19 Black Holes And Earthquakes

Penelope had to think about it. If whatever force had brought her here by mistake righted itself naturally and the real Penelope Cross came back, it would be pretty terrible of her to leave a broken marriage behind for her.

But what if it didn't? What if she was stuck here forever living a lie?

Percy was right that it could be a lot worse. This world had a lot more to offer than hers did. Still, it wouldn't be fair to either her or Roman. She didn't love him. She wasn't the woman he grew up with.

Over time, Penelope might develop a certain fondness for him but it would all be based on a false identity. He deserved better than that.

And so did she! She had always hoped to fall in love with someone who would love her for who she was. Playing the role of a similar but separate person wouldn't be fulfilling.

"Percy…I really can't keep lying to him. What if I slip up again?" she asked desperately.

"I already told you; I'll coach you on anything you want to know. But in return, I'd like to know more about your world. The mind of a scientist is always thirsty for knowledge," Percy replied cheerfully, a complete 180 from earlier.

This conversation was giving Penelope whiplash. "O…kay?"

They arrived at the crepe place without another word and gave their orders. He got a Nutella and strawberries crepe while she got a bananas foster one.

Once they sat down at a table, Percy smiled at her with that familiar mad scientist look in his eye. "So. Tell me everything you can about your world. Technology, people, recent events, the state of the planet…things like that."

Honestly, Penelope should have expected this level of curiosity from him sooner. He had already asked a few questions for comparison that day in the hospital.

She tried to think about the kind of things he would be interested in. "Let's see…we have voice controlled robotic systems that look things up for us or do certain commands when linked to other devices in the house. Do you guys have that here?"

Percy shook his head, his eyes shining. Suddenly his expression was like a puppy begging for a treat. "No, we don't! Tell me more."

Penelope ended up going on about various technical innovations from the past few years in as much detail as she could manage. He would probably have a lot more fun talking to his other self.

What things had her Percy been excited about recently? It took her a moment to remember.

"Oh, you'll like this. They managed to get the first ever picture of a black hole last year. It was pretty blurry and looked like a fuzzy orange ring surrounded by blackness but you—the other you—totally freaked out about how huge of an achievement it was," she said with a shrug.

His eyes grew to the size of saucers and Penelope couldn't help but laugh. He ended up asking her a ton of rapid-fire question about the kind of camera they used to get a picture so many millions of miles away that she answered as best she could with what her Percy had told her.

They stayed on the topic of the black hole picture until the food arrived. When it did, he finally changed the subject.

"What about the state of the planet? Any weird weather changes? Seismic activity? One of my professors is a seismologist so I've been very interested in tectonic plate movements lately," Percy said with a mouth full of crepe.

Random, but he had asked her weirder things before back in her world. She may as well indulge him. This sort of conversation was familiar and helped her relax even though they had talked about something stressful not long before.

There actually had been quite a bit of seismic activity in the area lately. Utah got hit with multiple 4.4 magnitude ones in the space of about a week and had to deal with the aftershocks too. Not long after, California had a 4.6.

Everyone had been talking about it. The call center she worked at did customer service for a credit card company and a bunch of her callers had wanted to talk about it while she looked things up related to their accounts.

Percy went to Caltech in both worlds and seemed to have the same professor who was a seismologist because he had gone on forever and a day about what caused earthquakes after it happened.

It made sense that he went to the same school in both places. He was a certified genius and had graduated from high school at age sixteen with most of an associate degree already completed. Caltech offered him a full-ride scholarship and he wasn't about to refuse because they had the program he wanted.

"There actually has been a series of earthquakes but they were primarily centered on Utah along the Wasatch Fault," Penelope told him, relaying as much as she could remember over the next few minutes.

He went quiet for a moment, pausing with a forkful of crepe halfway to his mouth. "Hmm. Interesting. I have heard that a huge earthquake of 6.0 or higher in magnitude is overdue from that fault line, statistically speaking."

"That's what the other you said," she responded with a shrug. "He said it that it shouldn't affect us too much even if it did happen unless aftershocks somehow made it down to the San Andreas Fault triggering a closer series of quakes."

This sort of random science talk was perfectly normal for Percy. Penelope was full of a bunch of useless information because of him, such as how antibiotics were created and the genes responsible for bioluminescence that were genetically spliced into those GloFish you see in pet stores.

Percy resumed eating his crepe thoughtfully, an indecipherable expression on his face. What exactly was so perplexing about earthquakes that happened in another world? He was such a science nerd.