I laugh. “You’re a hell of a guide. What’s your name?”
“Fork, and I will tell you.”
Snrk. Well, might as well. I do my best to keep the eye-closing and mumbling-to-myself to a minimum, instead taking a deep breath in and then…
-Beside me stands another version of myself. We both let out a startled laugh and take a half step away from each other.
+“Well done, Rena,” the guide says, grinning.
+Beside me stands another version of myself. We both let out a startled laugh and take a half step away from each other. I work up the courage to lean in closer to my new instance and, after a moment, she does the same. We take a few moments to inspect each other’s faces. I’m startled to see just how much the acne scars that pock my face crinkle my cheeks when I smile.
+“Well I’ll be damned.”
+“Neat, is it not?”
+Both of me nod. My double — it flashes into my head that she’s named Rena Hatch#2a883de3, though how that comes to me, I haven’t the faintest idea — says, “So I can just go on living as I’d like?”
+“Well, sure, but for the purposes of this exercise, I would like you to go ahead and quit. Same thing, desire to quit, yadda yadda.”
+“Isn’t that kind of like dying?”
+“Not really, no. It is a merging. Many call it ‘merging down’ rather than ‘quitting’ for that reason. Our answer to the teleporter paradox is…” She gives a Talmudic shrug.
+Both of me laugh and, after a moment, where once Rena#2a883de3 stood, she is no longer. There’s no sudden inrush of air