archives

The Calculus of Destiny

by Jason K. Chapman

      "I'd like to exchange my universe." Irritated, Peter Norland spoke to the top of the clerk's balding head.

      The clerk kept scratching away on his datapad. "A moment, please."

      Peter had already waited an hour. "I really must insist."

      With a sigh, the clerk looked up. "I'm sorry. What? Exchange?"

      Peter stepped closer to the desk and leaned forward, keeping his voice low. "It's haunted."

      The man's pale, blue eyes grew round. "I really don't have time for jokes."

      Peter glanced at the nameplate on the desk. "I'm sorry, Mr. MacAfee, but I'm not joking. I paid for a private, unshared universe, and I mean to have it."

      MacAfee's face tightened and his mouth squeezed down to a thin line. He held his hand out. "Your key, please."

      Peter handed over the thick card and sat down in the hard-edged chair that was obviously intended to hasten visitors on their way. MacAfee shoved the card into a slot in his desk. With lots of "uh-hums" and "I sees," he scanned the information that flickered across his datapad. At last, he looked up. "As I thought, Mr. Norland. Everything's in order. The Board of Extra-Real Estate does not issue inhabited interstitial properties. Your address is entirely unique."

      Peter inched the chair closer and leaned on the front of the desk. MacAfee frowned as Peter's elbow shoved the nameplate off center. "I didn't say 'inhabited.'" He was almost whispering. "I said 'haunted.'"

      MacAfee blinked several times. He scratched the top of his head, then his nose, then he meticulously folded his hands on the desk in front of him. "You saw a ghost."

      "It was my wife."

      "Your wife saw a ghost."

      Peter sighed. "My wife has been dead for five years."

      Peter stalked out of the E-RE offices and into the crowded streets of midtown Manhattan. The appointment had been a complete waste of time. MacAfee had promised to fill out some forms and file a report, and Peter could expect to hear from a site inspector within two weeks, but the man hadn't believed him. Why should he?

      But it had been Janelle. He'd seen her clearly in the moonlight. She'd been down by the shore, right there at Battery Park—at least right where Battery Park stood in the real world. In his private world it was a lovely, grass-covered hillock that rolled down to a rocky shore at the southern tip of Manhattan Island.

      That's where they'd first met, ten years before. He had been just out of college and working in the creative department of a small ad agency. She'd been sitting on the fresh spring grass, strumming a guitar and watching all the tight-suited, tie-strangled Wall Street types whisking back and forth. She'd refused to even say hello until he'd taken off his tie.

      Now she was gone, and he was a junior partner at BBQ&O, and nothing seemed bright or fresh any more. His suits felt too tight. And his ties choked him.

      "Tell me again," said Martin Caine, "why we had to get a cab across town and fight the rush hour crowds at the IP terminal just to have dinner at your place instead of at Kai Garden?"

      Peter had more or less inherited his friend. Marty and Janelle had practically grown up together and the two had been a package deal.

      "I make a mean hamburger," Peter said.

      Marty ticked his words off on his fingers, as if proving a point. "Kai. Garden."

      "I could order us a pizza. Mah-jong's actually delivers to interstitial properties now. Can you believe it?"

      Marty sighed. He ran a hand across the surface of Peter's dining room table as if smoothing out a wrinkle in the gleaming wood. "You know you're acting weird, don't you? The Peter Norland I know wouldn't be caught dead eating Mah-jong's Pizza. Have you been replaced with a bad duplicate or something?"

      "Is that possible?"

      "What?"

      "Nothing."

      Peter walked over to the sliding glass door. It was open, and a pleasant nighttime breeze brushed past him. "You know a lot about IP travel, right?"

      "I've been out of that business for a long time."

      "But you know about it. I mean you designed the gadgets that make it go."

      "Not really. Just the discriminator circuits that allow for tuning the portals. When I sold out, they were still tying that hideous knot of treaties and agreements. Why?"

      "I need to show you something."

      Peter dragged his friend out of the house and down the well-worn path toward not-Battery Park. The moon was bright enough to follow the smooth trail and a fierce net of stars stretched overhead.

      Marty stopped, staring up. "God, I'd forgotten what the Milky Way could look like."

      "Shh." Peter tugged Marty's sleeve and whispered. "This way."

      "Why—?"

      "Shh!"

      Marty finally gave up trying to talk, but his expression showed his annoyance. They walked in silence for fifteen minutes, before Peter pulled him down behind a gravelly berm where sea grasses eased out the other kinds. He held a finger to his lips, then pointed toward the water.

      There, silhouetted by shards of moonlight that shattered off the water's surface, was Janelle. Peter knew her form. He recognized the delicate arch of the dancer's back, the square set of the rebel's shoulders. She turned slightly, and at the ends of her hair, he could see those little curls she should could never quite control.

      The moonlight showed Marty's face twisted into a puzzled frown. Carefully, Peter took a small pair of field glasses out of his pocket and handed them to his friend. Marty fiddled with them, focusing and adjusting. Just then, Janelle turned. Her face was struck fully by the moonlight. Marty dropped the field glasses. His eyes were wide. Peter was ready to clamp his hand over his friend's mouth, but it wasn't necessary. Marty was silent as he crept backward, out of sight of the shore. He didn't stand up until he reached the path. Without a word, he headed back to the house, leaving Peter to follow.

      Marty sprinted around the house, turning off the lights. "Pack a bag and let's go."

      Peter followed him. He wanted to turn the lights back on, but the look on Marty's face the first time he tried it dissuaded him. "It's her, isn't it?"

      "Don't be crazy. Janelle's dead. Now let's go."

      "But you knew who I meant, didn't you? If it's not her, why the rush?"

      Marty stopped and looked at him. "Well, obviously something's wrong with the addressing scheme, right? So that could be anybody. You don't even have locks on this place. I'm just being prudent."

      "This isn't prudence, it's panic."

      A strained smile flashed across Marty's face. "It's not panic. Look, I still know some people at the E-RE board. We'll get you a different address and they can lock this one out. It's just some kind of screwup."

      "I have a house here, Marty."

      "So you'll build another one. You can afford it."

      Peter stood his ground. He peered at his friend, trying to read through the man's expression. "You know something, don't you?"

      "No. Not really. Suspect, maybe." He stepped close and grabbed Peter's arm. His grip grew tighter as he spoke. "Listen to me. There just isn't a can big enough for the number of worms you're reaching for. Janelle died in that fire five years ago. She was a beautiful, sparkling, nova of a person, and we should just be glad we had a chance to know her. This is something else entirely. Just let it go!"

      Peter kept at him, but Marty wouldn't budge. Either he really didn't know anything more, or Peter would have to resort to torture to get it out of him. Finally, Peter just went along. He threw a couple of suits into a hanging bag, added a random assortment of toiletries, and followed Marty to the return portal that sat about a hundred yards behind the house. They waited in silence as the rumbling underground power system built up the charge necessary to open the portal. Finally, the status light went green.

      Peter punched the "connect" button. The familiar silver fog shimmered in the portal's empty frame. He could just make out the frenzied activity of the IP terminal on the other side.

      "After you," Peter said.

      Marty started forward, then stopped and turned. A tiny smile tickled his mouth. "No, I think—."

      Peter shoved him, hard, in the middle of the chest. Marty flew backward through the portal, landing roughly. Peter watched long enough to make sure his friend wasn't hurt, then he shut down the connection. He had the only key in his pocket. If Marty wanted to come back, he'd need a court order.

      On his way back to the house, Peter tried to decide what to do. If he went back down to the beach, would she still be there? And if she were, what then? Hi, I think you're my dead wife.

      "Who are you?"

      Peter froze. He was standing outside the sliding glass door to the dining room. Only his feet were in the pool of light that spilled out. Janelle stood inside. She pointed a pistol at him with one hand. His field glasses dangled from the other.

      "What is this house doing here?" she said. "And who are you?"

      "I—. Janelle, listen."

      "How do you know my name?"

      Peter kept his voice soft. She might not have been a ghost, but he still feared disturbing whatever etheric currents might have swept her to him. "This is my house," he said.

      "I own this world. And I've got friends on the BRE, so don't try to bluff me."

      Peter moved slowly. "I'm putting my hands up. I don't have any kind of weapon. Now I'm stepping forward."

      "Slowly!"

      "I am. It's okay. Just let me get into the light."

      Two more steps. A third. He stepped out of the shadow and Janelle's face flashed through an entire spectrum of emotion. It stopped at fear. The field glasses clunked to the floor and the pistol wavered. "Who are you? What are you trying to do to me?"

      He stepped closer, into the path of her shaking aim. "It's me, Janelle. I swear. It's Peter."

      "You can't." She shook her head wildly. "You're dead."

      "I what? No, you are. Five years ago."

      "You died in a fire!"

      Peter nodded. "The brownstone on East Seventy-second, but I was at the office, working on the Bollinger account."

      Tears filled Janelle's eyes and the pistol swung down, pointing at the floor. "You worked from home that night, remember? I had the gallery opening."

      "For your 'Parallel Intersections' exhibit." Peter nodded and pointed toward the painting that hung over the fireplace in the living room. "See? I kept number three. It was your favorite. But you stayed home that night. You had the flu."

      Janelle stared at the painting. "I don't understand."

      "I don't either, but I think it's Marty's can of worms."

      "Marty? He's with the Bureau."

      Peter stepped toward her, aching to hold her. He stopped when the gun swung back his way.

      Janelle looked puzzled. She followed his gaze, then stared at the gun in her hand as if she'd never seen it before. "What? This?" She laughed, but the sound caught on something sharp in her throat. "Oh, God, Peter. It's not even loaded." The gun fell to the floor as she ran to him.

      Peter held her, crying into her hair. "Please be real," he whispered. "Please be real."

      They were hesitant, at first, uncertain. The conversation stumbled, but as they talked about the things they'd done together and the places they'd been, the differences seemed less important. Peter didn't care that, for her, their first date had been an Ethiopian restaurant, while, for him, it had been Korean. The two restaurants were just a block away from each other. The important details were the same, the little differences were merely uncomfortable ripples.

      Later, in bed, he found a small, jagged scar on her hip. He knew every inch of her body. It hadn't been there before. "How did you get this?"

      "Power boarding."

      He laughed, tracing the scar with his fingertip. "When the hell did you take up power boarding?"

      She didn't answer right away. The silence stretched and when he looked up at her, she wasn't smiling.

      "When I was twelve," she said.

      "But—."

      She touched his lips softly. "Don't say it! You love my scar. You've always loved my scar."

      It took him a moment to realize what she was saying, to understand the bargain. The pasts were the pasts. The differences didn't matter. "I love your scar." He kissed her. "I've always loved your scar."

      The next day, Janelle went back to her world to grab some clothes and let people know she'd be gone for a few days. By evening, she hadn't returned. At eight o'clock, he started to worry. By ten, he was nearly frantic. He took a flashlight and retraced the route to her return portal. It was a mile up the shore from Battery Park, right where the South Street Seaport was in the real world. He'd never explored that part of his island, that's why he hadn't even known it was there.

      He sat down to wait, cursing himself for hesitating. He should fly after her. Find her. Make them whole again. But it was another world, one full of differences and uncertainties. He hated doubt, hated not knowing what was around the corner. Janelle was the spontaneous one. She was the firefly to his tortoise. Without her, he just followed the old patterns. What if he couldn't find her? What if he couldn't get back? He lay back and threw his arm across his face. What if? What if?

      He awoke to the squawk of seagulls. The sun was just clearing the horizon. He looked at the portal, then, briefly, he looked at the rest of his life without Janelle. He took his tie off and threw it aside. He couldn't wait any longer. He fired up the portal and stepped through.

      Even early in the morning, the IP terminal was busy. It was similar to the one Peter was used to. He'd stepped through the silver-gray mist and onto a platform in the middle of a room the size of a large theater. To his right, a long line waited for the outbound gate. Each traveler shoved a stubby little wand into the console, waited as the platform adjusted for small differences in elevation in the destination world, then disappeared through the misty curtain.

      "Move along." The conductor waved him off the landing pad. "More passengers coming through."

      Peter stepped quickly out of the ring of sensors that locked out incoming connections. "Sorry, I—."

      The man barely glanced at him. "Move along."

      Dozens of people in Portal Authority Police uniforms prowled the room. More watched from catwalks suspended twenty feet up. Some of those seemed to be wearing riot gear. So much for the worlds being the same. In Peter's world, PAP officers were little more than night watchmen. He began to wonder if this had been such a good idea, but he was committed now. Without Janelle's key, he couldn't return.

      "Move like you mean it, buddy." A man brushed past him, still grumbling.

      Peter shook himself and fell into step with the people streaming toward the exit. He glanced around the room as he walked, looking for differences, still trying to believe in this other world. Was he acting suspicious? Why had so many police officers suddenly developed a preoccupation with their radios? Blue uniforms converged on the exit, then on his place in line. One officer stepped in front of him, while others formed a breakwater to keep the crowd flowing around them.

      The policeman blocking his way acted as if everything were just part of his boring routine. "Sir, will you come with me, please?"

      Peter stammered. "What's this about?"

      The officer's demeanor shifted. One hand rested on his baton while the other fluttered closer to the gun on his belt. His voice almost sounded eager. "Are you refusing to comply?"

      "Of course not. I just—."

      "Then come with me, please."

      Peter had no choice. He followed the officers out of the IP terminal and down a side corridor to a set of Portal Authority offices. He was dumped, without ceremony, into a room called "Interrogation 2."

      Within minutes, Peter was joined by a tall man whose plaid jacket and striped, stained tie would have looked more at home on a used car lot. His face belonged on a statue. There was no smile, no expression of any kind. His eyes were sharp and bright like cut crystal.

      "I'm Lieutenant Jeffries and you have some things to explain." He sat down and stared at Peter across the scratched steel table.

      Would the truth work? Probably not. It would be best to save it as a last resort. "I don't understand."

      The Lieutenant was as unemotional as his face. "Your driver's license is high quality, but an obvious fake. You came through the IP portal, but you're not carrying a key. You came from a property which has no record of you going to it, so you've obviously figured out how to game the system somehow. I need to know how and why."

      "But I didn't."

      Jeffries stared at him for a moment before continuing. "The BRE tracks IP transports, Mr. Norland. They recorded one trip to the world in question and two returns. How did you fake the records?"

      Janelle had mentioned the BRE. It seemed to be something like his own world's Board of Extra-Real Estate. What else had she said? Dammit, think! "I'm sorry. The BRE?"

      "The Bureau of Reality Estate, unless you know of some other agency that should be involved. Homeland Security, perhaps?"

      The Bureau! That's what Janelle had said. "Marty."

      "Your accomplice?"

      "Martin Caine is a friend of mine. He's with the Bureau. He can straighten this whole thing out."

      Jeffries took a slow, deep breath. "Of course he is. He's the deputy regional director. You could have pulled his name off the news."

      "But we've known each other for years."

      "Sure you—."

      The door swung open and two men in dark suits and flawless gray ties stepped in. They ignored the lieutenant. One flashed an ID at Peter. He barely had time to catch the letters BRE. "Are you Peter Norland?"

      Jeffries finally showed some emotion. He stood up and planted his white-knuckled fists on the table. "Just what in hell do you—?"

      The BRE agent held out his ID. "Bureau business, Lieutenant. Mr. Norland is coming with us."

      "On whose authority?"

      "D.D. Caine. Northeast region. We'll try to get some paperwork to you in the next week or so."

      Jeffries, eyes sparkling in the fluorescent light, stared at Peter. Peter just shrugged and followed the agents through the door. They led him outside, where salt spray flavored the air. Cars and buses made a merry-go-round of the long, circular driveway. When they neared the street, the rear door of an enormous, black SUV swung open. Martin Caine stepped out. It wasn't the Martin Caine that Peter knew, though. This one was thinner. His cheeks seemed hollow and there was a kind of tiredness around his eyes, the kind that grew from something deeper than a simple lack of sleep.

      Peter hesitated, unsure of how this Marty would receive him. Peter had, after all, been dead in this world for five years.

      "Give me your hand," Marty said.

      Peter thrust his hand out, as if to shake, but Marty grabbed it and jabbed something sharp into the fleshy part at the base of his thumb.

      "Ow!" Peter jerked his hand back. Two tiny spots of blood welled up. "What the hell?"

      Marty shoved some kind of cartridge into a bulky hand-held device and stared at the readout. "There are subtle variations in the ratios of certain isotopes."

      "Sure. Of course." Peter sucked on the wound, then tried to shake the sting out of his hand. "But what the hell?"

      "They accumulate in living tissue."

      "Marty, this is really fascinating, but what the hell?"

      The unit beeped and Marty seemed satisfied. The ghost of a smile brushed his face. "It varies from world to world, Peter, and so far, it's unique." He waved the two agents away and guided Peter around the terminal building and toward the river. "Let's walk."

      A walkway stretched south along the East River. A gentle breeze swept off the water and the sun rose into one of those rare, crystalline blue New York skies.

      "Sorry about the test," Marty said. "I had to be sure which world you were from. Or rather weren't from. Yours doesn't appear to be in our database at all."

      "Which world? Jeez, Marty, how many—?"

      "There's no way it ever could have worked. We should have known that from the start. It's just too big a can of worms."

      "My Marty said something like that."

      "One of the smart ones."

      Peter grabbed Marty's arm and turned him. They were face to face, but Marty's gaze tried to slide away toward the sunlight that danced along the top of the water. Peter shook him. "Talk to me!"

      "It took years to work out the international agreements to split up the spectrum of habitable worlds to avoid address conflicts and overlaps. Technically, the spectrum's infinite, but we can only tune the portals to a certain precision. That limits things."

      "Yes, yes, we had the same problem."

      Marty went on as if Peter hadn't spoken. "No one wanted to talk about the real problem, though—not in public, anyway. There was this whole range of addresses on the J axis that kept haunting us like Pandora's box."

      He went silent while a couple and their two young children walked by. A sad look came over his face as he watched them. "Infinite worlds means an infinite number of inhabited worlds—and an infinite number that developed IP travel. Imagine the chaos if that became common knowledge. Now imagine trying to hammer out those same agreements across dozens of worlds."

      "Dozens!"

      Marty shook his head and finally seemed to focus on Peter's face. "Yesterday, there were sixty-three worlds on the Trans-Real Council. It was inevitable that one of them wouldn't want to play along."

      "Sixty-three?"

      "Sixty-two, now." Marty rubbed his eyes. He looked more tired than ever. "We pulled out this morning."

      "I'm sorry, Marty. I don't really understand it, but I'm sorry you're having to deal with whatever it is. But it's a good thing, too, isn't it? I found Janelle again. That's why I'm here. This Janelle, from this world. You have to help me find her."

      But Marty didn't seem to be listening. He was staring south, shading his eyes with one hand.

      "Oh, God," Marty said. "The bastards are really going to do it!"

      A flight of cargo planes was coming in low over the Statue of Liberty. Peter counted ten of them. He couldn't judge their size, but they looked enormous.

      Marty tugged on Peter's sleeve and headed back toward the car. "Come on. We have to get Janelle."

      "You know where she is?"

      "Let's go!"

      When they reached the SUV, Peter glanced back at the planes. They were over the city already, skimming just above the tops of the buildings. They filled the sky.

      "Marty, what the hell is going on?"

      Marty told the driver to take them to Columbia University. He sat back and covered his face with his hands. "Those planes are carrying portal generators. That's why they're using cargo planes."

      "But there's no portal. It's not like they can fly through themselves."

      "They don't have to." Marty clutched at Peter's shirt. He looked as if he were in agony. "They mount the portal under the planes. Then they drop bombs through them. The damn things just appear in thin air—in another world."

      "That's insane!"

      "Welcome to Trans-World War One."

      They drove into an underground garage deep beneath the Columbia campus. Marty opened the security doors with a keycard, a retinal scan, and some device that seemed to be a larger version of the blood scanner he'd used on Peter. Inside was a large, open space with two tractor trailers sitting in front of an enormous cargo portal. The portal was twice the size of the one they'd used to deliver the building materials for Peter's house.

      Marty whistled and twirled his finger in the air above his head. Immediately, the nearer of the two black trucks started up. A low hum rumbled through the floor and two men in unmarked uniforms sprinted for the back of the trailer. A glowing silver mist began to form in the portal. Marty and Peter got in on the passenger's side of the truck.

      "Where are we going?" Peter asked.

      Marty nodded to the driver. "Whenever you're ready, Agent Manning."

      "Yes, sir."

      Marty turned to Peter. "We're going to get Janelle. The idiots that sent those bombers think she's some kind of trans-world spy."

      "Spy!"

      "They followed her, Peter. They know you were together. Hell, by now they may even have people in your world."

      "My world? We're not involved in any of this."

      "Are you sure?"

      The truck growled and lurched forward. The driver shifted gears and drove straight into the portal's misty curtain. Bright sun momentarily blinded Peter as the truck bounced onto a road of packed dirt. There were no buildings in sight. They drove south through rocky fields. To his left, Peter saw a low, marshy area.

      "Where are we?" Peter asked.

      Marty followed Peter's gaze. "That's Central Park—minus the landscaping."

      "No, I mean this world."

      "It's just an unused IP I keep for my own use."

      "This is where they're keeping Janelle?"

      Marty shook his head. "No, but it's on the way."

      They rode on in silence. After a while, they turned more to the east, the driver carefully holding to the dry, stony path. Peter tried to work through everything he'd seen, but the logic kept twisting back around on itself and getting tangled up. Sixty-three worlds? More?

      "You said they think Janelle's a spy for some other reality."

      Marty just nodded.

      "Then Janelle and I—we caused this war, didn't we?"

      "No. Yes." Marty shook his head. "I don't know. Does one snowflake cause an avalanche? This government has been paranoid for years. Even back when the Trans-World Council first formed, they seemed to be spoiling for a fight. They just couldn't come to grips with the idea that their world wasn't the world."

      "It wasn't a problem for you?"

      "I believe in fate, Peter."

      Peter laughed. "You're not exactly the spiritual kind. At least my Marty isn't."

      "Neither am I." Marty shrugged, shaking his head. "It's all probabilities. Let's say you take a thousand possible worlds."

      "A thousand!"

      "And one event. Say, for example, rain in Seattle this afternoon. If you plot the chances of rain across those realities, you'll get a curve of some kind. Maybe a Bell Curve. Maybe wider, or flatter. But whatever kind of curve you get, that curve is the shape of destiny."

      Peter saw what had to be their destination. A tall scaffolding grew in the windshield. Construction trailers were arranged around its base along with a few SUVs like the one Marty had used to pick him up. As they drove up, more uniformed men raced toward the trailer. Marty led Peter toward the skeletal structure while agents dragged cables from the back of the truck. A loud whining growl started up in the trailer.

      "That's the power supply for the portal," Marty said.

      "What portal?"

      Marty led him into a cage-like elevator, shut the door, and slapped the control to "up." "You're in midtown. The detention cells are on the twelfth floor of a BRE building there."

      "We're going back to you world?"

      "It's kind of a shortcut."

      "But—."

      "You think this is bad? Wait until someone comes up with a power supply that isn't the size of a semi. All hell will break loose."

      Twelve stories up, the floor plan was carefully marked off with tape on the plywood floor. Three agents in full riot gear stood at the ready. The plan was simple. They would pop into the dete