The Walls of the Universe

by Paul Melko

  Visgrath smiled. John didn’t remember ever seeing the man smile.

  “So easy to pretend with an outsider, I forget how to speak frankly,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We traced your license plate number,” Visgrath said, meeting John’s stare directly.

  John felt perspiration break across his back. They had him.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Please. Give us some credit. Your trip to Pittsburgh,” Visgrath said. “You know what we’re doing. You know why we’re interested in you.”

  John realized he was face-to-face with Visgrath’s mass of assumptions; neither of them was what the other thought he was. And John was certain his life hung on how he answered. Denial wouldn’t work.

  “Beethoven’s Ninth,” John said with a smile. “Nice touch.”

  Visgrath laughed, and John was frightened again at the sight of his bleached white teeth. “Some things make easy money. Beethoven is one of them. It does require a bit of infrastructure to pull off. We need an orchestra. We need certain technologies. Pinball,” he said. “We never would have done that. But it’s ingenious.”

  John realized then that Grauptham House and EmVis were in league, if not the same company. “You, I mean Grauptham House, holds a pinball patent.”

  “Not really,” Visgrath said.

  “Oh, I see. More pressure, just like the city of Toledo thing and the Ray Paquelli suit,” John said. “You use the same tactics over and over again.”

  Visgrath nodded. “Apparently we are a race of repetitive minds,” he said with a laugh. “You caught us. I will have Charboric killed if you like, for his lack of original thinking.”

  John shook his head. “That won’t be necessary.”

  “Of course.”

  Visgrath looked at him, and John returned the stare. After a moment Visgrath spoke again. “I assume some commonalities between us, yes?”

  “The exploitation of stolen technology?” John asked.

  “Yes, that, of course. But hardly exploitation,” Visgrath said. “It’s more regarding how… we came to be here.”

  John nodded. “Yes, how we came to be here.” John’s mind churned. They were exploiting technology. They were hiding. But they were on the lookout for similarly exploited technology. They’d discovered his pinball machines. How was their situation like his own? Then he realized.

  “You’re stranded,” John said.

  Visgrath laughed. “Would we stay in this hellhole otherwise?”

  John realized his play. “You said it. We gotta make the best of what we’ve got.”

  “Exactly. You understand us then.”

  “How long have you been here?” John asked.

  “Decades. I was stranded with an initial group of twelve. Myself, Charboric, and ten you have not met. It was rough, of course. These barbaric universes are so far behind the main line. And the philosophies here aren’t like we expect. You understand, to each his own, which is why we didn’t object to Grace being named president.” Visgrath paused. “I’m surprised you allowed it, however.”

  “Why do the work when someone else can?” John said.

  “True, but jump-starting in a new universe can be hazardous. You are brave to allow her to lead the endeavor. We thought she was the stranded, not you at first. It is just you, is it not?”

  “They don’t know anything,” John said quickly. “Why would I tell them?”

  “Yes, why would you?”

  “So, scuba, defibrillators, music. Grauptham House is a busy little company,” John said. “You all must be rolling in the dough.”

  “We have enough to make ourselves comfortable but not quite enough to act with impunity,” Visgrath said.

  “Is that your goal? To have enough to do whatever you want?”

  “Our goal is to get back to our home universe,” Visgrath said, “and to punish those who put us here.”

  “Who put you here?”

  Visgrath grinned. “Bad luck, fate, enemies within and without.” He waved his hand. “Does it matter?”

  “No.”

  “Who put you here?”

  “Someone I trusted,” John said.

  “Indeed.” Visgrath nodded. “It is always the case. So then, we understand each other. We have common cause, more common than before, and more secret. You understand our secrecy.”

  “Of course.”

  “Our goal is money and comfort, while we perhaps wait to be rescued. If such happens, we would take you with us. And if those who stranded you or those who await your return were to come here for you…”

  “Yes, of course. That seems fair.”

  “Excellent.” Visgrath paused. “We have used all the ideas we could think of. We have run short on them after fifty years. Your pinball was something we knew of, but not enough to exploit. You are from another world and more current on certain things. If you have ideas that we could exploit, EmVis would be able to do so effectively, and for a more even distribution of wealth.” Fifty years? John thought. How old was Visgrath? He didn’t look older than thirty-five or forty.

  “I wasn’t prepared for being marooned,” John said. “I really don’t have a list of ideas.” He thought for a moment of John Prime’s Cube.

  “Yes, of course,” Visgrath said, standing. “Perhaps we can discuss it again. There may be ideas that you aren’t remembering clearly.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Visgrath extended his hand. They shook. “I’m glad we have shared our positions. Charboric said we should have eliminated you, but I felt that we can gain from partnership.”

  “Remind me not to send Charboric a Christmas card.”

  Visgrath laughed. “Why would you?” he said. “I knew that you’d be more valuable to us alive. This pinball is just one example. There’s probably more you don’t even realize you know that can be exploited.”

  “I don’t know about that…”

  “It really is for the best,” Visgrath said. “And I won’t take no for an answer.”

  “Maybe we should keep this relationship more formal,” John said.

  Visgrath paused. “I don’t want it anything but,” he said. “But we are two dogs in the same kennel, and it is best if we work together. If not, you can deal with Charboric.”

  John felt himself recoil. “Is that a… is that a threat?”

  “Of course it is, John!” Visgrath said. “It is us travelers against them, the mundanes. You are a traveler; therefore you are with us. Do you understand?”

  “I do now,” John said. “I do now.”

  “Good. I will make an appointment for you to visit the inner compound,” Visgrath said. “You will be interested. Startled perhaps, even envious of what we have wrought from nothing.”

  “I will, I’m sure.”

  Visgrath left then, and John watched the door for long minutes until he heard the outer door swing shut. His heart was racing. His face felt flushed. What had he gotten himself into? He had just wanted to study physics. He had just wanted to go home! Now, Grace and Henry were caught up in this fiasco.

  He wanted to drive home, grab the device, and leave. Leave this fucking universe and find a new one. Damn it! He should have been careful! He’d broken his own rule, getting involved.

  He could just leave. No way could Visgrath follow him. They were trapped. They had no transfer device.

  But then Grace and Henry would be at Visgrath’s mercy. Even Casey and Bill and Janet were at risk if John fled. He wouldn’t put it past Visgrath and Charboric to take their anger out on his closest.

  “Damn it!” he cried. He picked up the phone. He put it down. He picked up again and dialed Grace.

  “Grace,” he said when she picked up. “I need you here right now. The factory. It’s important.” He hung up and called Henry.

  The truth didn’t faze either of them. They took the facts of John’s testimony in stride. That was the best part of his admission.

  “You betrayed us!” Grace c
ried.

  “I didn’t-”

  “You fucking lied to us!”

  “Not on-”

  “You aren’t even who you say you are!”

  “I’m still me-”

  “Just shut up and stop defending yourself!”

  “Grace!”

  “What?”

  “I didn’t mean for this to happen!”

  “Of course you couldn’t. You’re too self-involved to see anything around you!” Grace cried.

  Henry thankfully said nothing.

  Grace started sobbing. “Why did you even get us into this mess?”

  “I’m sorry, Grace.” John held open his arms, but she glared at him and sagged instead onto Henry’s shoulder. He looked uncomfortable with it.

  “Grace. I need-”

  “You’re fired.”

  “You can’t fire me!”

  “I can; I’m the president.”

  “But I own fifteen percent of the company.”

  “That doesn’t mean you get a job here!” Grace cried. “Get out!”

  John stood up. “I understand if you hate me. And I understand if you want me out of here. But we have a real, serious problem.”

  He walked out the door of the office. Behind him, he heard Grace sobbing. He heard Henry say something, but it was too soft to hear. John walked across the silent factory floor. How had he ended up here? He’d tried to make the best decision in every case. But here he was, losing his friends, losing his company. He had already lost Casey. And even his life was in jeopardy. All because…

  All because he had hidden the truth and lied to the ones he loved.

  He cursed, slamming open the door. The parking lot was empty except for their three cars. He sat heavily in his front seat. What now? He’d lost the friendship of everyone who could help him. He’d placed all his friends in jeopardy.

  He leaned his head against the steering wheel. His mouth was dry, his face hot.

  “Damn it.”

  Someone tapped on his passenger side window.

  He looked up to see Grace. She pulled open the door and sat beside him.

  “So,” she said, then didn’t say anything more.

  “So,” John said.

  “Were you going to leave us?” she said.

  “I could have. I thought about it,” John said. “But I couldn’t.”

  “I read a lot of science fiction,” she said matter-of-factly, “so this is not as much of a shock as it should be.”

  “The tough part is how I used you guys,” John said. “I never meant that to happen. It just snowballed.”

  “Sure, I understand. If I didn’t know you were the biggest Boy Scout ever, I wouldn’t be out here now,” she said. “So, thousands of universes, you end up here. The bad guys end up here. They find you. They don’t know you have a device. We’re in the thick of it. Is that the skinny?”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “And now you need some help,” she said. “From your friends.”

  “My only friends.”

  “That’s true enough,” Grace said. “John, I’m not giving up the company. I’m not giving up Henry. I’m not letting Visgrath or Charboric take it all away. And that means…”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’re going to help you.”

  John let out a breath.

  “What do we do? Do you have an idea? I’ve been struggling for so long with this alone…”

  “Show us the device. I want to see it.”

  “Sure,” John said. “Does that mean I get my job back?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “That’s it?” Henry asked.

  “Yeah.”

  Henry stared at the device, ran a finger over the metal edge. “It looks like a piece of equipment from Space Lords.”

  “It’s a Virbidian Shift Modulator,” Grace said, with a squeal.

  “It’s not,” John said. “It’s a powerful device that rips holes in the walls of the universe.”

  “It looks like a toy,” Henry said.

  Grace took it in her hand. “Feels like aluminum. Is it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You haven’t run a spectrograph on it?”

  “No. I did a tomogram,” John said.

  “What’s that look like?” Henry asked.

  John showed him the diagrams. “Cool. What are these things in here?”

  “I haven’t a clue,” John said, laughing. He felt joyful to be sharing it with his friends after hiding it for so long.

  “Is this a seam in the cylinder?” Grace asked. She ran her finger along the edge of the device.

  “You have sharp eyes,” John said. “It is.” He handed her a magnifying glass.

  “I felt it.”

  She peered at the edge. “There’s marks here.”

  “I know.”

  “Someone’s opened this,” she said.

  “Probably, to build it, of course,” John said.

  “Not necessarily. You say the device doesn’t work,” Grace said. “We can’t test that?”

  “You’ll have to trust me,” John replied.

  “But a device like this would have fail-safes,” she said. “It shouldn’t break. Unless…”

  “What?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?”

  “Uh.”

  “Sabotage.”

  “What?”

  “Sure! Suppose you’re some guy in a high-tech, world-hopping society. You have a rival for your affections. What do you do? Murder? No way. Not in a high-tech, panopticon world. No, you sabotage the unalterable. You rig the unriggable. You make his trip across the universes one-way.”

  “You think,” John said, “that this device was deliberately broken, for some reason.”

  Grace shrugged. “We know the devices are rare. We know people are punished by banishment to backwater worlds. We know the technology is controlled. We know the technology is advanced. There have to be fail-safes. There have to be redundant systems. No advanced society would risk all they have. Isolation would be worse than death. Someone deliberately broke this thing.”

  “I think you’re extrapolating too far,” John said.

  “Why else is it broken?”

  “Parts wear out.”

  Grace harrumphed. “You’re going to trust your life to a device that wears out?”

  “Cars wear out.”

  “Make a car with an order of magnitude more technology. Two orders of magnitude,” she said. “Whoever made this is not burning fossil fuels to get around!”

  “But we can’t say this was sabotaged!” John said.

  “Then let’s do what we have to do,” Grace said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Let’s open it up.”

  John’s stomach dropped. He said, “No!” before he could think of anything else.

  Grace stared at him, and he looked away.

  “I thought you were staying,” she said softly.

  “I am, but…”

  “But what?”

  If they took it apart and it broke, he’d be stranded forever.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Grace said. “But how bad could that be, living here with us for the rest of your life?”

  “What about Visgrath and company?” John said.

  “Those ass clowns?” Grace laughed. “We’ll fix them!”

  “But…,” John said. He sighed. It wasn’t like some other Casey would love him when this one didn’t. It was clear they weren’t meant to be. “Okay. Let’s open it up. But carefully.”

  Grace smirked at him. “Just like physics lab. Careful as can be.”

  “And we can’t let Visgrath know.”

  “A tangled web we weave,” Henry said.

  “You’re the one, John,” Grace said, “who has to be careful. He thinks you’re something that you are not, and will act according to his assumptions.”

  “He thinks I’m stranded just like they are,” John said.

  “He’s ma
de assumptions you can’t betray,” Grace said, “or we’re doomed.”

  “I don’t know how long I can keep it up,” John said.

  “Avoid him,” Henry said. “At all costs.”

  After buying supplies and equipment, they met the next Saturday. That should have been a factory day, but the three put Viv the foreman in charge and met at John’s old warehouse.

  “So, tell us what you know,” Grace said, “from the beginning.”

  John brought out the spectrum that he’d collected earlier in the year. He showed them the spectrum of the radiation being emitted by the device, and explained its significance.

  “Cool! Antimatter,” Grace said.

  He showed them his drawings of the outside of the device. They each looked at the seam with the light microscope. Henry examined the device millimeter by millimeter.

  John explained the tomograph and how it depicted two ovoid shapes within the device.

  Henry shook his head. “That’s ingenious, John. I’d never have thought to use tomography.”

  “I wouldn’t have either if I hadn’t talked with the radiation engineers in the lab.”

  “How do you think the thing comes apart?” Grace asked. “Do you think it pulls apart at the seam?”

  John shrugged. “I assume the two halves come apart there.”

  “That’s a tight fit,” Henry said, squinting at the line.

  “Yeah. Whoever built this thing were machining gurus,” Grace said.

  John could tell both of them were excited about opening the device. But he felt a twinge of trepidation. He spoke on what he had been thinking about for the last week: “It’s possible that we may destroy the device in the course of opening it up. I can deal with that, though this is not my home universe. I will regret not ever seeing my parents again. I will regret not getting back to John Prime. But I accept the consequences of what we are about to do.”

  Grace smiled. “Don’t worry, John. We build and take apart delicate machinery for a living.”

  “This is not a pinball machine!” John said.

  “Sure it is,” Grace said. “You’re the ball and the multiverse is the play field.”

  “You’re a bumper,” Henry said to Grace. He bounced his hip off hers and said, “Boing!”

  “Funny.”

  One of John’s purchases was a set of vises. They took the device and placed it in a vise that gripped the base of the device. The vise had rubber grips that squeezed the thing evenly. John then lowered a similar vise from above. This vise was attached to a lever and pressure gauge so that they could measure the exact force they were applying to the device.