“Quite an interesting approach,” Gillard observes. “I was curious why you didn’t simply make a formal request to CERN—a physicist of your renown—but then I was informed that you’d made six petitions in the past two years.” Gillard pushes the file toward the center of the table like a poker player cashing out. “All of which were declined.”
Once again, Jonas says nothing. When your life is over, he has discovered, you have all the time in the world.
“Well,” Gillard continues, “you certainly managed to come up with an unconventional solution to your problem. One can’t help but ask,” he adds delicately, “if this is somehow related to your wife’s passing.”
Jonas reacts, surprised that Gillard would know about Amanda. For some reason that he now knows was unfounded, he hadn’t expected the French authorities to know about Amanda’s death.
This must be evident from Jonas’s expression, because Gillard raises an incredulous eyebrow. “Do you imagine I wouldn’t at least google you before walking in here?”
A fair point. Jonas finds himself liking Gillard, despite the situation, which places them in a naturally adversarial relationship. Initially, he had no intention of explaining himself, but now he sees no reason not to be forthcoming. “I was trying to get to her.”
“Excuse me?”
“It wasn’t an experiment,” Jonas insists. “I was trying to get to her. To Amanda. To be with her.”
Gillard blanches. Jonas watches him shift uncomfortably in his seat. He knows what the inspector must be thinking: the man thought he was interrogating a renowned scientist but is now starting to consider the possibility that Jonas has some kind of mental illness. Gillard speaks slowly, choosing his words with some delicacy. “Dr. Cullen . . .” He pauses, searching for the right phrase. “Your wife is dead.”
Jonas remains patient. He knows this is a difficult concept for anyone to grasp. “She’s dead in this world. But there are others. A near-infinite number.” Gillard still seems confused, so he adds, “I was trying to get to one—a parallel universe—where she survives. A reality where she’s still alive.”
Gillard’s reaction is barely perceptible. Jonas can see it’s taking all the man’s effort to hide his distrust and skepticism. “All right, Doctor,” Gillard says. “We’re in contact with your embassy. As you can imagine, this incident presents a number of diplomatic complexities.” An understatement. The inspector is droning on—“You’ll be transferred to a holding cell, pending your arraignment . . .”—when Jonas first sees it.
Gillard’s military watch. Numbers orbit the center: 1, 2, 4, 3, 5, 6 . . . counting up to 12.
The sight jolts Jonas like a subway’s third rail.
The 4 and 3 . . . are transposed.
Jonas shakes his head. Blinks. The 4 and 3 remain swapped. He reminds himself that he was struck in the head with a rifle. He’s concussed. He’s not thinking strai—
But wait.
Gillard’s file, still open on the table. From Jonas’s vantage, the papers are upside down, but he can make out strange symbols where familiar vowels like “A” and “I” should be. Hope sparks. He tamps it down, preventing his mind from racing like it wants to, forbidding it from grasping at that tiny spit of hope. Such anomalies are replete with possible explanations, particularly in a foreign country.
“Doctor?” Gillard asks, sensing that he no longer has Jonas’s attention.
In the end, the answer is right in front of him: a French flag pin on Gillard’s left breast. The flag is the familiar “Tricolore,” a vertical banding of three colors. Blue. White. But green has replaced red. Jonas supposes this could be some eccentricity of design, but the instances are starting to multiply, defying coincidence.
Jonas grabs the folder, flipping it closed to reveal the French flag emblazoned on its cover. The same flag. Blue and white and green.
Somewhere, Gillard is protesting the manhandling of his official file, but Jonas can’t hear him. His mind is racing too fast now. He checks his hand and confirms the absence of his ring. He fights off a swell of panic. His eyes ricochet between the swapped numbers on Gillard’s watch, the altered flag on his uniform, and the strange letters in the file. Together, they form a mosaic of possibility, circumstantial evidence of what, just a few minutes ago, Jonas thought was impossible.
He dives over the table. He moves fast, knowing that surprise is the only chance he has. His body skids across the table’s metallic surface, sending the file folder pinwheeling away. Inertia throws him into the inspector, and gravity sends both men crashing toward the concrete floor. Gillard is thrashing, trying to throw Jonas off him and yelling in French. Jonas doesn’t listen. He grasps at the holster around Gillard’s waist, fingers snatching forth to unsnap the leather thumb break. In response, Gillard’s struggling becomes twice as fierce. The butt of his hand rockets up, striking Jonas’s nose, aggravating the earlier injury and making him see stars. Jonas recoils, staggering to his feet. With one hand, he smears away the blood gushing from his nose into his mouth.
His other hand holds Gillard’s gun.
It feels solid in Jonas’s grip, like the Glock he trained with. Whatever the make, its operation is similar enough that Jonas can thumb its safety off. Gillard flashes surprise when he hears the click. If he’d hoped that Jonas wouldn’t know his way around a firearm, that consolation evaporates.
“Dr. Cullen,” he says with surprising calm, given the circumstances. “Don’t do this.”
Jonas ignores the directive, pulling Gillard to his feet. His rapid heartbeat counts the seconds, and he knows he’s running out of minutes. In fact, it’s astonishingly lucky that he’s not dead—or worse—yet.
“Get up,” Jonas orders. “I don’t have a lot of time.”
“Doctor, calm down—”
“I’m the picture of calm,” Jonas says. He manhandles Gillard to the door, digging the barrel of the gun into the man’s back. He tells Gillard to open the holding cell. The gun is very persuasive. As the door opens, Jonas wraps one arm in front of Gillard, pressing the gun to the inspector’s temple with the other. They fall out of the room, entwined like lovers caught in some perverse dance.
The police and support staff in the hallway react immediately to the sight of one of their own taken hostage. Guns are drawn. Commands are barked in English and French. But Jonas hisses in Gillard’s ear. “When I was brought in, I had a ring on my left hand. Where is it?”
“We can work this out,” Gillard says, using the magic phrase taught in hostage-negotiation courses. He evidently isn’t aware that this is not a negotiation.
“I need that ring.”
A Klaxon starts to wail in the distance.
“I can get it for you,” Gillard says, still trying to bargain. “But you need to be reasonable. You’re an intelligent man. You have to know that you’re suffering some kind of breakdown.”
“The ring has no sentimental value. The Large Hadron Collider untethered me from my reality, and I slipped into yours.”
“At least we can agree you’re untethered from reality,” Gillard observes.
But Gillard doesn’t understand. How could he?
Then, a miracle. A nearby door, with a placard identifying it as SÉQUESTRE DES PREUVES. Jonas again knows hope. He nudges Gillard toward the door, the surrounding cops parting in front of them.
“Open it,” Jonas instructs.
“You’re going to get yourself hurt, Doctor . . .”
