Eve gave me a tight smile. “In a way.”

“What will it be like?”

“The first time can be overwhelming,” she warned me. “Whatever it is you see with your eyes, what you’re really doing is going to the inner depths of your brain. Like you’re at a kind of Grand Central Station, where the various versions of yourself cross paths. I don’t know what you’ll see, but the sensory overload may well be too much for you. If it is, you know the safe word to get out.”

“Infinite.”

“That’s right. If you say the word, it should break you out of wherever you are and end the session.”

“And take me right back here?” I asked.

“It will take you somewhere. Beyond that, I don’t know. I’ve always assumed that the Dylan I sent out into the void was the same Dylan who came back to me. But now I don’t know if that’s true. For all I know, some other Dylan will end up here on the bench with me in a few seconds. I won’t be aware of it. And nothing else will seem to have changed.”

“I hate to think that I’d be handing my bad choices to someone else,” I said with a smile.

Eve’s face turned severe. “Don’t joke. You act like this situation can’t get worse for you, Dylan. It can. It can get much worse. And remember, wherever you go, another Dylan is already there. It’s his life, not yours.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning you should remember what I said before. You might find yourself tempted to stay. You might want to kill that other version of yourself and take over his world.”

“I’m not a killer,” I insisted again.

“Are you sure?”

I didn’t answer her. I stared at the sun, getting higher over the water. The city was coming to life. Soon people would be coming down the pier. Impatiently, I rolled up my sleeve. “Let’s get on with it.”

Eve readied the needle. She drew in the liquid from the vial and tapped the hypodermic with one of her fingernails. She slid closer to me on the bench and took hold of my wrist, pushing on the seam of my arm to find the vein. When she found it, she put the metal point against my skin.

“Last chance,” she said.

“Do it.”

I felt the puncture like the prick of a bee sting. She pushed the plunger down.