Worlds Apart

by James Riley

  “Through our imaginations,” Owen said. He realized the others had quieted down, and saw they were all watching Dr. Verity just as nervously as he was. At least he had backup.

  Dr. Verity nodded. “Perfect,” he said as he drew a stick figure human. “That fits in exactly with what I’m thinking. Nobody claims that the fictional world is made up entirely of possibilities, right?”

  “A bunch of magicians made it using magic from all of humanity,” Kara pointed out.

  Charm snorted, rolling her eyes.

  “She’s not big on magic,” Kiel told Kara.

  “Call it magic, call it words, call it ideas, but what it all comes down to is possibilities,” Dr. Verity said. “Words are just words, spells are just spells without someone using them. What’s an idea if someone’s not thinking it?” He drew a thought balloon above the stick figure’s head, then drew another human inside it, reminding Owen uncomfortably of his time with the comic book pages while his friends were in Jupiter City.

  “Is this like if a tree falls on Quanterium but everyone’s in the Nalwork, does it make a sound?” Kiel asked.

  “He’s talking about quantum physics,” Charm said, sounding annoyed. “When you get down to the building blocks of atoms and such, the smallest building blocks we can conceive of all are in a state of flux between two separate possibilities. Think of it like a computer that’s either on or off, but you don’t know which until you type something on the keyboard.”

  “Exactly,” Dr. Verity said, now drawing lines out from the thought balloon above the stick figure’s head out into a circle he labeled “The Fictional World.” “Science has determined that those tiny particles actually are both off and on at the same time, to use Charm’s delightful metaphor, until someone looks at them. And then they become either one thing or the other. And that is what’s happening here, in the fictional reality!”

  He looked around at a sea of uncomprehending faces.

  “Don’t you get it?” Dr. Verity asked. “If the nonfictional world has been creating this one all this time, that gives Owen here a power the rest of us don’t have. And all it takes is his imagination!”

  CHAPTER 36

  Owen just blinked. “I think you lost me.” A few miles back, he thought.

  “Imagine the fictional world as a blank piece of paper,” Dr. Verity said, drawing one around the circle labeled “The Fictional World.” “The paper is blank when you start, but you could fill it with any story, any thought, any idea you had. The paper has infinite possibilities before you start writing. But once you do, just like with quantum physics, you’ve chosen one of those possibilities to become real. Now, there’s a story.” He tapped Owen on the chest. “And that’s what you people do!”

  “With our imaginations?”

  “Yes!” Dr. Verity said, getting happier as he mistakenly thought Owen was following. “Your imaginations are the pencil on the paper. You create worlds out of the infinite possibilities, and off they go! But just like a scientist observing a tiny particle, you’re not affecting it after you channel it into being. You don’t control this world any more than you control a rocket after you set it off from the ground. That rocket’s going to go where you aim it for a moment or two, but after that, who knows!”

  “So nonfictional people do create things here with their imaginations?” Owen asked.

  “I think that’s what your authors do,” Dr. Verity said. “Or really anyone with a strong will. Their will influences our worlds, shapes them, creates them. Then we’re let loose to do as we choose.” He started drawing all kinds of crazy things in the Fictional World circle. “But your imagination is still in place, so you can picture it all in your head as it’s happening. And somehow that connection keeps our reality anchored in place, so that the possibilities don’t overwhelm what little foundation is here.”

  “That’s what’s been happening to Bethany,” Kiel said. “She didn’t have her nonfictional self as an anchor anymore.”

  “From what I could tell by examining her for a few seconds, yes,” Dr. Verity said with zero hint of irony. “Without an anchor to the nonfictional world . . . in her case, her twin, if I’m following correctly . . . she took on too many possibilities and lost what made her her.” He drew another blank sheet of paper. “After all, it’s hard to hold up against this much blank possibility.”

  “Hey, Owen,” Kara said, frowning. “Didn’t we see something like that in the future? I can’t remember it exactly, which is weird for me, but I’ve got a vague memory of finding ourselves in just nothing but whiteness in every direction.”

  Owen frowned. “Did we?” He didn’t even have a half memory of this one.

  “That’s what the place Nobody trapped me in looked like too,” Kiel said.

  While Owen couldn’t remember what Kara was talking about, he did recall he’d been trapped in a place of nothing but white in every direction, back when he’d first met the Magister. And then again when Nobody brought him out of the comic book world to the place between stories.

  “Nobody should be careful,” Dr. Verity said. “If he’s playing around with possibilities like this, it could unleash them into the fictional world. He could end up erasing every single one of us, and every world that ever existed in our reality, if he’s not careful.”

  Kiel coughed. “Yeah, um, unfortunately that’s his plan.”

  “Oh, well, that’s not good news,” Dr. Verity said, his eyes widening. “But what puzzles me is how he’s rewriting himself. He should be disappearing, just like your friend. But if he’s not, then he must have some kind of anchor, holding him in place.”

  “Would he need something nonfictional for that?” Kara asked.

  “Most likely a person,” Dr. Verity replied. “An object wouldn’t be enough.”

  A person? But who would Nobody . . .

  Owen gasped. “Mason Black!”

  They all just stared at him.

  “Mr. Black is Nobody’s creator, the guy who wrote him first,” Owen explained. “I saw Nobody take Mr. Black somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where. He must be using him as an anchor!” He cringed. “It’d fit. He hates that guy.”

  “See? There’s our plan,” Charm said. “We take out this Mason guy—”

  “Rescue him, you mean,” Owen interrupted.

  Charm just shrugged. “Whatever. Then Nobody can’t rewrite himself, and we melt him into a huge pile of mush. Problem solved.”

  “And Owen, you said you know where he will be,” Kiel said. “So let’s go rescue Bethany!”

  “One more thing,” Dr. Verity said, and tapped Owen’s head. “It might be wise to look in on him, just to confirm he’s where you think he is. I’d suggest using your imagination to make sure before you run into what could be a trap.”

  “My imagination? How would that work?”

  Verity seemed confused by this. “Just use it for what it was intended for.”

  Owen raised an eyebrow. “To . . . daydream?”

  Kara looked at Owen in excitement. “No, it’s like that old magician said when he created the world. Use your imagination to see what possibilities are!”

  “Which you do by seeing what we do,” Verity said. “Now, if you were to look for, say, Nobody . . .”

  Owen’s eyes widened. “You think I could see him in my head, just by imagining where he is? But wouldn’t I just be putting him into whatever story I imagine him into?”

  “You can’t control him, like I said earlier,” Verity said. “He’s the rocket that was launched long ago. But if you let your imagination guide you, and let it take you to him on its own, you should be able to see where he is and what he’s doing right now.”

  Charm groaned. “I thought this was about science. Let me know when you all come to your senses.”

  Owen half agreed with her, but Verity seemed pretty sure of himself. And if they could see what Nobody was up to, that might help them make plans. “I guess it’s worth a shot,” he said, closing his eyes.
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br />   He tried to let himself just daydream, which wasn’t easy, considering his older self had already told him that Nobody would be in the story he himself had written. But if it helped to see what they’d be up against ahead of time, it didn’t hurt to try. So deliberately ignoring that knowledge, Owen just let his imagination run wild.

  Immediately his mind went to Charm, and he pictured her forgiving him for lying to her. Not the most positive start, considering there was no way that was going to happen. But from there, he imagined what it must have been like for Charm to lose her family, and then to find out that her best friend wasn’t who she’d thought he was. Not to mention later having her planet destroyed.

  This all must have been so hard on her, losing everything. Of course she’d be upset. And now all she wanted was a chance to get justice for her people and for her planet.

  His mind drifted to Quanterium, picturing what it had been like when Nobody unleashed Charm’s possibility machine. Everything would be different, from weird loops in the roads to, well, something as ridiculous as the city square being made of gelatin. Houses could have their gravity reversed inside. It’d be chaos.

  Then Nobody would use her invention on other worlds too, reabsorbing them all back into the possibility. He imagined Nobody setting off Charm’s machine in a fairy-tale world, in Kara’s future, in Fowen’s hometown, as well as worlds completely unfamiliar to him.

  And then, Owen thought, satisfied with what he’d started, Nobody would come back to the one place no one could reach him, a place he didn’t believe ever should have existed, so was okay to change however he wished.

  He’d be in a castle. A castle made out of storybooks. Owen could see him there in the castle’s throne room now. Nonfictional Bethany and her fictional, ghostly self were both there, in the castle of the King of All Stories in the story Owen had written, and Nobody was talking to them.

  He took a deep breath and opened his eyes. His older self had been right.

  You’ll have to fight your way to the Storybook Castle at the end of the story, but one by one, you’ll lose your friends along the way, until finally it’s just you against Nobody. And that’s a fight that no Owen Conners has ever won yet.

  Owen looked down at the ray gun that Dr. Verity had given him. One shot left. What good would that even do? He’d have one chance to change something about Nobody, and that was—

  His eyes widened as an idea occurred to him. One shot might be all he needed.

  Maybe his imagination wasn’t so useless after all!

  “I can see Nobody,” he said, turning to the others. “And I think I have a plan.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Nonfictional Bethany watched her fictional self float in a large glass cylinder in the middle of what looked like a castle throne room. Instead of bricks or stone, though, the walls looked like they were made out of giant storybooks. One cover said Nursery Rhymes, another Mother Goose. Beneath her feet, an enormous drawing of Humpty Dumpty stared up at her with a terrified expression as he fell off a wall. She scuffed her shoe on Humpty’s nose, and it felt smooth and plastic-y, just like a book cover.

  “This is my fault,” she said to her fictional self. “From the very beginning, I didn’t protect us enough. I let us do things I knew would lead to bad consequences, and that’s on me. None of this would have happened if I’d just protected us better. I’m . . . I’m sorry.”

  “She’s losing herself,” said a voice from all around her. Nobody’s voice. “Even contained, she won’t last more than another day or two.”

  Bethany turned around in a complete circle, but couldn’t find the featureless man anywhere. “What do you want from us?” she shouted out into the otherwise empty room. “Why did you bring us here? Can you fix her, keep her from disappearing?”

  “You care so much for your fictional self?” Nobody asked from behind her, and again, Bethany whirled around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

  “She’s a part of me,” she said. “Of course I care about her. Just because I don’t agree with her, or even like her, doesn’t mean I don’t want her to be safe. She has to be there for our father! Otherwise, all of this was for nothing.”

  “I thought nonfictionals missing their imagination would be without empathy. And yet, you still care for her, and Owen, too.”

  Bethany glared at the air around her. “Well, maybe I’m just special.”

  “You are definitely that. You have no imagination, even in this reality. Your fictional version took all of that from you.”

  “Good, she can have it,” Bethany said. “Maybe she’ll use it to think of ways to follow the rules when she’s better.”

  “I imagine it’s more of a curse than a blessing,” Nobody said, still all around her. “While other fictionals have more ideas than usual, with that much imagination, she’s probably inundated with thoughts she can’t control. That may be why she’s falling apart even faster than the rest of us.”

  “What do you want from me?” Bethany shouted. “Can you fix her or not?”

  “Would you like to know why I had to separate the worlds?”

  Bethany ground her teeth in frustration. “No? All I want is for you to fix her, then send me and Owen back to our world, where he’s safe. And put her back with my dad, so at least one of us has him!”

  A moment passed. “You were truly happy in the nonfictional world, then?”

  Bethany sighed. “Of course not! I had to give up my father to the worst part of myself. And as much as I want to blame her for all of this, I know I could have stopped it, but I didn’t. I let her run wild, and this is where we’ve ended up. But at least I’m not lying to my mother all the time or getting my friends hurt. Owen is safe in that world, and so is my mom. Safe from me.”

  There was a pause. “Bethany, tell me this: If I order you to not merge with yourself again, will you disobey me? And yes, I know you won’t be able to lie, not without an imagination.”

  She slowly looked down at the floor. “Yes, I will. I’ll try to save her no matter what you say.”

  Another pause. “Do you miss your father?”

  Bethany felt a cold chill go down her spine. Why would he ask that? “More than anything,” she said quietly. “But if she gets to have him, I could live with it. And I knew she’d do everything in her power to protect him.”

  “Did she?”

  Bethany froze. “What do you mean?”

  But Nobody went silent.

  “What are you talking about?” she screamed. “What happened to my father?”

  A page ripped open in midair, and a mass of shadows with red eyes floated into the room. Bethany’s heart almost stopped, and behind her, she could hear her fictional self banging on the glass cylinder.

  “The Dark?” she whispered.

  “For now,” Nobody said. As she watched, the shadows whirled around, then transformed back into her father in his Doc Twilight costume. “But I want you to see him as he should be, here at the end. Your fictional self failed him, and he was struck by a possibility ray. He is but moments from disappearing entirely.”

  “Dad?” she said, her voice barely audible even to herself. But her father didn’t move, didn’t even breathe. It was like he was frozen in time.

  “If I were to release him from my power, he would be gone,” Nobody said. “And I shall do so, if you disobey me.”

  Her eyes widened. “You can’t do that! Please!”

  “I won’t, if you refuse to merge back with your former self. I assume that your friends are on their way to rescue you, and I cannot keep an eye on all of you at once. Your fictional self especially is quite resourceful when she needs to be. So I leave it to you, the rational one, the practical one. The protective one. If you stay separated, I promise to return you and Owen to the nonfictional world. And perhaps your father can join you too.”

  “You’d . . . you’d give me back my father?” she said, her voice cracking.

  “I can be merciful as easily as I can be cruel, Betha
ny.”

  Bethany turned to look at the version of her trapped in the glass cylinder. They stared at each other for a moment, and then her fictional self nodded.

  “What . . . what will happen to her?” Bethany whispered.

  “The same that will happen to every fictional being. She will be reabsorbed into pure possibility, and then I shall create new fictional worlds, all without the influence of the nonfictional. She will reach heights she never dreamed possible, if you allow her to.”

  Bethany swallowed hard. Her fictional self nodded more urgently, encouraging her to take the deal. But was she trying to sacrifice herself for their father . . . or did she have a plan?

  “What happens if you break your end of the deal?” Bethany asked.

  “I wouldn’t. I have no reason to.”

  “What if you’re lying?”

  “What would I gain from that? I could destroy you right now, along with your fictional self and your father. But I choose to be merciful and allow you a life you otherwise wouldn’t have. Now make your choice, or I shall release both your fictional self and your father, and we can watch them disappear together.”

  “NO!” she shouted, then dropped her head into her hands. “I . . . I’ll do it. I won’t merge with her again. I promise you. But if you don’t live up to your end of the bargain—”

  “You have my word,” Nobody said, and then said nothing more.

  CHAPTER 38

  Owen concentrated, remembering the trick to ripping open portals between worlds that had been taught to him either by his older self in Kara’s future or by a magician at the beginning of time, he wasn’t honestly sure which. Either way, the method was the same. He envisioned the world they wanted to travel to, reached up into the air, and slowly pulled downward.

  A page ripped open in midair as he did, creating an opening that led to another world.