THE EINSTEIN-ROSEN HUNTER-GATHERER SOCIETY, by George S. Walker
A light spring rain fell in Mount Tabor Park. After midnight, the only light filtering through the rain came from the city around the park and the lamps around the reservoirs. For an instant, a black sphere two meters in diameter hovered in a clearing. It exploded with a clap of thunder that shook water high into the air from surrounding evergreen trees.
A person dropped to the ground from where the sphere had been, crouched to peer through the rain in all directions, then ran deeper into the forest.
* * * *
Justin was in the room he called the feed-and-breed room when the outer door to his office opened with a chime. He frantically pushed the small animal he was holding back into its cage. Tossing his long black hair back from his forehead, he stepped out of the room and shut the door behind him.
A young blonde in a camouflage sweatsuit smiled at him. She stood in front of the workbench he used as his reception counter. In her arms she held a very broken-looking notebook PC.
“Can you fix this?”
“Umm…” The laptop looked like it had been hit by a truck. The young woman, about his age, was pretty.
“Your sign downstairs said Computer Consulting and Repairs,” she said.
“Some are more repairable than others.”
“When I turn it on, it beeps a bunch of times.”
“That’s a POST death beep. Power On Self Test.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed.
“Do you need the data off the hard drive? I might be able to recover that.”
She handed him her laptop.
“How did this happen?”
“I sort of dropped it.”
“Off a building?” Both hinges were broken and the LCD glass was cracked. The ribbon cable between the clamshell halves was exposed.
Something fell with a crash in the feed-and-breed room.
“Excuse me for a second,” said Justin. He strode to the door and opened it partway, blocking her view.
One of the birdlike dragons, the one he’d just put in its cage, flew out.
Justin’s head whirled to look at the woman. Her jaw had dropped, and she stared at the little creature flapping around the room on leathery wings. Damn.
“I’ve never seen…” the woman breathed.
“Just like the Discovery Channel,” Justin said, hoping she thought they were common, and not an endangered species. All he needed was for a total stranger to report him to the feds for importing and raising exotics.
“What is it?”
“Draco patagonius. It’s not mine,” he lied. “I’m pet-sitting for a friend.”
“It’s from Patagonia? Is this one just a hatchling? It’s not much bigger than a sparrow.”
“No, it’s a year old.” He tried to entice it to land on his arm.
It fluttered around the room, finally landing on the workbench right in front of the woman. Its pale green neck arched up toward her face, the tongue flickering in and out.
“It’s sooo cute. Does it breathe fire?”
“Of course not. But he bites.”
“What does he eat?”
“Besides fingers? Cockroaches are a favorite.”
Smaug’s wings were folded up now, and he hopped on top of the broken computer, prying at the keys with the claws at the front of his wings.
“Stop that!” said Justin. He caught Smaug and held him carefully with both hands so he couldn’t fly away.
“Don’t take him away,” she said. “I want to look.”
“You’ve really never seen one before?”
She shook her head. “I’m from Michigan.”
There’s no National Geographics in Michigan? he thought. No zoos? It was like not knowing about bats.
She peered at the little dragon he held, which regarded her with yellow reptilian eyes. Smaug tried to scratch Justin with his hind claws.
“Can I touch him?” she asked.
Justin nodded, and she gently stroked Smaug’s scaly skin. The dragon stared at her as if hypnotized. His pink tongue flicked in and out of his mouth.
“How can there be dragons?” she whispered, barely audible.
“What?”
“It flies like a bird. It’s not just a gliding lizard. I wonder…I wonder if your friend would sell him to me.”
“No! I mean, I’m sure he wouldn’t. He’s not even supposed to be letting me keep it.”
“Oh.”
She continued petting the dragon, and Justin studied her face. She seemed to have forgotten about her laptop.
“I suppose there are books about them, videos, stickers, plush toys, eh?” she said.
“Of course. Hard to believe you don’t know about them.”
“I thought they were mythical.”
“Well, that, too. St. George and the Dragon, Chinese dragons…”
“Disney’s Sleeping Beauty,” she continued for him. “Beowulf, The Hobbit…”
He nodded. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Michigan.”
“The Michigan That Time Forgot?”
“Something like that.”
“Welcome to Portland. What’s your name?”
“Buttercup. And you’re Justin. I read the building directory before I climbed the stairs. It looks like you live here, too.”
“Yeah, it cuts expenses. Would you like me to recover your hard drive, Buttercup?”
“No, I need the computer working again.”
“Oh. Well, sorry I couldn’t help you, but you’ll be better off with a new laptop anyway.”
“Eh? No, I want you to fix it. Or take a look at it, at least. And talk to your friend about this little guy. I really, really want him. Just see what you can do, and I’ll come back late afternoon, O.K.?”
He gave her a look of disbelief. It was nearly noon.
“Thanks, Justin. You’re wonderful.”
* * * *
Buttercup smiled at him as she came in around four PM. Justin had made sure his dragons were locked up this time.
“It’s a stolen laptop,” he told her. “The serial number’s been flagged.”
She swallowed. “I didn’t steal it.”
“Maybe not. Maybe you pulled it out of a dumpster on your way to see me. Did you know you left your USB drive plugged into it?”
“Eh? Did I?”
“It’s more than a USB drive. Do you know what happened when I plugged it into one of my computers?”
“You looked at all my files?”
“No. I think it looked at all of mine.”
“Really?”
“Who do you work for?” he asked. “Customs? Fish and Wildlife?”
“I didn’t know about your dragons when I came in here.”
“Then where did you get the USB drive?”
“Michigan.”
He handed her back her laptop. “I think our business here is done.”
She unplugged the USB drive and put it in her purse, but made no move to leave. “What if you only had three days to find a way to save the world?”
“What?”
“This is day one.”
“What does this have to do with me?”
“You’re the one who knows how.”
“Boy, have you got the wrong guy.”
“You’re not Justin?”
“Not your Justin.”
“That’s for sure, eh?” She opened her purse. “Can you take a picture of me before I go, just to prove I was here?”
He eyed her skeptically as she handed him a little Kodak. He glanced at the front: 20X Optical Zoom, NiteVision. There was no flash. The lens had an iridescent look, like a closeup of an insect’s eye. He turned the camera toward her and pressed the telephoto button. It was like looking through a telescope, but brighter. He could see every pore on her skin.
“What the hell kind of lens is this?”
“An origami lens. Prismatic. You’ve never seen one?”
“You get this in dragon-free Michigan?”
She nodded. “Just press the button on top.”
“I know how to use a camera.”
She smiled for the picture.
“Three days?” he said.
She nodded solemnly and walked out the door.
He wished he’d erased her USB drive.
* * * *
Around 2 AM the next morning, Justin’s door buzzer rang. Repeatedly. Groggily, he went to the door and opened it.
“Can I sleep here?” asked Buttercup.
“What?” He was still half-asleep.
“On your reception couch.” She pointed.
“Do you know what time it is?”
“Day two.”
“Why are you doing this to me?”
“I just need a place to spend the night.”
“There’s a motel less than a mile from here.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Don’t you know anyone else in Portland?”
“Please, Justin.”
She was soaking wet from the rain outside. He stepped aside to let her in.
“Don’t steal anything,” he said.
“I’m not that kind of person.”
“I don’t know what kind of person you are.” He went to get her a towel. “Don’t they know about umbrellas in Michigan?”
* * * *
When his alarm went off the next morning, he heard the shower running. He tiptoed out to the reception area and looked around, but her purse was nowhere in sight. He wanted to look at her camera again.
When Buttercup came out of his bathroom, she was wearing the same sweatsuit as the day before. It was still damp.
“Did you sleep in those clothes?”
“No. I wrung them out and slept in the nude.”
Justin had a short coughing fit. “Don’t you have a shopping cart out on the street somewhere?”
“I left all my designer gowns in Michigan.”
“Uh-huh. Help yourself to breakfast while I shower.”
“I don’t eat.”
“What, you’re an android?”
“Your food might poison me.”
“Is that what they taught you in the asylum?”
He showered. When he came out, she was sitting at one of his computers. She turned around guiltily.
“Looking for something?” he asked.
“A way to save the world.”
She was on the portable electronics page of amazon.com.
“By shopping?”
She closed the browser. “That’s Plan B.”
He went to the kitchen to fix a bagel for breakfast. “Sure I can’t get you anything?”
“Bottled water is the only thing that’s safe.”
He tossed her one. “What happens in two days?”
“Your life becomes Buttercup-free.”
“No, I mean the world.”
“It doesn’t end yet. That’s just how long I have here to find a solution.”
“How does it end? Locusts?”
“No. MSDs.”
“Michigan School Districts?”
“Matter Surpluses and Deficits.”
“And I’m supposed to have the solution?”
She shook her head. “You’re too clueless.”
He thought Buttercup was the clueless one.
“Want to sell me your dragon?” she asked.
“You don’t have any money. Trade for your camera?”
She shook her head. “I need it.”
“I’ll throw in one of mine.”
“Yours are useless. Your JPEGs aren’t the same.”
“What? JPEG is an international standard.”
“We do things differently in Michigan.”
Justin laughed. “Let me plug yours in. I’ll print the picture I took of you yesterday.”
She took the camera out of her purse.
He fished through his cables till he found one that fit her camera and plugged it in. File Manager listed 427 JPEG files on her camera. He tried to open one.
Unsupported Graphic Format.
He looked at her. She gave him a wry smile and took her camera back.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“Buttercup.”
“Buttercup is a Powerpuff Girl. No one names their kid after a cartoon character.”
She shrugged. “When do you feed your friend’s dragon?”
“After breakfast.”
“Can I watch?”
Whoever she worked for, it certainly wasn’t Fish and Wildlife. “I guess so.”
After finishing his bagel, he unlocked the feed-and-breed room. The lights inside were on Patagonian time—it was midday there.
Buttercup stared at the huge cages. “You have four of them!”
“My friend has four.”
“Right. Justin has zero dragons in zero cages.” She took out her camera. “Where are the cockroaches?”
The dragons clung to the sides of their cages as he began fixing their breakfast. “Funny thing, landlords don’t like cockroach farms.”
“So what are you feeding them?”
“Gourmet cat food with supplements. And pet store crickets twice a week. They prefer the crickets.”
“Yum.”
Justin had a bizarre thought that maybe, back home in Michigan, crickets and cockroaches were what Buttercup ate. Maybe that was why Michigan had no dragons.
He opened the cages, and the little dragons flew out with a flutter of leathery wings. They landed on their four feeding perches, craning their necks expectantly. Buttercup took photos as he fed them.
“Tell me about the end of the world,” he said.
“Imagine you’re in a circus,” she said. “There’s a trapeze swinging back and forth. You know the swing period and how to catch it. But sometimes, unpredictably, a gorilla jumps on or off. What do you do?”
“Transfer to the juggling act.”
“The gorillas are everywhere.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Why are we talking about gorillas?”
“Because the truth requires much more math. Plus you’d think I was crazy.”
“I already think you’re crazy.”
“Harmless crazy or needs-to-be-locked-up crazy?”
“Do you need to be locked up?”
“If I get locked up, that brings the end of the world that much closer. At least, the end of Portland. That would be bad.”
The dragons watched Buttercup warily as they ate. When they finished, Justin had more trouble than usual getting them back in their cages, because Buttercup was helping.
Outside the feed-and-breed room, he asked, “What’s your agenda for day two?”
“Trespassing in forbidden places, seeing forbidden sights. Maybe a little window-shopping.”
“You can spend the night again if you want.”
“Maybe. You didn’t seem too happy to see me last night.”
After she left, he checked to see if she’d stolen anything. If she had, it wasn’t obvious. He checked his computer. Unlike the day before, with her USB drive, there was no sign anyone had accessed his files. But she’d been busy on the internet. No purchases with his credit cards, but she’d taken a whirlwind tour of the planet. Not looking for gorillas, though. Most of the links came up “404: not found”, but there were a number for Toronto and Antarctica.
* * * *
Buttercup didn’t show up again till nearly eleven PM.
“What do you know about an Einstein-Rosen bridge?” she asked after he let her in.
“Portland has lots of bridges, but I don’t know that one. Have you tried Mapquest?”
She sighed. “How can you be so different from Justin?”
“The gorilla-wrestling Justin of your dreams? The one who knows how to save the world?”
“He wasn’t a dream.”
“Is this bridge you lost the one to Antarctica?”
“What do you know about Antarctica?” she asked suspiciously.
“It used to have lots of penguins. Oh, wait. You don’t know about penguins in Michigan.”
“We have penguins.”
“In Michigan?”
“No. I live in Michigan. I work in Antarctica.”
“That commute must have a hell of a carbon footprint.”
“MSDs will destroy the world before global warming.”
“So tell me about this bridge.”
“I already told you too much. Can I borrow your car?”
“Don’t have one: global warming. Where are you going?”
“Mount Tabor.”
“Isn’t it closed this late? I should go with you.”
She shook her head.
“I’m not sure it’s safe to be walking there alone.”
She opened her purse and flashed what might have been a gun. Or perhaps a toy. It looked like a ray gun.
He raised an eyebrow. “Do you have a permit for that?”
She batted her eyelashes. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re like Trinity in The Matrix. You know ten ways to kill me without breaking into a sweat.”
“I’m harmless, Justin.”
“You said you didn’t have any money. Is that how you plan to get on the bus?”
“Of course not. I’m pretty good at panhandling.”
“Why don’t you wait till daylight?”
“Because day three starts at 12:47 AM.”
“That’s when you sacrifice a goat on Mount Tabor?”
“I doubt they allow goats on the bus.”
“At least let me give you bus fare,” he said.
She took his money. He told her which buses to take and walked her downstairs. She headed for the bus stop.
Justin ran upstairs, grabbed his jacket and helmet, and raced back downstairs to unlock his bike by the back door.
Once and for all, he was going to find out what she was up to. Buttercup had two buses to take, and they were infrequent this time of night. But Justin could bike to the light rail stop, take it across town, and bike from there to Mount Tabor before Buttercup arrived.
* * * *
Hiding in bushes a near the Mount Tabor bus stop, he felt foolish. Nervously, he picked through stones in the dirt. Maybe Neanderthal Portland Man can defeat Cro-Magnon Michigan Woman by chipping an arrowhead out of flint.
He heard the bus approach. There were only a few people on it, and Buttercup got off alone. She walked around the closed park gates and hiked toward the summit. He’d half-expected her to hop on a hover-board. But with the peak at 600 feet, it wouldn’t be much of a climb.
Careful to stay out of sight, Justin retrieved his bike. An unpaved bike trail led through the forest, and he walked along it, rear wheel clicking quietly. He’d switched off the lights on his bike when he arrived at the park. Buttercup stayed on the roadway, and he caught occasional glimpses of her passing beneath streetlights.
Near the summit, Buttercup left the roadway and entered the woods. Justin held back so she wouldn’t see him, then lost track of her. He stood still, listening. He looked around uneasily, afraid she might sneak up on him. The girl with the ray gun.
He moved cautiously to where he’d last seen her. A walking path crossed the bike trail. He turned his bike onto it. The trees and clouds overhead made it nearly pitch black in the woods. Justin began to have second thoughts about trailing Buttercup.
A faint light appeared ahead, moving. She’d had the sense to bring a flashlight. He knew where she was now.
She stopped.
Justin froze.
Her light was moving around a little, but not aimed back toward him. He quietly laid his bike on its side by the path. Crouching down, he advanced toward the light.
Buttercup was in a small clearing. Her flashlight shone on an upright bundle of sticks bound together with string. It looked like a ritual artifact from The Blair Witch Project. He breathed shallowly, his heart pounding.
Rain fell softly. The time was getting close: Day three. Why 12:47 AM? Mount Tabor was Portland’s extinct volcano. Was that significant? Maybe he hadn’t been too far off the mark when he’d joked about a sacrifice.
Buttercup began chanting, barely audible.
No, she was counting backwards.
A crack like a gunshot startled him. In the light of her flashlight, a sphere of darkness smaller than a basketball briefly appeared above the bundle of sticks. The sticks scattered, the sphere vanished, and something dropped to the ground.
Buttercup stepped forward, crouching to retrieve it. He couldn’t see what it was as she put it in her purse. He looked up, half expecting to see a mother ship hovering.
She might leave at any moment. He turned and hurried back toward his bike. In the darkness, he wandered off the path into a branch. He cursed silently.
“Who’s there?” she called out.
He found the path and continued toward his bike. Walking in a crouch, he saw the flashlight beam flickering in the branches over his head. He breathed shallowly, hoping she couldn’t hear him.
A vehicle roared on the roadway. The park was closed. Had she called for backup? No: he heard her curse. It must be the park police, thinking they’d heard gunfire.
He found his bike by nearly tripping over it. Buttercup’s feet pounded on the path behind him. He jerked the bike upright and ran forward with it. He couldn’t risk mounting it until he reached the bike trail.
Headlight beams entered the forest as the vehicle neared. He reached the bike trail and jumped on his bike. Buttercup was right behind him, breathing hard. Her light illuminated his bike. He turned his head, and her light was in his eyes. He froze.
“The dragon lord!” she gasped, then laughed.
She held her flashlight steady, clutching her purse. No gun in her hand.
“Justin,” he said. “Only Justin.”
The vehicle screeched to a halt, headlights flooding the forest. A truck door opened and slammed.
“Go! Go!” she said urgently.
“Get on!”
She hopped on the rack behind him, wrapping her arms around him. A man shouted behind them as Justin pedaled down the trail. He switched on the bike light.
The trail twisted through the forest, up and down with the natural terrain. His was an urban bike, not a mountain bike, and he fought to keep balance for both of them as it skidded on bark dust and pine needles.
“Why were you running from me?” she shouted in his ear.
“You’ve got a gun.”
He felt the spasms of her laughter as she clutched him.
Justin focused on getting them to the base of Mount Tabor. It would be quicker and safer if he left the trail and got onto the roadway. Except for the truck.
Nearly to the bottom, the trail dipped into a gully. The front tire hit a tree root. He lost control.
The bike left the trail and they tumbled, bike going one way, he and Buttercup another. He slid to a halt, the front of his helmet plowing through mud and pine needles. She lay partly on top of him. He heard her panting.
He spit out pine needles. “You O.K.?”
She groaned. “Let’s do that again.”
“No,” he said. “Let’s go home.”
* * * *
On the morning of day three, Justin fixed his bagel. Buttercup was unwrapping a granola bar.
“I thought food was poison. Where’d you get that?”
“CARE package from home,” she said, and took a bite.
“I thought you ate food pills. Can I see the wrapper?”
She tossed it to him.
CalValley Organics. Product of California.
“Which California?” he asked. “North or South?”
She gave him an odd look.
“Want to watch me feed the dragons? It’s cricket day.”
“No, thanks. It’s day three. Time’s running out.”
“I’d help if I could.”
She shook her head. “You’re not supposed to know.”
“Is this like the Prime Directive? If you tell me what’s going on, it changes history?”
“Maybe.” She screwed the cap on her water bottle. “See you tonight, eh?”
When she left, he started researching the connections between Michigan, Antarctica and the Einstein-Rosen bridge.
Einstein-Rosen bridges were spacetime wormholes. Purely theoretical and inherently unstable, because there was no way to hold the throat open long enough for anything to pass through, even light. Plus they required a black hole. There was no black hole on Mt. Tabor nor—as far as Justin knew—in Antarctica. At least in this century. But dragons were extinct by Buttercup’s time. Things change.
* * * *
The door buzzer sounded earlier than he’d expected. It wasn’t even nine PM yet.
He opened the door.
Buttercup stood propped against the doorframe. Her right hand was pressed to her left shoulder, where her sweatshirt was soaked with blood.
“Justin,” she gasped. She sagged forward, and he caught her.
He carried her to the couch where she’d slept the last two nights. She was breathing in shallow, ragged gasps, and he felt her shaking. He covered her with a blanket. “I’ll call 911.”
“No! Justin, for God’s sake! I can’t stay. 12:47 AM. Mount Tabor.”
“You need a doctor!”
“Justin, that’s the way the world ends!” Her tear-filled eyes were pleading with him.
“Jesus.” He gingerly pulled her hand away from her shoulder. She winced. There was a bullet hole in the middle of the stain. He let her press her hand against the wound again. He raised his head and listened. No sirens, no feet pounding up the stairs.
“You need a doctor,” he said.
“If I don’t get to Mount Tabor tonight, Portland will have a crater just like Beijing’s.”
“There’s no crater in Beijing.”
“There is, in—” She stopped.
“Michigan’s Beijing?”
“Just stop the bleeding. Please.”
“I don’t have any gauze or anything. I’ll run to the store.” He started to get up.
“Don’t leave me!” She tried to grab him and cried out in pain.
“O.K. Relax.” He looked at his workbench. “I’m just getting scissors to cut away your sweatshirt.”
He got them and began cutting through the fabric.
“How did this happen?” he asked.
“Forbidden places. The lab where Justin worked.”
“Did you use your gun?”
“No.” She struggled to control her breathing. “I’m not that kind of person.”
He had to move her hand again, and she clenched her teeth. He began pulling away the cut fabric. Her shoulder was covered in blood, with a ragged, bleeding hole. “Did it go all the way through?” he asked.
She nodded. “I was running away.”
“They shot you in the back?”
She nodded, swallowing.
“I guess you’re not Trinity. This bra would be made of Kevlar.” He raised her gently, cutting around the back of her shoulder, then eased her back down. She groaned, squeezing her eyes shut.
“Sorry,” he said.
“I’m sorry, too,” she whispered.
“For what?”
“The blood. Your couch.”
He got towels and hot water, cleaning her wound front and back. He cut more towels, using them to pack the wound. He had to use duct tape instead of medical tape. He tried to be as gentle as possible, but she was obviously in pain.
“Do they have acetaminophen here?” she asked.
He nodded. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. But what you need is nineteenth century morphine.”
He brought her Tylenol and a bottle of water.
She counted out half a dozen caplets.
“Aren’t those poison, too?” he asked.
“No. Maybe. It’s complicated.” She swallowed the pills. “Can I see your dragons one last time?”
He released all four from their cages, and they flew through his apartment. Norberta landed on her blanket, peering at her curiously. The dragon’s hind claws dug in, and Buttercup’s leg jerked.
“They’re beautiful,” she whispered hoarsely.
“Did you find what you needed in Justin’s lab?”
“No.” She looked sad.
“You said there was a Plan B.”
She gave him a pained smile. “A bake sale.”
“What?”
“The people I’m with are like the rats under the bridge. We need to sell something to finance another trip.”
“Like extinct dragons. Won’t your food poison them?”
“I don’t think so.”
“As you wish,” he said.
“Eh?”
“You can take my breeding pair back with you.”
“That’s…that…”
“Makes up for getting shot?”
She started to laugh, and grimaced from the pain.
“No. Generous,” she said. “What time’s the bus?”
“I’ll call a cab. You’re in no shape to hike.”
* * * *
The taxi driver put the blankets in the trunk, but gave a curious frown at the folding stepstool. Justin didn’t know why Buttercup wanted it, either. He helped her into the back seat. Her left arm was in a homemade sling.
He got in on the other side, holding the plastic bin with the dragons on his lap. Smaug and Norberta were scratching inside it.
“What’cha got in the box?” asked the driver.
“Puppies,” said Justin.
“Can I see?”
“You don’t need to see his puppies,” said Buttercup.
The driver shrugged. “I don’t need to see ’em.”
He started the engine.
“These aren’t the dragons you’re looking for,” Buttercup whispered.
For someone from the future, she’d watched a lot of old movies. Her eyes were closed, and Justin squeezed her hand.
The taxi took them to the other side of town, driving through the entrance of the park just before closing time.
“Not a very romantic night,” commented the driver. It was raining. “But hey, none of my business.”
He dropped them off at a shelter near the summit, and Justin paid cash.
Buttercup was shaking from the rain and the cold. He helped her to the shelter and bundled her in blankets.
“Now we just wait for your ride home,” he said.
Buttercup’s eyes were closed. She was still shivering.
“How do you know you’re not a time orphan?” he asked.
“Eh? Who do you think I am?”
“Some sort of Time Lord. The Justin you were looking for was the guy who figured out how to build an Einstein-Rosen bridge. But if somebody screwed up the timeline so I don’t invent the bridge, how do you get back to the future?”
“I’m not from the future.”
“But your gadgets…and you came looking for me.”
She didn’t answer.
Justin listened to the steady hiss and patter of rain on leaves and the shelter roof. The dragons were scratching inside the bin again. He covered it with one of the blankets piled around Buttercup and rearranged the others, pulling one up over her head. She leaned against him with her good shoulder.
“There are infinite Earths,” she murmured. “My Justin didn’t invent wormholes. He had a theory about how to close them. Except he tested it from another world to be safe, and he didn’t return.”
“And now you don’t know how he did it? What about the gorillas from the future? Or was that to throw me off?”
“A bridge is a wave function: One big transfer out, a smaller one back, another small one out, then a large one back. With a chance of tidal waves.”
“Your granola bar surfed the wave last night.”
She gave a weak smile. “Yum.”
“And the night before, you sent the USB drive with the files you stole. What do the tidal waves, the MSDs, do?”
“Beijing and Sydney are craters. Austin, Bangalore and Lyon are each buried under a mountain. That’s why I work from Antarctica instead of Michigan.”
“There’s more than one Einstein-Rosen bridge?”
She nodded. “They drive our world’s economy.”
“What?”
“Corporations find the best each Earth has to offer and make it their own. That’s where my gadgets came from.”
“You’re the hunter-gatherers. We’re the agrarians.”
“A small group of us are trying to save the world.”
“You’re the veggie-hunting rats among the guys with spears. What about the food-is-poison thing?”
“The amino acids on one Earth were the mother of all poisons. It’s never happened on another world. So far.”
“Will you try an experiment for me with the dragons?”
“Eh?” She looked in his eyes.
“Use the money from the sale to hire another genius like Justin. Stop hunting before you kill yourself.”
Over the next two hours, Buttercup drifted in and out of fitful slumber. He woke her after midnight. She could barely walk, so he carried her. She held the flashlight.
“How do you find it in the dark each time?” he asked.
“I have a locator, but I know where it is by now.”
“What’s the stepstool for?”
“The wormhole mouth is centered 120 centimeters above the ground. The wave center is spherical, so I crouch at that level. Sometimes I make a platform out of branches.”
He carried her into the woods, following the flashlight beam. Water shaken from branches showered them.
The clearing still held the scattered sticks from the last transfer. Justin set up the stepstool where Buttercup directed him.
“Undress me,” she said.
He raised an eyebrow. “Is this like Terminator?”
“No. We think differences in mass exchange are one of the MSD causes. And unfortunately, this Terminatrix got her sweatsuit and bandages wet, which isn’t the way I arrived.”
“Plus you’ve got two dragons.”
“Minus blood loss and three days of starvation. Extreme Dieting 101: what women do best.”
Justin cut off the rest of her sweatshirt, removed her bra, and pulled down her sweatpants. She kept only the bandages and her panties. Her purse was on the ground, and she tossed some things out of it before picking it up with her good arm.
He got Smaug and Norberta out of the bin. They were leashed together to hinder escape, but they made no attempt to. Their arched their necks toward the sky, flicking tiny pink tongues to taste the rain. He tied both leashes to Buttercup’s right wrist. She had goosebumps.
“Here,” he said, preparing to hand her the dragons.
“Kiss me goodbye,” she asked.
He was holding the dragons, and she had only one good arm. She used it to pull his wet face toward hers. She kissed him deeply. He could feel her shaking.
When she broke off the kiss, she said, “You kiss just like Justin.” Her voice was wistful.
“I am Justin.”
She smiled. “You’re an alien, just like your dragons.”
The dragons were squirming and fluttering, restless in his grip. He planted both of them on her good forearm, stroking them so they wouldn’t be alarmed, and pressed the wadded-up leashes into her hand with the purse.
“Time’s running out,” he said. “Go save the world.”
He lifted her onto the stepstool and helped her balance as she crouched barefoot on top of it, rain running down her bare skin. She wobbled, and Norberta launched herself from Buttercup’s arm, only managing a few wingbeats before the leash jerked her down. She landed in Buttercup’s wet hair, clinging like a rain hat.
Buttercup looked up anxiously, then swayed, overcome by dizziness.
Justin steadied her and pulled in the slack on the leash, squeezing it into her hand. She was still shaking.
“Is it O.K.?” asked Buttercup
“Norberta’s afraid to move. Are you O.K.?”
“There are doctors on the other side.”
“I should have brought the duct tape, to tape you to the damn stool.”
“Get back, Justin. I don’t want you to get hurt by the riptide.”
He stepped back a few feet.
“Farther,” she insisted. “A lot farther.”
He walked almost to the edge of the clearing and turned around.
She nodded, satisfied. “Count down for me.”
“Remember what I said. Stop hunting.” He began counting backwards.
When he got to T minus five, Buttercup looked into his eyes. “Klaatu barada nikto,” she said, and smiled.
At zero, a black sphere swallowed her.
The stepstool exploded with clap of thunder. The wormhole withdrawal sucked Justin off his feet, sending the flashlight flying. He fell on hands and face in the grass and mud near the middle of the clearing. Small branches from overhead landed on top of him.
Justin scrambled to his feet. The flashlight was still on. He picked it up, shining it where Buttercup had been. Crumpled metal was all that remained of the stepstool. The clearing was filled with evergreen twigs and branches sucked down from above. The remains of Buttercup’s wet clothing lay scattered. While picking it up, he found her wallet. She must have tossed it to get her weight down.
Using the flashlight, he looked through it. She’d said she didn’t have any money, but there was a wad of cash. And a Michigan driver’s license with her face on it, but the name was Sophie Doucet, not Buttercup. She lived in Toronto, Michigan. He pulled out a twenty dollar bill. To the right of Andrew Jackson were the words “Canadian States of America.”
He was willing to bet there was a Sophie Doucet in Toronto, Ontario. His Toronto.
Maybe he’d try to return her wallet.