Writers of the Future, Volume 28 (12 page)

“Mr. Ward
?
”

A man in a tailored suit stood in the shade of the stall, holding a
cloth over his nose. Even across the world, I wasn’t safe from the leeches.

“Wait here a minute,” I said to Irene. She shrugged and continued
sifting through multihued bead necklaces.

I took the man out of earshot of my daughter.

“How the hell do you people find me
?
” I
asked, then held up my hands. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. What now
?
”

“Sir, I don’t think you—”

“Who do you work with
?
Is it
Renkoda
?
”

“I’m not from any company,” the man said.

“What do you mean
?
”

“I’m from the government,” he said, holding up a badge.
“You’ve been ordered to cease and desist.”

H
ow can they do this
?
”

My hand tightened around the glass of scotch, until I was sure it
would break. I didn’t care if it did. It was all I could do not to hurl the
glass at the wall.

Kensuke looked at me sympathetically across the kitchen counter.
He’d come as soon as I called with the news. It was strange, but he was really
the only friend I had left.

“This has to be against free speech or something,” I said.

“I’m afraid this is beyond freedom of speech.”

True enough. Even after the government required a permit for
ownership, it wasn’t a catchall. People seemed intent on polluting paradise:
secret drug factories, human trafficking, murder coverups. Just because pain
didn’t exist in the multiverse didn’t mean you couldn’t bring it in. I tried not
to think about the consequences of what I’d unleashed.

“You sound like you agree with them,” I said sullenly, staring into
my drink.

“I am only being rational, Jonathan-sama,” Kensuke said.

“This is because I turned down the Renkoda contract, isn’t it
?
They’re punishing me.”

“Whether Renkoda influenced the vote or not,” Kensuke said. “You did
the right thing. What you do is a gift and how you use it is up to you.”

“The government can’t stop me.”

“They can and they will. You are one of the most recognized faces in
the world. Continuing your work now would be foolish. You have a daughter to
think of.”

“I have a wife to think of!” I slammed my drink on the table with a
crack. “Or have you forgotten
?
”

“I have not,” Kensuke said, his expression unchanged.

I continued to drink, amber liquid leaking down my wrist.

“Dammit,” I said, standing woozily. I tripped and stumbled to the
ground. Staring into the grooves in the wood, all the fight went out of me.
Kensuke helped me to my room and I collapsed on the bed, eyes drooping.
“Goddammit,” I whispered.

Kensuke paused on his way out.

“God is the only hope you have left, my friend.”

M
y head pounded. I’d slept
through lunch and would have slept through dinner if not for the arrival of the
recursion doors I’d requested. I left the two photos covered and set them facing
each other in my study.

Irene passed the room, headphones on, miming her music. Noticing the
covered doors, she lowered the headphones and stuck her head in.

“What’s the deal with the doors
?
”

“Who said they’re doors
?
”

Irene gave me a withering look.

“I’m working on a project,” I said, choosing my words carefully.

Irene’s eyes narrowed. “You’re planning something without me, aren’t
you
?
”

I looked down, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry, Reenie. It’s too
dangerous.”

Reckless is what I didn’t say.

“I don’t care how dangerous it is. I want to go with you!”

“Irene . . .”

“Don’t do this to me!”

“Irene!”

She flinched and I instantly regretted my tone—but it had to be
done.

“This is not a discussion,” I said. “I will not risk your life on
top of everything else.”

“But it’s fine to risk yours
?
” Irene
said. Her face was nearly the color of her hair. “What if something happens to
you
?
Where does that leave me
?
”

There were tears in her eyes now and I forced myself to look at her.
I finally realized why she always begged to come along when I traveled, even
though she pretended to hate it. She’d already lost her mother and every time I
went away, she lost her father too. Suddenly, I doubted myself.

“Nothing is going to happen to me,” I forced myself to say.

Irene looked up and sniffed. “Promise me.”

I opened my mouth to promise her everything she wanted and more, but
I couldn’t.

“You can’t, can you
?
”

“You just have to trust me,” I said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“How can you possibly know what you’re doing
?
”

She had me there. I sighed. “Listen, I’m not going until tomorrow
morning. We’ll talk more then, okay
?
”

Her hug caught me by surprise. “I love you, Dad.”

It’d been a long time since she’d called me that. So why did I feel
like such a monster
?

“I love you too, Reenie.”

I sat in my study for a long time, staring at the covered recursion
doors. What a selfish asshole I’d been. Pretending to know how she felt, but
never being there for her. I’d traveled the world to save my wife, only to let
my daughter slip away. Marie would be ashamed.

There was my answer. I couldn’t risk it—not with Irene to
think of. I had sacrificed too much of our relationship already. I’d find my
wife, but it would have to be another way.

S
omething was wrong.

I jolted awake with a gasp, entangled in the sheets. Moonlight
flooded my room, bleaching everything bone white. A cool breeze blew in through
the window, but otherwise the night was quiet. I tried to fall back asleep, but
couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety.

Pulling on jeans, I padded down the hall to Irene’s room. It was
after midnight, but I swear the girl never slept. Still, I didn’t want to wake
her if I didn’t have to. She’d just think I was a crazy parent. I knocked
lightly and edged the door open, peering into the darkness.

“Irene
?
”

Panic seized me as I waited for my eyes to adjust and I flipped on
the lights. Her bed was empty.

I tore through the first floor, struggling to breathe as I called
for my daughter. She was gone. My heart caught in my throat and I felt my eyes
drawn to the floor above me.

Please, God, no.

I scrambled up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time and
burst into my study. I froze in horror.

“Oh, Irene. What have you done
?
”

The protective sheets had been torn from the opposing photos,
revealing the mirrored doors beneath. Facing as they were, they created an
endless hall in both directions.

I took a deep breath to calm myself, trying to slow the
pounding of my heart. She couldn’t have been gone long. Yanking on my shoes, I
inspected both doors. The one on the right still had a smudge from Irene’s
fingers. I wet my lips, pressed my hand against the door and stepped
through.

I
had brought the apocalypse to
paradise.

As I’d expected, the infinite recursion had created a path between
worlds, a sort of slipstream that enabled me to jump from one to another in a
single step. But something in that connection had destabilized the multiverse.
The pocket worlds were collapsing.

The ground trembled, quakes rolling beneath my feet in increasingly
powerful waves. Clouds twisted in the sky, bruise-colored serpents weaving
through the air as electrostatic discharge arced between them.

I stepped forward and my surroundings blurred, shifting to the next
world as I lurched forward. The sensation was similar to passing through a
recursion door, but multiplied tenfold. Even after all the doors I’d traveled,
the lurch was brutal. I blinked several times and shook my head.

The sky above fractured like glass, immense cracks spreading across
the firmament. Shards broke away, shattering upon the ground and leaving behind
an empty void.

I found Irene on the fifth step. She was outside the slipstream on
her hands and knees, throwing up. For someone who had never experienced the
lurch before, I was amazed she’d made it this far.

I left the slipstream and knelt beside her. Gravity was still
intact, but I could feel a vacuum forming. The surroundings were unaffected, but
the tug was unmistakable. The multiverse was reacting the only way it knew how:
like the immune system, it was rejecting foreign objects. It was trying to pull
us out.

The sun, an ominous shade of crimson, flickered in the broken sky
like a dying light bulb. I put an arm around Irene, as much to comfort her as to
keep her from drifting from our position.

“I’m . . . sorry,” she said, breathless like she’d run a
marathon.

Something struck me: she could feel pain.

“I know,” I said, helping her to her feet. “This is my fault. I let
my drive to find your mother interfere with being your father. I’m sorry,
Reenie.”

She nodded weakly, wiping at her mouth.

“I have to take you back.”

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

The fierceness in her eyes made me proud, but I knew she couldn’t
make it much farther in her condition.

“Please, Irene. Do this for me.”

Irene closed her eyes and, after a moment, she nodded. I let out a
sigh of relief and helped her into the slipstream. Five steps and we were back
in my study.

She stumbled woozily as I helped her to the couch, covering her in a
blanket. I glanced over my shoulder at the still open slipstream.

“Go,” Irene said. “Bring Mom home.”

I hesitated, then nodded and kissed her on the forehead.

Stepping into the slipstream, I was instantly thrown to my back as
another quake rocked the multiverse. A rift split the world, sending a
snow-capped peak tumbling down the side of a mountain. Fighting off a wave of
nausea, I pushed myself up and stepped again. I had to go farther, faster.

Every step was a gale force now, skin and muscle pressing against my
bones. It felt like being hit by a tidal wave over and over again. My nose
dripped and I wiped it away, hand coming back with a bright red smear.

I ignored it and pushed on, surveying the passing worlds in a
glance. One hundred, three hundred, five hundred, the worlds whirred by like a
slideshow on fast-forward. I’d know our world when I saw it. Wouldn’t I
?

Dread twisted around my heart. The thing I feared most crept from
its hiding place: what if our world was gone
?
What
if the fire had destroyed not just the door, but the world itself
?
What if Marie . . . no. I gritted my teeth and
forced the thoughts away. I’d traveled too long and too far to end like
this.

I stopped suddenly, taking a step back. I almost didn’t recognize
it. Quakes had devastated the majestic landscape and the vibrant azure sky was
half missing, but it was our world. I’d finally found it.

I pulled myself from the slipstream and leapt into the chaos,
screaming Marie’s name. A canyon-sized chunk of sky broke away, crashing upon
the mountains and scattering to dust. As if on cue, the rain started, torrents
pouring from the jigsaw sky wherever there was sky left to pour from.

Our world lacked a door, so the vacuum I sensed earlier was absent,
yet I felt strangely pulled. I didn’t realize where I was running, until I was
already there. The massive waterfall still flowed, pounding down the mile-high
cliff face. My head whipped back and forth, body barely in control as I scanned
the clearing.

Then I saw her.

She lay in a heap by the lake, her bare feet in the sand as water
lapped against them. Broken pieces of sky lay around her and a gash on her
forehead trickled blood into her red hair. I ran to her side, taking her head in
my arms.

“Marie—Marie!”

I pressed my ear to her chest. Thank God, a heartbeat.

Lightning forked to the ground in the distance and the rumble of
thunder rattled the world. Gravity was failing, pebbles, shells and bits of
broken sky lifting from the beach and floating around us. There wasn’t much
time.

I picked Marie up, cradling her in my arms, and started back. Even
in the dying gravity, my legs trembled, strangely weak. I wasn’t used to feeling
pain here.

The world quaked and burned and fell to pieces around us, but I
barely noticed. I had her back and we weren’t going to die now. We reached the
slipstream and I took one last look back at paradise. Marie groaned and her eyes
fluttered open.

Tears welled in my eyes as I watched her wake. She looked at me as
if stirring from a dream, but a moment later recognition dawned in her eyes.

“Jonathan,” she said, smiling weakly. “What took you so long
?
”

“We’re going home, Marie.”

She closed her eyes and a tear slid down her cheek. “I’d
like that.”

G
etting back was an
eternity.

Hundreds of steps felt like a hundred thousand. I clutched Marie to
my chest, shielding her as best I could from the effects of lurch. The strain
was enormous, but I forced my legs to move and my lungs to breathe. The
slipstream crumbled around us, barely holding together.

And then eternity ended and we were in the study once more. I
staggered as gravity reapplied itself, carefully lowering Marie to the floor.
She took her sleeve—pristine even after all this time—and delicately wiped the
blood from my nose.

Irene had fallen asleep on the couch waiting for us, but now she
woke, rubbing her eyes.