Inevitable, page 16
“Welcome, everyone. I’m Cammie Wheeler, and I’m going to give you irrefutable proof that parallel universes, as we commonly know them, do exist.”
“That’s an extraordinary claim, Ms. Wheeler,” the senator smirked, raising a curious eyebrow.
“Yes, but the logic behind it is really quite simple,” she explained, standing in front of her equipment. “It all comes down to five little words. Energy. Space. Time. Mass. Probability.”
Cammie gestured to the Voltameter.
“One of the most basic building blocks of energy we know is hydrogen. Made up of protons, which in turn are made up of quarks, this is the energy that links the countless planes of existence together. We’ve just never known how to harness them before. The space required for this equation will be the space inside this metal case. We will suck out the air using this vacuum and replace it with hydrogen gas from the Hofmann voltameter.
“Our constant for this experiment is time. We will exchange one object in the present of our reality for a nearly identical object that also exists at the very same moment. Now let me introduce you to someone very special to me who we’ll be experimenting on.”
Reaching into her bag, she removed the blue blanket and peeled it away to reveal an old teddy bear about the size of a cantaloupe.
“This is Mr. Snuggles, and I’ve had him for as long as I’ve been alive. I want you to write down a short description of him, because when we exchange him for his counterpart from another reality, those notes will be the only way for you to remember the new bear hasn’t been here all along.”
Coming back to her senses, Cammie glanced at me and nodded before resuming her nearly automated routine.
“Please note the condition of the bear. His entire right arm is missing, as is one of his button eyes. He’s had a hard life, to be sure, but he’s still soft and fuzzy. Here, you can feel. Write it in a way that will make you believe this is the bear you are seeing now.”
The judges concluded their writing and went back to looking at Cammie.
“Ok,” the senator said. “That’s the mass. What about probability?”
“I’m glad you asked,” Cammie resumed. “The chance of any one manifestation existing in one reality is nearly random, but in the absence of knowledge, one object could exist in any of them. There’s one famous thought experiment I’d like to call your attention to, that of Schrödinger’s cat. The theory goes that if you put a cat in a box with something that can kill it depending on a disappearing particle, you have to assume the cat is both alive and dead until you open the box to find out. We’re going to put Mr. Snuggles into this box, where the energy will compel it to change places with any other Mr. Snuggles that is also not being directly observed. Are you ready? Here we go.”
As Cammie placed the one-armed teddy bear in the case and sealed the door, I then realized the true extend of her genius. She’d somehow been able to figure out how I was able to appear and disappear at will even though I’d never told her. My mouth dropped open as I gasped. The judges and the spectators were wrapped in fascination. You could see the twinkle of eagerness in their eyes.
Cammie switched on the vacuum to suck the air out of the case, and then she went and hooked the sparking jumper cables to the voltameter, which quickly began to bubble. Once the air was gone, Cammie turned the vacuum off and stepped back to watch the voltameter pump hydrogen gas into the case. On the opposite side, oxygen gas inflated a balloon. After a few moments, Cammie checked a gauge on the metal case and took a deep breath.
“There’s no telling what will be different about Mr. Snuggles when I open this case. It might be so minute that we’ll have to search at the microscopic level.”
Setting her hand on the handle, Cammie slowly opened the case. Everyone leaned closer, jostling for a peek. When Cammie reached in to remove the bear, just a single glance at it made her gasp.
The brown bear had both arms and both eyes, but it was no longer soft. Layers of dirt clung to its exterior and it appeared as though it had been buried outside for years and years. Cammie’s hand was shaking from the shock, but it wasn’t the delight it should’ve been. She’s made a terrible mistake in her perfect presentation.
She’d forgotten to write down what the bear looked like before for herself.
“What’s the meaning of this?” the senator growled angrily. “You just put it in and took it out again. Where’s the proof?”
Cammie stared blankly at the crowd, still holding the bear she thought she’d had for her entire life. There were groans and murmurs running throughout the crowd. That tiny mistake had ruined her experiment.
“Wait!” I yelled, feeling flushed myself. “The judges have to compare it to what they wrote!”
It dawned on me that I could still tell the difference between what had been switched. Somehow that was still something I could do. Petrified, Cammie could barely shift her eyes from me back to the judges, who complied and checked their notes.
All three of them cringed and shook their heads.
“Nice idea,” the senator scowled, tearing the sheet of paper off and crumpling it. He was already glancing over toward the next booth. “But you shouldn’t make claims you can’t back up, Ms. Wheeler.”
The judges and the crowd started to move away, and Cammie already had tears streaming down her cheeks. She looked like she was going to fall, and Nathan rushed in to support her.
“Why didn’t it work?” she wept, sliding onto the floor. Her friends were crowding around too, trying to tell her she did a great job even though it had gone disastrously wrong. She still held the dirty bear, one that must’ve gotten lost when another Cammie was still very young.
Her emotional display was getting embarrassing, so Nathan lifted her back to her feet.
“I think we need to take a walk,” he suggested.
Cammie hobbled as though she had sprained her ankle. We left the convention hall and found a secluded spot on the steps outside. Cammie slumped against the concrete, holding her face in her hands. It was painful to watch. I put my hand on Nathan’s back because I knew this was a blow for him as well.
“How come everything about this year has been so terrible?” she bawled.
It seemed so unfair to me, and I started to get worked up about it. All of a sudden I was kneeling at Cammie’s feet, begging her to let me distract her from her tears.
“Listen to me, Cammie. This isn’t your bear! Do you understand that?”
She clutched the stuffed animal even closer to her stomach. Reluctantly, she shifted her eyes to me and my sympathetic smile.
“Even if no one else believes it, I know it worked! Your bear had a missing arm with stuffing spilling out. You’ve never seen the one you’re holding before in your life. You have to believe me!”
Nathan was apprehensive as well, and I had to shoot him a quick look to let him know I wasn’t playing any games. Cammie’s crying slowed, but she didn’t look much happier.
“I know everything is saying you failed. The competition is over, it seems like you’re holding the same stuffed animal you’ve known your entire life, and then there’s me sitting here in front of you and promising you with all my heart that what you did was real. You figured it out, Cammie, and that’s worth so much more than any trophy.”
I stopped, waiting for any kind of a reaction. I was excited because I’d seen a part of myself that I’d lost in what this girl had made today.
“I think you should listen to her. She’s said a lot of weird things to me, but now that I think about it they all seem to make a lot more sense,” Nathan added, and I could’ve kissed him for it.
Cammie exhaled, glancing at us both. Her face wasn’t so flushed and the tears stopped.
“Maybe…maybe it worked and I just didn’t know it. I should’ve had them take a picture.”
“Exactly,” Nathan and I agreed, and we helped her back to her feet. She got plenty of additional comfort from Gladys and her friends. They were supportive even though they didn’t really get it when she tried to explain what happened and how nobody could realize the difference. When something switched into another universe, it traded all of the memories people had too.
The three of us felt melancholy as we packed away her equipment and started home. It must’ve been such a rush for them last year to return home champions, but this year we didn’t have anything to talk about. We emptied the bed of the truck, stacking a big pile of equipment in the living room by the couch. Nathan had to get up early tomorrow for work, and that left Cammie and I alone.
“Do you promise me it worked?” she asked, looking like she was about to break down.
“Absolutely. It really did,” I confirmed. Some of her fiery spunk fought through her sadness then, and I could see her brain working overtime.
“Good. Then maybe we can use this on Nathan to stop him from getting in the accident,” she suggested, but it sounded more like an order. Alarms were going off in my head as my face went slack.
“No! We can’t do that. If you traded Nathan away, the person who you got in return wouldn’t be your brother. There’s no telling what switching someone in a parallel universe might mean.”
“It’s something!” she declared. “We have to do something!”
“I know we do,” I calmed her, looking back to the stairs and hoping Nathan hadn’t heard. “But this won’t help you. Please trust me. If you send him off into one of ten trillion realities, you’d never get him back. Even if you thought you did, even if you thought the new Nathan always belonged here, there would always be something just off about him!”
I tried to explain it as clearly as I could. Moving people between dimensions had been the one thing I could do that had always been off limits for me. It was a guaranteed way to wreak havoc on everything.
Cammie grasped that I wasn’t kidding and started to sniffle again. The girl tipped back onto the couch, covering her face in her hands. When I sat next to her, she fell into my side. I was stunned, but I put my arm around her.
“I can’t lose him, Apoxy.”
I should’ve told her he was already gone. That’s what was going to happen. But I just couldn’t bring myself to say it.
*
Cammie didn’t have too much time to sulk over her loss, even though it made Nathan’s rapidly approaching fate seem even more dire, and so every day that passed felt like a great millstone grinding away her soul.
She worked at saving her brother’s life, and in her duties she was relentless. As often as she could, Cammie went to the cement factory to take measurements of the colossal silo and the other machinery. Somewhere within all the numbers she compiled, she believed she would be able to change her brother’s future.
It only took a couple of trips for the owners of the cement factory to become suspicious, and she was soon banned from the premises. We were all surprised when she went again and the police brought her home. Now a court order prevented her from getting anywhere near the site. In all of her trips, she’d gathered quite a bit of data, which she would combine with my account of how events would unfold. It didn’t seem nearly enough though, not enough at least to give her the faintest sense of optimism.
I found myself sympathizing with her more and more. As women like myself have an awful habit of doing, I twisted my blissful memories until they became haunting and painful. The kiss that I had cherished and the time I spent with Nathan that I loved were no longer the purely beautiful things they once were.
It became impossible not to look at his handsome face and not feel the dull ache that comes from having something and losing it. Every second we spent together stung because in my mind I knew these precious moments were disappearing into the past where I could no longer get to them. When would be the last time I saw him smile? Or felt his wonderful touch? Or saw him looking at me?
I thought about these things late in the night, long after I had gone to bed and reluctantly abandoned another day. If the past had tormented Nathan, now the future accosted me, and there was no way I could escape it. I longed to climb the stairs and slowly push in the door to his bedroom. I wanted to lie down next to him and feel him holding me. That seemed like the only possible solution to these interminable feelings.
Getting up from the couch, I wandered through the dark living room toward the stairs. My heart was beating fast, and I didn’t know what I was doing. The need to fight off the loss of Nathan drove me on, and I set my feet on the cool, creaky steps. There were only a few doors on the second floor, and I set my fingertips lightly against Nathan’s, even resting my cheek against the smooth wood.
But I knew the sanctuary waiting for me on the other side of this door was only temporary. I couldn’t say for sure what Nathan would do if I tried to join him, but whatever we did would only make the pain worse later. I would have to do something strong and face my fears now instead of hiding from them, and that meant opening another door.
Cammie slept in her bed, her face as fixed and determined as it usually was while she was awake. I kneeled beside her, knowing it would be better to wait until morning, but I just had to say this or else I thought I would explode. Afraid, I set my hand on her shoulder and gave her a light shake. She must’ve been sleeping lightly, because her eyes opened to watch me while all the rest of her stayed still.
“We have to save Nathan!” I said, and her eyes grew wider. These simple words meant I was her ally, and together we had to fight against something that couldn’t be changed. Nathan would choose to drive his forklift into the towering cement silo when it started to fall. Cammie kept her eyes on me, not blinking for almost a minute. I had to show her I was serious, that I meant it, and so I didn’t break her gaze.
She squinted and blinked, rousing herself and reaching for a lamp beside the bed. Sitting up, she put her feet on the floor and then suddenly took my hands in hers.
“I’ve been waiting for you to say that!”
From then on, Cammie and I were a team, fighting every day to do what could not be done. Never before has a student attacked equations as ferociously as Cammie did. Gritting her teeth, stabbing with her pencil, she fought tooth and nail for a way to get Nathan out of the cement factory before it collapsed. She had yet to figure out how to stop Nathan from going to work that day, or better yet how to convince him not to make the sacrifice in the first place. There were no mathematical formulas for that.
I wished her the best of luck, because she charged me with the task of changing Nathan’s mind, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would be unsuccessful. She seemed to think that any affection he might have for me would make a tangible difference, but I could’ve told her that his decision had been carved out in stone at the beginning of time.
It didn’t stop me from trying though. The task at least gave me an excuse to spend as much time with him as I could. We mostly just engaged in small talk and avoided any probing questions about deeper topics, but I held onto hope there’d be a way to get through to him.
I had a feeling I would finally get my chance when he suggested we go out for another drive, just the two of us. It couldn’t have come too soon either because September had just begun. I wondered if we’d be heading out into the country again or if he’d try to recreate the kind of romance I’d felt when we’d kissed. Pulling into a city parking lot dashed my first thought, but as for the second, I couldn’t yet be sure.
“This is where I went to grade school,” he said, leaning over the steering wheel so he could glimpse the long two-story building. Some of the windows were open, revealing lots of children’s artwork within. “I wanted to visit it one more time.”
Nathan climbed out of the car carrying a backpack with him, almost as though he were on his way to school. I slowly exited the vehicle too, already feeling the scene tugging on my heartstrings.
We walked around the side of the parking lot by a playground, and Nathan held out his hand to touch the swings. He pointed to spots on the pavement where he used to play foursquare, but the lines had long since been washed away. This was where they used to push the snow into huge piles where the kids had epic snowball fights ten feet in the air.
It was difficult for me to pin down exactly how he felt about everything or exactly why he’d wanted to come here. There were bits of melancholy and an occasional shake of wistfulness, but otherwise he didn’t sound all that sad about leaving these memories behind. I didn’t say much, preferring instead to let him lead me around and talk about things as he wished.
Leaping up the stairs to the entrance, he held the door for me and flashed a bright smile. I scooted myself in, appreciating his gallantry, and soon we were walking down a long dark hall. A few people were busy working in the office, but the teachers must’ve been enjoying the last gasps of their summer vacation. There was a trophy case against the wall and a number of old pictures. Nathan looked for his class among them.
“Oh, look! There I am!” he beamed.
“I see,” I nodded, finding it difficult to match his enthusiasm when everything seemed so tragic. There was a little boy in the picture that used to be Nathan. He had a puffy blue coat on as he stood alongside his classmates beside the sign at the front of the school. He had a huge smile on, as happy as could be. That little boy had no idea what would happen to him, or how little time he had left.
Wandering the hall, I noticed the desks in the classroom get shorter and shorter. We peeked our head into one room that had huge maps of the world all over the place. Another was the art room, and we walked around its perimeter checking out all of the watercolors and clay creations that had been left behind at the end of the previous school year.
But when Nathan coaxed me into the classroom at the end of the hall, I knew this is what we really came to see. This was the first-grade classroom, and the desks were so short they seemed like they were meant for dolls instead of people.
