But when he sees the ruddy fleck of Amanda’s blood on his hand, he sets the gun down. He tries to scratch it off with a fingernail, but it persists. He thought he’d removed all the blood hours ago. He moves to the kitchen sink and washes, still unnerved by the sight of her spatter on his face in his bathroom mirror. Driven by the memory, he scrubs even harder now.
Out, damned spot; out, I say!
His right hand is still shaking, so with his left, he reaches out and drains the scotch. He has no idea why his hand should tremble, much less four hours after the deed. It was the right thing to do. The necessary thing. The thing he felt, in his bones, that the universe wanted him to do. And now it is done.
And his hand. Is. Still. Shaking.
He balls it into a fist, but still it quivers. Deciding that he needs to get his mind off Amanda, the image of her abdomen erupting with blood, Victor moves to the guest room, where the Cray XC30-AC supercomputer resides. Four towers, each the size of a refrigerator, dominate the room. Victor pours himself into the chair in front of his workstation and commands the computer out of its sleep cycle. It cost him $500,000, and Victor is once again thankful that Phaedra came from money.
His fingers fly along the keyboard. The usual commands cascade down the flat-screen monitor. The data reminds him of a waterfall. The Cray throws off a lot of heat in its labors, and Victor opens a window to let in the night air.
He questions why he’s running the program again. The algorithm searches the multiverse for the quarks and neutrinos thrown off by Jonas’s tether, like a magnet that pulls the needle from an unbounded number of haystacks.
But why? Amanda’s dead. The scales of karma—of justice—are balanced.
It’s over.
Yet he feels compelled to learn whether Jonas stayed behind. And if he did leave that reality, where did he travel next?
And why does it matter?
It’s over.
The answer, of course, is the same reason his hand still shakes. The needs of the universe may be satisfied, but his—his—remain discontented. He was certain that Amanda’s death would do it, but a flicker remains lit within him. Hate.
It occurs to Victor that if he can locate Jonas by his tether’s emissions, it follows that he might be able to manipulate those emissions. Perhaps even disable the tether’s operation entirely. And in so doing, Victor would sentence Jonas to a life of passing between universes—from reality to reality to reality—in a relentless purgatory.
Damned by the same invention Jonas had stolen from him.
The symmetry is too perfect to ignore. Once again, Victor hears the call of the universe. Charged, he returns to the workstation, opens a new window, and begins coding a new algorithm. He saves the file as KARMA2.0, and as he types away, he’s hit by a realization.
His hand is no longer shaking.
FOUR YEARS AGO
The morning sun raked across their naked bodies, their limbs entwined like branches, basking together in their afterglow.
“Let’s stay like this forever,” Amanda said.
Jonas didn’t argue and nuzzled his head against her chest. It was slick with sweat, and as his finger grazed a trail along her abdomen, he’d never known himself to be so content—a peace that fractured with an apocalyptic-sounding bang against the door of the apartment.
“It seems like someone has other ideas,” Jonas deadpanned. Given the early hour on a Saturday, he assumed it was someone knocking on the door of the wrong apartment. That was fine. His mood was such that the apocalypse itself could come knocking and it wouldn’t dampen his spirits. He pulled himself away—exulting in the feeling of his arms and legs rubbing against hers—and found his bathrobe. “Don’t move,” he said as he cinched it closed. “I’ll be right back.”
The banging continued, louder and more insistent. Jonas padded to the entryway as fast as he could.
“I’m coming. Just calm down . . .”
He moved to the door and opened it to find Victor standing on the other side. He was red faced, his nostrils flaring. His jaw was a coiled spring. “How could you?” he hissed. “How could you do this?”
“Victor?”
Victor shouldered his way past, letting himself inside. He was breathing heavy, his face ruddy and covered by a patina of sweat. “One of your TAs was talking about it,” he fumed. “She said you were close to a breakthrough.” He sounded as though he was still processing this, still straining to believe it. “That you were close to a mathematical proof of the existence of parallel worlds. Parallel worlds.” His tone was a mix of fury and accusation. “Tell me she’s wrong,” he demanded.
“Victor—”
“Tell me!” The room seemed to shake with the volume of his rage.
Jonas kept his tone level, locating a calm that surprised him under the circumstances. “I tried to show you my work a year ago,” he said.
“Your work?” Victor thundered. “Your work?”
“Victor—”
“You mean my work!” His furor was volcanic. Saliva flew from his mouth. Jonas feared he might be beyond reason, that his fury was homicidal. He imagined Amanda in the bedroom, reaching for her phone, dialing nine one one.
“Victor,” Jonas said, working to maintain his calm, “the idea of parallel universes—the Many Worlds Theory—that didn’t originate with you.”
“You knew I was working on a proof.” His finger jabbed at the air, barely missing Jonas’s nose.
“Yes. Yes, I did.” Jonas spread his hands wide, a gesture of conciliation and peace. “But you gave up on it.” Jonas struggled not to sound accusatory. “You let it go, Victor. But I was inspired. I had hoped we could work on it together—that’s why I showed you my calculations—but you rebuffed them, Victor. You were adamant about not revisiting a topic that had frustrated you. Which I completely understand,” he added, coating his tone in reason and empathy.
Victor paced, stalking the apartment, ready to strike. He gave no indication that he’d listened to a word of what Jonas just said. To the contrary, he seemed to be in a world of his own, all vitriol and ire. Jonas couldn’t believe it, but Victor had him genuinely afraid. In his mind, he willed for Amanda to call the police.
“I reviewed your equations,” Victor hissed in disgust. “It’s my work. Dressed up, but my work.”
“Victor,” Jonas started. His mind raced, desperate to find the right way of expressing himself. “I never saw your work. You told me about it, yes, but I never—whatever equations you reviewed, they were mine. And mine alone.”
Amanda quietly emerged from the bedroom. She clutched her bathrobe tight around her. Afraid. Unaccustomed to witnessing such naked anger.
