Intrepid (13 page)

“So it happened without the activation? That should be impossible,” he whispered to himself. There was a mixture of fear and awe in his expression as he added: “At least it was just a Hop and not a Jump. How did it—” but he stopped as if he remembered something else. He twisted my wrist and pressed the edge of the bracelet so that a neon-green screen hovered over it. He did the same thing to the leather-banded watch on his wrist, and his fingers twittered over both screens until his transplanted on top of mine and they bled into one.
 

“How did you…? What is this?” I whispered. The colors were vibrant and beautiful as they hovered. I couldn’t figure out how it projected from the small bracelet on my wrist to form the screen hovering just above it.
 

He started entering numbers and letters that made no sense to me. “The headaches. How often did you get them today? Every hour? Every twenty minutes?”
 

Again with the headache question. “I guess every twenty or so,” I said.
 

“Good. To force your body before it’s ready could kill you, but then again, you did it on your own already.”
 

“Force what?”

“I’ll explain this part later, but we have to get somewhere safe first.”
 

“What?”

“It’s okay. You’ll feel nothing.”
 

“Nothing?” I hated how my questions had devolved into one-worded vessels of nonsense. It was as if I could only take in one of Iago’s words at a time, and not even the ones I fixated on contained meaning. Yet they were the only words my mouth wanted to form, as if repetition was the boa constrictor of understanding.
 

Iago cupped my chin in his hand and forced me to look at him and not the screen hovering between us. It reminded me of something Mrs. Ortiz did when she wanted us to really, really listen to something. “I’ve really screwed the pooch in explaining all this to you. I’ve had years to practice, and I did! Mami coached me through how to say these things, but now that it’s all here, all that practice has gone out the window. What you did… Hopping like that? It really threw me off. But this moment? I remember word for word what I’ve always meant to say.”
 

I tried to consider the truth of everything, and if all this was real, Iago was the person to trust. All my petty anger and inability to forgive him had to go, because when it came down to it, he was a constant—someone who’d always been there even when I didn’t want him there.
 

“I stole this theory from Ringo,” he said, and the reference to my father soothed me. Trust S.O. The note was in Ringo’s handwriting, and Iago hadn’t tried to strangle me like Sully had. I fell into the rhythm of his voice, and I actively tried to understand.
 

He kept going with this explanation: “Remember how I tried to explain the Big Whisper? Well, here, we call it the Big Bang, but it’s a misnomer. Think about it. You know the way a gun sounds when it fires? If there’s someone there to hear it, that person would describe it as loud and they would use the word Bang. But when the Origin of Creation occurred, there were no ears around to hear it. You see, there was absolutely
Nothing
before there was
Something
. Creation is so subtle that most of the time we have no idea of its intentions or that it’s even happening. It simply whispers change into existence. Everything we know, see, feel, touch, experience—all of it—was born out of this Nothing. It is a space that hovers out of existence until atoms re-collide back into matter like a conversion chamber for Energy to convert from one thing to the next. Ringo believes we go to this space momentarily when we Jump. For a brief moment, we become Nothing.”
 

“Jump?” The words were still a drowsy slur of nonsense, but as I held his hand, it was firm and strong and real. Ringo’d always said to understand before I believed, but Iago was asking me to believe before I understood. If these were things Ringo’d told him, then I had to believe in Ringo if I believed in nothing else.
 

Iago dropped my chin then looked out over the dashboard.
 
He rubbed the steering wheel and whispered to his truck, “I’m going to miss you, Bertha. You’ve been a good truck, and I hope whoever gets you next knows that.” He put the keys on the dashboard. The metal teeth of each key fanned out in ridged freedom, and he looked back in my direction.
 

“Bertha?”

“What? Don’t act like you don’t name your trucks! She’s been good to me…You ready?” he asked, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t understand what I was supposed to be ready for, and before I could tell him so, he pressed a button on the screen.
 

There was a slight pressure, then Nothing. It was a place beyond existence, and it cleansed all the fear I’d been feeling just minutes before. Despite the lack of existence, it somehow made existence make sense. It washed away all the things that tethered me to reality and allowed me to see with fresh eyes the course of my own heart. It reminded me of a blank page on a computer and how it’s bright white until movement puts words on the screen and gravity pulls pigment onto the page. Except not even white existed in the Nothing because nothing existed in the Nothing, not even me.
 

Chapter Seventeen

Iago thrummed his fingers on the porcelain tub. The boy was patient, but he was probably tired of repeating himself. It was just that it was a lot to take in, let alone believe. He said we were in a different universe, and whether he was speaking metaphorically or literally, it felt true in every sense. He sat on the edge of the tub next to me so he could help me wash the cuts on my bare feet and clean them with alcohol swabs. As he dabbed away, I sucked in the smell of the stinging astringent burn.
 

“I’d offer you whiskey, but it’s best not to drink after what your body’s been through… and still has to go through,” he explained. The way he said that part cut new threads of fear through me. Did that mean the worst still hadn’t passed? “Saltadors heal fast. Your feet’ll be in tip-top shape by tomorrow,” he added.
 

“Saltadors.” I said the word and rolled it around my teeth. I knew I was still in parrot mode, but I was learning that it helped.
 

“They have to call us something.” He pointed to a pile of clothes on the edge of the sink, and left the bathroom so I could change. The jeans had that scratchy, new, never-been-washed feeling, and the shirt smelled musty, but it was better than spending my life in a sports bra and tattered shorts.
 

I limped into the kitchen where Iago waited for me at the table with a pad of paper in front of him. I sat down and rested my elbows on the table so I could cradle my head because it was starting to feel too heavy to hold up by my neck alone.
 

“I’m gonna try and explain this to you again, but in tiny chunks, okay?”

I nodded, and he drew a triangle on the paper. The wet ink glistened in the light before it dried. Then he added three words at the tips.
 

Splicers.
 

Movers.
 

Saltadors.
 

His handwriting was always superb. Mrs. Ortiz used to chastise me for my messy loops and haphazard cursive, but every letter Iago put on the paper was calm and clean. He wrote “Multiverse” in the middle of the triangle before he looked at me and said, “The first thing I need you to believe is that a Multiverse exists. There is no such thing as just one universe or one Earth, and there are infinite possibilities that exist. Can you just consider this as a truth?”
 

“I can try,” I said honestly.
 

“Trying works for now.” He smiled. “In each universe, within the human race, there are three types of Energy, each with their own function and their own limitations, and every human being holds within them one type.”
 

He paused so I could consider what this meant. I looked at the triangle, and said, “I assume these are the three types of Energy?”
 

“Yes.”

“Okay.”
 

“Okay?” Iago laughed. “You’re really trying here, huh?”

“To be honest, this sounds a lot like one of your Mom’s stories.”
 

He nodded. “Where do you think all those stories came from?”
 

Suddenly, Mrs. Ortiz’s tales took on a new life. A possible existence. A possible reality. Iago added, “She’s been training us our entire lives, you know. She’s a Level 3 Watcher, which means she was able to take on children and train them to be Saltadors.”
 

“So Mina?”

“Is one of us. She’ll be an Explorer. Explorers are trained in highly populated planets, while Watchers are trained more in isolation.”
 

“Okay,” I said again, because I didn’t know what else to say. I wanted my next questions to be about Explorers and Watchers, and those two words weren’t written on his handy-dandy triangle. I had a feeling I was getting Iago far from the point he was trying to make, and the more questions I asked, the farther away I’d take him from his neat, orderly, three-pointed picture. Right now, I needed neat and orderly, so I decided to stop asking questions and let him explain.
 

I pointed back to the triangle to redirect him.
 

Iago understood and said, “So, these three Energies are basically the ingredients needed to create a universe, and like all recipes there needs to be just the right mixtures of Energy for it to turn out right.”

His finger tapped on the top corner of his triangle. “Splicers? These people are usually more intuitive. It’s as if with every decision that needs to be made, they can anticipate several possibilities. Most of the time instinct compels them to make a choice in one direction over another. When this happens, the universe continues on its course, steady and constant. But every once in a while, Multiversal instinct is stronger than personal instinct. It wants both possibilities, and forces every Splicer in the universe to not make a choice. The decision in front of them in that very moment, whether large or small, is never
actually
made, and this causes the universe to split like cells in the body. These new universes have the same origins but alternate futures where two or more scenarios play out.”

“So every Earth has people who can make new Earths?”

“It’s a very
small
percentage within every population, but yes. And, the most important part is that they are
not
self-aware. They have no idea that their choices—or lack of choice—can generate a parallel universe. They can never know that they are the catalyst for a universal split, because they may choose in ways that harm the Multiverse. Instead, they simply feel a slight tingle in their souls, like a tiny piece of them has been torn in half. It feels like deja vu. Then they shake the feeling off and move on.”
 

“Okay.” I noticed that “okay” was becoming my word. Like every time I said it, I was reminding myself I was okay while simultaneously accepting that all these weird stories were okay.
 

Iago pointed to the next corner of the triangle. “If Splicers are the catalyst for the universal split, then Movers provide the Collective Energy to move a universe into existence. Without the proper mix of Collective Energy, the universe Stagnates.”
 

“Stagnates?” I cringed. I had strayed away from the okays to ask another question.

Iago humored me with an answer though. “A Stagnation means there’s not enough Energy to push more universes into existence. For example, what happens if someone stops moving? Let’s say you are strapped to your bed for the rest of your life, what would happen?”

“It depends. If I was fed, I’d grow too fat to go anywhere. If I wasn’t fat, I’d waste away and still not be able to go anywhere. Without moving, I’d lose all my muscle mass, and I’d eventually die.”
 

Iago laughed. There was nervousness in the corners of the sound, and it soothed me a little. I wasn’t the only one feeling out of my league. He continued with equally wobbly words, “Way to cover both possibilities, but both scenarios lead to a lethargic death. When a universe lacks the right balance of population, there’s not enough Collective Energy to keep it alive. This is why Movers are one of the most important Energies in the Multiverse. They provide this Collective Energy, and when the Splicers initiate a Splice, the universe taps into the Movers to propel a parallel one into existence. Without the right mix of Movers and Splicers, the universes being born end up becoming Stagnant and unable to produce new ones.”
 

I still didn’t completely understand, but I got the gist. I felt like I was trying to shove too many marbles into the jar called my brain. Some things weren’t going to completely stick yet. I yawned, not out of boredom, but out of a new feeling of exhaustion wrapping around me. Iago didn’t take offense at the emphatic, hot air and the muted lion roar that tumbled out of my stretched gap of a mouth. He simply underlined the word “Saltadors” on the triangle.
 

“That’s us?” I asked, but the yawn closed around the words, making me sound like a baby seal.
 

He nodded. “We are those with the ability to Hop and Jump between the universes.”
 

“How?”

“First you need to understand, there is such a thing as an universe of Origin. We call it Gaia, and this is where all Saltadors originate, whether or not they were physically born there.”
 

“Okay.”
 

He laughed at my parroted word, and drew circles around the Saltador on his triangle. There was no purpose to him doing this other than to give his Energy a place to go. “We don’t understand why it happened, but we know that Saltadors can exist only where we are. Splicers and Movers often have a doppelgänger or duplicate of themselves floating around somewhere in the Multiverse, but Saltadors
never
do. We will never, ever run into another copy of us.”