He sleeps atop the heating vent of the university library like a homeless person. In the literal sense, it’s strikingly true. Several universes removed from his own, Jonas is as homeless as anyone has ever been.
Eventually, the morning light rakes across him, slapping him awake. He walks laps around the campus for the three hours until the library opens.
Once inside, he locates the public computers. The sight of a man who appears as though he slept in his clothes draws more than a few curious stares, but Jonas ignores them and sets to work. He starts by opening Google, but a “404” code informs him that http://google.com doesn’t exist. This prompts a laugh. Who could fathom a reality without Google? Eventually he finds this reality’s preferred search engine. In this universe, Apple has apparently added internet search to the breadth of its domain.
He starts by typing Eva’s name into the search field. The query yields no results. Henri Thibault is next. Jonas’s heart leaps with hope as the screen cascades with mentions. He scans the information spit out by the search: Grammar school teacher. Science fair. Fan fiction. Comic book collection. Two children. Jonas darkens. Thibault’s life took a very different turn in this reality.
He types his own name next. The search returns websites that tell an encapsulated story of his life. Specifics are in short supply, but the major details are encouraging: PhD in physics, PhD in quantum mechanics, PhD in quantum field theory, professor at Columbia University. At least, until two years ago. Then the trail goes cold. He clicks on his Columbia University profile and gets an uneasy feeling, which is confirmed when he reads the bio.
He died two years ago.
With rising urgency, he delves deeper, eventually surfacing his own obituary. It’s a discordant reaction, but his spirits rise at seeing the account of his death. What he reads causes him to exhale with volcanic force as the lungful of air he wasn’t even aware he’d been holding escapes him in a ragged breath. Not for the first time, other library patrons cast suspicious, uncomfortable glances in his direction. He doesn’t care. He just reads the same eight words over and over.
Doctor Cullen is survived by his wife, Amanda.
His heart sings with a lightness he hasn’t felt in two long years. His head grows fuzzy, and he thinks he might pass out from relief and joy.
She’s alive. She’s here, and she’s alive.
It’s beyond improbable. It’s impossible. Like finding a specific single grain of sand along a beach. And yet . . .
Maybe the universe has granted him a mercy. Maybe his calculations were not as far off as he’d assumed. Maybe his arrival in Gillard’s universe was an anomaly, a quantum hiccup of some kind. Maybe his reality-slipping ended exactly where he had always intended to be. He turns to the screen again for confirmation. Doctor Cullen is survived by his wife, Amanda. Its meaning doesn’t change, no matter how many times he reads it. Incredibly, he’s arrived in the one reality Thibault had promised where the car accident claimed him instead of her.
He types with breathless urgency, and another search confirms that Amanda still lives in their apartment in Manhattan. The same apartment. It’s almost beyond imagining.
His mind gallops. His first impulse is to call her, to hear her voice, to assure her that he’s still alive and will explain everything once they’re finally together. But then better instincts take over. He doesn’t want to frighten her. A call from a dead man? No. She’s likely to think it some kind of scam. Better their reunion be in person. Suddenly, there’s no rush. Suddenly, he has—they have—all the time in the world.
He feels lightheaded but not just with euphoria. He’s hyperventilating. He works to steady himself and slow his breathing. We have all the time in the world. The most important thing is that he’s found her.
He grips the desk, breathing deep and deliberately. He has to get to her. He has to get halfway across the globe with no money, no passport, no form of identification whatsoever. Again it occurs to him that calling her would be easier. She could fly to him. Wouldn’t that be easier? But then a new thought strikes him with a force that feels almost physical. He grimaces at the simplicity of the solution and types:
recovery of stolen credit card
It takes Jonas less than ninety minutes to hitchhike from the university to Aéroport de Genève, where the American Express office is situated atop a row of escalators, sandwiched between an OMEGA store and a Ralph Lauren. The Amex representative behind the counter is a pleasant woman who Jonas calculates can’t be older than twenty-seven. This is fortunate, he tells himself. With age comes cynicism, and he’s going to need a little credulity to pull off what he has planned.
He tells her his prepared sob story about how he was the victim of a pickpocket, how he had kept his US passport, credit cards, driver’s license, and cash in the same travel wallet. “So stupid,” he berates himself, adding with a hapless shrug, “but Switzerland has the reputation of being one of the safest countries on earth.”
The young woman is sympathetic. “This sort of thing happens all the time,” she assures him. “More often than people think.” She hands Jonas a form with a litany of security questions. He answers every one, his entire scheme hinging on the hope that the details he recalls—his social security number, his home address in Manhattan, his mother’s maiden name, the make of his first car, and other ephemera—remain consistent in this reality. As he fills out the form, he makes small talk with the representative, doing his best to endear himself to her, to build a personal connection should he need to take advantage of one.
After he hands over the completed form, the representative disappears into a back room for what feels like an eternity. He passes the time thinking about what he’ll do if his ploy doesn’t work. It’s an interesting challenge, he reflects, bringing forth the identity and financial resurrection of a dead man. But if it seems as though he’s trying to con American Express, to steal a deceased identity, he’s going to have to get out of here quickly.
When the representative emerges, she appears stricken. Jonas’s heart sinks, and a new concern billows forward. What if she suspects him of attempting to defraud her? What if she called the police? He can’t allow himself to be taken into custody, nor can he leave this universe. Landing here was winning the cosmic lottery. No one does that twice. He can’t leave, and he can’t permit the circumstances that would compel him to.
He forces a friendly smile to reaffirm that he’s a good guy just having a bad day and to cover a glance behind him to confirm that the door to the Amex office is open, should he need to effect a quick escape. He resists the urge to ask if there’s a problem. Don’t admit the premise, he admonishes himself. This could be nothing. Just your paranoia.
But it’s not. There is, in fact, a problem.
“Mr. Cullen, I’m afraid there’s something unusual with your account.”
Jonas forces an air of easygoing detachment. “Unusual how?”
“According to our records,” the woman starts, almost apologetic, “you’re dead.”
He works hard to pretend this development is unexpected, smiling broadly but not, he hopes, too broadly. “Funny, I don’t feel dead,” he quips. Disarm with humor.
“Good point.” She seems genuinely sympathetic to his plight. “And you match the photo we have on file for you, but the account was closed two years ago.”
Jonas is prepared for this but tries to come off like he’s just had the thought. “Y’know, it’s funny . . . I just read—I don’t know when, maybe a month or two ago—I read an article in Wired magazine about how hackers are altering public records like that. Y’know, make someone appear to be dead. I guess it makes identity theft easier somehow.” He punctuates the idea with a naive shrug, ignorant of the dark ways of cybercrime. It’s time to cash in on the connection he hopefully made with the lady earlier. “Is there—I don’t know—a manager you can talk to or something? This is all such a nightmare.”
Sympathetic, she says she’ll see what she can do and disappears again into the back room. The call she’s making is to one of only two possibilities: her boss or the airport police. Jonas can’t see her behind the divide, can’t read her body language or facial expressions. Can’t know whether to stay and hope or run and escape. His hands leave a film of perspiration on the Formica countertop.
Over his shoulder, he spots two uniformed police officers moving toward the office. He wills himself to remain calm, only to note that his fists are clenched and his legs feel rubbery. He fights an urge to vomit.
“Okay.” The voice comes out of nowhere, shafts of sunlight through gray storm clouds. The representative approaches the counter holding a green card, another form, and a pen. “We got it all squared away. It helps that you’re here and, you know, alive.”
“Very much so.” He tries to keep the relief and exultation out of his voice, but the attempt comes off comically. The woman titters slightly as she places the items down on the counter. The green card is, as Jonas had hoped, a brand new American Express card. The letters J-O-N-A-S-C-U-L-L-E-N bubble up in black over the field of green and white. The pen is for him to sign the form acknowledging receipt. He initials and signs where instructed. Relief washes over him.
After getting a cash advance from an ATM using his new Amex card, Jonas hails a taxi. Within ninety minutes, he’s waiting in line outside the United States diplomatic mission to Switzerland.
Fortunately, he doesn’t have to wait long. The consular officer he happens to get is a man in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and absolutely no warmth or sense of humor. Whatever charms Jonas was able to work on the Amex representative, this man is impervious to them. Nevertheless, Jonas launches into his rehearsed remarks: “Pickpocket.” “So stupid.” “Switzerland has the reputation of being one of the safest countries on earth.” But this time his recitation includes the added novelty of “I’m just lucky I kept this in a separate pocket.” And he holds up his newly minted credit card as if it’s an Olympic medal.
Once again, he deploys the line about the Wired article and computer hackers committing virtual murder. “Yeah, I think I read that one too,” the consular officer says, and Jonas considers the possibility that maybe it wasn’t an invention after all. In any case, after a new photograph is taken and a three-hour wait, he is once again officially alive and an American citizen.
Leaving the embassy, he discovers that taxis are in short supply, so he elects to take public transportation back to the airport, and soon enough he’s handing his new passport and credit card to a kindly attendant at Swissair. He splurges for a first-class seat. It’s not every day one flies home to a deceased spouse.
