33 
WHAT THE HASH/HAZE IS GOING ON
THEY ENDED UP CUFFING ELIOT TO one of the wardrobe pipes—though there was no need. Her exhaustion had scraped through to her soul, her resolve as fleeting as the blaster’s laser. The Multiverse Bureau’s directive haunted her interface, reminding Eliot she could take back the gun, quite easily, but her limbs refused to move. She just didn’t have this killing in her.
Not anymore.
Not yet.
Eliot almost didn’t recognize her hologram self; the girl in the datastream had a bounce to her steps as she walked to Headmaster Marin’s office—unaware that life as she knew it would soon be over, in five steps, four, three, two, one….
SUBJECT ZERO
MAY 8, 2371 AD
Security footage switches from the Academy’s hallway to Headmaster Marin’s office. The door opens and Eliot McCarthy enters. At the sight of her mother seated by the desk, she halts. A shadow settles on her face.
Eliot: Mom? What are you doing here?
Headmaster Marin: At the Academy you’re to refer to her as Instructor McCarthy. [gestures toward an empty chair] Have a seat, Cadet McCarthy.
Eliot starts for the chair, pausing when she notices the second man, dressed not in a Corps uniform but in plain clothes, seated across the room. His is a face crowded with life’s little annoyances. The porkpie hat on his head is either his prized possession or his clumsiest afterthought.
Eliot: Who’s this?
The man’s only way of introduction is a lift of his jacket, a flash of something gold. The security camera can’t capture the details, but Eliot’s nostrils flare at the sight. Something’s wrong, and she knows it.
Headmaster Marin: [more forcefully] Have a seat, Cadet McCarthy.
Empra: It’s all right, Eliot.
Headmaster Marin coughs in a nonrespiratory manner. Empra’s smile frays.
Empra: It’s all right, Cadet McCarthy.
Eliot: [takes a seat] What’s going on? Did something happen with my final exam Sim?
Headmaster Marin: Your final exam Sim results are beyond reproach. The licensing board was overwhelmingly pleased. There was even talk of sending you on a mission to the real Versailles—
Eliot: That’s all I’ve ever wanted.
Headmaster Marin: Do not interrupt me while I’m speaking, Cadet. I’d take marks for it, but there’d be no point in my doing so. While the results of your final exam were extraordinary, different results have brought you into this office today. Your physical examination threw up some flags with the Multiverse Bureau. Their very own Agent August Ackerman is here to escort you to their facilities for further tests.
Eliot: Tests? What kind of tests?
Headmaster Marin: They wouldn’t deign to say. Typical cloak-and-dagger red-tape nonsense.
Agent Ackerman: The Multiverse Bureau, unlike the Corps of Central Time Travelers, actually adheres to the guidelines it sets. We keep our classified information classified.
Headmaster Marin: I’ll have you know that this universe’s Corps hasn’t created a single pivot point—
Agent Ackerman: Yet. It’s only a matter of time with you lot.
Eliot: But what about graduation? What about my Corps assignment?
Empra: The Corps has agreed to keep a position open for you.
Eliot: But, Mom—
Headmaster Marin: [coughs] Instructor McCarthy.
Both women ignore him.
Eliot: I can’t just drop everything and leave. Solara’s been planning my graduation party for months.
Empra: Wait, you know about that? It’s supposed to be a surprise.
Eliot: Your niece is dash at keeping secrets.
Headmaster Marin: Cadet McCarthy, I have to insist that you keep your language civil in this office.
Agent Ackerman: This isn’t a request. This is an order from the Bureau’s highest levels, a matter of multiversal security.
Eliot: How can I be a security threat to multiple universes? I’ve never even stepped outside this one!
Headmaster Marin: No one’s saying you’re a threat, Cadet McCarthy. Once the Bureau is finished with this little power game, you’ll be back under our jurisdiction and out on assignment before you know it. For now, please hand over your practice Sim pass and campus credentials.
Eliot looks at her mother. Empra tries to tamp down her frown. There’s nothing either of them can do.
Empra: Everything’s going to be fine, Eliot. Solara will understand. We’ll celebrate once all of this is over. I promise.
SUBJECT ZERO
MAY 10, 2371 AD
More security footage. Different building.
The lab is white—most of its surfaces flat. As seen through the hologram, it resembles a paper pop-up greeting card, something to be tucked away in a junk box after reading. Eliot looks fragile, too, elbows one degree from crumpling as she props herself up on the examination table. Her pale medical gown blends into pale skin, pale walls. When the scientist makes his entrance, he has to use Eliot’s eyebrows as a reference point. August Ackerman steps in after him—the charcoal fabric of the Bureau agent’s hat becomes the darkest thing in the room.
“Do you know what we do here, Cadet McCarthy?” the scientist asks.
“Aside from giving people frostbite on their arses?” Eliot’s lips quirk, a premonition of many smirks to come.
“That kind of talk might fly in the Corps, sweetheart, but you’re dealing with the Bureau now.” The feathers in Agent Ackerman’s hat quiver when he speaks: red, partridge, pissed. “Show some respect!”
“Ik laat een scheet in jouw richting,” Eliot mutters loud enough for everyone’s translation tech to register—here and then. The phrase is Dutch for “I fart in your direction.”
“Listen here—”
“Agent Ackerman,” the scientist intervenes. “I think it best if I handle this exchange. Why don’t you wait outside?”
“I’m this girl’s official handler.” Agent Ackerman crosses his arms. “I should be present for the briefing.”
“Yes, but this conversation requires some bedside manner. You can watch over the security feeds if you want. I assure you none of your superiors in MB+251418881HTP8 will take issue with it.”
The Bureau agent considers this—protocol tick-tocking through his thoughts, behind his flushing face. “Fine. I’ll be in the security office if you need me.”
Breathing becomes easier, the air ten times lighter, when he leaves. Both Eliot and the scientist take advantage of this levity—filling their lungs, sighing. Hers sounds relieved. His pushes back at something.
“Bedside manner?” Eliot asks. “Am I dying?”
“Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.”
“What do you do here?” Eliot sighs again. “Let’s see. The Multiverse Bureau is a cross-universal organization that dedicates itself to maintaining balance in the multiverse through interdimensional communication, observation, and travel. The branch in our own universe—MB+178587977FLT6—opened up after Dr. Marcelo Ramírez discovered the key to communicating with alternate realities over a quarter century ago.”
“Quite the textbook answer.”
“Still counts.” Eliot looks around the room, blank as fresh snow, made of few dimensions. There are eyesight charts on the wall—letters from the Roman alphabet alongside characters that did not originate on this earth. Her shoulders peak at the sight. “Level with me, Doc. I’ve been scanned left and right, up and down. What’s wrong with me?”
“With you? Nothing.” The scientist scratches at days-old stubble. All he needs is a cup of black coffee and the emergency deadline look will be complete. “The name’s Dr. Ramírez, by the way.”
“Ramírez?” Eliot straightens. “As in Marcelo Ramírez, the head of this Bureau branch and brainiac of the centuries?”
“The one and only—” Dr. Ramírez catches himself. “In this universe, at least. I’ve met a few of my alternates and they’re all very smart, though I suppose that’s conceited to acknowledge.”
“Alternates? You mean other yous? Other Dr. Marcelo Ramírezes out in the multiverse?”
“Not all of them are named Marcelo. There’s Maricella—she’s in universe MB+318291745FLT6, as well as MB+318291747FLT6. In several universes, I go by Mache. The bloke in MB+143927121FLT6 struck the jackpot in our DNA pool and got all the looks.”
“How many alternates are there?” Eliot’s head tilts, dizzy with numbers. “How many universes are there?”
“Unknowable alternates and infinite universes,” the scientist says. “The Multiverse Bureau does its best to catalog the worlds, but the task is, by its very nature, endless. They cannot be counted, and yet we keep counting.”
“Tell me, in some of these endless universes, are there other Eliot McCarthys currently attending their Academy graduation, not sprouting icicles from their arsecheeks?”
“No one’s forcing you to sit on that table, Cadet McCarthy. If your posterior is so cold, feel free to remove it from the offending surface.”
“Can I remove myself from this building? My cousin’s throwing a party, you see—big bash. She already put a deposit down on enough gelato to sculpt a snowman. Solara’s freezer isn’t big enough to store it all and it’d be a travesty to let it melt.”
Dr. Ramírez vises his head in his fingers. His sigh is a puzzle box—irritable edge, sleepless fears, something bleak inside waiting to be unlocked. “You do have other alternates in other universes. Everyone does. Some of them are probably attending their Academy graduation, and one of them is the reason you’re here.”
Painted eyebrows clash with each other. Eliot says nothing.
“To the best of our knowledge, the multiverse is infinite. As I said before, the Bureau tries its best to categorize all the universes we’ve been able to map. The worlds in our universe’s grouping—FLT6—are the ones that most closely mirror our own. We share basic biology, geography, and languages. There’s an entire gradient of common histories and alternate selves through this series. Naturally, it’s the universes that most closely parallel the timeline of our own that hold our alternates. Family trees have to match down to the parents’ DNA.”
The breadth of Dr. Ramírez’s explanation—universes upon universes through universes—adds a new layer to the lab, something palpable. This depth reaches through the hologram, so that even the listeners aboard the Invictus shudder.
“The Bureau has been studying the multiverse for an untold number of collective years. So much of it’s beyond our comprehension, but the discoveries we have made…” Dr. Ramírez trails off. “You learned about ecosystems in school, yes?”
Eliot nods. “It’s all they teach after the bee fiasco. Symbiosis. The web of life. Everything on Earth is connected, and a single change can wreak massive consequences, et cetera.”
“Exactly. The same holds true in the multiverse. We’re linked to other universes in ways we never could’ve predicted, connections that transcend dimension. As a Corps cadet, I’m sure you’re familiar with the immutability threshold. If a time traveler eats an apple in the past, the world goes on undisturbed. But time can only self-correct to a certain point. If the interference is large enough, a pivot point is created; a new universe with an alternate future is born.”
“Our mistakes screw up your filing system?” Eliot concludes. “No wonder the Bureau hates the Corps.”
“That’s one reason for our organizational animosity, yes. But my point is that the multiverse is interconnected. It’s the web of life on a massive scale, all of us tied to other lives through common strings. Do you understand?”
“Um…” Eliot’s shoulders jut even higher. “Sure?”
“You’re here because there’s an aberration in your string.”
“A what in my what?”
“One of your alternates has triggered a cataclysmic event.” Dr. Ramírez’s hands fall to his side. “We’ve been receiving reports from other FLT6 Bureau branches of a force that annihilates everything in its path, including time and space.”
“Like antimatter?”
“Antimatter annihilates, yes, but it releases energy when the matter disappears. This is different. It’s… nothing. Creation reversed. We call it the Fade. This decay has been attacking universes, eating their timelines until there’s no future to move forward to.”
“How long has this been going on?”
“It’s impossible to know. The first documentation of this decay was a decade ago, a few spots in universe MB+110249100FLT6. But the Fade is amnesiatic in nature—it not only destroys moments, but people’s memories of those moments—so it’s possibly existed for far longer without anyone remembering they encountered it. We’ve been studying it, carefully, for several years: tracking its growth, taking readings, recording the Fade’s varying effects on people in its path. Three days ago, something caused the decay to metastasize. Universe MB+110249100FLT6 has unraveled from existence and would’ve been forgotten if we hadn’t kept such diligent digital records of it. Universe MB+110249101FLT6 has an entire decade missing, and MB+110249102FLT6 is also showing signs of erasure. Worlds are meeting their end. The Multiverse Bureau has declared a state of emergency.”
It’s hard to tell how much of the explanation Eliot has taken in—she’s alabaster still, made motionless by the weight of it all. “You said my alternate triggered it. How? How would you know something like that?”
“There’s a pattern to the Fade’s decay. Only certain universes in the FLT6 category are being eroded, and the deterioration has a cutoff date. Everything that takes place after April eighteenth, 2354, falls apart.”
“My birthday…”
The scientist nods. “We’re dealing with a reactive force. Are you familiar with how antibodies function?”
“Yes.” Eliot taps her hairless head. “And how they malfunction.”
Dr. Ramírez goes on to explain anyway. “There are over a trillion antibodies in the human body, each one designed to deal with a specific threat. Whenever a foreign antigen enters our systems, the corresponding antibody responds by attacking what doesn’t belong. It’s a lock-and-key system, built as a safeguard to protect our bodies. We believe the decay is acting in a similar manner. Through our studies this past decade we’ve noticed that the Fade emits a very specific charge, or signature if you will, before it unravels matter. Something—or someone—is calling it.
“We’ve reverse-engineered the lock to the decay’s key and developed a way to scan for it. Since the state of emergency was declared, the FLT6 Bureau branches have been combing their worlds for signs of the Fade’s countersignature. Children born on April eighteenth, 2354, were a logical point of interest. Your alternate in MB+136613209FLT6 was flagged first. McCarthys throughout the multiverse have been brought to their branches for testing.”
“So you’ve been scanning me for this countersignature?” Eliot asks.
“Yes,” Dr. Ramírez tells her. “You have it. Partially. All of your alternates are emitting the countersignature in varying concentrations. Every universe the Fade has eroded thus far holds one of your alternates, each with a consecutively stronger countersignature. The distribution pattern suggests an echo, a bread crumb trail for the decay to follow until it reaches the source. The way a spider follows the vibrations of its web to secure its prey.”
“Spiders. Webs. Locks. Key. Antibodies. Ecosystems. For a scientist, you sure enjoy your metaphors….” Eliot sits up straight: shoulders flat, elbows locked. “Are you going to kill me?”
“Kill you?” The scientist scratches his jaw again. “Why would I do that?”
“If the web is shuddering, why not just cut the string?” Eliot makes a snipping motion with her fingers. “Not that I’m endorsing my demise, but if I’m a walking beacon for some cosmic antibody…”
“That’s where the metaphor falls apart,” Dr. Ramírez admits. “You aren’t the source of the countersignature. Your death won’t stop the Fade—only the neutralization of the catalyst might do that.”
“Might?”
“Nothing like this has ever happened before. Everything from here on out is theoretical…. But if we can find the catalyst and neutralize her—or him—first, then it’s possible we’ll be able to halt the Fade’s progress and protect the universes between. Including ours. None of the branches’ scans have come back with a complete countersignature, which leads us to believe the subject we’re searching for—the epicenter of all this—dwells in an MB-negative universe. One where the Bureau doesn’t yet exist. As you might imagine, this presents complications. There’s a portable scanning process, but the readings take longer than those with the lab instruments. Plus, the subject has to be within a hundred meters for the scan to work.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” The table shimmers as Eliot shifts her weight. “Don’t you have schools of interdimensional travelers who can skip universes on command?”
“Universes, yes. Time is a different beast. Seeing as many of your alternates are time travelers, it’s best for us to cover our bases with an operative who can navigate both. The scan won’t work if we can’t keep up.”
“You—you want me to conduct the scans.” The realization sinks in, carving deeper marks into every corner of Eliot’s face. “But I don’t know the first thing about world-hopping.”
“It’s easier for time travelers to pick up interdimensional travel than vice versa. Similar mechanics, different contexts. Traveling through time requires historical finesse, and thus years of training, which you’ve already had. The world-hopping tech is similar to the Corps’ solo-jump equipment—only you’re traveling sideways instead of backward. We’ve no doubt that you’ll be able to adapt to the terrains of this mission. They are other versions of your life, after all,” Dr. Ramírez tells her.
“How many versions? You just told me that the number of universes is infinite. That’s more than a Hail Maria or haystack-needle odds….”
“We’ve narrowed the epicenter’s search window by projecting a path using various strengths of the countersignature in each alternate. There are 3,526 worlds most likely to host the catalyst.”
Eliot considers this number. “Better than infinite, I guess.”
“You won’t be the only you searching. We’ve divided the window into manageable sectors, a few dozen universes each. You’re to scour your assigned worlds, scan your alternates as discreetly as possible, and—in the event that you find the catalyst—neutralize them.”
“Neutralize. As in…?” Eliot blanches, making scissors of her fingers again.
Dr. Ramírez hesitates. “If there’s a string that needs to be cut, it is the catalyst.”
Murder is as cold as the room. Eliot shivers—white—into it. Her hand drops.
“And if I fail?”
“Annihilation,” the scientist says simply. “Your cousin’s gelato will have to melt, Cadet McCarthy. You have worlds to save.”
SUBJECT ZERO
MAY 15, 2371 AD
Eliot stares down the camera, no trace of smile left. She looks tougher than she did in the lab—less likely to tear, more ready to do the ripping. “My name is Eliot Gaia McCarthy. I’m recording this message for myself in the event that the Fade reaches my universe—MB+178587977FLT6—before the mission is completed.”
Her flinch is understandable. She’s talking about the destruction of everything she’s ever known.
“If you see the decay, jump through time immediately. The Fade is running along a timeline parallel to your own, but as long as your present doesn’t collide with the decay’s present, you will continue to exist. Your memories won’t be so fortunate. The Multiverse Bureau has equipped you with recording tech that preserves moments even after they’ve been erased by the Fade. It’s imperative to your mission that you record everything you see so no essential knowledge is lost. Knowing what you’ve forgotten will also help you track the Fade’s growth and—hopefully—stay ahead of it. Your interface, Vera, will remind you to file these feeds every twenty-four hours. You have three types of jump equipment: interdimensional, time, and teleportation. All three of them are linked into Vera’s systems and can be controlled via voice. Your handler for this mission is Agent August Ackerman. He’ll be monitoring your progress from universe MB+251418881HTP8 and dropping in from time to time. Beware: He’s a complete arse. His sexism is pointedly ancient, despite his disdain for time travel. Protocol is his Achilles’ heel, so if he starts giving you grief about something, just mention his superiors in HTP8. Your mission directives are stored in Vera’s systems, so I’m not going to waste time going over all of them here….”
There’s a pause.
“This mission won’t be easy. It’s long and solitary, with terrifying consequences and possibly no reward. Mom, Strom, Solara, entire universes of people are depending on you, Eliot.” She stares at herself, at all of her selves—future and alternate, despairing and dumbfounded—through the lens. It’s a warpath gaze, blazing across time, beyond dimensions. “Make it count.”
Files played on, compact lives lived again in the Invictus’s common area, all meticulously labeled with subject numbers and time stamps—a system made even more essential with hindsight. Eliot had organic memories left, but after seven alternates with seven lives alongside seven sets of friends in seven sets of universes, they began blending together. Was it Subject Three or Subject Five who named their time machine Icarus? Which one had tilted teeth? The cousin named Maribel? It was such a snarl of details—shared histories, subtle differences—made all the more indistinguishable by Fade-induced amnesia. The early lives were moth-eaten blankets—frayed at the edges, gone where it counted. Holes, gaps, holes. No matter how hard Eliot tried, she couldn’t place herself back in Dr. Ramírez’s lab. Had the examination table really been that cold? What had it felt like, before all those metaphors of his sank in, took root? Before she realized she had to scour dozens of universes to kill her other self?
It was a learning curve—diagonal travel, across universes, along timelines, all over the map. Subject One was already on a CTM crew when Eliot landed in her world. Tailing her—through the streets of 2152 New York, medieval castle corridors, the redwood forests of pre-colonized North America—while staying inside the countersignature scanner’s operating radius had taken far too long. By the time Eliot realized Subject One wasn’t a match, she’d lost months—months the Fade had used to creep from world to world.
Eliot wasn’t just racing against time, but the ruination of it. Every moment spent searching for the catalyst meant the destruction of another. She had to pick up the pace of her observation, which meant that she had to get close to her subject, far closer than the Corps’ MO would ever allow. As long as her alternates were traveling through history in an official capacity, she wouldn’t be able to obtain speedy reads on them without getting arrested by the institution she’d trained her entire life to serve.
And so Eliot was forced to do what every instructor had warned her against: Change the course of history. She suspected the Bureau wouldn’t be too pleased with the idea, either— sowing pivot points, growing fresh universes as casually as garden tomatoes—but this was the apocalypse they were talking about. Best-case scenario: She’d find the catalyst quickly, neutralize the original and any spin-offs. At worst, she was creating more fodder for the Fade.
Altering her alternates’ timelines was a process of trial and error. The natural starting point? Corrupting their final exam Sim. It was Versailles—it was always Versailles: pastel gowns, mercury mirrors, evening gardens in bloom—and with a bit of quick-coding and alt-tech, Eliot was able to project herself into the Sim’s programming. One blown kiss from a Tier Three mark queen and her alternates’ time-traveling futures would be ruined.
But time pushed back, where Subject Two was concerned, self-correcting in the form of Empra, who intervened on her child’s behalf. Her rank in the Corps caused them to overlook the final exam Sim. Back to square one, version two. More months were spent chasing Subject Two through history, trying to avoid Corps detection. An unsustainable pace.
No match found. On to the next life.
Subject Three. Eliot started even further back. Dr. Ramírez had warned her against scanning alternates outside of a present parallel to her own, since doing so might skew the results, leading to unnecessary neutralization or a skipped catalyst. She lingered in Subject Three’s past just long enough to ruin it, sabotaging what would become the Ab Aeterno’s final mission. Altering the nav system and stealing the extra fuel rods meant that Empra’s ship landed a few centuries off course, with no way back to Central and no chance of rescue. Making her own mother a castaway in history was a heartless move: palatable only through necessity. Eliot promised herself she’d rescue the Ab Aeterno once everything got sorted.
The immutability threshold was breached, and this time, when the final exam Sim went awry, the Academy did its part, tossing a protesting Subject Three out on his arse. But he wasn’t as grounded as Eliot had hoped, for wherever time travel existed, so did the black market. Every universe had its own version of Lux, whose sights were always set on Cadet McCarthy. Subject Three was skipping centuries inside an illegal TM within days. It was all Eliot could do to keep up, aligning his present with hers through burning buildings and pirate battles, scavenging scanner percentages whenever Subject Three brushed shoulders with her mid-disaster. The process was even slower this time around. Something had to change….
She had to get closer to the subject. She had to join his crew. The task was harder than it sounded; theirs was a tight-knit group and approaching them led to more suspicion than open arms. Subject Three—their captain—was wary. He remembered Eliot’s face from the Sim, which led to questions she couldn’t really answer. They elected not to take her on board, and so more weeks were lost chasing them through history for the final few percentages. Subject Three was not a match.
Agent Ackerman checked in. As predicted, he wasn’t thrilled with the new universes in Eliot’s wake, but he was even less pleased with her pace. “Hurry it up, history hopper! My superiors in MB+251418881HTP8 are breathing down my neck to get this situation contained and resolved.” Not the best pep talk.
Round four. Eliot did everything over again, but this time, when the present points in their timelines intersected in the den of the Caponian Collective, she resorted to blackmail. They faced off in the vault: Subject Four in a rainbow-bright suit, Eliot palming the Cat’s Eye Emerald. There was a chase—there was always a chase—and after a begrudging agreement, she was part of Subject Four’s crew: bunk, nickname, and all. It seemed she’d worked out a system. The scanner finished its read inside two days: not a match.
Eliot didn’t skip worlds immediately; it didn’t feel right, leaving the Ab Aeterno stranded, making Subject Four’s loss of mother permanent. She stayed just long enough to guide the crew in Empra’s direction. Their universe might be doomed, but they found each other—embracing in the flaming city, hearts made light by the fact that for now, the Ab Aeterno was saved.
The fifth world. A pattern had emerged: strand the Ab Aeterno, sabotage the final exam Sim, intersect the subject’s timeline at present point, blackmail, join crew, take scans, rescue mother. It wasn’t easy, but it felt rhythmic, something Eliot could keep up with. Something that might even outrun the Fade…
Then the forgetting started.
They weren’t small losses: no five-second delay recalling the name of Solara’s childhood pet. What Eliot could not remember were large swathes of past: sophomore year at the Academy, her first kiss…. Logic told her these things had happened. Freshman year, junior year. Never-been-kissed, second base. Memories fit in the middle, but—much like a secondhand jigsaw puzzle—whole picture pieces were missing.
Universe MB+178587977FLT6, the world Eliot came from, was fading.
If there was a fate worse than death, it was a life unremembered. Mom, Solara, Strom, her Academy friends… moment by moment they melted away from Eliot’s recollection, herself with them. She found no solace in her interface footage, for photographs were meant to preserve memories, not resurrect them, and so her family pixelated—three strangers on a Venetian boat, adrift in ruins.
Eliot watched the datastream of Dr. Ramírez again so she wouldn’t forget what she was doing, why she was here. Why was she here? Who was she trying to save, really? How could she make it count when the life she’d lived was falling into oblivion?
It wasn’t a question she could contemplate for long. Decay was hot on Eliot’s heels. The forgetting stretched on, over, out, spilling into the universes of Subject OneTwoThreeFour, hounding their countersignature through history with gathering strength. Subject Five was not a match, and Eliot left him in the arms of his mother in Alexandria. Once more saved, once more on the edge of burning.
Subject Six. Same routine, new haste. Eliot had no way of knowing when the Fade would find her, but she knew the force was close, its fingers of forgetfulness scratching at every universe she’d ever traveled through. Her days were spent on high alert—watching every moment for signs of the Fade’s arrival. Dr. Ramírez had shown her footage of the decay, but even watching herself watch it, Eliot knew there’d be no comparison between screens and life. The hologram’s projection looked fake, something stripped from a Sim programmer’s nightmares.
Her first encounter with the Fade was in Far’s universe. The sight was as horrible as it was magnificent—view of all views. Eliot stood on the Titanic’s first-class promenade, hip bones pressed against the railing, awaiting the arrival of the Invictus. Atlantic wind whispered salty nothings into her ears; water sped below, folding froth into the ocean liner’s hull. There was a peace to the scene Eliot only felt in hindsight: the calm before.
It started at the horizon, where the blue of the sea struck the blue of the sky. A pinpoint of not-blue appeared between the two elements. The spot mushroomed up and out: drinking the ocean, gnashing the heavens, devouring two of the vastest expanses known to twentieth-century man in seconds. Eliot stood on deck, transfixed by the magnitude of the force. It was too big, too massive for holograms or descriptions or human feeling. Even her fear was dwarfed in its presence….
Presence. Present! As soon as the Fade reached the promenade and clashed with Eliot’s present, she’d be unmade.
Jump immediately!
She did. The leap was through time, not dimensions, and even then only into later that evening. Eliot spent much of the night in the first-class dining saloon, waiting for the Invictus and the Fade in turn. The decay did follow at a delay, creeping into a not-distant-enough past, savoring the minutes she’d also spent eating, stripping the taste of poached salmon from Eliot’s tongue even as it sat in her belly.
She would have abandoned the day altogether, if her present wasn’t scheduled to intersect with Subject Seven’s present here. Roughly. The hours she was forced to skip worried her, but they mattered little in the end. The Invictus bounced off six o’clock—a time that no longer existed—and the resulting ten o’clock crash landing meant Eliot only had to jump another thirty minutes to realign their timetables, giving Far an extra half hour to fumble through the cargo room.
From there it was a familiar story, mostly remembered. Flashing the Rubaiyat. Teleporting onto the Invictus. Blackmail. The party in Vegas. Cucurbita conversations with Imogen. The meeting with Lux. Mission prep for Alexandria. Eliot had recorded every moment—even the ones that seemed too simple to store. The crew of the Invictus watched themselves through her eyes, their own transfixed. Only Imogen had moved, sliding from couch to floor, drowning her face in aquamarine hair while starry-eyed confessions played. Eliot was surprised at how much she felt for her, for all of them. In a matter of days, her loved ones had become strangers, while the strangers themselves became people she wanted to save….
The chip held almost a year’s worth of footage—but the Grid’s timelessness allowed them to watch it in a single sitting. A year. A minute. A month. A life. Seven infinite lives until only one memory remained in the systems. It opened with Imogen gazing into ash-strung skies. “The fires have already started.”
“Are we too late?” Then-Far asked.
“That’s enough.” Now-Far stood. “Pause.”
But the chip was programmed to respond to Eliot’s voice alone, and as much as she wanted to spare them the horror of Empra’s unmaking, she couldn’t. The Invictus’s crew knew what happened next, but soon they wouldn’t. They had to watch the footage to understand what the Fade took and remember the stakes….
“Stop!” Far tried again, louder. The stitches in Eliot’s hand throbbed alongside his shout—a fresh and oozing grief. “Make it stop!”
She wanted to. She didn’t.
The hologram dashed through Alexandrian streets, up the library steps. Eliot hadn’t rushed to Sappho’s scrolls but kept to the central stacks instead, watching to make sure Far got to the right place. Empra was always in the library’s southeast corner on this date, at this time. Her children always turned at the sound of her voice—their reunion always curdled inside Eliot’s heart. Empra McCarthy looked identical in every world, and even though Eliot knew these were other mothers, it was easier to imagine her own as a transient soul than to accept the Fade’s sentence.
That erasure wasn’t so abstract anymore. On the Titanic, it had been the decay’s size that struck Eliot; from the ground, it was the hunger. No element was safe. Water, air, earth, fire, stone, paper. The Fade destroyed everything.
Skin. Bone. Soul.
Empra was gone the instant the Fade touched her: presents intersecting. The Invictus would have unraveled, too, if Eliot hadn’t initiated the TM’s jump into the Grid. And so they were here, watching until the moment in the hologram overlapped with the moment they were sitting in. It could’ve gone on—ouroboros endlessness: serpent’s tail to serpent’s mouth to serpent’s tail to serpent’s mouth—but Eliot finally spoke.
“End sequence.”
The world within a world folded in on itself, becoming a clear chip in a velvet box once more. The crew stared at the space the hologram had filled—its emptiness played back in their expressions. Imogen hid beneath waves of hair. Gram, too, had turned inward, making calculations of everything he’d heard. Priya sat more still than steady, parted mouth vacant of words. There was no need to observe anymore, but Eliot watched them anyway, all too aware that they could look back and see her. The veil of secrets had been ripped away and here Eliot stood. World-hopper, alternate cousin, other self, executioner, girl forgotten by her universe—
she was who she was, but only because he was who he was
—boy unmoored from time, snag in the fabric of the multiverse, eye of the storm, system error, catalyst. Farway Gaius McCarthy didn’t look like any of these things, seated on the scorched couch, blaster drooping at his side. Often he carried himself with the surety of someone convinced they were destined for greatness, but after realizing what he actually was destined for, the boy sat with his shoulders hunched.
When Eliot spoke again, he flinched. “Don’t you see, Far? You’re the epicenter. My countersignature emission scans confirm it. You’re the reason the Fade has torn apart these universes, and there’s only one theoretical way to stop it….”
No one said a word.
They understood now, all of them did.
“You have to die.”