The Walls of the Universe

by Paul Melko

“Who have died.”

  “Yes.”

  “Their last known address?”

  “None of your business.”

  Charboric stared at him. He seemed like a man used to getting his way.

  “Your reticence has been noted.”

  “Good,” John said. “Your assholedness has been noted.”

  Charboric colored.

  “You know nothing of business!” he hissed. “You think you’re a smart know-it-all because you made something pretty. You think we’re here trying to steal it. Our goal is to run this like a business. And we need this information to protect ourselves. To protect you.”

  John slowly shook his head. “You think you understand me, but you don’t.” John stood up.

  “I’m not done here!” Charboric cried.

  “I am,” John replied. “If you need anything else, send me a memo.” He slammed out of the conference room, startling Stella, who had been sitting in a stiff-backed chair by the door.

  “Done already, sir?” she asked.

  Charboric grabbed the door before it slammed shut.

  “Get back in here and answer my questions!”

  John laughed. “Not in this lifetime.”

  “We own a majority of you! You have to.”

  “You own a majority of Pinball Wizards,” John said. “You don’t own me at all.”

  John headed for the elevator. Stella ran after him. Her face was pale. She seemed to be muttering under her breath.

  “What’s that, Stella?” John asked.

  “Mr. Charboric is upset, sir.”

  “You think so?”

  “Yes, I can tell.”

  John thought she was being sarcastic; then he realized she was sincere. She had seemed a highly competent, highly focused administrative assistant. Now John wondered if she was mentally defective.

  Grace and Henry looked up when John entered his office.

  “That was quick,” Grace said.

  “Charboric and I had an… a heated discussion,” John said. “We’re done. Let’s head back to Toledo before it gets dark.”

  As they were walking toward John’s car, Grace said, “Do you think we made a mistake?”

  Henry paused but said nothing.

  John shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “But we’re better off than we were two weeks ago. We’ve got cash flow. We’ve got a business plan.”

  “We’ve got partners,” Henry said sullenly.

  “But we can sell and leave anytime,” John said. “We can just go back to being students, and no one can stop us. But…”

  “It’s a chance we take. I know,” Henry said. He crawled into the backseat of the car, hitching his feet onto the seat. His legs were too long for the car otherwise.

  “Let’s enjoy it while we can,” John said. He hoped his words seemed jovial and positive. But as for himself, he was worried. Charboric was scrutinizing John’s past. And that was something he couldn’t let happen. He had no past in this world.

  CHAPTER 32

  Corrundrum sat nervously across from John Prime, spinning his coffee mug in his hands. It was two hours later, and three miles east, in a small coffee shop in a strip mall. Corrundrum had yet to say anything. Prime said nothing either; he was the one bluffing here. He expected that he had nothing Corrundrum wanted, while Corrundrum had information Prime needed.

  “Corrundrum. That’s a funny name,” Prime said.

  Corrundrum shrugged. “It’s not from around here,” he said.

  “Around here?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Prime grunted. He didn’t know what Corrundrum meant. He had always assumed that the universes where humans lived would be similar enough that everyone spoke a common set of Indo-European languages.

  “Is it a contrived name?” Prime asked. “Did you make it up?”

  Corrundrum looked up from his coffee, staring at Prime.

  “No, of course not. What did you think?”

  Prime didn’t want to appear like he knew nothing, so he remained silent.

  “I’m a singleton, of course,” Corrundrum said.

  “Sure,” Prime said, unsure what he meant. “Tell me how you got… where you are.” He tried to make the request innocuous yet filled with context, if Corrundrum chose to interpret it a certain way.

  “How does anyone ever end up in a backwater like this?” he mused. “Everyone has a story, they’re all different, and they’re all the same.”

  “Sure.”

  “Anthropology expedition,” Corrundrum said. “I thought the guy was funded and legit, but he was just a Prime seeker. He had some wild idea that there were artifacts in some universe, but he told us he was doing culture relativism studies. He had us up and down the moraines, coring samples, testing for traces. I had no idea what he was really looking for.”

  “What?”

  “Prime artifacts, I said.”

  “Only we must have done something stupid, because a group of paths found us,” Corrundrum said. “We were camped at the edge of the North American Craton in the Appalachians when the whole place was rousted by a pack of paths. They drove us out of the tents, shot some of us. Kryerol was gone, not in his tent, and his transfer was gone too. I thought he flashed out, but he had actually been at a farmhouse down the road, entertaining one of the local wives. He liked that sort of play.”

  “Kryerol?”

  “Yeah, he was the ‘expedition lead.’ The paths stripped us and shackled us in a mass mover. It was old tech, and probably the only transfer they had. The thing was humming and we watched this shaved-head tech with welts on his back getting it back online and synced to wherever they wanted to go.”

  “Where was that?”

  “Hell if I know! Whichever universe they used as home base, I guess.”

  “Don’t get upset,” Prime said. They weren’t the only patrons in the coffee shop.

  “Right. I get a little crazy when I think about how close we were to being dead. When you’re a singleton, it means a little more, ya know.” Corrundrum sipped his coffee. “Kryerol came back and they almost got him, but he slipped out. They were angry. They blew the brains out of the girl next to me. I thought I was next. Then Kryerol was there, materializing out of nowhere in the middle of the mover. He was firing his weapon, but the paths were armored. It was enough to drive them out of the bay.

  “He knelt down in the middle of us and began fiddling with his transfer.

  “ ‘Didn’t think I’d leave you, eh? You’re my buds.’

  “He must have used all that thing’s juice. He whipped us all out of there.”

  “To where?”

  “To here, of course. This universe. I turned around to thank him. Only he was choking on his own blood. One of the paths must have got him just as he transferred. Only he got the device too. The projectile had passed through the control deck into Kryerol’s chest.”

  “So you were stranded here,” Prime said. “All of you. Where are the rest?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “I only see you. Did you kill them?” Prime asked with a false joviality. What Corrundrum was telling him was nearly impossible to assimilate quickly. But he needed to keep Corrundrum talking.

  “We headed for the beacon near the Serpent Mound,” Corrundrum said. “This world isn’t dead, at least. We didn’t have to walk. But we didn’t realize it was infested. The Primes had abandoned it long ago, and a band of paths had the beacon area under surveillance. They captured the rest of us. But you know that, don’t you.”

  “What?”

  “You’d have to know that,” Corrundrum said. He leaned back, pulling his winter coat back to reveal the black handle of a gun.

  “This is a public place,” Prime said. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I have no illusions they’re still alive. It’s been ten years. But I want in on it,” Corrundrum said. “I want a piece of this.”

  “What are you talking about?”

&nb
sp; “You can’t be so stupid to try and do this and not be a part of them,” Corrundrum said. “But you’re in trouble now, so I have leverage. This murder thing. You can’t get out from under it. Why not? These paths are making billions here. You could buy your way out of anything. So you must be an offshoot. You must be making some play that you don’t want them to know about. So I have something over you.”

  “I got another idea,” Prime said. “You’re psychotic. You’re spinning science fiction tales in a coffee shop with someone you’ve been stalking. Maybe you’re the person in trouble now, mentally.”

  “No, I’ve been watching you,” Corrundrum said. “You believe my story. You’re second generation at least, but you’ve heard the stories. You understand what I’m saying. You people owe me.” Corrundrum stood up. “If you don’t give me what I want, I’ll tell them. I know where they are. Or at least where they’re looking. They’ll be interested in knowing what you’re doing with the Cube, I bet.”

  “Sit down,” Prime hissed. When he didn’t, Prime grabbed Corrundrum’s wrist and slammed him into his seat. Corrundrum could have reached for his gun, but he seemed shocked that Prime had resorted to violence.

  “You’ve got it wrong, you fuck,” Prime whispered. “I’m trapped here just like you.”

  Corrundrum shook his head.

  “I had a device,” Prime said. “It was broken. It got me here… there, I mean. I… gave it away. It’s gone.”

  “You had a transfer? And you stopped in this shithole universe?”

  “This is what I was used to.”

  Corrundrum leaned back, confused. Then he laughed. “You’re not even a singleton, are you?”

  “What?”

  “You’re some backwater kid who got a transfer and you don’t even understand what you had.” Corrundrum stood up, his face dazed. He began to laugh. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “I didn’t before,” Prime said. “But I think I’m getting it.”

  Corrundrum said, “You’re worthless to me. You’re not even an original.” He didn’t wait for an answer. “So long, kid. Sorry for bothering you. Good luck. When they find you, don’t tell ’em you know me.”

  “Hold on!” Prime cried, but Corrundrum was already out the door. Prime watched as he started his car. Corrundrum gave him a shrug and a roguish smile.

  Prime wrote down the license plate number as the car disappeared into the cold night.

  CHAPTER 33

  Regardless of Charboric’s dire demand for the source of the pinball idea, the lawyers decided that the head-to-head versions of the pinball machines were so different from anything that John had seen that the patent work could go forward. They filed several more patents on different pinball technologies in January.

  Visgrath sent them dozens of tall Aryan men who spoke little English but came with glowing references from him or Charboric. They didn’t bother hiring any of them, and instead brought on a squat, reserved shop foreman named Viv, who seemed to inspire a fear of death in her workers. She had her own recommendations for workers that resulted in a fifty-person staff on the floor by February, working at 100 percent capacity to fill the orders they had coming in. The Vegas deal had come through after all, as had a dozen smaller orders.

  As classes picked up, John’s time became sparse. At first he didn’t notice, but when Grace missed class for the third straight day, he realized something was up.

  “What gives?” he said. “You missed thermodynamics again.”

  Grace shrugged. They were in an office on the foreman’s deck, overlooking the factory floor below. Because of their school schedule, they ran the floor from the afternoon to midnight.

  “Yeah, it’s boring,” she said.

  “We have a test on Friday.”

  “Henry told me.”

  “You need to come to class.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Okay, okay,” John said. “Sorry. I’ll get you my notes if you want.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Why?”

  “I dropped the class,” Grace said, looking away. “I dropped all my classes.”

  “You what? All?”

  “Yeah, college dropout, that’s me.”

  “You should have told me you were going to do that, so I could have-”

  “-talked me out of it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “Why?” John said.

  She spread her arms. “This, of course.”

  “This? Pinball Wizards?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s working. It’s really working. Our accounts receivable are huge. I mean millions of dollars. I could double the shop floor size based on the projections. It’s that big.”

  “You didn’t have to drop out.”

  “You can’t run a million-dollar business part-time,” Grace said.

  “We could have hired someone.”

  “We already have Visgrath to deal with,” Grace said. “No way am I dealing with a CEO who isn’t one of us.”

  “Then Henry or I could-”

  Grace shrugged. “It’s better if I do it.”

  John marveled at how different Grace was. Her clothes were different. Her manners were different. He remembered suddenly her drunken admission three months ago.

  “You’ve changed; you’ve become a businesswoman,” John said.

  “Yeah, I’m different. I feel all grown-up.”

  John was aware of her shapely body. Her skin was clean, and she had used perfume. That wasn’t the Grace he had met in September.

  “Grace-,” John said.

  Suddenly she turned away, and John felt awkward. She handed him a package. “I almost forgot. Kyle dropped this off. Just for closure, he said.”

  “Yeah.” The lawsuit and push back from the city of Toledo had all just faded away as if they had never happened. John remembered how tense December had been, how desperate they were for a solution, and how Visgrath had been their savior with the infusion of cash. In hindsight, their desperation seemed so trivial.

  John slit the envelope open with his thumb. Inside were a dozen legal-sized documents. When he looked up, Grace was at the door of the office.

  “I have to-I have to go check in with Viv,” she said. “See ya in a bit.”

  John nodded, then sighed. He pulled out the documents and, plopping down in an old leather chair, started paging through them.

  The lawsuit from Paquelli was last. John almost tossed it aside; then he saw the name of the codefendant in the suit. He sat up, his mind cold. If it had been Smith or Jones, his eyes would have skimmed right over it. But how many Charborics were there in the world?

  They’d been played.

  At first John was stunned; then he felt just plain stupid. It was probably his own embarrassment at arguing so vehemently for the deal with EmVis that decided him against telling Henry and Grace. He rationalized it. Grace would have confronted Visgrath. Henry would have turned inward into a dark mope. Better for all if he hid it away.

  John stuffed the papers in a rusty filing cabinet in the old factory, and tried to forget about them.

  But every time he saw Visgrath, every time Charboric sent an infuriating memo, every time there was a conference call on the latest sales projections, John felt the grip of their manipulation on his neck.

  He stopped coming to meetings. He skipped one board meeting, then another, and when Grace pressed he told her to vote his shares as needed. John’s roost became the old factory, where he tinkered with pinball machines of the traditional kind. When Visgrath asked, John complained of a large workload at school, finals.

  The phone call from Janet Rayburn was a surprise. He’d sent them a couple letters, a Christmas card, and a huge basket of apples when his first check came in from the company. But otherwise, he’d stayed away. The year with them had been too gut-wrenching. They weren’t his parents, and though they would have let him be a surrogate son, he wouldn’t allow it. His parents were else
where.

  “How’s the farm? How’s Bill?” John asked.

  “Fine, fine, he’s fine. Spends time in the barn, mending and fixing. Spring is around the corner, so everything needs to be right,” Janet replied.

  They chitchatted for a few more minutes, and then Janet said, “Someone was around to ask after you.”

  “Who?”

  “Foreigner of some sort,” Janet said.

  John didn’t ask what kind of foreigner, but he guessed the man had a Slavic or Germanic accent.

  “Asked if we knew where you came from.”

  “What… what did you say?”

  “Didn’t say nothing,” Janet said with a laugh. “Some people should mind their own business. We never asked where you came from or what you were running from. We know good people when we see them. And this guy was no-good.”

  “Thanks for that,” John said.

  “Sure, but maybe you’d like to come down for Easter, bring that girl, Casey Nicholson. She’s nice.”

  “We’re not…”

  “Oh, right. You kids and your quick relationships. Bill was the only man I dated. Did I tell you that?”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “That Casey is a nice girl. You should call her up, see what she’s doing tonight.”

  “I’m sure she’s with her other boyfriend, Jack,” John said, harsher than he’d wanted to.

  “Oh, she’s one of those girls,” Janet said. “Better done with her then.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well, come over for Easter dinner by yourself then,” Janet said. “We’d love to have you.”

  “I’ll think about it,” John said. He hung up the phone. He had no doubt who had been snooping around, looking for dirt on him: Charboric or Visgrath. What did they hope to find? John had a moment’s nausea, a pounding of agoraphobia that forced him to steady himself on the kitchen table with his hand.

  If it got bad enough, if the tension from EmVis and Pinball Wizards, Inc., and Casey and Grace and Henry got to be too much, he could just leave. He didn’t have to be there. He didn’t have to be in Toledo or part of the board at PW. He could just leave. If he wanted to, he could leave the universe.