Page 58 of What If It's You?

The eye roll was even more audible than her concentration frown. Dana had shockingly aural emotional states. I quickly explained what had happened between Luke and JaeHo—clearly Dana operated on a more-is-more principle of information.

“…but it doesn’t even matter,” I finished, spine stiffening in an attempt to prop up my argument. “Drew said that logging out all the users should have fixed that anyway. And yes, Ididask.”

“Not totally hopeless, then.” I could imagine her tiny smirk. “So for some reason that even the project head can neither understand nor fully visualize, the program seems to still be running…well,you.”

“That’s the long and short of it. And the only other solution Drew could think of was the user in question terminating the sequence, which Ican’tsince the program won’t even let me finish calibration. In the other world it doesn’t recognize me as a user at all, I managed to almost log in for like…a second, but that was as far as I got.” I sniffed, frustrated anew. “If Drew can’t figure out how to fix it in the next couple days, they’re scrapping the program and starting from scratch.”

“Wellthat’snot good.” My shoulders slumped at the pronouncement. Not like I hadn’t suspected the same, but somehow, hearing it from Dana made the threat feel infinitely more real.

“So what do I do? Just…hope I’m in the right life at the end of all this?”

“Or you could try to ensure that.” I could hear a faint rhythm, as though she were tapping the phone to concentrate. “This isextremely inelegant as a solution, but you said it seemed like the switches happen when you’re in the same physical space, yes?”

“That’s right. Or at least…mostly, yeah.”

“Mostly? Or yes?”

“Yes,” I said. Waking up that first morning in Drew’s bed had to be an exception. The program kicking off. Every timesincethen, it was yes.

“Then what if you just…moved?”

“Like…left town?”

“Sure, or further if you were able. It wouldn’t actually solve the root problem, of course, but it could protect you.”

“That’s easy,” I said, voice rising with my excitement. “I can just…take the rest of the week for mental health or something. Maybe fly home to visit my dad. It won’t be hard to figure out how to stay away for five or six days.”

“Well…I’m not sure that would really be enough,” Dana said, voice going a little distant. She was clearly turning over the problem further. “Right now it seems like there’s no way to ‘log you out’ as a user, so to speak, since you aren’trecognizedas a user, correct?”

“That’s right…but why would that even matter?”

“Clearly you’re tangled up in this program somehow, in ways we don’t fully understand. Your consciousness, for lack of a more precise term, is beingcontrolledby it.”

“Right…” Her tone shot anxiety out in every direction, a fungal growth spreading through my subterranean parts.

“My hypothesis is that putting some distance between you and…youwould allow the program to reduce the processing power it’s using to run your request. You said having the user terminate the sequence would resolve this problem. This would be…not as concrete as that, but close. If one version of you decides to move to Alaska to live off the land, the program won’t confuse your state anymore.Thatyou would be on a completely different timeline. You wouldn’t intersect with yourself physically, so the program wouldn’t have to use all its processing power determiningwhich you is meant to be in which world. You’d be returned to…background noise, so to speak.”

“So you’re saying I have to move to Alaska to make this stop.”

“You don’thaveto do anything, Laurel. And I’ll remind you I’m doing you a favor with this. Believe it or not, I have plenty of things that impactmylife that I could be devoting my time and energy to right now.” The scold slapped at me so sharply I almost wanted to rub my wrist.

“Right, I know. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I’m sure this is very…enervating, to say the least.”

“So your solution is leave town. Permanently.”

“It’s not my solution. It’s an option. Possibly the best option.”

“But…what if I just like, holed up in my apartment for the rest of the week and let them shut down the program? Wouldn’t that work?” I was clinging to straws, but how was I going to uproot my entirelife? I didn’t even like “live off the land” reality shows.

“Well…thatmightwork out…” Dana said, voice almost pained.

“Or?”

“Or…you might be too entangled in the program to survive its termination.”

“Wait…what?”

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