The Walls of the Universe (10 page)

Spring had arrived, but without the sun on his shoulders, John was chilly. He'd started working on the car in the morning and the sun had been on him, and now, after lunch, it was downright cold. He considered getting the tractor out and hauling the beat-up Trans Am into the sun. He finally decided it was too much trouble. It was late and there was no way he'd get the carburetor back together before dinner.

He'd bought the car for fifty dollars, but the car had yet to start. He'd need it soon. He started a second shift job at the GE plant in May. And then in the fall he was taking classes at the University of Toledo.

He'd applied to the University of Toledo's continuing education program. He couldn't enroll as a traditional freshman, which was all right with him, because of the fact that he'd taken the GED instead of graduating from high school. He wouldn't get into the stuff he wanted to learn until his senior year: quantum field theory, cosmology, general relativity. That was all right. He was okay where he was for the time being. If he didn't think about home, he could keep going.

With the plant job, washing machine assembly line work from four until midnight, he'd have enough for tuition for the year. Plus Bill and Janet were still paying him three an hour for chores he was helping out with. He noted ironically to himself that in his own universe he wouldn't have been paid a dime. In September he'd get another job for pocket money and rent near the university.

He set the carburetor on the front seat and rolled the car back into the barn. This was a good universe, John had decided, but he wasn't staying. No, he was happy with Bill and Janet taking him in. They were kind and generous, just like his own parents in nearly every respect, but he couldn't stay here. Not for the long term.

The universe was a mansion with a million rooms. People didn't know they were in just one room. They didn't know there was a way through the walls to other rooms.

But John did. He knew there were walls. And he knew something else too. He knew walls came down. There were holes between worlds.

John had listed his major as physics, and he'd laughed when the manila envelope from the department had arrived, welcoming him and listing his faculty advisor as Dr. Frank Wilson. Professor Wilson's world was going to shatter one day, and John was going to do it for him.

John knew something that no other physicist in this world knew. A human could pass through the walls of the universe. Just knowing that it was possible, just knowing, without a bit of doubt — he needed only to pull up his pant leg and look at the scars from the cat-dog bite — that there were a million universes out there, was all it would take for John to figure the science of it out.

That was his goal. He had the device and he had his knowledge. He'd reverse engineer it, take it apart, ask the questions of the masters in the field, he would himself become one of those masters, to find out how it was done.

And then, once the secrets of the universe lay open to him, he would go back and he would kick the shit out of John Prime.

He smiled as he shut the barn door.