The A.I. pounded on James’s chest.
On the third try, James appeared to splutter, and a small quantity of water bubbled past his lips.
“James? Can you hear me?” the A.I. asked before turning his ear to James’s mouth to listen for breathing. He looked up at Thel and shook his head. “We have to try again,” he said, quickly pinching his nose.
Thel breathed into his mouth hard, four more times.
James’s ribcage seemed to rise and fall.
The A.I. put his ear to James’s mouth and kept his palm lightly on James’s chest.
“Is he breathing?” Thel asked in an urgent whisper.
The A.I. met her eye for a split second before his eyes filled with terror. Thel had just enough time to turn her head before a hand grasped her hair and pulled her violently away, impossibly fast. Before the A.I. could even get to his feet, Thel had been taken into the dark forest, completely vanishing into the black.
9
WAKING UP, seemingly from the dead, Old-timer sent a bolt of terror through both Rich and Djanet as they watched him sit straight up.
Rich shrieked.
Djanet turned from Old-timer, her shock at his resuscitation not enough to prevent her from raising an eyebrow at Rich’s reaction.
Rich caught his breath and placed his palm on his chest. “I know,” he said, nodding in acknowledgment. “Not the most attractive sound I’ve ever made. But that,” he continued, pointing at Old-timer, “…that was unexpected. We thought you were dead for sure.”
Old-timer stood to his feet. “Sorry, folks. Didn’t mean to—”
Djanet threw her arms around him before he could finish. “Who cares? You’re okay now and that’s all that matters! We thought you were dead!”
“What happened?” Rich asked. “You just collapsed. You weren’t even breathing.”
“Yeah, the new body doesn’t exactly need to breathe.”
Rich closed his eyes, an envious expression suddenly painting his face. “Damn. I really want my upgrade now. Do you even have to go to the bathroom anymore?”
Ignoring Rich’s question, Old-timer replied, “Listen, guys, something’s up. How much time do we have before we have to report back?”
“We crossed fifteen minutes, three minutes, and uh…” Rich trailed off for a moment as he read his mind’s eye. “And forty-one seconds ago.”
“Then you’d better go back quickly,” Old-timer responded. “Take the Planck back to Universe 1 and report back to James and the A.I.”
“What? You’re not coming with us?” Djanet asked, shocked.
“Those were their conditions,” Old-timer answered.
“Their conditions? Old-timer, what the heck is going on?” Rich asked, his confusion mirroring Djanet’s.
“When I stepped through,” Old-timer explained, swiveling to point at the magnetic field, “my consciousness was downloaded into something called the void. There were people there, people I knew.”
Rich looked down at the surface of the platform. “Jesus. How hard did you hit your head?”
“It wasn’t a hallucination,” Old-timer returned emphatically. “Look, Universe 332 is gone. Erased.”
“What the hell?” Djanet reacted in a stunned whisper. “What do you mean? How could someone erase an entire universe?”
“I don’t know,” Old-timer replied, “but they said that the thing that did it has the same plan for our universe.”
“What!?” Djanet reacted again, even more stunned.
“You’ve gotta haul ass back to Universe 1 and report to James and the A.I. The people in the void are just consciousnesses, stored in some sort of mainframe. That’s all that’s left, but they want us to bring them back to Universe 1.”
“What if they’re lying?” Rich asked. “What if it’s a trick? A trap?”
“Do you trust them?” Djanet asked.
“I-I really can’t say one way or another. I just really don’t want to be the decision-maker here,” he stuttered nervously, his confidence having been rocked to its core. “It’s definitely not my place.” He shook his head and sighed. “I might be the worst person in the world to make a call like that.”
“You said you know them,” Djanet said, studying Old-timer. “Who are they?”
Samantha flashed into his memory and he shut his eyes tight, trying to blink the image away. “Two of them, you guys don’t know—they’re people I knew a long, long time ago. But the other is Aldous Gibson.”
“Gibson!” Rich reacted. “The chief?”
“The one and only,” Old-timer said, nodding.