Page 159 of Under Story

What lay inside looked like a scroll. Kenji spread it open on the table. A fractal image had been drawn in infinitesimal handwriting. Laurel knew without inquiring that these were the Maps, the genealogical records that Kenji once described to her and Eli. He had implied they were made of ink and paper, but this was unlike any ink and paper Laurel had ever seen.

Kenji lifted the hem of his top. Attached to a belt was his own set of tools, the same three that the apprentices had worn. He withdrew the pen-shaped item. One side tapered to a copper point, the other a rounded silver protrusion. When Kenji held the latter over the Map, a jagged fractal family illuminated.

Laurel stared. “How…?”

“The sheet is made of carbon atoms, rolled into microscopic tubes. To make paper, the tubes are matted in a net. The circuits store data.” He pointed to the chosen fractal. “This is your lineage.”

It was twig-shaped, with tiny nodes, each of which were labeled. The Rosens spread from the other Eli’s node, as the Salters did from the other Laurel’s, though her father’s dot had not yet been named. Laurel and Eli Two were connected by a thread. From that thread extended Celeste.

Laurel’s throat swelled; emotion flooded to her face; and because she did not want to give in to it, not yet, she said, “How do you make your handwriting so tiny?”

Kenji laughed. “This helps.”

He showed her the copper tip. Its point looked finer than a human hair.

“I know about Celeste,” Laurel said. “It isn’t the same. She’s gone, yes, but she lived a full life.”

The brightness of the fractal was already fading. The overtaker rolled the Map again and slid it back into the drawer.

“The overtakers have a saying,” he said. “The Duoverse does not repeat. It rhymes.”

—

He showed her upstairs now. One year ago, Laurel had been wheeled to the second-highest floor. She shuddered as they passed it now, although the babies’ cries were not as loud as she remembered—or perhaps she was not so attuned to them. They curved around the ramp one final time and arrived below the oculus.

Laurel felt suddenly faint. The walls on this level were lined with shadow boxes: the same compartments she had seen in one of her visions.

She approached a box at random. Affixed to the stone perimeter, a gold plate read:

Olivia Wu

2090–2016

Inside the compartment were four items, artfully arranged: a picture of a dark-haired woman with bangs; a necklace with a yin-and-yang symbol; a pair of jazz shoes; and a small plaque that read Distinguished Professor of Engineering.

The box beside Olivia’s was labeled Marco “Mouse” Oberman-Horowitz (3001–2042). A double-sided frame contained two photos: an adult man, and the same man as a baby. Beside that was a rubber mouse on a handmade, miniature pillow; the fabric was patterned with tiny baseballs.

“Does Celeste have one?” asked Laurel.

In the instant before Kenji pointed, Laurel realized that she already knew where it was. She moved toward it instinctively: the eighth column, four rows up. The dates on her plate read 2111–2019. Celeste must have died not long before her parents traveled to McMurdo. In a photo, she sat on a rock in black Converse sneakers, her hair blowing back from her face. A second picture showed her at the Eiffel Tower with Laurel and Eli Two. A mood ring sat beside a Post-it that read Bigger than the world.

The final object was an award. A pair of golden prongs held a sphere made of four rings. Laurel squinted to read the text on the base.

for excellence and service

in space exploration

“She was an astronaut?” Laurel asked. The implication was incredible: influence that ran in all directions. Had Eli Two become a physicist because of Celeste? Had she even, somehow, impacted Laurel’s Eli, who had longed to be an astronaut?

Some emotion flew across Kenji’s face, which Laurel tried to decipher. It could have been pride, or loyalty, or even love. He might have been thinking of a person—or maybe his love was for the Duoverse, as an invention reveres its creator.

“I still don’t understand,” said Laurel. “You implied that the other Laurel made a mistake. You said that she was like me.”

Kenji paused. “When you came here with Silas, you went to the floor below this one: Labor and Delivery. In every room, there was an infant like yours, and a woman like you—every room, that is, except for one.”

Laurel remembered. She had passed a room that seemed different from all others—one in which the infants’ cries were louder, and more numerous.

“An adult becomes a child,” said Kenji. “A child becomes a baby. A baby becomes an infant—and there is a window, then, when the infant must enter the mother’s body. It is the same, I think, in your world…the same, but in reverse?”