by E. C. Myers
Ephraim nudged the tuning dial on the radio to the right, and the horizontal coin tilted gently in the opposite direction, torquing slightly along its y-axis. He kept turning the dial through the frequencies, through silence, then white noise, and then people speaking in different languages. As he tuned different frequencies, Washington's face slowly rotated clockwise, and the coin turned around and over.
“‘We are controlling transmission,’” Jena intoned in a deep voice. “‘We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical.…You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to The Outer Limits.’”
Zoe slapped Ephraim on the shoulder. “Eph, you're stupid brilliant!” She leaned over the controller, the neck of her tank top dipping.
“Eyes on the coin, Ephraim,” Jena warned in a low voice.
“Nothing I haven't seen before,” he muttered.
Jena punched him hard on his other shoulder.
“Mmph,” he said.
Zoe grinned. “You've boosted the signal by like five hundred percent. We could probably talk to aliens right now. The radio's getting every frequency out there, and I think it's getting multiple signals from each. The neat trick is going to be parsing out the one we need out of all the possibilities. Keep tuning that big dial. I'll take these other two,” she said, gesturing to the smaller dials flanking it on the radio.
Ephraim spun the dial back in the other direction, and the coin repeated its aerobatics in reverse. He kept it moving slowly, and the coin gradually turned belly-up until it was showing tails, with an image of the island of Puerto Rico and a tiny frog.
“Look,” Zoe said. She poked the screen of the controller to life in her free hand as he turned a dial. Numbers blinked in and out, alternating with the sounds of static and active channels. It seemed that it was picking up a signal from a parallel universe on every fifth frequency.
Zoe smiled. “I guess we're still a great team, Eph.”
Jena cleared her throat. “How long is this going to take?”
“You have somewhere else to be?” Zoe asked.
Jena glanced wistfully at the time on Zoe's VCR, almost hidden by a tower of old videotapes labeled “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis” in Mr. Kim's neat print. It was just after 1 a.m.
“Not anymore,” Jena said. She'd been planning the details of their prom night for months, but this hadn't figured into any of them.
“We have time, Jena. Your folks aren't expecting you until tomorrow,” Ephraim said.
“Oh?” Zoe said.
“They think I'm staying with…” She swallowed. “Friends.”
“Miss Perfect lied to her parents?” Zoe asked. “What debauchery did you have planned this weekend?”
Jena and Ephraim exchanged glances.
“Oh!” Zoe said. She looked away.
“It's not just that. I mean, we have classes on Monday. Exams coming up,” Jena said. “I have to write my speech for graduation.” Her voice rose, and she was talking more quickly, on the verge of a panic attack.
“Jena, remember what happened to your friends,” Zoe said. “This is important.”
“I know, but…” She looked at Ephraim helplessly. “This isn't part of the plan,” Jena said. “My life's important too. I have a future to think about.”
“I'm so sorry this happened at such an inconvenient time for you.” Zoe plucked the coin away from the controller. The radio hissed its displeasure. “He can drop you off right now in your universe, if you're that worried about your future.”
“Hey,” Ephraim protested. “Hold on.”
“Honestly, you're kind of redundant here, Jena,” Zoe said.
“Speak for yourself,” Jena said.
“I just did.”
“Guys. Let's just get on with this,” Ephraim said. “The sooner we get in touch with Nathaniel, the sooner we can all get back to our lives. Agreed?”
Zoe nodded.
“Are we good, Jena?” he asked.
“I'm staying with you,” she said.
“Okay.” He smiled.
Ephraim took the coin from Zoe. It was still warm from its time in the machine. He slid it back into the controller, and it wobbled into the air a couple of inches above its groove.
“Can't we just set the coordinates for Nathaniel's universe with the controller to program the radio?” Ephraim asked.
Zoe pulled them up on the screen, and the coin reoriented, but nothing changed on the radio.
“It looks like the Charon device can't control the radio,” Zoe said. “It was a good idea, though.”
“That makes sense,” Jena said. “We can use the coin and controller to monitor the frequencies, and it's obviously boosting the range significantly, but the information exchange only goes one way.”
“So we'll know when we have the correct coordinates, but we can't take any shortcuts,” Zoe said. “If I had enough time, I could probably set up a two-way interface. The easiest thing would be to solder the motherboard from the controller to the radio…”
“And if you break the controller, the nearest service facility is in the universe we're trying to find,” Ephraim said.
He spun the knob as far to the left as it would go. The coin spun rapidly and shuddered to a stop. The arrow on the dial shot to the left, and gears rumbled within the radio.
Ephraim yawned as he nudged the knob forward the tiniest bit.
“We'll just have to do this the slightly-easier-but-still-annoyingly-hard way,” he said. “It's gonna be a long night.”
Ephraim advanced the dial a tiny bit and heard only the hiss of open air on a dead frequency. Zoe sat in a chair beside him, clutching the controller in her left hand. She shook her head. The coin remained still over the controller and the screen was blank.
“Next,” Zoe croaked.
They had painstakingly crept through all the stations one frequency at a time. Then they'd done it again in the opposite direction. They had picked up dozens of transmissions from other universes, but not once had they heard Nathaniel's voice. Nor had the unique ten-digit sequence that identified his universe appeared on the controller's display. Even so, Zoe repeated her call sign over and over again.
Forward, back, forward. Over and over, they sent her voice out into the ether. But were they even getting through to anyone?
Ephraim twisted the knob.
“Too far!” Zoe said.
“Sorry, my fingers are cramping,” he said.
“Mine too.” She swapped the controller to her right hand, then flexed the fingers of her left hand. She had to maintain contact with the controller to keep it active while they scanned the frequencies.
“You need a break,” Ephraim said.
She shook her hand out. “We have to keep going.” She cleared her throat.
It was already nearly three in the morning, and Ephraim was starting to worry they weren't going to get through tonight. Zoe had said the magic band was unreliable. Or it could be that Nathaniel wasn't listening for them after all—or maybe he couldn't anymore.
“Jena can take over,” he said.
“No, I can do this,” Zoe said. Her voice rasped and she coughed. She put down the controller in disgust. The coin dropped into its slot, and the radio went dead. “Fine. I'll get us some coffee.”
When Zoe stood and stretched her back, Jena looked up from the book she was reading, tucking a finger between the pages to hold her place. She'd gathered several selections from Zoe's extensive library. At the moment she was working her way through Sanditon by Jane Austen.
“Any luck?” Jena asked. Her cheeks were flushed, and she looked flustered.
Zoe left the room without answering her.
“Not yet. We could use some assistance over here,” Ephraim said. “Tag, you're it.”
Jena walked over slowly, still reading her book. If Ephraim could hit a bookstore before going home, he could find the perfect graduation present for Je
na. And perfect presents for her next twenty-five birthdays, holidays, and their anniversaries. Except the money here was different, and the multicolored bills with different presidents' faces that he'd brought back to his own universe were all hidden at the back of his desk drawer at home.
Jena sat down in front of the radio and slowly turned a page.
“Is that any good?” Ephraim asked.
“It's wonderful,” Jena said, missing his sarcasm. “I've never read the whole thing before.”
“I find that hard to believe. You're an Austen fanatic.”
“She didn't finish writing it in our universe.” Jena glanced at the bookcases around them wistfully. “A lot of these have never been published. So, how can I help?”
“You just have to hold something for me.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“The controller,” he said. “Jeez. You've been hanging around Nathan way too much.”
“And whose fault is that?” She picked up the controller. Her hand jumped when the screen lit and the coin floated above it.
“Careful,” he said.
“It caught me by surprise,” she said. “Why can only Nathan, Zoe, and I use this thing?”
Ephraim nudged the tuner knob back to the previous frequency, just to be sure they wouldn't miss anything.
“Nathaniel and his universe's Jena Kim operated the controller on the survey teams that recorded the different realities in the multiverse. Even though it's coded to specific biometric readings for security, you're all indistinguishable as far as the device is concerned.”
“And the coin only works for you and your analogs,” she said.
“So far,” he said.
Nathaniel had once mentioned that the Charon device had four authorized users, and that it could be programmed for any new pair of users if necessary. But Ephraim didn't know if that meant the controller would operate for a third person, or if the coin also worked for someone else. Was there anyone who could use both the coin and the controller? That would be a lot of responsibility and a lot of risk.
Ephraim leaned over to look at the controller's screen. “Do you know what you're looking for?”
“Nathaniel's coordinates. 909.877.111…9?”
“Good memory,” Ephraim said.
“It's like a phone number. Or a library call number. So—” Jena said.
Ephraim hushed her and leaned closer to the speaker. A low, gravelly voice was murmuring, but he didn't recognize it. It certainly wasn't Nathaniel.
He shook his head and reached for the tuner.
Jena grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Wait,” she said. “I recognize that voice.”
“Who is it?”
“It's…Grumps.” Jena turned up the volume.
“…is all I'm saying. I simply don't think he's man enough for the job.” The response was garbled. Ephraim reached for the dial again, but Jena slapped his hand away.
“Don't touch it,” she snapped.
“I'm just trying to get a better signal,” he said.
“You might lose it, and we'll never get it back again.” He and Zoe hadn't heard the same quantum frequency twice that night, which didn't bode well for getting in contact with Nathaniel again.
“Oh, my God,” Jena whispered. “It can't be, but it's really him.”
“Nathaniel?” Zoe asked. She came back into the room bearing a tray with a platter of sandwiches and three steaming mugs of coffee.
“It's our grandfather,” Jena said, holding up the microphone.
Zoe put the tray down on her bed and rushed over.
Grumps' voice cut back in. “That's right! I'm so pleased you said that. You know what this country needs, and it isn't—”
“Grandpa Dug!” Zoe said. “Wow.”
“How long has it been since you talked to him?” Ephraim asked.
“Eight years,” Jena said. “We lost him to colon cancer.”
Zoe put a hand on Jena's shoulder.
“That's awful. I'm sorry,” Ephraim said.
He remembered when Jena had missed a week of school in fifth grade. His week had been bad enough with her absent, but that was nothing compared to what she'd been going through. She'd been even more withdrawn for a few months, until Mary and Shelley managed to draw her out again. He knew someone in her family had died, but at the time, he hadn't really known what that felt like; now he was all too acquainted with death. That was also when his mom had kicked his abusive dad out and started divorce proceedings, so he'd had other things on his mind.
Jena turned to Zoe. “He sounds so young.”
“Don't forget, alternate universes can be at different points in our timeline,” Zoe said.
“Right. So he is younger. Can we talk to him?”
“He won't even know us. We haven't been born yet, from his perspective.” But Zoe tapped Ephraim on the shoulder and gestured for him to get up.
She took his chair and studied the number on the controller in Jena's hand. Ephraim looked over Jena's shoulder. The last digit of the frequency flickered between two numbers, corresponding to interference on the station.
“Hmmm. The signal isn't very strong,” Zoe said.
“If we save these coordinates, can the coin take us there?” Jena asked.
“That probably isn't a good idea. But you ought to learn this anyway in case you have to use the controller,” Zoe said.
She showed Jena how the menu worked and walked her through saving both sets of coordinates.
“No telling when this is,” Zoe said. “He bought this radio in 1953, I think, when he emigrated from Korea after the war. If that's still the same, and he's a young man, it's probably not long after that. He would be twenty-something.”
“It's tempting to try to visit, isn't it?” Jena asked. “I love the 1950s.”
“Me too,” Zoe said. She gestured at the piles of videotapes and DVDs of old TV shows from her father's collection, identical to the state of Jena's room back in her and Ephraim's universe. “Obviously.”
Ephraim wandered over to the tray Zoe had made for them and grabbed a peanut butter sandwich and a mug of coffee. He was surprised he wasn't sleepier, but he often stayed up this late on weekends playing computer games with Nathan.
He watched Zoe show Jena how to transmit by squeezing the activator bar on the microphone, and then hand it over.
Jena leaned closer to the radio, her lips almost brushing against the metal grille on the old microphone. She squeezed the bar.
“Grumps?” she asked. “I mean, Dug Kim? Is that you?” Jena's knuckles were white as she clutched the microphone. Zoe touched the back of her hand and murmured something. Jena loosened her grip.
“Try his call letters,” Zoe said.
“Oh, yeah.” Jena read off the numbers scratched into the top of the radio. “Calling WB2IXW. Come in. This is, uh, CHARON2?” She glanced at Zoe. Zoe shrugged.
The radio crackled. “Who is…” Static popped and a piercing tone sounded, then his voice faded to silence.
“What happened?” Jena said. “Get him back!”
“I don't think I can,” Zoe said.
“But we got the coordinates?”
Zoe nodded. The coin spun around once, twice, trying to lock onto something.
Jena grabbed the microphone again. “Hello? Hello?”
“Hello?” Her voice came back out of the radio.
“Just an echo,” Jena said. She threw the microphone down in frustration.
“Hey, careful with that,” Zoe said.
“Is anyone there? Over.” The staticky voice spoke again—Jena's voice.
Jena and Zoe froze, staring at each other. They looked at the microphone. Neither of them had touched it.
Ephraim swallowed a mouthful of peanut butter painfully. “That wasn't an echo,” he said. He gulped the coffee to clear his throat and winced as the hot beverage scalded its way down his throat.
“That sounded like us,” Jena said.
“That's it! We've made co
ntact!” Zoe snatched the microphone and tilted it toward her while Jena continued to hold on to the controller. “Hello! This is CHARON2. Is someone there? Come in. Over.”
“CHARON2, this is CHARON1. Am I ever glad to hear from you. Over.” This was becoming downright surreal—Jena and Zoe were speaking to another of their analogs.
“Finally! We've been trying you all night,” Zoe said. “CHARON1, is Nathaniel there? Over.”
“His hands are full,” the voice went on. “…multiverse…flux. I could lose your frequency again at any mo…can't keep this channel open for long. We need you here ASAP. Over.”
“We tried to shift to your universe, but something blocked us. Over,” Zoe said.
“Say again?”
“We couldn't shift to your universe,” Zoe repeated slowly.
“Excellent,” the voice said.
Ephraim, Jena, and Zoe exchanged a look. Why was that a good thing?
“Who's with you?” the voice asked.
“I'm Zoe Kim. I'm here with my analog Jena. And Ephraim Scott.”
There was a prolonged silence. Zoe released the microphone.
“Did we lose her?” Ephraim asked. He reached down to adjust the frequency, but Jena shook her head. The coin was steady, the signal was as strong as it was going to get.
Finally the voice from the radio spoke. “Ephraim's there?” She sounded hopeful. Relieved. “He has the coin?” A moment later: “Of course he has it if he's in your universe.”
Ephraim put his hand on Zoe's shoulder and leaned over the microphone. He nodded, and she squeezed the activator bar.
“Yes, I have the coin,” he said. “Hi. Uh, who's this?”
“Dr. Jena Kim,” she said.
Zoe dropped her hand from the microphone. “Doctor?” she asked.
“It's the future,” Ephraim said. “She wouldn't still be in high school. Even Michael Gupal couldn't get left back twenty-five times, and you're considerably smarter than him.”
“A doctor,” Jena said. “Dad would be so proud.”
“Hmph,” Zoe said.
“Are you still there? Hello?” Dr. Kim asked. “It's, um…3:06 a.m. here.”
Zoe glanced at the time on her VCR and squeezed the microphone. “The same here,” she said.
