“Yes!” I grasp August’s hand, pulling him around to me. “Like the time slip, isn’t it? It played out perfectly. And you said you’ve been there before. It’s just an arrangement of particles.”
“I have. I… that exact time. It happened in other universes. They had that order, over and over.”
“Wait, youbothtime-slipped?” Assassin August’s so keen he actually moves away from Jon, who’s still chasing that mysterious itch across his shoulder.
“Yeah. First day we met,” I tell him.
“But that doesn’t usually happen until at least a week and a half in,” my August explains. “And not every time. But certainly never that fast. That’s when I knew something was up. And… I thought maybe because you punched me…”
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“It was kind of hot.”
“Thank you.”
“Stop flirting for five seconds,” Shashi interrupts. “You went back in time? Together?”
“Yeah, we slipped together. And, you know, it was pretty scary.” This I say for the benefit of the non-Augusts in the room. “But he took me out and bought me a beer. And it was…” I can’thelp the way my eyelashes flutter a little when I peek up at him. “It was actually kind of… like a really nice date.”
“It was a date,” he says. “That’s why I threw caution to the wind. I liked you. And you can imagine how hopeless everything seemed to me back then. So. Sorry I lied. And I’m sorry about the touching thing.”
“It’s really okay.” I mean that with my whole heart. I completely get it. I completely get him.
“Stop flirting,” Shashi reminds us on another sigh. “Here’s the plan.” She grabs a pen and fresh paper and scrawls out a diagram as she speaks. “We search for a brand new universe. We open a rift to it using the particle accelerator, and at the same time, we open a rift back in the direction you came from. With any luck, if we do both, we get an equal and opposing force. It’s my hypothesis that you can restore order to the particles that have followed you through every world. You’ll need enough momentum to smash back through all the universes you’ve destroyed, but if we can do that, I believe you can return to your own world.” She slams the pen down triumphantly and waits for the reaction.
August’s slow, taking it all in.
But the other August is quick. Too quick. “This might actually work!”
Jon slaps my August on the back, Amber shakes my arm in excitement. And they’re happy. And they should be. This is fucking great. This is exactly what we needed, two particle physicists and a cosmologist all working together on this. That coupled with technology from some futuristic world.
It’s everything we could have asked for.
It’s good.
And it’s right.
And I feel like I’ve just been stabbed in the heart.
His own world. Of course, his own world. Not dead. Not August wandering for eternity, dwelling on all the loss. August, back in his own life. The one he had before me.
I force a smile and squeeze August’s hand, even though I feel like the weak show of enthusiasm might crack me all apart.
He drops me a glance, laced with barely concealed panic. “But… how can we know it won’t be too strong? That it won’t just blast out the other side?”
“We don’t,” Shashi replies, matter-of-factly as ever. “The consequences could be dire. But no more dire than what you’ve already done.”
“Unless the wave continues to grow well beyond the carnage I’ve caused,” August argues.
“But let’s be real,” Assassin August cuts in. “Even piercing and taking all the energy of a sapling universe, we’re unlikely to unleash more harm than you’ve already single-handedly created.”
“Thanks, August,” he mutters. “Love a straight-talker.”
“I’m just trying to help.”
“Sure you are.”
“So… that settles it?” Amber breaks in. “Have we saved the world? In theory?”
