The Broken Universe (25 page)

*   *   *

Four days later, the party was boisterous and wild. Gesalex was dead. Grauptham House was theirs. As far as they could see, their enemies were vanquished.

The pinball factory thumped with music that Henry Case was playing from a huge stereo system that they had transferred in from his universe, Universe 7625 or Universe Case, which was one of the few universes where John had gotten into the Case Institute of Technology. The center of the factory floor had been cleared and Johns and Caseys, Graces and Henrys moved in rhythm to the sound. John found himself dancing closely with a Casey he couldn’t be sure was his. After a moment of concern, he decided it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was Casey Prime. He found himself momentarily aroused by the thought.

Even Clotilde was there, the only singleton among them. She was easy to spot on the dance floor, taller than any other woman out there, and platinum blond. She was dancing close to John Ten, John assumed. The rest of the Alarian women were in 7601.

Though they could have returned to 7650, the Alarian women chose not to. They were already looking for jobs in Toledo, as store clerks, cashiers, cooks, and maids. John made it clear that they could do whatever they wished; Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional, would support them indefinitely. This was firmly and politely refused. Englavira had spent the first three days in 7650 identifying all the remaining Alarian half-breeds by looking through the personnel files. Each Alarian was fired and offered a cash buyout, if they happened to own stock. The ticket to another universe remained open, and most took the offer. A dozen Alarians remained unaccounted for, and a hundred stock certificates, which was ten percent of the company.

The song changed, a faster tempo, more chaotic than before, and John extracted himself from the Casey he had been dancing with. He took a seat on the steps going up to the office. Things were wild. The media had had a field day with the takeover. Gesalex’s death had been the main event. But the purging of the Alarian half-breeds, their disappearance in many cases—hardly a crime but the Wizards couldn’t explain the transfer of all the half-breeds to 7466—and the amazing takeover itself fed the Pittsburgh newspapers every day that week.

“Tired?”

John turned to see Grace—which Grace, he didn’t know—peering at him through the iron railing.

“It’s been a busy week.”

“You know we own the Palladius Hotel in Columbus?” she said. “We could have had our party there.”

“The Palladius?” John said. “That’s the nicest hotel in the city.”

“We own a dozen hotels now,” Grace said. “That I know of. I’m still working my way through the books.”

John knew it was Grace Home then, the CEO of Grauptham House, the media sensation of the week.

“We have enough frenzy around us,” John said. “A picture of twenty Johns, Henrys, Caseys, and Graces at a party in downtown Columbus would be all we need.”

“It would make things interesting,” Grace said.

“More interesting,” John countered. “Any luck finding those last hundred stock certificates?”

“None, and there’s still Alarian male half-breeds we haven’t found,” Grace said. “Not that I care too much about that. They’re cut out of the company now. A ten-percent owner is nothing.”

“You own ninety percent after all.”

“Ninety percent of a mess,” Grace said. “It’s gonna take us months—years, maybe—to figure out what we’ve got. They’ve been running this for fifty years with no oversight, with no real corporate goal except to exploit this world, and make themselves money.”

“You mentioned the hotels,” John said. “What else do we own?”

“Copper mines in Utah and Arizona. Banks in the Caymans and Britain. Aluminum smelting companies in Brazil. Construction companies in Boston and Chicago. Millions of acres of land in Canada.”

“Canada?”

“Great fly-fishing, but otherwise useless for anything,” Grace said. “The company has sixty thousand workers.”

“And none of them knew they were working for sadistic bastards from another universe.”

“How could they know?” Grace asked. “Profit from the technology exploitation went to finance these marginal companies. Many of them show no profit at all, certainly less than the cost of money. But the Alarians seemed willing to buy into anything that they knew might go big. Medical inventions, speculative technology, things they might have known about from other universes but didn’t know exactly how they worked.”

“How do we sort this all out?” John asked.

Grace shrugged. “With a little help from our friends,” she said. “The upper layer of management may have to go. I met with a general manager of a cartage company today. Asked him for his P and L sheet. He had no idea what I was asking for or decided to play dumb.”

“What did you do?”

“He has until Monday,” Grace said. “Or he’s gone.”

“You can’t replace everyone at that level.”

“A few as object lessons,” she replied.

“Is this what you want? To run a company like this?”

Grace shrugged again. “To run any company? No. To control Grauptham House? Yes. We’ve beaten the Alarians. Charboric is gone, never to return. Gesalex and Visgrath are dead. We’ve won.”

“But?”

“But nothing. We have it all, John,” Grace said. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “But if you’re asking if my problems are gone, then, no, this doesn’t solve that.”

“I guess…”

“Don’t worry about it, John,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

John nodded and looked away at the dance floor.

“What kind of music is this?” John asked.

“Henry says it’s called grunge disco,” Grace replied. “Very hip, very cool. In some universes.”

John focused on the dancers, realizing that the Henrys and Graces were a single writhing mass. The Johns and Caseys had actually moved off the floor and were coupled together. John smiled at the dynamic, but frowned when he saw two Graces kissing. He turned away quickly, looking at Grace again.

Was she smiling at him?

“Um,” John said.

Now he was certain Grace
was
smiling at him.

“I’m gonna go dance,” she said. “I won’t ask you to join me.” She stood and disappeared into the swirl of Henrys and Graces, and John soon lost which of the Graces was her.

*   *   *

At the end of the night, slightly tipsy, he and his Casey were standing on the roof of the building, looking up at the starry sky. The September night was crystal clear. John rubbed Casey’s goose-pimpled arms as she shivered in her short-sleeved shirt.

“Want to go back in?” he asked.

“No, I’ll be all right.” She pressed against him.

The door to the roof swung open and another John and Casey appeared. It was the second time they’d been interrupted by a John and Casey; the first couple had disappeared to the far side of the roof for privacy. This one waved and walked some distance away. If one John thought the roof would be romantic, so would the others.
My romantic overtures are not so unique anymore,
he thought.

“Have you ever partied with yourself so much?” John asked.

“Not that I recall,” Casey said with a laugh.

Below was a sudden loud chorus of laughter. John looked down and saw the Henrys and Graces leaving, climbing aboard one of the minibuses.

“I hope one of them is sober enough to drive,” John said.

“I don’t think the Henrys drank too much.”

Two of the Graces were locked in an embrace. A third joined them, and then a Henry too.

“What are…?” John said. “Are they…? What’s going on?”

“You’re a little oblivious sometimes,” Casey said. “They’ve been doing this group thing for weeks. Maybe from the time Grace Top and Henry Top met Grace Home and Henry Home.”

“Group thing?”

“As far as I can tell, the Henrys and Graces are interchangeable in their relationship.”

“But—” John’s mind churned as he watched the minibus drive away. “But—”

Casey shrugged. “Whatever floats their boat.”

“You … we … won’t ever.”

“John, it seems we Caseys and Johns are pair-bonding monogamists,” she said. “You won’t have to sleep with Prime or his Casey.”

“Oh, good,” he said, though the thought of bedding Casey Prime, his first Casey … It aroused him. “I just didn’t think that—”

“No, you didn’t,” Casey said. “I think it’s what our Grace needed. And certainly our Henry got through some heavy stuff with the help of the other Graces.”

“Yeah, I can see how that would help.” The minibus disappeared with a rumble from the parking lot.

The door to the roof opened and two more pairs of John and Casey appeared and found an open spot on the roof to look at the stars.

John fumbled in his pocket for the engagement ring there. He knelt and flipped it open.

“Um, speaking of relationships,” he said, “would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

“Of course, John,” Casey said with a smile. “Of course.” She squeezed him, and they kissed passionately. As he buried his face in her hair he saw five other Johns on their knees in front of their Caseys.

CHAPTER
20

John Prime watched the apartment for six hours. No one entered, no one left, and, when the sun set, no lights came on. It was his second reconnaissance. He’d seen no one enter and exit the apartment the first time either.

An inquiry at the building office indicated that apartment 23B at Odin Village was not available and that his information, sir, must not be correct. Yes, the tenant had been there for years and there was no indication that he would move soon. Perhaps apartment 2C would interest him?

The grass was mowed by the landlords. However, the mailbox was stuffed full. Prime wondered if the postal carrier had just stopped delivering and was holding the mail at the main office.

John Prime exited his car, walked across the dark grass, and let himself into Corrundrum’s apartment, empty now since mid-May, four months, almost five. He had tucked Corrundrum’s keys into his pocket then, lifted from the dead man’s pockets.

Prime had watched the newspapers with interest for weeks, researched the severed foot found in the woods behind an office park in Columbus. But there had been no linkage to Corrundrum, no corpse found. How could it have been? It was in another universe.

The room smelled of dust and closed-in rooms. The air-conditioner was on, and the temperature was a tepid seventy-five. There was the faint smell of spoiled food.

He turned on the light in the living room. Nothing had changed from his visit at the start of the summer. Corrundrum couldn’t have changed anything, since he had been with John and Prime from the moment he left the apartment until his death. He apparently had no housekeeper, no pet-sitter, and, hopefully, no pets.

John paged through the magazines on the coffee table. Nothing of interest. The bookshelf’s contents were mundane. No advanced physics books. There was a book on Ohio’s Serpent Mound, an Adena Culture snake-shaped mound of earth, and that rang a bell for John Prime, but he couldn’t recall from what.

The kitchen area was tidy and devoid of anything of interest. He checked the top of the refrigerator, the cabinets, searching each shelf. He found a pile of bills, but no personal correspondence. He took the electric bill from its envelope. Prime wondered why the power was still on if the bill hadn’t been paid in four months. Perhaps Corrundrum had paid ahead.

The bread on the counter was moldy. The smell of spoiled food came from the cabinets and fridge. Prime moved to the bedroom.

The bed was unmade. The nightstand held a clock with tile numbers that flipped over. It was still moving, its motor turning rotors, but the time was wrong, as if it had slowly gone out of sync over the months.

Prime opened the first drawer of the nightstand. A magazine, scissors, paper, and pens. Under the paper was another gun. Apparently he had had at least two. The second drawer was empty.

Prime froze.

The doorbell had chimed.

He turned slowly, and then walked quietly to the doorway of the bedroom. A shadow moved across the front door. The doorbell chimed again. A second later, the person started pounding on the door.

“Corriander! Corriander! You in there?”

Prime couldn’t pretend he wasn’t. The light was on, and clearly that was something a neighbor had noticed after months of darkness. He shrugged.

“Corriander! It’s Jerry from next door.”

Prime unbolted the door and pulled it open. A wizened man stood there, over-tan and over-bald.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Thought you were Corriander.” The man peered around Prime’s head. “He in there?”

“Naw, Kent asked me to check in on his apartment,” Prime said. He stressed Corrundrum’s false first name, making it seem as if he and Kent Corriander were on a first-name basis.

“Oh, he did? He ain’t been around in a while.”

“No, Kent is in Europe for a year,” Prime said. “On a job.”

“Yeah? Europe? Wow.”

“Yeah, Kent asked me to check in on things,” Prime said.

The man continued to peer around Prime’s head, trying to see inside. “I didn’t know he had any European, uh, interests.”

“I guess Kent forgot to mention them to you,” Prime said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” the man said. “You an old friend of his?”

Prime decided to push back a bit on the nosey man. “Sure, who are you, old man?”

The man jerked as if slapped. “Oh, me? I’m Jerry Herbert, from twenty-two. I’m the neighbor!”

“You don’t say,” Prime said. “Anything happen over here in the last few months?”

“No! Nothing’s been happening. Nothing happens around here,” Herbert said. “Though Miss Clark in fifteen had her laundry stolen from her deck last month.” Herbert spat. “Perverts. It was her underthings they took.”

“I’ll let Kent know about the perverts,” Prime said. “And your concern.” He reached to shut the door.

“I’m not surprised that Kent went off to Europe,” Herbert said. “He seemed always ready to go. Had a ready bag and everything. Like we had in the service back then. Always ready to go at a moment’s notice. I remember—”

“Thanks, Mr. Herbert,” Prime said. “I’ll let Kent know we talked.” This time he shut the door completely before Herbert could get another word in.