The Fray Theory: Resonance (14 page)

Neve can’t help but smile at the
thought.

“The instant you and your Proxies
are born, your paths begin to diverge outwards like a fraying rope. Each Proxy’s
path in life is like an individual strand. And step by step, from moment to
moment, you are creating a unique life for yourself. A life very similar to
some of your Proxies, and highly different from others.”

“And whenever you establish a
connection to one of your Proxies..?”

“Resonance,” Galen concludes.

“That’s… incredible.”

“It is. And in keeping with the
analogy of a fraying rope, we’ve dubbed this premise: the Fray Theory.”

“How exactly
do premonitions tie into all of this?”

“A premonition occurs when
you—through your Proxy—experience something in an almost identical dimension; something
which winds up happening in your own realm soon thereafter. Give or take a few negligible
differences.”

“And what if it doesn’t?”

“Then you’re unlikely to even
notice anything out of the ordinary,” he says. “Déjà vu operates in much the
same way, but with shorter lags in time.”

“I thought déjà vu was a
mistake in information processing; just a physiological error of the fatigued
brain,” Neve recalls Holt’s lecture.

Galen laughs, almost as if
at an inside joke.

“The Fray Theory is not the
sole authority on the subject matter, I’m afraid. Though I honestly believe it
should be.”

“So
any time
there
is a glitch in reality, it’s due to Resonance?”

“Is that so hard to
believe? The mind is the most fascinating, and by far the least understood
enigma there is. It can move back in time simply by recalling a memory. And by imagining,
it can bring things into being, even if only as a thought. And I believe in due
time, those of us who indulge our minds will be able to transcend our physical limits.”

“Transcend, how?”

“I believe that with
introspection, discipline, and training, one day we’ll evolve to be capable of
much more than just ‘experiencing’ Resonance in a passive way. We’ll be able to
actively initiate it.”

Neve marvels at the idea,
completely spellbound by Galen’s genius.

Speculation or science,
it’s so refreshing to watch him dismiss the most universally-accepted
principle: the singularity of the universe itself!

“Transcending our physical
limits…” she repeats, “but wouldn’t that basically mean breaking the laws of
physics?”

Galen’s smile lights up
his face.

“There will come a day,
Miss Knightly, when we no longer need to reach for objects. We can summon them
with our minds.”

Neve’s gaze darts to Galen’s
porcelain mug.

White
. Just like the tombstones at the cemetery.

Is that what Romer was
doing? Telekinesis!?

Neve goes to speak, but
Galen is pulling his phone from his vest’s pocket. So she bites down on her lip
as he puts on his glasses.

Upon reading what appears
to be a text message, Galen’s brows furrow. “I’m sorry my dear. I’m afraid
we’re going to have to cut this short.”

Galen
takes off his glasses as he rises from his chair. Though he’s standing
perfectly still, the concern in his eyes makes it clear his mind is racing a
mile a minute. He glances towards the front door, and then begins to slowly
fold his glasses and tuck them back into his vest’s pocket.

Whatever the interruption,
it seems important. So without asking questions, Neve rises from the couch and
pulls her purse over her shoulder.

Galen looks at her, his eyes
wider than an owl’s.

“Hang on a moment—” he indicates
for her to stay put, and scurries down the hallway next to the loft’s front entry.

Feeling awkward just standing
there, Neve slowly makes her way towards the front door.

Moments later, Galen
reemerges from the room at the far end of the hallway, tightly gripping a
leather-bound book.

“Take this,” he pulls on
the mouth of Neve’s purse and slides the book inside.

His invasiveness alarms
her.

“Read it,” he says, “thoroughly,
and as many times as it takes for things to sink in.”

“What is it?” Neve looks down
at the book.

“It’s my life’s work.”

“Wh—” she looks up. “Professor,
why would you trust me with something so valuable?”

“I can’t explain,” Galen
shakes his head. “Not right now. Please, just go home and start reading. I’ll
call you later,” he opens the front door, making it even harder for Neve to
argue.

She’s beginning to feel scared.
It’s like he’s asking her to do something illegal.

“I appreciate the gesture,
professor,” Neve starts to pull the book back out of her purse. “I just don’t
think I’d have the time to—”

“Please,” Galen pushes
down on her hand, his eyes glossed over with paranoia. “You
need
to
trust me.”

Leave
.
Leave now
.

“Yes. Okay,” she nods and
lets Galen lead her out into the main hallway.

She reaches out to press
the elevator button, but Galen’s hand flies up and blocks it.

“No—” he looks up at the
floor the elevator is stalled at. “You should take the stairs.”

She’d say goodbye, but he
seems too preoccupied to even notice. So she pulls her purse up to her chest
and backs out into the stairwell.

Her paranoia grows with
every step she takes, and then she is just shuffling down as fast as she can,
having no idea what it is she’s running from.

Five floors down, she
bursts out of the building’s side-exit into a dim and narrow alley.

The stress of her obscure
circumstances is fueling her anxiety. So she leans onto the cold brick wall and
tries to steady her breathing.

For some reason, her mind wanders
back to when Galen’s interest in her was first sparked.

It wasn’t when she
mentioned her dreams. It was when the loveseat in his office collapsed under
her. And again today, his revelations about the theories followed revisiting
the same incident.

She pulls her purse up
against her chest and rests her chin onto it.

Why would Galen entrust
her with his life’s work? What on earth did he mean when he said inviting her
over was ‘self-serving’?

Has he been stalled in his
research? Does he think of Neve as a potential case-study to help him with a
breakthrough?

That sure would account
for his personal touch of inviting her over for coffee and conversation. But it
doesn’t explain him parting with his work so hastily.

What was so damn important
that he had to get her out of there like that?

A flash of darkness in the
corner of Neve’s vision startles her.

She pushes off the wall
and looks down the length of the alley. Whatever she saw came and went too
quickly, but from where? The door she just emerged from is the only side door
to the building.

The thought of someone
hiding behind the hedges propels her onto the main street; where there’s light,
noise, and people.

With warm light draping
over her skin and fresh air filing her lungs, she doesn’t feel quite as scared
anymore. But at this point she just wants to go home.

Today is fast shaping up
to be as distressing as yesterday. There’s only so much she should have to put
up with.

With a cleansing breath,
she sets out towards her apartment. But a few steps in, she notices someone
staring at her from down the block.

He’s dressed in all black,
and appears to be in his late thirties.

Is
he
the flash of black
she saw a few seconds ago?

Probably not. He is way
too far down the street.

And yet, there is
something about the way he is eyeing Neve that makes her skin crawl.

She finds herself taking
smaller and smaller steps with her attention firmly on him. But the moment his
gaze drops down to her purse, Neve stops dead in her tracks and tightens her
grip around it.

Without a second thought, she
turns and starts in the opposite direction towards Dylan’s apartment.

This makes way more sense,
anyway. His place is only a few blocks up the street. She can kill some time
there until her irrational sense of doom passes.

Maybe they can even
discuss the theories. Might be fun to swap notes about each other’s dreams and
experiences. Galen might have sworn her to secrecy, but surely his own godson is
exempt from the rule.

She puts a bit more distance
between herself and the man in black, and then looks over her shoulder in his
direction.

And he is nowhere to be
seen. He must’ve turned the corner and gone about his business.

A wave of relief washes
over Neve. But with her focus misplaced, she ends up bumping into someone.

“Oh—pardon me,” she backs
up.

At the sight of her
obstruction, she immediately feels sick to her stomach.

“Miss Knightly.”

“Professor Holt,” Neve
acknowledges on impulse.

She can’t believe it. As
if it weren’t bad enough to have run into the prick off university grounds, she
has now made actual physical contact with him.

Guess I’ll be scrubbing
myself with bleach all night
.

Holt flaunts what he surely
thinks is a charming smile. “Fancy running into you here,” he slides his gloved
hands into the pockets of his wool overcoat.

“Yes, small city,” she flashes
a shamelessly phony smile. “Very,
very
small.”

“What brings
you
to
this lovely neighborhood?” he asks, judging Neve’s attire with no attempt at
hiding his disconent.

“Well actually, my
boyfriend and I own a condo a couple of blocks over.”

Wow
,
Neve
.
That wasn’t even remotely true
.
Why not just go ahead and throw in a Lamborghini while you’re at it
?

“Is that right?” Holt nods
impressively. “Well good for you. I myself have invested in a few properties around
the block.”

I hate you
.
We
’
re not friends
.
Die
.

“Right, well—it was really
great running into you, professor.”

Seeming a bit
disappointed, “right,” he extends his hand for a shake. “Likewise.”

His gesture confuses her. Is
this an honest peace-offering, or another one of his traps?

With the fate of her final
exam still hanging in the balance, Neve errs on the side of caution and shakes
his hand.

His nod signals the end of
their unholy encounter, so Neve retrieves her hand and resumes her walk towards
Dylan’s place.

And for a moment, she
ponders the likelihood of one of her Proxies actually getting along with Holt.
If every possibility is reality
some
dimension, then there must be
another version of her who—

She shudders at the sheer thought
and sneaks a glance in his direction. But instead of Holt, she spots the same stranger
she saw earlier down the block.

He is now roughly the same
distance from her as when she first spotted him. Which means—

RUN
.

She crosses to the middle
of the street and snags an approaching taxi in the nick of time.

Neve
keeps glancing behind her through the taxi’s rear window as she directs the driver
one block at a time. By the off-chance that her stalker is following her, the
odds of Neve losing the tail is much higher if she throws a few twists and
turns into the mix.

After ten or so minutes of
aimless driving through downtown’s veins, Neve directs the driver to Dylan’s
place. She overpays cash to save time, bolts out of the taxi, and darts across
the street to Dylan’s.

She keeps pressing his
buzzer, but to no avail. Her impulse would normally be to assume he isn’t home,
but he hasn’t returned any of the texts she sent him during her drive, either.

Is he upset with her over
what happened at her apartment? He did say there’s something he needs to do,
but that was yesterday.

Panic-striken, she scans
the vicinity.

In spite of her aimless
drive, she saw the man in black only a few blocks away. What if he’s still in
the area? What if all of this was for nothing?

The main door to the
building squeaks behind her and one of Dylan’s neighbors steps out.

Neve flashes him an
innocent smile and then slips into the lobby behind him. She pulls the door
shut to make sure no one else can sneak in like she just did, does another
quick scan of the street, and when she doesn’t see any signs of her stalker,
decides to skip the lift and takes the stairs all the way up to the top floor.

But what if Dylan’s not
home?

What is she going to do
then?

She
could
call the police.
Even if her fears aren’t warranted, and even if they laugh at, or scorn her for
wasting their time, it’s still within her rights.

Panting, Neve emerges from
the stairwell into the hallway of the sixth floor. But before her fist can land
onto Dylan’s front door, it swings open to reveal him with damp hair.

His skin is a bit flushed
and glistening, and he is wearing nothing but a white towel around his waist.

“Hey—” he frowns off Neve’s
expression. “What’s wrong?”

“I buzzed—” she says while
staring at his insanely ripped body.

“Yeah, I was in the
shower. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I think? This
creepy guy was stalking me a few blocks down, so—"

“What guy?” Dylan’s tone
drops, deep and urgent. “What did he look like?”

“Can I come in?”

“Oh—yeah, of course,” he paves
the way for her, and then scans the hallway before closing the door.

Lingering in the foyer,
Neve watches as he applies the heavy-duty bolt-locks to the front door. And
with her fresh experience of being followed, the locks no longer seem like a
frivolous precaution taken by a wealthy father. They seem…
necessary
.

But Yaletown is a posh
neighborhood. One of the safest in the city. Are those locks meant to keep out
someone in particular?

Could it be the same man
Neve is trying to evade?

“Just give me a sec to
throw something on,” Dylan makes his way towards his bedroom.

“Oh—sure. Take your time.”
Neve watches him go, astounded by just how much his body has changed over the
years. From the back he looks like a whole new person, even in spite of his
signature red hair.

With relief settling back
in, Neve makes her way into the living space and sits down on the couch.

From Dylan’s bedroom, the
sliding and banging of drawers are followed by hasty swooshes of fabric. A ‘click’,
a sharp ‘hssss’, and the wobbling of a metallic bottle follow, and Neve can’t
help but crack a smile.

He still uses mousse in
his hair
.

Slowly, the events of the
day creep back into her mind. She pulls Galen’s book out of her purse just as
Dylan walks back out into the living space.

He’s wearing a pair of
dark jeans and a navy-blue T-shirt that’s way too small for him. The collar is
so stretched, Neve couldn’t tell it was a v-neck at first.

“Sorry about that,” Dylan pulls
the rim of his shirt down, covering the exposed sliver of his milky skin.

“Wait, is that—” Neve’s
eyes narrow as she points to Dylan’s shirt.

“Yeah—” he smiles and
looks down, then starts to smooth out the shirt’s fold-lines near his abdomen. “You
helped me pick it out on Boxing Day.”

Three and a half years
ago
, Neve reminisces. She can practically
see the clouds they breathed into the chilly air, and feel the smolder of her raspberry
tea seeping into her hand.

“What’s that?” Dylan walks
over and takes a seat next to her.

She looks down at the
book. “Galen lent it to me.”

“Nice,” Dylan’s brows
rise, his smile waning a bit. “What’s it about?”

And just then, Neve
realizes the book has no title. “Um—I haven’t had the chance to check it out yet.”

Gliding her hand over the
soft leather cover, she’s overcome by a peculiar feeling. By comfort shrouded
in mystery.

And all of a sudden it
feels like there’s something she was supposed to remember.

Something important.

She slides her nail along
the side of the book and opens it to a random page.

It’s type-written
, Neve marvels. Just like the book from her
nightmare last night.

That one didn’t have a
title either.

“You okay?” Dylan rests
his hand on her back.

Neve looks up at him. “Has
Galen ever mentioned the Fray Theory to you?”

Dylan shakes his head with
a small, unknowing pout. “Can’t say that he has, no.”

Neve’s brows knit.

“That’s really weird,” she
starts to skim the text in the book. “So, he
never
brought it up when
you guys talked about your nightmares?”

“Honestly, I think he
secretly hated talking about my dreams. He’d keep trying to change the subject.”

Neve can definitely identify
with that. Galen was dismissive with her too when they first met.

“Why do you think he would
do that?” she asks.

“I have no idea. Maybe he
thought I was trying to get attention,” he shrugs it off. “So after a while I just
stopped bringing them up altogether.”

“I doubt that’s what he
thought. You’re not exactly an attention-whore,” she laughs to lighten the mood,
but Dylan just looks at her with a ghost of a smile.

“But I get it,” she looks
down.

“Get what?”

“Why you stopped bringing
it up. How exhausting it can be to keep screaming into the void.”

Neve tries to shake it
off, but the straws are fast piling up: her childhood therapy, Elli’s death,
Galen’s highly questionable behavior…

“What’s going on, Neve?” Dylan
glides the back of his fingers along her draping hair, and pulls the onyx veil
behind Neve’s ear.

“I don’t know why he
hasn’t—I mean—maybe it’ll make things worse for you,” she says, remembering her
promise to Galen. A promise she would break in a heartbeat if Dylan’s happiness
was at stake.

And she wholeheartedly
believes that it is.

“Our session yesterday was
cut short, and he was booked solid for the next little while, so he invited me
over to his place so we can—”

“His place?” Dylan smiles
with genuine surprise.

“Yeah,” she says
awkwardly, letting him know she too was taken aback by Galen’s offer.

Silence
stretches out between them.

“Cool,” Dylan starts to
pick at the fraying threads along the rips in his jeans. “Are you going to take
him up on it?”

“I… sort of just came back
from there,” she holds up the book.

σ

Neve
follows along as Dylan reads the introductory chapter of
The Fray Theory
.

“It’s more or less what he
and I talked about,” she says once Dylan’s reached the end. “So, what do you
think?”

“I don’t know…” Dylan
mumbles and relaxes back on the couch. “I mean, it’s fascinating.”

“Just don’t know if you
believe any of it?”

“Well, that’s the thing.
It’s not something you can falsify either.”

“I wonder how he came up
with it.”

“He’s spent pretty much
his whole life pondering the meaning of it all,” he says with a hint of
sarcasm.

“If only they were true,” Neve
says longingly.

“You
want
them to
be true?”

“I don’t know. I guess
it’s nice to imagine another Elli out there who didn’t go through with it.”

With the mere mention of
his name, she wells up. “Ugh, sorry,” she quickly collects her tears with her
cardigan’s sleeve.

“Babe,” he swings his arm
around and pulls Neve in, planting a firm, loving kiss on her temple. “I’m so
sorry you lost him,” he whispers.

“We would’ve been
friends,” she says. “He would have warmed up to you in no time.”

Her gaze falls back down onto
the book and she notices the page number, bottom center.

Five
… she frowns, then reaches out and flips to a page
lined with a faint pencil grid. On top of the grid, there are twelve square
diagrams in black ink.

Dylan turns his attention
to the diagrams as well.

The first diagram is a
black square with a squiggly line cutting diagonally across it.

At the bottom-left corner,
where the line begins, there’s a black ink dot labeled ‘birth’. And at the top-right
corner, where the line ends, there’s another dot labeled ‘death’.

“I think this is a
two-dimensional representation of a person’s life,” she mutters under her breath,
and looks to the other diagrams.

At first glance, they all
seem identical to the first one. But there is a major difference between them:
although each line starts at ‘birth’ in the bottom-left corner, it ends at a
slightly different ‘death’ node.

“Same birth, different
deaths,” Dylan mumbles.

Neve looks at the final diagram
which appears to be a composite of the previous: all eleven lines are layered
onto one another, starting at ‘birth’, and then diverging outwards.

It vaguely reminds her of the
‘fraying rope’ Galen mentioned during their session.

“The Fray Theory is about
multiple dimensions,” she starts to think out loud. “This last diagram must be
a
representation of someone’s
possible
lives.”

“What are these
intersections?” Dylan points out a few instances where the lines cross one
another.

Neve lifts the book up for
a closer look.

Next to each intersection,
there’s a small marking: the letter ‘R’.

Resonance
?

She lowers the book back
down onto her lap and looks about the page for a reference to the ‘R’. She soon
discovers a formula near the top-right corner of the page.

Nothing complicated. Just
a symbol that looks like a sideways six, an equal sign, and a zero.

σ = 0
?

“What’s this?” she points it out
to Dylan.

“That’s Sigma,” Dylan indicates
the sideways six,
“the eighteenth
letter of the Greek alphabet. Haven’t you studied this?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Neve
recalls frantically copying one of her colleague’s math homework right before
class. “It’s been awhile.”

“It’s also a mathematical symbol
that represents Standard Deviation,” Dylan says.

“It measures how far you
deviate from average?” she squints, it all slowly coming back to her. “Okay,
but what does it have to do with multiple realities?”

Dylan taps his finger on
the formula. “Maybe it’s referring to how far you deviate from each one of your
Proxies? The bigger the number, the larger the difference between the two of
you?”

“So if Sigma equals zero,
that means you and your Proxy are almost identical?”

“If you have infinite
Proxies, you’re bound to have billions and
billions
of them that are
almost identical to you. I think this formula means something else.” He looks
up and into space, his thoughts unfolding.

Neve watches him, feeling
overcome by nostalgia. Being here feels just like one of their old study dates.

A curious smile overcomes Dylan,
and he shifts on the couch to face Neve better.

“Alright,” he raises his
hands like someone who’s about to pitch a brilliant new idea. “Imagine you’re
done with med school, that you’re a world-renowned cardiologist like your mom.”

“Ugh.”

Dylan chuckles. “Now
imagine one of your Proxies dropped out of school and wound up becoming this
super famous artist. She lives in LA, owns her own art studio, and charges a
ton of money for each of her pieces.”