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gone_byebyeRho sat on the floor of someone else's room, his tools tucked neatly into his pocket. The blasted hat had come off the second he'd come off the staircase, the sunglasses had all but leaped into his hand- not that it mattered. He had other things that needed his attention.
Like the letter.
Dear Ray-
If you're reading this it means that you're some form of extradimensional exile, because I sure as heck don't need to be reading it. You've probably already run into a lot of people calling you Ray Stantz by now so I'm not gonna belabor the point. Let's go straight to the introductions- my name is Ray, and you wouldn't be in this room, reading this letter, if we weren't separate dimensional manifestations of one another. At least not if Bar's up to snuff, because the alternative is you're some kind of spook or something, but I kinda doubt that's gonna happen any time soon. The point is, if you're reading this you're in my room and going through my stuff, and Bar doesn't let that kind of thing happen without a good reason, so I figure I probably owe you an explanation of your circumstances. . .
What kind of man wrote letters to himself? Rho wondered. More importantly, what kind of man wrote them and didn't intend them as some kind of self-indulgent memory diary?
. . . I'm really sorry. I don't know why you're here and I'm not. If I had the choice I'd be explaining this to you in person, but I've yet to walk into any dimension where another Ray Stantz existed and find him still there when I arrived . . .
Would he have ended up like this if he'd stayed a civilian? If he'd never put on the suit, would he be in this guy's shoes now?
. . . attended Columbia University for my undergrad degree, but you probably knew that. Parapsychology and electrical engineering. . .
No parapsych at Columbia, not in Rho's world. They had it at Duke. Every so often Duke researchers hit on something not entirely of this world and had to be flashed for their own good. That was as close as they ever got.
. . .Mom and Dad died in a car accident on the LIE two days after I graduated. . .
That part. . . that part he knew. Right down to the marrow of his bones. That was the part where his name ended and the rest of his life began. But this guy just went on. Civilian work. Grad school. An experiment, a disaster, a thesis. A teaching job, and a pretty good one at that-
- and then, well, we got back to the lab and there was Dean Yager-
And then, it seemed, he'd gone right ahead and put on the suit anyway. Maybe not the one Rho was wearing, but if the rest of the letter was right, it really didn't sound all that different. Step outside the everyday and put yourself between the civvies and the monsters.
-all over the newspapers for weeks on end, you should've seen it-
He had a name. A face. An identity.
A family.
That's when Catherine threw in the towel. She doesn't want me talking to the boys without her around. I'm pretty sure she resents me for destroying any semblance of normal she ever might've had, but honestly, normal is overrated and I don't think she would ever have gotten along with anything I did anyway.
Rho flipped through the other pages. Most of them were dimensional physics equations and diagrams, or else history of various alternate dimensions Ray had been to and what he'd done there. The whole thing was a major, major security breach; clearly the guy hadn't even considered the possibility of an evil twin. Still, you didn't get to be in Rho's position without taking advantage of whatever fell to hand, right?
Sometimes I kind of wish I didn't have to write these letters, jumped out at him. I'll admit that. Sometimes I wish I was still at Columbia. I found out what would've happened if I hadn't been thrown out, of course, that's not pretty at all, but still. There are days when I kind of wish I was in the same boat as the rest of the population and that there was somebody else running around doing the work that I do. I'd kind of like to just be a scientist, just study- but that's not gonna happen, is it? If you're reading this I'm willing to bet you feel the same way I do, or that you did at some point, or that you will eventually.
Rho paused. It took him a minute to get up the willingness to continue.
But if you're like me, then you know that's not gonna happen. They need us- our worlds, and the people in them. I don't know if you ever read The Lord of the Rings, but- well. Neither of us is exactly Strider caliber, but we got the job anyway. Someone's gotta be out there hacking orcs if Barliman Butterbur is going to get to keep his nice comfy inn at Bree. We didn't want the job, but we took it, and we didn't walk away.
He put the letter down, and stood up, and turned his shades over and over in his hands for a long, long time.
Like the letter.
Dear Ray-
If you're reading this it means that you're some form of extradimensional exile, because I sure as heck don't need to be reading it. You've probably already run into a lot of people calling you Ray Stantz by now so I'm not gonna belabor the point. Let's go straight to the introductions- my name is Ray, and you wouldn't be in this room, reading this letter, if we weren't separate dimensional manifestations of one another. At least not if Bar's up to snuff, because the alternative is you're some kind of spook or something, but I kinda doubt that's gonna happen any time soon. The point is, if you're reading this you're in my room and going through my stuff, and Bar doesn't let that kind of thing happen without a good reason, so I figure I probably owe you an explanation of your circumstances. . .
What kind of man wrote letters to himself? Rho wondered. More importantly, what kind of man wrote them and didn't intend them as some kind of self-indulgent memory diary?
. . . I'm really sorry. I don't know why you're here and I'm not. If I had the choice I'd be explaining this to you in person, but I've yet to walk into any dimension where another Ray Stantz existed and find him still there when I arrived . . .
Would he have ended up like this if he'd stayed a civilian? If he'd never put on the suit, would he be in this guy's shoes now?
. . . attended Columbia University for my undergrad degree, but you probably knew that. Parapsychology and electrical engineering. . .
No parapsych at Columbia, not in Rho's world. They had it at Duke. Every so often Duke researchers hit on something not entirely of this world and had to be flashed for their own good. That was as close as they ever got.
. . .Mom and Dad died in a car accident on the LIE two days after I graduated. . .
That part. . . that part he knew. Right down to the marrow of his bones. That was the part where his name ended and the rest of his life began. But this guy just went on. Civilian work. Grad school. An experiment, a disaster, a thesis. A teaching job, and a pretty good one at that-
- and then, well, we got back to the lab and there was Dean Yager-
And then, it seemed, he'd gone right ahead and put on the suit anyway. Maybe not the one Rho was wearing, but if the rest of the letter was right, it really didn't sound all that different. Step outside the everyday and put yourself between the civvies and the monsters.
-all over the newspapers for weeks on end, you should've seen it-
He had a name. A face. An identity.
A family.
That's when Catherine threw in the towel. She doesn't want me talking to the boys without her around. I'm pretty sure she resents me for destroying any semblance of normal she ever might've had, but honestly, normal is overrated and I don't think she would ever have gotten along with anything I did anyway.
Rho flipped through the other pages. Most of them were dimensional physics equations and diagrams, or else history of various alternate dimensions Ray had been to and what he'd done there. The whole thing was a major, major security breach; clearly the guy hadn't even considered the possibility of an evil twin. Still, you didn't get to be in Rho's position without taking advantage of whatever fell to hand, right?
Sometimes I kind of wish I didn't have to write these letters, jumped out at him. I'll admit that. Sometimes I wish I was still at Columbia. I found out what would've happened if I hadn't been thrown out, of course, that's not pretty at all, but still. There are days when I kind of wish I was in the same boat as the rest of the population and that there was somebody else running around doing the work that I do. I'd kind of like to just be a scientist, just study- but that's not gonna happen, is it? If you're reading this I'm willing to bet you feel the same way I do, or that you did at some point, or that you will eventually.
Rho paused. It took him a minute to get up the willingness to continue.
But if you're like me, then you know that's not gonna happen. They need us- our worlds, and the people in them. I don't know if you ever read The Lord of the Rings, but- well. Neither of us is exactly Strider caliber, but we got the job anyway. Someone's gotta be out there hacking orcs if Barliman Butterbur is going to get to keep his nice comfy inn at Bree. We didn't want the job, but we took it, and we didn't walk away.
He put the letter down, and stood up, and turned his shades over and over in his hands for a long, long time.
