"Tamisha?"
Tamisha swivelled in her chair. She looked almost as surprised as Graham.
"Where's Annalise?" he said.
"Who?"
"No time to explain. I've got to get to a world where Annalise is in this building. You know who I am?"
"Graham Smith on speed?" she said, raising one eyebrow.
Graham's mind filled with a thousand things to do. He had to make choices, interact, force himself to flip until he found her. She had to be in this building. Annalise Six practically lived here.
He paced around the room, spontaneously changing direction, staring at Tamisha, waiting for her face to morph into someone else.
"What the hell is the matter with you, boy?" said Tamisha, standing up. She looked confused, a hint of anger. Graham felt stupid. It wasn't working. He was making choices but nothing was happening.
Maybe his choices were too small to have any impact? Hadn't Gary said as much? The greater the choice, the greater the chance of forming a bridge.
"Sit down, Tamisha," he said. "I'm going to tell you something huge."
He told her everything he knew. The Etxamendi file, Sylvestrus and natural selection, the link across the twelfth dimension, how the resonance wave could be blown away if the Grahams broke the link with enough energy.
She listened and took notes, told him to slow down and go back. She'd heard of the Etxamendi file. She'd seen it referenced in a log she was reading barely twenty minutes ago. She'd been wrestling with the math when Graham had burst in.
Graham waited to flip. With every new fact he divulged, he imagined the charge building.
Nothing happened.
"I don't understand," he said. "I should be flipping now, shouldn't I? Doesn't this count as a major interaction? I've given you information you're going to pass on to countless others and change the lives of thousands, maybe millions of people, right? You are going to pass this on?"
"Oh, I'm passing this on, all right," she said nodding. "I'm calling Kevin and Shikha now."
She leaned over and pulled the phone towards her.
"Then why aren't I flipping? With the charge I've just set off, I should be attracting every other Graham Smith in the building."
"It doesn't work like that," said Tamisha, as she waited for someone to pick up. "Hi, Kevin, get the others and come down to 5G immediately."
She put the phone down. "From what I read this morning, you have to be in the exact same spot or the bridge won't form. Doesn't matter how powerful the charge is."
"I thought it increased the chances of connection?"
"It does." She turned and flicked through a series of screens. "There," she said, pointing to a line of text on the screen. "The greater the charge, the longer the filament's life." She turned back to Graham. "You should be trailing a filament right now. But if you sit here, you'll waste it. Run around the building, visit all the places you think other Grahams might be . . ."
Graham had the door open before she'd finished.
He ran, he visited every room he'd frequented before. Even the one in the basement. He circled each room, quartered each room, covered every inch he could think of. He took the lift from top to bottom. Ran the stairs from bottom to top. Every few seconds he checked his clothes or the note in his pocket to see if it had worked.
And every few seconds he was disappointed.
He returned to 5G, despondent. What else could he try? Go back to work and flip through 200 billion worlds? Or keep trying here?
He opened the door to find Kevin, Shikha and two other men he'd never seen before closeted around Tamisha. Not one of them turned to see who'd come in. Tamisha was talking about bridges and the twelfth dimension.
"I need help," said Graham. "I need to get an urgent message to another world this morning. Is there any way of doing that?"
Kevin answered. "The only gate we have is one-way. We can receive but we can't transmit."
Graham felt stupid for asking a question he already knew the answer to. He was failing again. The pressure was on and he was floundering. Without Annalise, he was nothing. Even when he had a plan, he couldn't manoeuvre himself into the right place. Everything hinged on him being in the right place at the right time and he couldn't even manage that!
"Are you okay?" asked Shikha.
He turned away, embarrassed and angry.
"Graham, are you okay?" repeated Shikha.
Maybe he'd given up too early? Maybe it was a matter of perseverance, keep making choices, keep interacting, keep circling the building?
He turned and froze. Everyone had left. Except Shikha, who was sat at Tamisha's terminal looking at him quizzically.
He'd flipped. He must have.
"Are you all right?" Shikha said again, an element of concern in her voice.
Graham was about to respond when a thought stopped him dead. Was replying a choice? Would a yes or no send him back where he'd come from?
"I don't know," he said as impartially as he could. His eyes flicked across the room. Should he move? Stand somewhere else. Was the filament still active? Could he be sucked back if he made the wrong move?
He shuffled his feet. Shikha was staring at him, concern turning to worry. How could he ask her if she knew Annalise? Wouldn't that be interacting? Should he leave the building and call from a public phone?
"Graham?"
Graham took a deep breath. He was undoubtedly being stupid. Ten minutes ago he was trying everything he could to flip and failing, why should it be any different now? His little voice provided the answer—Murphy's Law, more powerful than Schenck: if anything can go wrong, it will.
He tried something else.
"Annalise," he said in a voice devoid of inflection.
"You want Annalise?" asked Shikha.
Graham's brain felt like it was seizing up. He couldn't think straight. He was terrified of flipping, he was terrified of thinking, he was terrified of doing anything that might precipitate a flip.
"Shall I call Annalise?" asked Shikha.
Graham closed his eyes, relief flooding over him. She was here! She had to be. Shikha wouldn't have said that otherwise.
"Do you think I should talk to Annalise?" he asked.
"Graham, you're worrying me. Why are you talking like that?"
"Annalise," he repeated and pointed to the corridor. "Do you think I should wait in the corridor?"
Shikha stared at him and Graham felt like the stupidest robot ever conceived.
"I'll call her," Shikha said.
Graham hurried into the corridor. Was he any safer out here? Was there a place he'd be safer still?
There was. It came to him just as Annalise stepped out of the lift. An Annalise with brown hair. Annalise Six? He grabbed her and pushed her into the Ladies.
"Graham!" she shouted.
He threw himself against the far stall, as far away from the door and the corridor wall as he could.
"It's all right. We'll be safe here," he said, breathing hard.
"Safe from what?"
"Flipping," he said, unable to stop smiling. "It's me. I'm back."
"Graham?" She blinked twice. "Is it really you?"
"It's really me."
She fell on him and hugged him so hard he thought his ribs were going to crack.
"I think I know how to stop the resonance wave," he said when he got his breath back. "Fetch the others. I want to make sure I'm right."
"Bring them here?" asked Annalise.
"It's the only place I feel safe."
He told them everything that had happened. How he'd flipped, Sylvestrus, natural selection and how he'd returned.
Then he told them his plan.
They were sceptical at first but he won them over. He knew the Grahams, they didn't. All he wanted from Gary and Howard was confirmation that his theory was correct.
"It'll take time to confirm," said Howard.
"How long?"
"An hour?" said Howard glancing at Gary for confirmation.
Graham checked his watch—10:15 a.m. He was forty minutes away from Westminster Street. He'd need five, ten minutes contingency.
"You've got fifty-five minutes," he said. "I leave at 11:10 whatever happens."
Annalise stayed after the others had left.
"I'll start contacting the girls," she said. "It's not going to be easy—this plan of yours. Most of the girls have taken their Grahams into hiding. And only five of us have security passes to Westminster Street."
"I know," he said. "But I also know how resourceful the girls are. They'll get passes from ParaDim, they'll set up dummy interviews, they'll get Graham to open the delivery bay doors. They'll do whatever it takes. They always do. And I know that come twelve o'clock, when I start things off," he paused, his voice quivering, "there'll be two hundred Annalises with me to keep it going."
Annalise's eyes suddenly widened in horror.
"What's the matter?" he said, swallowing hard. Had she just received a message?
"Graham," she said. "There's something you ought to know."
"What?"
"It's Annalise Fifteen."