Dark Matter

  Jason7: You have no idea what the rest of us went through.

  Jason5: I saw hell. Literally. Hell. Where are you right now, Jason7? I’ve already killed two of us.

  Another alert flashes across the screen:

  You have a private message from Jason7.

  I open the message, my head pounding, exploding.

  I know this situation is totally insane, but do you want to partner with me? Two minds are stronger than one. We could work together to get rid of the others, and when all the smoke has cleared, I’m sure we can figure something out. Time is critical. What do you say?

  What do I say?

  I can hardly breathe.

  I leave the business center.

  Sweat runs down my sides, but I feel so cold.

  The first-floor hallway is empty, quiet.

  I hurry to the elevator and ride up to the fourth floor.

  Stepping off onto the beige carpeting, I move quickly down the hall and lock myself back in my room.

  Spiraling.

  How did I not anticipate this happening?

  In hindsight, it was inevitable.

  Though I wasn’t branching into alternate realities in the corridor, I certainly was in every world I stepped into. Which means other versions of me were split off in those worlds of ash and ice and plague.

  The infinite nature of the corridor precluded me from running into more versions of myself, but I did see one—the Jason with his back flayed open.

  Undoubtedly most of those Jasons were killed or lost forever in other worlds, but some, like me, made the right choices. Or got lucky. Their paths might have altered from mine, through different doors, different worlds, but they eventually found their respective ways back to this Chicago.

  We all want the same thing—to get our life back.

  Jesus.

  Our life.

  Our family.

  What if most of these other Jasons are exactly like me? Decent men who want back what was taken from them. And if that’s the case, what right do I have to Daniela and Charlie over the rest of them?

  This isn’t just a game of chess. It’s a game of chess against myself.

  I don’t want to see it this way, but I can’t help it. The other Jasons want the thing in the world that is most precious to me—my family. That makes them my enemy. I ask myself what I would be willing to do to regain my life. Would I kill another version of me if it meant I could spend the rest of my days with Daniela? Would they?

  I picture these other versions of me sitting in their lonely hotel rooms, or walking the snowy streets, or watching my brownstone, wrestling with this exact line of thinking.

  Asking themselves these same questions.

  Attempting to forecast their doppelgängers’ next moves.

  There can be no sharing. It’s strictly competitive, a zero-sum game, where only one of us can win.

  If anyone is reckless, if things get out of hand and Daniela or Charlie is injured or killed, then no one wins. That must be why things seemed normal when I looked inside the front window of my house several hours ago.

  No one knows which move to make, so no one has made a play against Jason2.

  It’s a classic setup, pure game theory.

  A terrifying spin on the Prisoner’s Dilemma that asks, Is it possible to outthink yourself?

  I’m not safe.

  My family isn’t safe.

  But what can I do?

  If every possible move I think of is doomed to be anticipated or made before I even get a chance, where does that leave me?

  I feel like crawling out of my skin.

  The worst days in the box—volcanic ash raining down on my face, almost freezing to death, seeing Daniela in a world where she had never said my name—none of it compares to the storm that’s roiling inside of me in this moment.

  I’ve never felt farther from home.

  The phone rings, snapping me back into the present.

  I walk over to the table, lift the receiver on the third ring.

  “Hello?”

  No response, only soft breathing.

  I hang up the phone.

  Move to the window.

  Part the curtains.

  Four floors below, the street is empty, the snow still pouring down.

  The phone rings again, but only once this time.

  Weird.

  As I ease back down onto the bed, the phone call keeps needling me.

  What if another version of me is trying to confirm that I’m in my room?

  First, how the hell would he find me at this hotel?

  The answer comes fast, and it’s terrifying.

  At this very moment, there must be numerous versions of me in Logan Square doing exactly what he’s doing—calling every motel and hotel in my neighborhood to find other Jasons. It isn’t luck that he found me. It’s a statistical probability. Even a handful of Jasons, making a dozen phone calls each, could cover all the hotels within a few miles of my house.

  But would the clerk give out my room number?

  Maybe not intentionally, but it’s possible the man downstairs listening to the Bulls game and stuffing his face with Chinese food could be duped.

  How would I dupe him?

  If it were anyone other than me looking for me, the name I checked in under would probably keep me undetected. But all these other versions know my mother’s father’s name. I screwed that up. If using that name was my first impulse, it would have also been another Jason’s first impulse. So assuming I knew the name I might have checked in under, what would I do next?

  The front desk wouldn’t just give out my room number.

  I’d have to pretend to know that I was staying here.

  I would call the hotel and ask to be connected to Jess McCrae’s room.

  When I heard my voice pick up on the other end of the line, I would know I was here and hang up right away.

  Then I would call back thirty seconds later and say to the clerk, “Sorry to bother you again, but I just called a second ago and was accidentally disconnected. Could you please reconnect me to…Oh shit, what room number was that?”

  And if I got lucky, and the front-desk clerk was an absentminded idiot, there’d be a decent chance he would just blurt out my room number before reconnecting me.

  Thus the first call to confirm it was me who answered.

  Thus the second, where the caller hung up right after learning which room I’m staying in.

  I rise from the bed.

  The thought is absurd, but I can’t ignore it.

  Am I coming up here right now to kill me?

  I slide my arms into the sleeves of my wool coat and head for the door.

  I feel dizzy with fear, even as I second-guess myself, thinking maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I’m rushing to some outlandish explanation of a mundane thing—the phone ringing twice in my room.

  Perhaps.

  But after that chat room, nothing would surprise me.

  What if I’m right and don’t listen to my gut?

  Go.

  Right now.

  I slowly open the door.

  Step out into the hall.

  It’s empty.

  Silent save for the low-register hum of the fluorescent lights above me.

  Stairs or elevator?

  At the far end of the hallway, the elevator dings.

  I hear the doors begin to part, and then a man in a wet jacket steps out of the elevator car.

  For a moment, I can’t move.

  Can’t tear my eyes away.

  It’s me walking toward me.

  Our eyes meet.

  He isn’t smiling.

  Wears no emotion on his face but a chilling intensity.

  He raises a gun, and I’m suddenly running in the opposite direction, sprinting down the hallway toward the door at the far end that I’m praying isn’t locked.

  I crash through under the glowing Exit sign, glancing back as I enter the stairwell.

  My doppelgänger
runs toward me.

  Down the steps, my hand sliding along the guardrail to steady my balance, thinking, Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.

  As I reach the third-floor landing, I hear the door bang open above me, the echo of his footsteps filling the stairwell.

  I keep descending.

  Hit the second floor.

  Then the first, where one door with a window in the center leads into the lobby and another without a window leads elsewhere.

  I choose elsewhere, smashing through…

  Into a wall of freezing, snow-filled air.

  I stumble down some steps into several inches of fresh powder, my shoes slipping on the frosted pavement.

  Just as I right myself, a figure emerges out of the shadows of the alley between two Dumpsters.

  Wearing a coat like mine.

  His hair dusted with snow.

  It’s me.

  The blade in his hand throws a glint of light from the nearby streetlamp, and he advances on me, a knife spearing toward my abdomen—the knife that came standard-issue with the Velocity Laboratories backpack.

  I sidestep at the last conceivable moment, grabbing his arm and slinging him with all my power into the steps that lead up to the hotel.

  He crashes into the stairs as the door busts open above us, and two seconds before I run for my life, I commit the most impossible image to memory: one version of myself stepping out of the stairwell with a gun, the other version picking himself up off the stairs, his hands frantically searching for his knife, which has disappeared in the snow.

  Are they a pair?

  Working together to murder every Jason they can find?

  I race between the buildings, snow plastering my face, my lungs burning.

  Turning out onto the sidewalk of the next street, I look back down the alley, see two shadows moving toward me.

  I head through the blowing snow.

  No one out.

  The streets empty.

  Several doors down, I hear an explosion of noise—people cheering.

  I rush toward it, pushing through a scuffed, wooden door into a dive bar with standing room only, everyone turned facing the row of flatscreens above the bar, where the Bulls are locked in a fourth-quarter death match with the visiting team.

  I force my way into the crowd, letting it swallow me.

  There’s nowhere to sit, barely anyplace to stand, but I finally carve out a cramped square foot of legroom underneath a dartboard.

  Everyone is glued to the game, but I’m watching the door.

  The Bulls’ point guard drains a three-point shot, and the room erupts in a roar of pure joy, strangers high-fiving and embracing.

  The door to the bar swings open.

  I see myself standing in the threshold, covered in snow.

  He takes a step inside.

  I lose him for a moment, then see him again as the crowd undulates.

  What has this version of Jason Dessen experienced? What worlds did he see? What hell did he fight through to arrive back in this Chicago?

  He scans the crowd.

  Behind him, I can see the snow falling outside.

  His eyes look hard and cold, but I wonder if he would say the same about me.

  As his gaze tracks toward where I’m standing in the back of the room, I squat beneath the dartboard, hidden in a forest of legs.

  I let a full minute pass.

  When the crowd roars again, I slowly stand.

  The door to the bar is closed now.

  My doppelgänger gone.

  —

  The Bulls win.

  People linger, happy and drunk.

  It takes an hour for a spot to open up at the bar, and since I have no place to go, I climb onto a stool and order a light beer that brings my balance down to less than $10.

  I’m starving, but this place doesn’t serve food, so I devour several bowls of Chex mix as I nurse my beer.

  An inebriated man attempts to engage me in a conversation about the Bulls’ postseason chances, but I just stare down into my beer until he insults me and starts bothering two women standing behind us.

  He’s loud, belligerent.

  A bouncer appears and hauls him outside.

  The crowd thins.

  As I sit at the bar, trying to tune out the noise, I keep landing on a single concept: I need to get Daniela and Charlie away from our brownstone on 44 Eleanor Street. As long as they’re home, the threat of these Jasons doing something crazy persists.

  But how?

  Jason2 is presumably with them right now.

  It’s the middle of the night.

  Going anywhere near our house entails way too much risk.

  I need Daniela to leave, to come to me.

  But for every idea I have, another Jason is having the same, or already has, or soon will.

  There’s no way for me to win.

  As the door to the bar swings open, I look over.

  A version of me—backpack, peacoat, boots—steps through the doorway, and when our eyes meet, he betrays surprise and raises both arms in a show of deference.

  Good. Maybe he’s not here for me.

  If there are as many Jasons running around Logan Square as I suspect, chances are he just stumbled in out of the cold, seeking shelter and safety. Like I did.

  He crosses to the bar and climbs onto the empty stool beside mine, his bare hands trembling with cold.

  Or fear.

  The bartender drifts over and looks at both of us with curiosity—as if she wants to ask—but all she says to the new arrival is, “What can I get you?”

  “Whatever he’s drinking.”

  We watch her pull a pint from the tap and bring over the glass, foam spilling down the sides.

  Jason lifts his beer.

  I lift mine.

  We stare at each other.

  He has a fading wound across the right side of his face, like someone slashed him with a knife.

  The thread tied around his ring finger is identical to mine.

  We drink.

  “When did you get—?”

  “When did you get—?”

  We can’t help but smile.

  I say, “This afternoon. You?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “I have a feeling it’s going to be kind of hard—”

  “—not finishing each other’s sentences?”

  “You know what I’m thinking right now?”

  “I can’t read your mind.”

  It’s strange—I’m talking to myself, but his voice doesn’t sound like what I think I sound like.

  I say, “I’m wondering how far back you and I branched. Did you see the world of falling ash?”

  “Yes. And then the ice. I barely escaped that one.”

  “What about Amanda?” I ask.

  “We were separated in the storm.”

  I feel a pang of loss like a small detonation in my gut.

  I say, “We stayed together in mine. Took shelter in a house.”

  “The one that was buried to the dormer windows?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I found that house too. With the dead family inside.”

  “So then where—?”

  “So then where—?”

  “You go,” he says.

  As he sips his beer, I ask, “Where did you go after the ice world?”

  “I walked out of the box into this guy’s basement. He freaked out. He had a gun, tied me up. Probably would have killed me except he took one of the ampoules and decided to have a look at the corridor for himself.”

  “So he went in and never came out.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And then?”

  His eyes go distant for a moment.

  He takes another long pull from his beer.

  “Then I saw some bad ones. Really bad. Dark worlds. Evil places. What about you?”

  I share my story, and though it feels good to unload, it’s undeniably strange to unload on him.

 
This man and I were the same person up until a month ago. Which means ninety-nine-point-nine percent of our history is shared.

  We’ve said the same things. Made identical choices. Experienced the same fears.

  The same love.

  As he buys our second round of beers, I can’t take my eyes off him.

  I’m sitting next to me.

  There’s something about him that doesn’t seem quite real.

  Perhaps because I’m watching from an impossible vantage point—looking at myself from outside of myself.

  He looks strong, but also tired, damaged, and afraid.

  It’s like talking to a friend who knows everything about you, but there’s an added layer of excruciating familiarity. Aside from the last month, there are no secrets between us. He knows every bad thing I’ve done. Every thought I’ve entertained. My weaknesses. My secret fears.

  “We call him Jason2,” I say, “which implies that we think of ourselves as Jason1. As the original. But we can’t both be Jason1. And there are others out there who think they’re the original.”

  “None of us are.”

  “No. We’re pieces of a composite.”

  “Facets,” he says. “Some very close to being the same man, like I assume you and I are. Some worlds apart.”

  I say, “It makes you think about yourself in a different light, doesn’t it?”

  “Makes me wonder, who is the ideal Jason? Does he even exist?”

  “All you can do is live the best version of yourself, right?”

  “Took the words.”

  The bartender announces last call.

  I say, “Not many people can say they’ve done this.”

  “What? Share a beer with themselves?”

  “Yeah.”

  He finishes his beer.

  I finish mine.

  Sliding off his stool, he says, “I’ll leave first.”

  “Which way are you heading?”

  He hesitates. “North.”

  “I’m not going to follow you. Can I expect the same?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can’t both have them.”

  He says, “Who deserves them is the question, and there may be no answer. But if it comes down to you and me, I won’t let you stop me from being with Daniela and Charlie. I won’t like it, but I’ll kill you if it comes to that.”

  “Thanks for the beer, Jason.”

  I watch him go.

  Wait five minutes.

  I’m the last one to leave.

  It’s still snowing.