Three things I can accomplish here: 1) get a book or two on string theory, 2) figure out what language the inscriptions are in, and 3) look up Mom’s address.
“Hi, Ruby,” a librarian says to me as I walk past the information desk.
“Uh,” I say. “Hi.” I read her name tag. “Carol.”
“Good to see you,” Carol says softly. “Your hair looks cute short.”
I run a hand through my bangs. “Thanks.”
My face is burning. The computers are in sight, so I flash Carol my best gotta-go smile, and run for it. Okay, so it’s bad when you don’t recognize someone who knows your name. But in a parallel universe, it causes anxiety to the tenth power. Maybe my parallel-Ruby comes to the library a lot, maybe Carol is related, maybe she’s my neighbor. Who knows, and I can’t ask without sounding like a lunatic: Oh, you’re my aunt Carol? Sure, of course, sorry. I just didn’t recognize you, ’cause in my usual universe I don’t have any aunts.
At the computer, I let my hands hover over the keyboard while I think. There’s no recognizable icon for an Internet browser, but I try each one anyway. Finally, a spiderweb icon launches a security screen that asks for my library card number and a password. Forget it.
So I try the library catalog instead, typing Gry kbo iye coousxq? into the subject search field. The most logical way to translate a language? No. But right now I just need to know which language I should be tackling. An hourglass icon appears next to the words “Searching Database.” The search engine is having a hard time; it’s as confused as I am. Finally it responds with “No Matches Found.” Of course not.
I try Gry alone, then coousxq. Both times, the computer directs me to Keyword Search Tips, telling me to check my spelling, simplify, and make sure I’m entering the info in the correct fields. Basically the library’s search system is screaming “Idiot!”
This is a total dead end. Shift gears. I type “string theory” into the subject search field, and there’s plenty to choose from, though it’s odd that the bestselling books I’ve read aren’t listed. Where are Brian Greene’s books? Where are Michio Kaku’s? They’re the guys I want to call when I get back to Ennis; we’ll make history together, proving that string theory is a reality. Wrinkles in space do exist!
I tap my pen against my forehead. It bugs me. Where is String Theory 101? Where’s Lisa Randall? I haven’t read her book on hidden dimensions yet, but it’s on my list. Do these people have different names in this universe? Did they decide to become chefs instead of physicists?
Maybe the unfortunate truth is that they don’t even exist in this universe. If I have an older brother in Universe Two, then people may or may not exist in parallel dimensions. If Brian Greene’s parents decided they weren’t in the mood for sex on that fateful night of his would-be conception, he just wouldn’t be. One decision, many repercussions. One nuance, different outcomes.
I scribble down the name of a book by Hugh Everett III called Fluid Universe, published last year. Wacky that Everett exists here in Universe Four because—I’m pretty sure—he died young, like twenty or thirty years ago. Wow. That’s a major deviance, a fork in the road of space-time. Hugh Everett III skipped his heart attack here in Universe Four and kept on living. Could be. Which means that Mom could’ve done the same—dodged death—in multiple universes.
Mom could be alive in more than one universe.
The thought lodges itself smack in the middle of everything.
I close my eyes and try to clear my head, heave my backpack on, then climb a flight of stairs to the science section of the library. The wrought-iron handrail is unbearably cold, but I need to steady myself. Every time I put weight on my bad leg, pain wraps around it and penetrates my shin, nearly forcing me to stop and sit. A man passes me with a worried look. He glances over his shoulder.
“You okay?”
“Fine, thanks,” I manage, though I’m grinding my teeth.
I sit on the top step for a full minute, waiting for the dizziness to pass. Once I feel steady, I stand up and take in my surroundings. Despite the nagging pain, my mood lightens. All around me are books about cosmology, inorganic chemistry, nuclear physics, you name it. Little wooden benches, painted teal, are placed at the end of each aisle.
It’s those benches that remind me of the Golden Gate Bookstore. The place where everything changed between George and me.
Jamie was browsing the poetry journals, and George had followed me into the science section. A book was lying open underneath a bench, abandoned, as if the reader had given up on the intimidating equations. I picked it up and closed it, ready to slip it back onto a shelf.
“Wait!” George had said, his voice full of interest. “What was that?”
“An explanation of sine and cosine.”
“No, no. Flip back. A couple more pages. Those graphs. There.”
In that moment, something clicked inside George’s consciousness. I could feel it in his body language. In the way he leaned over the book, fidgeting over the pages. He’d made a discovery that day. And I was standing right next to him when it happened. “They’re beautiful,” he gasped.
“You’ve never seen calculus functions graphed before?”
He shook his head. “Never.”
“Graphs of polar equations make all sorts of cool shapes. Flowers, spirals, butterflies.”
“Are you serious?” He was breathless. “This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is exactly what I need to finish a sketch I’ve been stuck on. I never thought I’d find it in a math book.”
I grin at him. “Did you ever have one of those spirograph toys when you were a kid?”
“Yeah, with the plastic plates that guide your pen.”
“To make pretty looping patterns. You probably didn’t realize that you were tracing hypotrochoid and epitrochoid curves.”
I’d waited for him to give me a look, the kind I normally get when I shift into geek-speak. But he only seemed more interested.
“It’s all connected,” I went on. “Math, nature, art, physics. People think subjects are separate, but they’re not. They’re linked. The shape of a spiral galaxy, or the spiral on a snail’s shell, gets translated into architecture as a spiral staircase. There are logarithmic spirals in so many things. In hurricanes, in fingerprints. In the cochlea of the ear! And this math equation”—I tapped the book—“creates a spiral when graphed.”
He said nothing, processing it all. So I kept going, pointing to the ice that was melting at the bottom of his drink. “You see ice and think what?”
“That it’s cold?”
“What else?” I pressed.
“It’s translucent with little fracture lines,” George said.
“Yeah, but what about the fact that the crystalline structure of ice makes a stunning geometric pattern. It’s hexagonal. I’ll show you sometime. Remind me and I’ll bring some of my books the next time we get coffee at the café.”
From that point on, I was more than just Jamie’s friend who sometimes tagged along. And George became something to me other than Jamie’s cute boyfriend. We had our own connection, our spark.
Now I’m trying to make my own discovery as I browse the Ó Direáin library shelves.
String Theory Basics looks good, as does Parallel Places & Peculiar Physics. I sit on a bench and lean back against a shelf. Extending my legs gives me a little relief. After scanning the index of Parallel Places, I turn the smooth, thin pages to read a passage about Hugh Everett III’s PhD dissertation, which was written in the mid-1950s. His many-worlds theory explained that an observer, simply by observing, can change the outcome of an event. The observer then becomes correlated to the system, and is in turn affected.