I stand amid the roar

Of a surf-tormented shore,

And I hold within my hand

Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep

Through my fingers to the deep,

While I weep — while I weep!

O God! can I not grasp

Them with a tighter clasp?

O God! can I not save

One from the pitiless wave?

Is all that we see or seem

But a dream within a dream?

-EDGAR ALLAN POE

I apologize for everything I’ve taken from you. This is a cosmic comedy and I’m the punchline.

Billions of years after the birth of the universe, a few intelligent monkeys finally invented “years” and swept away the eons which had piled up like dust in the corners of an empty room. They replaced time with names and numbers, but I can see the unnamed and uncounted. I can see the layers of congealed days that trap me like a bug in amber. I can see you, too.

God, I can hardly stand the sight of it all. It makes me sick. Even at the bitter end, the joke is still on me.

You can blame me if you want. My hands may be red but my conscience is clear, because none of it was my fault; this isn’t even my story.

This is a story about Isaac.

Isaac was a scruffy actor with a crooked nose and a tendency to frown without realizing that he was frowning. He lived alone in a house at the edge of the woods and he was not unhappy yet.

His future arrived on a crisp winter morning under a rosy sky. The world was asleep beneath a blanket of snow, but Isaac was awake.

He shuffled around his cold house in slippers, bleary and bed-headed, dark circles under darker eyes. His night had been interrupted by a puzzling dream which he could not remember. It was too early to be awake and too late to go back to bed. Caught halfway between the two, he almost didn’t notice the flicker of movement in his window.

He peered out through the foggy glass. There were three strangers walking toward him through the snow.

Isaac grabbed his old hunting rifle. He stepped onto the porch, dressed in flannel pajamas and a bathrobe. Bits of ice cracked under his slippers.

“Good morning,” he said, exhaling a cloud of steam. “Who are you?”

The strangers stopped in their tracks. After a few cryptic glances between them, one man stepped forward. He was tall and broad and wore a long gray jacket.

“No need to be alarmed, Mr. Skinner,” he said, smiling. His teeth were unnaturally square. “I’m with SEIDR.”

Isaac lowered his gun. “What do you want?”

“You’ve been invited to a meeting.”

“Why?”

“I’m not at liberty to say. The director will explain everything once you arrive.” The man was still smiling.

Plenty of questions bubbled up on Isaac’s tongue, but he swallowed them in a rare moment of careful consideration. The sun crept up between two fir trees and cast a red beam of light across his face. He squinted.

He had no fond memories of SEIDR. Everything about these strange visitors rubbed him the wrong way.

“If you won’t tell me, then I’m not going,” he said. He walked back inside and shut the door.

It was a snap decision, born from stubbornness and frustration and the unsettling scraps of his forgotten dream. He built a fire in the wood stove and settled into his worn leather armchair, holding the rifle across his knees.

Out in the snow, the man from SEIDR stopped smiling. He was tired and cold and his patience was wearing thin.

His name was Larry Slicko and he was not a subtle man. If he was in charge, he would’ve already tossed Isaac into the trunk and driven off, but the director’s instructions had been very specific. No threats, no property damage, and absolutely no abductions.

With all his usual tricks off-limits, Larry was left with his questionable powers of persuasion. He climbed onto Isaac’s porch and hammered on the door.

Isaac got up and cracked the door open. It was barely wide enough for one of his eyes to peer through the gap. “What?”

“Let’s try this again,” Larry said. “I’d appreciate you coming with us, Mr. Skinner. This is a very important meeting.”

“Important to SEIDR or important to me?”

“Both. I swear, you’ve got nothing to be afraid of.”

“That’s not reassuring.”

“What can I say to change your mind?”

“Nothing,” Isaac said. “You can leave now.” He slammed the door, locked and bolted it.

Larry tried the handle. When that didn’t work, he hit the frame with his fist. “Skinner!” he shouted. “We can talk about this!”

Isaac did not bother to respond. He closed his curtains and double-checked all the latches. Larry stormed off into the snow, cursing under his breath.

By coincidence, Larry and Isaac made a phone call at exactly the same time—7:49AM.

Isaac called his uncle, Basil, who lived on the other side of the creek. Unfortunately, Basil was fast asleep, and the phone rang until Isaac was greeted with a pre-recorded message.

You have reached Basil and the bees. Hello. I have missed your call. Sorry. Call us back.

He tried three more times, but there was still no answer. From his back window, he could see Basil’s chimney through the trees, marked by a thin line of smoke drifting into the brightening sky.

He felt rootless and untethered, as if planet Earth had spun away from him and left him standing in empty space. He wandered back and forth, his eyes glazed over, his hands fidgeting with a book he didn’t remember picking up. The title was L’Appel Du Vide and eventually he sat down and tried to read it. His eyes kept skipping over the letters and darting to the side. It took him five minutes to realize that it was written in French.

He knew abstractly that things were about to change. He was wired with tension, braced for an impact he could not anticipate, falling in the dark.

Meanwhile, Larry called Yaz. It was a short call. He told her that Skinner was not cooperating.

“Be there soon,” she said, and hung up.

Yaz Toma lived two steps into the future and was always hurrying to catch up with herself. It had taken Larry two hours to drive to Isaac’s house. She arrived in just under forty-five minutes. Where others saw speed limits, she saw only a white blur.

As she scribbled a note on top of the steering wheel, glancing up at the road every few seconds, she narrowly avoided six fatal crashes, fourteen serious collisions, and twenty-nine fender benders. When she arrived she went straight up the porch steps, knocked twice, and slid the note under the door.

After a moment of deliberation, Isaac picked it up. The message was scrawled in blue ink across thick stationery.

Isaac,

Sorry for the mix-up. SEIDR’s cameras caught you murdering someone last night. I can show you.

-Yaz.

The paper trembled in his hands. He read the note over and over, but it made less sense each time. The words were written in a loopy, careless cursive. They promised no answers, only an endless series of questions.

He frowned into empty space for a long time. This was either a joke, a mistake, or a blatant frame job.

There was only one way to find out.

When Isaac opened the door, a gust of cold air swept past him. He shivered. “You must be Yaz.”

Yaz leaned against his porch railing, sipping her coffee. Her nails were painted purple. She was wearing big movie-star sunglasses, and her hair was tucked under a silk scarf. “Guilty as charged. Mind if I come in?”

“No, uh, go ahead.”

She sauntered in like she owned the place. Before Isaac could say anything, she’d pulled a laptop out of her bag and set it on the kitchen counter.

“What are you—”

“Just watch this.” Yaz started typing. “Save your questions for Victor.”

Isaac held his tongue with great effort. Beyond his growing apprehension, he was filled with such urgent curiosity that he wanted to scream. He crumpled Yaz’s note into a ball.

She pulled up a silent video feed, a security camera looking down over a dim museum. Isaac leaned in.

The camera was pointed at three silver and enamel samovars, standing together under a glass box. They were covered in brilliant points of yellow and blue and red, bordered by intricate flowers. Their polished taps gleamed, reflecting tiny spotlights.

The museum had been closed for hours. No one was there.

To the right of the exhibit, a man stepped out of thin air.

He was Isaac. He moved like Isaac. The narrow shape of his face and his hands and his curly dark hair were unmistakable. There was no distinction between him and the flesh-and-blood Isaac who stood in his kitchen, his heart beating rapidly, his eyes fixed on the screen.

The man who looked like Isaac appeared with no flair or showmanship. He simply went from not there to there.

He was dressed entirely in black, and held something small and white in his hand. When he slammed it down on the box, the glass shattered. Lights began flashing across the screen. Isaac guessed that somewhere an alarm was ringing.

The not-Isaac picked up one of the samovars and, taking a half-step to his left, vanished completely.

A moment later, he reappeared. His hands were empty. Again, he picked up one of the samovars and took a small step, disappearing halfway through.

While he was gone, a different man ran into the frame. He was older and shorter and very nearly bald. He came to a halt, staring at the wreckage of the exhibit, and then staggered backward as not-Isaac reappeared out of thin air.

Isaac watched in dreadful fascination as his mirror image lunged forward, pulling a white triangle across the older man’s throat.

From the spray of blood which followed, Isaac guessed it was a knife. The newcomer crumpled to the ground.

Not-Isaac grabbed the final samovar. Before he disappeared, he looked over his shoulder, toward the camera, and Isaac had the ghastly feeling of being regarded from the past—a gaze that pierced the veil of time and skewered him like a butterfly to the present.

“That should be enough,” Yaz said, closing the laptop.

Isaac felt sick. “I don’t understand,” he said thickly. His own voice reached him from a great distance. “That’s not possible. I didn’t—was that actually real?”

“Real enough to get you in trouble.”

“You think I killed someone?”

“Probably best if I don’t answer that.” Yaz gave nothing away. Her voice and her posture carried an easy confidence. “Will you be coming back to SEIDR for that meeting?”

Isaac blinked. He was sorely tempted by the possibility of understanding what the hell was going on. “Well, yes,” he said. “But—”

“Great! Catch you later.”

Yaz grabbed her laptop and left before Isaac could speak another word. He followed her out onto the porch, but she was already climbing into her car. She took off, kicking up gravel and snow, screeching down the road like a bat out of hell.

Larry emerged from his truck. He’d put the heating on full blast and won a few rounds of Go Fish while waiting for Yaz to take care of the Skinner problem.

Now he crossed his arms against the cold and sidled up to Isaac. “Ready to go?”

Isaac rubbed his temples, as if he could stop his thoughts from unraveling if he pressed hard enough. “Can I get dressed first?”

“Sure, but don’t try anything funny.”

“I would never,” Isaac said. “Comedy isn’t my strong suit.”

He retreated inside. Having earned a little parcel of time and space in which to think, he paced back and forth across the tile floor of his kitchen. He felt the overwhelming urge to escape, to climb out his back window and flee into the woods.

Instead, he poured himself a glass of water and drank it with a single gulp, spilling half of it down the side of his chin. It was teeth-achingly cold.

The shock brought him clarity. Above all else, he needed to know why this was happening.

Ten minutes later, when he was dressed and halfway presentable, he joined the trio waiting out front. He had no clear vision of the past or future, helplessly entangled as he was in the present. Still, he was oddly comforted by his own ignorance, just as my retelling is tainted with the sad certainty of hindsight.

He got in the truck and they drove east. The rising sun made a hole of white light in the windshield. When he closed his eyes, the afterimage danced on the back of his eyelids in vibrating electric green.

***

Now we arrive at the Sasha Erdos Institute of Dimensional Research.

The Institute lay dreaming beneath the ground, chipped and carved and sculpted from a cave which had never been fully mapped. It would take me decades to record every sordid detail of the place—the claustrophobic tunnels, the mossy stone walls, the neon red lights and the deep, dark water. In its sunken rooms and winding halls, against flat expanses of windowless walls, many things lay hidden in the dark.

Its entrance was tucked away in the hinterland of Idaho. After a few hours of cruising through a wasteland of cheatgrass and sagebrush, Larry Slicko turned off the highway. He drove past the brownstone walls of the Catacomb Theater and into the parking garage.

From the garage, they took an elevator down to SEIDR’s lobby, a circular room surrounded by archways and buried under a quarter mile of dirt. The air was different down here, cool and humid, with a damp green quality. There was a strong draft coming from one of the passages. Isaac zipped up his black jacket and stuck his hands in his pockets.

A receptionist eyed them from behind a pane of glass. Larry nodded to her and she nodded back. As they crossed the room, the two silent henchmen turned down one of the side halls and disappeared.

“Just you and me now,” Larry muttered. “We’re almost there.”

They passed under one of the arches. Here, a staircase led down into the black water.

I suppose I should explain the water. SEIDR drowned on April 7th, 1992, when a hasty demolition shattered the banks of an underground river. The river broke through like thunder. Rebounding off the stony floors, it tumbled through the corridors and wiped the old walls clean.

Halfway down the stairs, Isaac and Larry reached a long line of rowboats. Larry untied one from its mooring.

“Get in.”

Isaac stepped into the boat, wobbling a little, and sat down on one of the bench seats. They began to glide forward. The stairs continued below them, marching deeper and deeper until they were lost in the dark.

Larry steered them into a tunnel which stood like an empty mouth in a crumbling stone wall. Isaac reached out a hand and trailed it against the rock. It was wet to the touch, spotted with moss and lichen. A lizard scuttled away from his arm, climbing up through a crack in the ceiling.

The light grew fainter. Their passage was strung with red lanterns, hanging low and round like dying stars. There were long spaces of dark between them where Isaac could see nothing but the distant glimmer of light on the water. He heard only the soft lapping of waves against the boat and the sound of his own breath. The breeze smelled earthy, peaty, with a hint of something sweet and chemical.

The water was usually shallow, but sometimes the bottom would dip into a vertical shaft or deep cavern. Isaac leaned over the side when they passed under the next lantern. There was a stone basin at least thirty feet below them, bathed in crimson light and spotted with reeds. The shadow of the boat rippled over it.

“How deep does it go?” he asked.

“There’s more under the water than above it,” Larry said.

It was a troubling idea. Isaac thought SEIDR was terribly grand, but it also left him with the uneasy feeling that he was always missing something. Vast spaces lay just out of his reach, passing below and beside him unseen. There were many empty doorways into black, silent rooms.

At last they escaped into sunlight.

Of all SEIDR’s caves, the atrium was the largest and brightest and best. As they emerged from the tunnel, Isaac was struck with a sudden vertigo. The floor dropped out from under them, and they were floating over an enormous pool of hazy blue.

Bells sang out across the water eleven times, marking the hour. Isaac could not tell where the ringing was coming from. It was rich and metallic, loud enough to reach the most distant halls.

They passed a few other boats, some rowing with purpose, others drifting dreamily under the skylight. Larry guided them over the pool and toward the white granite tower which stood across from them. It stretched all the way to the distant ceiling, carved with pillars and leaves and berries and birds. A dock sprouted from its doorstep.

As Larry tied up the boat, Isaac spotted a bulletin board hanging against the tower. There were several fliers advertising a movie night on Saturday; a massive warning, printed in bold red letters, stating CANAL 49 IS CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE; an enthusiastic poster inviting anyone to join the New Frog Chess Club; and a pamphlet in the top left corner reading, “Get a free season pass to the Catacomb Theater! See your supervisor for details.”

When Larry was finished securing the boat, Isaac followed him out of the sun and into the white granite tower. They climbed a dim staircase in silence. Finally they stopped in front of a yellow door.

Isaac had been distracted by the enormity of SEIDR, lost in the maze of watery caves and empty spaces. The purpose of his visit came rushing back so quickly that he felt dizzy. It was far too late to escape now. He could almost hear the click of the trap snapping shut.

Larry knocked on the door.

“Come in,” said a voice from the other side.

Before he could think twice, Isaac stepped into the office, squinting in the sudden brightness. Sunlight poured in through a floor-to-ceiling window, illuminating the thick, velvety blue carpet. The air was warm and smelled faintly of cloves.

Victor stood up from his desk. “Ah, Isaac. Welcome to the Institute.”

Please, allow me a moment while I consider how to describe Victor Belka.

It was a big office, but Victor made it feel small. He was not a large man, but he took up space. His eyes were the color of a green glass bottle and they always looked a little sad. His voice was slow and unconcerned and patronizing. He was constantly busy and never in a hurry.

In short, he was the director.

“You’re free to go, Mr. Slicko,” Victor said, waving his hand. Larry retreated back down the stairs, closing the door behind him. “I haven’t seen you in a while. How has Earth been treating you?”

“Alright,” Isaac mumbled. “I’ve gotten used to it.”

“What have you been doing with yourself?”

“Acting, mostly. Whenever I can get a role.” He shrugged. “Sometimes I help my uncle with the bees.”

“Ah, yes, Basil. I’m glad he keeps you busy.”

“I keep myself busy.”

Victor smiled. “Of course you do.”

“Can you get to the point?”

“Certainly. Yaz showed you the recording. I’d like to hear your thoughts on it.”

Isaac turned to the right, examining a painted portrait hanging on the white stone wall.

“I didn’t do it,” he said. He didn’t look at Victor. His gaze was locked on the portrait, a woman with a gaunt face and pale, striking gray eyes. There were lines of paint dripping down her cheeks and neck. “I didn’t steal anything, or kill that man. I don’t know how to teleport. I haven’t been here in years. I know it looked like me, but it wasn’t. There’s really nothing else for me to say.”

Victor did not respond, only watched him with a cool, unreadable expression.

The silence made Isaac even more uncomfortable. He shifted from one foot to the other, and then started to pace. His heart kept beating faster and faster until he was worried that Victor might hear it. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he said abruptly. “Do you think I’m lying?”

“Do you know what a doppelganger is?”

“A doppelganger?” Isaac stopped mid-stride. “I’ve heard the word before, but never—I mean, I thought it was just a concept. Are they … real?”

“They are very real,” Victor said. “Perfect duplicates in appearance, displaying erratic behavior and violent tendencies.”

“Perfect duplicates … huh.” Isaac rolled this around in his head. From the grim and endless speculation of the last few hours, a ray of hope emerged. He did not trust it. “Are you saying my doppelganger did it?”

“I highly doubt that you broke into the Institute, stole three artifacts, and murdered Jon Sprenger.”

“Well. Good. Because I didn’t.” Isaac scratched his head. “I just don’t see how a—a doppelganger makes more sense.”

“It fits the circumstances. We’ve rescued hundreds of people from Oshun, but only four of them were amnesiacs. Of those four, three turned out to have doppelgangers.” Victor pointed at Isaac. “You’re the fourth.”

Isaac sank into the chair across from Victor’s desk. It took him a moment to find the words for his sparking resentment. “I don’t understand. You … you never even mentioned the possibility. Didn’t you suspect this might happen?”

“I suspected but saw no reason to assume. Now we can be sure.”

“Why would he show up now?”

“I suspect only he can answer that question.”

Isaac pinched the bridge of his nose. His confusion was too nebulous to pin down. “But you know I’m not guilty,” he said slowly. “You know that wasn’t me, in the museum.”

“I am fairly convinced.”

“Then can I leave?”

For the first time, Victor hesitated. “You can,” he said. “I won’t keep you here. But I would like your help.”

Isaac was surprised to find the old bitterness still kicking around. He crossed his arms. “I thought I was too unstable for SEIDR.”

“You were,” Victor said. “But seven years is more than enough time for you to stabilize.”

Isaac scowled. “What do you want from me?”

“Well, I’d like to catch your doppelganger. Quite badly, in fact. I’m not fond of intruders breaking into our museums, stealing our antiques and murdering our staff. But I can’t pin him down until I know how he’s getting around.” A hint of irritation crept into Victor’s voice. “None of the other doppelgangers were capable of this. He shouldn’t be able to enter and leave SEIDR in the blink of an eye. I’ve never seen anything like it, and that makes it very frustrating.”

“Why should I care?”

“I have an offer for you. I want you to find out his method of transportation. Based on our past research, there’s a link between doppelgangers and their counterparts. You might be able to exploit it.” Victor waved a hand. “But I may be overestimating your capabilities. If you fail to discover anything useful, SEIDR will compensate you for your time, and you can go back to whatever it is you’ve been doing.”

“And if I succeed?” Despite himself, Isaac was intrigued. This was a mystery and a challenge and a job rolled into one.

“Name your price.”

Isaac’s heart cracked open. “You’re serious.”

“Of course.”

A great and terrible hope seized him. He did not speak for a while; he feared a stray word might shatter the dream. “I want to go back,” he said eventually, testing the waters. “I want to be a wizard.”

“Fair enough.”

“Really?”

“If you solve the question of your doppelganger’s teleportation, I’ll put you straight into the Wizards Guild. You have my word.”

Isaac looked past Victor, through the glass window and into the sun-splashed cave. He had only one answer to give.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Ah, very good. I think you’ll fit in well here, Isaac.”

“I hope so.” The excitement left him intoxicated. He could not focus on anything; it all seemed equally blurry and distant and lovely.

“I’ll get you started with this,” Victor said, picking up a manila folder. “It’s all of the notes from our last three doppelganger encounters. Oh—I almost forgot. To keep things simple, we usually label doppelgangers by writing their counterpart’s name backward.” He scribbled two words on a pink sticky note and stuck it on the folder, passing it over to Isaac.

Isaac glanced at the note. It had ISAAC written across the top and CAASI across the bottom.

“We’ll have to add Caasi to the records as well,” Victor said. “I’ll send you the updated paperwork once it’s complete.”

Isaac skimmed through the folder. There were a dozen looseleaf pages, some stuffed with text and some covered in black-and-white photos. The last photo showed two identical men, lying in dark puddles on the floor.

“That should conclude our meeting. I’m glad to have you on board.” Victor stood up, holding out his hand. Isaac shook it firmly. “Welcome to SEIDR.”

“Thank you,” Isaac said, his voice trembling with anticipation. “I won’t let you down.”

Poor Isaac. He was completely wrong.