At the moment, Thraex was taking stock of the man’s activities, trying to get a handle on his spending. Thraex wasn’t much to worry about something as unimportant as money, but Richard was throwing away cash like there was no tomorrow.
He’d apparently been funding a project at an out-of-the-way lab called “Anderson Observatory.” The name was a bit of a puzzler, as they didn’t do any kind of astronomy here. Or at least not that Thraex could tell.
Instead… they were meddling in things they shouldn’t be.
The workroom of the lab was in disarray, the result of whoever had been in charge of the project leaving in a hurry.
But the purpose of the project was pretty damn clear to Thraex.
And that was a problem.
Pericles Merridew squinted at the scribblings on the chalkboard in the corner. Thraex recognized some of the writing, it obviously belonged to Richard Westgate himself. The rest of it was done by some other researcher here, and Thraex had no interest in it.
Merridew pointed at it. “Do you know what this is!?!”
Thraex scratched his cheek. “I got some notion, yeah.”
Argyle Doucet frowned at it. “I believe it has something to do with dimensional travel, correct?”
Magnolia Lafayette-Dupree sat down in one of the chairs, turning to look at the scientific notations. “Well, what else would Richard Westgate be up to,” she turned to look at the man in question and smiled, “right, Rich?”
But Thraex’s step-father was no longer capable of responding.
Merridew tapped the equation with his fingertip, then turned to look at the machine which was assembled at the front of the room. “They have invented a way to jump between dimensions…”
“Lots’a folks can do that.” Thraex retorted, hoping to get these people out of here before they recognized what this was.
“No, no,” Merridew shook his head, “they’ve found a way to jump through the infinite number of dimensions… with specific goals in mind. Like a search engine.” He swallowed, eyes widening like a prospector who’d just caught gold fever. “You could easily find your own personal paradise… Anything you could think of… Your wildest dreams come true…” He nodded to himself. “This… this machine makes you god of your own destiny.”
“Well, I guess we know what happened to the staff here then.” Etienne Rouillard picked up some of the paperwork and started leafing through it. “They obviously used this… ‘God Machine,’” he shrugged, coming up with a name for the device off the top of his head, “to leave this world behind.”
“Do you know what we could do with this!?!” Merridew exclaimed, breathing fast.
“You could destroy the world with it, is what you could do.” Thraex told him flatly.
Merridew turned to look at him in amazement. “This machine could save the world!”
Thraex crossed his arms over his chest. “If folks could choose to live in the best of all possible worlds, why the hell would they want to live in this one?” He retorted. “It’d destroy the world as surely as any bomb. Everybody would simply leave. And that’d be the end.”
Merridew didn’t look at all convinced by that reasoning. “Maybe that’d be for the best.”
“It’d be the end of any effort or relationship. Because the machine could just stick ya into a reality which had it better.”
“It would allow everyone the freedom to live how they wanted…”
“It’d be the end of this whole damn universe and countless others.” Thraex gestured emphatically towards the door. “This planet would empty out like a stadium after a football game, leaving behind a wasteland and infecting other dimensions with all of our problems. It would ruin more lives than are capable of being counted, all ‘cause some folks didn’t like the way life works and wanted something easier. Something some other version of them had, somewhere in the multiverse.” He looked at the machine, thinking the matter over. Then he shook his head. “No.” He said simply. “No, that don’t fly with me.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Merridew turned to look at him in sheer amazement. “For the first time since Creation, we’d all have the ability to choose our fates.” He tapped his finger against the machine. “To decide what our lives should be like and what kind of person we want to be. We could have whatever lives we wanted! We could do anything! Can you even imagine that kind of power?”
“We have that power right now.” Thraex moved closer to the man. “It’s called gettin’ up in the mornin’ and doin’ shit. You don’t like your life, work to change it!”
“We’d be gods, Thraex!” Merridew countered, sounding close to hysterics now. “Don’t you understand that!?!”
“Folks have got no damn business being gods.” Thraex reminded him, his tone darkening. “This dimension has already got one and I’m told by religious folk that he’s a pretty nice fella.” He towered over the other man, glaring down at him. “Life is what you make of it, not what you can steal for yourself in the multiverse from some other poor sap. That’s lazy and cruel.” He pointed at the man, moving to stand between Merridew and the machine. “You play the hand you’re dealt.”
Magnolia let out a bark of laughter. “Says the man rescued from his hell by someone from another dimension. You wouldn’t even be here if the Westgates hadn’t been exploring unknown dimensions and rescued you, you hypocrite.”
“Exactly. Explorin’ and helpin’ folks, not going there to take whatever happiness those other folks have got.” Thraex nodded. “The multiverse is a system, which you don’t understand and shouldn’t be messin’ with for fun. And I know what’s out there, Magnolia.” He slammed his fist against his own chest. “Men like me. For every paradise, there’s something a whole lot worse than anyone has it here. The multiverse is a scarier place than you’re even capable of conceiving. There’s a reason why so few people can travel out of this dimension: they’re not supposed to. You go looking to fulfill your dreams out there, and all you’ll get is your nightmares.”
“That’s what the machine is for!” Merridew insisted. “You can set it to track down whatever you want in the infinite number of dimensions, and send you there. Heaven at your fingertips, all you have to do is ask.” He turned to look at it, all but crying at the possibilities.
“You’d trust a machine to tell you which reality was best for you?” Thraex scoffed. “Hell, I don’t even trust a machine to wake me up in time in the mornin’.” He started to collect the paperwork from off of the desks. “All I know is that I wouldn’t take too kindly to someone who looks like me showing up and tryin’ to take my life. Seems like him and me would come to blows pretty damn quick.”
“There are more universes in the multiverse than there are grains of sand on the planet, Thraex.” Merridew explained. “The impact of everyone leaving this one would be minimal, even if it happened.”
“There’s always a lot of everything.” He met the man’s eyes. “Until there ain’t. And then it’s just folks fightin’ over what’s left, all ‘cause some folks wanted more. Wanted it quick and easy and at someone else’s expense.”
Etienne Rouillard argued. “Somewhere out there, there’s a perfect world…”
“Who’s to say it isn’t already this one, if you try.” Thraex grabbed another pile of folders and tossed them into the corner. “And there are sure enough a lot of bad ones out there too. You want mainstreamers tracking all of that back here? Unknown diseases and monsters and weapons? New ways to ruin what we’ve got? New kinds of horrors that this dimension hasn’t even thought of yet? A million duplicates of you showin’ up thanks to machines like this that they invented, and all suddenly here layin’ claim to your life because they think you got some real nice shit?”
Argyle Doucet made a disgusted face. “Men like you have stood in the way of scientific advancement since the beginning of time.”
“Men like me should’a said something a hundred times over when men like you were sailing off as Conquistadors to fight the
Aztecs. Or when you were marching off to fight the Zulu. Or the Sioux. Or a million other times when one group decides that someone else don’t deserve what they got and that they should have it instead.” Argyle moved to get around him and Thraex shoved him away. “You just make things worse for the rest of us, to make your own lives better.” He grabbed an eraser and started to remove the equations from the board. “You want people like my daddy having an invite to come here? You want other dimensions sharing new ways to lose people?” He pointed at Richard Westgate, trying to keep his voice from breaking. “Because I don’t know about you, but I’m runnin’ out of Westgates and I ain’t gonna gamble the ones I got left. This dimension is just fine with me, problems and all, and we’re all gonna stick. We’re gonna sink or swim together, the rich folks don’t get to take fancy life boats away to act as interdimensional pirates.”
“No, you can’t!” Merridew made another grab for the eraser.
Thraex moved it out of his reach, then rounded on him. “You really want this ta go that way, Pericles?” He asked the man threateningly. “’Cause if you’re that desperate to leave this world, I’m sure enough ‘bout to help you live that dream.”
Merridew backed down, running his hands through his hair in horror, like Thraex was erasing the Mona Lisa in front of him.
“The world is the way it is.” Thraex reminded them, tossing the eraser to the side. “Only way to change it is moving forward, not by runnin’ away and hidin’ in some other dimension. Not by lettin’ some machine do the hard work for you. Not by takin’ from someone else.”
“There is a universe out there where you and Sasha Westgate have been married for years.” Magnolia said softly. “Where she loves you more than you could possibly imagine. Aren’t you even a little curious? Don’t you wish you could…”
“No.” Thraex snapped a little too quickly. “That ain’t me and that ain’t her. Just ‘cause someone looks like you, that don’t mean they are you. You’re whoever your life made you, the good and the bad. She and I had our chance and it failed. But I’d rather fail with Sasha Westgate than succeed with some fake version of her that I dug up in some dimension or another.” He pulled out a match and tossed it into the pile of folders in the corner, watching as they burned. “Whoever those other folks are and whatever their lives are like, that don’t matter to me. And I’m not about to make my problems theirs to deal with.” He rounded on his step-father’s friends. “No. This world isn’t perfect but it’s ours. It’s ours to protect and make better. And we’ll live and die with it, we won’t take someone else’s.”
“What gives you the right to decide that?” Merridew demanded.
“The courts.” Thraex pointed at the God Machine. “I own this contraption. My step-father bankrolled Anderson Observatory and everything in it.”
“Yes!” Merridew agreed. “Richard is the one who thought all of this up!” He pointed at the man. “This is his dream you’re standing in the way of!”
“This paperwork is dated from two years ago.” Thraex tossed another handful into the fire. “Which means even if he did think it up, he didn’t use it.”
“He was just waiting for the right time!”
“You’re sayin’ that Professor Richard W. Westgate,” Thraex pointed at his step-father, “a man who dedicated his entire life to helping people and protecting this world, would approve an ‘emergency evacuation plan’ which avoids all our troubles and forces billions of other worlds to deal with them?” His voice rose an octave, getting angry that anyone could think that about the man. “That’s what you’re sayin’?”
Merridew’s eyes narrowed in fury. “I’m saying that it’s easy for you to speak for him, when you stand to inherit everything he’s got in this reality.”
Thraex knocked him out with one punch, then turned to smash the machine into a million broken pieces.
“When I tell the Freedom Squad about this…” Etienne Rouillard threatened.
Thraex stalked towards him, fists clenched. “You tell the Freedom Squad or anybody else one goddamn word about it…”
Rouillard backed down immediately, stepping away.
Thraex could think of few things worse than maniacs like the Freedom Squad suddenly having this kind of power.
Monsters should never become gods.
“You’ve made a horrific choice.” Magnolia informed him grimly, staring at the wreckage of the God Machine.
“It’s called life.” Thraex reminded her, pushing his step-father’s wheelchair towards the door. “It’s not supposed to be easy.”
Chapter 19
“Amaryllis Westgate. Died 1957. Died 1957. Died 1957. Died 1957. Died 1957… Stuck in a time loop.”
– Thraex, Damn Fool Ways Westgates Ended Up Graveyard Dead: Vol. 1
Present Day
“He killed me.” Magnolia continued. “By destroying the God Machine… he killed me. I could have gone somewhere else… where there’s a cure for what I have.” She mournfully nodded, still staring out the window. “I could have retired to some perfect dimension, where my husband didn’t leave me for a younger woman and the community I dedicated my life to spent more time curing cancer than creating miniature circus animals.”
“I’m sorry.” Sasha told the woman, not knowing what else to say.
She turned to look at her. “What would you have done?” She asked Sasha seriously. “If you had found the machine instead of him?” She wiped at her bleeding nose again. “Somewhere, there’s a dimension where your family is all alive and happy… Where your father didn’t poison himself and your brother didn’t have his mind stolen. What would you have done if you had that machine and could go there instead of being here?”
Sasha considered that for several moments, then shrugged. “I… I don’t know.” She honestly admitted. “I really don’t. I guess no one could say unless they were given the opportunity.” She stood straighter. “But I knew my father. And I don’t believe he would have quit this world.” She firmed her jaw. “Westgates don’t quit, no matter how hard the work is. And they don’t steal someone else’s life just because they’re unhappy with their own.”
Magnolia looked disgusted. “Then we’re all better off without him.” She returned to looking out the window. “This world… it’s filled with fools. Scientist or mainstreamer… You’re all fools.”
Sasha traced the wire through the room, where it disappeared behind a door on the far wall. “What do you need that much Periallian wire for, Magnolia?” She tried to keep her voice level and calm, since it was obvious that the woman was on the edge.
“I told him,” Magnolia said to herself, “I said: ‘Let me handle this, I know what I’m doing. You just concentrate on allowing Triumph Industries to clear out the labs, don’t worry about why.’” She sounded repulsed now. “But Merridew always was an idiot. He just wanted the money, he didn’t understand the poetry of what I had in mind.” She took a sip of her tea. “So, I had my friend call him to the warehouse… and then I didn’t have to worry about Merridew anymore. And as a bonus, Triumph got access to the land the warehouse sat on, which I’m going to use to…” She trailed off. “The others didn’t understand either, obviously. They were all too attached to this world to do something drastic. They were going to tell people about the machine. Threatening to tell you Westgates or blab to Thraex about it, in hopes he’d let them out of their debt. And ultimately, I decided that their labs were located in very advantageous spots for me anyway.” Her tone darkened. “Besides… they didn’t stop him from destroying the machine. Which killed me. So… why shouldn’t they die too? If they had stopped him, I’d still be living right now. Somewhere better…”
Sasha had no idea how to respond to that. “Uh-huh.” She finally got out.
Magnolia pointed at the wire. “I used Triumph Industries to clear away the labs which would be obstacles. The ones which might try to stop me, if they were still functioning. So, I bought them all out cheap, and then I used those very building
s to create my web…” She reached out to run her hand along the wire, fingers hovering over the enchanted surface, not quite touching it.
“What about the red alien woman?” Sasha asked. “Where does she fit in?”
Magnolia looked confused and angry. “Damn aliens.” She snorted in dismissal. “Someone is always trying to stand in the way of tomorrow, I suppose. No real surprise. She almost got to the wire first, but I bought it before she got there.”
Sasha’s eyes cut to the locked room again. “What are you planning, Magnolia?” Sasha felt a shiver run up her spine, recognizing that if Magnolia Lafayette-Dupree had fallen into mad science... it was likely to be bad.
“Reichelt Park killed me.” Magnolia whispered, still sounding haunted and far away. “Everyone who was focused on using their genius to invent meaningless trinkets and seduce their step-siblings, rather than curing cancer. All those great minds of Reichelt Park. You all killed me.” Her dry lips curved into a slow smile. “So I’m going to kill everyone.”
She pressed a button on the table and the wire instantly started glowing.
Outside, an intricate pattern illuminated the sky above the park, drawn out in the wire used as Christmas lights, strung through the trees and the buildings that Triumph Industries owned.
A hazy sort of waving energy fell over the park, trapping the rides and games and hundreds of festival goers under it.
Magnolia had just imprisoned most of Reichelt Park in a force field.
She smashed the remote to pieces, its work complete.
Sasha had been expecting something like that. “You know I’m going to have to stop you, Magnolia, right?” She asked her, moving to stand between the woman and the doorway.
Sasha wasn’t a fighter by nature, but she was reasonably sure she could beat up an elderly woman who was dying of cancer, if the situation called for it. She wasn’t exactly excited about that possibility, but she could do it if lives were on the line.
“I’m going to take this world from you. And I’m going to give it to him.” She looked down on the festival again, eyes now unfocused. “The people of Reichelt Park… they’re going to the worst dimension the multiverse has to offer.” She gently reached her finger out, almost touching the glowing wire again. “I’ll keep them in the park until the machine can pick out the perfect nightmare, especially for them. And the rest of you on the planet? You consigned me to an ignominious death from cancer. So I want this world to know what it’s like to fight an unstoppable force.” She closed her eyes, voice slurring. “We all could have had such wonderful lives. Anything we wanted. Heaven.” A tear slid down her cheek. “But instead? Instead, we’ll all burn here...” She grabbed the glowing wire and jerked frantically for a moment as the magical current went through her, before hitting the ground in a smoking heap.
Broke and Famous Page 35
