A Million Worlds With You

  Turns out I brought a flowered duffel bag of mine, which Theo has to lug out to the limousine waiting out front. I hope it’s heavy. I hope I packed hardcover books, a dozen of them. In the limo, Conley sits facing forward, which means I’m stuck riding backward. My queasiness worsens as we duck into hilly, chaotic Quito traffic.

  And when I say chaotic, I mean it. People here seem to regard lanes of traffic as vague suggestions at best. Cars and trucks swerve and skid, ignore signs, zoom through lights, you name it. Even though my stomach churns, I’m kind of glad I can’t see what’s ahead of us or I’d probably have a heart attack.

  I make a point of not seeing what’s in front of me, i.e., Conley and Theo. My blackmailer and my murderer, both so close I can hear them breathe. My nausea peaks at the thought of it, and it’s all I can do to hang on.

  The queasiness reminds me, for a moment, of the morning sickness I experienced on my last journey to the Russiaverse. Almost without thinking, I slide my hand across my belly and try to remember the weird, watery heaviness of early pregnancy. I only felt the baby move once—I think—and even that was more of a goldfish wiggle, because it hadn’t been quite four months since that night in the dacha.

  Paul’s baby, and mine, still in the Russiaverse waiting to be born. I am fighting for all the people Triad has put at risk, but deep down, I think I’m fighting for that baby most of all.

  “Are you about to throw up?” These are the first words Theo’s spoken since the airport. He sounds sulky, even petulant, and yet every syllable cuts me like a knife. “If so, would you please roll down a window first?”

  “If I throw up, it’s going to be in your lap.” I fold my arms across my chest and stare out the window. Better to look at that maniacal traffic than this Theo’s face.

  When we finally turn off from the clogged highways and wind into one of the neighborhoods, I’m struck by how, well, ordinary everything looks. The signs may all be in Spanish, and the stores and vehicles may mostly be slightly smaller than they would be at home, but otherwise this is a strip mall like any other, complete with open-air cafés. The limousine slows to a crawl as we pass a Juan Valdez coffeehouse, and Wyatt raps softly on the window. “And there you go.”

  My heart rises as I recognize Paul—Triadverse Paul, so like mine that only a few issues of timing divide them. He sits at a round stone table, typing at his old laptop, which has a panel held on with duct tape. I wonder why he’s frowning. Is this when we usually chat, and I haven’t signed on as usual? Since he turned out to be the “bait” in this particular trap, Wicked wouldn’t have given him any clue she was boarding a flight to Ecuador.

  It would be so easy to just open the door and jump out. The limo isn’t even going five miles an hour. I want to launch myself at Paul, show him this Firebird and explain about the counter-conspiracy, all of it. In this moment, there is nothing I want more.

  I don’t move. I have to find out how much Conley knows. So I keep pretending that I’m willing to play ball.

  Paul’s broad hands continue working on his keyboard as he searches for something, or someone, in vain. How ironic, that we can only get perspective on the people we want to be close to when we pull away—or when they do.

  Did I have to lose Paul before I could fully understand him?

  “What has he been doing down here?” I murmur. “I know you know.”

  “Not everything,” Conley admits, surprising me. “Markov’s skilled enough to cover his tracks. He seems to have picked up some programming work and even a little translation on the side. Lives in a youth hostel not far from the historical colonial section of town. Makes the occasional friend from other students passing through, but don’t worry, Marguerite. No visiting girls have tempted him to wander . . . at least, as far as we know.”

  He’s trying to make me jealous. What a waste of time. I know Paul well enough to know that he’s hardly even kissed any girls besides me, and he’s way too bashful to turn into a womanizer.

  Even if he weren’t shy, Paul would never cheat. Even the thought of me with another Paul was almost too much for him to bear. His fidelity is something I never have to doubt.

  “All right,” I say. “Paul is okay. Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” Wyatt Conley smiles, like he’s done me some huge favor.

  “He’d better stay okay.” I allow myself to look at Conley with some fraction of the hate I really feel.

  His smile hardens. We both know the reality of this game. “That’s up to you.”

  Afterward, the limo drives straight to a luxurious hotel and drops me off—with Theo right behind. “Get her settled in,” Conley says to him. “Make sure she’s safe and tight.”

  The way he pronounces tight is unmistakably a reference to the lace scarf this Theo used to strangle me. Maybe such cheap, obvious tricks shouldn’t be so effective, but I can’t help feeling a wave of fresh fear, and an uncomfortable knot within my throat.

  There is, of course, a room waiting for me in this hotel, posh enough to have marble tiled floors and a waterfall in the lobby. A penthouse suite, even, because Wyatt Conley doesn’t do anything by halves. Theo and I ride up in the elevator together in stony silence. Once he offers a hand to take my duffel bag, but I only grip the handle more tightly. I don’t want this scum touching me or my stuff. I’ve had enough of his “help.”

  Which, of course, is exactly why Conley made Theo accompany me. Given that I’m in a strange country, without much money, dizzy and nauseated, the chances of me running off are minimal. But he wants Theo there as a reminder of just how bad things can get. For all his promises of safety and cooperation, Conley still wants me to fear for my life.

  The thing is, though—now that I’m forced to really look at Theo, I can see that guilt lies so heavily on him that his shoulders sag. His usual bantam swagger has been reduced to a shuffle, and still, more than an hour after landing, he has yet to meet my eyes.

  Theo murdered me, and Theo hated it. I remember how much he cried, how he pleaded for me to jump out so he would at least only have to kill one of us. If Theo or Conley thought killing would be easier after that, they were wrong.

  The mere idea of confronting him terrifies me. But it turns out I affect Theo even more profoundly than he affects me.

  Theo taps the key card against the lock before stepping back to let me through. I shoulder the door open to walk into pure elegance. The living room has a panoramic view looking over the city and is set up with chic, modern leather chairs and sofas, even a glass dining table ringed by gilded cane chairs. A mirrored wet bar sits in one corner, in case I suddenly start preferring Scotch to seltzer. Lush rugs cover the marble floor, and the artwork hanging on the walls actually looks like art. I step in far enough to see into the bedroom, where a king-size canopy bed is draped with soft veils of netting. It’s not the Ritz, but still—this looks like the kind of hotel room J. Lo would get.

  I drop my duffel bag on a carved teak bench and motion toward the wet bar. It’s hard, acting casual in front of my killer, but somehow I manage to keep my voice even. “I only drink on major holidays and at the apocalypse. But do you want something?”

  “Better not.” Theo doesn’t know what to make of this. Good.

  I make a show of checking the wet bar, which is basically a minibar without the mini. My back is to Theo, so he can’t see how my fingers shake in front of the rows of bottles and cans. Choosing a can of club soda, I sit down in one of the gilded chairs and try to pretend it’s a throne. “Tell me, Theo. What was it like, killing her?”

  He stares at me, his face waxen.

  I crack the tab of the club soda, acting casual, like my stomach isn’t heaving inside. “The other Marguerite couldn’t have had any idea why you were doing it. She thought you were this cute, dashing European, with your greasy pornstache and your bright little scarves. And she didn’t even remember being led into that tomb. She came to in the last couple seconds of her life.” I’m sorry, I think to her. I’m so sorry
. But I bet she wouldn’t mind my using this memory to bludgeon her killer. “Did she try to speak to you? Did she have time to cry?”

  “Please, Meg.” Theo’s voice breaks. “You know I hate this.”

  “Yeah, well, obviously you love something more. Is it money or power? Wait, don’t tell me. I don’t actually care.”

  Theo steps closer to me, and finally he takes off his glasses. Those puppy-dog eyes of his are filled with tears. “She died fast. Almost the moment after you left. And that didn’t make it one bit easier. I sat there beside her for—nearly an hour, I think, I don’t know—and when I crawled back out into the open air, I saw my rifle, and I thought, I should shoot myself. Just grab the rifle and sit down in the nearest camp chair and blow my damned head off.”

  “Instead you escaped on a camel.” My lip trembles, but I manage to cover it by taking a sip of club soda. “Dignified. And proof that you didn’t actually feel that bad about it, no matter what you say now.”

  “Don’t say that!” Theo insists. “You don’t know what it did to me, Meg. You don’t.”

  Something inside me snaps. “What it did to you? You strangled me nearly to death, murdered another me in cold blood, and I’m supposed to be worried about how it affected you?”

  “No—that’s not what I meant—”

  “Yeah, Theo, I think it is. Whether you know it or not, that’s exactly what you meant. Because no matter how much you claim to care about me, you’re only looking out for yourself.” I want to throw the can at his head, but I don’t. The beatdown I need to give him is going to hurt worse than any bruise. “I bet it’s not just greed driving you, either. I bet it’s jealousy, too. All those worlds where Paul and I fall for each other while you lose out. So do you hate Paul for loving me, or me for loving him?”

  Theo neither denies it nor agrees. He just shakes his head. “Seems like I’m always finishing second.”

  I laugh out loud, in surprise I genuinely feel and contempt he deserves. “There are worlds where we’re together, Theo! Worlds where I love you so much. I’ve jumped into a universe to find us lying beside each other in bed. I’ve kissed you. I’ve felt you touch me. Paul was the only one I ever loved, but the other Marguerites? Some of them chose you. Some of those worlds are yours and hers to share. But Wyatt Conley is trying to destroy those worlds—and you’re helping him.”

  I push back from the table. Theo edges back from me. But the disbelief and anger on his face is all too clear. Exhilarated by the rush of my own fury, I keep going.

  “You’re killing a thousand mes and a thousand yous who could be happy. Every chance you and I ever had? It’s just one more log for you to throw on the fire. So that’s how I know you can’t possibly love me, Theo. If you did, you couldn’t destroy us over and over again.”

  “It’s not over and over—not a thousand—Christ, Meg, it’s going to end, soon. It would end today if you’d just hear Conley out.”

  “Oh, yeah?” As I walk him closer and closer to the door, I continue, “Did Conley tell you that, when you heard him out? That it would end soon? I wonder if he’ll still be telling you that after the tenth version of me you murder. Or the hundredth Paul. Or thousands of both of us. You’re the scientist, so why do I have to be the one to tell you the multiverse is infinite? Conley wants total control, and total control is impossible. The killing is never going to end. Which means you don’t ever get to stop.” I point to the door. “Now get out.”

  Theo bolts through the door like he’s fleeing a fire. Most of the Theos are braver than this one, I decide. He seems like a total coward.

  But if he’s as selfish as I think he is, he’s going to want to find one of those worlds we share. He’s going to want to keep it safe from Wyatt Conley. And if I can shove even one wedge between Conley and his number-one henchman—

  —but I can’t. If anything could have stopped the Triadverse’s Theo from blindly following Wyatt Conley, it would’ve been the command to murder me. Instead he obeyed that order. So there’s no stopping Theo now. In fact, I bet he’ll justify himself more and more in an attempt to hide from what he’s done.

  Will I be able to do anything in this universe but stall? Learn anything that will do us any good? Get any closer to the Paul who even now waits halfway across Quito, vulnerable and alone?

  We’ll see, I tell myself as I sink, exhausted, back down into the chair. We’ll see.

  17

  I WAKE UP IN THE CANOPIED BED, BLINKING AND UNSURE. The sky beyond the windows is dark, though the horizon is beginning to brighten.

  Dawn is a time of day I usually feel no need to experience. But instead of burrowing back under the feather duvet and trying to go back to sleep, I push myself upright and take stock. The nausea I felt yesterday has died down, and while I’m still slightly short of breath, it no longer seems like a crisis. So I’ve adjusted to the altitude well enough.

  My belly rumbles, reminding me that I have no idea how much Wicked ate in this body yesterday, if anything. Although I don’t read much Spanish, I can make out the hotel info book well enough to know it’s still an hour before room service will start serving desayuno. Time for a nutritious breakfast from the minibar.

  Jet lag really doesn’t sum up how unreal everything feels after you’ve jumped all around the globe in different dimensions, I decide as I choose a bag of trail mix and a Coke. We need another word for it. Universe lag? Firebird lag?

  I hate waiting. Suspense wears me down worse than stress ever could. Even jumping into worlds where I know Wicked’s latest deathtrap is waiting doesn’t grind me down as much as this: sitting on a leather sofa, watching the sunrise against my will, eating junk for breakfast while I wait for Wyatt Conley to show up and be creepy.

  I know our next conversation serves a purpose. I know how important it is to find out just how much Conley has learned about the alliance between the other dimensions. And yet when I am traveling, I am brave. I do what has to be done. When I am waiting, I only feel small and hollow and scared.

  If Paul were with me— I think, but I stop myself before even finishing. Reaching out to him here in Quito would endanger him, maybe even lead Conley to kill him. At this point, honestly, I would settle for absolutely anybody I love. My own world’s Theo, even. Or Josie. Or Mom and Dad . . .

  The caffeine must be hitting my bloodstream, because my eyes finally focus on what’s been sitting right in front of me this whole time: a landline phone.

  I sit up straight. I’d tried my tPhone almost as soon as Theo left, but it had been remotely shut down, no doubt by Triad. In my exhaustion it hadn’t even occurred to me to think about a landline. And for Wyatt Conley, genius of the cellular age—I bet he doesn’t even remember landlines exist, even though every hotel room has them.

  Swallowing the last of the Coke, I pick up the phone and examine it. I don’t see anything that looks like a listening device, at least not according to the few spy movies I’ve seen where they check for this stuff. If Conley tapped the line, well, there’s nothing I can do about that. Still, I’d bet everything he didn’t think about the landline. The only other people who continue to rely on them are eccentric, slightly absentminded people . . . such as my parents.

  Our landline number is one of the few I know by heart.

  It takes a little negotiation with the hotel operator to place the call. Then I hear the odd, purring double ring of an international call until, finally, a sleepy voice says, “Hello?”

  “Mom! It’s me, Marguerite. I’m sorry, I know it’s six in the morning—”

  “It’s five here, but never mind.” Already Mom’s wide awake again. “I take it this is the Marguerite from the Berkeleyverse?”

  “Uh, yeah, it is.” They’ve been brought in on this too? Wow, the Cambridgeverse works fast.

  I hear my mother shouting, “Henry, get out of bed! It’s the other Marguerite!”

  In the farther distance, Dad says, “The good one or the bad one?”

  “The good one,?
?? my mom replies, and I have to grin.

  When I hear her pick up the receiver again, I hastily say, “Listen, Mom, I’m so sorry about not telling you guys the truth the last time I was here.”

  “Perfectly all right, sweetheart. I won’t deny it was strange when our Marguerite informed us of the situation—but uncovering the full truth behind Conley’s plans made your subterfuge worthwhile for everyone involved.”

  While she speaks, another receiver picks up, and Dad interjects, “Honestly, we should’ve suspected it.”

  “And you know it was Wicked who came here last, right? I mean, the Home Office me. You didn’t . . . listen to her, do anything she asked you to do?”

  “Wicked,” Dad says. “An appropriate name. But no, we knew how to work around her. We’d been on the lookout for her more than twelve hours before she arrived, and we knew our own Marguerite almost certainly wasn’t at risk.”

  “How could you be so sure?” Wicked hasn’t hesitated before killing any of the others.

  “Because the last universe Wyatt Conley’s ever going to destroy is his own.” Dad’s voice has that tone that means, sweetheart, you haven’t been thinking. It irritates me, usually, but this time my father has a point. “He murders tactically. Not out of pure cruelty. Otherwise we’d all have been goners long before now.”

  Mom adds, “Also Conley clings to the hope of working with a perfect traveler, particularly you. Your dimension has the technology and represents a threat. You’re the only possible way he has to ameliorate that threat, save destroying the dimension altogether.”

  “He’d do that,” I say quietly. “He’s already destroyed at least one.”

  My parents are both silent for a moment, as if paying their respects to the dead. Mom finally continues, “He still wants your cooperation. Wicked, as you call her, is so fanatically devoted to the cause that she makes him believe he can persuade you. And we must keep him focused on that goal—because it won’t be long before he realizes we’re tracking Wicked’s movements. He has to suspect already.”