"I'm you from another dimension."
She then looked over to address Lukas, as though she hadn't just said something completely world-shattering.
"I can't tell you how glad I am to have so quickly found the Lukas of this dimension." Julia remarked. "For the record, you're even more handsome than my Lukas, and he's quite the stud. Not that I take much notice of guys." she added, somewhat dismissively.
My mind was still spinning around her first claim. "I'm sorry, what? You're me? From WHAT dimension?"
She shifted her position, making a face. "As far as I know, they don't have real titles, which is kinda dumb since, obviously we need to tell which one's which. For now let's just call it…Julia's dimension. Yes."
"Hold on." Lukas interjected. "Do you mean world? Are you from somewhere else in the Portal Network?"
Julia shook her head. "Nope. Dimension. Trust me, I've already dealt with that distinction once."
"I've never heard of any other dimensions, other than the Nether or the End." I said carefully. She nodded appraisingly in my direction.
"Yeah, there's those, but they're a different kind of 'dimension'. The kind I mean is…a little more complicated."
"How complicated?" Lukas asked. "And why didn't you tell me this when I first found you?"
She scrunched up her nose like she'd smelled something strange. "How was I supposed to tell you? This kinda thing is supposed to have a big dramatic reveal, not just a 'hey by the way I'm from another dimension, haha nice to meet you'. Plus, I didn't have a lotta time."
"Well, you have all the time in the world now. Explain, please." I told her pointedly.
"Actually, we don't have 'all the time in the world'. But, sure." She replied with a shrug. "Quick warning, though. You're about to get a pretty huge infodump, and all this stuff is pretty confusing."
Julia inhaled deeply, briefly closing her eyes like she was sorting out her thoughts.
"There is not just one world like this. There's several. And when I say, a world like this, I don't mean it's just similar. I mean they're exactly the same. There're duplicates of this world- but not in the Portal Network. Out…elsewhere. So they're like the Nether and End in the way that they don't physically exist for you until you travel to them. But they're there, and travel between them is possible if you know what you're doing."
"How 'exactly' are they?" Lukas asked. He sounded highly skeptical and a little confused. "The same geography?"
Julia pointed at him. "Yes, but that's not all. The same towns. The same people. The same events, at least for the most part." She then waved her hands dramatically. "The same things have happened in all of these alternate dimensions! You're the Wither Slayer, right? The hero who defeated the Wither Storm, and revealed the original Order's lies? Well, so am I! In my dimension, I'm the one who liberated Sky City, and survived the White Pumpkin mansion! I was the undo-er of the Old Builder's Games, and the defeater of the Admin! I'm you."
I held up a hand to stop her. "Wait, wait. Hold on. I can get behind multiple dimensions. Honestly, that doesn't sound too far beyond all the other stuff I've dealt with. What I want evidence of is that you're actually, y'know…me. If you've really been through the same experiences as I have, you should be able to prove it."
She opened her mouth, then shut it again, looking cornered. I crossed my arms. "All the stuff you've said so far is common knowledge. For all I know, you could be trying to lead me into some insane trap."
Julia looked down at the floor and cursed quietly. "You're right, goddamnit. How do I…?"
She straightened her posture, folding her hands in her lap. "Ah, I used to hang out in a treehouse with my best friends, Axel and Olivia. We won the EnderCon building competition the same year the Witherstorm was created, with an Enderman statue and a fireworks dispenser."
I shook my head. "That's not some kind of secret; anyone who knew us before we were heroes could tell you that. And it was a zombie statue."
"Really? Damn deviations." She muttered. "Okay, how 'bout this? I had to travel all the way to the Far Lands to make the sword I used to defeat the Witherstorm."
"Still not confidential information."
Julia cursed again. "Um… the Eversource was actually a cute lil chicken, and her name was Benedict. The Founder was a woman called Isa, who was kind of a dictator even if she wasn't trying to be."
Lukas was the one who argued with that. "I've published stories about our Portal Network adventures, especially what happened on Sky City."
"Right, yeah. Ivor's in love with an Old Builder woman named Harper, who built a machine that took over a whole world?" she tried.
I snorted. "Come on, anyone who's ever met Ivor would know that."
She sighed. "Yeah, you're not wrong about that one. Uh…when Romeo took his gauntlet off me in his ice fortress place, it got stuck on Jack instead?"
"Yeah, and he's spent the last three months yammering about all the torture he went through because of it." Lukas added. Julia reached up and yanked gently on her braid, looking frustrated.
"Um…my girlfriend, Stella, is the leader of Champion City?" she said in a hesitant voice.
I lifted my head slowly, sending a significant glance to Lukas. "Aahh. So that's how you know all this stuff."
I was kinda surprised that Stella would have a girlfriend, but it would be just like her to go out of her way to know obscure things about me.
Julia sighed. "Yeahhh I kinda figured that one wouldn't work. Why is it that every time I need to remember an important detail, I can't think of shit?" she muttered.
I relaxed my stance slightly. "Look, I'm not saying that I won't believe you no matter what. I just want some proof." I said, fighting the earlier hostility out of my voice.
She nodded, looking miserable. "I know, and I'd probably do the exact same thing in your position. I'm just…I'm not sure how to make you believe me."
An idea suddenly struck me. "Alright. If you're really me, then riddle me this. Which would you rather fight: a hundred chicken-sized zombies, or ten zombie-sized chickens?"
Her face broke into a broad grin, and she said in a slightly singsong voice, "I'd have to go with the giant chickens. Not because I want to or I think it'd be easy, but because they would be an abomination."
I laughed in astonishment, and slowly nodded.
Word for word what I said to Olivia, more than seven years ago.
She raised an eyebrow, looking hopefully at me. "So, do I pass the test? Are you more willing to listen to my fascinating explanation?"
"Sure." I was still a little suspicious about this whole dimension business, but I wanted to know more. Just because I hadn't fully understood it yet didn't mean it was entirely impossible.
"Anyways." Julia said. "The same things happening in the different dimensions. Yada yada."
"Uh, not 'yada yada'." Lukas cut in. "How can there possibly be different versions of everything in this world? Why have we never heard about this before?"
"Hold on. I'm not doing a good enough job of explaining this." Julia grabbed her sketchbook and pencil from where she'd set them and flipped to a blank page. She drew two long squiggly lines side-by-side, then lifted the sketchbook and tapped her finger against the left line. "You're thinking about this in three dimensions. And that's not your fault- that's about as far as human comprehension goes. But anyhow, our worlds are parallel, so they're not meant to intersect. That's why you've never found out about this before."
Then why are we finding out about it now? I wondered, but didn't have time to ask before Julia continued speaking.
"Since we can only think about this in three dimensions, lemme see if I can rephrase this a bit. So, you know how the Portal Network works, right. The worlds that the portals lead to aren't literally right behind the frames. Like, if you dug through the wall of the portal hall, you wouldn't suddenly be in a different world. The portals take you elsewhere in the universe."
She dropped the sketchpad and lifted her hands again, as though finger-painting a vision in the air. "Imagine a tall tower with multiple layers. Huge, massive layers, with giant cracks running through them, separating them into sections. When you're on one of said layers, you can't just walk from one end to the other because of the gaps. But portals can take you across those gaps- you're still on the same layer, just a different part of it. Following so far?"
Lukas and I both gave quick affirmatives, and Julia kept going. "Going to a whole different layer is something else entirely. You have no way to know those exist, since in this analogy they exist directly above and below you and you can't just see them. Those layers are like our different dimensions. They're all exactly the same, just in different places. That's…about as good as I can really say it."
"Okay, so, duplicate dimensions. I think I can wrap my head around that. But how can the same events happen?" Lukas pressed.
Julia nodded. "Because all the constants line up. All the same people exist in each dimension, all with the same personalities and motives and histories. So things play out the same, or nearly the same way, even with little differences here and there."
"Right, okay. That bit makes sense, but I'm still a little stuck on the fact that you're me. How is that even…?" I asked.
"Well, I'm not exactly you. But we're in the same role." She admitted with a sigh. "We're the ones who have made the biggest impact on our respective worlds. The Wither Slayer, the Hero in Residence, whatever. We're the ones who 'drive' the timelines, the-"
"The Primum Movens." I interrupted. She grinned, looking pleased and a little surprised. "Exactly!"
Lukas looked at me. "Holy shit, is that what all that mad investigation was about?"
"I guess so." I retrieved the paper from my inventory and handed it to Julia. "Does this match up with your whole dimension thing?"
"It's not exactly my 'whole dimension thing', but…yes." she said, taking the paper and glancing at the words on it. "Huh. Where'd this come from?"
"Long story short, the old Order's temple." Lukas replied. "There was a weird old hidden room, full of bizarre investigation-type stuff, and that was one of the things in there."
"Huh." She repeated. "That's downright spooky."
"So is…'timeline' just another word for dimension?" I asked. Julia hesitated.
"…Yes. Though I'm not one-hundred-percent sure why. I think it has something to do with, uh…dammit, what was it? The fact that all the events of the dimensions have played out over the same period of time. Instead of, like, my whole Wither adventure taking place fifty years after you'd already defeated the Admin. To be honest, though, I mainly call them 'timelines' just because I think it sounds cooler." she admitted, handing the paper back to me.
I looked down at the parchment again. The list of words written on it made a lot more sense coupled with the revelation of multiple dimensions, despite how obviously mind-blowing that may be.
Lukas was rubbing his forehead like I had earlier. "Oh-kay. This has been…quite the brain-bender." He muttered. Julia let out a small snort that seemed to convey 'it gets worse', though she didn't say anything.
"What does this whole 'deviation' thing mean?" I asked. "Didn't you just say all the dimensions were exactly the same?"
She gave me a grim little smile. "Almost. They're almost exactly the same. There are some differences, and that's where things get bad."
Motioning again with her hands as she spoke, Julia continued with her explanation. "As far as I know, all of the most major things in our timelines are the same. But there's things that don't match up. For starters, obviously, the gender difference between you and I. Also, my Lukas isn't still in Beacontown: he left with Petra when she decided to go 'find herself' exploring the world. Those are the deviations or variables, the anomalies and changes. And…they're why I'm here.
"There's been something…going on, with the timelines. I haven't known about them very long, but the reason this whole thing was brought to my attention is because there's…something interfering with the dimensions."
A dark sense of foreboding washed over me, and I shivered, as though a pair of cold claws had sunk suddenly into my shoulders. "What kind of something? And how is it interfering?"
Julia gave me a helpless sort of look. "I don't know. It wasn't me who found out all this stuff, I'm just repeating what I was told. The balance of the timelines has been upset somehow. In the last year or so, the deviations and variables have gotten worse- there's more of them, and they're bigger differences. It's throwing things off, and making the should-be-parallel dimensions start to…overlap, I guess."
Lukas abruptly turned to give me a wide-eyed look. "That map!" he exclaimed. "The one with the paper town! Could that have been an irregularity?"
I gasped. "It had to've been. Oh my god, it finally makes sense."
"What?" Julia asked, giving us a quizzical look.
"Long story short, this map suddenly appeared on my desk a couple weeks ago, and it was completely accurate except for this town in the middle of nowhere that didn't actually exist. Everything else on it was right, except that one little town. Then, a few days after it showed up, it disappeared again, and I haven't found it since."
Lukas gave me a suspicious side-eyed look. "You didn't tell me it disappeared."
I bobbed my head towards him in acknowledgment. "You were kinda not talking to me when I found out."
"Oh." he muttered softly.
Julia spoke up again. "Well, then it was from one of the other dimensions. I've had something…rather important to me completely vanish, and I'm pretty sure it crossed over. That's one of the side effects of the timelines being disrupted, and it can be worse than it first seems. I don't know all the things that could happen when the disruptions get worse, only that they're nothing good. Hence, why I'm in this timeline
instead of my own."
"Why are you in my timeline? You weren't accidentally sent over, were you?" I asked.
She shook her head quickly. "No, not at all. I came on purpose. Because, well…this mess isn't going to fix itself. And I don't really have anyone else to turn to at the moment."
I crossed my arms lightly. "You want me to help you fix the timelines." I said noncommittally.
Julia's expression shifted into something guilty and sad. "Yeah, I know how it sounds. I know you don't trust me yet, and I know you're still dealing with…all this information. I know you've probably got other things going on, things that have got to be more urgent than jumping into an insane new quest with some bizarre woman who doesn't understand half of what she's trying to explain." she said with a dramatic wave of her right hand. "But…this is important. Hell, even I'm not sure how important it's going to be, but I know that it is. And there's no one I can think of who can and will help, so even this is kind of a last-ditch effort."
She sighed and shook her head. "I'm not expecting you to come along." She added. "You don't have to; it's not your fight unless you decide it is. I'm hoping for help, of course, but it's entirely your call to make.
I carefully studied her expression, and she looked back at me with serious brown eyes. She was right- this was a lot to take in at once. But that's just how stuff happens sometimes; you're launched into things with no explanation at all. I actually consider myself very lucky that I
did have a chance to learn some stuff beforehand that time.
I still wasn't sure how much I believed her. I understood most of it, yes, but I didn't know how much to accept. I didn't know if she really was a variation of me or not. I didn't know if she really was from another dimension. I didn't know if there really was something wrong with said dimension.
But what I did know was that, in front of me right then, was a fellow person asking for help, not to mention offering a chance at a new adventure.
And when had I ever been able to turn down either of those?
"Jess?" Lukas asked, raising a questioning eyebrow at me. "Whatever you decide, you know I'm all for it. What's your call?"
I hesitated for another moment more, weighing my options. The other two were still both looking at me with apprehensive eyes.
I let a small smile escape as I said, "You know what? Why not. This may be some seriously new territory for me, but I'm game."
Julia gave me a delighted, hopeful look. "You'll help me fix the timelines?"
I grinned. "I'll help you fix the timelines."
