Other Jonas taps his calculations with his pen. “If my math is right—which it is—you can untether yourself only two more times before you’re permanently stranded in whatever universe you end up in.”
“Only two more times,” Jonas breathes.
“And then you lose the ability to slip realities. Permanently.”
“Why? Why only two times?” Jonas demands.
“I told you: Your tether is leaking quantum radiation. It’s like a battery.” Other Jonas shrugs. “Batteries wear out.”
Jonas forces himself to accept the reality of this. “You said that was only part of the problem . . .”
“Yes. Before you lose the ability to reality-slip, you have to make sure that whichever reality you end up in has a particle collider.”
“Why?”
Other Jonas heaves a heavy sigh, as though explaining this to a child. “Because by that point you’ll only have one reality-slip left. Two minus one is one, right? You’ll be down to one last untethering, and you’re not going to want to waste it.” Jonas shoots him a look. Elaborate. “Right now, every cell in your body is working to expel the quantum radiation you’ve loaded them up with. Moving between realities speeds up that process. Remember the battery? You can’t replace it, but you can give it one last—brief—jolt by topping it off.”
“With a particle collider.”
Other Jonas applauds and points to another corner of the wall, jabbing his finger in the direction of more equations. “And to risk butchering this analogy, you’re going to want to be very specific about the type of electricity you use for the top-off.”
Jonas turns to the equations, the theoretical physics memorialized there. “You’re saying I need to recalibrate what remains of the quantum energy in my cells with radiation of the correct wavelength to send me to the reality where Amanda is.”
“The last time you reality-slip, yes,” Other Jonas confirms. “But I think my battery analogy is more elegant.” He swats the idea away. “Point is, you need a battery charger in the form of a particle collider.”
Jonas points back to the baseboard with Other Jonas’s formula for the third universe. “And to calibrate the collider based on those calculations.”
“He finally gets it,” Other Jonas notes, fatigued.
“Not entirely. Why can’t I just save myself a reality-slip? Why not just use a particle collider in this universe?”
Other Jonas gives a chuckle that sounds like radio static. He works his way over to a section of the wall where a newspaper article is taped. He takes it down and hands it to Jonas.
Jonas scans the article. Another gut punch. “They shut down CERN,” he gasps. “What about—”
“Other accelerators? Keep reading.”
Jonas does. In this universe, the Large Hadron Collider was the last particle collider to be decommissioned. In this universe, an accident at New York’s Brookhaven National Laboratory killed thousands, leading to global protests—most fueled by the religious notion that smashing protons together was the exclusive province of the divine—which ultimately resulted in shutting down the world’s thirty thousand particle colliders.
“That’s madness,” Jonas hisses.
“What, there are no moral panics in the universe where you come from?” Other Jonas cannot keep the disgust from his voice. “This universe positively exults in them. The point is, you have two choices: break into one of the decommissioned accelerators and try to start it back up—which, having tried it, I really wouldn’t recommend—or reality-slip again and hope for a more scientifically tolerant universe.”
Hope. Jonas’s thoughts lurch once again in its direction. With renewed urgency, he snatches the paper and pen from his counterpart’s hands and returns to the baseboard, scribbling formulae with a fury. Anticipation wells up within him with each stroke. Perhaps his doppelgänger’s mania is contagious.
As Jonas writes, he hears Other Jonas cautioning, “All that being said . . . and I say this knowing what you promised yourself—what we promised ourselves—you should consider the fact that the energy dissipation, the ticking clock, the fact that every collider has been mothballed in this reality . . .”
“Means what?”
“That you can’t swim against the tide of the universe.”
The pen nearly breaks under Jonas’s hand. Once again he feels the sensation of someone stepping on his grave. “What?”
“I said, ‘You can’t swim against the tide of the universe.’”
“I knew a woman who said that exact same thing to me once.”
“Eva Stamper.” Jonas reacts, surprised to hear that name. “I guess we’ve both met her in our travels,” Other Jonas muses. “Interesting.”
“‘The universe favors certain outcomes.’”
Now it’s Other Jonas who regards his twin with pity. “Reality-slip yourself home,” he implores. “Before the quantum energy leaves your body forever. And if you can’t find home, find somewhere livable, and do what I never could.”
“And what’s that?”
“Move on.”
Jonas shakes his head. His other self may as well have suggested that he learn to fly. “You know us both better than that.”
Other Jonas, his face full of condolence, pads over to the nightstand and places a reverent hand on the stack of papers chronicling the slow destruction of Jonas Prime’s life. “The only thing I know anymore is what we do once hope is lost.”
“That’s why I don’t lose hope,” Jonas says. His voice is iron. He folds the paper and slips it into his pocket. The sensation of it against his leg brings comfort. “I’m sorry I can’t stay to—” He searches for the right words. “To help you.”
With that, he turns away. It’s hard to leave him in this squalor, flirting with madness, a dead body rotting away beneath his feet. But Jonas doesn’t have a choice. His crusade requires complete devotion. He’s almost out the door when he feels Other Jonas’s grip on his shoulder.
“And what do you do if you can’t find Amanda? What do you do when the effect wears off and you’re trapped in a reality without her?”
“Then I kill myself and be with her that way.” But both men know that’s not how true love works. That Jonas is giving voice to his grief, not his soul, which knows better, which knows he needs help. That part of him—crying for aid—slips from his counterpart’s grip and out of the apartment. He hears the door close behind him and wills himself forward with the same admonishment he’s repeated countless times over the past two years.
