I opened my eyes, trying to float through a still pond of memories of my mom, turned my head away from the Envisioner, and grabbed Yusuf’s shoulder.

What I love the most is that I was actually able to surprise Kaori. Maybe she thought I’d eventually fall in line after she paraded a million disasters in front of me, or that I wasn’t stupid enough to do what I did. Or she thought my little filmmaker brain couldn’t possibly understand how the whole network of Envisioners was connected, or she didn’t realize how much of the machine and Figueiredo’s work I’d be able to understand just by communing with the device.

I guess what I’m saying is that even the C-squad can ace a science quiz once in a while. It’s all probability.

I could feel the barrier between this universe and the one I’d found vibrating like the rainbow-swirled skin of a giant bubble. I pushed through with my mind and, with the sploosh of a stone tossed into a pond, a shimmery thing appeared under my palm across the surface of the Envisioner—a small circle with glowing gold edges that rippled and expanded until it was just big enough for us to crawl through. Just like what had happened in the video I’d seen of Figueiredo sending off the machines.

For a second, I thought, oh. Like an almost blasé, this looks surprisingly normal. In a time-warping slow instant of realization, it looked like the picture in my eyes of this reality suddenly had a three-foot wide window into Somewhere Else—a room not that different from this one—sliced into it. Which I guess is what pretty much had happened.

Kaori’s mouth dropped open into a silent no.

I yanked Yusuf and we both tumbled backwards through the window before the gunshots cracked the air.

*   *   *

In the movie version of this story, Yusuf and I will tumble through a wide, black expanse that’s filled with glowing spider webs. Like stained glass windows, the scenes of all our possible futures together fill in the spaces between the glowing threads. The special effects team will really blow a chunk of the film’s budget. Scenes of us fighting in the rain and getting married under a flowered canopy on a beach. Scenes of us crossing each other on the street, never even looking up, and leaving each other’s lives as strangers. In one image, spun from light, we watch the sunset on a park bench, our faces creased from decades of laughter, our wizened hands interlaced.

But at the same time, here we are.