thank Marathon Me for that. Picked any locks lately? That was you stealing Escape Me’s trick. The way you kicked Motor’s cart across the floor? Ultimate Mixed Martial Arts Me. Any special new abilities you think are ‘superpowers’ actually came from another Me. You’re not All of Me. You’re just a cheap knock-off.”
Trash talk is even worse when it’s true. Being called a knock-off cut deep and left me too stunned to avoid his choke hold. I couldn’t break free of his tightening arm, but my fizzing body figured out a work-around. Shifting my weight, I flipped him over my shoulder.
The move would have been a lot more satisfying if Meticulous hadn’t managed to land on his feet. He twisted around to face me. “We both did a Rodeo Clown Me acrobatic move just then. The difference is you weren’t even aware you were doing it.”
He came at me with a dropkick to my gut that I barely blocked before striking back.
As the two of us traded blow after blow, Meticulous called out the Mes whose abilities we aped together: “Lucha Libre Wrestling Me!” “Whirling Dervish Me!” “Aqua Aerobics Me!” After he pounded me in the ribs with his knee, my body flooded with the strength of Mobster Me, and I brought him down.
Meticulous smiled up at me as he wriggled to break free. “You want to know my theory?”
“Nah, I’m good. I’ll pass.”
He kept talking anyway. “My theory is you were exposed to one of Mum’s portals in the womb, seeing as how her experiment worked here.”
Mom’s experiment worked here? Wrapping my head around that thought, I let my grip slip an inch. That was just enough room for Meticulous to free one of his arms and grasp a tender spot between my neck and shoulder. He squeezed until all my limbs locked up. I was paralyzed.
“This nerve pinch comes courtesy of Acupuncture Me. You know, the New Agey one with the man bun, who everybody makes fun of?” Meticulous stood up. “Did you know he could do that? No? Guess you should have gone to his workshop.”
All I could do was lie there on my side as Meticulous looked down at me and shook his head. “So many Mes to mimic, and you still lost. You know why? Because you didn’t work and train to get those skills like I did. There’s nothing you can do that I can’t do better. Not to crow, but I truly am the best of all the Mes. If there really was an All of Me, I’d be it.”
He nudged me with his foot and I fell over, landing right on my pinched shoulder. The impact knocked something loose inside me, and my fingers started twitching. I could tell my arms and legs would work again too, with enough time. But time was the thing I didn’t have.
Meticulous stepped into the elevator, running a loving hand over the control panel. Maybe if I stalled for a while, I could get enough movement back in my body to stop him.
“You talk like Mom’s experiment succeeded here, but that’s bull. It didn’t work. She totally bombed in front of all those other professors.”
“Or so everyone thought. Interdimensional travel is a completely new science. No one at that conference knew how to detect a portal, including your mum. She opened a portal, all right; she just didn’t know it. It was probably no bigger than a pinprick and lasted only a millisecond, but she did it.”