by Melko, Paul
* * *
Prime said he was going to take a nap until that evening. Then he jumped to 9000 and drove back to the campsite.
Charboric was unconscious. His hands were purple where the cuffs had dug into his wrists. Prime let him down, dragged him into his tent, and recuffed him to a cot. Prime started a space heater.
Charboric’s forehead was hot to the touch, feverish. His tongue looked swollen.
“Shit!” Prime said. He couldn’t be sick. The plague had died out with the humans. This universe was fine. Prime hadn’t caught a thing!
Charboric’s eyes fluttered open. He said something in Alarian.
Prime got water and held it to his face.
Charboric’s expression focused and he stared at Prime.
“You’ve killed me.”
“I’m fine, why are you sick? It’s all psychosomatic.”
Charboric barked a laugh, and in seeming response vomited over the side of the cot. His body was so contorted and violent that he turned the camping bed over. He choked and vomited and then lay still.
“Why … why did you come for me? Revenge? If so, well done. Well done.”
“No, we need— we need information,” Prime said. Doubt was eating at his bravado. His confidence was draining away as it became clear that Charboric was infected with something.
Charboric laughed again.
“Information! You fool! Fools! All of you in every universe!”
“The Vig found us.”
Charboric’s laughter died.
“Of course. Of course. It was just a matter of time.”
“Where are they from?”
Charboric laughed until he began vomiting again. This time there were flecks of blood in the green bile.
“You’re going to take them on?” Charboric said. “You’re going head-to-head with the Vig?”
“Yes.”
“Teiwaz!”
“You don’t even know.”
“I know! Everyone knows, but you. You killed me for something every goddamn person who’s anyone knows! But it won’t do you any good. None at all.”
“Then tell me.”
“I’ll tell you,” Charboric said. “I’ll tell you because then I’ll die knowing you will die too.”
“So you think.”
He laughed.
“Universe 0010, John Rayburn. You’ll find the Vig in Universe 0010.”
An hour later Charboric was dead.
* * *
Prime burned the body and covered it in a shallow ditch. He returned to 7650 and lied to his friends and colleagues, even his wife. As he did so, as he fabricated a desperate offensive against the Alarians, he wondered why he felt no qualms, no remorse for what he did. All to protect the device. His device.
He transferred to 2219 and waited two hours in the brush before returning himself and all their supplies to 7650. He sat there in the cold, pretending to raid the Alarian camp. Instead he just counted the minutes until two hours were up and then he transferred back to 7650.
“Universe 0010,” Prime said.
“0010?”
“Yes, Charboric told me himself. Universe 0010.”
“How do you know he wasn’t lying?” Grace Home asked. “You should have brought him back.”
“No. I had a gun to his head. He begged for his life, and I gave it to him in exchange for the information,” Prime said.
“He could have still told you what you wanted to hear,” Grace Home said.
“He didn’t. I know it’s true.”
“We can check it out anyway,” Henry Top said. “We’ll send probes through.”
“We’ll need weapons,” John Prime said. “Weapons as strong as theirs.”
“What do you mean?”
“We need nukes.”
“Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional, has a lot of money, but we can’t buy nuclear weapons,” Grace Home cried. “Besides, that’s insane.”
“We don’t have to use it on them, we just have to prove we have the weapons,” Prime said.
John Case said, “They nuked us. We should do the same to them.”
“No!” Grace Home said. “We will not nuke our enemy! We don’t even have nuclear weapons!”
“I do.”
Everyone looked at John Prime.
“You what?” Grace Home said.
“Universe 9000 is empty, but all the infrastructure is there. Including nuclear weapons, missile subs, bombers, anything.”
“How did you … how could you know?” Grace Home said.
Prime glanced at his Casey, who looked back at him with an unreadable expression.
“I knew about it before. But I went recently,” he said. “To check it out. It’s all there, for the taking.”
“How could you—” Grace Home started, but John Gore interrupted.
“We know where they are and we have the weapons to get their attention,” he said. “I say we show them we’re not going to lie down. We nuke them and demand John back.”
Johns and Henrys cheered, while Graces frowned. Caseys shared glances. But the sentiment toward using the weapons against the enemy was strong, strong enough to carry a vote. The Pinball Wizards were going to be a nuclear power.
CHAPTER 38
John Prime flew to Amarillo on the corporate jet.
“I didn’t know we had a corporate jet,” he said to Grace Home as he, she, and Henry Top took off from Toledo’s airport.
“Largesse and extravagance of the last administration,” she said. “We’re taking care of the obvious items.”
“But a jet is useful,” Prime said.
Grace shrugged. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
“No idea,” Prime said.
“I’m serious.”
He opened his briefcase. “This is the manual I took from the army base in Columbus. It covers everything I need to know.”
“Have you read it?”
“Three times.”
“We’ll expect you in three days.”
“It’s only a twenty-hour drive,” Prime said.
“Yes, I don’t want you falling asleep with a nuclear bomb in your trunk,” Grace said. “And you’ll need a day to find the damned things.”
Prime looked at Grace. She’d taken the vote well, but it was clear she wanted nothing to do with the nuclear devices.
“This is the best way to show them we mean business,” Prime said. “They nuked us first!”
“I know they did,” Grace said. “But do we have to strike back with the same force?”
“We’re not trying to kill any of them. We’re just showing we can.”
“Fine.”
“Henry is going to find us a clear spot.”
“He will,” she said. The Henrys were building robotic scouts to examine Universe 0010 for an unpopulated area. Prime hoped that the Vig had no defense mechanisms such as Universe 1214 did. “And we’ll have the demand note ready for release too.”
“Okay.”
“You sure you don’t want help with this?”
“If 9000 is a plague world, I don’t want to risk the chance someone else might get infected.”
“You didn’t.”
“Maybe I have some immunity.”
“Then we send another John.”
“Maybe one of the universes I visited gave me the immunity.”
“Maybe.”
* * *
From the airport, Grace and Prime headed directly to the Pantex site in Home Office, while Henry drove to the warehouse they had rented.
“We have a site tour just before noon,” Grace said. “Did you study the material? They won’t let you on-site if you don’t pass the safety test.”
“Yeah, I read it.”
“Good.”
The limo let them off in the parking lot in front of a cement-block visitor center. The lot was half full with cars. Prime and Grace were escorted to an overly-lit room where they were given a number-two pencil, an answer sheet, and a set of
fifty questions. Prime hadn’t read the material, but by guessing the most reasonable answer possible, he managed to outscore Grace by five points.
The tour was led by an army sergeant, who loaded them onto a bus and trekked them across the brown earth from one end of the site to the other.
The spiel he recited seemed geared toward the concept of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, not the creation and storage of them, which is what Prime and Grace were interested in. Prime noticed that the bus seemed to avoid certain areas, including several widely-spaced concrete hangars.
He asked, “Sergeant, what’s in those buildings there?”
“Those are assembly sites, sir,” he replied.
When he didn’t add anything more, Prime said, “And what is done there?”
“We disassemble nuclear devices at those locations, sir.”
“And assemble them?”
“When necessary. With current disarmament treaties, we spend far more time disassembling than assembling, sir.”
“And what about storage? Where do you store the backpack nukes?”
“The what, sir?”
“The SADM portable nuclear devices, Sergeant,” Prime said.
“I can’t discuss those, sir. I’m sorry,” he said, and that was the end of that conversation.
When they were done with the tour, however, they were caught from behind by a captain, who motioned them into a smaller room.
“May I speak with you briefly?” he asked.
“Of course,” Grace said.
“I must ask if you are with the press,” he said curtly.
“We are not,” Grace said. “I’m Grace Shisler, president and CEO of Grauptham House. Mr. Rayburn is a senior vice president in the research and development division.”
“Ah, the personal computer people. And how did you come to learn of the SADM program?”
“We do have government contracts, Captain,” Grace said.
“Is that why you’re here? To look for contract work?”
“It is. We’re interested in providing on-site vendor-managed services in safety, security, and maintenance.”
“You’re the CEO?” he asked, nodding at Grace.
“Yes.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
He left, and Prime said, “What do you think that all meant?”
“We’re a company with a female CEO. We match some criteria for contract work,” Grace said.
“Is that it? We get a pass because you’re a woman,” Prime said. “Awesome.”
“We’ll see what it gets us.”
He came back a few minutes later.
“Since you’re here now, I’ve been authorized to give you the real tour. Afterwards, you can meet with one of our procurement officers. If you’re inclined to bid on some of our open subcontracts, we’d greatly appreciate it.”
* * *
In the end, they received a tour of the SADM facility, even coming within a few meters of one of the nukes, though it was behind a Plexiglas wall. Prime made mental notes of locations so that he could find his way back here.
“We could probably help them quite a bit, actually,” Grace said in the limo on the way back. “Their security could use some advances.”
“Sure, let’s diversify even more,” Prime said.
“You don’t think it’s worth it?”
“What profit margin would we have on this compared to a technology such as personal computers?”
“It could still be worth doing,” she said.
They arrived at the warehouse. Inside Henry had assembled a transfer gate.
“This building is old,” he said. “So it probably exists on the other side.”
“You got everything you need?” Grace asked.
“Yeah, of course,” Prime said.
“You sure you don’t want company?”
“I’m sure.”
She looked at him. “You kept this from us,” she said.
Prime met her gaze. “I did.”
“What do you do there? What use is an empty world?”
Prime shrugged. “Art.”
Grace snorted.
“Three days. Then we’re coming to get you.”
“Three days.”
* * *
The warehouse was dark in 9000. John Prime flicked on his flashlight and played it across the walls. Empty, utterly empty.
He listened. Nothing but the Panhandle wind. Prime wasn’t perfectly certain Universe 9000 was empty. He’d not picked up any shortwave signals, nor had he found any trace at all of another living person. But his survey had consisted only of parts of Ohio. Perhaps Amarillo, Texas, was the last bastion of humanity in the otherwise plague-ridden universe.
He pushed open the emergency exit. Weeds had sprung up in the sidewalk and street. Nothing. No bastion.
Transportation was the first requirement. Prime found it right outside the warehouse in a white delivery van for a general contractor. He dumped the tools, wood, and material out onto the street and drove the van to a hardware store where he picked up wire cutters, a knife, and other things he might need. He had marked the location of the Texas National Guard headquarters and drove there next.
The door to the armory had been ripped from its hinges and the weapons looted at some time during the plague. The place was barren. He tried the commandant’s office and found a shelf unit of assault rifles, grenades, and pistols. He broke the glass to the unit and took what he needed.
The Pantex site proved trickier. The gates were locked tight and spike strips had been deployed in front of and behind the gate. There was no way to get near the fence; short, stubby poles blocked access off the road. Furthermore, there was a cement culvert that made driving near the fence, even if he got past the poles, impossible. He’d have to go through the gate.
John Prime donned thick leather gloves. He grabbed the first spike strip and tried to drag it off the road. It proved almost too heavy for him. Finally he managed to drag it into the grass. There were three more on this side of the gate. He was sweating heavily by the time he took his cutters to the chain and lock. It snipped with a grind of metal. He unlooped the chain and pulled it off.
Four spike strips were on the other side.
“Jesus. Were they expecting zombies?”
He encountered no more obstacles on his way to the concrete bunker that housed the SADM devices. On the tarmac near the entrance to the bunker were six skeletons, picked clean by the elements and the animals. They were soldiers, Prime saw as he edged closer, with GI tags that hung from their ribs. One of the soldiers had died of a gunshot wound—his skull had a jagged hole in the temple.
Had there been some last stand here? Had someone come to take the nukes and these soldiers died here defending the trove? Were the nukes gone?
“Shit!”
The door to the bunker was locked. That was a good sign that the special atomic demolition munitions—the backpack nukes—were still inside. But getting through the door was a problem.
He couldn’t grenade the damn door. The last thing he wanted to do was to have explosives near nuclear devices, regardless of the fail-safes.
The door opened outward, but the hinges were machined flush with the wall. There was a handle, however.
He weaved the van among the skeletons and ran a chain from the trailer hitch to the door.
Slowly he eased the van forward, putting tension on the chain. The door held. He applied more gas. The van leaned forward. The wheels suddenly spun and the van lost traction, fishtailing a bit to the left.
“Damn.”
Prime slowly backed up a meter or two. Then he slammed on the gas. The van lurched forward, hung there for a moment, and then jumped forward. Something smacked the back window of the van, shattering it. He slammed on the brakes. The door was intact. The chain was not.
He drove to the machine shop and found a pneumatic drill powered by a gasoline engine. With it he was able to dig the three hinges out, though he ate through
a bit to do so. This time when he yanked the door by its handle, the locks’ tongues bent and the door tilted out of the frame to rattle on the tarmac.
Prime had to use the drill three more times, twice on a mantrap that required a person to stand one at a time in a particular spot before the doors would open or close, and then the vault door. He had to go back to the machine shop for more drill bits.
The vault door came off with a clank, slamming onto the tile floor. He reached in and hit the light switch. Lights flickered on, illuminating a room with twelve alcoves. The captain had explained that the SADM facility had its own bank of batteries in case of power failure. Apparently they still held a charge after two years.
Each alcove was separate from its neighbor by a meter and a thick wall of lead. Inside each alcove was an olive-drab cylinder. Straps hung from the front and each stood on a pedestal that would make it easy for a soldier to back up to it and strap it to his back. The cylinders were about seventy centimeters tall and half as much wide. From the manuals he’d been able to find in 7650, he knew they weighed nearly seventy kilograms.
“Jackpot.”
An hour later, John Prime was heading toward Ohio in an M35 cargo truck with six nukes in its bed.
CHAPTER 39
John squinted against bright lights. He tried to raise his hand to wipe away the tears, but something held his arm down. He needed to blow his nose; snot was collecting in his throat. He groaned and tried to sit up. He couldn’t move.
A shape blocked the light.
“John Rayburn, can you hear me?”
“Luigiantia,” he mumbled. His brain felt foggy. He couldn’t think right, and he was pinned down. Panic rose in him.
“That’s right. I am Imperator Luigiantia—”
“—of the Order of the Vigilari,” John finished. The words came unbidden from his mouth. He’d been here before, days ago or hours ago. He couldn’t tell.
“Drugs?” he said, slurring his words.
“That’s right. We’ve drugged you, John Rayburn,” Luigiantia said. “So that you answer our questions without unwanted emotion.”
“Casey.”
“Where is your iaciorator, John Rayburn?”
“Everywhere.”
“What universe is it in?”
“Every one we settled.”
