"...a refreshing departure from the usual cliches of popular Christian fiction."--Publisher's Weekly

"With this thrilling and ominous tale, Myers continues to shine brightly in speculative fiction based on biblical truths. Highly recommended."--Library Journal

Monday was an inconvenient time to die. Come to think of it, Tuesday through Sunday weren't all that agreeable either. Conrad Davis had too many important things to do. Too many fires to put out. Too many producers to plead with, cajole, and, if necessary, circumvent.

Not interesting? Too cerebral? What were they talking about? Did they honestly think TV audiences were that stupid?

"Give us another multibirth story," they'd said. "Those McCaughey septuplets, don't they have a birthday coming up? Or how about another psychic piece -- some mother visited by her dead daughter; those always work."

"Guys..." Conrad glanced around the table in the smoke-filled war room. He could already feel the back of his neck beginning to tighten. "We're talking about a major scientific breakthrough here."

But the other producers of the prime time news magazine, Up Front, continued without hearing. "Or how 'bout another cripple story," suggested Peggy Martin, one of the few females on staff. "Some guy in a wheelchair climbing Mount Everest or something."

"Guys..."

"We did that last November."

"Guys!"

"Listen, Connie." It was Phil Harrison, the show's exec. He took a drag off his cigarette and motioned to the monitor where they'd just viewed a rough cut of Conrad's segment. "All we're saying is that this piece is too cerebral. I mean, 'Parallel Universes'? Come on, who cares?"

Leo Singer, a rival producer, snickered. "Next time he'll be doing a piece on quantum physics."

The rest of the room chuckled. It was supposed to be good-natured, but Conrad knew that nothing in this dog-eat-dog world of TV journalism was good-natured. One or two missteps, like producing a worthless segment that no one cared about, could spell disaster -- especially with five thousand kids half his age waiting in the wings for his job.

"Is that what you would have said about the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk?" Conrad argued. "Or the moon landing, or the invention of the light bulb -- that it's too cerebral? What we're talking about is the existence of other realities right here beside our own, worlds identical to ours but with minor, or sometimes major, differences."

"Worlds we can't even see," another producer pointed out.

"How convenient," Singer sighed.

Peggy Martin added, "And worlds that have no effect upon the lives of our viewers."

Conrad glanced at the faces around the table. He was going down for the count, and his colleagues, better known as competitors, were doing their best to keep him there. But he'd been in this position a hundred times before, refusing to dish out pabulum for the masses, insisting upon truth and relevancy. That's how he'd earned the two Emmys and those countless other awards.

"Connie." It was Harrison again. "This professor that you interviewed... what's his name?"

"Endo."

"All this Professor Endo has is theory, right?"

"Plus support from top world physicists," Conrad corrected, "not to mention some staggering mathematical formulas."

"Oh, mathematics, that'll kick up the ratings," Singer scoffed. Others around the table agreed. The tension from Conrad's neck crept into the base of his skull.

Harrison continued. "If there was something tangible, something you could show on tape, then you'd have a story. But this..." Harrison shook his head and dropped his cigarette into the half-empty can of Diet Coke. It hissed quietly as he turned to the next producer. "Wolff, how's that toxic-waste segment coming?"

The meeting had been less than two hours ago, and Conrad was already back on the 101 heading north out of Los Angeles. Professor Endo lived an hour outside the city in the town of Camarillo. If they wanted something tangible, he'd get something tangible. Not because this story was a great passion of his, but because he needed it. Despite his twenty-five years in news, despite past accolades, a setback like this could seriously cripple a career. That's how the business was. There was no resting on your laurels. You were only as good as your last segment. And if your last segment was a failure...

It had started to rain, the first time since early April. Conrad reached over and turned on his wipers. The blades had rotted from last summer's sun, and their first few passes left dirty smears. How ironic. Here he was driving a $72,000 Jaguar but couldn't find the time to replace its wiper blades. But that's how it was with everything in his life -- too busy winning the prizes to enjoy them. And he had won them, won them all, everything he'd ever wanted and more: great job, great pay, esteem from his peers, plenty of toys, beautiful wives (although a few more than he'd intended), and the list went on. Yet over the past several years, the list had begun to grow more and more meaningless. And, though he tried his best to ignore it, an empty hollowness had begun gnawing and eating away at him. He'd won the game, all right; the only problem was that neither the victory nor the prizes meant anything.

He pumped the washer fluid a few times and the smearing on the windshield thinned. Glancing at his speedometer, he eased back to 70. Besides the oil that had accumulated on the pavement these many rainless weeks, there was also the recurring amnesia Southern Californians suffer whenever it comes to remembering how to drive on wet roads. He'd been in several fender benders since moving to L.A., many of them thanks to the rain.

He rolled his head, trying to work out the tension in his neck. He pulled a bottle of Motrin from his coat pocket, popped another handful into his mouth, and glanced around for something to wash them down. Nothing. Just a couple empty Taco Bell bags, some wadded up Big Mac wrappers, and a stale bag of corn chips. Ah, the glamorous life of a TV reporter. He held the pills on his tongue until he accumulated enough saliva to swallow one. Then he repeated the process for the next, and the next, and the next -- each one going down a little harder than the last.

A sign read 23 Freeway North. Good. Just a couple more miles, then down the steep grade into Camarillo. He'd already put in a call to his favorite cameraman, Ned Burton, as well as to the lighting and sound guys, to meet him there. And, before that, to Professor Endo, who was only too happy to oblige with another interview.

"Something tangible?" the doctor had asked in his faint Japanese accent.

"Exactly," Conrad said. "Your theories and formulas, they're all very interesting, but we need something we can show on tape, something the audience can grasp."

"Certainly, that will be no problem."

"Really? Like what? Eyewitnesses? People who have seen these--"

The old man chuckled. "I am afraid that if there are eyewitnesses to such universes, you would find them locked up in insane asylums, or involved in drug rehab programs."

"Then what?" Conrad asked. "How can you physically prove the existence of parallel universes if no one has seen them?"

"It is an old experiment, really. I am sorry I did not mention it to you before."

"What do you need to set it up?"

"I have all that is necessary at the lab. Just a board with two small slits cut into it and a low-powered laser."

"That's it?"

"That is all. We shine the laser onto the two slits and record how many slits of light appear on the wall behind it."

"I don't understand. Two slits in the board will cast two slits on the wall."

"Actually, they will cast several more than two."

"Several? That's impossible."

"You will see for yourself. And if we cut two more slits in the board how many will appear on the wall?"

Conrad frowned. "I'd say four, but you're going to tell me twice as many as whatever the two slits were."

"Actually, with four slits there will be half as many bands of light as if there were only two slits."

"That's crazy."

"Yes, if you are thinking in terms of a single universe. But ask today's best scientific minds, Stephen Hawking and others, and they will say invisible light beams from other worlds similar to ours that are involved in the very same experiment at the very same time are actually interfering with some of our beams."

"And you can prove this?"

"I shall be waiting for you in the lab."

Even as he thought over the conversation, Conrad shook his head. To think that there was another one of him traveling to another Camarillo to meet with another professor at this exact same moment -- it was incomprehensible. And not just one of him, but millions, all identical. Well, not exactly identical, because according to Endo, each of his counterparts still had a free will to make different decisions along the way. One Conrad Davis could have waited to ride with his crew. Another could have agreed with his boss to cancel the segment. Or another could have decided to pursue philosophy in college instead of journalism. And on and on it went, the possibilities infinite.

Then there was the matter of time...