"I got the job!" Beth said as she came into Jo's room. Jo, who was entering a story chapter into a fiction website, looked up and smiled.
"Congratulations! When do you start?"
"Monday. I'm only making minimum wage, but they told me if I do a good job, I can have a raise in six months."
Jo stood and hugged her sister.
"I'm proud of you, Beth. A year ago, or even six months ago, you wouldn't have even thought of walking into a place of business and applying for a job. I'd say since the heart transplant, you've blossomed into a new girl!"
Beth frowned.
"Do you think that had something to do with it?"
"It might have." Jo returned to her seat. "I've read articles in magazines and online that feature true stories of organ donor recipients who took on some of the characteristics of the donors. There was one story about a woman who suddenly developed a craving for chicken nuggets after her transplant. She'd never liked them before, and as it turned out, the teenage boy whose heart she'd received had been on his way to McDonald's for chicken nuggets when he died in a car crash."
Beth sat on the edge of the bed.
"But what does chicken nuggets have to do with it?"
Jo rolled her eyes.
"Don't you remember all those things Sarah told us about Karl? How lively and enthusiastic he'd been? How he'd kind of been the life of the party?"
Beth nodded.
"Well, Beth, you're still you, but i have noticed some subtle personality changes. That article I was telling you about? It said consciousness may well reside in other parts of the body besides the brain. That would explain this phenomenon, wouldn't it?"
"Hm. That makes me feel a bit like a chimera."
"Oh no, Bethy, you're definitely still yourself. Your soul isn't contained in any specific location in your body."
"But where is the soul, then?"
Jo just shook her head. She had no idea how to respond.
The night of Professor Dean Horton's lecture arrived. Fritz picked Jo up at six thirty. He wore black slacks and a pin-striped button-down shirt. Jo smiled as she caught a whiff of his cologne.
He kissed her forehead.
"It is called Geza Schon."
They arrived to find the auditorium half full. Fritz took Jo's hand and led her to a seat about halfway back. Jo looked around and saw a few students she recognized from some of her classes. A blonde smiled at her, and she smiled back.
About fifteen minutes later, Dean strode to the podium. Instantly, Jo had a flashback of Dieter stepping up to the podium of his church. Dean gulped water from the glass on the podium, then began to speak. After his welcome and a brief introduction, he got right to the point.
"It's becoming increasingly accepted among astrophysicists that the universe in which we live may not be all there is," he began. "Some leading scientists speculate that there may be in infinite number of universes, one for each possible outcome of every action. Every time a sentient being - one of us, that is - makes a decision, an alternative universe springs into being - one in which a different decision was made. Yes, I see that hand up in the back. I'll be happy to address all questions as soon as the lecture is over."
Jo looked around and saw curious looks on many faces. She herself was intrigued. She looked at Fritz and saw that he was paying rapt attention.
"What has this to do with time traveling, do you ask?" Dean continued. "Let me explain. As you all know, Einstein's Theory of Relativity states that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. However, electron microscopy has shown that subatomic particles do, indeed, travel faster than light, meaning that essentially, they go back in time."
Jo looked around and saw puzzled faces.
"Now, we all know what a black hole is," Dean continued. "A point in space and time in which gravity is so strong that not even light can escape from it. The opposite of a black hole is a white hole, which expels rather than pulls in everything with which it makes contact. The Big Bang which started our universe is one example of a white hole."
Dean took a few more sips of water. The auditorium was perfectly quiet and still.
"Some have hypothesized that a structure called a worm hole could be built by combing a black hole with a white hole. This worm hole could then be used as a kind of 'short cut' between two distant points. For instance, one could use a worm hole to a place millions of light years away in a much shorter time. Think of folding a map so that two points are brought closer together."
Memories of rescuing Dieter from the scaffold, of being swallowed up by a type of whirling vortex with him, returned to Jo with startling clarity. Could that experience have been the very thing of which Dean now spoke?
"The construction of a worm hole could enable one to travel through time as well as through space," said Dean. "It could connect two separate universes. If one could travel back in time and change something that happened in the past, he or she would simply create a new universe in which the alternate timeline would be followed."
Jo recalled returning to the twenty-first century only to find that Fritz was no longer there; that in fact, no one in that world was even aware he'd ever existed. A chill went up her spine. In traveling through time, had she, in fact, journeyed back and forth between alternate universes as well?