Parallelities

by Alan Dean Foster

  Sure enough, as he took long, measured strides up the street in the direction of Westwood, sirens and lights flared behind him. Ignoring them, he walked on, resolutely not looking back. If it was him they were after he ought to be able to disappear before they discovered his absence. He hoped they, whoever “they” were, wouldn’t go from the office to his apartment to arrest, or eviscerate, or whatever it was they did to those who resisted the hypnotic sway of Great Cthulhu, his possibly ill para.

  The bloodcurdling inhuman wail of the sirens grew louder. In spite of himself, he looked back. Expecting to see one or more police cruisers drawn up in front of the Investigator building, he was shocked to find himself staring instead at a large, lugubrious lump of gelatinous protoplasm from which protruded, at seemingly random locations, a plethora of bulging eyeballs and toothy, snapping mouths. A throng of armed, uniformed Cthulhi were sliding off it and shambling into the newspaper building. Along the crest of the heaving, pulsating mass, a line of red lights spun silently.

  Resuming his retreat as he continued to gape at the extraordinary sight, he stumbled into the back of a well-dressed older man hugging a briefcase. “Sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” The tall, patrician figure lengthened his stride to match that of the younger man. “Keep walking. Don’t look back. You don’t want to draw their attention.” Noting absently that the man smelled of fine cologne, Max fell into step alongside him.

  “What is that thing with the lights on it?” It was hard for Max not to glance over his shoulder. Behind them, the sirens wailed less insistently now.

  His temporary companion looked down at him. “You must be from the heartland or something. That’s a Los Angeles Police Department Shuggoth. Not as fast as some of the old-fashioned cruisers, but it can push anything out of its way. Of course, if you run from a Shuggoth you had better make certain you get away.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because when they catch you, you don’t get arrested. You get enveloped and consumed.” He looked thoughtful. “It does tend to cut down on the transient jail population.” Disregarding his own advice, he looked back the way they had come. “Oh my. It seems that there are minions coming this way.” His eyes widened as he saw his fellow traveler in a new and less convivial light. “They must be after you!” Holding his briefcase in front of him like a shield, he stumbled away from the inoffensive Max.

  “Hey, take it easy, I haven’t done anything.” Looking back now, Max saw that a number of the Cthulhi had come out of the Investigator building and were heading up the street in his direction.

  “Stay away from me! I have a virgin daughter!” Clutching his briefcase, the panicked executive hurried off down a side street.

  Max did his best to stay inconspicuous, but it soon became clear that the Cthulhi, though still not entirely sure of their quarry, were beginning to narrow their search. Several of the cephalopodian creatures were within half a block of him. They paused only briefly to check the faces of terrified pedestrians before moving on. Max knew he had to hide, to get out of their sight, but if he was giving off some kind of unknown mental incongruity that they could detect, where could he find safety?

  A subway entrance beckoned. In this para, the L.A. line had been extended, logically enough, to the western part of the city. He ducked down it quickly, wondering if his money would be accepted in this para, fearing that his coins would not operate the automatic turnstiles.

  Perusing papers and magazines, their brains turned to temporary tapioca by uncountable variations on the ubiquitous plugged-in Walkman, or dealing with children, passengers-to-be stood waiting for the next train. A cautious glance back up toward the street showed several of the ghastly Cthulhi hovering near the entrance and debating, their facial tentacles writhing like packs of mating snakes. Then two of them started down the access stairs.

  Max looked around wildly. There was still no sign of the next train. As inconspicuously as possible, he made his way to the far west end of the tunnel and ducked down the narrow serviceway that ran along the tiled wall parallel to the tracks. Looking back, he could see the circle of light that marked the location of the station receding behind him. Wishing for a flashlight but not daring to stop, he hurried on into the darkness. Track switching lights provided some perspective without adequately illuminating his surroundings.

  Fortunately, it was impossible to lose the narrow walkway. Extending his arms out sideways allowed him to touch the tunnel wall with his left hand easily and the walkway guardrail with his right. As long as he didn’t hit a protrusion or hole in the concrete path he would be all right.

  An unlit tunnel swerved off to his left. Emergency siding, he thought, or a branch of an as yet uncompleted line. Afraid to cross the open tracks ahead, he turned and followed the new corridor. There were no colorful switches here to guide him, but occasional shafts of light soon appeared in the distance. The illumination was pouring through some kind of skylight or service access to the surface, he decided, grateful for even the tiny amounts of light.

  Behind him, he heard a distant roaring. It might have been a train, or it might have been something equally massive but far more organic in nature. Whatever it was, it was coming up the main tunnel in his direction. He had no intention of retracing his steps in hopes of identifying it. He hurried on.

  A fair amount of time had passed and there was still no sign of the Cthulhi or, for that matter, subway service technicians, construction workers, or anyone else. For the moment, at least, the tunnel was his.

  Hurrying along the unyielding path proved hard on his feet. Eventually, he was forced to slow to a pained walk. With luck he’d lost his pursuers, at least for a while. Ahead, a greater volume of light beckoned. Too bright to signify the presence of a station, it probably indicated the location of a new access under construction, perhaps even preliminary excavation. Questions might be forthcoming when he, a solitary pedestrian, came tromping out of the darkness, but he felt confident of his ability to slip away before the authorities could be notified. With so much else being familiar and recognizable in this para, there was no reason to assume that his press credentials would not be accepted as legitimate. They had gotten him out of difficult situations before.

  The nearer he drew to the light, the more it became apparent that this was a station or service entrance still under construction. Chunks of steel and blocks of concrete lay strewn about, along with broken rock and piles of crumbled scree. Wiring for overhead lights dangled loosely from the ceiling and the tiled steps shone uncompleted. It was dead silent not only within the station but up on the street as well.

  Either a large area up on the surface had been roped off to keep the curious away from the construction site, he decided, or else he had left the busy Wilshire corridor behind. Perhaps this station was being built in a quiet residential section. That could account for the exceptional silence. With a backward glance to reassure himself that no threat was immediately forthcoming from that quarter, he started cautiously up the broken steps.

  The world into which he emerged was not the one he had just left.

  It took him only a moment to realize that the condition of the subway station at his feet was due not to an incomplete state of construction but to one of untimely destruction. It was not a station half built but one completely destroyed. As was the street, and the structures that had once lined it, and as far as he could see, the heretofore familiar city around him.

  Most of the buildings he knew so well from innumerable drives up and down the roadway had been razed to the ground. Only the fragments of foundations and in places, nothing more than black scars, remained to show where they had once stood. The Ralph’s was gone, as was the Investigator tower, and every other store and apartment building and office block that used to line the boulevard.

  Turning a slow circle, he saw only a few tattered remnants of well-known office spires sundering the horizon like so many shattered teeth. To the north the Santa Monica Mountains rose from a li
stless gray haze. The familiar hillsides presented a blasted and bleached appearance, as if the green and brown chaparral that normally covered their slopes had been scoured from their flanks by some gigantic razor, leaving only the folds and creases of obscenely naked gullies behind.

  To the east nothing stood: not the carefully aligned steeples of the Wilshire corridor nor the distant, taller skyscrapers of downtown. Even the San Diego and Santa Monica freeways were gone. As he stood staring, a chill wind sprang up, making him bunch his shirt tightly against his neck. Scraps of paper, some with burnt edges, and gray ash went flying erratically past him.

  At least the mountains gave him a means of orienting himself. At his feet, the ruined subway station beckoned. No way was he returning to that dark hole. Not knowing what else to do, he set off westward down the street. No Cthulhi waited to embrace him with their revolting tentacle-ridden faces. Not in this para. Somewhere he thought he heard a dog bark, but it might have been only the wind driving scraps of wood against heaps of metal slag. The wind howled forlornly around him as he staggered off in the general direction of the Pacific.

  It had been a long, long time since he had walked so far in L.A., but he had no choice. No buses rumbled past, no immigrant-piloted taxis hailed him. In all that destruction and devastation, nothing moved that was not carried by the wind. Perversely, the blasted solitude gave strength to his tired legs, and he lengthened his stride.

  Eventually, undisturbed by man or machine, he reached the coast. He knew it was the coast because he recognized the bluffs on which he stood. Far below lay a thin, shattered strip of asphalt that had once been the Pacific Coast Highway. Beyond was the beach, and beyond that was the ocean.

  Should have been the ocean.

  The Pacific had vanished. As far as he could see, from Malibu in the north to Palos Verde in the south and all the way to the western horizon, was nothing but sand and dried mud baked hard and unyielding by the sun. For all he knew, the desert that had once been an ocean bottom extended all the way to Japan.

  What unimaginable catastrophe had devastated this para? he wondered. What had reduced a great city to little more than ashes, and had dried up even the ocean itself? Dumbfounded, aware that he was confronting a disaster beyond his limited imagination to envision, he stared at the silent, barren horizon. Neither it nor the wind offered up any explanation.

  There was nothing to be gained by standing on the edge of the bluffs until he collapsed. Experiencing a sudden urge to view the remnants of his home and wondering at the same time if he would recognize them, he turned south, intending to walk the rest of the way down the coast to the site of his apartment building. From Wilshire, it was only a little more than a dozen blocks.

  As he turned to go, there came a voice. It was no auricular hallucination: he heard the words clearly and distinctly. Breaking into a run, he followed the sound, and a few moments later found himself confronting a scrawny, starving individual seated with his back against the dead stump of one of the numerous palm trees whose green fronds had once waved exuberantly from the crest of the bluffs.

  The man wore only the shreds and tatters of what had once been denim pants. He had no shirt, his hair was unkempt and uncut, and the filthy, shaggy growth of his beard reached down to the middle of his chest. Sores and blisters covered his body, the suppurating redness showing noisomely through the mascara of accumulated, caked-on soil. He had been talking to himself, loudly enough for Max to overhear.

  “Christ, man, what happened to you?” Max gestured at the devastation around them. “What happened here?”

  “Stranger, are ye? Then there’s still a place where the Sicknesses haven’t struck everyone down.” The man trembled as he spoke, and his voice shook in time with the vibrations of his desiccated body. “No matter where you be from, how can it be that you are ignorant of what occurred?”

  “Everyone forgets things.” Max spoke as gently as he could. The poor fellow was obviously in the last stages of physical and mental exhaustion.

  “It was the Effect that did this, o’ course. The thousand-times-be-damned Effect.” His lips were quivering so badly he could hardly form the words.

  Max leaned closer so that the man would not have to expend as much energy talking. “The Effect? What Effect?”

  “Why, the Boles Effect, naturally. This is what happens when a man who doesn’t know what he’s doin’ goes monkeying around with the unifying forces o’ the Universe. Curse his careless soul to Perdition forever!”

  The Boles Effect. Max swallowed, squinting as the cold wind kicked up ash and debris. “Barrington Boles?”

  Rheumy, bloodshot eyes stared up at him. Max was not sure they were focusing. But the survivor’s uncertain gaze did not waver.

  “Was there any other? Course, the meddlin’ bastard’s probably dead now. Not that it does the few of us that are left a world o’ good.” A constrained cackle emerged from the depths of the diseased throat. “‘World o’ good,’ get it?”

  Keeping his back facing the wind, Max straightened slightly, admiring the skeletal survivor huddled at his feet. “I would’ve expected someone in your condition and situation to have lost their sense of humor a long time ago.”

  The woolly head twitched. It might have been a nod. “‘Bout all that’s kept me goin’ this long. Though I don’t know why I bother.” Shaking badly, a diseased arm rose and pointed at the vanished Pacific. “Guess I keep hoping the sea will come back. I miss it more than I do the people. Back before the Effect ruined everything, back when things were normal, I used to come out at night and sit on the old wooden lifeguard stations and just watch it, listening to the waves breaking on the shore.”

  Max followed the unsteady finger. “I know what you mean. I used to do the same thing. I …” He broke off abruptly. It felt as if an unseen and especially sadistic assailant had just smacked him in the stomach with a rubber mallet. Ignoring the stinging grit flying through the air, he stared wide-eyed at the seated, trembling figure.

  “What—what did you do—before the Effect?”

  “Do? Do.” The man considered, as if remembering the smallest detail of what had gone before was a Promethean struggle. “Why, if I be recalling correctly, I used to write. Little articles of no consequence, short stories of no merit. They didn’t matter much then, and they don’t matter at all now.” A hand characterized by broken nails and running sores reached shakily up toward him. “Max be my name. Maxwell Parker.”

  “No.” Slowly Max backed away from the sickly, repellent figure. He could see it now—beneath the haggard tangle of hair, behind the wild beard. Could see it in the glassy, half-wild eyes.

  He had met another of his paras.

  With a cry he turned and ran, ignoring the coughing, hacking entreaties of the devastated stick-figure behind him, not looking back, not turning to see or to listen. He was running north now, his chest pounding, the wind-flung ash and debris stinging his eyes and exposed skin. Running north, toward distant Malibu and, beyond, Trancas. That was where he would find Barrington Boles, who, if a breath still lived within him, Max steadfastly intended to kill.

  To what end? He slowed, finally coming to a complete halt. Suppose he did find Boles alive? How could he know if he was killing the right Boles, the right para? What was the point of it, when a million billion Boleses still lived on a billion million parallel worlds? With at least a few million of them working on the machine, how many would eventually get it right? How many would finally stumble on the secret of the field effect, resulting in the utter and total destruction of innocent paras like this one?

  What was the point of it all? What was the point of anything anymore? Was he even the right Maxwell Parker, or was he nothing more than one of dozens of frantic paras all scurrying futilely about in a hopeless attempt to find their way home, when “home” could no longer even be properly defined? For all the sense anything made anymore, he might as well go back and wait to die alongside his poor, bemused, helpless local para. Distra
ught and disillusioned and pretty near his wits’ end, he turned back into the wind.

  Propelled by the angry, moaning mistral, something larger and heavier than ash or grit came flying through the dreary, sorrowing atmosphere. Intent to the exclusion of all else upon his redeeming vision of private justice, Max never saw it coming. It struck him on the side of the head and he went down, instantly rendered unconscious, face-first into the dead earth.

  “Is he alive?”

  “Hold off on that emergency request, chaps. I think he may be coming around.”

  “The poor dear! What could have happened to him?”

  “See all the dirt on his clothes. He looks like he has been wandering around aimlessly in Death Valley.”

  Within himself, Max heard the words. They issued from different throats, male and female. None of them shook, none of them were afflicted with a diseased quaver. None of them were filled with the anguish of a ruined world. He fought to open his eyes.

  The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and the air smelled of fresh, sweet growing things. While he was unconscious, he had shifted paras once again.

  Hands pressed against his back and pulled gently on his shoulders, helping him to sit up. Strong, healthy hands and arms. Blinking frequently and reaching up to rub grit from his eyes, he was finally able to open them.

  Paradise spread out before him.

  Well, maybe not Paradise, but a purer, cleaner, more agreeable vision of Los Angeles than he had ever imagined. He knew it was still Los Angeles, because there was much that he was still able to recognize.

  His location, for example. He was sitting up where he had fallen, on the bluffs that overlooked the coast highway and the ocean beyond. The ocean, the glorious Pacific, had returned in all its unsurpassed deep blue splendor. As for the coast highway, it was still there. Only in this para it was paved not with asphalt but with grass. Fully enclosed silver-sided vehicles cruised along its wide, unstriped path, traveling silently a foot or so above the undisturbed emerald turf.