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The scientists have traded their lab coats for jumpsuits. Across the back of Dr. M’s is a slogan in big white letters: EVERYONE’S A TOURIST HERE! He offers an apologetic smile. “These days, most of our research is funded by the Council of Greater Tourism. If we succeed, they want to partner with us on tours to parallel universes.” He motions with his arm like he’s spelling out an imaginary billboard. “Take your brain to Braneworld!”
“Lame …,” Dr. O singsongs under her breath, flipping switches and taking readings.
“Yes. Well. We’re still working on the catchphrase,” Dr. M says with a sniff.
I shift my safety goggles over my eyes. “How do I look?”
“Like you just escaped from an eighties band,” Gonzo says.
“Ed, please ready our victim!” Dr. T shouts from a scaffolding above the tunnel.
I bend down so that Ed can test the security of my roller derby helmet. “Don’t worry. It doesn’t hurt.”
“I thought nobody’s come back. So how do you know it doesn’t hurt?”
Ed considers this, nodding slowly. “I just know in the way you just know things.” He tucks a white rabbit’s foot into my pocket.
“For luck?”
“Nope.” He doesn’t offer any other explanation.
Balder throws his arms around me. “May Frigg spin clouds of protection around you on your travels, noble Cameron.”
“Thanks, Balder.”
Ed affixes the Calabi Yau manifold to the stereo speaker.
“Okay, we’re ready!” Dr. T calls out. The scientists lower their safety goggles and Balder and Gonzo follow suit. Dr. T offers a sort of space-hero salute, his hand across his chest.
“To Higgs Field and beyond. Calabi Yau!”
“Calabi Yau!” they shout.
Gonzo bestows a final fist bump. “Here’s to sand castles and ninjas, dude.”
I give the thumbs-up, and Ed closes the door, sealing me in.
At first, it’s quiet and dark. Really dark. Then I hear the Copenhagen Interpretation’s music filling the space around me. “Time is what you make of it. …”
The ground hums; it vibrates till my teeth rattle. The daisy door lights up like a wheel you spin at a carnival, and that’s when I nearly piss myself with fear. Be cool, Cameron. Don’t wanna trip the light fantastic with wet undies. Chafe is chafe in any dimension.
It’s like I’ve been shot out of a superpowered cannon. There’s so much pressure bearing down on me, smashing me flat. It’s like I’m a plastic toy form stuck to a plastic board along with other forms that can be moved around only on that flat board. And then I’m expanding. I can feel myself peeling off that flat board and fluffing out, and it’s like I’ve got as many hidden dimensions as the Calabi Yau toy, all curled up and exponentially huge at the same time. Then—kapow!—I could swear every part of me is coming apart and being rearranged, like the ball bearings in one of those cheap plastic puzzle games you get in a birthday goody bag when you’re a kid. In my ears, the Copenhagen Interpretation’s getting louder. Tiny cells of time zip around me, snapshots constantly being rearranged on the blank pages of a photo album. Sometimes I look and they tell a linear story; other times they don’t seem to make sense or one cell overlaps another. I can make out a few things, though: The CI playing a concert. A big black hole opening above them. Dr. X stepping into his machine. The empty stage. Dr. X and the Copenhagen Interpretation flying through space, and in their wake, something forming. A ball of fire.
I’m accelerating, and everything’s getting wonky. Time bends and blends till I can’t tell what’s what anymore: The Copenhagen Interpretation fishing in the snow. Me falling off the Small World ride. Gonzo in a fedora, a huge stuffed albatross on his desk and a gun in his hand. Glory playing hopscotch with a little girl who looks just like her. Dr. X dancing with his wife. Dr. X all alone in his stark white room. Dad with his arm around my shoulders, two moons hanging low in the orange sky. Stars streaking over my head. A crying Dulcie out in the snow, banging her palms against a pane of glass, over and over. Junior Webster’s horn in my hands. The WELCOME TO FLORIDA sign.
The music reaches a crescendo. It’s so much I can’t take it.
When I come to, everything’s still. The Calabi Yau is smoked as a piece of Buddha Burger jerky. I can move, and since I seem to have stopped traveling, I guess the only thing left to do is open up the Infinity Collider and see what’s on the other side of that door. For all I know, I could be stepping into a world where Rad soda and Parker Day don’t exist, and nobody’s even heard of the Copenhagen Interpretation.
The door opens with a loud pssssht and a cloud of mist, and I hope carnivorous houseplants aren’t waiting with forks and knives and tartar sauce. Blurry forms emerge from the mist. Their edges fill in; Drs. A, T, O, and M stand blinking at me. Gonzo smiles in relief, and Balder removes his helmet and sinks to his knees to offer a prayer of thanks.
“Nima Arkani-Hamed!” Dr. T whoops, jumping a full foot off the floor. The scientists hug each other in a victory huddle before running off to test for evidence of XL-gravitrons and maybetrons and perhapsatrons and whatever else they can think up.
Ed takes my helmet and goggles, offers me juice. Then he reaches into my pocket and takes out the rabbit’s foot, which is now streaked with brown, though I could have sworn it was white when he put it in there.
“Huh,” he says, smiling. “Thought so.”
And it makes about as much sense as anything else.
