His room was messier than usual, not that I cared. Clothes were strewn about. A half-eaten pound cake sat in a chair. In the corner hung a thick curtain, which partially concealed a black box with wires sticking out. On it was an old-timey numeral display and a big red button begging to be pressed.

“It’s a quantum random number generator.” I heard his voice from inside his chest, first, under my ear. “Picks one out of a million. If the many-worlds interpretation is true — which it is, by the way — it samples the number by splitting the universe into a million branches, each with a different result.”

“Related to your latest project?” I didn’t really care about the whole quantum thing, but he was hot, so.

“Yup. I have proof of the multiverse.”

“That sounds … unlikely.” I trailed a finger along his collarbone.

He barked a sudden laugh. “You don’t even know.”

My hand twined in his, and he pressed it against his cheek. I felt his chest rise and fall. “How does it work?”

“It sends my consciousness into a universe where I have the evidence, basically.”

“Uh-huh. Next you’ll tell me you’re a time traveler.”

“I am. So are you. We’re actually traveling through time right now.” He smirked down at me.

I scrunched my nose at him. “So you’re getting the Nobel prize, or something?”

“Well, I only hooked it up to the … device, last night.”

“What kind of device?”

He hesitated. “A decisive one.”

“Mhm. Define decisive.”

“If it picks three hundred thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three, nothing happens. Otherwise…” He put a finger gun against his temple. “Bang.”

I stared. “You’re joking. Why would you do that?”

“Well, I always thought three is my lucky number.”

I smacked his chest.

“Fine, fine. The point is, the chances of surviving are literally one in a million, so that should be pretty strong proof that every possibility is happening in parallel.”

“You’re going to kill yourself a million times?”

“Not a million,” he raised a finger. “Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine-hundred and ninety-nine.”

I gave him a withering stare.

“It’s not like I’m actually going to die.” He rolled his eyes. “You can’t experience something without a you to experience it, after all. From my perspective I’ll just press the button and see the magic number.”

“You’re serious?”

“Yeah, I’m serious.”

“What the fuck, what the fuck, that’s so messed up!”

“Look, it’s my choice where I propagate my consciousness, or whatever. It’s like a vasectomy.”

“No, it’s not like a vasectomy, it’s murder!”

“Weren’t you telling me about how important the right to euthanasia is, the other day?”

“I’m a nurse! That has nothing to do with you killing yourself for some stupid science fair project.”

“Holy shit, look. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to walk over there, do the experiment, come back, and we’re going to fuck. Okay?”

Before I could react, he swung up and walked behind the curtain. I saw his hand slam down on the button.