Chapter 45 #2
“We create friction,” my August says proudly.
So damn cute.
“I think I’m beginning to figure out which one is the physicist,” quips Navy Coat.
My August glares at him.
I glare at him.
Asshole August’s chin raises suddenly, catching my eye.
He’s scanning the group, and for the first time since he arrived, there’s something oddly…
calculating about him. Like he’s putting two and two together, realising in full that they have no way to figure out who’s who if we all keep our mouths shut.
The guy came to shoot me then kill himself. One-way mission bent on my destruction. I guess I can’t be surprised that he would—
“Neither of these Augusts are the August you’re looking for,” he announces. “They’re a pair of morons; they can’t tell you shit.”
I’m half offended, half dumbstruck.
But Actually-Not-An-Asshole-At-All August says, “I’m the August you want. End me. Let them both go.”
My beautiful August speaks how full both our hearts are, only he does it in the most reckless and ridiculous way possible. “That’s a lie! Don’t say that. Why would you say that? I did it all!”
“That’s a lie!” I shout. “It was me! Why won’t you believe me?”
The August with the gun on my August sighs dramatically. “Look, my arm’s getting tired of holding this thing. Is there any chance we can put these down while we figure this out?”
My August again, but with his voice perfectly steely. “Not if you’re intent on killing one of us.”
“It’s not that we want to kill you,” he argues.
“Yeah, Augusts keep telling me that.”
“Well, do you have a better solution?”
“Yes.” His jaw sets, and he seems to stand a foot taller when he explains, “We’re heading for the black hole at the centre of the galaxy.
We’re on course for it, or we thought we were.
We’re going to take all that…” His brow creases over it.
“We’re going to tap into the dense conglomeration of subatomic particles there.
We’re going to use the accelerated expansion of the fledgling universe on the other side of that black hole, take all the energy, and smash it back through the way we came.
An equal and opposing force to the one that’s destroying worlds—that will obliterate the quantum wave I created.
We’re going to utilise the innate memory of atoms, the natural order of the universe, to put everything back, just the way it was. ”
A moment of quiet passes. I’m torn between hopeful they’ll help us, and terrified that little speech just labelled August as the evil physicist.
Finally, Navy Coat pipes up, “Paleo quantum physics. Fascinating.”
“P-paleo?” August’s voice comes hoarse on the word.
“Completely outdated. It’s incredible you were able to do any of this, working with whatever rudimentary understanding of physics and the multiverse you had back there.
” He shakes his head, but the smirk never drops.
“Let me illuminate you. This is it. This is the end of the line. You’ve reached the end of the known multiverse. ”
“The end?” The words burst out of me.
“Yeah. The entire multiverse. The lot of it. It’s not…” He looks over at August Sixth. “What did they used to say, August?”
August Sixth answers, “That it’s infinite.” He chuckles. “They just couldn’t measure it back then.”
“It’s not infinite?” Not-an-Asshole August asks, pallor setting in with his growing horror.
“This one’s not,” says August Sixth. “Distant multiverses have been detected, but we’re assuming they’re the same as ours. Regardless, that’s not a wall even the Blackthorne particle can pierce. We’re completely cut off from them.”
“Wait.” My mind’s stuttering trying to keep up. “This is a multiverse… within a multiverse?”
“Correct,” says the August with a gun on my August.
“If you keep going the same direction,” Navy Coat reports, tossing his head backwards like that’s the direction we were headed, “you’re going to hit a wall. There’s nothing on the other side.”
“How can there be nothing?” I gasp out. “The universe is expanding. It never stops. It just gets bigger. There is no ‘nothing.’”
“Hate to be the one to break it to you,” says Navy Coat, “but technology’s come a long way since you were around.
There are about four hundred universes left in this multiverse.
And now this one, the last in this specific row, is about to go boom.
We’re in touch with some of the other, more advanced universes, which exist on a different dimension, much harder to break into.
I’ll be moving over to one of those just as soon as I get my fifty million, and I’m hoping your expansion can’t follow up there. ”
“But won’t there be other Augusts already living there?” asks Non-Asshole August. “Won’t the problem with the physics of two Augusts messing shit up just happen again there?”
“So long as I don’t fuck him, it should be fine,” Navy Coat mutters.
A guilty twist pushes some colour into my cheeks, but August, more bright-eyed than ever, pounces on the comment. “Wait. The universe can hold you both? If you don’t… do that?”
“Yeah. I mean, it’s not ideal,” Navy Coat replies with a small shrug. “It might fuck a few things up, but nothing catastrophic. It’s your runaway inflation that’s wrecking all the things wherever you go. The pair of you ‘exciting particles’ is just speeding up the process.”
August ignores that last bit, staying on a track that unsettles me—that unerring hope he always has, that I hate to see crushed out of him.
“So if… Do you mean, if August and I were to just find a nice, quiet universe, we could go there? Together? And-and live there?” His eyes are so big and his hope so genuine.
All his vulnerability on display as ever.
August Sixth gives a slow nod. “In theory. If whichever one of you isn’t the August we’re after would like to come along, we can resettle you.”
“Why can’t you resettle us both?” August asks. “This makes no sense. Why are you so intent on killing one of us? We’ll just agree to stop opening portals, job done. Let us go.”
“Did you not hear the part about the bounty?” asks Navy Coat.
Here it comes. August’s sweet heart being ripped apart.
August Sixth at least shows a little empathy when he explains, “There’s a price on your head, August. And if you don’t turn up dead, they’re going to keep hunting you. You can’t get away with all that death and destruction, being a danger to humanity, and not expect to pay.”
“It’s known across every advanced universe,” August with a gun on my August continues. “Even if they don’t manage to catch you and kill you here, there’ll be so many Augusts looking for you, amongst others, it will fuck your shit up. Remember that time you caught me looking in your window?”
August’s mouth drops wide open. “That was you? I thought that was… August.”
My head snaps between them.
August with the gun on August corrects him, “No, you yelled at me to go, so I left. I didn’t think you were the right one anyway.”
August stares at me. “I did always wonder why you’d try pick the door lock if you knew I was home.”
“Shit,” I breathe out. “You were there that day?”
“I jumped out the window and went to the cafe.” Then a second later, his gaze shifts back to the August with the gun on him. “I went out the window. If you’d stayed, you would have got me.”
“I was close,” August with the gun on my August responds. “But not as close as August here.” He nods at Navy Coat.
Navy Coat smiles a disconcerting smile, not least disconcerting because it’s my own face and I’m not convinced I once looked at someone else with such a malevolent expression. “Ah, the concert.”
“You shot at us?” I rasp out.
“No, I shot at you,” Assassin August corrects.
“That’s right,” says Navy Coat. “But I froze the crowd first, so you’d hit him.”
All three of us gasp. “I thought you did that,” I yell at Assassin August.
He yells back, “I thought you caused that! With your kissing!”
“No,” Navy Coat drops back in. “And I did it again on the… What do you call those things?” He clicks his fingers. “‘Train.’ Froze them for you. You’re an incredibly shit shot, by the way.”
Assassin August ignores the jibe. “What the fuck? You were there too?”
“Sure was. And it’s lucky for you that you missed him. I’d assumed you were a regular bounty hunter, and I was going to take you out next. Steal your trophy and your reward. But then he escaped somehow.”
“Holy shit,” Assassin August whispers, eyes running over the pavement like he’s watching his own demise.
“And I,” August Sixth interrupts, as though he can’t wait for his turn, “almost caught you in… What was it? Seventeenth-century London. I had dogs and everything. But you gave me the slip too. Well done.”
“Then we all came back here,” Navy Coat concludes. “We knew this was the end of the line. So all we had to do was sit and wait.”
“Do you understand now?” asks August with a gun on my August. “We each have a price on our heads because of one of you. You’re getting a little taste of it today, but we’ve all been dealing with Augusts turning up and trying to kill us for years—bounty hunters, having to explain we’re not the right August. This is why we have a vested interest in ending this quickly. ”
Navy Coat strengthens his gun arm. “Now, we’ve finally got you, so this is it, I’m afraid. We’ve done the whole ‘villain explains why you have to die’ thing, which I think goes to show I’m not completely evil.”
“But you’re still going to kill me?” my August confirms, playing his game of pretending to be me to the last.
“You’ve left us no choice,” says August Sixth.
“Two of us have lost our worlds already, and you’re about to destroy his.
” He nods towards Navy Coat. “If you manage to escape from us, someone else will catch up with you, eventually. So, if you’re going to go down anyway, why not have the decency to let us take your body so we can show it to the authorities and put this whole disaster to rest? ”
“The ‘decency?’” August snaps.