io9 is proud to current fiction from LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE. Once a month, we characteristic a narrative from LIGHTSPEED’s present situation. This month’s choice is “Plausible Realities, Improbable Dreams” by Isabel J. Kim. You can learn the story beneath or listen to the podcast on LIGHTSPEED’s web site. Enjoy!
Plausible Realities, Impossible Dreams
The multiverse broke final week. Broke is maybe the fallacious phrase. More correct can be carried out a state-change or discovered new equilibrium, however inform that to Catalina Chang, who has been popping aspirin like M&Ms ever since final Thursday, 5:54 PM, when the Unspecified Incident within the Lab superimposed all variations of actuality collectively like a flaky scallion pancake.
Aspirin nonetheless exists. So do espresso and antidepressant commercials, besides on alternate Tuesdays, besides after they don’t exist in any respect, besides after they’ve at all times existed and at all times will exist as a result of Big Pharma lobbied the federal government out of existence in 1902.
“Reality’s broken,” Cat says as she concentrates on holding all of the a number of histories in her head. “We should probably do something about this.”
“This never would have happened if you had checked the equipment properly,” says Dr. Shin.
“This always would have happened, but at least you checked the equipment properly,” says Dr. Shin.
“That never happened, what exactly are you talking about?” says Dr. Shin, wanting up from her laptop computer and frowning at Cat. “Are you feeling all right?”
“Never mind,” Cat says, and scurries again to her desk.
Her desk is roofed in stacks of paper, as a result of computer systems had been by no means invented. Her desk has a smooth terminal embedded in its floor, as a result of computer systems had been invented in 1935. Her desk has a Macintosh laptop computer with a cracked case and a sticker that claims HANG TEN. Cat remembers: summer season holidays in California, the surf crashing in opposition to the clear sand, her legs kicking as she paddled out from shore.
She’s by no means been to California. She’s by no means been browsing. She rubs her eyes and sits at her desk, shaking away the reminiscences of an alternate self. The desk shouldn’t be right here in any respect—-her desk is meant to be across the nook. This is meant to be Roshan’s desk.
Roshan Kumar, whose desk was at all times completely clear. Who texted her at unusual hours of the night time. Who she was not precisely in love with, however not not in love with, in the way in which you may be not in love along with your coworker who you see day by day and go to bars with and issues are simply too sophisticated proper now for a relationship, proper, Roshan? The method you may be not in love with somebody and nonetheless have memorized their espresso order.
Roshan’s jacket is lacking from the coat closet. His title is lacking from the paper they’re writing collectively. Cat’s scoured the web/phonebook/transmental scan, and there’s no hint of him. As if he’s been extrapolated out of existence.
But Cat nonetheless has a single line of reminiscence containing Roshan. One silver thread the place he exists and he or she exists and so they spend lengthy nights within the lab collectively, drowned out by all of the realities the place he doesn’t exist however she does.
This have to be the true previous.
It’s laborious to seek out somebody who doesn’t exist in 99.99% of realities. When Cat stops concentrating, Roshan slips via her fingers, misplaced within the flipbook of pasts that exist concurrently. Cat remembers lengthy hikes with pals she’s by no means met. She remembers checks she’s by no means taken and conferences she’s by no means been to. She remembers her mom and father divorcing. She remembers them celebrating their thirtieth anniversary.
Cat walks via the lab, sneakers on linoleum. Cat walks via the lab, excessive heels on wooden. Cat walks via the lab, naked scabbed toes on bloodstained stone.
“How are the tests coming?” Dr. Shin says.
“Any luck in the data collection?” Dr. Shin says.
“You seem distracted,” Dr. Shin says, handing Cat a pile of paper, handing her a pill, handing her a vial of datafluid.
“I’m looking for something,” Cat admits, taking the vial of datafluid and pouring it into the core output station, holding herself on this actuality for a wavering second earlier than fragmenting again into antiseptic clear rooms, biology wetrooms, pictures darkrooms. She can’t appear to know the truth the place Roshan’s desk is three toes from hers.
“Good luck,” Dr. Shin says.
Cat sifts via realities. She’s going to glad hour with coworkers she’s by no means met and going dwelling to a lover she by no means went on a primary date with. She’s watching antidepressant commercials in between episodes of sitcoms she’s by no means seen. Cat holds the reminiscence of Roshan within the entrance of her thoughts and tries tuning to its frequency. She tries to recollect her fantasies of him: the one the place they end the grant proposal on time. The one the place they win the Nobel Prize collectively. The one the place he asks her out and he or she says sure. Cat daydreams between going dwelling and falling asleep in her mattress, in her bunk, in her pod. Between going into the lab the place she researches astrophysics, biology, nanotechnology, spectral osteotherapy, after which she walks into the lab one morning and there’s Roshan, sitting at his desk.
Roshan seems similar to she remembers. Brown pores and skin, good-looking face, darkish hair that looks as if it could be gentle to the contact. Terribly unstylish glasses. She’s by no means been so glad to see his horrible glasses earlier than.
“Hey,” Cat says, as if she’s not enormously relieved to see him. As if she doesn’t need to run over and press her hand to his face to verify he really exists.
Roshan seems up. “Cat? Catalina?” Roshan jumps to his toes, crushing her into a decent embrace that she returns with fingers gripped in opposition to the strong weave of his sweater. Her make-up smudges in opposition to his neck. She softens with the unspeakable aid of understanding that Roshan isn’t somebody she dreamed up, that he’s heat and strong to the contact. Cat’s not loopy in any case.
“Is that really you? Thank God—-you were gone, I was gone, but I was looking for you, and something weird is going on and nobody else seems to notice,” Roshan says, muffled in opposition to her hair.
The rigidity in Roshan’s again resumes when Cat steps again. He retains his fingers locked round her wrist as if to anchor her.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Roshan says.
“I’m so glad I found you,” Cat says. “I wanted—-”
And then the waveform collapses and he or she’s unmoored once more, standing alone within the lab.
“Did you say something?” Dr. Shin calls from her workplace.
“No,” Cat calls again. She stares at her desk coated in papers/laptop computer elements/AI output era byproduct, the clear vacancy of Roshan’s desk erased.
It turns into simpler to synchronize into their shared thread. Having discovered it as soon as, Cat can fastidiously wedge into the only mundane actuality that flows out of the historical past of Cat and Roshan, Dr. Shin’s lab assistants extraordinaire.
In this actuality, Roshan and Cat are engaged on their doctorates. Roshan is from a small city in Oregon, however he’s been at Columbia University since undergrad. Cat is from a mid-size suburb in Ohio and landed at Columbia’s physics division after a five-year break from academia. They didn’t know one another till they began working in Dr. Shin’s lab.
The first time they met they spent three hours speaking over espresso. The second time they met they spent two hours discussing comedian books whereas Cat wrangled statistics and Roshan googled grants. They’re slightly-more-than-friends solid by too many late nights and too many early mornings, and their lives ran in sexually tense, collegial consolation till Thursday at 5:54 PM when the multiverse fractured.
“I can’t remember what happened,” Cat admits.
Roshan frowns and stares on the diagram he’s whiteboarded in his neat handwriting. “Neither can I. But we must have been ground zero, if we’re the only ones who can perceive this.”
“I mean, I can remember everything that happened,” Cat says. “Too many everythings. All of the everythings. But I can’t remember this one specific thing, which is what freaks me out.”
“Oh, that’s what freaks you out?” Roshan says, smiling at her.
“You know what I mean!” Cat says, laughing regardless of the way in which the motion makes her lose the thread once more. She’s despatched spiraling into lengthy nights working late on the bar, lengthy nights singing on a cruise ship, lengthy nights ready for the drugs to kick in earlier than she will orient herself again to the lengthy night time with Roshan sitting throughout from her, consuming her french fries.
“We’ll fix this,” Roshan says. “We’ll figure out what happened and fix this.”
“How?” Cat says, as a result of she’s at all times been the pessimist to Roshan’s optimist.
Roshan shrugs. “We’ll figure it out. You found me—-that’s the first step. Infinite multiverse and you still found me.”
“That’s nearly romantic,” Cat says.
“That’s me,” Roshan says. “Mister Nearly-Romantic.”
Cat laughs once more. Long nights stargazing within the observatory, lengthy nights supervising the perpetual movement machine, lengthy nights navimancing her method throughout the galaxy till she snaps again into the current. Roshan is tapping his pencil in opposition to a notepad, frowning at his diagram.
“Hey,” Roshan says. “Maybe we’ve been looking at this wrong. An infinite multiverse means infinite solutions.”
In all of Roshan’s worlds save one, Cat doesn’t exist. In all of Cat’s worlds save one, Roshan doesn’t exist. They agree to fulfill within the thread they each bear in mind on Fridays, since Thursdays have traditionally been unfortunate for them.
Cat sieves realities like she’s panning for gold. Sometimes she’s actually panning for gold, in worlds the place the gold rush is at the moment hanging via California streambeds. Worlds the place time’s advance was slower, extra methodic. She discards these realities shortly, filtering for worlds that perceive hyperreality, the place the singularity has come and gone—-worlds with matrioshka brains, with quicker than mild journey, the place Star Trek is historic fiction as a result of parallel processing was invented three thousand years early.
Then she’s climbing again to Roshan within the espresso store close to the lab, typing away at his netbook. She’s sitting in bars with him, ingesting whisky and scribbling notes. They typically really do their job in order that Dr. Shin doesn’t fireplace them, and whereas they oversee the gear Cat’s hand stays on Roshan’s shoulder like her bodily presence can anchor him on this actuality.
Then they’re fracturing away once more. Cat’s a health care provider, she’s a researcher, she’s a lowly hologramemory operator, she’s constructing robots, she’s changing her mind with routine cybernetics, she’s calling her mom ten lightyears away.
“They’re getting weirder,” Cat tells Roshan, splintering herself again into their shared existence. He’s scrolling via Twitter. She’s writing a program to automate knowledge entry and consuming McDonalds. She remembers the historical past that flows to this second: a protracted week within the lab and so they’re caught on their paper as a result of they’re nonetheless ready for knowledge to trickle in. “Or maybe I’ve just been looking at the weird ones.”
“It’s the same on my end,” Roshan says. “The one I was in before this was, like, aquatic? Like bioaugmented aquatic. Tails and stuff.”
“I can’t imagine you as a merman,” Cat says. “I was a long-haul spaceship pilot. Everything looked like something out of an old-school iPhone commercial.”
“Dystopian-chic,” Roshan says. “And hey. I rocked the scales.”
They sit at their desks in companionable, gloomy silence for a second. One of the fluorescent lights is buzzing. Outside, the solar is setting. It’s virtually November. Cat eats a number of fries. Grease and salt, the starch of it scorching in her mouth. Maybe that’s the answer, grounding your self with potatoes, with cable-knit sweaters, with cups of espresso purchased for one another quite than clambering via a fractured multiverse.
“This doesn’t help us,” Roshan says, the identical time as Cat says, “I don’t think this is working.”
“Sorry,” Roshan says. “I keep interrupting you. Go on?”
“No, we were saying the same thing,” Cat says. “Maybe trying to find a solution in the other worlds is just . . . statistically unlikely. Maybe we should try to stay here, instead.”
Roshan steals a number of fries. “It’s worth a shot.”
It’s laborious for Cat to linger of their shared actuality. Something about its texture makes it laborious to synchronize for lengthy durations of time, even when it’s simple to seek out. She retains kaleidoscoping into worlds the place Roshan’s title doesn’t seem when she sorts it into Google. It’s a alternative, to maintain coming again to the world the place Roshan is handing her a elaborate mocha from the place on campus.
“I’m having the same problem,” Roshan admits. “It’s like this one is the opposite of sticky. Anti-sticky? Repellant! Repellant.”
“Like magnets,” Cat nods. “Or the hydrophobic coating study that Dr. Shin is trying to get funded.”
“Yeah, like that,” Roshan says. “We’ll just have to practice.”
“Keep buying me caffeine, and I’ll do anything for you,” Cat says, and Roshan laughs, and the late November mild is glinting off his glasses and Cat is sipping her mocha and Cat is sipping her vitality drink and Cat is sipping her miso soup and Cat is sipping her mocha once more and Roshan is sliding into the seat throughout from her, ingesting his personal espresso, asking Cat whether or not she needs to get dinner with him. At a restaurant. A pleasant one.
“Like a date?” Cat says.
“Not unlike a date,” Roshan admits. “But I’m happy with our usual takeout if you’re not into this.”
“Your timing is weird,” Cat says, placing her mocha down, placing her miso soup down, placing her vitality drink down.
“My timing is very weird,” Roshan agrees. “I’m not great at this. Like I said, I’m Mister Nearly-Romantic. Is that . . . all right with you?”
“Pick me up at seven,” Cat says, and imagines a future, singular.
Dinner occurs, punctuated by abstractions. Cat is laughing at a joke Roshan advised her. Cat is sitting within the manufacturing facility break room. Cat is pouring extra wine for the 2 of them. Cat is climbing a frigid mountain. Roshan is telling her that he was at all times somewhat intimidated by her, in a method that made friendship simpler than romance—-that he stored placing it off, however he’s bored with placing issues off now that actuality is fracturing. Roshan doesn’t exist, and Cat is consuming alone.
“I’ll get the check,” Roshan says, and Cat says “No, we’ll split it,” as a result of it’s an exquisite miracle that he’s right here for her to separate the verify with.
“I’m trying to romance you, woman,” Roshan says, all mock-offended. “I’m trying to move beyond almost romance.”
“Format my citations for me then, Mister Almost-Romantic,” Cat says, and Roshan laughs, and it feels good to be sitting throughout from somebody who understands her state of affairs intimately.
He does her citations for her. She buys him espresso. They discuss to Dr. Shin in regards to the course of the paper they’re writing, and he or she doesn’t discover that they’re standing nearer than standard. Nothing about their lives adjustments apart from all the pieces that does. They work collectively; they sleep collectively; they catapult via realities individually and discuss them over ramen noodles, over overpriced cocktails, over eggs over-easy within the morning.
It will get simpler to carry their thread now that Cat is aware of the feel of Roshan’s hair below her fingers, now that she is aware of that his lips are at all times cracking, now that she carries chapstick round for him. Cat can keep on this actuality for hours at a time.
“I think this might be working,” Roshan says, tucking a strand of her hair behind her cheek.
“Do you mean us, or this reality?” Cat says, taking Roshan’s glasses off of his face. She’s studying the form of him now, the identical method she’s studying the form of the truth they inhabit collectively.
“Both,” Roshan says, and lies again in mattress and Cat lies down subsequent to him and he or she’s falling asleep in a bunk in a submarine, in a round mattress in a lodge room, in a hammock that rocks slowly as she drifts away.
Cat and Roshan put up new cabinets. Cat carries a sword and participates in ritual fight rites. Cat and Roshan go snowboarding for the weekend. Cat wades via mud and shoots her rifle on the insurrectionists, screams for revolution to the uncaring rain. Cat takes the subway dwelling from work and runs via bioring habitats and practices necromancy and hikes throughout metallic glaciers and kisses Roshan when she claws her method via fragmented realities and slides into their lounge.
“I don’t think we’re fixing anything,” Cat says.
Roshan nods and frowns. “Maybe we just have to live like this. It’s not so bad, right?”
“I’m single-handedly keeping Bayer afloat with how much aspirin I take,” Cat says, mendacity on the sofa. “But it’s bearable. There are worse lives. I remember them.”
“Try and remember this one instead?” Roshan provides. “That’s not helpful, I know.”
“Oh believe me, I do,” Cat says. Her mind hiccups reminiscences of coaching to grow to be an astromech. She as an alternative tries to dredge up the primary time she noticed Roshan within the lab, wanting up from his beat-up desktop with its mechanical keyboard. She had thought he was cute, even with the hackathon t-shirt he had been sporting. The reminiscences of astromech boot camp fade.
“Do you want a back massage?” Roshan asks her, and Cat does. She sighs as he presses in opposition to the knots, however the second Cat relaxes she’s in a spa on Ganymede, she’s collapsing into a shower in an Icelandic cabin, she’s splintering into all of the realities which can be Roshanless.
There are lengthy stretches of time that they handle to exist in collectively. Sunlit afternoons. Fluorescent evenings. Dinners that they linger over, espresso breaks and walks within the park and visits to bookstores, however finally Cat is tessellating away once more—-the hemorrhage of her histories doubly as intense and unusual as earlier than, as if the multiverse is punishing her for staying in a single place too lengthy.
It will get more durable to squeeze into the truth the place she and Roshan stay. The contours of their shared existence are slipperier when her entire infinity of worlds retains increasing. She is strolling in a spaceport. She is dancing at a ball. She is stuffing intestines again into the torso of a beloved buddy. She is a sculptor. She is a warlock. She is a rocket scientist. She is crossing the ocean and he or she is crossing the galaxy bridge and he or she is crossing the bombed-out streets of Soho.
When they’re collectively, Roshan likes to carry her hand. Cat doesn’t thoughts. She likes the heat of it in opposition to her personal, his pulse maintaining time within the current.
Cat and Roshan are preparing for a gathering with Dr. Shin when Cat loses the thread in an incredible cascade. One second they’re discussing their agenda for the afternoon—-how they need to go over the brand new grant proposals and the hydrophobic coatings examine. Cat is considering their afternoon plans. She needs to go to the library. Roshan needs to get drinks with their pals. They can do each, possibly, so long as Roshan and Ca—-
—-t is spacewalking, sitting on the wheel of a barge, doing yoga, arguing along with her mom, writing a novel, capturing a pistol, singing opera. Cat’s abdomen heaves, the world de-coalescing in snatches of—-a raised knife, pounding toes on cement, urgent fingertips to keyboards—-stomach lurching, she will’t get again, the thread of it’s slipping via her fingers—-something candy on her tongue, stars blurring with motion, legs submerged in liquid metallic—-the previous is slipping via her reminiscences, when did she meet Roshan? What had been they about to do? Where is he? Where is she? Who is—-Cat is a knight, a chef, a janitor, a skysailor, an augur, a scientist, a prophet, a—-
Reality resolves in a stomach-turning flip. Cat is standing within the lab, subsequent to Roshan. Cat takes a deep, shaky breath. Roshan seems like he’s going to throw up, as if he’s been in his personal multiverse centrifuge.
Dr. Shin is standing in entrance of them, leaning on the doorframe. She smiles, and it turns into obvious that this isn’t Dr. Shin. The enamel are fallacious. The smile is worse.
“Wow,” the factor within the form of Dr. Shin says. “So much for ‘just let it untangle itself.’ Now I have to do this completely manually. So here’s the problem. Reality’s—-”
“Broken, we know,” Cat says, chopping the entity off. Her mouth feels dry. She’s scared. She has an infinity of pasts filling her brainspace. “It’s broken, and we don’t remember why, even though we know when it happened. Are you here to fix it?”
The Dr. Shin Thing blinks. “Well, aren’t you sharp? Yes, and no, Catalina. But let’s not talk about this at a threshold. Come inside. This isn’t a request.”
She gestures for them to enter Dr. Shin’s workplace. Cat and Roshan stroll inside, as if their ahead motion is the one potential future.
The factor within the form of Dr. Shin walks sedately to Dr. Shin’s desk and sits closely within the chair. She gestures for them to sit down down. “Time for a performance review, my darling assistants.”
“What are you doing to Dr. Shin?” Roshan asks, sitting in a chair, pulling Cat down with him and maintaining a grip on her hand. Roshan’s the sort one—-Cat hadn’t even considered what occurred to Dr. Shin, and he or she feels instantly ashamed. Dr. Shin’s an awesome boss.
The Dr. Shin Thing shrugs. “She’s fine. I wouldn’t twist things here further, don’t worry about her. She doesn’t exist here, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Cat says.
“Is that related to reality breaking?” Roshan says, near-simultaneously.
The Dr. Shin Thing makes a face. “Broken is the wrong word, Roshan. You didn’t forget reality breaking. The two of you remembered it into breaking. You created a total headache for me.”
“What do you mean by ‘remembered it’ into breaking?” Roshan says, utilizing his free hand to regulate his glasses.
“Hm. It’s hard to explain because you’re inside of it right now. It’s like . . . all the realities are the layers of a croissant. Carbohydrates separated by lipids, expanding outward in heat. You exist in all the carbohydrate layers, but they’re not supposed to touch, and time is the heat expanding the dough. Does this make sense so far?”
Roshan nods. The Dr. Shin Thing grins. “Great. That’s not how it works at all, but let’s pretend it does. The issue is that the two of you are like . . . chocolate chips on separate layers of the dough, one above the other. You’re supposed to take up the same vertical space in reality, not horizontal. But right now you’re superimposing—-that’s a one in a million chance, but it happens. Your chocolate chips got squished together. Maybe you were doing something technical, something requiring specific action? Calibrating some sort of laboratory equipment?”
“That’s what I remember,” Cat says. Thursday at 5:54PM, doing gear upkeep.
“That’ll do it,” the Dr. Shin Thing says sagely. “Synchronization catalysis, autogenerated recollection. What you remember shapes the present. The only problem is that there is no reality where the two of you should exist together. The ‘break,’ as you call it, is that you remember each other at all.”
“What do you mean by ‘taking up the same space in reality?’” Roshan says, frowning. “We’re not the same person.”
Roshan’s fingers are tense in opposition to Cat’s palm. He’s scared, and overlaying the worry with curiosity and bravado, whereas Cat is overlaying her worry with a chilly nonchalance. Roshan believes he can negotiate. Cat’s given it up as a loss. That’s the distinction between them: Roshan believes in options and Cat believes in issues. She’s the pessimist to his optimist. She squeezes his hand anyway.
“Aren’t you?” the Dr. Shin Thing counters. “Oh, the details don’t matter—-your gender, your history—-what you do in this point in space is the same. You fulfill the same purpose. Let me guess: you’re always talking over each other; you never fight about anything; you finish each other’s sentences. You can predict each other. It’s why you get along so well—-like recognizes like.”
Cat stares on the Dr. Shin Thing, as a result of she doesn’t need to see what Roshan’s face is doing. But she is aware of what his face have to be doing, his shock can be written throughout his face, then he’ll carry his hand now to rub his temple. Roshan lifts his hand and rubs his brow. Cat takes a shallow breath.
“We’re not—-”
“I don’t know what—-”
“See?” the Dr. Shin Thing says, sagely. “That’s a perfect example of the superimposition. You exist in all realities, and you twisted everything a little too close. This would have been a blip, a weird week that you later chalk off as stress-induced hallucination, except for the fact that you guys clung together like limpets. And now I’ve got to untangle this entire branch, which is going to be my whole shift.”
“Fuck your shift, this is our lives,” Roshan says. He’s gripping Cat’s hand laborious sufficient that it’s most likely going to bruise.
“Yeah, and all those other lives are yours too,” the Dr. Shin Thing says. “Stop monopolizing the sentience. Seriously, stop synchronizing into this reality—-the knot will untangle itself as long as you stop tightening it.”
“And if we don’t?” Cat says flatly.
“Then the lamination doesn’t take and I have to throw the whole croissant out, if you catch my metaphor,” the Dr. Shin Thing says, like the entire of their multiverse is only a petri dish tradition that didn’t develop correctly.
The Dr. Shin Thing smiles, the form of it fallacious on Dr. Shin’s mouth. “I like this croissant. I’d hate to throw it out. That’s why I’m intervening: you can fix this. Don’t try to find each other again. Here—-I’ll kickstart it for you.”
The Dr. Shin Thing does a humorous little movement along with her hand, and disappears. Roshan disappears. The room round them disappears. It appears like a hypnic jerk, besides Cat’s awake, after which Cat is standing in an auditorium; Cat is standing in a jail; Cat is standing in a subject, a bed room, a shoreline, worlds blitzing previous as she stays nonetheless. She can nonetheless really feel the finger-shaped bruise throughout her knuckles.
Cat tessellates throughout realities. She polishes the home windows of her era starship and thinks about doing the dishes whereas Roshan dries them in companionable silence. She holds infants on the daycare and thinks about how they solely ever talked about youngsters within the summary. She goes to events in glittering highspires, cleans the detritus of educational conferences, takes notes in Divisibility Economics 387—-all the whereas consciously not pulling on the thread of actuality the place Roshan exists.
The factor within the form of Dr. Shin had warned them in opposition to sharing actuality. Had stated that the entire multiverse would collapse in the event that they continued to commingle. Cat’s fairly keen on the multiverse at this level. But Cat can be greater than keen on Roshan. It’s unusual to exist with out him for therefore lengthy. Cat imagines waking up one morning subsequent to him and telling him “You know, I had the strangest dream, about the multiverse, and you were there, isn’t that funny?” She imagines waking up and by no means seeing him once more, besides that’s really her actuality and he or she’s accepted it.
Cat’s solely concession is to iterate into the acquainted worlds the place she’s working late nights within the lab, chilly espresso and graphing packages open on her laptop computer/abacus/holovisualizer. She needs that Roshan was sitting subsequent to her and making notations in his neat handwriting, that he was telling her in regards to the ebook he was studying, that he was right here to say, “We’re going to figure it all out, Cat,” as a result of he’s the optimist to her pessimist apart from the truth that he doesn’t exist in her universes.
Dr. Shin pauses earlier than she heads out for the night. “You’ve been putting in a lot of work lately,” she says. Her smile is human, amused.
Cat smiles again. “Oh, you know. Just excited about the research.”
“Don’t burn yourself out,” Dr. Shin says.
“It’s good that you’re dedicated,” Dr. Shin says.
“Too bad the budget doesn’t stretch to two,” Dr. Shin says.
“Yeah, I really wish,” Cat says, and goes again to her work. This actuality is simply too near the one the place Roshan lives, and he or she’s anticipating to fragment out of it shortly. But half an hour later, Cat’s nonetheless watching the code compile. She doesn’t have a headache. Maybe which means the knot is untangling.
Cat stares on the knowledge. Cat listens to the clock tick. Cat needs—-
Roshan places a cautious hand on her shoulder. Cat jumps.
“Woah!” he says. “Just me. I came to find you. Sorry, I know—-”
“Jesus Christ,” Cat breathes. “No, don’t be sorry, look, come here.”
She pulls him right into a crushing embrace. Roshan places his hand tentatively on her again. As if he’s scared they’ll merge collectively if he presses too laborious.
They’re having a late night time within the lab collectively, similar to all their different late nights—-nights that don’t exist, nights twisting the material of the multiverse to the breaking level. They’re sitting on Roshan’s desk so Cat can relaxation her head in opposition to Roshan’s shoulder.
“Guess I shouldn’t have asked you out,” Roshan says.
“Guess I shouldn’t have said yes,” Cat says. “And I guess you shouldn’t have come back.”
“We’ve been breaking reality, huh?”
“All realities,” Cat says.
The hum of the pc banks. The gentle whistle of the air con system.
“What if we just stayed here?” Roshan suggests. “You hold on, and I hold on, and we just do our best to stay present. How long do you think we’d have? Screw our croissant. I don’t even like croissants.”
“You ate two croissants last week at that bakery in Brooklyn,” Cat says. “You like croissants.”
“I do like croissants,” Roshan sighs.
The heat of Roshan’s shoulder in opposition to her cheek. His hand pressed in opposition to her waist.
Outside of this lab there are 100 billion individuals, in homes and excessive rises and habitat rings, actuality crawling linear over their consciousnesses. Cat remembers them. Cat has been a part of their lives, has consoled them and taught them and killed them. They stay and die in excellent ignorance of all the opposite methods they might have lived and died. The croissant rises within the oven.
“I wish we could,” Cat says. She imagines clinging to him till their multiverse snuffs out. Until there’s nothing left to cling to. All the individuals in all of the multiverses wouldn’t even really feel a factor, and no one would know what occurred as a result of no one would exist.
“But we can’t,” Roshan finishes, and Cat nods. They’re in excellent settlement as a result of she’s supposed to fit into the area he fills and he’s supposed to slot in hers. No marvel it appears like dwelling of their shared inconceivable actuality.
“Let’s stay as long as possible,” Cat suggests, and he or she feels the dip of Roshan’s chin which means he’s nodding again. He tightens his maintain on her. She presses her face into his neck.
“What will we do tomorrow?” she asks, silently prepared him to play alongside.
“We’ll go to the beach,” he says firmly. He’s picked up her recreation like he can learn her thoughts.
“In December?”
“It won’t be December,” Roshan says. “It’s July, and it’s going to be sunny and beautiful. We’ll bring a picnic.”
“Finally earning your nickname, Mister Romantic,” Cat says. “We’ll go swimming.”
She imagines the summer season solar, the clear white sand. Roshan in his swim trunks, mendacity on a seashore towel and getting sand throughout it. Eating sandwiches that they made early within the morning and ingesting beer they introduced in a cooler. She imagines him smiling behind his sun shades. She imagines main him to the ocean, floating a surfboard behind her.
She’s by no means been browsing earlier than, however the reminiscence of it rises unbidden—-the lengthy California summers of one other lifetime swelling in her head.
“I’ll teach you how to surf, too. I bet the waves will be amazing,” Cat says.
“I’ve never surfed.”
“You’ll love it,”
“I bet I will,” Roshan says, dreamily, as if he’s seeing his personal non-public world. “You’ll show me everything, right?”
“I will,” Cat says, taking a deep breath. It smells just like the ocean in right here now, one other actuality edging into this second ahead of she anticipated. She imagines Roshan within the ocean, sitting on a rented board. She imagines his moist hair, his sunburnt nostril. She imagines kicking via the water and placing her palms on his physique to indicate him find out how to stand.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Roshan says, his voice echoing as if from very far-off. The roar of the ocean is so loud in her head.
Cat closes her eyes. She tightens her grip on his wrist. She imagines balancing precariously on the board with Roshan. She imagines holding his hand in hers. She imagines the clear blue barrel surrounding them till they crash into the swell, dissolving them into the ocean.
About the Author
Isabel J. Kim is a Korean-American science fiction and fantasy author primarily based in New York City. When she’s not writing, she’s both trying a authorized profession or co-hosting Wow If True, a podcast about web tradition—each equally noble pursuits. Her work has been revealed in Clarkesworld, Khoreo, and Cast of Wonders. Find her at isabel.kim or @isabeljkim on twitter.
Please go to LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE to learn extra nice science fiction and fantasy. This story first appeared within the February 2022 situation, which additionally options work by Anjali Sachdeva, Isha Karki, Stephen Graham Jones, Theresa DeLucci, Sharang Biswas, P H Lee, Karin Lowachee, and extra. You can watch for this month’s contents to be serialized on-line, or you should buy the entire situation proper now in handy book format for simply $3.99, or subscribe to the book version right here.
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