I exhaled, calming myself down. ‘We have to be proactive here’, I told him, to my own amazement that my voice did not sound shaky. And if people continue being confused about what’s going on, there will be fear, there will be a lack of order, there will be chaos.
“And you think you can explain it?” Morris responded bitterly. ‘No offense to you Brianne, but this is not quite within the typical public service announcement gene. ‘
“Maybe not alone,” I said. ”But together… with all of you… maybe we can help everyone in this transition. …to teach them that this is not the end but the beginning. ”
Zoe slowly moved her head up and down, fixing a determined look on her face. “I can begin preparing the data, so I can start putting something that might make sense of everything in here. ”
“I’ve got contacts in the media,” Morris added, giving me a surprise support most warmly welcome. Looking at the recent history of everything and all the battles we had been fighting, Chase said; ”If we’re going to get a message out, we’ll need a platform. ”
The strategy started forming in my mind as a feeling of nausea swept over me. The entire space around me appeared to become blurry, as if seen through water through a heat-haze. And then for a second I was almost able to watch… something else. Another version of the lab, with certain differences, is very close to the first one, but different nonetheless. And surrounding me were other versions of the friends and colleagues that I knew but were also completely different.
“Brianne?” Chase’s voice sounded to be a recording playing from the depths of the darkness. And then immediately it snapped me back to reality.
“Are you alright?”
I closed my eyes and when I opened them again I was able to remember where I was and what was happening. However, the sound of the other place, of the other time, still remained. So did a new clarity that froze me to the marrow of my bones.
Looking at him, I whispered, “I have to remove the target before The Architect sends it into the future. ”
But this whole feeling was something else. Another version of the lab, maybe different in subtle ways to the first, but conveying the same general impression. And around this new character there was the reflection of the other people I know in my life close friends, coworkers, strangers with a resemblance to them.
“Brianne?” Chase’s voice was probably coming to me from a distance this time around, but I could barely discern it.
“Are you sure you are alright?”
I opened my eyes, and all the strangeness disappeared like a shadow when the person to whom it belonged passed away. Such a veil remained; but the other place, the other time, did not entirely fade into the sunset. And with it came a certainty that I had never felt before, it ran right through me and I shivered.
“We do not have much time,” I whispered, because there is something about the approaching death you cannot ignore.
“It doesn’t matter that the walls between realities are not getting thinner. They are getting breached”.
In response to some words I had said, a low growl reverberated through the building. A few minutes later, instruments started beeping again and emitting strange whining noises. And standing right in the middle of the lab, I noticed that the air looked as if it was wavering and even shifting.
“Oh my God!” Zoe exclaimed, shocked to the bit. “Is that. .. ?”
“A portal,” I said to her when I saw that the energy that was uncoiling before us had formed a vortex and was growing larger and larger.
“A gateway between worlds. ”
We saw in shock as a silhouette came into appearance from the sparkling rent in the fabric of the universe. A figure I thought, for the life of me, I should be able to remember but she seemed to be so strange.
It was me. But not me. An older me with a silver hue in her hair and wrinkles carved on the face of me not yet fifty. Her eyes, my eyes we gazed deep into each other’s eyes and the look of desperation in them made my heartbeat quicken.
“It’s a good thing we came early,” my other self said, her voice resonating oddly in the tense atmosphere of the laboratory. He looked determined… “You must come with me,” She stated in a very urgent tone, pointing at all four of them. “Now!”
“Too late for what?” asked Chase as he placed himself in front of me.
Looking at all of us, my double’s face conveyed sadness and resolve at once. “To preserve not only our Earth, but every version of existence,” she spoke solemnly, “The multiverse is collapsing, and you, yes, we are the only chance to turn the tide. ”
There came another shake in the lab, even stronger than the initial one, however. Equipment crashed
Devices fell on the floor, and the portal glowed menacingly, the sensation resembling that one felt when the alien organism tries to grab the hero with its appendages.
Forcing her power into my hand, the other half of me said, “We must leave now. In fact, it’s imperative or everything is lost, the world as it can be will never be again. ”
And for a few seconds I just stared at her, unable to either deny or believe her words, because deep in my bones I categorically knew that she was telling the truth. I glanced at Chase and watched as the fear and trust in his stare was locked in a struggle. At Zoe and Morris their and now pale but determined.
This was it. The thing which would determine not only our existence and all the existence of the multiverse we inhabit, but the existence of all other multiverses as well. But it was my decision they gave to me.
With one final glance at the reality I was oh so familiar with, the life I once possessed, I grasped the hand of the other me.
“Let’s go” I spoke, even though deep inside me all that was surging was the life-threatening terror I felt. “Let’s save the multiverse. ”
The closer we got to the portal, you could feel that reality paused in its existence. Whatever lay on the other side, whatever impossible challenges awaited us, one thing was certain: Whatever lay on the other side, whatever impossible challenges awaited us, one thing was certain:
It could be said that after that nothing would ever be the same again.