Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) Read Free

away. But life doesn’t work like that. You
know it as well as I do. Better, in fact.”
    Al sipped his coffee, trying to soothe a
suddenly dry throat.
    “It’s happened before,” she continued. “You
pretend to be some kind of hard-headed cynic who doesn’t feel a
thing, but then you get into these moods, like when you handled the
story about the Nazi-hunters a few weeks ago.”
    “That doesn’t have anything to do with—”
    “With magically changing headlines? 
Maybe not. But the Nazi story sure set you off. For days, you kept
talking about how you ought to be doing more than playing the
professional observer.”
    She ran a finger over the hand he had wrapped
around his coffee cup.
    “Vickie,” he began uncertainly, “you know
that I was born in Berlin on the day Hitler became chancellor of
Germany. That day was the beginning of the end for our family in
Europe. Every year, on my birthday, my parents would take the time
to remember relatives who didn’t see or couldn’t believe what was
happening in Germany and paid for it in the death camps. That’s a
memory I can’t just forget.”
    “And you shouldn’t forget it, Al. But
that doesn’t mean you have to pay some sort of debt just for
surviving. I’m glad your parents were smart enough to see
what was  coming and get to America before it was too late.
I’m Jewish, too, and—”
    “You don’t understand!” Al exclaimed, nearly
spilling his coffee as he jumped to his feet. “I survived! There
must be a reason for that. I know I’m supposed to
do...something! That’s one of the reasons I went into this
business. I thought being a newspaperman would help me understand
the world better, help me figure out what I’m supposed to do.
Instead, I just sit at that desk day after day after day, and
nothing changes. At least it didn’t until today.”
    Vickie blinked, as if shifting mental gears.
“Listen,” she said as Al sank back into his chair.  “You say
you saved Roberts’ life more or less by wishing it, but  you
know that can’t be so. The first reports were wrong. You wanted
Roberts to be alive, and then you found out he was alive.
But it wasn’t a miracle. Roberts was never dead in the first
place!”
    Al sighed and ran his fingers through his
coarse brown hair. The soft ticking of the old-fashioned school
clock on the wall resounded in his ears, and the air felt heavy and
oppressive. Suddenly, he laughed. It was a bitter, ironic laugh.
“You don’t understand,” he said quietly, shaking his head
sadly.
    Vickie stood and leaned across the table to
kiss him tenderly on the mouth. “Al, I love you. Maybe it’s the
romantic idealist in you that I love most. But you’ve got to see
that what you’ve told me doesn’t make any sense. It’s plain
impossible.”
    With a considerable effort of will, Al
hardened his features into what he hoped was a resolute expression.
The less certain he felt, the more firmly he defended his version
of what had happened—not only to Vickie, but also to himself.
    “There has to be a rational explanation,”
Vickie said. “I know it seemed the way you described it,
but—”  He pressed his lips together and shook his head. “Look,
Al, headlines just don’t change by themselves!”
    He took a deep breath and looked away. “E
pur si muove,” he muttered.
    Vickie frowned in confusion. “Huh?”
      He gazed deeply into her
dark-brown eyes.
    “This headline changed!”
     

Chapter 1: What’s in the Box

      Sunday, May 16, 2021

     “ Stop it!” Rayna Kingman begged
the tall, muscular man at her side as she knuckled away tears of
laughter and opened the door to her apartment. “Don’t be
mean!  I only did it once. Besides, I warned you that I wasn’t
a particularly good tennis player.” 
    “Yes,” Keith Daniels responded, “but you
didn’t tell me you attack your doubles partners from the
rear!”  He bent forward, screwed his tanned face into an
expression of mock agony and stumbled