Other Worlds Than These

troublesome JoJo—the JoJo who still carries that unseemly transdimensional grudge against her mother, your aunt (non-prime to her, actually, though that JoJo refuses to acknowledge it)—with another more agreeable version of JoJo. And good riddance! Carrying that type of transdimensional baggage really is childish and unacceptable. Talk to the two remaining JoJos and explain to them that this is your special day, that weddings are expensive and that you decide how many variants of your guests can attend. If they don’t like it, zap, get yourself two more replacements. As for your fiance’s desire to turn your wedding night into an orgy, you’ll have to forgive me, honey, but you might want to zap yourself a variant who has a little more regard for your feelings. (After the wedding night, he can indulge in whatever multiple-you shenanigans you and other consenting variants of you wish to engage. But on the wedding night? He’s a pig!) Finally, to reduce the stress, snatch another you out of the Snatcher and delegate these wedding tasks to your self. Then mix yourself a margarita and head to the sim-beach for some well-deserved RNR.

== 12. ==

Dear Annabehls:

I’ve come to the depressing realization that my life is empty and truly, truly meaningless. Over the past few years I’ve met variants of myself who’ve led fascinating lives: one lived in a remote village in Guatemala where he helped construct homes for the poor; one skydived at sunset from a stealth copter into the Grand Canyon’s Colorado River; another made a point of scaling Everest every autumn and making love to a beautiful woman on its snowy mountaintops. When I think about my own life, Annabehl, I’m struck by the safe choices I’ve made. I spend my days focused on the tedium of an office job I’ve never really wanted, caring for an elderly mother who doesn’t even recognize me anymore, living life just going through the motions. I can see the remainder of my humdrum life stretched out in front of me, only I’m trying to pretend that I don’t see it, Annabehl, because I know I don’t have the ability to make any changes anyway and thinking about it just makes me feel more hopeless and impotent. And what does it matter what I choose to do? For every South American village I’ve never visited, for every mountain peak I’ve never climbed, another version of me is out there embarking on those adventures anyway. Nothing seems to matter anymore.

Jacob/Salt Lake City, Utah

Dear Jacob:

I’m not going to tell you to stop feeling sorry for yourself. And I’m not going to tell you to get up off your keister and make some changes in your life. Why bother? Somewhere some variant of you is making those necessary changes. You see, essentially you’re right. Whatever you decide to do really is meaningless. But there’s certainly nothing to be gained by being depressed about this fact either. You’re suffering from classic symptoms of Variant Inadequacy, kiddo, which is not at all uncommon. To give yourself a better perspective, you need to interact with some downfrequency variants who don’t have it anywhere near as good as you. Heck, nothing cheers a person up more quickly than studying the misery of his variants. So pop open a beer, visit the Snatcher, and just relax.

Annabehl, Annabehl, Annabehl, Annabehl and Annabehl concur with Annabehl’s advice.

Annabehl, Annabehl and Annabehl dissent with the substance of the advice, but concur in the recommendation of a beer.

Annabehl abstains.

== 13. ==

000000000000000000111000000000000000000011110000000000000 000000099115555000000000000000000007700000000000000000000 0000Dear Annabehls: 0000011111333377777777700099999999999999 99:

I’m afraid. So afraid I can barely function. I feel totally adrift, as if nothing, no one, that I know is quite right. It’s difficult to explain, but sometimes I swear I don’t recognize my children. Didn’t I used to have a uni-daughter named Allison? I have a memory, a fading dream-memory of brushing her tangled blond hair. The thing is, I know no one has uni-daughters, certainly not me. I have an adorable set of identical septuplet boys. And while I know that this is my house, why do I sometimes find myself stumbling into rooms I never even knew existed? And my friends. Why do I forget their names? Sometimes I stare into the mirror-eyes of our pet elphine, and I don’t even recognize my own reflection. The diagonal rows of black eyes that speckle my face seem unfamiliar to me. I’m afraid, afraid that the walls between realities have finally crumbled, and that I’m the only one who sees it. Wasn’t the sky blue a long time ago? I could swear that it used to be. Didn’t we used to walk upright on two legs? I’m lost, Annabehls. I don’t think I know who or what I am any more.

Lost in Newfoundland

000000000000099555577777777999000000000000000000000000000 00Dear Lost: 9999999999999999900077777777111100000000000000 07

We’re sorry to say that there’s only one reality, dear, and we’re stuck with it. The sky has always been deep red, we’ve always skittered on six legs, and we’ve always come in sets of seven, nine or thirteen. It’s not unusual to sometimes feel out of place, to feel cast adrift like a wind-blown ember in the eye of a black tornado, everything around you changing while you’re standing still. We’ve felt that way ourselves, sometimes. Do what we do, Lost. Buck up. Fly high on the fumes of ecsahol, if necessary. And relax.

THE GOAT VARIATIONS JEFF VANDERMEER

Jeff VanderMeer is a two-time winner of the World Fantasy Award whose stories have been published by Tor.com, Clarkesworld, Conjunctions, Black Clock, and several year’s best anthologies. Recent books include the Nebula finalist novel Finch (2009), and the short story collection The Third Bear (2010). His The Steampunk Bible was featured on CBS This Morning and been named a finalist for the Hugo Award for best related book. He also recently co-edited the mega-compendium The Weird with his wife Ann. A co-founder of Shared Worlds, a teen SF/F writing camp, VanderMeer has been a guest speaker at the Library of Congress and MIT, among others. He writes book reviews for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times Book Review, and the Washington Post. VanderMeer’s latest novel, just completed, is Annihilation.

It would have been hot, humid in September in that city, and the Secret Service would have gone in first, before him, to scan for hostile minds, even though it was just a middle school in a county he’d won in the elections, far away from the fighting. He would have emerged from the third black armored vehicle, blinking and looking bewildered as he got his bearings in the sudden sunlight. His aide and the personal bodyguards who had grown up protecting him would have surrounded him by his first step onto the asphalt of the driveway. They would have entered the school through the front, stopping under the sign for photos and a few words with the principal, the television cameras recording it all from a safe distance.

He would already be thinking past the event, to the next, and how to prop up sagging public approval ratings, due both to the conflict and what the press called his recent “indecision,” which he knew was more analogous to “sickness.” He would be thinking about, or around, the secret cavern beneath the Pentagon and the pale, almost grublike face of the adept in his tank. He would already be thinking about the machine.

By the end of the photo op, the sweat itches on his forehead, burns sour in his mouth, but he has to ignore it for the cameras. He’s turning a new word over and over in his mind, learned from a Czech diplomat. Ossuary. A word that sounds free and soaring, but just means a pile of skulls. The latest satellite photos from the battlefield states of Kansas, Nebraska, and Idaho make him think of the word. The evangelicals have been eschewing god-missiles for more personal methods of vengeance, even as they tie down federal armies in an endless guerilla war. Sometimes he feels like he’s presiding over a pile of skulls.

The smile on his face has frozen into a rictus as he realizes there’s something wrong with the sun; there’s a