Penelope continued massaging Roman's shoulders for the next ten minutes before he sighed in satisfaction and thanked her. He turned on the TV and started browsing through Netflix for a movie to watch.
"Any preferences?" he asked.
"No."
She was certain he already knew what she liked. There wasn't anything she was particularly in the mood for anyway. She was feeling strange after their conversation just now.
Roman ended up choosing a documentary about the world of wine auctioning and how a counterfeiter got away with selling millions of dollars' worth of false merchandise. It was completely random but also fascinating.
Penelope had always enjoyed weird documentaries. A few months ago, she had watched five documentaries in a single glorious day off when she had no other commitments.
One was true crime and another was about a sushi master who owned a famous restaurant. This was right up her alley.
She tried sticking to her recliner cushion but Roman kept scooting closer and closer until their arms were touching. Eventually he abandoned pretenses entirely and used her lap as a pillow.
Nobody had done this with her in years so Penelope was more than a little taken aback. But she had a hunch that this was perfectly normal behavior for him. He did seem like a rather physically affectionate person based on her few interactions with him.
"Hey, Roman?" she began hesitantly, wanting him to move.
He looked up at her with affection shining in his gorgeous eyes. "Yeah?"
Ugh, this wasn't fair! That attack was lethal. "…never mind."
Penelope groaned inwardly. She really, really needed to talk to Percy. This wasn't going to work. Couldn't she stay with him instead? Spending this much time with someone else's husband was messing with her head.
===
Percy had been diving deep into the internet reading and rereading every article he could find about multiverse theory. Sifting through the legitimate ones and the ones written by completely delusional people took time.
He had consulted with people from a physics forum after posting the following message.
'I have compelling evidence suggesting that my sister has been replaced with a version of herself from a parallel world. What sort of spatial distortion would cause this and how can I fix it?'
He included the list of mismatched information Penelope gave him after waking up post-surgery underneath so they knew he was being serious. To a lover of physics, there was no other plausible explanation.
While he was talking to her in the hospital about his sister's life, Percy also remembered to ask a few other questions about differences between her world and this one. Things like who the president was and who had won the last Super Bowl.
The technology and culture seemed to be virtually the same but the president here was the vice president in the other world. Small, insignificant details like that.
There were probably a few other small differences in terms of media and who was popular where. Part of him wanted to pick Penelope's brain on the matter but the other part of him wanted to limit his contact with her.
He could not allow himself to become sympathetic to her plight back in the other world and lose focus. His real sister belonged here, not her. He couldn't leave Penny to deal with two jobs and a dead father when she should be here with the career and husband she loved.
InfiniT, another user on the forum, responded to his message.
'Intriguing. If I were you, I would gather as much information from her about the makeup of the supposed other world. Seismic activity, natural disasters, electromagnetic fields, etc. Spatial disturbances don't happen without reason'
InfiniT made an excellent point. But Percy wasn't sure how much Penelope kept up with the news or if anything like that had been happening in her area.
Getting proper information out of her would be tricky, especially without tipping her off that he was trying to send her back. He could always pretend it was simple curiosity. That might work.
Penelope's life here was so much better than the one she left behind. He worried she wouldn't cooperate with him if she knew he was actively trying to set things right.
'Not to be rude…but is your sister at all historically significant? I'm wondering if that might be a factor in why she was chosen to pass through the break in reality' another user called saturnsrings wrote.
'She isn't now but I can't speak for the future' Percy typed back.
Penny, historically significant? Highly doubtful. She was a graphic designer and the other one worked two dead end jobs. Although he supposed one of her descendants could be historically significant later on.
Or perhaps…this was a horrible thought but what if this happened because of him? Was he meant to research parallel worlds and become a big name in the world of quantum physics because of this?
No. That was far too egotistical to consider. This was more likely to be a horrible accident.
'My money is on her being the closest person to the spatial disturbance, either on our end or in the other world. The real question is figuring out which side it came from' a third user called absolute00 said.
How would Percy even look into that? He would need the right equipment…if the disturbance had occurred in this world it probably centered on Roman's hospital.
Would any of his professors have what he needed? Even if they did…would they be willing to loan it to him? He would have to make up something bogus about conducting other research.
Not everyone believed multiverse theory even among physics enthusiasts. He couldn't come across as a zealot who had lost his mind or he would lose all credibility at Caltech. That simply wouldn't do.
Their facilities were excellent; he needed them to continue his research for the time being. As a senior, he had access to more than underclassmen did. That was the benefit of skipping ahead two grades when he was younger.
He planned to get a PhD after this and conduct all sorts of astrophysics research. MIT had offered him a full-ride scholarship after he accidentally discovered multiple new exoplanets and he would start up there in the fall.
He didn't have much time left to access Caltech's equipment since graduation was in June. He had to get this figured out before then!