A little earlier, he had emerged carefully from the construction site once known as the Jussieu campus. No one had looked at him. Everything had been like he remembered it, the cold, wet air of winter, the patchwork of graffiti, the smell of the wet streets in the early morning. He had hidden the Jumper box under his jacket. It had worked one more time, miraculously. He had worried about it, that this might be his last chance.

But he had thought this one really looked good. Or at least he had hoped so. He had walked up Rue Cardinal Lemoine, alert for anything odd. He had seen so much, too much in the last year. He had crossed through worlds where the city had been a Third Reich capital, or where nothing but rats had survived the nuclear winter. He just had to be sure this was the right one, that this Paris was indeed home.

His heart almost sunk when he spotted the young couple at the corner with Rue Monge, kissing passionately on the doorsteps, maybe a goodbye. He stared at their bifurcated tongues searching each other’s and then disappearing again, when their lips pressed together. He walked on, trying not to attract too much attention. Maybe, he had thought, maybe it’s just something young people do, like pierced eyebrows, or nose rings. He had seen it somewhere on the web. But then the kiosk attendant had yawned. He was well into his sixties, and the twin tips of his split tongue curled up independently from each other. He paid for his copy of Libération, picking the correct currency among those of a dozen other worlds, and walked away. He scanned the newspaper, where in the haute couture section a top model offered a snake-like smile to the readers.

He sat down on the railings surrounding the entrance to the subway station. Everything else was in the right place. The fireman station across the road, the library dedicated to mystery books in the next building up the street. People walked around on their way to work like they had always done. Was it genetics? Was it ritualized scarring, like so many ancient practices in his home world? Nothing else seemed different in the paper. The president was visiting the overseas territories, and he looked exactly like the power-hungry and media-savvy jerk that had been elected shortly before he did his first jump. He felt sick, like something was broken inside, something that could never be put together again. He remembered initial wild excitement of discovery, and how it had faded during his endless odyssey. Infinite worlds were possible, but none ever felt right. It started to rain, and he kept looking at the flashing green cross of the pharmacy.

Later, in the sparsely furnished room of the auberge, he stood in front of the mirror and shivered, his clothes still wet, a razor blade in his hand, a trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth.

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