Super-keen. Let me check when Bridge is available. She’s a little…

  Preoccupied with screaming about demons.

  busy right now. Caden too (composer guy, although he can be a dick). Can you wait before showing other scientist types?

  If you can bring me more specimens, I definitely can!:)

  When is good for you?

  Tomorrow? I know it’s Sunday, but I’ll be here working, because I have no life apparently! And this is fascinating. Really, really fascinating.

  Dom unlocks the door warily, expecting something else to come flying at their head. But Religet is kneeling next to the bed, praying.

  “You all right?”

  “No.” She looks up, hair plastered to her cheek from crying, and Dom feels terrible. “I want to go home.”

  “You will. In about…” Dom checks their phone. “Another eighteen minutes. Do you want to watch TV in the meantime?”

  “No. Do you want to pray with me?”

  “If it will make you feel better.”

  “I’m sorry I called you those things.”

  “Wasn’t very Christian,” Dom says, and adds, “I’m sorry we hijacked your mind.”

  “It’s a dream. A bad dream. I’m going to wake up any minute now.”

  “You will.”

  “It’s been making me sick, you know. I got a rash. My skin is crawling. I can’t sleep.”

  “I’m sorry.” Making a mental note. Do no harm, that’s a satanic tenet, right? “Any other symptoms? Anything that looks like eggs, maybe? Or fibers?” They’re going full Tomesians right now.

  “It’s the stress from the breakup. Eric’s just so…”

  “You can say anything to me. I’m an agent of Satan, remember? I don’t care, I’m not judging.”

  She smiles, a wan glimmer that reminds Dom of their Bridge. “Boring. Really boring. He’s got no inner life. It’s football and World of Warcraft, and every weekend we do the same damn thing. We go to church—he’s in the band—we visit his parents, we go for barbecue with his boring friends. I’m so bored, I could die. It’s always the same. But he broke up with me!”

  “I’ve endured relationships out of spite and pride,” Dom says. “How dare you break up with me? I’ll show you how amazing I am. But when I convince them to get back together with me, I’m only hurting myself.”

  “Do you do that a lot?”

  “Couple of times when I was younger. I’m over myself now. What do you want?”

  “Honestly, a conversation about anything other than sports or video games or church.” She lowers her voice. “His band is terrible. The worst. They’re called, wait for it: Souled Out.” She spells it out.

  Dom has to laugh. “I can’t. What the what, now?”

  “They’re sooo bad.” Religet is smiling. “And they’re planning to tour next year with Samson’s Haircut.”

  “You’re making these names up.”

  “I’m not. And you know the worst of it? I sing and play guitar better than he does.”

  “Did your mom teach you?”

  “Yes, but we don’t speak much…”

  Her posture changes and her face takes on a whole other cast. How to explain it? Dom thinks. A different intelligence in the eyes.

  Bridge is back and Dom is relieved, but it was starting to feel normal, bonding with Religet over her terrible boyfriend. Less like a kidnapping. Less like something morally wrong.

  “Are we… praying?” Bridge-actual says, looking down, confused, at where she’s on her knees, hands clasped.

  “Hey, you do what you have to on the other side, and let me do my thing here.”

  Bridge gives them a puzzled look, and gets up, dusting off her knees. “Yeah, sure. But I’m really close. So close. I spoke to her! I mean it wasn’t her, but she knew about it.”

  Dom trails after her into the living room, with the posters stuck up for their active-investigation wall.

  “Bridge, I think it’s enough now. That version of you was very unhappy to be here. I don’t think we can keep doing this.”

  “I’m so close, though,” she says, scanning the wall. “Jo was there. My Jo. In Religet’s reality. Back in 2006 and again a couple of weeks ago. Right after the diagnosis.”

  “But she’s not there now.”

  “No, but Not-Jo had a message for me. Well, maybe not for me, something Jo wrote down when she was there. A word. Birdie.”

  “Birdie what?”

  “Just birdie.”

  Dom looks at the notes on the wall, the scrawls and links, still cryptic, unsolved. “Does birdie mean anything to you?”

  “Not a damn thing. We already have a Rabbit, so this is adding to the menagerie.”

  “A person? Could be a cute nickname for a grandmother?”

  “Everyone at the squat had nicknames. And there were chickens.”

  “And didn’t the food artist lady Mina have dead birds in her studio? I think this is pointing us back to New Orleans.”

  “We haven’t had any luck tracking Mina Remington down, right?”

  “Not as yet, but I’m carrying the journals wherever I go so I can dip in when there’s an opportunity. Did Religet’s mom have anything else useful to say?”

  “She wanted me to come to her lab so she could run tests, try to help me understand what was happening. I don’t think I want to go back there. It’s not my mom, and she was giving me bad vibes, like I could be her prize lab rat.”

  She gives Dom a flash of a smile that is supposed to reassure them. It does not. Her tone is too jokey, the comment too throwaway. As if this otherJo might actually kidnap her and run tests. They’ve read that comic book too, seen that horror movie.

  “Or, hear me out,” Dom counters, “we could go see our own friendly scientist right here in Portland in Reality A. No human subjects involved. Tendayi is pretty excited about the results of different music on the dreamworm.”

  “Uh-huh.” Bridge isn’t paying attention. She’s examining the poster boards, the sticky notes.

  “I thought…” Dom knows they’re going to regret this. “We should invite Caden too. Get in the music expert and really science this.”

  “Yeah, okay,” dismissive, “but I need to figure this out. What or who the hell is Birdie?”

  “Seagull? Your sailor girl?”

  “Maybe.” Bridge taps the bit of card with Bridgette’s name thoughtfully. “Only one way to find out…”

  “It is now almost midnight. Bridgette is probably sleeping, or it’s ungodly early in the morning wherever she is in the Mediterranean, and you’ll be waking her up.” Finally, they seem to be getting through, and Bridge’s perma-hunched shoulders relax, oh, ten degrees. “I don’t know what the dreamworm does to your brain in the long term, but sleep deprivation has many well-documented side effects. It can wait. I promise you, it can wait.”

  DOM

  Cesspools

  Bridge is making snuffling snores in the bed beside them, but they’ve still turned their screen down to the dimmest setting. They never thought it would come to this, back here in the cesspools of the internet, dredging for gold among the shit. Bridge would kill them if she knew they were doing this. But they’ve got a few things they’d like to take her to task about too, like pursuing this in spite of how dangerous it is, and why can’t they find any of the other people from Leftfield, and hey, maybe it is some kind of parasite and there’s a whole ugly life cycle they don’t know about that is going to turn Bridge into a sex-crazed cicada werewolf who runs toward cat piss and is more likely to get into car wrecks. Or, ya know, get stuck in other universes.

  But here they are, deep in the Tomesians message boards. See how far they’re willing to sink for their friends?

  Private chat window: THREADS/OTHER?

  BlackOwl*#: Hi, wormholierthanthou, nice name. I saw your post on the Tomesians group asking about different color threads.

  Wormholierthanthou: Hi, yes, the name is inspired by a new religious friend. But anyway, do you know if the threads come in other colors?

  BlackOwl*#: It’s possible. I might have some important information on this. But I need to know you’re the real deal.

  Wormholierthanthou: Trying to prove who you really are on the internet. Always a fun time. I can send you the link to my Photoco account?

  BlackOwl*#: I would appreciate that. What color are your threads?

  Wormholierthanthou: They’re not mine. I haven’t seen them coming out of anyone. But I read this article and it sounded a lot like Tomesians. Also saw this painting, which I can send you a link to. I think my friend might have Tomesians, but her side effects are wilder than the ones described online. Not sure if it’s adjacent or something else entirely.

  BlackOwl*#: I think I should talk to your friend.

  Wormholierthanthou: So it’s back on you. Can you send me proof of who you are? Why do you know so much about it?

  BlackOwl*#: I don’t like social media.

  Wormholierthanthou: I mean, fair. Apart from these dark corners obviously.;)

  BlackOwl*#: Anonymity is important if you understand what we’re dealing with. I need to make sure we’re talking about the same thing. The true Tomesians, not the pretend ones the wannabes believe they’re infected with. The *real* threads are charcoal, slightly powdery when you pull them out.

  Wormholierthanthou: Shit. No, sorry to waste your time. Different thing. Thanks anyway.

  BlackOwl*#: I was testing you. They’re a kind of dark gray-green, like mold. Or dead things. But they’re not dead, they’re very much alive and they can do things to you, or for you.

  Wormholierthanthou: Still nope on the color. But say more about the last part?

  BlackOwl*#: They change you, interrupt you. Make you see things very differently, but from a familiar perspective.

  Wormholierthanthou: Yes. Seeing yourself in a whole new way.

  BlackOwl*#: What color are your friend’s?

  Wormholierthanthou: They’re yellow.

  BlackOwl*#: Sunflower yellow? Bright?

  Wormholierthanthou: Paler, more sickly-looking. Like someone with bad teeth. She says they’re gold, though. As if she sees them differently.

  BlackOwl*#: Only the one? Or a cluster?

  Wormholierthanthou: A cluster. Wrapped together.

  BlackOwl*#: Where did you get it?

  Wormholierthanthou: I’m not ready to share that information.

  BlackOwl*#: We need to meet as soon as possible. Where are you?

  Wormholierthanthou: Again, not comfortable sharing that.

  BlackOwl*#: We can meet in a park. Would you feel more comfortable then? I’m a woman btw if that helps.

  Wormholierthanthou: Public is better, but I’d rather we communicated here.

  BlackOwl*#: There are things I can’t say over the internet. I think you know what I mean. We need to meet in person. I’ll come to you. I’m in Reno.

  Wormholierthanthou: Portland, Oregon. See what I mean, easier to chat here.

  BlackOwl*#: I’ll fly out. Tomorrow.

  Wormholierthanthou: Easy there. I know all the scams. So if you’re about to ask me to send you crypto to pay for your flights…

  BlackOwl*#: This isn’t a scam. I don’t have time to waste. This is serious. I am offering to help you, to come to you with real answers that can help you and your friend.

  Wormholierthanthou: And you’re not going to charge me any money?

  BlackOwl*#: Absolutely not. Is Overlook Park close to you?

  Wormholierthanthou: I’m sure I can find it.

  BlackOwl*#: I’m five foot four, white, sixty years old. I’ll have a yellow backpack.

  Wormholierthanthou: Five nine, brown, dark hair, undercut. I’ll wear pineapple earrings.

  BlackOwl*#: Man or woman?

  Wormholierthanthou: Yes.

  BlackOwl*#: Don’t do anything until I get there.

  BRIDGE

  Colors from Outer Space

  Dom was right. Sleep is the best. It’s barely nine in the morning on a Sunday, middle of summer—good reasons the whole college feels like it’s post-Rapture. They’ve seen a handful of other people: a man striding toward the admin building, a couple of study-birds holding hands as they head into the library, a groundskeeper sweeping the abandoned quad between the sputtering arcs of the sprinkler. But it’s still eerie, the architecture looming and pregnant with all that knowledge—and only some of it forbidden.

  Caden is “still half-asleep” he says, flushed and tousled from the bike ride over, even though Dom offered to pick him up. Bridge wonders if he doesn’t feel exactly the same as she does: itchy and irritable and hungover, if that’s the word to describe the aftereffects of mainlining too many lives in one day. Too rooted in here. Where she doesn’t want to be. Her and Dom and Caden. We three, she thinks. Strange witches. Bad science.

  This visit feels like a giant waste of time, but Dom has been so happy about doing this their way, with proper research and real science and, oh, yeah, a new online friend they’re meeting later, because that’s exactly what they need: more people involved. Dom can sense her impatience, and they nudge her while they’re all standing around outside the very locked main reception doors of the science building.

  “I know you want to get back, but it’s okay, I promise. Nothing is going to happen. If Jo is out there, she’s still going to be out there.”

  Easy for them to say, but Bridge feels the constant tug of it, the widening expansion of who she is through all those other lives that also has the effect of making this one seem ever narrower. The side door swings open and a young Black woman with a lush smile waves them over and beckons them in.

  “Hi, sorry! I don’t have a tag for the main entrance.” She props the door open a crack with a brick. “In case anyone needs a smoke break later.”

  Caden puts up his hand, groggy behind his sunglasses. “Do you have any coffee?”

  “Yes, there’s a faculty kitchen upstairs, but we only have instant. Budget cuts. Are you Bridget? I’m so sorry about your mother.”

  Bridge says thank you, because she’s supposed to and she’ll never get used to hearing those words, is already heartily sick of them. She hopes that’s the end of it. Itching to go back. To not be here. The building hasn’t changed since the last time she was here in November, only it’s more deserted now, eerie without students clattering around. Pale light filters in through windows wearing the dusty fingerprints of old rain. Their sneakers squeak-squawk on the tiles all the way to Tendayi’s lab, which is an echo of her mom’s down the hall, now locked up, her name no longer on the door. A compatible, she thinks.

  “Shall I go make some coffee for everyone or—”

  “Why don’t we go ahead,” Dom says. “It’s a recording, right? So we can watch it a first time and then replay it after liberal doses of caffeine.”

  “I brought my laptop,” Caden says. “More music samples to play around with.”

  “Amazing, thanks.” Tendayi dips her head, smiling hopefully, revealing a gap between her teeth as if to remind Bridge she’s human and imperfect and trying her best.

  Ugh. Fine. “Hey, thank you—Jo would have been happy we’re here,” she manages.

  Tendayi beams. “Of course! I’ll pull it up, hang on.” She turns on the external monitor and clicks through to a file with yesterday’s date while Caden flicks the lights off. And is he being more quiet than usual? He’s looking at her with a strange intensity.

  “Mike helped me prep the sample. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him what it was. We put it under the confocal microscope, totally unstained, and, well, as you can see…”

  She clicks “play” and Bridge tenses in anticipation. But it’s a scan thingie, not a zoetrope. She has no idea what they’re looking at. A rounded head, a bit like an elongated dick, floating in a galaxy of striated lines and nebulas. Green, blue, red.

  “It autofluoresced!” Tendayi says triumphantly as if she thinks they know what they’re looking at. “You get some plants that do that, but not like this.”

  “It glows? From the chemicals?”

  “Sorry, I’m not explaining clearly. No, I didn’t stain it with any markers. Confocal microscopes use a limited range of lasers to simulate and emit light, specifically red and blue and green. You should only be able to see those specific colors, but here, as you can see…”

  On the screen, there are shades emerging in that Magellanic cloud, purple and yellow, like an old bruise, and another color Bridge can’t describe, one she’s seen before. She goes to tug her hair, finds herself rubbing her arms instead.

  “So it’s showing other colors? Um, nonnatural colors?” Dom says, staring at the screen.

  “Yes, colors that shouldn’t be possible. It’s literally out of the range of the lasers. The machine shouldn’t be capable of doing this.”

  “Which means…”

  “I don’t have a clue. We need to do more testing. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “So it’s alien?”

  “As in foreign, not natural,” Tendayi cautions. “Not as in outer space.”

  Unless it is, Bridge thinks. Or otherspace. The spaces between.

  “Now, you said music was important,” Tendayi goes on, “so I started playing it a selection of different songs, from Run the Jewels’ ‘Thirty-Six-Inch Chain’ to the Andante movement from Mozart’s Piano Concerto number twenty-one.”

  “Supposed to be great for studying—alpha waves, right?” Dom says.

  “And my nephew playing the recorder back in Harare—pure torture. None of which had any effect on the worm or the fluorescent proteins, as you can see on the recording. And then I hit on this.” She grins and plays another video of the dreamworm up close on the confocal microscope and, tinny in the background of the recording, the opening violin wail of Britney Spears’s “Toxic.” The response is immediate. The colors flare brighter, coruscating like disco lights through the strand of worm.