Resonance (21 page)

Annalise leaned over and copied down the address. "Thanks," she said, smiling. "No problem," replied the young man.

Graham watched the exchange in silence, discomforted by the sudden intervention of a stranger and feeling, irrationally, that somehow, it should have been him—Graham—and not the outsider who had furnished Annalise with the solution to her problem.

Annalise called up the new engine and retyped the search criteria. The number of hits multiplied. Everyone seemed to have an opinion on ParaDim. They were too big, too fast and there had to be a catch. Some thought they bugged the universities and stole ideas, some thought they had a mind-reading device or a time machine or access to the UFO that crashed at Roswell.

They waded through hundreds of pages. They followed links, going back and forth, refining the search, trying to find some common credible theme amidst the paranoia.

And then they found a site that made them sit up and look at each other.

It was a simple, plain text site with a minimum of color or artwork. But it raised a question that neither Graham nor Annalise had heard before.

How come no one at ParaDim has a background in artificial intelligence? 
 

They read further. It published the names of the original ParaDim research team along with their specialities. Every one was a theoretical physicist or a mathematician.

"Can we find out if that's true?" asked Graham.

Annalise thought for a while. "We could search on those names but there'd be no guarantee that any information we found would be true. We don't even know if this list
is
the original ParaDim research team."

"What about Kevin Alexander? We know he works for ParaDim. What's his speciality?"

Annalise typed in Kevin's name and paged through the entries. The young man on Graham's left gathered his papers together and left. He looked like a student—young, undoubtedly bright, confident. Graham watched him walk down the aisle towards the door and noticed Annalise watching him too. The young man turned and smiled at Annalise as he lingered by the door. Annalise quickly looked down and started tapping at the keyboard while Graham hoped the door would suck the young man out onto the street.

The young man left leaving Graham feeling stupid and ridiculous. His life was in danger, his world unravelling and, suddenly, he starts feeling proprietorial about a girl that, arguably, he'd met less than an hour ago. Ridiculous!

"Maybe we should type in Canada?"

"What?" Graham's thoughts were still elsewhere.

Annalise pointed at the screen. "All these Kevins and Alexanders. If we added Canada to the search criteria it'd cut down on all this lot."

Graham agreed. Annalise typed in the new query and out came another long list of sites. They found one with a link to Toronto University which looked promising and clicked on it.

Kevin Alexander's details came up. He'd been a fellow at the University of Toronto. He was another theoretical physicist. A picture gradually downloaded. A broad, smiling, open face.

"That's him," said Annalise as soon as the picture sharpened.

A list of published books and papers gradually formed on the right-hand side of the screen.

The title at the bottom of the list stood out from all the rest.

Parallel Dimensions: The Science of Alternate Realities. 
 

"Parallel dimensions?" said Annalise, thinking out loud.

The connection hit them both at the same time.

"ParaDim!" they exclaimed in unison.

"That is
so
cool!" said Annalise, staring wide-eyed at the screen.

Graham wasn't so sure. "What does it actually mean?"

"It means we don't need VR worlds any more. The girls are real. We all are. It explains everything—Rosie's Bar, the six Sergios, the different versions of the De Santos kidnapping."

"The resonance wave?"

Annalise stopped. "Okay, so it doesn't explain everything. But it explains enough. I've gotta tell the girls."

She closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. Graham watched, fascinated as her face seemed to drain of all emotion. Her muscles relaxed, her breathing slowed. And then she smiled, a warm smile which came and went, as though she was listening to a play inside her head, a play that only she could hear. One minute, she was laughing to herself—excited, bubbling—the next she was quiet, her head tilted to one side, listening intently to a hidden voice that played somewhere deep inside her head.

Graham looked nervously around the room to see if anyone else was watching. No one was. Every head was buried in a screen or a paper.

Annalise giggled to herself. Graham watched the way her face lit up and wondered why he couldn't feel the same elation. It was
his
life in danger, shouldn't he feel something now that they'd made such a major discovery?

Or wasn't it such a major discovery? Why should this theory last any longer than VR or Annalise One's astral plane? And what was wrong with his theory of an unravelling world? Wasn't that just as likely as a universe made up of two hundred parallel worlds?

He ruminated for several minutes. Wondering which was preferable—to have your life fragmented over two hundred parallel worlds or disrupted by the one, very unstable, unravelling world?

And was there a way of determining which was true?

"We've gotta go," said Annalise, bursting into life. "Best not give Kevin a reason to bail on us. Not now we've got some real questions to ask him."

"Where are we meeting him?" asked Graham as they crossed the road.

"Here," said Annalise, handing Graham a piece of paper with a roughly drawn map on it. "It's ParaDim's new offices. Don't panic—they haven't moved in yet. It's still being refurbished. Kevin said all the doors are unlocked and workmen are wandering about all the time so it's an ideal place to meet. No one'll notice a couple of extra people walk in unannounced. And if anyone asks who we are, we're with ParaDim—checking office accommodation."

"You've been there before?"

"No, we met at his office the first time. After he'd calmed down. I had to call him twice before he'd agree to meet. He slammed the phone down on me the first time."

"You know ParaDim scans all calls?"

Annalise tilted her head to one side. "Do they?"

"That's why I had to take a disk to the trade talks. ParaDim was scanning all electronic traffic."

Annalise nodded her head. "Which explains why all the Kevins insist we talk in code over the phone. Neat, huh? This is the day when everything begins to make sense."

They zigzagged across Victoria, running out between the gaps in the traffic, waiting on windswept islands, buffeted by the wash from passing lorries, the swirl of dust and the stench of diesel. Gradually the roads became smaller and quieter and the pavements less busy. The two of them fell into step, walking side by side, avoiding the cracks and stretching to the cadence of the street.

"This is
so
cool," beamed Annalise. "I've been practicing at home. You know, the walk thing? And here I am doing it with the man."

Graham smiled back. It did feel good. But then it always had.

"Why does Kevin Alexander suddenly want to see me?" he asked. "I thought he wasn't supposed to know that you talked to me?"

"Who said he knows you're coming?"

ParaDim's new offices were in an old Georgian grey-bricked terrace—four storeys high, black railings, a columned entrance with steps up to an ornately panelled door. Part of Graham hoped that the door would be locked. He dwelt on the lower steps, looking down into the basement windows, while Annalise turned the doorknob.

It opened. The sound of an electric drill rang through the hallway.

Annalise led the way inside. The hallway was cluttered with boxes and paint tins. An electric wire trailed down the stairwell like a vine. The smell of fresh paint hung in the air. And from upstairs came the sound of hammering and drilling and the occasional shout.

"We're meeting in the basement," whispered Annalise. "Room four."

They followed the stairs down, stepping over the wires at the bottom and squeezing past the tables and chairs stacked in the lower corridor. The door to room four was open. They went inside.

The room had been freshly redecorated, a faint smell of paint could still be discerned. Some of the furniture had been positioned—a desk, a table, a pair of filing cabinets—others were still stacked in the corner—the chairs, another table, a bookcase. Packing crates and boxes filled another corner—some had been opened and pieces of white polystyrene jutted out from inside.

But no Kevin Alexander.

Graham checked his watch—11:29—they were early. Annalise tried to open one of the filing cabinets. It was locked. She moved over to the desk and opened one drawer after another.

"What are you doing?" hissed Graham. He glanced towards the door; what if Kevin Alexander suddenly walked in?

"Looking for a key to those cabinets. Might as well make full use of our time. Why don't you try those boxes over there? See what you can find."

Graham did as he was told, glancing up at the window from time to time, in case anyone was looking in from outside. The sky stared back through a line of black railings. Only the top quarter of the window was aboveground, the rest looked out on a dingy concrete well.

A man's voice boomed from the doorway. "What are you doing? Who's he?"

Graham jumped. He hadn't heard the man's approach. He swivelled round. Kevin Alexander filled the doorway. He was enormous, thick-set, huge hands.

"You don't recognize him?" Annalise asked the newcomer, sounding surprised. "This is Graham Smith."

Kevin Alexander seemed to crumple in the doorway, his face whitened. "What's he doing here?" He took one step back, glanced left, right, up the stairs. "Has anyone seen you? You've got to get him out now!"

"Why?" said Annalise.

"Because it's dangerous." He slipped back inside the room and carefully closed the door.

"Dangerous to who?"

"All of us. Just leave. I'll see if it's clear." He moved towards the window and peered across the street. Graham stayed in the corner out of the way.

"We're not leaving until you tell us what's going on," said Annalise. "We can help."

"You can't help," he said without turning his face from the window. "You don't understand. Now leave. Someone could be here any minute."

"No one followed us, if that's what you're worried about. Everyone thinks Graham's at work. No one saw him slip out the back."

"It's too risky." He pressed his face against the window pane and peered as far as he could up and down the street.

"We know about the parallel worlds."

He stopped looking out the window and turned towards her. He didn't say a word. He just stood there, an uncertain look in his eye.

"ParaDim scans all calls, right?" said Annalise, pulling out her mobile phone. "So what would they do if I start dropping your name into conversations—like, Kevin Alexander's meeting Graham Smith tonight or Kevin Alexander's found a way to stop the resonance wave? Or maybe I should just call Adam Sylvestrus."

"You wouldn't do that! You'd put yourself in danger."

She walked right up to him. He towered above her. A full head taller and twice as broad. She stood on tiptoe and looked him in the eye.

"Do I look like a girl who thinks things through?" She tilted her head to one side and rolled her eyes, playing the tortured psychic for all it was worth.

"Now tell me," she said. "Why is everyone so interested in Graham? Is it because he can move between worlds?"

Kevin Alexander's mouth dropped open. His head turned, he looked at Graham. "You can move between worlds?"

Graham nodded.

"We never imagined . . ." Kevin shook his head. "How?"

"We're asking the questions. Why is everyone so interested in Graham?"

"What? Sorry." He couldn't take his eyes off Graham. "Because . . . because he's everywhere. Every world we've looked at we've found him."

Annalise frowned. "Is that all? Graham exists across two hundred worlds and you think that's amazing?"

"Two hundred?" He laughed and shook his head. "More like two hundred billion. And those're just the ones we've found so far. The number could be infinite."

"Two hundred billion worlds?" It was Annalise's turn to be amazed.

"And every one of them has a Graham Smith born on the exact same date—the sixteenth of October, 1966. We thought it was just a crazy anomaly until . . . until other people started taking an interest." He glanced back towards Graham. "How do you move between worlds?"

"I'm calling," Annalise warned, waving the phone in Kevin's face.

He held up his hands. "Okay, okay."

"So what's weird about all the Grahams having the same birthday?"

"Because it just doesn't happen. Think about it. People have accidents, they die, they're never born. There's infinite variety across the parallel worlds."

He paused and stared at Graham.

"Except for you. You never change. You're everywhere. Every world we've discovered, there's a Graham Smith born on the same day of the same year in practically the same place. Harrow or Stanmore or Wembley or Edgware. Always somewhere in North London. Even when London isn't called London, even when it's been destroyed or never evolved beyond a village. You're there. Living in the same geographic location."

He talked with a sense of wonder, his eyes never straying from Graham's.

"How? It makes no sense. People just don't exist on every parallel world. Think about it. Think of the pattern of events necessary to bring a child into the world—then factor in the uncertainty of thousands of years of social evolution, migration, wars. And then try to bring two people together at the same time in the same place to create the same child. It just doesn't happen. Parents never meet, they meet late, they meet someone else, they go to war, they move towns."

"So Graham's parents existed across all the worlds as well?"

He turned his head slowly around and looked down at Annalise. "That's where it really gets weird."