The morning after Bohr's visit, I found myself staring at my reflection in the mirror longer than usual. Not to admire it—how could I, when it wasn't truly mine?—but to search for any hint of the person I used to be. Whoever that was. The lines on the face were Einstein's. The eyes, too. But something behind them flickered like a faulty projector reel, skipping frames between one reality and the next.
A knock interrupted my reverie. Not sharp like Bohr's. This one was frantic, unmeasured. The door creaked open before I could respond.
It was Mileva.
She stepped inside, her cheeks flushed, strands of hair escaping the careful braid she usually wore. She clutched a telegram in one trembling hand.
"You need to see this," she said.
I took it, reading quickly.
EINSTEIN SUMMONED TO BERLIN. URGENT. ARRIVAL REQUESTED BY HEISENBERG. DO NOT DELAY.
My blood ran cold. Heisenberg. Another towering intellect. Brilliant. Merciless. And—if my scattered memory served me right—an adherent to a different school of thought. Less forgiving. More probing. Bohr had warned me: not everyone would ask questions before drawing conclusions.
"Did you know about this?" she asked, voice low.
I shook my head. "No. Nothing."
"Then why do they want you now? So suddenly?"
"That," I said, folding the telegram carefully, "is what worries me."
The train to Berlin was uneventful, though my thoughts were not. I replayed every interaction from the past few days like a physicist obsessing over a flawed experiment. Had I let something slip? Was my phrasing off? Did someone notice my hesitation before certain answers, the microsecond it took for me to 'recall' knowledge I shouldn't have needed to think about?
Berlin's sky was overcast when I arrived, heavy with the kind of clouds that felt thick enough to bruise. A car was waiting. Black, polished, official-looking. The driver gave no name, only a nod, and off we went.
The building we pulled up to was unfamiliar. Not a university. A government facility? My escort—tall, unsmiling—led me down pristine corridors lined with wood paneling and silence. No words were exchanged until we reached a door that looked no different from the dozens we had passed. He knocked once and opened it.
Inside stood Heisenberg.
He was younger than I remembered from textbooks—sharp-eyed, fox-like, with the bearing of a man who knew the weight his words could carry.
"Einstein," he said, gesturing to a chair. "Thank you for coming."
I sat. The room was austere: one table, two chairs, a chalkboard with half-erased equations that teased at incompleteness.
"We've been watching your recent lectures," Heisenberg began, tone deceptively casual. "And your latest papers—remarkable, truly. But also… different."
I gave a neutral nod, careful not to speak first.
"You speak of uncertainty as if it's a language you were born into," he continued, echoing Bohr's earlier words. "Not merely a theory to be learned. It's as though you've bypassed the years of struggle and simply arrived at insight."
"I suppose some thoughts feel… familiar," I said. "Even when they shouldn't."
His eyes narrowed, dissecting my sentence like it was an experiment to be falsified.
"And then there's this," Heisenberg said, retrieving a folder from his desk.
Another folder. My heart thudded.
But this one was different—thicker, and filled not just with my notes, but with records. Surveillance photographs. Transcripts. Dates. An entire dossier on me.
"Some of your habits don't match the man we've known for years," Heisenberg said. "Writing styles have changed. Even your accent, on occasion, flickers between dialects. We've consulted linguists."
"And you think I'm an imposter?" I asked, forcing a calm I didn't feel.
"I think you're something else," he replied, tapping a finger on the folder. "Perhaps not fraudulent—but altered. Displaced. As if the frame is right, but the painting inside is different."
"And what do you plan to do about it?" I asked, surprised by my own defiance.
Heisenberg stood, walking to the chalkboard. "Do you believe in the Many-Worlds Interpretation?"
I blinked. "You mean the idea that every quantum decision spawns an alternate reality?"
"Precisely. That every possibility exists somewhere. That every life, every choice, forks into another."
I nodded slowly.
"What if," he said, chalk in hand, "you are the byproduct of a collapse gone… awry? A consciousness from one strand bleeding into another?"
He turned to face me. "What if you are proof?"
I stared at him. Not with disbelief—but recognition. Because deep down, I had begun to suspect the same.
"Then why summon me here?" I asked. "If you already believe that?"
"Because proof is dangerous," Heisenberg said, his voice suddenly colder. "And if others find out—those with less curiosity and more authority—you won't be questioned. You'll be erased."
The silence that followed was a gravity unto itself.
"But I won't let that happen," he added, almost reluctantly. "Not yet. There is knowledge to be mined here. Understanding. You're not a threat to me—you're a variable. One I intend to study."
"Like an experiment?"
"Like an anomaly. One that could redefine our understanding of consciousness, reality, and identity."
"And if I refuse?"
He gave a thin smile. "Then we'll both lose. But I suspect you want answers as badly as I do."
I didn't respond. Not because I disagreed—but because I couldn't trust the sound of my own voice.
He stepped closer, the chalk in his fingers now a pointer, not a tool. "I'm giving you a chance, Einstein—whoever you are. To collaborate. To unlock something beyond even your namesake's dreams."
He extended his hand.
I stared at it. Not out of hesitation, but awe. For in that moment, I realized the danger wasn't discovery—it was invitation. The invitation to become something not merely other, but greater.
I took his hand.
The pact was made.
And somewhere, across the fabric of realities, the echo of that handshake began to ripple.
.