Тед Чан - Exhalation - Stories

Now she had to contact someone who worked for Scott Otsuka, explain what she was offering, and send the photo as proof.

Ornella had worked as Scott’s personal assistant for ten years, well before he met and married Roderick. Roderick’s assistant had moved to France a couple years ago, and while he got someone to accompany him when he was filming on location or doing a publicity tour, when Roderick was at home Ornella worked as assistant for both of them. Until six months ago, when a drunk driver had changed everything. Now she worked just for Scott again.

Before the car crash, Ornella had never paid much attention to prisms. She knew that Scott’s fans circulated pirated copies of other versions of his songs, but he had never listened to any of them, so she hadn’t, either; the same was true of Roderick and his films. But ever since the car crash, it seemed like she was barraged by advertisements from prism data brokers: “Subscribe now and be the first to see the movies Roderick Ferris would have made if he had lived.”

And then there were the offers from fans who owned prisms and wanted to give them to Scott. They knew from interviews that Scott and Roderick hadn’t owned a prism, and while it would have been easy for Scott to buy one from a data broker, a lot of his fans wanted to connect with him, to be the one who eased his pain. Ornella knew Scott had thought about finding a prism; he would have given anything to see Roderick alive again. But the problem was obvious: in every one of those branches where the car crash hadn’t happened and his husband was still alive, his paraself was there, too. Scott would be a grieving widower intruding upon a happily married couple, a reminder that disaster could strike out of nowhere, a specter at the feast. That wasn’t what he wanted. If Scott were going to see a parallel Roderick, it couldn’t be as an object of pity or dread.

This newest offer was different: a prism connecting to a branch where there was no parallel Scott, only a grieving Roderick. This was something Scott might be interested in. She wasn’t going to mention it to him without making sure it was a legitimate offer first, though.

Ornella had asked an expert to examine the image she’d received, of course. He’d told her it wasn’t an obvious forgery, but he could easily create one just as good, so by itself the image wasn’t proof of anything. She told the seller that she wanted to talk to the Ornella in the other branch first, so they arranged a time when that could happen.

She was a little surprised when the seller arrived. She had assumed “Nat” was a man, but it was a woman who showed up at the front gate carrying a prism. Nat was thin and could have been pretty if she tried, but she had a certain sadness about her. Ornella’s years of working for Scott had given her a lot of experience identifying opportunists, but she didn’t get that sense from Nat, at least not right off the bat.

“I want to be clear,” Ornella told her when she came in. “You’re not going to see Scott today. He’s not even in the house. If I’m satisfied by what I see, then we’ll schedule another appointment.”

“Of course, that’s what I figured,” said Nat. She seemed almost apologetic about what she was doing.

Ornella had her set up the prism on a coffee table. At first Nat had a text conversation with the person on the other side, and then she switched to video and slid the prism over to Ornella. A face appeared on the screen, but it wasn’t a parallel version of Nat, it was a man, lean and lanky. An opportunist. “Who are you?” she asked.

“Name’s Morrow.” He stepped away and then the screen was filled by another version of herself. Ornella could see that the room in the background was the same one she was in now, and she recognized the outfit her parallel self was wearing, too.

“Is this for real?” she asked, tentatively. “Roderick is alive in your branch?”

Her parallel self looked like she could hardly believe it, either. “He is. And Scott’s alive in yours?”

“Yes.”

“I have a few questions.”

“The same ones I have, probably.” The two Ornellas exchanged information about the car crash. It had happened the same way in both branches: same movie premiere, same drunk driver. Just a different survivor.

They agreed that Ornella would talk to Scott, and her parallel self would talk to Roderick. Assuming both of them were open to the possibility, the Ornellas scheduled a date next week for them to try the prisms and decide if they wanted to buy them.

“Now let’s talk about the price,” said Ornella.

“We’re not talking price now,” Morrow said firmly, from the other side. “After your bosses have tried the product, I’ll name a price. Either you pay it, or we walk.”

Which was a sensible strategy; assuming Scott and Roderick wanted to buy, they’d be in no mood to haggle. It was clear that this Morrow was the one running the show. “Okay,” said Ornella. “We’ll talk then.” She slid the prism back to Nat, who conferred briefly with Morrow before closing it up.

“I guess that’s it,” said Nat. “I’ll be back next week.”

“Fine,” said Ornella. She accompanied Nat to the front door and let her out. As Nat began walking down the steps, Ornella asked, “How is it that I’m working with you on this?”

Nat turned around. “Say what?”

“My paraself is working with a guy named Morrow. Why am I working with you instead of a version of Morrow?”

The woman sighed. “Long story.”

Nat got herself a cup of coffee and took her seat. This was her second meeting since getting the prism from Lyle; last week she’d been planning on announcing that she wasn’t going to be coming back, but she had wound up hardly saying anything at all. So she had had to attend at least one more and say that she was going to take a break from the meetings; people would wonder if she simply stopped.

Dana smiled at the group and said, “Who wants to start us off today?”

Without intending to, Nat found herself speaking, just as Lyle began saying something as well. Both of them stopped.

“You go,” said Nat.

“No, you should go,” said Lyle. “I don’t think you’ve ever started off a meeting before.”

Nat realized that he was right. What had come over her? She opened her mouth, but for once she couldn’t think of a good lie. Eventually, she said, “A guy I work with, I guess you’d call him my supervisor, he was killed recently. Murdered, actually.”

The group was shocked, with assorted “Oh my Gods” being murmured.

“Do you want to tell us about your relationship with him?” asked Dana.

“Yeah,” asked Kevin. “Was he a friend?”

“Kind of,” Nat admitted. “But that’s not why it’s been on my mind. I know this isn’t a grief support group…I guess I brought this up because I wanted your take on something.”

“Of course,” said Dana. “Go ahead.”

“I keep thinking about the randomness of this murder. I don’t mean the killer picked him at random. I mean, when he had the gun pointed at my supervisor, he said that some version of him was going to pull the trigger, so why shouldn’t it be him? We’ve all heard that line before, but I never paid any attention to it. But now I’m wondering, are the people who say that actually right?”

“That’s a good question,” said Dana. “I agree that we’ve all heard people make similar claims.” She addressed the group. “Does anyone have any thoughts on that? Do you think that every time someone makes you angry, there’s a branch where you pick up a gun and shoot the guy?”

Zareenah spoke up. “I’ve read that there’s been an increase in crimes of passion since prisms became popular. Not an enormous one, but statistically significant.”