The Broken Universe (7 page)

“I slobber?” Henry exclaimed.

“Within tolerances,” Grace-7650 said.

“Uh,” Henry said. He looked at John. “I don’t think I like this.”

“It’s too late now. Genie is out of the bottle.”

“You in?” Grace-7650 asked.

“Sell here?”

“Yep, and procure materials.”

“Interesting.”

“Dairy-D-Lish is the backup.”

“Henry too?”

Grace-7650 shrugged. “Sure.”

Grace-7651 paused, looking at John and Henry, then back at Grace. “I’m in.”

*   *   *

Grace-7651 quit her job that day, told her mom she was taking a road trip, and left with them for Henry’s hometown of Xenia. They drove through the night and scared Henry as he walked the family dog around the block.

The three from 7650 sat in the van while Grace-7651 explained. Henry-7651 kept looking at them.

“Is my chin really that weak?” Henry-7650 asked.

“It’s a fine chin,” Grace-7650 said.

“Do I sound like that?” Henry asked.

“Obviously,” John said.

“I thought I was taller,” Henry said.

“Shush!”

Finally Henry nodded and walked over to the van.

“I’m gonna have to see it,” he said.

“The device?” John asked, knowing that just looking at the device wouldn’t prove anything.

“No, I need to see it work.”

“Okay.”

*   *   *

John decided on Universe 7535 to prove the device. First they drove to the quarry in 7651, and then they used the transfer gate to travel to 7535, the Pleistocene world.

“My god!” Henry-7651 cried. “It actually worked!”

Henry-7650 shared a glance with John. “Obviously.”

Henry-7651 stared off in the distance, oblivious to the sarcasm. “Is that a mastodon?”

“I guess it is,” John said. A huge hirsute elephantine beast lumbered in the distance between two trees, using its tusks to shred the leaves from the upper branches.

Henry-7651 took three involuntary steps toward the mastodon.

“Don’t stray,” John said.

“It’s a kilometer away! No way it can get to us,” Henry-7651 said.

“There are smaller things around here,” John said. The cat-dog beasts that hunted in packs had nearly gotten him the first time he was in this universe. Sweeping his eye through the tall grass, he wondered how common they were. With all five of them present and together, though, he expected there would be no trouble. The cat-dogs were probably opportunistic hunters.

Henry-7651 dropped his knapsack, pulled out an old camera, and started snapping pictures.

“Hey,” John said. “Those are going to be hard to explain when you develop them.”

“No one will notice,” he said. “And I’ll explain that they were models for a school project.”

John shrugged.

“Can we get closer?” Grace asked.

John searched in the grass until he found a stick. Then he used it to beat down a circle, centered on where they arrived. Here there was no quarry to mark the destination.

“Okay, stick together.”

They walked slowly toward the beast, which took no notice of them at all.

“Look! Two more!” Grace cried. John realized with a start that it could have been either Grace-7651 or Grace-7650. He had no idea which. “A calf and a cow!”

“Any zoo—”

“Any zoo—”

The two Henrys looked at each other and laughed. They had started the same sentence. John was glad that Prime wasn’t there too, but still he felt a little lonely being the only singleton on the trip.

“Any zoo would pay dearly to have this trio in their exhibits,” one finished.

“Though it would be hard to explain where they came from,” Grace said.

“A million dollars, maybe,” Henry said. “That would solve some of our cash problems.”

“And raise a lot of questions,” John said. “One of our objectives is to stay under the radar from any other cross-universe travelers, right?”

“Yes,” Grace said. “It’s safer that way, until we know more.”

“Or, forever,” John replied.

“Forever is a mighty long time,” Grace said.

“That’s Prince,” John said.

“Who?”

“In my universe, he’s a … Oh, never mind.”

The mastodons gave them a casual inspection, but otherwise didn’t vary their course through the thicket of trees. They pulled saplings from the ground or broke limbs from bigger trees and denuded them of leaves.

When they were twenty meters away, the male planted himself in between them and the cow and calf.

“I guess that’s as close as we get,” John said.

“Probably not used to seeing us humans,” Henry-7650 said.

“So there’s no humans here? None?” the other Henry said.

“I don’t think so,” John said. “Megafauna extinctions in North America corresponded to human migrations into the continent from Asia. Lotsa megafauna here, ergo, no humans. If they’re not here, then maybe none in Asia either. And in any case, there’s no human technology great enough to get here from Europe, Africa, or Asia.”

“True,” Grace-7651 said. “If there’s a niche available on the planet, humans will be there.”

“A whole world to ourselves,” Henry-7651 said. “We need to start a vacation club. ‘Visit the Lost World!’”

“It’s certainly better than the nuclear winter world,” John said.

“The what?”

“I passed through a world—while I was arguing with Professor Wilson—that was frozen over due to nuclear winter,” John explained. “7539, 7540, something like that. Due to a limited nuclear exchange which had kicked up a lot of dust into the atmosphere. It was only October, but there was already a meter of snow on the ground. Everyone was hoarding food and the army was rationing.”

“Wow.”

John nodded.

“Was that Professor Wilson from the physics department at U Toledo?” Grace-7651 asked.

“Uh, yeah. We had a little bit of a run-in,” John said. “I tried to convince him that parallel universes were possible. He didn’t believe me, so I transferred out right in front of his eyes.”

“No!”

“Yeah, it was a pretty stupid thing to do,” John said.

“Because now he knows travel between universes is possible,” Grace-7651 said. “He won’t stop until he figures it out.”

“You think?” John said. “He’ll use Occam’s razor to convince himself it was all a fake.”

“Maybe,” Grace-7651 said. “He might, or he might spend the next decades trying to break open the secrets.”

“Let him,” John said.

After Henry-7651 had taken a few more pictures of the mastodons, John said, “It’s getting late. We should get everyone back to their home universes. We’ve been gone from 7650 for twenty-four hours. Who knows what’s gone wrong while we were away.”

“Hopefully not much,” Grace-7650 said.

They walked back to the transfer zone and used John’s portable device to reach Universe 7651.

“So here’s a couple thousand dollars,” Grace-7650 said to Grace-7651.

“Whoa, that’s a lotta cash!” Henry-7651 said.

“It used to be a lotta gold,” John joked. “Now it’s just a little bit of cash.”

“Rent an apartment in Findlay, and a car,” Grace-7651 said. “Tomorrow John will deliver the encyclopedia from 7650. You can buy the same set from the university bookstore.”

“Right,” Grace-7651 said. “And we need to incorporate the company here. Scour the two encyclopedias for discrepancies. And search the electronics catalogs for the parts you listed.”

“Exactly.”

“Two apartments or one?” Henry-7651 asked. When the other four turned to look at him, he began to blush.

“One, silly,” Grace-7651 said. “With two bedrooms. To save money.”

“Oh.”

John saw Henry-7650 and Grace-7650 share a look. He wasn’t sure what the status was between the Grace and Henry of 7651. They knew each other, and Grace had kissed Henry. But were they dating? It almost seemed as if his Grace and Henry were setting this Grace and Henry up on a blind date.

“Then we’ll have you over a couple times in the evening to show how the machines are built,” Grace-7650 said.

Grace-7651 smiled. “These pinball machines, or these transfer machines?”

John started to say something, but Grace-7650 said, “Both!” Again John felt he had unleashed forces beyond his control. Grace clearly wanted something more than one or two gates between worlds. Didn’t he want that too?

Grace-7650 kissed her counterpart and Henry-7651. Henry-7650 awkwardly shook hands with Henry-7651 and Grace-7651. Then the three left the doppelgangers for their home universe, using the transfer gate.

“They seem like nice enough people,” Grace-7650 said.

John merely raised an eyebrow.

*   *   *

Viv’s new crew of builders increased their skills quickly, and the pinball factory had no problems meeting the quota for Casey’s new order. John was no longer surprised when she appeared at the office at the end of the day with a handful of order sheets. She had a knack for sales, more so than he ever had. John and Henry were engineers.

The date of the board meeting arrived quickly, and though sales were rising, there was no chance they’d raise enough capital to buy themselves free of EmVis. The two meetings Grace had with banks were successful only in as much as the banks were willing to loan the company small amounts of money based on their income statement. The three meetings she managed to obtain with venture capitalists went nowhere. The last sixty days’ lack of revenue made their pro forma statements look a little odd. Grace had no good enough explanation for the dip to persuade the venture capitalists to invest millions of dollars in them. Interested, yes. Willing to fund, no.

“How are they going to play it?” John asked on the evening before the meeting.

“They want our company, out of spite, I think,” Grace said. “They can’t expect to get access to any transfer device data now that we know what they’re up to.”

“True,” John said. “Or they plan to use it as leverage. Anything in the papers?” he asked Henry.

“EmVis’s stock is at an all-time low,” Henry said. “But there’s nothing to explain why. Most of it, pundits think, is due to the CEO and past board’s disappearance two months ago. We all know why, but no one at the company is talking. Stockholder confidence is low.”

“And our lawyer?” John asked.

“Says there’s little we can do to stop the meeting,” Grace said. “EmVis can appoint any board members they want, in any fashion they want, and we can’t do anything about it. They have four seats. We have three.”

“So there’s nothing to argue there,” Henry said.

“Not until the meeting is over, and we’ve heard what their play is,” Grace said. “Then it will be time to fight them, once we know the game.”

“I hate waiting,” Henry said.

“Who’s waiting?” Casey said. “I’m selling.”

“Which reminds me, Casey,” Grace said. “Here’s your first commission check.” Grace handed a check to Casey.

“No, really, I’m just helping out,” Casey said. “You guys need this cash.” She looked at the number on the check. “Holy smokes! That beats working at Dairy-D-Lish!”

“Tell me about it!” Grace said.

“Really, it’s not necessary.”

“Actually, it is,” Grace said. “You’re our best salesman at the moment, and I want you to work as hard as possible.”

“I wonder if Casey in 7651 will work this hard?” Henry said.

“We’re not going to find out!” John said.

“Isn’t that my decision?” Casey asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Grace said. “I asked that Grace to find out. Casey-7651 doesn’t exist, at least not in the Findlay of that universe.”

“Ah, too bad,” Casey said. She met John’s worried look with a grin. “One is enough?”

“Um.”

“Don’t answer that!”

Grace paused. “So tomorrow at noon at the Hyatt in Toledo. The Lawoughqua Room. Casey, please be there, though only John, Henry, and I are board members.”

“All right.”

“Let’s get this over with, and see what they want.”

“Oh, we know what they want,” John said. “And we won’t ever let them have it.”

*   *   *

Grace paced nervously outside the conference room at the hotel. It was ten minutes before noon, and no sign yet of Gesalex.

“Calm down, Grace,” John said.

“Sorry, I’m a little tense.”

“Really?”

She smirked. There was no doubt she was more the Grace he remembered, ever since she’d come back to 7650, ever since she’d taken over the running of Pinball Wizards, and especially since she had met and befriended Grace-7651.

Henry and Casey sat in the conference room, nursing ice waters. John found himself wondering how they could exploit the Alarians. They knew a lot that he didn’t. How could he gather the information that Gesalex knew?

At precisely noon, Gesalex appeared in the hallway, leading three other men. These would presumably be the other new board members.

Gesalex did not even look at them as he entered the conference room. Nor did two of the others. However, the fourth member stopped confusedly. He raised his hand as if to shake, and John wondered why he bothered.

Nonetheless, John took his hand and shook.

“Hello, I’m Jack Banks.”

“Hello, Jack, I’m John Wilson, and this is Grace Shisler,” John said, using the alias he’d been using since arriving in 7650.

“Good to meet you,” Jack said. “I’ve been appointed a board member for this meeting.”

“Are you … uh … from around here?” John asked. Jack had no accent, as he expected from the Alarians. But he was unsure how to ask if he was in on the secrets of the multiverse.

“Buckeye born and raised,” he said jovially. “Grew up in Delaware, Ohio. Fine little town.”

“I’ve traveled through it,” John said. “Are you an EmVis employee? Do you work with Grauptham House?”

“Uh, no, I do not,” Jack said.

“Then what are you doing here? You are on our board of directors, aren’t you?” Grace asked.

“Oh, yes,” Jack said. “I’m an investor. I usually invest in scientific and technology companies. But when Mr. Gesalex called and said he needed some help, I agreed to serve on the board.”

“Interesting,” John said. He was going to be the only outsider in the room.

“I think it—”

“Can we start the meeting now, Banks?” Gesalex appeared in the doorway of the conference room.