The Walls of the Universe

by Paul Melko

  John paused, his chest heaving. His enemies were both down, one unconscious, one clutching his thigh. John raised his iron to knock the second one out, but the man cringed before him, and he found he couldn’t swing his iron on a defenseless, prone man.

  The smell of smoke rose in the room. The torch had landed on a pallet, among some old newspapers. The tip, still hot, had caught the papers aflame. Already the papers were engulfed, and the pallet was next.

  John thought for a moment whether there was a fire extinguisher, but he couldn’t remember where. He turned to the safe.

  Placing the tire iron on the top of it, he touched the lock with a finger.

  Suddenly his brain wouldn’t work! He couldn’t remember the combination.

  “Damn it!”

  He glanced at the rising fire. He ducked his head below the smoke that was collecting at the ceiling. His lungs kicked and he coughed.

  John placed his hand on the dial. He closed his eyes and relaxed. Turn, spin the dial to…

  He remembered, or rather his fingers remembered for him. He dialed the combination.

  The safe popped open, and he grabbed the device.

  The conscious man cried out.

  John turned, expecting him to be lunging at him. The man was still on the floor, having crawled his way to the door. He was staring with amazement at the device in John’s hands.

  “You have a -.” He used a word John didn’t know. “You have a goddamn -.”

  The man started crawling toward John. He grabbed the tire iron and swung it, but the man wouldn’t be deterred. John couldn’t swing on a prone man, and now he was blocking the door with his body. Smoke continued to fill the room.

  John leaped over the man, running for the door. He stopped at the lab table. He scooped all the electronics, all the notes, into a box, laying the device on top of it.

  He turned slowly and surveyed the warehouse. There was nothing left here. Casting one last look over his shoulder, he saw the two men, one dragging the other, struggling out of the burning room. John turned and ran.

  John’s mind raced. He slowed the car down to the speed limit. Getting pulled over now would be bad. What could he do? What had happened so suddenly? He drove past the exit he’d usually take to his apartment. They’d be there for him now. He drove past the school. They’d look for him at class.

  Casey was shot. Casey may have been killed. Visgrath had Grace and Henry. They’d kidnapped Grace and Henry! John’s breath came in short breaths. He pulled off the highway, found the first parking lot.

  Dare he go to the police? What would he say? Grauptham House was a billion-dollar company. They had a security force. They had weapons. They used their money to buy secrecy. What could he do against them? He had no allies.

  What could he do?

  His eyes found the familiar logo of his bank across the street. That was one thing he did have. Money. His bank account had swollen with cash in the past few months and was still high even after the purchase of all the equipment for the lab.

  It was time to make a withdrawal. He drove across the street and entered the bank.

  The cashier looked at John oddly.

  “Gold? You want gold?” she said.

  “Can I withdraw everything as gold?” John said again.

  “We don’t have… At least I don’t think we have…,” she said. “Let me check.”

  The cashier-Molly according to her nameplate-entered another office. Through the window, John saw her point him out to another woman, presumably Molly’s manager.

  “Sir,” the manager said when she emerged from the office, “you want to withdraw your five hundred and fifteen thousand dollars and receive it in gold?”

  “Yes, please.” John was feeling a little nervous suddenly. “Yes, and quickly.”

  The manager took a calculator and tapped it for a moment. “Sir, we don’t have forty kilograms of gold here.”

  “How much do you have then?”

  “Just a few coins.”

  “I’ll take what you have, then,” John said. “And the rest in cash.”

  “Sir?”

  “Cash.”

  “Yes…, sir. Wouldn’t you rather have a cashier’s check?”

  “No, cash. And can I see your phone book?”

  John paged through the book, looking for metal dealers. If he was going to carry forty kilos of gold, he’d prefer not to do it in coins. They’d jingle a lot. Ideally, he’d prefer gold wire or foil, which he could wear easily on his body. He found a coin shop nearby.

  The bankers managed to find sixty thousand dollars in American Eagle coins of assorted weights between one-tenth and one troy ounce. The seven kilograms couldn’t go in his pockets. He’d need a backpack. He jotted down a sporting supply store’s address near the coin dealer.

  John left the bank with a satchel of cash and coins. He felt conspicuous, and he guessed he was, carrying a heavy bag from a bank. All the customers behind him in line watched him leave.

  The coin dealer had no wire, only more coins, but the man knew where John could get some bullion bricks. He did have a few thousand more coins to sell John, as well as rolls sized for the gold coins.

  “Most people don’t roll these,” the deater said. “They keep them for display.”

  “I’m keeping them for an investment.”

  The man shrugged. “You’ll get better return from a good bond fund.”

  “Not where I’m going.”

  At the sporting goods store, he bought a huge camping backpack, a hunting knife, a switchblade, and a first-aid kit. He looked at the display cases of guns but chose against it. John remembered the sickening thunk of the crowbar on a skull. He would have to use his wits to beat Visgrath.

  His next stop was an electronics store.

  “IMCAL 212 boards?” the shop man said. He opened a catalog. “We’ve got one. In our store at the Chaney Mall.”

  “One?” John asked. “I need… more.” Several thousand more.

  “That’s all we have,” the clerk said. “Cutting-edge stuff.”

  “Where do you order them from?”

  He turned over the catalog. It was from an electronics supply firm in Detroit.

  “Can I have that number?”

  “Sure.”

  “Can I see your phone book?”

  “I wrote the number down.”

  “This is for something else.”

  The clerk handed the book over. John paged through to the listing of hospitals. His stomach had been churning as he’d made preparations. He needed to know how Casey was.

  The closest hospital to the factory was Ardenwald. He wrote the number down next to the number for the supply firm. There was a pay phone on the sidewalk outside the shop. He dialed the hospital.

  “I’m calling about a Casey Nicholson. Was she admitted?”

  There was a pause while the woman looked. “I don’t see that name here.”

  “She just came in, a gunshot wound.”

  “Oh, her. That paperwork hasn’t come through yet.”

  “I’m her boyfriend. Can you tell me how she is? It’s important.”

  “Hold on.”

  John waited, his heart thudding. He should have stayed with her. But Visgrath and company would have come back. If John had waited they might have opened the safe and gotten the device. It was his only edge. He wasn’t even sure what he could do with it. Trade it, he hoped for Grace’s and Henry’s lives. He needed a safe base of operation. He needed-

  “Sir?”

  “Yes, is she all right?”

  “She is. The doctor says the bullet is in her shoulder. It missed the arteries and bone. She’s in stable condition.”

  “What’s her room number?”

  “She doesn’t have one assigned.”

  “Thanks.”

  He suddenly felt better. Casey was all right. She wasn’t dead. She wasn’t in danger. For the moment she was safe, and that was enough. He dialed the next number.

 
“Foley’s Electronic Supply.”

  “I need as many IMCAL 212 boards as you’ve got.”

  “Well, how many do you need?”

  “How many do you got?”

  “We have thousands, buddy.”

  “Are they right there in your store?”

  “Yeah, in the warehouse.”

  “How late are you open?”

  He could just make it. Then he’d find someplace safe to hide, and he had an idea of where.

  The boxes were piled so high in the Trans Am that he couldn’t see out the passenger’s window and he had to use his side mirror instead of the rearview mirror. It was dark when he pulled into Bill and Janet’s, but the lights were still on. If he’d arrived an hour later, they’d have been in bed.

  “Hello, John!” Janet cried, hugging him.

  She’s not my mother, John repeated to himself. “Hello, Janet. How are you? How’s Bill?”

  “Good, good! We’re watching Matlock reruns,” she said. “You caught us just before bed. Bill! John’s here.”

  He sat with them for a few minutes. They didn’t seem to have heard the news about Casey and he didn’t want to get into it right then.

  “I need a favor.”

  “Of course. What is it?” Bill said.

  “I need to use the second barn.”

  “The second barn? Whatever for?”

  When Bill and Janet had bought a few acres across the road from the Walders’, it had included a dilapidated house and a barn. The house had been razed, but Bill had decided to keep the second barn, in case he ever tried cattle again. He never did, and the barn was empty. It had electricity, however, which was one of the reasons John wanted to use it.

  “I need to do some work.”

  “Pine ball work?” Bill asked.

  “Pinball. Sort of.”

  “Well, all right,” Bill said. “I think I left the key in the box.” He groaned as he rose and hobbled on shaky knees. John wanted to know how his parents were, whether arthritis was slowly creeping in on them as it was for this Bill and Janet, whether they watched Matlock reruns in the evening before going to bed at eight thirty. Nostalgia overwhelmed John, and he swallowed it down as he took the padlock key from Bill.

  “Thanks. If someone comes looking-”

  “-you aren’t here,” Bill said. He shook his head. “The youth of today with all their secrets. Probably building another pine ball empire in there. I saw a boy put six dollars in quarters into one of those machines the other day. Amazing. You get a cut of that?”

  “We do.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Can I use your phone?”

  He dialed the hospital and asked for Casey’s status: stable and now she had a room number. He considered calling Visgrath, then refrained. Not yet, not until the device was safe. Not until he had thought his move through.

  He bid the Rayburns good-bye and drove the Trans Am across the road and onto the dirt path that led to the second barn. It loomed black on black, obscuring a patch of stars from the sky as he neared it. Leaving the car running, he got out and unlocked the door. He drove the car into the barn and began unloading the boxes. An old workbench became his lab bench.

  Cobwebs clung to the beams. The dim bulb cast weak shadows into the stalls and loft. He ticked off a list of things he’d need: extension cords, lamps, soldering gun, breadboards, wires, a box of resistors and capacitors.

  He debated for a moment what to do with the device. Then he placed it in the backpack, along with one hundred thousand dollars in gold coins, and hid the backpack in the loft.

  Locking the barn behind him, he drove as fast as he could toward the hospital in Toledo.

  It was just fifteen minutes before the end of visitors’ hours, but he convinced the attendant to let him go up the elevator to Casey’s room.

  The ward was dark and quiet except for an occasional lit room, a faint TV, and the beep-beep of hospital equipment. He found Casey’s room at the end of a cul-de-sac of rooms. The room was dark, and she was asleep inside.

  A nurse suddenly appeared.

  “You are?”

  “Her boyfriend.”

  “Oh, visiting hours are almost up.”

  “I know; I had to see her.”

  “I understand,” the nurse said. She paused. “She’s stable. The bullet has been removed, and we’ve given her something to sleep. Do you know her family?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “We’ve contacted the university to get hold of them. But no one has come yet, except her uncle.”

  “Her uncle?” Casey’s mother and father were only children.

  “Yes, he just left. Sat with her for an hour, waiting. Said he’d call the parents, but he never picked up the phone.”

  “Tall man, blond?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t let him back in.”

  “What?”

  “It wasn’t her uncle,” John said. “Have the police been here?”

  “Police? Briefly. They said to call when she awoke.” The nurse suddenly looked worried. “Is she in danger? I can-I can call security.”

  “Do that.”

  John felt a moment’s panic. He should have been thinking of Casey. They might come back for her. John sat in the chair next to the bed. Looking at Casey’s pale face, John felt sick. She had been shot. Because of him. He felt no anger at Visgrath. They did what they did, but because John had meddled. He had to set things right.

  John reached forward and grasped Casey’s hand.

  “I’m sorry, Casey,” he whispered. Perhaps she moved; perhaps she squeezed back. John wasn’t sure.

  “Touching.”

  John bolted upright. Visgrath stood in the doorway of the room. He was dressed in a suit. A blond bodyguard stood behind him.

  “Get out,” John said.

  “Or what?” Visgrath laughed. “John, our fates are bound now. You can’t shake me.” He took two steps into the room and sat in the other chair. The guard blocked the doorway.

  “You were not entirely forthcoming to me when last we talked,” Visgrath said. “It didn’t come up in our conversation that you had in your possession a transfer device.”

  “You didn’t ask.”

  Visgrath laughed. “You played me, for what reason I don’t know. But now we’re here together, and we both have things to trade.”

  “Henry and Grace.”

  “They’re not even singletons!” Visgrath said intensely. “I don’t know why you care. But clearly you do, and I will use it to my advantage.”

  “Singletons?”

  Visgrath paused.

  “Yes, singletons. Surely you’ve heard the term.”

  “No.”

  Visgrath laughed. “Again I have made assumptions about you that are wrong. A singleton, like me, is a person who has no doubles in the universes. We are the special ones, the unique ones. Don’t you understand that?”

  “No.”

  “Look at her! There’s a thousand of her next door! What does she matter? You feel some… lust for her, so sate yourself, use her, and move on. Any one of them is worthless.”

  “What are you talking about? She’s a human, just like you.”

  “Value comes from rarity!”

  John shook his head. Visgrath’s manner, the reason for his disdain for anyone not in his inner group, was suddenly clear. “I’m not a singleton either. I’m just some kid from Universe 7533.”

  Visgrath looked at John blankly, then began to laugh. He glanced around the room for some weapon. John had not brought a gun or the tire iron or anything else into the hospital.

  “A kid! From 7533!”

  “And singletons or not, you’ve kidnapped my friends, and I want them back.”

  Visgrath’s face went stone flat.

  “Yes, the crux of the matter,” he said. “You will give me the transfer device and your friends will live.”

  “I’ll go to the police!”

  “And your friends will die.
You know what we are. You know how much money we have. We own this world.”

  “And if I give it to you, what assurances do I have?”

  Visgrath’s face twitched. “I said I would do it.”

  “But we’re not even singletons like you,” John said. “We have no value.”

  “My honor is of value to me! Give me the device and your friends live. If you are obstinate, then you will get one of them back and the other will die.”

  John realized he was dealing with a monster. He could not trust Visgrath or deal with him in any way.

  “No,” John said.

  Visgrath rose, his face a mask of fury. “I can just take it! And if you don’t have it, you’ll tell me soon enough.” He motioned to his bodyguard. John stood to confront him.

  “That’s enough.”

  A young uniformed man stood behind the bodyguard, his hand on a holster. His voice quivered as he spoke, but he stood solidly.

  “This woman needs her rest, and visiting hours are over,” he said.

  The bodyguard glanced over his shoulder, then at John, and finally at Visgrath.

  Visgrath nodded slightly and the bodyguard seemed to deflate. John took a breath.

  “Indeed, she needs to recover for her next… tribulation,” Visgrath said darkly.

  “You harm any of my friends and you’ll never get the device,” John said softly.

  “You don’t give me the transfer device and you’ll never see your friends alive,” Visgrath replied civilly. At the door, he added, “You know how to reach me.”

  John watched as Visgrath and his bodyguard left. He listened to their clicking steps down the hallway. The young guard watched too, his face slick with sweat. The elevator dinged, and finally John relaxed.

  “You better go too,” the nurse said, suddenly appearing. “It is past visitors’ hours.”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “We’ll make sure she’s safe.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  John cast one look at Casey’s slack face. He was vulnerable because she was. Visgrath already had Henry and Grace. John couldn’t let him get his hands on Casey. He had to do something.

  First, he needed allies.