The Map of Chaos (Trilogía Victoriana #3)(141)
He went over to the fireplace and, turning his back to his wife, leaned on the mantelpiece and buried his face in his hands. But Jane was not about to back down.
“While we’re on the subject, you say the first patient hasn’t developed the disease . . . ,” she went on, adopting a falsely sweet tone. “But how can you be sure? Have you connected with him this evening?”
“No, Jane,” murmured Wells wearily through his fingers. “I didn’t connect with him this evening because . . . well, I really don’t know why.”
Jane smiled wistfully. She stood up slowly and wrapped her arms around her husband’s waist, resting her head on his beloved back, stooped now like an old man’s.
“Is it because deep down you are as afraid as I am?” she asked gently. “He is the first patient, and if he has developed the disease and started jumping . . . then the chances of controlling this epidemic would be almost nonexistent. You know that, don’t you? You know . . . ,” she repeated in a whisper.
Wells remained motionless for a moment, feeling his wife’s warm body pressed against his. Finally, he turned round and, very slowly, moved his forehead toward hers until they were touching. The couple abandoned themselves willingly to that ancient, symbolic gesture from their old world that honored the mind of the other. Their fingers intertwined but afterward, obeying the urges they had developed in their adopted universe, moved tremblingly up each other’s arms, turning into a cascade of caresses down the other’s curved back. Wells cupped his wife’s face, kissing with a sudden fervor her lips, now salty from her tears, which still seemed to him like a genetic miracle.
“What have we done, Jane?” he asked, burying his face in the warm crook of her neck like a frightened child. “What have we done? And what are we going to do? We wanted to save one world and now we are going to destroy them all . . .”
For a few moments, Jane stroked his wispy hair. Then she dried the tears running down her cheeks and stepped away from her husband with gentle determination.
“You have to find the first patient,” she insisted with renewed vigor. “Do it, Bertie. Find him and connect with him. I want to know what he is doing right this minute . . .”
Wells sighed. The woman was indefatigable. He sat down again in the armchair and closed his eyes while Jane stared at him intently from the fireplace, rubbing her hands impatiently. After five long minutes, her husband opened his eyes.
“Did you find him?” Jane asked. “Has he jumped?”
“Er . . . no, he hasn’t jumped. He is still in his universe . . .”
“That’s wonderful news! . . . So why are you pulling that face?”
“I . . . I don’t know what to think.”
“Why?” Jane demanded. “What is your twin doing now?”
Wells looked confused.
“He is fleeing a Martian invasion.”
? ? ?
THIS ASTONISHING STORY DISTRACTED them for a while from the threat posed by the epidemic they themselves had caused, which, after all, was equally extraordinary, if not more so. In the world of the Wells with the scar, the Martians were razing London, and there was nothing the empire’s crude weaponry could do to stop them—exactly as the author himself, together with many of his twins, had described in one of their novels. And over several evenings, instead of spying on the other universes to check on the spread of the epidemic, the couple couldn’t help following with amazement the adventures of that Wells, who, besides being the first patient, was currently being forced to confront the terrifying fantasy he himself had concocted in The War of the Worlds. Until the thing he and Jane most feared took place. One day, pursued by Martians through the sewers of London together with a motley group of survivors, Wells’s twin had jumped into a parallel universe. And this, apart from depriving them of the end of the spine-chilling tale, had also destroyed any hopes that the consequences of the epidemic would be less catastrophic than they feared. Apparently, all those infected ended up jumping sooner or later.
From then on, they made it their duty to seek out and watch over other twins who had also developed the disease, to measure the effect their jumps might have on the fabric of the universe. And so, every night, they became privy to dozens of fantastical adventures. But as we all know, every good adventure must have a villain. And that was how they came across Marcus Rhys.
The name may possibly be familiar to some of you, dear readers, as he made a brief appearance in my first tale. He was a ruthless killer who had developed the disease of cronotemia almost from the moment the virus entered his body, as if his evil blood were greedy for power. And, unlike other sufferers, due to a natural talent, which was as unique as it was sinister, he had learned to master where his jumps took him. Naturally, Rhys had no understanding of the nature of his disease. In the world he came from, which was in a relatively advanced future, governments were aware of the epidemic, but, as in a lot of the other parallel universes, they had confused it with a mysterious mutation that created time travelers. To combat the obvious threat this posed, they had banned time travel, hunting down anyone in breach of the law. Rhys, of course, was one of those. He considered himself the most prominent specimen of Homo temporalis, of that evolutionary link he believed was destined to rule the world. But rather than putting his amazing talent to good use, he had squandered it wandering through the centuries like a mischievous tourist: he blasted the Vikings with machine guns, sacked the tombs of the pharaohs, appeared in the guise of the devil at the Salem witch trials, bedded Marie Antoinette . . . When he grew bored of subverting History at his whim, he decided to steal his favorite authors’ most celebrated novels before they had time to publish them, and to kill them, in this way creating a unique library for himself of famous works of literature, whose pages he alone could read, because for the rest of the world they had never existed. The Observer Wellses knew Rhys precisely because the Wells from whom he tried to steal the manuscript of The Invisible Man had luckily managed to escape by jumping into another universe, for he, too, had developed the disease. There began a frenzied chase across many parallel worlds, which the Observer Wellses followed with bated breath, clapping their hands like children every time Wells’s twin managed to escape from his evil pursuer . . . Or did he? Because in fact dozens of Rhyses were chasing dozens of Wellses through dozens of parallel worlds, all of them believing they were unique, all of them believing they were traveling in time, galloping through the centuries, and persecutor and persecuted had crossed paths and interchanged so many times without knowing it that even the Observer Wellses were no longer sure who the first Wells was who had started that infernal relay race.