I can’t help but take his hand, and even if Shashi’s mouth twitches at the contact, she doesn’t say anything.
August looks down at my hand, fiddling with my fingers. “I didn’t go all the way through. Not immediately. I waited on my side. I wanted to be able to close it. I decided to stay there, to study it, until I could. When I opened it, the university had broken up for Christmas, and the place was deserted. I kept it secret. I watched it. I slept there. I wondered if something might find its way across, some evil interdimensional horror. But nothing did. And it seemed so innocuous.”
He scrunches my hand a little tighter. “I barely looked at the news during that time; I was so deep in my own work. But one night, I remember scrolling, and there was story after story of… of the end times. Of the world breaking down, piece by piece. There was talk of astronomical anomalies, planets that couldn’t be seen anymore. Someone said the Moon would crash into Earth. It took me a while to figure it out. A long while. It seemed impossible that what I had done—this small hole shimmering between worlds—could cause this. And by the time I realised, it was too late.”
I hate the way he drops my hand to walk away, that I can’t give him the comfort he needs. It must have been years ago now, but he’s reliving the moment, hands shaking, eyes wet. “Things collapsed—everything, bit by bit. The stories stopped,broadcasts of any sort gone. Cities went dark; the sky went black. Can you imagine that? And all that time, it was like this horror creeping up. Why was London last? Why was London being saved? But it was heading for us, like the last domino in the line.”
He looks at me, very specifically, like I’m the only one who needs to hear this. “You would never have known it in that lab. I didn’t know. Being the last thing to go, it was peaceful. It was the only safe place. But who could have known that besides me? There was no evident displacement of particles from where I was standing. There was a light breeze, passing towards the gap. But… that’s all it felt like, a breeze. It didn’t seem like destruction. I never knew until I was on the other side.”
He starts a pace of the floor, talking, remembering. “The room around me finally started to fall apart. There was a weightlessness, a heat, and there was force, like I was being pulled, like every atom in my body had to get through that hole. I didn’t have a choice. It pulled, and I watched the room closing, just disappearing out of existence, knowing I was alone, that there was nothing left. I was dragged through. I landed on the floor of that lab,exactlythe same as my lab. There was heat that followed me. It got hotter and hotter, the wind coming from the rift, then, even as I tried to push towards it, to get back, it just stopped. Everything stopped. The rift closed. And the strangest thing, even now, was the noise and energy of that new empty room. It was… alive.”
Tears roll down his cheeks, but his words come steady, like there’s a wall between him and the pain. “You can’t know the true sound of silence until everything is dead.Everything. Not just deceased, not rotting, but no longerexisting. My world was gone. An eternal silence. Everything blotted out. Just like that. And that schism—to go from a dead world to a living one, to be hit with the seething horror of what I’d done, it…” A shaking hand rises to his temple. “It tried to take over, this great blackgaping thing. So I just… I turned it off. I turned cold. In that instant, it was pure survival. There was work that had to be done. I had to get it all back. Fix what I’d broken.”
He turns around, his eyes like fire on me. “I came looking for you.” His strides are fast, and he’s by me again, taking both my hands in his. “I came looking foryou,over and over. In that world, I didn’t find August until the end. Until it was too late. There were things I had to do—food, shelter, things I’ve got down now. But back then, it was a mess. Because I didn’t work in that lab—not in that world. I wasn’t allowed there. I had never prepared for that. It was catastrophic. And I needed you.”
I stroke a slow hand down his cheek, which he leans into. “I’m here now.”
His hand wraps around mine, holding it to his heated skin. “You are. And it’s all done. It’s all over.”
His words scare me. He can’t still be thinking of doing that. When he pulls me into a hug, I hold him tight. I wish I could become him, keep him in me. But too soon, he steps back, separates us, walks to the table and drops a hand down on the papers.
“I’d been smart enough to keep my notes, ready to go, just in case I had to go through. So I set to work as best I could, trying to figure out how to undo what I’d done. Hoping it was even possible. Homeless, on a street corner, trying to keep warm while writing this shit out. I was there for weeks, trying to find a footing, hitting up shelters, no resources whatsoever. It took so long for the news to reach me… And when it did… It’s indescribable. I followed stories whenever I got the chance and watched it happen again. All of it. Just as it’s happening now. It starts small, then grows until it reaches critical mass, at which point the universe folds in on itself, laws of physics broken.”
“So you see,” he focuses on the new August, who’s remained perfectly silent throughout, “that’s how easy it was. Yes, I wish,my god, I wish every day of my life, over and over, I’d never pushed that button. I wish I’d never got a job there. I wish, August…” He turns back to me. “That I never got that degree. I wish I’d stayed here and fallen in love with music instead. I would give anything to turn back time and do that. That one moment. I ruined everything.”
I can’t stand his sadness. It rips me apart, like so many atoms cast asunder. I take his hands back and press my lips to his. “I think you’re brave. And I think you’re strong. Not many people could have kept going, trying to fix this. I think you’re amazing for what you’ve done.”
“August…” He lets out a small laugh, like he can’t believe I’ve said that. Tears streak his cheeks, lips taut, trying to fight the emotion.
I do my best to kiss the tension from his mouth. “Stick with me, alright? We’re going to fix this.”
His eyes close, soft and slow, like he’s locking those words away somewhere deep inside. His head tilts down, and it’s a promise I have to believe he’ll keep.
Assassin August asks Shashi quietly, “Does that all fit with what you’ve figured out?”
“Perfectly,” she says. She’s softened now she’s heard the whole thing. Her mannerisms aren’t so sharp as they were when she pushes some papers towards August. “It looks to me like the first universe you tried to open—it merged with your original universe via inflation, correct?”
“Yeah,” says August. “That’s my guess too. It leaked in. I thought I hadn’t hit anything. But in reality… I’d hit pure energy. A newborn universe, I’ve been assuming.”
She nods, as if that’s exactly what she’d expected him to say. “So, if I’m not mistaken, what you’ve created is a quantum wave.”
“That’s exactly correct,” says Assassin August, and it’s kind of sweet how he’s taken up the narrative for August, seeing him so upset. Shashi looks at him with raised eyebrows, so he explains, “I’m also a particle physicist, like him, only I’m not a villainous one.”
“You’re literally here to murder me,” August mutters.
“Only because you’re a supervillain,” Assassin August throws back.
I fill Shashi in quickly, that he’s come through to kill August so he doesn’t keep hopping universes.
“Well, killing him would be a start,” she offers, and I don’t think that’s particularly helpful. Until she adds, “But we’d still be fucked.”
“But it’s the Augusts creating chaos, right?” argues Assassin August, as though he’s not an August who’s currently creating chaos. “You said they’re a friction point.”
“Oh, you very much are, all of you,” she replies. “Especially them, but you’re not innocent in all of this.”
My August smirks at him. They’re incredibly immature, but Assassin August really had that coming.
Shashi continues, “The quantum wave will continue to grow whether he’s here or not. He can’t stop it now. You can’t stop it now. Kill him, and it will probably slow things down, but that’s all the effect it will have.”
