Carl Payne came down the hall. He was another quantum physicist, but focused more on theory than actual technology. He was a dark brown man and wore a ball cap, blazer, and jeans. He actually smiled at me as he came into the room. On his tail was a tall, linebackeresque man. Justin Crawford looked like he’d had a career in high contact sports before he retired to be a social scientist. He stayed close to Carl but looked at me with obvious curiosity.

  I had expected those four, so I almost turned away from the hall. Then another person stepped out of the room. And more surprising than the woman walking toward me was the man following her.

  “Margo,” I said before I could stop myself.

  She looked at me with surprise. Her voice, however, was not surprised. “You knew my doppelganger.”

  “I did,” I said, even though I more than knew her. She was the only reason I had a career in the multi-verse.

  “We knew that,” Justin said.

  That earned him a few glares, but I tried to act disinterested. Margo had been one of the more crucial founders early in MVP history. She was not only a logistics specialist with a focus in cartography, but she’d also had the foresight to do a few computer science classes. I modeled my own education after her. Here-verse Margo was dressed in a tan suit and turquoise and silver jewelry, a long lazy braid of salt-and-pepper hair pulled over one shoulder. She looked so much like my Margo, I almost put up a hand for a high five. She just nodded and passed me.

  It was lucky Margo had been first. My surprise at seeing a Hugo counterpart would’ve been enough to blow my whole cover. I doubted they knew MVP had a Hugo, or that I knew him. Until they revealed that, I would pretend not to know him. He looked at me and nodded out of politeness, his hands in the pockets of his jeans. His hair was shorter, and his face paler. But it was Hugo.

  “What, is your grandma back there, too?” I tried to joke.

  For good measure, I put my hand back in the cereal box, way to the bottom, past the hovering drones and actually pulled out a handful of cereal to munch. I let most of it fall to the floor in a way that would’ve made Mason pass out. They all watched the pile build at my feet.

  “That’s very funny,” Don said, looking unamused.

  I sighed and sat on the floor near the pile, my cereal box in my lap. “All right, if this is everyone, I’d like to start off by saying—”

  “You’d like to start?” Don said, incredulous.

  “Yeah, you invited me here to talk, so I’m talking. Think of me as a keynote speaker.”

  “We do have questions,” Justin and Hugo said in unison.

  “Bet, but there’s something particularly important you need to know about me before this continues. And it involves that man right there.” I pointed at Tidus.

  “I’m not anyone,” Tidus said, looking horrified. His expression was pure betrayal, like I was about to throw him under the bus. And I was, but I was mostly bluffing.

  “We know that’s not true,” Josephine said.

  “Yeah, we’ve watched you two together,” Margo said coolly.

  “Watched us?” Tidus said. “Nothing has happened between us—wait. Watched how?”

  They looked where I pointed, and they looked back when I started talking. They weren’t professional kidnappers, or criminals or whatever. As Hugo would say, this rodeo had too many cowboys and not enough horses. They were distractable by their own importance. While they were looking at Tidus, I put my hand back in the box and typed the speed dial code to start one of the escape protocols I had programmed. It would take a moment for the drones to get in place, so I needed to make a speech.

  “Hey, whoa now, can I say something?” I said.

  “What is it?” Don snapped.

  “Thank you. Damn. Get invited to give a talk and all you get is heckled. What is that? Anyway, you aren’t wrong. I care about that guy. But he has no idea what’s going on, and I think it’s important you send him home before we get started.”

  “Why would we do that?” Josephine asked.

  I was happy with that question. I looked at everyone. Carl and Justin had on badges, Margo and Hugo didn’t. The badges looked like something out of a TV show. They also said doppelganger instead of counterpart, which meant there were things about MVP they didn’t know. Convergent evolution, like Luca said. I blinked to refocus.

  “Seems to me that y’all think I’d rather talk than let you hurt the multi-verse or Tidus.”

  “That’s true, no?” Hugo asked, his French accent thicker than the Hugo I knew.

  “That just means you think I’m a heroic person, right? Well, I’m not. I’m the petty type.”

  “Really?” Don said, his annoyance clear.

  “Really. That means I don’t want Tidus hurt, and I don’t want the multi-verse hurt, but threatening me, him, or it won’t get you what you want. That’ll do the opposite, actually.”

  “How does that work?” Justin asked.

  I could have thanked him. I needed only a few seconds more. When we practiced, the protocol setup took a minimum of thirty seconds because it had to tap into the learning technology built into the sequencer. I also wanted to give the drones time to get out of the cereal box. Justin was providing time I needed.

  “Any threat you make is going to inspire me to keep my mouth shut. I’m down to talk and all, but I won’t do it if you threaten the things I love. See, out of sheer spite, the more you hurt him, the less I say. You’ve expended a lot of resources to find me, so I get that you need this information. But if you so much as look at Tidus or the multi-verse in a way I don’t like, I’ll shut up and you won’t get another word out of me.”

  “I see,” Don said. He looked at Tidus, then at me, then back.

  “I guess we can just kill him,” Don said. He took a step toward Tidus.

  “Are you kidding?” Tidus screeched.

  Don’s comment divided the room, though I doubt they noticed. Margo and Hugo tensed, probably trying to hold back their shock. Justin shifted and Carl almost imperceptibly steadied him. The only one who seemed to agree with the plan was Josephine.

  I stood and sighed. “See, that’s the wrong answer.”

  I put my hand in the box and pretended to shake it, but I engaged the escape protocol I had set for Tidus.

  “Well, I think you brought cereal to a gun fight,” Don said with a laugh.

  He drew a gun, real and scary, from the back of his belt and aimed it at Tidus. I hoped my face didn’t betray my wildly beating heart. Tidus had just enough time to scream before he disappeared. The smell of peanut butter wafted. I couldn’t tell if the others noticed their version of the tuning tell. They were all too surprised.

  “What the fuck?” Don shouted. He stormed toward the empty chair and kicked it across the room. He stared at the place it had been as if he expected Tidus to come back.

  “How’d you do that?”

  I sighed and tried to keep standing, though my relief almost sent me crashing to the floor.

  “Escape protocol exorcist,” I said, giving them an honest answer.

  “Where did you send him?” Don asked.

  I didn’t say anything, I shrugged like I had no idea. Tidus, confused and scared shitless, was back in his own living room where Kiki could talk him down.

  “God damn it,” Don screamed. He leveled the gun at me. I tried not to flinch.

  “Stop! We need him,” Margo cried, trying to put her hands on the gun.

  “Go get him,” Don said.

  “Who? Martin?” Carl asked.

  Don looked around the room as if no one in his vicinity had a brain. “No, go get Tidus or his mom, get Martin’s fucking dog for all I care.”

  “Why?” Hugo said. “He’s not going to talk to us if we threaten him. So let’s just—”

  Don crossed to them and roared. “I said go get him.”

  “Well, I think we all need a minute to regroup,” I said.

  In their chaos, they again forgot to pay attention to me. I dropped the cereal box, pulled out my hair, and held the two sequencers in my hands. I pushed the call buttons on both at the exact same time. The group looked at me just as I tuned them out of the apartment. Then in a blink, the gun and the badges Don, Carl, and Justin had been wearing tuned back, thunking on the carpet. I collapsed to the floor too. I screamed with happiness and rage and excitement and terror. I kissed the phones and laid face down on the new carpet, breathing.

  “Thank God for escape protocol pest and DWMP.”

  After calming my nerves, I stood and walked through the apartment. I picked up my cereal box, the fallen cereal, and the badges. I didn’t pick up the gun. There was a charger for a phone in one outlet. I took that and put it in my pocket. Aside from the folding chairs, the place was empty. I wasn’t sure what I expected to find. Whenever I engaged with the multi-verse, I carried a backpack full of gear, but apparently, I could get a lot done with nothing more than two phones and a box of cereal. If they had more equipment than the badges, they hadn’t brought it here.

  I went back to where I had been standing in the doorway and tuned back. When I opened my eyes, I was looking right at Tidus, who was on one side of the island. Kiki was standing on the other side of the room. Tidus had a knife.

  “What the fuck was that?” Tidus screamed, leveling the knife at me, then Kiki, then me again.

  “It’s a lot to explain,” I said, walking toward him.

  “Don’t move.”

  I stopped. “I’m sorry, Tidus. Like I was trying to tell you, my shit is complicated.”

  “That wasn’t complicated, Martin. That was fucking impossible. Did I die? I mean, that can’t be real. Was it magic? What was the point of that? I mean, fuck, I was just kidnapped by magicians. He had a gun. That is way beyond complicated. What the fuck do you want with me?”

  “I’m trying to tell you,” Kiki said. Despite being on the business end of a knife, Kiki looked calm and annoyedly empathetic. They didn’t want to, but they understood Tidus.

  “Well, do a better job,” Tidus said. We all stared at each other, then he huffed tiredly and lowered the knife.

  “What the hell was that?” he asked again.

  “I hate to say it, but you know about as much as I do as far as them kidnapping you. This is Kiki, by the way.”

  “We’ve met,” Kiki said in that weirdly polite way people did when people talked about someone they didn’t like but had to be nice to.

  I nodded. “Okay. Good. I bet you have questions, and Kiki’ll answer them. I have to go.”

  “Wait,” Kiki said, turning on me. “I’m not answering shit. What do you mean you have to go? Martin, what the fuck?”

  “I mean I dumped Don and the others in a dead-verse, and I’m going there to talk to them.”

  Kiki stammered. “You…No…Why?”

  “What’s a dead-verse?” Tidus asked.

  I looked at him. And despite everything he looked great. His hair had been half tamed into a curly faux-hawk, and the shirt he had picked out for our almost dinner was black and floral. He looked perfectly handsome.

  “Wow, you look great,” I said, realizing I had only stared and not answered his question.

  He looked down at himself. “Stop that…but thank you.”

  Kiki practically climbed over the couch to shove me. “Martin Logan King, you better fucking explain yourself before I beat your ass and tune you straight to the center of hell.”

  Their face was pale and flushed and their eyes wide with panic. They were worried about me. I was surprised.

  “Kiki, look. They know my name—I’ve got to find out what else they know. All of the founders’ counterparts were there, even Margo.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “They even have a Hugo,” I said.

  Their expression turned from fear to unfiltered horror. “A Hugo?”

  “Yeah, and they know that Margo and I knew each other. Someone has to get answers, and that someone’s me.”

  They squinted at me. “I’ll be murdered if I let you go alone.”

  “No one will murder you. Besides, you have to make sure someone comes to get me.”

  They looked even more outraged. “I do?”

  “Yeah. You’re the only one who’s going to know I’m in dead-verse zeta-six.”

  Kiki sighed. “I don’t know anything about the dead-verses.”

  “Don’t worry, Mason’ll know. All you need is a name.”

  Kiki flapped their arms. “What do you want me to do? Go back to HQ like nothing happened, explain all this to them then, what, come all the way back here to tune to there to get you?”

  I blinked at them.

  “You really don’t have a plan, do you?” Kiki said.

  “I have a plan to make a plan.” I tried for a laugh.

  Kiki crossed their arms and glared. “I don’t like this.”

  “I don’t either,” Tidus said. We both turned to him. He took a step back surprised. “I…well, I might not know what you’re talking about, but that guy had a gun, and that sounds dangerous. It seems like there’s a lot of tension in that room and some high stakes. Once I was at the bar and one of my coworker’s ex-bosses came in and exposed him for theft and fraud, and our boss explained my coworker had changed his ways, but the other guy wasn’t having it, so he demanded my boss show him his margins or something, but they ended up in a fistfight, and in small claims court it turns out the other guy was my boss’s ex-brother-in-law and was trying to steal his business secrets.”

  Kiki and I said nothing. Tidus shrugged and casually put his knife back in the rack.

  “See? Tidus gets it,” Kiki shouted, throwing their hands toward him. Tidus just saluted like he had done Kiki a favor.

  I sighed. “I get that, but I can’t just not do something. A lot of people could end up hurt, and we need a first responder. That’s me. Besides, he doesn’t have the gun now.”

  Kiki didn’t look convinced. They were standing with their side to me, their arms crossed. Bowser flapped his tail against the couch when Kiki looked in his direction.

  “Kix, if they could see how much I like him in three visits, what would they do if they found my parents or anyone else I care about? I can think of a thousand ways to use the multi-verse to fuck up someone’s day, and I’m not even that creative.”

  Kiki groaned. “You might’ve been bluffing about being petty, but I’m not. I swear to God, if I get in trouble over this, you better get yourself killed before I get to you.”

  I laughed. “Deal.”

  “Does it have to be now? Can’t it wait for help?”

  “They have access to multi-tech and a Hugo. Think about how many people work for MVP. It’s too risky to think someone isn’t looking for them. I don’t want to hunt the multi-verse for them later.”

  “I hate you.”

  I put my arms around them. “Even if I can’t get information, I can distract them long enough for you to get reinforcements.”

  I put the badges and phone charger into Kiki’s hands.

  “The fuck?” they said.

  “Tidus has one too,” I said, pointing.

  “I what?” Tidus yelped.

  I walked over to him. He only took one hesitant step backward before letting me close enough to remove the badge from his shirt.

  “Shit, I thought it was a security tag.”

  “I think Don put it on you. Where was he? In your closet?”

  “Yes!” Tidus screamed. “I opened the damned thing to get a shirt, and he grabbed me. We went to that other place and then…well, you know.”

  “It’s magnetic,” I said, rolling the silvery disk and white plastic tag in my palm. “I’m sorry,” I told Tidus.

  He scanned my face and nodded.

  I stepped back, and Kiki offered their hand. I shook my head. “Naw, wait. I’m gonna keep this one.”

  “Why?” they asked.

  “Peace offering. If I did my job right, I essentially marooned them in the dead-verse. I’m going to give this one back so at least one of them can get help. I won’t do it right away, but at some point.”

  “You sure have a lot of ideas for someone with no plan,” Kiki said.

  “The best offense is a good defense?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “What about me?” Tidus asked.

  “What about you?” Kiki said.

  Tidus threw his arms out. “I was just fucking kidnapped. What if they come back? I don’t know shit about you all, and here I am having guns pointed at me. I can’t stay here. I like you, Martin, but this seems a little toxic, so maybe you should both go? Or should I go? I don’t know. What’s a dead-verse?”

  He paced around the island, ending up back where he had started. He ran both hands through his hair, disheveling the attempt to style it.

  “Let me talk to him,” I said to Kiki.

  “You just said it was urgent.”

  “Kix. Give me a few minutes with him, okay?”

  I signed their sequencer back over to them and placed it in their hand. They looked at it like they hardly knew it. It looked like them, though. In those days, when the phone was new, it had fun plastic faces and buttons that could be changed out from the generic black and white. Kiki’s had a bright green plastic face with translucent buttons that lit up with different colors when pressed, and it had an antenna charm, a middle finger dangling from a bright pink cord.

  “I’m going to the corner for air and coming straight back. That’s all you get,” they said benevolently, walking toward the front door. Bowser followed them and seemed sad when Kiki left. I looked at Tidus. He was leaning against the counter.

  “I’m sorry. I really wanted to explain.”

  “Can you tell me what the fuck a dead-verse is?”

  I laughed. “It’s a universe without humans or human-intelligent animals.”

  “How does that work?”

  I sighed and rubbed my head. “Uh, pretty much every moment, every choice, every event has the potential to develop a new universe—a reality that is fundamentally different from any other. It’s founded on quantum physics and probability. In the dead-verses, something usually didn’t happen when the earth was really young. In the one I sent the others to, humans just didn’t survive a few ice ages. Maybe it lasted too long or was a few degrees colder than the ones that happened here, but all that’s left is bugs and plants and a few kinds of animals.”

 

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