Page 70 of Under Story

“I know,” says Laurel, and it feels so good to unburden herself, to share with just one person. “In my universe, Eli and I are divorced, and I’m a steward. Louis looks the same, but Miles has a shaved head, and you and I are roommates.”

“Oh my God.” Nita pulls her turtleneck over her mouth. “Do you have a mask?”

“What for?”

“You could be carrying some seriously incompatible microbes, not to mention another infection. We just got rid of Covid-19!”

“Covid-19?”

“The virus? It went extinct in 2019?”

“In my world, time moves in the other direction,” says Laurel. “We haven’t gotten there yet.”

Nita drops her turtleneck, but she keeps a hand over her mouth as she gasps. “So Eli was right.”

Laurel points to the man in the photo. “He knew about the Duoverse, too?”

“He came up with it,” says Nita—and then she becomes still. “You said we’re roommates. Does that mean there’s another version of me?”

Laurel nods.

“What’s she like?” asks Nita, searchingly.

How can Laurel encapsulate Nita? She lifts her hands, palms up.

“She’s wonderful. Loyal, and trustworthy, and smart. She helped us dive. She asked me to tell her if we made it.”

“That’s what I said, too,” says Nita. Outside, the sun emerges from behind clouds, and Laurel sees that her eyes are wet. “Why did she come to McMurdo?”

“She studies octopuses.”

Nita lowers herself into Eli’s desk chair. “I study cuttlefish.”

Laurel puts the photo on the desk, and they look at it together. This time, Laurel fixates on her double’s face, searching for some divergence, but she can’t shake the feeling that she’s looking at herself.

“The other Laurel and Eli,” she says. “How long have they been at McMurdo?”

“Just for the summer. They got here in February.”

“She doesn’t work in the galley, does she?”

“No,” says Nita. “She’s a mycologist.”

Based on what happened at breakfast, Laurel isn’t surprised, but that doesn’t blunt the impact. She tucks this fact away for now and asks, “Why did they want to cross over?”

Nita shifts in her chair. “I can’t tell you.”

“What do you mean?” asks Laurel. Her frustration is mounting—Nita may be the only person who can tell her what she wants to know—and suddenly she’s bartering, spilling details she knows she shouldn’t, telling Nita that Silas is gone and that she’s here to find him.

Nita looks stricken, but she doesn’t take the bait. “I said I’d keep her confidence.”

“Who cares? She isn’t here!”

“A promise is a promise,” Nita says, but she hesitates. “Let me take you to her workstation. You might find something useful there.”

—

Snow beats at the windows. They take an interior route to the science buildings, modular units connected by walkways. In Earth Sciences, people sit at computers under headphones. The carpeting is tired, the lighting fluorescent, and Laurel misses the galley with her whole body.