Page 153 of Under Story

Sometimes she wondered whether his pursuit was the will of the Duoverse itself. Coincidences conspired: Laurel found herself alone with him in the cold room. On the night of Tess’s annual Halloween party, Laurel’s car was towed, and she was forced to accept a ride from Christopher. Dressed as a sheep, she sat in stony silence, crossing all her hooves. In that moment, she resented the Duoverse as much as, or even more than, she did him. It seemed to have its own leanings—and methods of coercion.

The pressure built until early October, when Christopher spotted Laurel at a pub in the student union. He slung an arm around her shoulder. Beer sloshed down Laurel’s front.

“Get away from me!” she cried.

Everyone in the pub looked over. Christopher veered backward, his humiliation laced with animosity. He ignored her after that. Laurel felt a vise loosen: the Duoverse’s current flowed on, seeking other alignments.

Soon the conference in San Francisco was only weeks away. Laurel received an unusual card in the mail. It was shaped like a turreted house, with a sheer paper overlay of fog. She lifted the fog and bent back the shutters.

You are invited to

an evening at Seymour and Julian’s

in honor of

Other Worlds

She suspected that Julian Two had made it. Toward the bottom of the invitation, someone had added lines by hand: Heard of your project—intriguing! We hope you’ll join us. Bring a guest.

—

Seymour’s address was the same, but the house had been recently constructed. The other buildings in the neighborhood were made of glass and metal. To the residents of this world, a Victorian must have seemed futuristic: when Laurel approached the door, a dog-walker stopped to stare.

Tess wouldn’t arrive until the following morning, so Laurel brought Gloria as her guest. They knocked, and Seymour appeared, here a sprightly white-haired man just beginning his career.

“You must be Laurel,” Seymour said, taking her hand. He smiled at Gloria. “And who is this?”

“I’m Laurel’s protégée,” she said, proudly.

Gloria followed Seymour into the kitchen: she had a young adult’s enthusiasm for free food and drinks. Julian offered Laurel a tour of the Victorian. It was filled with his dioramas, which looked like larger versions of the party invitation: 3-D paper houses that collapsed into a single plane. He and Seymour also collected antiques, some dating back to the twenty-third century. Julian showed her a hologram projector (“That thing hasn’t worked since 2085”) and a floating silver daybed. Once, it had hovered at window height, but now it hung mere inches aboveground, agitating noisily and dropping when someone sat on it.

Last, Julian brought her upstairs. Laurel didn’t expect to see Eli; they had agreed to meet at Ocean Beach on the last day of the conference. Still, she wanted to visit the octagonal room where, so many years ago, she had found him for the first time since high school.

The room was empty. Beyond the windows, fog wafted back and forth. Julian walked to a side table.

“Now, I must show you this,” he said.

There stood a device that looked vaguely like a gramophone: a fluted horn connected to an ornamental box. A disc perched atop the box, and at the press of a button, it began to turn. What issued from the horn was not just music—a bewitching piano solo that would have been impressive on its own—but also a field of colored light.

“It’s a chromaphone,” Julian said. “It translates sound waves into light. Seymour found it in a pawnshop for a song, no pun intended—the seller was sure it didn’t work—but we took it to a tech wizard in Chinatown, and she had it up and running in a day. It’s very hard to find these records anymore; we only have the one, so it’s a good thing we like it.”

As the melody changed, so did the apparition. So hypnotized was Laurel that she hadn’t noticed someone else had joined them.

“Oh, hello,” said Julian.

Laurel’s stomach leapt. Eli had not changed in any significant way, but he still looked different to her. His skin was warmer—in Palo Alto, fall was as sunny as summer—and there was something more relaxed about the way he held himself, or perhaps the way he dressed, his shirt untucked and rolled up to the elbows.

Eli introduced himself to Julian, but his gaze returned quickly to Laurel. Julian looked between them knowingly and excused himself.

“I didn’t think you’d be here,” Laurel said.

Though Eli had seen her in every state imaginable, from waking up to giving birth, she was suddenly glad that she’d worn boots and done her makeup.

“I know,” said Eli. “Seymour invited the Stanford team, and I thought of bowing out, but…” He pressed his lips together. “I wanted to see you.”

“How are you?” Laurel whispered, even though they were alone.

Eli seemed unsure of what to say, as though he were trying to decide how to distill the events of the past four months. Finally, he shrugged, half smiling.