The Broken Universe (36 page)

“I’ll go on alone,” John said when they reached the trees.

“No,” John Ten said. “We’ll come.”

“No,” John said. “This is my job.”

One hand on the pistol in its holster, one hand on the shoulder of Jason Grayborn, John led him into the trees. The winter sun, already weak, disappeared behind the masses of gray tree limbs, but not so much as to leave them in darkness. The air was musty.

The land sloped down into a small hollow, a gorge three meters deep that ran to the northeast, dug out by spring rains over the years. John helped Jason down and stood him against the dirt wall.

“This isn’t justice. It’s just her word against mine,” he said. “You’re creating a fascist state where you’re the godlike leader. Fear is what you’ll get out of this. Not justice.”

“This isn’t just for Amalona,” John said. He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and read a list of names, “Yolanda Kishtan, Jennifer O’Reilly, Cathy Reese, Quinn Pollank, Martha Abble, Julie Balusha, Gabriella Freeman.”

Jason Grayborn looked at him in shock. “Where’d that list come from? Who’d you talk to?”

“You’re the same in every universe.”

Jason looked at him dumbly, and then he smiled. He laughed, a huge belly laugh of pure joy.

“You fool!” Grayborn cried. “Punishing me for things I didn’t even do. This is worse than fascism. This is thought control.”

“I’m sure you raped Amalona,” John said. “Cecil Inkster confirmed it. There’s no doubt that this instance of you deserves to die.”

John Rayburn took the gun from the holster, turned off the safety, and aimed the revolver at Grayborn’s chest.

Jason Grayborn stared into the mouth of the gun, and said, “And every one of us in every universe will continue to live, and breathe, and be the despicable beasts you fear. There’s nothing you can do about—”

John fired a single shot into Grayborn’s heart, and he was flung backward. His body twitched in the collection of brown leaves and then he lay still, dead.

Nausea rocked John’s body, and uncontrollably he fell forward onto the wet, leaf-covered ground. He vomited bile.

He felt a hand on his back. A John stood above him. Another John lifted him up by his shoulder. The first handed him a handkerchief to wipe his mouth. John turned to find all nine of the others standing there.

“What have we done?” John said.

No one spoke, but they all crowded close, each placing a hand on his shoulder or chest or back. John breathed in deeply. He felt his guilt and nausea drift away.

In unspoken agreement, they left Grayborn’s body to the elements and animals. His would not be the first body to be buried in the New Toledo cemetery. There would be no honor for the guilty.

CHAPTER
30

After getting Henry’s frantic call, John drove straight to the quarry. He found Henry engrossed over a video camera.

“Tell me,” John said.

“This is 7351. John Champ’s world.”

John peered over Henry’s shoulder. He wasn’t certain what he was looking at. The camera was panning over a blackened, charred ruin. Then he recognized the back wall of the quarry transfer building in 7351.

“What happened?” John said.

“We hadn’t gotten a packet from 7351 in three days,” Henry said. John tried to remember details of 7351. The seventh settled universe, where John’s basketball team had won the state championship. Thus its nickname, Universe Champ. All four of them were in that universe: John, Grace, Henry, and Casey. They’d taken Clotilde there when she’d fallen ill after the cat-dog attack. Otherwise he could remember nothing about it, who was president, what the key technologies were. His mind was a blank.

“What happened to the transfer gate?”

“I’m getting to that!” Henry snapped. “Sorry. I’m trying to figure it out. I sent an emergency packet. No response. That’s the packet right there on the ground,” Henry said, pointing to the leather satchel.

“So I set up a reconnaissance camera,” Henry said. John remembered that Henry was devising various ways to gather intelligence on a remote universe. He’d settled on a helium-filled balloon with onboard stabilizers. Even in a twenty-kilometer-per-hour wind, the balloon would remain motionless in relation to its starting position. He’d added a rotating mount for the video camera that panned the local area. “I cycled it through for thirty seconds. This is what I got.”

“It’s a total mess.”

“I think someone triggered the self-destruct on the transfer gate.”

“No!” Their argument for the self-destruct devices had been simple. They couldn’t let the technology get into the hands of a local government. It was too easy to build a transfer gate and if an entire universe had access to it, there’d be travelers everywhere. Henry had added an explosive device to each transfer gate with a simple double switch to activate it on a thirty-second timer. John had never expected that anyone would have to use it.

“Yeah, I think so.”

“And there’s been no sign of John Champ or anyone else in that universe?”

“None. Their gate is down. There’s no way they can get to us.”

“Send me there,” John said.

“Hold on,” Henry said. “The quarry area has been compromised in that universe. You can’t go there from here. It’s too dangerous.”

“I can’t use my device to go backwards,” John said.

“Transfer from Pleistocene,” Henry said. “The gate at New Toledo is close to Toledo.” The problem with the transfer gates was that they were fixed in their location. The gates located at the quarry would always transfer to the quarry in another universe. John’s personal unit was not so hampered, only it transferred upward in universe number; it could never go back. Positioning the devices at the quarry in all universes was convenient until situations like this came up.

“Send me through to 7322,” John said. 7322—Universe Low—was their farthest downstream settled universe, the only one farther downstream than 7351. “I’ll come into 7351 from there using my device. If things are no good, I’ll come back here.”

“Okay,” Henry said. “You gotta be careful. Maybe we should send a couple people. Or—”

“It’ll be okay. Send me.”

“Okay, okay.” John waited while Henry powered up the gate. “Be careful!”

“I will.”

“Oh, wait!” Henry ran and grabbed a backpack off the wall. “Survival pack. In case. It has a gun.”

John took it, though he was unsure how he felt carrying a firearm after the events with Jason Grayborn.

“Who knows about this?” John asked.

“Just us, and my Grace.”

“Better put together a warning not to go near 7351 until we figure this out.”

“Right,” Henry said. “Here we go. Three … two … one.”

The room shifted, and he was in 7322. Grace Low looked up.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting anyone, John,” she said.

“I’m John Home,” John said.

“Oh, sure,” she said, but John already felt the odd change in manner—an odd reverence—he could expect from people who didn’t know him, even from these versions of Grace, Henry, and Casey who he felt he should know. He wanted to shout that it was just dumb luck that put the transfer device into his hands. Nothing else.

“We have a problem in 7351,” John said.

“I haven’t heard anything from them in three days,” Grace said. “I was beginning to worry.”

“The self-destruct on their gate was triggered.”

Grace’s eyes went to the switch near her desk.

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah, I need a ride out to Grover Estates, in Toledo,” John said.

“Is that where Grace and Henry live in 7351?”

“Yeah,” John said. “The quarry site is probably compromised. I’ll try reaching them at home.”

“Right. I’ll call John to drive you over.”

*   *   *

As darkness approached, John found the address in 7322, Universe Low, for Grace’s and Henry’s house in 7351. He had no idea if the floor plan was the same or even if the house was in the same exact location.

“How about that line of trees there?” John Low said. A clump of old trees marked the boundary between two subdivisions. With any luck the trees were there in both universes.

“Okay.” It would be a three-hundred-meter jog back to the house from there. “Drop me off right there.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.” He shook hands with his doppelganger.

“Let us know what’s going on, okay?” There seemed to be real fear in John Low’s voice.

“As soon as we know.”

The car turned around and disappeared around the corner. John found a moss-covered boulder among the trees, something that looked like it had been there for millennia. He stood next to it, changed the universe count to 7351, and pulled the lever.

The same boulder, the same subdivisions.

“Good,” he whispered. He knelt and dialed the device to 7535—the Pleistocene world. In case he had to transfer out, he wanted the device ready. John peered up the street toward Grace’s and Henry’s house. Nothing moved.

He walked slowly, nonchalantly down the sidewalk, his eyes open for some sign that something was amiss. Nothing on this late-winter night. Old gray snow clumped in piles near mailboxes, having melted in the day’s sun and ready to freeze again at dusk.

A car turned down the street. The beams of the headlights danced past him. The car continued on.

He stopped in front of the house. No lights were on. He opened the mailbox. It was crammed with mail. No one was home, and no one had been home for days.

John paused. He took a step toward the front door. Then he saw the driveway. When had it snowed in 7650? Two days ago? Their driveway was clear. The walkway was clear. The house had a northern exposure—the walkway to the house would not have seen the sun. Someone had shoveled since the incident at the transfer gate three days prior.

It didn’t mean anything, his mind said. They could have hired a neighborhood kid to do it whenever it snowed.

John took a step up the driveway. He looked around. Nothing. No alarms. No one was watching. The street was clear.

He walked up to the door, tried it. It was locked. He remembered where Grace and Henry of his universe hid their spare key, in a magnetic box under the rail at the far end of the porch. He found the key there.

He turned back toward the door and stopped.

There were tracks in the unmelted snow under the window. Boot prints.

Soldiers—or armed persons of some sort—had been here in the last two days.

Maybe it was just the police.

But why the police?

Because the quarry was owned in the name of Pinball Wizards, Inc., in this universe, and Henry and Grace were part owners. That’s why. They were just looking for answers.

But would the police shovel the driveway?

John turned and walked down the driveway.

Over his breath, over the scrape of his shoes on the concrete, he heard the whoosh of wind above him.

He ran.

They’d been discovered by the local government! Somehow they’d tipped their hand and been found out. One of the team here had triggered the self-destruct and was either captured or dead. And the police—maybe the army!—had staked out the house to find their associates.

John had walked right into it.

He left the sidewalk behind, dodging between houses. The sound seemed to follow him. Helicopter. He risked a glance over his shoulder.

A faint light dipped over the roof of the house to the right.

He ran across the backyard, between trees, past an aboveground pool, over a hedge.

He realized he had to stop and transfer out. Was he safe here? He ducked around the corner of the next house, sucking in air as he leaned against the cement. The whirl above him was muffled. He heard footsteps.

John crouched lower between the trash can on one side of him and the hose reel on the other.

A dark shape appeared in front of him. The soldier was dressed in all black, with no insignia. He carried a rifle, but it seemed too sleek, too rounded. He didn’t recognize the model.

The soldier stood there, scanning the area. His eyes seemed to pass right over John but didn’t stop. The man waited ten seconds, fifteen, peering into the darkness. Then he reached to his shoulder and tapped something.

He spoke words that weren’t English, and then he ran forward into the darkness.

John pressed the switch on the device and transferred to 7535.

*   *   *

They convened in the common room of the New Toledo settlement. Though one of the other universes would have had more modern conveniences, 7535 was the only one where ten sets of identical people could meet and not cause a disturbance that would have to be explained.

Grace took a roll call. All four of them from 7322, 7462, 7512, and 7650: quartets from Low, Pinball, Gore, and Home. John and Henry from 7458, Universe Gold. John, Grace, and Henry from 7510, Universe Quayle. John Prime and Casey from 7533. John from 7601, Universe Ten, though he spent a lot of his time in 7535, the Pleistocene. John, Henry, and Casey from 7625, Universe Case. And Grace and Henry from 7651, Universe Top. Twenty-nine board members, with four missing from 7351: John, Henry, Grace, and Casey Champ. John Superprime was there as well, though they had yet to vote him onto the board.

This was the first time they had all met together in one place.

When the last of them arrived, John stood and raised his hands for their attention.

“I wish this were a better time for us,” he said. “I wish we were all meeting under perfect circumstances. But urgent matters have come to our attention.” He paused. “I think we can dispense with introductions,” he said with a smile. There was an abrupt bark of laughter from the group. “You all know me as John Rayburn, originally John-7533 and now John Home. You all are the board members from every settled universe of Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional, except for one universe.”

His colleagues looked around at each other.

“Four days ago, the self-destruct on the transfer gate in Universe Champ was triggered, obliterating the transfer mechanism. I traveled there yesterday, going to Grace’s and Henry’s house in 7351. It was empty. Worse, it was a trap. Soldiers were watching the house, waiting for someone to come.”

There were mutters and quiet words.