Epilogue

Meg climbed out of her old beater out of a car and cautiously approached the door. She knocked carefully. When it opened, Liz didn’t exactly greet her with a burst of warm enthusiasm. “Oh, it’s you. Look, I got a guy coming for an estimate on a new fridge, so make it fast, okay?”

“New fridge?” Meg said. “What’re you getting?”

'“Depends on what the insurance will cover,” Liz said. “I don’t know if there’s a provision for your refrigerator being smashed up by your best friend because of her psycho supervillain boyfriend. Know what, maybe you should stay; the insurance guy might want to ask you about it, Meg.”

Meg Atomic winced. The probabilities of her repairing her friendship with Liz were rapidly going south. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am, and if I could change any of it-”

She paused. A thought like lightning had struck her. Had she finished that sentence she would have said that she would’ve done everything differently, and they might have argued a bit more about it and tears almost certainly would’ve been shed but eventually they would have mended their differences and gone to a coffee shop or local bar to celebrate their rekindled friendship.

Meg Atomic never did finish that sentence, however. Instead she reached out with her powers of probability determination to see not just what could happen but what would have happened. If she’d managed to stop Keith from blasting her with the Pharma-Death Beam- if she hadn’t kissed him on that second date - if she hadn’t gone out with him in the first place- if she’d never spoken to him-

-if he didn’t exist

-if she didn’t exist

The very vortices of Time spun out before her like a fidget spinner gone mad. Without entirely meaning to, she reached out with a graviton pulse wave in an attempt to stop it. Gravity and Time collided in a way they hadn’t quite done before.

“Hey,” Liz said, waving her hand in front of Meg’s unblinking eyes. “Hey, Meg? You kinda zoned out on me. Meg? Meg, you there?”

Quite suddenly Meg Atomic vanished, without any warning at all.

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Thank you for reading this thirteen-episode serial, Quarks of the Heart. Stay tuned for more adventures in Edison City! And as they say in the movies, Meg Atomic will return.

Quarks of the Heart