One Verse Multi, page 12
“Martin,” Hugo said as he poured coffee into a mug.
I blinked at him.
“Cream?”
For some reason that made me laugh. I was practically on the ground with hysteria. They let me laugh. When I was able to, I asked for cream and sugar. Hugo brought me the mug. He took his coffee and stood in front of the white board with so many weeks of notes on it. Weeks I had ruined.
“Merde,” he mumbled mostly to himself, “I can’t even say where we are anymore.”
“He knew your name,” Wei whispered to me.
“I know.”
“How?” he asked. His voice was low. He was on the chair next to the piano, leaning so far over the armrest that he had to put a hand on the floor to steady himself. His face was pure curiosity.
“I wish I knew.” I pressed a piano key.
“Why did you freak out?” Kiki said after a minute.
“Kix,” Mason said.
“I just panicked. You all probably heard FAX Tidus say the thing about the grays and explosions,” I said.
“We did,” Kiki said, their voice gentler. “I agree, by the way. The grays are too sophisticated for explosions.”
“Right,” I said.
“It’s the ones with tentacles who blow shit up,” they added, sipping their coffee.
“Why not? It’s worth it if you don’t have hands,” I said. I knew they were just trying to make me feel better, and it was working.
“What is that?” Hugo said, looking at everyone in the room. “Is that some sort of queer code?”
“What?” the rest of us said together.
“I’m just wondering.” Then he practically whispered, “Is it a hook-up thing?”
We laughed, Hugo laughing with us.
“No,” I said, “it’s not.”
I waited for everyone to settle before I told them about the exchange between FOX Tidus and me at the rift. They all gasped when I explained I had said those words to Tidus that day, and we had been joking together about aliens. I also explained the texts and the depth of everything between us. But it sounded shallow in the repeating. A horrible silence followed as everyone let my story sink in.
“This…wow,” Hugo said. He put his mug down on the nearest table and stared harder at the white boards.
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“What for?” Tamar asked.
I pointed at the notes on the board. “Ruining the experiment.”
“It wasn’t an experiment,” Tamar said. It wasn’t a confirmation or a denial.
Everyone else seemed to be holding back their reaction. Hugo looked at the boards for a minute, then he pointed to a place in the middle of the notes, his finger making an audible thunk in the otherwise silent room.
“This…this is a good thing,” he said finally. Then his face radiated happiness. “Merde! This is possibly the thing.”
“How the fuck is it a good thing,” I said, almost no volume to my voice. I was relieved but confused.
“He’s done the thing, hasn’t he?” Hugo said, tapping the white board urgently. “The Tiduses synchronized, somehow. A transference of memory. This is the exact thing we were trying to observe. We wanted to see this, and we just got so in the weeds we almost missed it.”
“But we have no idea how it was done,” Wei said.
“Yet. It gives us something to work with.” Hugo was getting excited. He took the white boards by the tray and shoved them up, revealing a clean set of boards underneath.
“I didn’t know it did that,” Tamar said.
“We were tasked with observing universe-multi H-HIA and connections they could form that might impact the multi-verse. We knew it was a thing because of the Dugans. Now the Tiduses have just shown us that it is possible again. What we need to do is try and connect these moments with ACE and RUE Tidus, who also seemed to recognize you. We can try and see what FOX Tidus was doing and what was happening in the quantum realm. All during the event!”
Hugo wrote aggressively in French as he talked, detailing what I could only assume was his understanding of the facts I had lived.
“Might have to do it,” he said, turning and looking at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Is it an issue for you to see FOX Tidus?” he asked.
I sighed. I didn’t know if I could take seeing him again. FOX Tidus and I were so linked, the other Tiduses were picking up on it. It was changing them. It was changing me.
“That sounds dangerous,” Tamar said.
“How so?”
Tamar went into the kitchen and found some chips before she answered. “When the Dugans synced, there was a catastrophe across a bunch of verses. This might be a good stopping point for the Tiduses. If we push them, who knows what damage could be caused.”
Hugo pointed his marker at Tamar and nodded. “Fair.”
“Plus, we might break Martin,” she added.
“Also fair.”
“I think my gal Beverly shows promise,” Wei said. “She lives near a rift in Arizona. She probably has crossed it once or twice.”
“Bet,” Hugo said. “So, for now maybe we focus on trying to observe synchronizing in other subjects using the interview method. This has been compelling.” He’d switched from a blue marker to a black one. “This could be the methodology we need to set up something testable.”
“Should I tell you now that Beverly is kinda hot?” Wei said. “Just in case one of us wants to fall in love with her?”
“Fuck off,” Tamar said.
“It’s not love,” I snapped.
Mason looked at Wei. “Is she the one with the pet puma?”
Wei laughed. “Maybe the power of love is what causes people to synchronize. I volunteer—”
“Are we done here?” Kiki said. “I would like to get some sleep before—”
The common room door opened, and Luca walked in. Something inside me relaxed at the sight of him.
“It’s a bit early for a lab meeting,” he said shyly, tucking his hands into his back pockets.
Kiki, Mason, and Wei rushed to him, exchanging hugs. At first, he looked perfect to me, his black hair long and shaggy on his forehead. He had on his usual light button-down and dark slacks. But the longer I looked, the more I noticed the damage. He had stitches down his right arm, visible where his sleeve was rolled up. There was a series of cuts on his forehead and a bruise darkening his cheek and eye.
“What happened?” Wei asked with all the expected tactlessness. He held up Luca’s stitched arm as if to show him his own wounds.
“Uh, my mom and I were in a car accident. That’s why I stayed longer. I’m okay, but she got the worst of it since it was on her side. I wanted to make sure she was okay.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Mason said.
“There’s a lot going on here and not much you could do.”
I wasn’t sure of the feeling, but I think my heart broke slightly. I felt for a moment like I had overestimated our relationship since he hadn’t reached out. Not that our relationship was the only one that mattered. He hadn’t seemed to have informed anyone.
“What’d I miss?” he asked, trying to take some of the focus off himself.
His eyes landed on mine, and he gave me a dimply smile and a wave. I waved back, but I don’t think I smiled. His face fell.
“We had a breakthrough,” Hugo said. “How’d you know we were here?”
“I messaged Kiki when I got to the dead-verse. They said you’d be working late, but no one was in the data lab, so I came here. A breakthrough is good. And just in time.”
We all stared at him. He flushed a little under the gaze of everyone in the room. “I mean, when we meet with Don tonight, we will—”
“We meet with Don tonight?” Hugo screamed. He raced to his desk and shuffled pages, looking for who knows what. He repeated the word “shit” under his breath in English and in French.
“Balls,” Tamar said. “It’s the progress meeting.”
“I didn’t know there was a meeting,” I said. I’d been so bludgeoned by the disaster with FAX Tidus and learning about Luca’s accident that the news about having to meet with a founder almost felt like good news.
“The meetings are standardized to be the first Monday of the third month of the projects,” Mason said. “So no one has to remember them.”
Hugo went into a tailspin of activity and bounced between muttering and announcing things to the room. He handed some papers to Luca and then some to Wei. Once one set of pages was out of his hand, he went in search of the next. He mentioned putting together reports and extracting data and said something directly to Tamar. I ignored him. Instead, I stood and went over to Luca.
Luca smiled slowly when I stopped in front of him. I didn’t know if I was allowed to, but I went for a hug anyway. He hugged me back in a way that let me know he welcomed it, not just tolerated it. The top of his head came to just under my nose, and his hair smelled like a forest.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey.”
“I have something to talk to you about sooner rather than later,” I said.
I wanted him to hear about everything from me since it involved my feelings for Tidus. I wanted him to know I had feelings for him too. I didn’t know how I would explain any of it, but I didn’t want to leave it to anyone else to do.
“I’m assuming you mean privately,” he said.
I nodded. Wei had his head down on the coffee table and was probably more asleep than awake. Tamar was leaning against Mason but watching Hugo rush around picking up files and making notes. Kiki was reading the magazine Mason and I bought. Mason looked nervously content to sit as long as Tamar leaned on him.
“Hugo,” Luca said finally.
“Yup?”
“It’s six a.m. I think we should try and get some sleep. Even just a few hours. The meeting isn’t until seven tonight. We might not be organized, but we’re ready.”
Hugo suddenly looked wrecked as he surveyed the room. He probably wasn’t completely over his stomach bug.
“All those in favor of Luca’s plan, say aye,” Tamar said. As the room agreed, she stood and approached Hugo. She shoved him and all the stuff he was holding toward the door of his room.
“I’m going to drug you and put you to bed.”
“Is that an invitation?” Hugo said.
Wei wasted no time stretching out on the couch. He pulled his arms into the big tan sweatshirt he was wearing and was probably dead asleep before his head landed on Mason’s lap. Mason laughed and extricated himself.
“Good night,” Mason said, passing me and Luca on his way out the door.
“Boss,” Kiki said, giving Luca a kiss on the cheek as they passed. “It’s good to see you.”
Soon we were alone, save for the sleeping Wei.
“You look kind of worse for wear,” Luca said.
“I feel it. Um, is there somewhere else you want to go?”
“Go to your room,” Tamar said as she went from Hugo’s to her own.
“He’s already asleep,” I called back, thinking she meant Wei.
“Not him, dipshit,” she said before her door closed.
“Oh. My room,” I said.
Luca followed me. My room looked different once I had stuff out of boxes. I’d hung the photo he had given me on the wall along with several movie posters and pictures of my family, but it still looked spacious.
“Sit anywhere,” I said, opting for the least comfortable of two chairs. Luca sat on the bed. He looked at me, waiting. “I wanted to talk about what happened tonight.”
And I told him everything. He listened, not looking up from the floor until I had finished. Then he looked at the poster of the rift.
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“When?” I asked, sounding more confrontational than I wanted. “I never expected to talk to him again. It was kind of hard observing him, but that felt more like crushing on a celebrity than on a person. I was trying to let it go. And I was trying to focus on what I feel with you.”
He didn’t say anything.
To make a point, even though I wasn’t sure what that point was, I asked, “Why didn’t you tell me…us that you were in an accident?”
He looked at me. I couldn’t read his feelings, but I didn’t push.
“I honestly didn’t think to. For as long as I’ve known everyone, it never felt this personal. I always felt like everyone’s boss. Except this time around. We all actually hang out together, beyond just transferring reports. It hasn’t even felt this close between Kiki and Mason and me. With you here and this project—I don’t know, something clicked.”
He looked back at the poster and smiled. “Why are you also telling me about how you feel about Tidus?”
I hesitated. “I respect you. I feel…have feelings for you. I feel like if you’re involved with me and my multiple attachments, you should know.”
He looked at me. I tried to look at him, but I ended up looking at a bunch of other stuff.
“Would you pursue something with him?”
“That isn’t feasible.”
He laughed a little. “That wasn’t the question. Holding all other circumstances constant, only thinking about your feelings—would you want to be in a relationship with him?”
“Pfft,” I said. Then I thought about it. “Yes.”
He nodded.
I waited.
“And me?” he asked after a moment.
I felt the implications of the question deep in my heart. I wanted to jump at the chance, say yes, go all in. But I could tell the question wasn’t an offer. He was asking with the objectivity of a man who had made a career of gathering information.
“Holding all else constant, yes,” I said, even though it wasn’t the total answer I had wanted to give. “Yes…holding nothing constant too…I think.”
He nodded and stood.
“Wait where are you going?”
“To bed,” he said.
“Is that an invitation?” Then I felt annoyed with myself and took it back. “What I mean is, what about…I…how do you feel about it all? And me?”
He shrugged. “Honestly, Martin? I’m so tired I couldn’t even tell you how I felt about breathing.”
I understood that. “Fair enough.”
He did close the two or three steps between us and put his arms around my waist. I let myself be hugged.
“Good night, Martin,” he said, pulling away.
“Night.”
Section 13
Honey—Oh shit!
“I don’t really want to go in there,” Tamar said. She was standing outside the door to the computer labs with me and Wei.
I didn’t need to ask what she meant. We had so much more of everything now. There was more information about universe-multi people. And about the founders. We had magazines and newspapers with their faces across multiple universes. It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to give me that prickling feeling.
“There’s still a lot unanswered,” Wei said.
I looked at him, but his sleepy face was unreadable. He had managed to shower and change into a brown turtleneck and green corduroy slacks. He looked nice.
“True,” I said.
We keyed in the code, and Kiki retrieved us from the hall. No one said anything as we walked to the data lab. Hugo was already there, hole-punching pages and stacking them into eight neat piles.
“Hey, everyone,” he said.
We just grunted.
“I know, but the good news is I think we’re in a solid place. First of all, we have summaries of what information we’ve collected.” He held up the unfinished report. The first section on blue paper was summary statistics for all universe-multi people we found using the altered algorithm, then on white, some base information about our methods. The gray section at the back was detailed reports for each individual we observed.
Hugo picked up a stack of pink pages not yet incorporated into the report. “This is a summary of the interviews with Dugan.”
Then a stack of green papers. “This is the interviews Martin and company collected.”
He flashed us the freshly hole-punched lavender pages. “I finished writing up my observations, and Mason was able to do a quick comparison of your observations and mine. He wasn’t able to measure any statistically significant difference. Well, I mean there was one, but it’s not crucial. Besides, I didn’t have as many data points as I would’ve liked.”
“What difference?” I asked, feeling a sense of panic. Did I fuck it up?
“You didn’t mention anything about FOX Tidus’s cereal problem,” Hugo said, carefully realigning his papers.
I thumbed the forty-page report that occupied the space where my laptop usually sat. I thought it out. Sure, the guy liked Honoy-Os cereal. But I wouldn’t call it a problem.
“So what if he eats cereal for dinner sometimes?”
Hugo nearly laughed. “I guess, but I wouldn’t spend thirty dollars in one go on it.”
That was at minimum ten boxes. I squinted at Hugo. “What?”
“I mean cereal is almost as uninteresting as paper in the multi-verse, but he’s obsessed. Reconnaissez le maïs.”
“Because he buys BOGO cereal?”
“He had seven boxes on his counter two days ago, and he bought six more by the time I checked in on him this morning.”
“That…no. Show me,” I said.
Hugo pointed to the laptops set up on a new square folding table. I went to mine and opened the site. I went straight to Hugo’s notes. Every time Hugo observed FOX Tidus, he counted an increasing number of cereal boxes.
“What the hell is he doing?” I said. “Something is up, because he didn’t have anywhere close to this many when I was watching him.”
“Really?”
Hugo looked over my shoulder. Actually, everyone did. I had been standing, but I sat and pulled the joystick closer. I activated the video feed on FOX Tidus’s drone and drove it out for a long view of Tidus sitting at his kitchen counter.
