Theo takes the last Firebird in hand. He stares at it for a moment. Takes a deep breath. Then puts it around his neck—ready for the journey at last.
“Okay?” I say to Theo.
His old bravado returns. “Let’s blow this Popsicle stand.”
My hand closes around my Firebird—the world falls away—
—and I slam into my other self.
This time I’m in bed—definitely one of the better places to arrive in a new dimension. The room is dark, so I can’t really get a look at much. Mostly I just notice that I’m stark naked. Okay, whoever I am in this dimension, I sleep in the nude.
Except . . . I’m breathing hard. My skin is slightly sweaty. I feel faint scrapes along my throat and breasts and thighs—those could be from fingers, or teeth. And there’s a pleasant kind of soreness that tells me this Marguerite just had sex. As in, not even two minutes ago.
I turn my head toward the naked man lying next to me—and see Theo.
6
I SCRAMBLE TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE BED, CLUTCHING THE sheet to my chest. This covers me—but pulls the edge away from Theo, who’s totally exposed, and totally nude.
“Jesus!” Theo grabs a pillow to hold over his lap. “Aaaaand this is awkward.”
My cheeks flush hot. I try to look anywhere but at Theo, but every glance shows me something else I’d rather not see. My bra on the floor next to a pair of boots that must be his. A condom wrapper at the edge of the bed. An old-fashioned alarm clock on the bedside table, knocked onto its side next to a lamp with its shade askew.
Apparently what just happened here was . . . extremely energetic.
For a few long seconds, maybe a full minute, neither of us can speak another word. We can’t catch our breath, and besides, what could we possibly say? Would this moment be less cringe-worthy if Theo had never had feelings for me, and I’d never been curious about him?
Nope. Nothing makes this better. Nothing.
I stammer out, “This—this has to be—this is the most embarrassing way to jump into a dimension. Ever.”
“We could have jumped in about five minutes earlier.”
When we still would have been— “Okay, that’s worse.”
“Guess this version of me has better luck.” Then Theo goes quiet for a moment. “Sorry. Dumb joke.”
“I don’t understand this.”
With a raised eyebrow, he says, “You don’t? Apparently I need to give Paul the sex talk again.”
Wait. Theo gave Paul a sex talk? I’ll deal with that later. “That’s not what I meant.”
What I can’t understand is—how can Theo be in my bed? Paul and I have found each other in so many dimensions. The connection between us endures through all the worlds. Fate and mathematics bring us together, time after time. There’s no room in that equation for Theo.
But then I think of some of the first universes I traveled to. In the Londonverse, Paul and I both lived in England, but we’d never met. And in the dimensions where I lived on a deep sea station, Paul and my parents were both in oceanography but didn’t know one another. Even if there is a kind of destiny bringing me and Paul together, each world evolves at its own pace. We just haven’t found each other here yet.
None of that explains why I’m in bed with Theo. At this moment, though—with the two of us undressed and close and unsure—I can’t help remembering that one moment in London where I came this close to sleeping with him. (I mean, a version of him. I didn’t know the difference at the time.) The way I felt then is a lot like the way I feel now: embarrassed, vulnerable, and a tiny bit turned on.
The turned-on part is probably left over from the other Marguerite. It is. Has to be.
Theo breaks the silence. “So. We ought to check the Firebirds, right? Make sure we went to the right place?”
They did, and he knows it; by now Paul and I have traveled enough to prove how they work. But testing the Firebirds is something to do besides freaking out about being stark naked in the same bed.
Well, not entirely naked if you count the Firebirds; one hangs around Theo’s neck, two around mine. I tuck my sheet more firmly under my arms to keep it from falling, take one of the Firebirds in hand, then press the combination for a basic systems check.
It glows softly gold for a moment—the locator function at work—and my heart swells with stupid hope before I realize that it found Theo. Of course.
“Looks like we’re in good shape, kid.” The gold light from Theo’s Firebird paints the side of his face for a moment longer before it goes out. He reaches up to run his hand through his hair, but it’s shorter here, practically a crew cut. “Listen—what’s a delicate way to put this—if you’ll excuse me, I kind of have to remove, uh, something worn by someone else.”
It takes me a minute to realize what he means. “Oh, ew.”
“Tell me about it.”
I cover my face with one hand. “I’m not looking.”
The first door Theo opens leads into a closet, but he finds the bathroom on the second try. He scoops up something from the floor—his clothing, I’m sure—and goes inside without another word. As soon as I hear the doorknob click, I scramble out of bed to find my own clothes. The stuff on the floor will have to do. Plain dark skirt, scratchy blouse—it’s all pretty utilitarian stuff. Doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d choose to wear, but right now I’d put on a Big Bird costume if I had to.
Once I’m dressed, I finally calm down enough to start really studying my surroundings. Is this my bedroom or Theo’s? I can’t tell from the decor alone, which makes Paul’s sub-basic dorm room look like it belongs on HGTV. There’s a pale blue blanket at the foot of the bed, no headboard, white walls, plain venetian blinds for the windows, and no art. This room is smaller than the one I have at home, but it doesn’t look anything like the graduate student dorms either. A small, unframed mirror hangs on one wall. I take a glance and realize that my hair’s shorter here, cut in a bob. At first I think that looks awful with my curls, but then I realize my hairstyle might have been neater before Theo and I . . . well, before.
A soft rap on the bathroom door makes me smile despite everything; the poor guy has to knock to come back into the bedroom. Theo whispers, “Coast clear?”
“Yeah. Come on.”
He steps out wearing what looks like a black coverall. He brushes his hands down the front, mock-modeling it. “Think I’m a mechanic in this universe? I mean, I like fixing up cars, but it never seemed like my ideal career choice.”
“Doubt it, but who knows? We’ll have to figure things out as quickly as we can.”
He nods but doesn’t move. Hesitating isn’t like Theo. Then I remember that this is his first journey through the dimensions—the very first time he’s found himself in another world. When our eyes meet, he breathes out sharply. “Still getting used to this.”
“You feel just the same,” I say. “Nothing changes, except you wake up someplace new.”
“I don’t feel just the same. I feel better. Like, a lot better.”
Of course. Only Theo’s consciousness traveled through the dimensions; that means he’s in this Theo’s body now. This body was never exposed to Nightthief, which means the damage Theo’s been suffering from for months now—here, it doesn’t exist.
He shakes his head, smiling at something that isn’t funny. “I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until right this moment.”
I put one hand on his shoulder. The touch is charged now in a way it wasn’t before, but I don’t care. Theo’s scared enough to let me see how freaked out he is, which means he needs some kind of comfort. Once he’s breathing more normally, I bring him back to the here and now. “You still remember yourself?”
“Yeah. But I programmed a reminder every ten minutes for the next day. Seemed like a good first step.”
“You’ll run down the charge.” Firebirds can operate for a long time; Mom made sure of that. But reminders require a lot of energy. You have to limit them.
&
nbsp; “I’ll set them further apart once I get my bearings. Let me get a handle on this first, you know?” Theo brings his hands together. “So, you’re the expert. Where do we start?”
“We start with this room, learn everything we can from it. That’s always the best way to begin, with your immediate surroundings.” It helps a little, Theo calling me the “expert.” That’s not exactly true, but at least now I’m thinking productively instead of standing here blushing. “Okay, the number one thing we ought to figure out is whether this is your room or mine.”
Theo gestures toward the open closet door. Now that my eyes have adjusted to the darkness, I can see that plain dark dresses and skirts hang inside. He says, “Either this is your place, or in this universe I’m the world’s most boring drag queen.”
That makes me smile, and we’re at ease with each other again. I point at a dark square of leather on the floor. “That must be your wallet, right?”
“Gotta be.” Theo kneels down to check it out.
I steal a glance out the window to look around. Although there are few streetlights here, the moon overhead shines bright enough for me to see. This clearly isn’t our same house, but I think it’s still near the Bay Area—even in such a different neighborhood (smaller homes, fewer trees), the rolling ground is unmistakable. My bedroom is on the first floor of the house. Outside my window is a lone sweetshade tree; tethered to it, with a chain lock, is an old beater bicycle with fat tires.
“Check this out,” Theo says as he gets to his feet. I turn around to look at the wallet he’s showing me. At first I don’t see what the big deal is—okay, so driver’s licenses look different here—and then I realize that’s not his license. It’s a military ID.
“You joined the army?” That seems so . . . not Theo.
“I was wondering why the hell I practically shaved my head. Now I know. But there’s more—”
Frowning, I realize that Theo’s wallet is stuffed full of photos, all of them in black and white. I try to ignore the picture in front, a snapshot of me and Theo, the two of us standing with our arms around each other.
He continues, “We have black-and-white photography. We have a conspicuous lack of any smartphones or other modern tech here in your room. That means we’re in one of the worlds that hasn’t advanced as far, right?”
“Normally, it would mean that,” I admit. “But Conley said he was sending me to dimensions where my parents were on the verge of inventing the Firebird.”
“How can they do that if nobody’s even come up with color film yet?”
“We’ll have to see. Every world develops in its own way.” I lean closer, trying to get a look at more of the images in his wallet. “Do you have a photo of Paul?”
“Doesn’t look like it.”
Of course I don’t know Paul in this universe, at least not yet. If I did, I wouldn’t be with Theo. We’ll have to figure out where he is in this world. It would be just like Conley to play a dirty trick and hide the next splinter of Paul’s soul in a dimension where we live in different cities, or countries, or continents.
It doesn’t matter. However far I have to go to rescue him, I will.
“I can’t get over this,” Theo murmurs. “It’s so different but so not, all at the same time.”
“Yeah, the changes can throw you off.”
“Not as much as some of the stuff that hasn’t changed.”
He says it quietly, without looking at me, but for some reason I am suddenly, vividly aware of the mussed bed—still rumpled from when this Theo and this Marguerite made love. Theo wanted this for us. What must it feel like, for him, seeing that in one world we’re actually together?
Maybe it’s painful. Or maybe he sees it as vindication. Proof that we could have worked out, if I hadn’t fallen for Paul instead.
I turn away, meaning just to give us both some space for a moment. Then a dark shape on my dresser catches my eye—a picture frame that had tipped over, face forward. I try not to think about what Theo and I might have done against the dresser. Instead, I right the frame and breathe out in relief; Mom, Dad, and Josie all smile out from the picture, in black and white but recognizably themselves. The photograph looks recent enough that they’re probably all alive. I don’t take that for granted anymore
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s check out the rest of the house.”
We tiptoe from my bedroom, down a hallway, until we reach the kitchen. This house is smaller than our home in Berkeley—one story, low ceilings—and way more boring. No philodendrons in terra-cotta pots; no wall covered in chalkboard paint; no suncatcher in the window. The kitchen has a stove, oven, and refrigerator, but they all look sort of clunky. On the wall hang an actual paper calendar, annotated in at least four different colors of ink, and an old-fashioned black plastic phone, complete with a long spiral cord.
When I get closer to the calendar, I’m able to make out some of the entries, both the ones in Dad’s scrawl and Mom’s tiny block print. Josie flt demo 4/17. Presentation AF HQ 4/19. Marg shift change 4/20. None of this makes a lot of sense to me, but at least I know all of us live here together.
Next we head into the living room. The furnishings are pretty bare-bones here too, but I smile when I see a pile of sketches on a small table. Even before I pick them up, I know they’re mine.
In the large majority of the dimensions we’ve visited so far, I’m still an artist—whether that means a professional, a student, or just an interested amateur. My love of creativity is one of my constants, a pole star amid the many constellations of possibilities and personalities that make up all the people I could be.
Besides, I learn a lot from my art. Each Marguerite sees the world in a whole new way.
The first thing I notice: These sketches are on really awful paper. Not only is it cheaper stock than you’d get at an art store, it’s thin and coarse, not even printer-quality.
Next, as I squint to examine the drawings in the dim light, I realize that these are all works in pencil only. Usually color is one of the most important aspects of my work, but a few of the other Marguerites stick to black and white. Slowly I flip through the drawings. While I don’t recognize some of the faces, others are more familiar. There’s Mom, with her curly hair drawn back into a severe bun. Josie, with her hair cut nearly as short as Theo’s. This is the only portrait I’ve seen of Josie in any world in which she wasn’t smiling. Dad, wearing wire-rimmed glasses that look like something from bygone days.
And Theo. She’s drawn him perfectly, capturing both his intelligence and his mischief just in the expression of his eyes. The warmth she’s put into this sketch suggests that Theo’s stayed over before, and that their relationship isn’t some casual, careless thing.
“Nice,” Theo says quietly. He’s looking over my shoulder at this other version of himself—a version who has a relationship with me that he never will.
So do I break Theo’s heart in this universe when I finally meet Paul?
Because Paul’s face is nowhere to be seen in these sketches.
Carefully I put the drawings back in order and set them on the table. I walk to the window to look outside; the view is of the backyard, and I can make out a whole vegetable garden. That’s new. Mom loves her houseplants, but aside from a few pots with fresh herbs in the kitchen, she’s never bothered growing stuff for us to eat.
Okay, great, you’ve learned that in this world you guys get your carrots from your own yard. I’m sure that’s exactly the information Wyatt Conley wants. You’ll have rescued Paul in no time.
I take a deep breath and try to stay focused. Maybe Conley sent me to the wrong universe. Very dissimilar worlds are sometimes “mathematically similar”—so sometimes it takes a couple of tries to get where you want to go.
Then Theo whispers, “Check it out.” I look over my shoulder and realize what’s sitting in the far corner of the room: a computer.
A real computer, not some antiquated thing the size of a fridge with reels of tape and blink
ing lights. The slim black rectangle of the screen rests so deep in shadow that I didn’t see it before. It seems bizarrely out of place, but the main thing is that I now have a chance to learn a whole lot more about this world. To figure out if this is where I’m supposed to be or not. To look for Paul.
I touch the screen, but nothing happens. Theo gives me a look before grabbing the mouse.
One click and the screen lights up. Instead of the usual folders over my dad’s Sergeant Pepper wallpaper, there’s a flat red-and-gray box with the header ARPANET. The cursor blinks at the front of a line asking for a password I don’t know. “Can you get into the system?”
Theo nods. “Maybe, given time. I want a chance to check it out first; you only get so many tries before you’re locked out.”
ARPANET. I know that word, don’t I? Then I recall the grad student who taught Josie and me about the history of computing. The ARPANET was essentially the first version of the internet—a version that existed only for military use.
Since when are my parents in the military? Them and Theo?
That’s when I see what’s hanging on one of the hooks by the door. I get to my feet, unable to believe what I’m seeing until I touch it and feel heavy rubber, thick plastic lenses. “What is that?” Theo says, not able to see past my shoulder.
“It’s—a gas mask.”
“Why do we need a gas mask?”
The puzzle pieces suddenly come together, the solution instantly taking shape in front of my eyes. The gas masks, the cheap paper, the vegetable garden—the fact that everybody I know seems to be in some version of the armed forces—
A siren begins to shriek, so loud the vibration ought to shatter the windows. Both Theo and I clamp our hands over our ears. It doesn’t help much.
Tsunami alert, my mind supplies. Or wildfires, or maybe a tornado. That’s what sirens would mean at home.
But we’re not at home.