Carlee and Stefani looked stunned at his interruption.
“Not all the time,” Jeff said. “But sometimes, I know things are going to happen before they do. Like when we first met and before the leech shot up the caravan. And especially when I fight.”
Stefani looked to Carlee, who considered it for a moment before she shrugged.
“It’s complicated,” Carlee said.
“I deserve to know, especially if it’s going to get me killed somehow.”
“I’m afraid that if I tell you enough, you’ll only grow to resent the information,” Carlee said.
“Yeah, right,” Stefani said. “Pressing is the only thing in this dried-up husk of a world that makes living worth it. I would have offed myself a long time ago if I couldn’t press in the occasional bottle of wine.”
“Occasional?” Carlee asked.
Jeff ignored the tangent and focused on Carlee, begging her with his eyes to teach him. Carlee sighed in defeat, and Jeff held in his exuberance.
“You’re a boxer, right?”
“Yes,” Jeff said. He kept his answers short to try to keep things focused.
“OK, stand up,” Carlee said.
He pushed himself to his mismatched feet and stood on the transport. Despite the speed of the vehicle, it was perfectly stable, so he had no trouble maintaining his balance. Carlee stood directly in front of him.
Her uneven hair was alluring, and her eyes were beautiful. He’d never really stood face to face with her like this before, and it gave him the opportunity to imagine what it might be like to kiss her.
She punched him in the face.
It sent him careening to his left, where he wasn’t able to catch himself with one arm. He face-planted against the side of a crate. He groaned as Stefani helped pull him to his feet. Surprisingly, she wasn’t laughing as she steadied Jeff.
“She’s a great teacher,” Stefani said as she backed away from him.
“Sorry, but that was important,” Carlee said.
“No need to apologize. I’ve always said that you never really know someone until you take a punch from them.”
Carlee smiled at that but continued anyway.
“Now, imagine that you just asked me to teach you, instead of a couple of minutes ago, and I just made the decision that I would do it. I just asked you to stand here in front of me.”
“All right . . .” Jeff was uneasy, but nothing would keep him from learning to press.
Carlee swung at him again, but this time he was ready for it. He ducked the blow and prepared himself for another even though he knew he was going to be helplessly exposed without his left arm.
“And that’s how you know,” Carlee said as she took a seat.
“Well said,” Stefani said.
“What?” Jeff asked. “Did I miss something?”
“Sit down and tell me what you learned,” Carlee said.
Jeff did as she asked even though he was extremely frustrated. The only thing he felt he had got out of that lesson was a black eye.
“I learned that you know how to punch,” Jeff said. It didn’t earn him a response, so he tried again. “I learned that if I knew you were going to punch me, then I could dodge it?”
“Good,” Carlee said. “And in our little exercise, how did you know that I was going to punch you?”
“Because it happened before.”
“That’s one part of it,” Stefani said.
“I . . . hmm . . .”
“It was all based on our decisions,” Carlee said. “Every decision everyone has ever made in their entire lives led us here to this moment, to you, me, and Stefani traveling together in this transport. Can you imagine the number of decisions throughout the course of time that led us here?”
“That would be a lot,” Jeff said.
Stefani snickered behind him.
“More than a lot. Countless. And do you think it’s possible that you might have asked about how you could anticipate things before you asked if vagrants could fly?”
“Sure,” Jeff said.
“Now, imagine you had asked those questions in reverse, which you admitted was entirely possible. In that case, we would have stood for your lesson a few minutes before we did here, and I still would have punched you.”
“OK . . .”
“Now, let’s assume that when you made that decision to ask about flying vagrants, our reality split into two separate time lines. In one of them, you asked about knowing first, and I punched you. In this time line, the order was reversed. So, when you stood here, and I punched you, those events had already happened in a different time line. A different reality.”
“But—” Jeff started to protest, but he didn’t know what to say.
“Well, there you go,” Stefani said. “You blew Handsome’s mind. Now he’s missing his leg, arm, and what was left of his brain.”
Carlee smiled warmly at him, but she addressed Stefani.
“He’s doing well. He hasn’t thrown up yet.”
“I’m sure he did in some reality. He looks like he’s just holding it in now.”
“So, you’re telling me,” Jeff said, “that when I decided to ask a certain question, I created an entirely separate universe?”
“That’s not a horrible way to think about it,” Carlee said.
“I mean there are some real problems with that, such as you being the one to actually create—” Stefani said, but Carlee cut her off before it could get to whatever eventual zinger waited for him.
“It’s close enough,” Carlee said. “And every time I make a decision, the path splits. Every time Stefani makes a decision, the path splits. While we’ve been having this conversation, I imagine that we have created a hundred different realities, different time lines that play out their own reality.”
“And I somehow am able to sense events that have happened in other realities?” Jeff asked.
“Very good,” Carlee said.
“But . . .” Jeff didn’t even know what his question was. He rested his head against the force field and sighed.
Realities. Paths. Decisions. The words swirled in his head as he tried to make sense of the information. But it didn’t make any sense. None of it made sense. Vagrants could fly, make transports out of rocks, and have force weapons appear out of thin air.
“Does that mean that in some reality—or path or whatnot—that my brother is still alive? And that I’m still back in Fifth Springs?”
“There are realities where the Apostles were never created or where humans killed one another off long ago,” Carlee said.
“Or a time line where I actually gave a crap about people,” Stefani said. “Although that is a rare occurrence.”
“There are time lines beyond numbers. Limitless possibilities of what might have been.”
“And we’re stuck in this one?” Jeff asked.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Stefani asked.
“No, I mean, is there a way to get to a different reality?” The prospect of being able to go to a reality where none of the nightmares of the past few days had happened replaced his urge for revenge. He’d trade his hate for peace in an instant.
“No,” Carlee said. She frowned, and her eyes went wide with sympathy. “I’m sorry, Jeff. It doesn’t work that way. This is our path. All we can do is try to make it the best path that we can while we travel along it.”
Something on the front panel of the transport beeped, drawing Carlee’s attention away from the conversation. Jeff was eager to learn more, but at the same time, the truth weighed on him. The small glimmer of hope he had allowed himself to feel had been crushed.
“No,” Stefani said. “Not this time. Let’s just go to the rendezvous point.”
“We have two days before we have to meet the others,” Carlee said. “Besides, I think it’s time that Jeff sees what vagrants are really about.”
10 THE CURE
“This is a bad idea,” Stefani said.