A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3)

I said, “Are you guys about to tell me Firebirds are way more dangerous than you ever said?”

“No!” Mom drew herself up, offended. “Honestly, Marguerite. We wouldn’t take those kinds of risks, ever.”

“Indeed not.” Dad paused, then added, “However, that doesn’t mean there’s not potential for danger with the Firebirds.”

“It’s sort of like when they fired up the Large Hadron Collider,” Theo offered. I knew all about this, even though it happened when I was hardly more than a baby. For physicists, the activation of the LHC was like the Super Bowl, the Oscars, and New Year’s Eve wrapped into one, and my parents still talked about it once in a while. “Everybody was freaking out, like, ‘ahhh, the scientists are going to create a black hole.’ Which totally didn’t happen. Because, while it’s technically possible, it’s so incredibly improbable that the LHC could run for a billion years without a black hole opening in the center of the Earth.”

Theo’s explanation helped, but still, it gave me a turn—realizing I’d been carrying even a one-billionth chance of an apocalypse around my neck.

I looked down at my Firebird, which still dangled from its chain—blood-spattered from Paul’s wound, like the torn remnants of my green cardigan and the white dress exposed beneath. For me the Firebird had always meant hope, genius, adventure. But in that moment I knew I would never forget the bloodstains.

“So, how could the Firebird destroy a dimension?” Although I figured the answer probably involved an equation longer than a Harry Potter book, I felt like I had to say something.

But Paul had learned how to translate the hidden poetry of science for me better than anyone else ever had. “Remember what I told you when we went to see the redwoods? About the fundamental asymmetry of the universe?”

I could never forget that day. Muir Woods’ beauty made me feel like Paul and I had stepped into our own precious sliver of eternity. But I remembered the physics-lesson part of it too. “Most forces in physics are symmetrical. But somewhere in the nanoseconds after the Big Bang, matter and antimatter got thrown out of whack somehow, and nobody has any idea how. That asymmetry between matter and antimatter is what makes the universe possible. Is that right?”

“. . . close enough.”

My artist brain doesn’t wrap itself around the science stuff as easily as Paul’s does. He’d never make me feel bad about it on purpose—but tact is not exactly Paul’s wheelhouse.

Hastily he added, “It’s important because the Firebirds could restore the symmetry between matter and antimatter.”

“What? How?” My mind was reeling. “Why would you ever make a device that could do that?”

Theo had overheard us. “Marguerite, that’s close to how Firebirds work in the first place. The dimensional resonances we’re always talking about, the ones that make your eyes glaze over? Those are the imbalances specific to each universe. The Firebird basically . . . surfs that imbalance, finds where it’s supposed to be, and brings you along. Tune the Firebird to attack that imbalance instead of detecting it, and . . .” Theo’s voice trailed off, and he just spread his hands outward, as if miming an explosion.

Paul, of course, couldn’t let a gesture end a scientific explanation. “The rest would take care of itself. Dimensional collapse would fold outward wthin—no. There’s no point in saying how long it would take, because the collapse would even destroy time.”

“But the Firebirds could also increase the asymmetry!” Dad said, lighting up. “It would be trickier, by a measure, but still, we could do it. The Firebird’s power might require a booster, of course . . .”

“It would.” Mom’s quicksilver mind was already a few steps ahead. “But if we could enhance the Firebirds’ power, through a fairly simple device—some sort of stabilizer we could construct in each universe, then we could increase the asymmetry in each universe. That would make it much more difficult for Triad to collapse those universes. We could slow down Triad’s work. Maybe even stop them altogether.”

It made more sense to me then—the potential within the Firebirds. Their power could unmake a world or preserve it forever. Infinite good and infinite evil, all enclosed within one locket that hung right above my heart.

By that point, Mom, Dad, and Theo were deeply embroiled in the equations. I wanted so badly to steal a few moments of privacy to talk with Paul. He needed to remember who he was, to shake off the melancholy and fatalism that still haunted him.

If he couldn’t overcome it, I hadn’t actually saved Paul. I’d only put together the pieces of a man broken beyond repair. Even thinking that made me want to hug him tightly, as if I could sink into him so deeply that my love could seal all the cracks, heal him, make him whole.

But like I said—I had more urgent problems than my love life. So did the rest of the multiverse.

“I have to go after her,” I announced. “Don’t I?”

Everyone else exchanged worried glances. I realized they’d all independently come to the conclusion that I’d have to go back into danger, but nobody had wanted to be the first to say it. Dad replied, “Sweetheart—as much as I hate this—we need to know which worlds they’re targeting. For certain. Theo’s equations will help, but the only way to be certain which dimensions are most in danger is for you to check them out.”

“I could go.” Paul’s voice was rough. “Theo too. Or the two of you. It doesn’t have to be Marguerite.”

“Yes, it does,” I insisted. His protectiveness moved me, but I couldn’t let him get away with it. I was the perfect traveler, which made me the one who slipped into each universe most easily. The one who could retain focus and control throughout. For any other trip, that might be no more than a matter of convenience. But for this? We had to respond as powerfully and quickly as we could. That meant me. I turned to my parents. “My Firebird should be able to track hers, right?”

It was Theo who finally managed to answer. “Yeah. Your two Firebirds were together for a while—we could pick up on her traces fast.”

“Do it.” I held the Firebird out to Paul. Although he hesitated, he got to work.

My mother said, “Your counterpart can’t collapse the universes without killing herself. But she could be . . . laying groundwork. Preparing each world for your eventual cooperation, or for suicide missions by others.”