Every identical eye in the Janus lobby locked on the check-in counter, where Resist took a long moment to smooth her skirt. After making them wait just a little too long, she spoke. “In case you don’t know me, or conveniently forgot who I am, I’m Resist Me of Earth Fifty-Seven.”

“You’re a Missing Me!” shouted Kabuki Theater Me. “You were banished from Me Con! Why should we listen to you?!”

“Because Meticulous treated us Missing Mes like garbage, and he’s not treating you any better. He’s not coming back either, so you need a better plan than just standing around and arguing!”

Some Mes grumbled, some Mes nodded, but they all kept their eyes on Resist. That was the idea—to give us the distraction we needed.

I stepped into the room and waved Motor and Hollywood to follow. “Come on!” I hissed. They wouldn’t budge until I tugged them forward by the wrists. Once in motion, they kept behind me as I snuck along the back of the crowd. Resist held everybody spellbound, so no one noticed us.

“Meticulous lied through his teeth about why he brought us together for Me Con!” Resist shouted. “But he told the truth about one thing: together, we can be a force in the multiverse! Not a force for selfish greed, like Meticulous, but a force for good! Why should we settle for reminiscing in panels about our smelliest farts or overanalyzing our nightmares about otters when we have the power to change things? To change everything? The environment. Education. Income inequality. Racism and discrimination. By pooling the collective knowledge from our worlds, we can start to fix these problems and any others they throw at us!”

“How we gonna do that when we’re stuck here?” said Restless Leg Me.

“Oh, we’ll bust out of Earth Zero, all right!” said Resist. “And when we do, Meticulous will pay!”

Her words stirred up an equal mix of cheers and boos from the crowd. I didn’t care how they reacted as long as we stayed under the radar. That turned out to be wishful thinking when Motor bumped into Monk by accident. I thought he might freak out at the sight of us, but instead he took us in and beamed. That was a relief…until he opened his mouth. “You’re okay!” he yelled five times louder than he needed to. “We were so concerned, my brothers!”

What felt like all of Me Con looked our way. Why couldn’t he have been one of those monks who take a vow of silence?

“Whoa there, hombre!” said Cowboy, clamping a hand on my shoulder. “You got yourself some questions to answer round these parts!”

Juvenile Hall appeared at my side. “Not cool, daddy-o!” He shoved Cowboy off me, then combed a few of his stray hairs back into place. “Don’t even think about messing with Wild Me.”

Cowboy shoved Juvenile Hall right back, pushing him so hard he fell to the floor. On the way down, Juvenile Hall bumped into Military School, who grabbed Monk’s robes for balance. The two of them toppled into Alien Abduction, and everything dominoed from there. Soon enough, a fight broke out. It was like a gang rumble between infinite reflections in a dressing room mirror. Fit Mes versus Tune Mes. Alterna Mes versus Play Mes. Work Mes versus Chill Mes. Toga Mes versus Look at Mes. And everybody piled on the Silly Mes, who fought back by throwing pies and shooting seltzer in their faces.

As distractions went, we couldn’t have asked for better. We rushed to the elevator bank before anyone else saw us.

The call button had gone dark and stayed that way, even as Hollywood and Motor slammed it over and over. But at my touch it lit up like a refrigerator on a midnight snack run.

Hollywood fist-bumped me. “Gee willikers! The elevator really does respond to you. All of Me strikes again!”

Motor shushed him as he strained to listen at the elevator door. “Hear that? It’s coming back from wherever Meticulous got off.”

Hollywood shuddered. “Hope he’s not on it this time.”

We stood there waiting for an eternity, glancing back every few seconds at the Me war in the ballroom. If any Me saw us here, they’d demand to be taken home. We didn’t have time for that, not if we wanted to stop Meticulous. Besides, if Meticulous was telling the truth, the old bucket didn’t have many rides left before it went kaput. We’d be lucky to survive the single trip back to my Earth.

Finally, just when we were on the verge of three matching panic attacks, the elevator arrived in a shriek of metal on metal. The door only managed to open halfway, but at least the car was empty. I rushed in and went straight for the control panel, slipping my fingers around its metal frame. The screws weren’t in tight, and it came right out with a tug.

“Can’t you close the door?” said Hollywood, crouching in the corner. “I feel so exposed!”

“The controls are dead, and we’re waiting on Resist, remember?” said Motor, taking the panel off my hands. The wires connecting the buttons to all the gadgetry inside were too short to reach the floor, so he had to hold the big hunk of metal as I checked out the steel hoop it had covered. It looked dinged up and bent, but still workable.

Hollywood peered over my shoulder. “That thing isn’t on, is it?!”

“Treat it like it is,” wheezed Motor, straining from the weight of the panel. “We don’t understand how it works.”

“I think I do.” Never mind that Meticulous was far more brilliant and capable than I could ever hope to be. At the end of the day, he was still a Me, which meant I should be able to figure out something he’d made.

Hollywood squinted at the device. “There’s not even an On switch.”

I ran a finger along the hoop, and green arcs of lightning sparked inside the rim. The strands of power merged together to form a glowing hunk of energy in the center, just like I’d seen in the holo. As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I made out the shape of a giant padlock. I felt hypnotized by the sight of it. Almost in a daze, I reached for the lock.

A huge crash snapped me out of my trance, and I yanked my hand away. Motor had dropped the panel, ripping the wires loose and knocking out the buttons in the process.

“Motor?!” said Hollywood.

Motor’s eyes bugged out. “The green lightning! It could’ve burned your hand!”

“No, it won’t,” said Resist, stepping into the elevator. She looked battered and bruised from her trip here through the fight, but any Mes who’d crossed her path were probably in worse shape. “Remember the holo-journal? Meticulous touched it and he was okay.”

Motor looked over the broken panel and slapped his palm to his forehead. “I really messed this up! Sorry!”

No point in getting mad at myself. “No worries.” I reached out again. When my fingers made contact with the energy, it felt like electric Play-Doh in my hands. I could stretch the stuff this way and that and mold it however I liked. But every time I let go, it snapped into the shape of a padlock again.

“So it’s stuck like that?” asked Hollywood.

Resist peered down the hallway. “Just hurry up and figure it out!”

“I think it’s a lock that needs a key,” I said.

“Well, that’s great,” said Hollywood. “Where do we get a key?”

Just then a sheet of glowing green holo-paper appeared beside the padlock.

“It’s right here!” I snatched the holo-paper from the air. “Or it will be.” I started folding.

“You’re doing origami?” said Resist.

I zipped through the first set of folds. “Yeah, it’s an origami drive.”

“The name of Meticulous’s stupid band?” said Hollywood.

I shaped the key tip. “It makes sense when you think about it. I found all those failed origami attempts in his office. And at my interview, he was really interested in my origami. Even recorded me making some.”

“With a holo-recorder?” said Motor.

“Yep.” I made a few final creases. “It wasn’t much of a leap to realize that origami had something to do with the elevator. I mean, why else would he beat himself up trying to learn something he didn’t even seem to like? At least, I’m assuming he doesn’t like origami.”

“Sakes alive, you guessed right!” said Hollywood. “It was the only thing he couldn’t master. He hated that.”

“Couldn’t master?” asked Resist.

Hollywood winced at the memory. “He had a thing about being able to do all the stuff that other Mes could do. Karate, ceramics, kazoo playing, you name it. If a Me could do it, he had to do it better.”

“That’s our Meticulous,” muttered Resist.

With a final fold, I made ta-da hands. I’d just folded a glowing green origami key.

“Seriously?” asked Hollywood.

I put the key in the lock, and they fused in a green blob. The light spun faster and faster. In moments the elevator hummed to life.

“It worked!” said Motor.

Military School chose that moment to stick his battered head through the door. “The Missing Mes! They’re here!” he yelled over the shoulder of his ripped uniform. “And they got the elevator working again!”

Resist pushed Military School so hard he hit the far wall of the elevator bank. When she looked down the hall, her eyes went wide. “We have to get this thing moving! A lot of Mes are headed this way!”

“And why shouldn’t they?” said Military School, struggling to get up. “We have a right to use the elevator too!”

Resist raised a fist at Military School. That was enough encouragement for him to stay down.

“Average, do something!” yelled Hollywood.

As soon as I touched the spinning green energy, my entire being turned into a wave machine. Every atom in my body rippled. Just like when I stood under the Rip, I had the weird sensation of being connected to something bigger, only this time it was a lot bigger. It spoke to me, not in words, but ideas. And one idea in particular came up over and over: an octopus.

I folded the familiar shape in no time flat. As soon as I finished, the octopus spun in place, its green light almost blinding us.

“Motor, cover it back up!” yelled Resist. She grappled with three Fit Mes who’d rushed at the door. Hollywood jumped around behind her, waving his arms to distract them while keeping himself well out of punching range.

Motor banged what was left of the panel into place so we could see again. The elevator door had almost closed all the way when Cowboy slammed his gloved hand in the crack to make it rumble open again. Then a blur of leather and grease knocked him to the floor. Juvenile Hall pinned Cowboy to the ground, giving me a quick thumbs-up. “Go, go, daddy-o!”

“We’ll come back for you!” I yelled as the door shut the rest of the way.

Rising up through the multiverse in a rickety box of metal, we four Mes should have been petrified. But we shared a different emotion, one that was written by the same pen all over our faces: guilt.

“That was cold,” said Hollywood. “Leaving them all behind like that.”

“Average, why’d you say we’d be back for them?” said Resist. “We can’t promise anything like that.”

Motor shook his head. “I feel like a turd.”

I could have said lots of things at that moment. Lots of explanations, lots of excuses. But nothing would have sounded right. So I sighed and settled for the only other words that came to mind.

“Going up?”