Mark’s pallid face with its receding hairline faded into a cheesy animation. Two blobs appeared on the screen: one a dusky pink, the other a sky-blue. Ava could guess what was coming next, but that didn’t stop the physical pain of watching it happen. The pink blob grew eyes with heavy lashes, two spots of reddish purple appearing on what could generously be called its cheeks. The blue blob also grew eyes, along with a heavy brow and—god save them all—a handlebar mustache.

Then the two blobs began flirting—cooing and blowing kisses at each other. It was the most obnoxiously heterosexual thing Ava had seen since the last St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“Even across vast distances of space and time …” Dana said in a dreamy voiceover.

The two blobs were torn away from each other, flung to opposite sides of the screen with a crude galaxy projected between them. Good, Ava thought savagely, as the blobs squeaked in distress.

“ … entangled particles find ways of reconnecting,” intoned Dana, and the two blobs snaked out long, ghostly limbs toward each other, joining hands across the galaxy. The two blobs burbled happily, and Ava rolled her eyes.

“This video is making me gayer out of spite,” Jules muttered, clear even from the other side of the room.

Ava snorted. She couldn’t help it. Jules turned toward her in surprise, and she cleared her throat and turned away.

“Quiet, please!” Tricia said.

On the screen, the obnoxiously heterosexual blobs had been replaced with the vapidly heterosexual actors. They relaxed in a retro LitenVärld showroom—Newly Retired Swinger, Ava would call it. It was done up in beige and mauve tones, with some palm tree and flamingo accents to keep it from being too bland.

“You may be wondering what this has to do with the wormhole in your store,” Mark said. The actors’ mouths always kept on moving for seconds after the end of the dub, which was giving Ava a headache.

Dana addressed the camera head-on. “Some scientists believe in the many worlds theory.” She pronounced it as if it were something strange and exotic, not three words that could come up by themselves in any conversation.

The blue-and-crimson logo on-screen shivered and split into two parts. Mark spread his arms, fingertips extended, augmenting the physics lesson with jazz hands. It was embarrassing to watch him try to emote.

“This means that there are an infinite number of universes,” Mark said. “Endless varieties of them. That means that there are endless varieties of LitenVärlds!”