by Wendy Devore
Instincts flaring with concern, I padded after her.
As we approached the entryway, the relentless chimes of the bell were punctuated by angry pounding on the door. Isabel reached for the handle.
She eased the door open just a few inches, but the caller flung it inward with enough force to smash the handle into the wall, rattling the stained glass pane in the transom above.
The uncharacteristically disheveled, seething form of Andric Breckinridge lurched through the opening. He was fearsome at the best of times, but his appearance at this instant was doubly terrifying. His eyes twitched and blinked in random cadence, and his face contorted into an unnatural grimace as he used the back of his hand to wipe away a long stream of foamy spittle from the corner of his grotesque mouth.
Isabel glared at him with a stare of pure venom. I knew this look. It must be a family trait. “Get out of my house!” she screamed, standing her ground.
Breckinridge simply pushed roughly past the slight woman, swatting her away as if she were an inconsequential insect. I drew back against the wall, and he glared daggers at me as he bounded past. He grasped the iron bannister of the dramatic curved staircase and lurched up the stairs, his gait erratic.
For a moment, I was stunned—this shouldn’t be possible. It was immediately obvious that the man who had just invaded Isabel’s home was not her ex-husband. I broke out in a cold sweat, and a sinking feeling of dread descended upon me. I knew without a doubt that the fury raging up the stairs was our Andric Breckinridge.
He’d reached the landing before I was able to shake myself into action. I scurried up the staircase with Isabel close on my heels. Breckinridge was advancing down the hall, violently throwing open each heavy paneled door he encountered.
“Where is he?” the man thundered.
At the end of the hallway, a bedroom door swung open and revealed Andrew’s silhouette.
Breckinridge charged his son. “You will leave this place!” he roared. In an instant, both men disappeared into the room. Behind me, Isabel screamed.
I froze, struggling to remain calm as the sound of a scuffle emanated from the room. I knew instinctively that I could not allow fear to overtake me; it would send me back. Which was exactly what Breckinridge wanted, and exactly what Andrew didn’t. I forced myself to stop, to inhale. Isabel dashed past me, into the darkened bedroom.
“Stop!” Isabel shrieked. “Take your hands off him!”
“Get off me, woman!” Breckinridge bellowed.
I hovered uselessly in the hallway, trying to calm my mind and body.
“I want you out of here immediately!” Breckinridge demanded.
“Then why didn’t you administer the propofol?” Andrew shouted.
“I did!” Breckinridge roared.
There was a dull thud, and then the earsplitting sound of shattering ceramic.
I was still trying to decide what to do when a blurred figure shot abruptly from the room. I found myself pinned to the wall by the strong and surprisingly agile CEO of Albaion.
“You!” he panted, his face just inches from mine.
I could feel the heat from his sour breath. The left half of his face had gone completely slack, as if he had suffered a stroke. His right eye, now red-rimmed and bloodshot, continued to twitch, and the right side of his lips curled into a terrible snarl. I scratched at his gnarled fingers in a futile attempt to break free from his iron grip.
“You are the source of my ruin.” His crazed eye narrowed as he drew even closer to me. “I will force you to return us, right now.”
I struggled like my life depended on it, but he pressed against me, restraining my movements, while his hands wrapped around my neck like monstrous claws. I was desperate to take a breath, and I kicked at him with all my strength, but he was too close and too strong. Breckinridge’s face transformed into an ugly mask of triumph as I gasped and sputtered. He was right; he was going to force me to exit this slice, and I just might take him with me, stranding Andrew here alone. If he didn’t stop, I was going to die. His fingers tightened around my neck, and the panic I’d fought so hard to contain threatened to overwhelm me. I felt a surge of anger, surgically sharp like the blade of a knife. I couldn’t let him win. I couldn’t let him force me out. And the only way to do that was to let go—of everything. I closed my eyes and stopped fighting the fear. I allowed my entire body to slump, every muscle relaxed and yielding, and reached deep, deep within my well of inner peace. I waited for the blackness to close in—and then suddenly, I could breathe. I coughed, rubbing my raw neck, and took in great gulps of air. My eyes shot open and I slid down the wall.
Isabel had tackled Andric, and although he grossly outweighed the sprite of a woman, she had somehow managed to pin the struggling man to the ground.
Andrew staggered out of the bedroom, his hand pressed against a gash above his left eye. Blood oozed between his fingers.
“Mom!” he exclaimed. His eyes darted between his mother as she restrained his enraged, writhing father, and me as I rubbed my pulsating neck. I’d never seen him look so bewildered.
“We have to help her,” I rasped, lunging toward Andric’s struggling body.
Andrew broke out of his stupor and grabbed my wrist.
“No. There is only one way to end this. You must go,” he urged.
I stopped in my tracks. “But you said we needed to stay here long enough to uninvent the Bug.”
I could swear his piercing blue eyes could see directly to my soul. “I didn’t say we have to go. I said you have to go.”
“I won’t leave you here!” I didn’t even try to disguise my panic. “It’s a death sentence!”
For the first time, when I searched his face, instead of inscrutability, I saw sorrow, loss, and unrelenting determination.
In one fluid move, he closed the space between us and his arms were around me.
“I found you because of the Bug and now I’m going to lose you,” I insisted, tears streaming down my cheeks. “I won’t leave you here…” I whispered, but I could not shut out the overwhelming intensity of the emotions swirling inside.
His voice was low, steady, and resolute. “You must do this,” he murmured. My entire body trembled as if I was suffering from hypothermia. And then he let me go.
As the disorientation overtook me and the world began to lose form, the last of his words fell softly on my ear.
“I love you.”
I knew I was home even before I opened my eyes. I knew by the sound, and the scent, and the very feel of the air.
I dreaded that first look because I heard the call of birdsong and I smelled the dew evaporating from the grass. Through the grogginess, I could feel the weakness in my limbs and I feared the onset of a massive migraine. Eyes still screwed shut, I pulled myself into a sitting position, shivering slightly in the chill morning air. Small clumps of dry dirt and the razor-sharp seeds of foxtails dug into the palms of my hands, but my knees were protected by my jeans.
For a moment, the disorientation was overwhelming. What was going on? Hadn’t I just been wearing a skirt? Where was Albaion’s insidious lab?
My eyes shot open, and I struggled unsteadily to my feet. The first golden vestiges of the sun’s early morning rays were beginning to shine over the hills behind me as I spun slowly around. Birds, sky, scrubby trees, grasses—there were plenty of these. But no building. I shut my eyes against the vertigo and the mild pounding in my head, and I took a few moments to breathe and to gather my thoughts.
The Albaion building was gone. It had never been here, nor had I ever been unconscious within its walls, clad in an old-fashioned blouse and skirt, traipsing across realities. History was rewriting itself in my brain—I could almost feel the shift within my synapses.
It must have taken me two hours, but I managed the hike out of the hills and onto Stanford’s adjacent campus. Dehydrated, famished, and exhausted, I was taken aback by the wave of relief that flooded over me when the building that housed Dr. Daniels’s
lab came into view. I let myself into the unlocked lobby and found the restrooms, where I lunged toward the water fountain.
It was still early, and I didn’t encounter a single soul as I made my way to the second floor. My heart sunk as I realized the door to my office was locked. By reflex, I slid my hand into my right pocket and was amazed to find my key ring—house and office keys ready and waiting.
I let myself into the dark and empty office and rushed to my desk. I dug through the detritus in the top drawer until I found a small bag of roasted almonds, which I tore into with reckless abandon. Then I woke up my workstation, relieved my log-in and password were still active.
I frantically typed in a search for “Albaion Andric Breckinridge” and clicked on the Wikipedia link. The photo of the scowling, defiant man was enough to make my throat constrict. The picture was captioned with the words, Mug shot of Breckinridge upon his arrest in 2012.
Andric L. Breckenridge (born February 28, 1949) is an American lawyer, businessman, scientist, and entrepreneur. The son of famed financier and oil magnate Thomas Henry Breckinridge and grandson of the timber baron James Robert Breckinridge, Breckinridge inherited an enormous estate. He was founder, CEO, and chairman of the Albaion Corporation, which reached a valuation of $110 billion. Breckinridge employed illegal accounting practices to manipulate the debt load of the Albaion balance sheet to drive up its stock price. In addition, Breckinridge utilized shell companies in Luxembourg to bribe foreign officials to win technology contracts, as well as to advance oil contracts that would be advantageous to his personal investing interests. The deception was uncovered in 2011. Breckinridge was indicted and found guilty of eight counts of securities fraud. In addition, his violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act incurred the maximum penalty of $25 million per violation, which resulted in the collapse of Albaion and obliterated his family’s personal financial portfolio. He is currently serving an eighty-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York.
After the first paragraph, I was completely stunned. The ramifications were obvious—no Albaion, no Bug. I quickly called up the CDC’s weekly US influenza surveillance report.
Influenza activity in the US has remained uncharacteristically low as we move into December. Influenza A viruses are the most common strain identified. Several influenza activity indicators were lower than normally seen for this time of year. These data indicate that currently circulating viruses have not undergone significant antigenic drift and circulating A(H1N2) viruses are antigenically similar to egg-grown A(H1N2) viruses used for producing the majority of influenza vaccines in the United States.
I breathed a tremendous sigh of relief—not a single word about the Luzon Flu. I scrambled over to Jeff’s desk and grabbed the cradle of the only landline phone in our office. I keyed the number for Michelle’s mobile phone and waited breathlessly, each ring boring into my brain.
“Hello?” My sister’s hoarse greeting indicated I’d woken her. My sister’s voice! Jubilation welled up in my chest and I burst into tears.
“Hi, it’s me,” I sniffed.
“Kate? Did you have a nightmare?” Her voice was thick with sleep, and I could tell she wasn’t fully awake. “Why are you calling me at six thirty in the morning? And where are you anyway?”
I smiled as I swiped away the tears with the back of my hand. “I’m just fine. In fact, I’m great! Go back to sleep. I’ll be home soon.”
“Sometimes you are so weird…” she mumbled, terminating the call.
I bounced on my heels as I carefully replaced the phone in its cradle. My sister was alive! There was no deadly flu, and Albaion didn’t own my soul—which must mean that the Bug was never invented.
My elation was short-lived. My chest constricted and I leaned against the desk for support. If the Bug was never invented, was it because Andrew had been killed in Uganda, like he had in Isabel’s reality? I scrambled back to the computer for another search. The first item in the list was a recent article in the New York Times.
Pioneering Oncologist Falls into Unexplained Coma
MANHATTAN—Dr. Andrew Breckinridge, a rising star in oncological research at Memorial Sloan Kettering who pioneered a lifesaving treatment for stomach cancer, fell into an unexplained coma yesterday. Dr. Breckinridge was speaking at the American Society of Clinical Oncology’s annual symposium in Berkeley, California when he collapsed. He was transported to UCSF Medical Center in San Francisco. His mother, Isabel Breckinridge-Hawthorne, released the following statement regarding her son’s condition:
Although we have not determined the source of the mysterious illness afflicting my son, doctors and specialists at UCSF are working tirelessly to treat him.
Although best known for his innovative use of nanotechnology to drastically enhance immunotherapy for previously untreatable cancers, Dr. Breckinridge is also the son of entrepreneur Andric Breckinridge, who was convicted of bribery and illegal accounting practices and is currently incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institution in Otisville, New York. In a mystifying turn of events, officials at the penitentiary confirmed that inmate Breckinridge suffered a massive stroke this morning and is currently unresponsive. He is not expected to recover.
My hand covered my mouth and my pulse raced. Andric Breckinridge suffered a stroke—this morning? Andrew’s coma was no coincidence, either.
I called up the Caltrain schedule; I could take the train to San Francisco and I could…I could do what, exactly? I stopped, blinking hard. No one at UCSF would let a random stranger into the ICU. Despite the fact that I had been her houseguest in another slice, Isabel wouldn’t recognize me, and if I tried to explain, surely I’d come off as a total lunatic. I’d probably get arrested.
The door of the office swung open. The distinctive staccato echo of cowboy boots meant I didn’t even need to turn around to know that Jeff was also having an early morning.
“Mornin’, Sunshine!” he drawled, slapping an opened envelope on my desk. “This here is a letter from the Breckinridge Fellowship committee, and guess who just got funded?” His self-congratulatory grin left no doubt that it certainly wasn’t me.
Jeff’s broad forehead wrinkled as he took a second look at me. “Hey, darlin’, you like you’ve been chewed up, spit out, and stepped on. I know that losing this grant is hard on you, but…”
Who needed the grant when I had the entirety of the multiverse at my disposal? I raised my hand to silence him and shook my head.
“Fuck off, Jeff.”
Epilogue
December 22
I sit in half-lotus on a thin cushion in a small, plain room tucked away in the interior of the vast residence in Bel Air. The room has no furniture, and the floor is lined with tatami mats. The walls are painted a pale golden color I have learned is called “La Luna Amarilla.” The indirect lighting is warm, soft, and dim. The only decor is a grand oil painting of a lone, windswept cypress perched on a promontory against the backdrop of the sapphire-blue Pacific. I recognize the location—it is the Big Sur coast.
I have been sitting on this cushion for hours. I have confined myself in this room every day for weeks. Every day since I returned to a world without the Bug. Every day that he remains in a coma. This is the thirty-first day.
I throw my hands in frustration, and an odd warble escapes from my throat.
“I can’t do this!”
The plump Indian woman sitting beside me opens her eyes languidly and gazes at me with unyielding serenity. Her expression does not waver. She takes a moment to tuck a graying strand of hair behind her ear. She says nothing.
“Gurudevi, this is not working!” I insist. “I can’t get to him, no matter how hard I try.”
“The great teacher Mata Amritanandamayi says, ‘We must remember that man is not an island, totally isolated and disconnected from others. We are all part of a universal chain, or the universal consciousness.’”
I slump on my cushion and sigh. “Gurudevi, that doesn’t
help at all.”
“She has also taught, ‘If you have patience, then you’ll also have love. Patience leads to love. If you forcefully open the petals of a bud, you won’t be able to enjoy its beauty and fragrance. Only when it blossoms by following its natural course, will the beauty and fragrance of a flower unfold.’”
“But time is the one thing I don’t have,” I remind her. It is impossible to describe the relief I felt when the sixty-hour mark passed and he was still alive. Although he is trapped in limbo, at least it is no longer due the brain-annihilating circumstance of the Bug. I have no idea how long he’ll be able to hold on. Every day that passes is another day that the synapses in Andrew’s brain might stop firing. Every day that passes is another day that Isabel might choose to turn off the machines that keep him alive.
“You have no patience, child. Go,” she says, waving her smooth, brown hand in a dismissive gesture. “Go and walk in the garden.”
I rise from the cushion and quietly leave the room.
When I reach the courtyard, the winter sun is hidden behind ominous gray clouds, but Kate is out despite the dubious weather. She is wrapped in a knobby ivory sweater and is typing on her laptop. She looks up and smiles.
“I see she sent you out to the garden.”
I nod.
“I can’t tell you how many times she sent me out to the garden.” Her compassionate smile hardly dents my frustration. “It took me years to learn how to control this ability. And you’ve made so much progress—you’re here every day, and have been for weeks.”
I appreciate her attempt at encouragement, but it doesn’t ease my mind. I manage an anemic grin but pace in distraction. Does no one grasp the urgency? I don’t have years. Every moment that passes could be his last. Kate closes her laptop.
“Would you like a cup of tea?” she offers.
I sigh once more. What else am I going to do?
