Page 87 of Love and Other Paradoxes

He broke out of her grasp and ran to Esi, taking her hand. “Yes.”

Vera whistled in admiration. “Now that is something. Congratulations. You’re the first Joseph Greene to actually surprise me.” Joe, who was still adjusting to the idea of there being two of him, reeled anew at the thought of there being more. “But I’m sorry. I still have to send you back. If anyone sees you on this side, it’s going to play havoc with the official narrative. And maintaining the official narrative is a nonnegotiable part of my job.”

“So find another job!” he said in desperation. “One that doesn’t involve lying to people!”

She shook her head. “I told you. I need to keep this one.”

“Why?”

Esi had been fixing Vera with quiet attention. Finally, she spoke. “Because she’s with someone in the past.” Confusion briefly crossed her face. She corrected herself. “One of the pasts. Why do you think she’s here at midnight, doing the Jane Austen walk of shame?”

He turned back to Vera. He wasn’t an expert on period fashion, but he knew enough to roughly place what she was wearing. Early 1800s. Cogs turned in his mind.“No.”Esi looked at him questioningly. With strange vertigo, he explained, “She used to run the Byron trip.”

Esi looked askance at Vera. “Seriously?”

“Oh, you’re judging me?” Vera put her hands on her hips. “Clearly I’m not the only one with a thing for dead poets.”

Esi looked uncomfortable. “Mine’s not dead.”

“Neither’s mine. He’s on the other side of a wormhole that’s been sealed off from public access. And since I have no desire to move to the early nineteenth century, I need to keep this job so I can visit him.” She took hold of Joe’s shoulders again, jerking him forward. “So. On you go.”

He struggled against her grip, racking his brain for how to reason with her. “Can’t you just persuade your bosses to tell the truth?”

She sighed impatiently. “The truth isn’t marketable. People want to see Joseph Greene because he’s special. One of a kind. If there are a million Joseph Greenes, if we can call another one into existence by opening a glorified door, then—he’s not special anymore.”

He dug in his heels. “But you know better than that. Your Byron, he’s not replaceable. He means more to you than the original, because of what you’ve been through together. Because of the experiences he’d never have had if it wasn’t for you.” He turned in her grip, straining away from the wormhole. “We’re real, all of us. Everyone you bring into existence by opening these glorified doors.” He looked over her shoulder, meeting Esi’s eyes. “Your trip broke my future. But it gave me a new one when it brought the two of us together. All I’m asking is for you to let me live it.”

Vera’s grip slackened, but she didn’t let go. She glanced at the spinning hologram of the other Joe and Diana. “I’m not going to lie. I do love the idea of messing with that.”

He seized on her hesitation. “Exactly! You never thought me and Diana were right for each other.”

“You know what it’s like,” Esi added. “To meet someone you never expected. Someone who makes you feel lucky that you’re alive at the same time.” She looked at Vera, pleading. “We deserve a chance. Like you and Byron deserve a chance.”

Vera’s expression softened. “George,” she said. “I call him George.” She closed her eyes. “Fine,” she said to Esi. “I can get you an access chip, let you come and go even after this trip’s over. As long as you keep it discreet. But you...” She looked back at Joe, pitiless. “This is the last time you step foot on this side of the wormhole. I mean it, Mr. Greene. No loopholes.”

He saw his own anguish reflected on Esi’s face. It was better than permanent separation, but it wasn’t the future he had been hoping for. He had wanted to be with her, not just as a brief, conditional holiday from her real life. He had wanted more, all the foolish things lovers promise each other: a lifetime, an eternity.

She came to him, took his hands. “I need to talk to my family.Sort some things out. But I’ll be back.” He nodded, wondering helplessly how this had happened, that they had run out of time again.

Her hands slipped from his as Vera turned him round. “Don’t get any ideas. I’m changing the password as soon as you step through.” She shoved him, and he stumbled back through mind-melting infinity, out into the dark alley of King’s Lane. When he turned, there was nothing but a brick wall behind him.

The world he had come back to was different from the world he had left. May Week was over. Everyone was waiting, for exam results and graduation and the beginning of the rest of their lives. Joe was waiting too, but for something else: the opening of a hole in the universe, familiar footsteps echoing down a narrow lane.

Rob asked him where Esi was. He told him she was on holiday, in a tone that warned him not to push it. He tried to do what everyone else was doing, which was drinking a lot and making extravagant plans for the future, but it was no use. He ended up in King’s Lane, sitting across from the invisible wormhole, throwing words at the wall in the hope that one of them might be the new password.

“Deev,” he tried. “Ving. Nozz.” He searched his memory for one of the complicated physics words Rob used when he talked about time travel. “Quantum.” The wall remained stubbornly a wall.

A drunk-looking man walked past, giving Joe a funny look. “Fucking students.”

This was hopeless. He levered himself to his feet and went back to college to keep waiting.

Two more days passed. Exam results came out. He got a 2:1 after all. He stared up at his name on the noticeboard outside the Senate House, feeling a strange lack of surprise.

Rob stood beside him. “You always said you were going to get a 2:1.”

“Aye. I did.” Was his destiny reasserting itself? Or was a 2:1 just the natural combination of doing next to nothing for half the year and spending the other half scrambling to catch up?

“Don’t overthink it, Greeney.” Rob patted him on the back. “The Assassins are having a last-chance social in Grantchester Meadows. Go and find us a good spot. I’ll get some drinks and meet you there.”

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