“I guess.”
“The third row is where it gets interesting,” Dr. Moss said. “It represents universes that are substantially differentiated from one another. At some point in time, history took a very different turn, resulting in an altered worldscape. Earth and Aurora are universes separated by two degrees.”
“Because of the Last Common Event,” I said, remembering what Thomas had told me—in Aurora, George Washington had died during the Revolutionary War, and the war was lost. As a result, history had forged a new route.
“Precisely!” Dr. Moss was growing more and more excited by the second.
“So what’s the fourth row?” I asked. Granddad would’ve thought Dr. Moss was a lunatic, but he would’ve loved his theories, and his penchant for organization.
“Universes separated by three degrees are highly differentiated from each other,” Dr. Moss said. “In these universes, something happened that was so major that it completely changed the world scape. Of course, at the moment these third-degree universes are entirely theoretical. We’re incapable of proving that they actually exist. And there might be other universes still, separated by four, five, six degrees, with entirely different laws of physics, perhaps! You can see how difficult it is to imagine what such universes might look like.”
“What does any of this have to do with analogs?”
“Everything!” Dr. Moss cried. “People are products of their environments. The more different two universes are, the more different the analogs in those universes will be from each other, not in appearance but in circumstance. In a universe where the differences are subtle—universes of zero, or even one degree—your analog is much more likely to be like you. In these universes, analogs share names and genealogical backgrounds and identities, and if you were to compare the lives of analogs in these universes, you would find that they are being lived almost entirely in parallel with your own, allowing for relatively few slight variations. Of course, there are exceptions. There are always exceptions.”
“Can I ask you something?” Dr. Moss gave me a curious look. “How come Juliana and I have different parents?”
“I’m not sure I understand your meaning,” Dr. Moss said. “You’re different people.”
“I know that, but, if we’re analogs, shouldn’t our parents be analogs, too? And our grandparents? Isn’t that how biology works?” This was something I had been wondering for a while, but no one seemed capable of explaining it to me. If anyone knew the answer, though, Dr. Moss would.
“Not necessarily,” Dr. Moss said. “Because of the LCEs, those linchpin moments that create divergent histories, analogs in second-degree universes and higher do not, for the most part, share the same genealogical backgrounds or identities. Although, again, there are outliers; analogs in second-degree universes can, in unique cases, live their lives along very similar paths, but it’s rare. And your analog in a third-degree universe is likely to be even more different from yourself than Juliana is.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible,” I said. I was a normal high school junior; Juliana was a princess. How much more different could two lives be?
“Believe me, Ms. Lawson—anything is possible.”
“I still don’t understand,” I said. “What about DNA? If we look the same, shouldn’t we come from the same parents?”
“Are you familiar with Anaximander’s theory of apeiron?” Dr. Moss asked. I stared at him blankly. He sighed. “No, I thought not. Anaximander was a Greek philosopher in the sixth century BC. Apeiron means ‘boundless’ or, perhaps more colloquially, ‘infinity.’ It describes a sort of hyperreality from which everything ultimately descends. Anaximander believed that everything we see in every world originates in apeiron, that what exists in the universes is a mere fragment of a greater whole. As far as I can tell, that’s what an analog is—a worldly fragment of one whole and perfect being that exists only in apeiron.
“Have you ever visited a hall of mirrors, Ms. Lawson?” I nodded. “Imagine standing in one, then. Everywhere you turn, there are multiple reflections of your own image. The mirrors are expertly arranged so that these reflections appear to multiply in every direction, stretching out into infinity. You look alike, you move in perfect harmony, but the reflections are not you. They simply have their origin in you. You are the primary being, and they are mere copies. That is an imperfect but adequate example of what I mean.”
“And in this scenario, I’m the apeiron being and they’re … analogs?” I ventured.
“In a manner of speaking. Technically, in a hall of mirrors, you—your physical self that stands before the mirrors—is a sort of source code that exists only in apeiron. Your DNA—and everything else that makes you look as you do—adjusts in order to deliver that predetermined result.”
He turned back to his keyboard and brought up a three-dimensional illustrated rendering of ten or so human beings standing in a dispersed group, connected to each other by dotted lines. Dr. Moss indicated one of the lines.
“Dr. March and I—”
“Who’s Dr. March?”
“Don’t ask,” Thomas muttered under his breath.
“Dr. March was my research partner,” Dr. Moss said. I shot Thomas a questioning look. What was so weird about that?
“Dr. March and I developed a theory—that analogs with a single apeiron source are connected across the universes by what we call a ‘tether,’ ” Dr. Moss said. “An invisible cord that binds you all together, through the tandem and beyond.”
“A cord? A cord made of what?”
“Energy,” Dr. Moss said. “Dark energy, to be precise. Don’t worry, it’s not nearly as ominous as it sounds. The word ‘dark’ merely implies that it’s hypothetical. We believe it exists because when two analogs come into contact with one another, energy is released, which causes the destruction you witness as a disruption event.”
“So this tether … ,” I prompted, trying to get him back on point.
“It’s the thing that makes you and Juliana—and countless, perhaps infinite copies of you out there in the multiverse—analogs and not identical twins, or clones, or mere coincidental look-alikes. Every analog is connected to each of their other analogs by one of these tethers, forming an intricate web across multiple parallel cosmos. Like DNA, the tether is what carries the code that informs your physical similarity to your other analogs.” Dr. Moss smiled, impressed with himself. “To put it simply: you aren’t connected to your analogs because you look alike—you look alike because you are connected. Your appearance is a kind of echo, and the tether is the medium upon which it travels. The bond is stronger than genetics; it’s probably one of the strongest forces we’ve ever encountered. Theoretically, of course.”
“An echo?” The word sounded so empty and lifeless. “Does that mean that I’m not really a person? That I’m not really me?”
“Oh, no, you’re most definitely a person,” Dr. Moss said. “Certainly yourself, whatever that means. As far as I can tell, you are a singular human being. Rest assured of that at least.”
“So you think that the visions I’m having of Juliana are coming to me through this so-called tether?” I asked. My head was spinning, but I was pretty sure I’d managed to follow everything the scientist had told me. Dr. Moss nodded. “But why?”