The Map of Chaos (58 page)

“But . . . heaven help us!” Jane opened her eyes wide as the implication of his words penetrated her mind. “If the virus begins to spread among humans, and those infected begin jumping between parallel worlds . . . what will happen then, Bertie?”

Wells looked at her gravely.

“I don't know, my dear . . . But I fear I shall be responsible for something more than the sad demise of a dog.”

H
OWEVER, FOR A WHILE, NOTHING
happened. Wells's twin who had been bitten by Newton did not begin jumping merrily between universes the way one might hop across a river on a row of stepping-stones. He was content to live his life, following in the dull footsteps of the majority of his twins, of whose existence he was in any case unaware. Nor, of course, did he suspect that the scar on his left hand made him unique, different from all the other Wellses, because the dog responsible was also unique and hadn't leapt out of a bush, as though according to a preestablished plan, and attacked any other lad.

For months, Wells devoted himself to watching over this twin, for whom he now felt a special attachment, for he had become almost as unique as Wells himself. He delved into the lad's mind in search of something (he wasn't sure what: strange dreams, unusual feelings) that might betray the presence of the virus in his body. However, he had found nothing significant, except for the feverish cold his twin caught shortly after Newton attacked him, from which he recovered normally. And after two more years during which nothing out of the ordinary happened to him, Wells finally dismissed the idea that this fever was a reaction to the virus—a virus that appeared not to spread between animals and humans, and if it did, it failed to trigger any hidden mechanism in the human brain, enabling the carrier to remain oblivious to the fact that a microorganism synthesized on a distant universe was flowing calmly through his bloodstream. In any case, it made perfect sense, Wells thought with a sense of relief, because when he had injected Newton, the cronotemia virus was still in an experimental phase. It would doubtless have needed a lot of modifying before it could work on humans.

Despite everything, the Wellses kept up their anxious surveillance of the twin who had been bitten, who lived out his life in a universe where time went by more quickly than in their adopted world, exactly as it was meant to, apparently with no major disruptions. Finally, they had to acknowledge that, besides his curious scar and his phobia of dogs, the bite itself didn't seem to have had any effect on Wells's twin, or on the parallel worlds that made up the universe in which they had been stranded.

Relieved that was the case, they were gradually able to relax, and, as they had done prior to poor Newton's sudden appearance, went back to their old habit of sitting by the fire and spying on other worlds purely for pleasure. With practice, they found they were able to move farther from the neighboring universes, that infinite pentagram of parallel worlds, and from the lives most similar to their own. This enabled them to connect with twins who were completely dissimilar to them. They infiltrated the ice-cold mind of a Wells who killed prostitutes by ripping their guts out, the harmonious brain of a Wells who was a pianist, the enlightened soul of a Jane who was a nun, and the farther they traveled from their adopted universe, the more unlikely their twins' personalities became. Filled with awe, they discovered that those distant worlds contained the most miraculous notes in the universal melody. They glimpsed worlds as strange as they were wonderful, where humans had merged with the rest of Nature to create bat-men, wolf-women, and rain-girls; as well as worlds where automatons had conquered the planet, almost wiping out the human race, except for a small band of rebels who resisted valiantly under their leader, the brave Captain Shackleton; and still others where there were more colors than usual, or where men had only one eye in the middle of their foreheads, or where they could float and walk on water because the physical laws that controlled that universe were completely different from the ones they knew. A brilliant kaleidoscope of fantastical worlds Wells and Jane could describe to each other solely through metaphors and similes that only diminished the miracles they had seen.

And, very occasionally, they would watch over the Wells with the scar again, the Wells who had a fear of dogs, which none of the other Wellses suffered from in any of their parallel lives. However, in his world, everything appeared to be running smoothly: he had just published his first novel,
The Time Machine,
which had enabled him to live off his writing but had also embroiled him, as it had many of his twins, in an absurd rivalry with Gilliam Murray, who was as corpulent as the murderous thug who had forced them to jump through the magic hole in their own world, except that here his nickname was the Master of Time, because he had opened a time-travel company.

Meanwhile, life in their adopted universe was also unfolding, although at a somewhat slower pace. It was 1887, and Wells's twin was no longer Professor Lansbury's pupil. Having just turned twenty-one, he had graduated from university and was now teaching at the Holt Academy in Wrexham. Fortunately, however, the Wellses kept in touch with him thanks to the friendship that Observer Wells had managed to forge with his youthful doppelgänger, a friendship very similar to the one he had enjoyed with the Dodgson who existed back in his own universe, only he had exchanged the role of novice disciple for that of decrepit professor. Did I say “decrepit,” dear reader? Indeed, because despite being only fifty-nine, Observer Wells increasingly resembled a doddering old wreck. Alas, Jane, who was six years his junior, was not far behind. Both were aging more quickly than they should, possibly due to the jump they had made between universes. It was something they had been slow to notice because it had not announced itself so suddenly or with such fanfare as their gift for observing. Possibly time in their world was going so much more quickly than in their adopted world, and the inertia of that acceleration had stayed in their bodies, driving them into a rapid physical decline. For the moment those around them, who had no idea how old they were, had not noticed anything, and, besides their twin, they had scarcely bothered to cultivate any friendships in that alternative London. They preferred to spend their evenings at home, discussing in front of the fire all the possible and impossible universes, rather than mingling with the natives of that world, who were incapable of seeing beyond their own noses. Thus it did not bother them greatly. Besides, they had escaped Death so often they almost felt obliged out of politeness to allow it to come sooner.

They decided not to waste what little time they had left worrying about something about which they could do nothing. However, before putting the matter aside, they spared a few wistful thoughts for their old world, for if time was passing at such a vertiginous pace there, even the stars had probably begun to die.

“Do you suppose our universe has already entered the Dark Era, Bertie?” Jane asked Wells one evening.

“I expect so,” he replied forlornly.

“And do you think they might have found a way to avoid their terrible fate?”

“I would like to think so, my dear. The generations after ours will have carried on doing research, just as we did, and it is possible they have succeeded in opening another tunnel to one of the many worlds in this universe. For all we know the Great Exodus has already taken place.”

“But if that were the case, wouldn't we have found out about it through our twins?” Jane said, surprised. “How could we not notice one of their worlds being invaded by an entire civilization?”

“My dear, there must be plenty of universes where we have no twins, and if our old, dying civilization had moved to one of them, we would never know about it. Besides, just as there are many universes that move at a faster pace than this, there are others that do so more slowly, which means there must be worlds where the first scenes of the play are taking place, just as the curtain is lifting, before anyone has come out onstage. Any one of them would be a perfect place for our civilization to be reborn.”

“And we wouldn't be able to see that either because our twins won't be born for millions of years . . . ,” Jane concluded. “So it could be that we have already succeeded, that our world has been saved.”

Wells nodded with a cheerful smile, although they both knew it might be untrue, that their marvelous, brilliant civilization might be dying even as they spoke, plunged into eternal darkness, watching helplessly as the end approached . . . And yet neither of them acknowledged it, preferring not to dwell on such thoughts. There was little they could do for the world they had left behind. Besides, they wanted to spend what little time they had left on each other. Contrary to what many believe, dear reader, love makes people tremendously selfish and insensitive to others, and Wells and Jane loved each other with increasing devotion. Very soon the problem they had once dedicated their lives to trying to solve seemed as alien as it was remote. They believed it no longer had anything to do with them.

Unfortunately, they were wrong.

Another five years went by in their adopted world before they received the first sign that the fate of their old universe was still inextricably linked to their own. It happened one evening in March 1892. Wells and Jane were still recovering from a feverish cold that had kept them in bed for several weeks. They assumed they had caught it from their twins, who had organized a picnic so that the young Wells could introduce them to Amy Catherine Robbins, the charming girl for whom he had left his cousin Isabel. The Wellses had arrived only to find their doubles with watery eyes, runny noses, and flushed faces, and so the meeting had been brief, though long enough for Mrs. Lansbury later to confess to her husband that Jane seemed no less intelligent and brilliant than all the others and would doubtless very soon become frustrated by the way her inexperienced husband made love to her. The following day, the Wellses developed the same symptoms as their twins, although, owing to their declining bodies, it took them longer to recover. That evening in March was the first time they had ventured out of bed to enjoy their favorite secret ceremony in front of the fire. But they had only been distracted for a few minutes when they both opened their eyes with a start, looked at each other aghast, and exclaimed as one:

“I saw a Wells jump!”

“I saw a Jane jump!”

They spent the next few minutes shouting and gesticulating to each other to calm down, though neither appeared to be listening to the other. When they finally composed themselves, they decided that they had to trawl through other worlds, as many of them as possible, to find out whether the same thing was happening in the rest of the universe. It was essential they weigh up the true significance of what they had just seen, and if they wanted to proceed in the most scientific way possible they must stay calm. And so each set off on a frantic search that lasted several hours and left them exhausted and shaking. Alas, the results of their search were as revealing as they were terrifying. Of the three thousand or so twins Wells had been able to connect with that night, five had jumped into a parallel universe at some point during the past few weeks and were wandering around in their new worlds scared out of their wits, unable to understand what was happening to them. Two thought they had traveled in time, and of the three who didn't know what to think, one appeared to have gone mad. Jane had also connected with thousands of her twins and like Wells had come across several of her doubles who had strayed onto stages they should not be on, as if they had fallen through hidden trapdoors no one had warned them about. The couple looked at each other uneasily. Wells was the first to express in words what they both already knew.

“It's the virus . . . ,” he murmured.

“It's
our
virus . . . ,” Jane corrected, rubbing her temples. “Newton must have transmitted the virus to the Wells he attacked . . . Your twin didn't develop the disease himself, but he became a carrier and has infected others . . . in parallel worlds! How can that be?”

“The virus may have mutated and is now highly contagious,” Wells suggested. “Perhaps, after the first case of infection, everyone in that London rapidly become carriers, and it would only take one carrier to develop the disease and jump into a parallel world for the virus to spread in that universe as well. And so on . . . until it became an epidemic, which is now ravaging all the possible universes,” Wells said, unable to conceal his horror.

Jane cried out, shaking her head. “How could we have been so reckless, so . . . foolish? We were content to watch over that Wells for a few years, and when he showed no symptoms, we decided not to worry . . . The fact is we so were so eager to live a quiet life that we convinced ourselves everything was all right. And in the meantime a universal epidemic was unfolding right under our noses.”

“How could we have possibly known?” protested Wells, who refused to take the blame for everything. “Take into account that the first person to jump might not have been one of our twins, in which case we couldn't possibly have sensed it, since we are only able to establish a connection with our doubles.” He paused for a moment to reflect. “It must have been a while before our infected twins developed the disease and started jumping. And as we have just seen, the percentage is still relatively small. In fact, it was only by chance that we connected with some of them today. We could have found out before, it's true, but also much later . . . We can hardly blame ourselves for that, Jane . . .”

“Oh, can't we? Then who is to blame?” she erupted. “We are scientists! We should have considered all the variables, and we didn't. This epidemic is our doing,” she declared harshly. “We brought the virus with us;
our
dog infected the first patient. Everything that happens as of now will weigh on our consciences.”