Laz didn’t really want Mumbo dead. Tormenting Ivy did not deserve the death penalty.

  But he really hated Fecis Anthemum.

  He tried to hint at some of these feelings to Ivy, and maybe she picked up on what he was getting at. “You of all people on Earth should know that you don’t have to put up with a reality you don’t like. Instead of punching Mumbo in the mouth, why not ask me to help you find a reality in which Fecis didn’t do anything disturbing or harmful to me? There had to be some timestream in which Fecis wasn’t horrible. In which you didn’t feel the urgent need to punch him in the face.”

  But I don’t do that anymore, Laz realized. I don’t side step for my own benefit, to smooth things over in my life. I already know that I can alter the timestream I’m in by choosing one thread or another that differs in one particular, and it doesn’t damage anything else in the timestream and has no effect whatsoever in the other timestreams. I have the power to change things I hate. And yet it doesn’t even occur to me, most of the time, even though it was the constant habit of my childhood and adolescence. Now when it occurs to me I say, Is it so bad that I should side step? And the answer is no. Why?

  Laz used to do it by reflex. He would side step without even registering that he had done it. He would skate through life by side stepping obstacles out of his path. In fact, for a long time he had acted as if he wasn’t changing timestreams, he was actually on one uninterrupted path, and like a video game, when bad stuff got thrown at him, he only had to dodge and he would continue on his way.

  But it wasn’t “continuing,” it was selecting. There was nothing natural about his trajectory through life during his school years. But now, by refraining from side stepping except to accomplish some good purpose, Laz was going to find out what his life would have been like without side stepping.

  Why would he need to know that? Without side stepping, his life would have been hell. Kicked out of school for the jock strap stunt, maybe jailed for bombing the principal’s car, all before he was a freshman, all while he was young, not even a full-size person yet.

  Now, though, he avoided real disasters by not going off half-cocked on some ridiculous stunt. He was making extra Portals into the timestreams so that Ron’s people could go undetected into those worlds, and so that in a pinch, Laz could help someone in trouble make a getaway from a dangerous timestream.

  Maybe Ron wasn’t a legitimate ruler. He was elected by nobody, obeyed by everybody whether they realized it or not. But he was a force for order in a world system that was increasingly chaotic. So helping Ron, opening Portals where Ron needed them, that made Laz’s talent a force for good, right? Side stepping in compliance with Ron’s plans took the onus of decision off of Laz’s shoulders. Mostly.

  Forget what anybody else advised. Laz had to get to Mumbo and see for himself what was going on. And if he could talk to Mumbo, maybe reach some kind of understanding with him.

  That was a laugh.

  But he had to try, or it would be war between side steppers and strobers, and the strobers were almost certain to win, partly because he was the only side stepper. Mumbo’s dad, Zero-Laz, would never join in a war against strobers. So Laz would be on his own against two people who could always, regardless of his precautions, sneak up on him and kill him before he even knew they were there. It’s the kind of war that’s over before it starts, unless the predestined loser was able to make peace in the nick of time.

  Like Stalin, making a nonaggression pact with Hitler before he invaded Poland in 1939, despite knowing that Hitler had vowed to destroy the barbarian Slavs. And then trusting that Hitler would keep that nonaggression pact—making it the only treaty Hitler had ever kept—even though Churchill kept giving him barely veiled warnings that Hitler was about to attack him.

  I’m on my way to try to negotiate a nonaggression pact with a far more powerful foe. A foe that I have damaged and who has a reason to hate me. That’s bound to work out well.

  That’s how Laz ended up in Mumbo’s hospital room, sitting beside the bed, with not a single hospital employee challenging him. He was dressed in scrubs, the better to be unnoticed, and the more flunky-like he looked, the less chance of his getting into trouble.

  More to the point, Laz had side stepped eight times to get rid of instances of other people either recognizing him as Laz Hayerian or realizing he didn’t have a right to be where he was. He didn’t want to have to deal with complicated interactions with civilians. He had to talk to Mumbo, so he would.

  “Can you hear me, Chrysanthemum?” whispered Laz.

  Mum’s voice was weak. “If you’re going to whisper so I can’t hear you, you might as well go away.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “The guy who doesn’t like me naked in the presence of his goddess,” said Mum.

  “I didn’t know that punching you in the nose would cause all this damage. The most I wanted was for you to have a black eye and a bloody nose.”

  “Ah, so you wanted to put me through only a little agony,” said Mumbo.

  “I need your help,” said Laz.

  “I’m in the hospital, recovering from the worst facial damage my cosmetic surgeons have ever seen.”

  “I’m sorry you’re going through that,” said Laz. “I’m sorry I did it to you. But that doesn’t change the threat that time travel poses.”

  “You’re here about time travel? Are you stupid?”

  “Don’t get all agitated,” said Laz. “One of these instruments will go off and we’ll have all the nurses in here.”

  “They don’t like coming in here. I’m ugly.”

  “I can’t even figure out how you’re able to speak,” said Laz.

  “A ventriloquist came in and taught me how to speak without having lips or teeth.”

  Laz wasn’t sure whether this was a lie, a joke, or really good therapy for a unique injury. “Did they teach you to sing, too?” he asked.

  “Got nothing to sing about.”

  “Mum—”

  “Please call me by my now name instead of my yesterday name,” said Mum.

  “I don’t like calling you a little shit, not even in Latin.”

  “It isn’t good Latin,” said Mumbo.

  “I can call you Mum or Mumbo,” said Laz. “I have to know what you know.”

  “I don’t know anything,” said Mumbo.

  “You strobe.”

  “You want to be invisible? Just keep people from seeing you.”

  “That’s how I got here. It’s not the same. It’s not what I need to know.”

  “I’m crippled and you’re rejecting my answer?”

  “Mumbo,” said Laz. “Do you know how to find OrigiLaz?”

  “Not if he doesn’t want to be found,” said Mumbo.

  “So he’s alive?” asked Laz.

  “How would I know?”

  “You said he doesn’t want to be found!”

  “Have you found him? Then if he’s alive, he doesn’t want to be found. Don’t play stupid, it hurts to talk.”

  “I wasn’t playing,” said Laz.

  “And that’s just sad,” said Mumbo.

  “Who sent us those messages scratched in dirt?”

  “What does Coprophile say?”

  Apparently a new name for Nasty. “To ask you.”

  “If I had lips I’d give you a wet, wet raspberry.”

  “Message received.”

  “Laz,” said Mumbo. “Do you think the original Laz sent you messages?”

  “I need to know if those messages were sent to save me or to make trouble for me.”

  “All honesty,” said Mumbo. “I never sent you a message. Neither did Coprophile.”

  “Who, then?” asked Laz.

  “Don’t know. Don’t ask. Don’t tell.” Mumbo made a horrible bubbly giggle.

  “Can a person who is strobing see another person who’s strobing?”

  “Only if they’re at exactly the same rhythm,” said Mumbo. “And tempo.”

  “Does that ever happen?” asked Laz.

  “Not yet,” said Mumbo. “But I think Coprophile won’t cooperate because she doesn’t want me to know the answer.”

  “If OrigiLaz strobes through time, how can I see him?”

  “Can’t. I’m tired of talking.”

  “Come back another time?”

  “Don’t want to see you again eh-er.”

  “You have trouble making a V sound, right?”

  “Eh-ver. Ver ver ver.”

  “If you give me the answers I need, you won’t see me again.”

  “Don’t know answers. Go to hell.”

  “Okay,” said Laz. “I’m going, never to return.”

  “Asshole,” said Mumbo.

  “Why are you angrier now than you were when I got here?” asked Laz. “What did I do?”

  “Wreck my mou’. Goway.”

  “Mumbo, I’m sorry.”

  “Name Fecis,” said Mumbo.

  “I hope they can put you back together the way you were.”

  “Go mack in time—don’t hit me,” said Mumbo.

  “And what would you have done to me?” asked Laz.

  Tears streamed out of the corners of Mumbo’s eyes.

  Laz tried quickly to find a timestream where Mumbo’s face was still okay.

  “I can’t find any path in which you’re not here, like this,” said Laz.

  “Right. And I don’t know how to find OrigiLaz.”

  Laz left. He had to side step three times on the way out of the hospital to avoid people who wanted to accost him.

  * * *

  “Do you think he knows anything about OrigiLaz?” asked Laz.

  “Do you think he does?” asked Ivy.

  Laz had already thought through all the possibilities that he could think of, and he knew less than when he started. “There’s only one way to find out,” said Laz.

  “If you mean picking a timestream where you didn’t punch him, I looked for one of those the moment I saw the timestream in which you did.”

  “You saw before I punched him what it would do to him?”

  “I don’t see. I knew it would lay him out, but I didn’t disapprove of that. He deserved a nice punch in the nose.”

  “So if I get prosecuted, you’ll admit you’re an accomplice and share my fate?”

  “We’re not going to choose any timestream in which you get charged with a crime,” said Ivy.

  “You looked for a timestream where I didn’t punch him?” asked Laz.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you pass one to me?” asked Laz.

  “First, because you were wallowing in guilt and refused to consider it. Second, because the only timestreams in which you didn’t break open his face, he plunged his hand into your chest, materialized, and blew your entire thorax apart.”

  “Thorax,” said Laz.

  “Like a wasp,” said Ivy. “Exploded you.”

  “So you let him suffer because you—”

  “I didn’t want my fiancé to die,” said Ivy. “Sue me.”

  “I was acting to defend myself,” said Laz, feeling relieved.

  “You didn’t know you had to defend yourself,” said Ivy, “so it doesn’t count as self-defense.”

  “Is there any timestream where he doesn’t show up in our house at all that day?” asked Laz.

  “No,” said Ivy. “He was haunting us. He just picked his moment to materialize.”

  “I didn’t know my poking him in the face would blow him up, but he did intend to kill me.”

  “But you didn’t know that,” said Ivy.

  “But you did,” said Laz, “and you allowed me to feel so guilty over that—”

  “It was good for you to face the consequences of your choice.”

  “I’m sure it was,” said Laz. “Find me a way to undo this.”

  “No,” said Ivy. “Because if you undo it, if somehow we find another timestream where you don’t die and Mumbo isn’t broken open, that will mean that in that timestream it never happened. Therefore he won’t remember getting poked or punched, or he won’t remember poking or punching you.”

  “Why do I care if he—oh.”

  “If he’s not grateful to you for saving him from all this, then why will he tell you anything? Even assuming he actually has something to tell.”

  “Can’t I… bring him with me? Bring his whole memory with me so he is really grateful to be rescued?

  “Ancient Anglo-Saxon Druid say, ‘He who dependeth on other people’s gratitude hath never met other people.”

  “That wasn’t in Anglo-Saxon,” said Laz. “And it isn’t always true.”

  Ivy said, “I’m not actually Anglo-Saxon.”

  “Ivy, when I side step with you, you bring all your memories with you. The part of you that’s you is preserved. Why can’t I do that with Mumbo?”

  “Maybe you can,” said Ivy. “How would I know?”

  “Because you’re the smart one.”

  “Are you dumb enough to believe that?” said Ivy.

  “Is there any stream in which I don’t smash him and he doesn’t smash me?”

  “I told you I looked!”

  “Maybe the crucial change is further back. Maybe—”

  “Maybe you’ll remember that you can see for yourself. You can look as far as I can, scanning the timestreams.”

  “No I can’t. You’re always able to find things that I didn’t see at all.”

  “Laz, you see everything, you just don’t recognize the significance, especially when you see something you didn’t expect.”

  “Thanks for articulating my inadequacy. I believe I already stipulated that you did this better than me.”

  “You said I saw better. I’m saying that I only notice more.”

  “Ivy, help me spare my own life and Mumbo’s, too.”

  “Laz, learn to cope with the irrational and unnecessary guilt you feel over damage you didn’t know you could cause. Mumbo isn’t dead.”

  “But Mumbo is very angry. He pretends he isn’t, but he’s furious. At me. And perfectly capable of killing me whenever he feels like it.”

  “He was capable of killing you before you poked him in the nose, and probably meant to do it eventually, right from the start.”

  “You think he’s a homicidal maniac?”

  “Laz,” said Ivy. “I love your face. But you look like a guy who needs a comeuppance.”

  “I’m vain? You think I’m conceited?”

  “I’m not talking about what you are. I’m talking about how you treat people.”

  “You’re the one who started insulting me and accusing me right out of the box,” said Laz.

  “When did I claim that I’m the ‘nice one’?”

  “Never,” said Laz. “Ivy, will you try?”

  “Will you understand that I have tried?”

  Laz knelt before her, raising his clenched hands beseechingly. “Oh, my love, my darling, I beg you to try again, in tandem with me, both of us seeing and noticing whatever we can notice and see!”

  “I’ll search with you through more distant timestreams. Then on your own you can examine the close-in streams that I’ve already vetted.”

  It sounded futile to Laz, and it also sounded like the only hope of finding a decent resolution to this mess. “Remember, the life you save will be my own,” he said.

  “Why didn’t we get married at the courthouse?” asked Ivy.

  “We still could,” said Laz. “We wouldn’t want Fecis at the wedding, anyway.”

  Ivy said, “I don’t want to get married in a timestream we’re going to have to step out of.”

  * * *

  They learned a few things right away that the Originals and the Zees surely learned before them. First, when you’re searching through timestreams, ten minutes is a long time, an hour and you sprain your brain.

  “I never had to search this long before,” said Ivy.

  “The right place, or at least an acceptable place, was always just… there. And not just when you passed one to me. I wasn’t even aware I was searching,” said Laz.

  “Well, you are now,” said Ivy.

  “Is it possible we overlooked one with a better outcome?” asked Laz.

  “What a great idea. Nobody else in the world can do this job better than us—”

  “Except the Zees,” said Laz.

  “Let’s just turn this problem over to them,” said Ivy brightly.

  “Add in Ivy-O and there are five of us,” said Laz.

  “So you’ve already given up on me?” asked Ivy. “Not to mention yourself?”

  “You said nobody in the world can do this job—”

  “Better than us, that’s what I said. Why do you think the Zees can do this better?”

  “They saved the world, like, eight times over.”

  “Ten, but everybody forgets the little Portals for misfit ethnicities,” said Ivy.

  “I’m so glad to be with someone who is always accurate,” said Laz.

  “Why do I think you mean the opposite?”

  “I don’t. I’m just exhausted from searching. Irritable.”

  “Irritating,” said Ivy.

  “Irritated, both of us,” said Laz. “We can only do this a few hours at a time.”

  “Together, anyway.”

  “Please keep trying to work with me,” said Laz. “When you’re with me examining the streams everything is clearer. I can see farther up the stream.”

  That gave Ivy pause. “I don’t know that I’m seeing any better,” she said. “I just want to succeed more.”

  “Please, let’s take a break and try again.”

  So they took a break. It turned into a three-hour nap. Laz woke up groggy, disoriented. He not only didn’t know for a minute where he was, he was confused about when he was. Junior high school? Got to call Stever. Where’s Dad been, I haven’t seen him in—

  And then he remembered punching Mumbo, and seeing his face explode as he materialized. He remembered Mumbo’s rage. And he immediately started searching in a more distant range of nearby timestreams.

  “Without me?” asked Ivy.

  Laz opened his eyes. Blinked. Focused. “Why are my eyes so tired?” he asked. “We don’t use our eyes to scan the timestreams.”

  “You really slept,” said Ivy. “I tried twice to wake you up, but the dulcet sounds of my voice—”