Burn(77)

“Yes, ma’am, that sort of day.” He took out a little notebook. “I’d like to ask you all a few questions, if I may.”

“We agreed to an exchange of information,” Kazimir said. “That does not mean we just answer your questions.”

“I didn’t agree to anything that I recall,” Darlene said.

“He knows things,” Sarah told her. “He might be able to help us.”

The man had been surprisingly forthcoming about the threat of a dragon and his endeavor to stop it. He was looking for anything, any answer, any help, that would prevent the disaster of the mountain town from happening again. Kazimir had unilaterally decided the need was “too great to equivocate” and asked the man inside.

“Help you what, exactly?” Darlene asked.

“Stop a clear and present danger to our lives, ma’am. And I do not say that lightly in front of my daughter.”

“That’s okay, Daddy,” the little girl said, glancing up from her book. “I saw what it did to Pinedale.”

“That town in the paper?” Darlene asked. “You were there?”

“It’s our home,” the man said.

“Was,” said the little girl, firmly looking at the pages of her book. Her father placed a gentle hand on the back of her head and stroked it once.

“So you saw her firsthand,” Kazimir said.

The agent perked up. “Her?”

Kazimir smiled. “As I thought. You know less than you promised.”

The agent smiled back. “I see. Clever.” He cleared his throat. “Well, perhaps we should start with what I do know, and then you good folks could fill in any gaps.” He took a deep breath, then jumped in the deep end. “What if I told you this wasn’t the only universe?”

The shock was visceral. Malcolm moved behind a rhododendron so he would not be seen. He thought he might actually faint, so at least he could do it in the privacy of a bush.

The Other Malcolm locked the front door, and came down the walk, spinning the key ring around his finger. He was beefier than Malcolm, almost strapping, clearly having been better fed recently. His hair was a touch longer, too, enough to have a style to it, with a combed-back front.

His aspect, however, was the most different. There was no furtiveness. No subtle but constant checking of his environment. No tension in his body in case he needed to spring suddenly toward or away from a threat. This Malcolm carried himself with a distracted lightness, a phrase no one would have ever used to describe the Malcolm who’d been trained his entire life to kill.

And what even of the name? This Other Malcolm would have a proper name. A name given from birth. Malcolm suddenly ached with all his heart to know it.

“Excuse me?” he said, before he even knew he was going to.

The Other Malcolm started at a voice emerging from a bush. “Who’s there?”

Malcolm cursed himself. This was the worst possible choice for an approach, but he had no time and there had never been any question about his bravery.

He stepped around the bush, faced himself, and said, “Do you know me?”

“We’ve known of the other universes for about a decade,” Agent Dernovich said. “Since we started investigating satellite technology.”

“Those machines that are supposed to fly around the world one day and spy on us?” Darlene asked.

Agent Dernovich grinned. “Yes, ma’am, among many other things. Communication, television signals, eventually we’ll even put men up there. Then onto the moon.”

Darlene snorted. “And pigs will fly.”

“Dragons did fly,” Sarah said. Darlene gave a little scowl but didn’t offer a rebuttal.

“Well,” Agent Dernovich sighed, “we started sending out test signals. Not just through the radio towers that carry everything now, but out there.” He gestured up toward the ceiling. “This was a one-way test, mind you, bouncing signals off the moon, seeing what trajectories we needed, et cetera. We weren’t supposed to hear anything back.”

“But you did,” Kazimir said.

Agent Dernovich nodded. “First we thought it was just echoes because they were so similar to what we were sending out. But on closer look, they weren’t exact matches. Which was impossible.” He lowered his voice, as if remembering the awe of it. “On certain frequencies, we were hearing ourselves, our own voices, but saying and sending different things.”

He paused, clearly for the effect. “On one of those frequencies, men and women talked about dragons as if they were the most normal thing in the world.”

The Other Malcolm backed away, one hand still gripping his key ring, perhaps in case it needed to be used as a weapon.

“I won’t hurt you,” Malcolm said.

“Damn right, you won’t.”

“I’m too far away for you to lunge effectively,” Malcolm said. “I could tip you off balance and overpower you with punches to the head.”

“So you do want to hurt me?”

Malcolm held up his hands. “The exact opposite.”

“How do you have my face?” the Other Malcolm asked. “Is this some kind of stupid joke? Did Terry Haskell put you up to this? Because I told that bully—”

“I don’t know who that is. My name is Malcolm.”