The Walls of the Universe

by Paul Melko

  John shrugged. “Your understanding is wrong.” He turned to Prime. “This guy doesn’t know anything. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” Prime said. He turned to Corrundrum. “We can get you home, if you help us. That is what you want, isn’t it?”

  Corrundrum’s forehead broke with sweat. He stared at Prime. Finally he said, “I hate this fucking universe! The food is crap! The entertainment is only TV! They have diseases! It’s-”

  “So you’ll help us?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Just information.”

  Corrundrum chuckled. “There are rules, you know.”

  “You talked enough before.”

  “I didn’t know you were a fucking native!”

  “So?”

  “The vig kill people who talk.”

  “Why?”

  Corrundrum looked at him with wild eyes. “You won’t get it. You won’t ever get it. You’re just a fixture.” He waved his hand. “You’re a set piece. A goddamn coffee table.”

  “You’re talking like this is entertainment,” John said.

  Corrundrum laughed. “It’s worse than that, for those of us who know.”

  “Visgrath? Charboric?” John said. “Ever hear of them?”

  “Sound like Vandals.”

  “Spray paint?” John asked, confused.

  “Capital V.”

  “Huh?”

  “Goths. In the Yankee Doodle universes, the Goths sacked Rome and then a few years later Clovis sacked the Goths. Yay, Europe. Yay, America. You think it’s great, but only because it’s all you know. When the Goths win, even less great. Goth universes are some totalitarian places. In 2119, they got hold of some transfer technology. Tried to spread their way of life across a couple dozen universes. They were crushed. Some got away. This was a few decades ago. Sounds like you ran into some of the meaner ones.”

  “Visigoths,” John said, shaking his head. “They’re Visigoths.”

  “The descendents of Germanic tribes that defeated Rome,” Corrundrum said. “But if anyone asks, I didn’t tell you that. Oh, screw it. Did you run up against some Goths?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Do they know you have a transfer device?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, how’d they let you get away?”

  “I ran.”

  “To him for help?” Corrundrum nodded at Prime.

  “Who can you trust, if not yourself?”

  Corrundrum snorted.

  “What do they want?” John asked. “What can I give them if I negotiate?”

  “Restore the Alarian Empire. Do you have twelve universes to spare?”

  “We have the device, don’t we?”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “What can I do?”

  “Run away. Leave them alone. You have a device. Go somewhere else they aren’t. Far away. Take me with you.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “They have my friends.”

  Corrundrum looked at John solemnly. “Hopefully they weren’t singletons.”

  “You’re an ass,” John said. “Let’s go.” He stood.

  Corrundrum stood up too. “Hold on; hold on. We can reach an arrangement where I get out of here, right?”

  “How can you help us?” Prime asked.

  “I’m no fighter,” Corrundrum said. “But I know more of what you’re fighting against than anyone. I’m a strategic asset. You’ve gotta take me with you.”

  “I don’t think the device can take that many.”

  “Of course it can. It’s a Mark Three? A Four?”

  “How would I know?”

  “Show him,” Prime said.

  John wasn’t sure if they should.

  “Go ahead. What do secrets matter now?” Prime added.

  “I had the same thought recently,” John said. He lifted up his shirt, showing Corrundrum the device strapped to his chest.

  Corrundrum stared at it. “What the hell? That’s not a-” He cast a hard glare at Prime. “Are you guys screwing with me? That’s not a transfer device.”

  “What do you think a transfer device is?” John asked suddenly.

  “It’s a machine to move material and people between universes, what else?”

  “That’s what this does.”

  “It’s not like any transfer device I’ve ever seen,” Corrundrum said. “Where’d you get it?”

  John shrugged toward Prime.

  “Where’d you get it?”

  “Another John Rayburn gave it to me,” Prime said.

  “Gave it or tricked you into using it?” John said.

  “Does it matter?” Prime said.

  “Yes, it does.”

  “Just like you,” Prime said.

  John sympathized with Prime. He couldn’t deny that he might have acted in the same way Prime had if he’d been in the same situation. In fact, he almost had. If the one-armed John hadn’t been there…

  Corrundrum rubbed his head. “You know, there are universes that are off-limits to us.”

  “Who’s ‘us’?” John asked.

  “None of your business.”

  “You want help or not?” Prime said.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Corrundrum said. “Your Goths are going to kill you. Take me back to my universe first, and then I’ll help you.”

  “No way!”

  Corrundrum shook his head. “You don’t get it. Alarians have one hobby: killing non-Alarians. They get together and ask each other who they killed recently. How bad do you think your Goths are to get exiled by other Alarians?”

  “We don’t know they were exiled by their own kind.”

  “All the Alarians were wiped out when they were defeated. If there’s any around still, it’s because they were lost before the final battle. They don’t negotiate. They don’t deal. They take what they want and destroy what they don’t need. You two against a stronghold of Alarians who’ve had five decades to entrench? You two are walking dead men.”

  “So you’re not going to help us?”

  “I just did! Walk away!”

  “We can’t,” John said.

  “Then if you come back, remember me,” Corrundrum said. “I don’t belong here.”

  “Come with us and make sure we succeed,” Prime said.

  “Didn’t you hear me? You’re gonna die there.”

  “Better to try and die than live in vain,” Prime said.

  “You natives! You think life is to be sacrificed,” Corrundrum said. “Sacrifice is for Christers. Life is to be cherished and not wasted.”

  “Isn’t your life wasted here? How long before you die, alone, in an alien universe?”

  “I have years ahead of me, more than your science can provide.”

  “What about Kryerol? He risked his life for you, and died!”

  “Don’t bring him up! He knew what he was doing. And he shouldn’t have brought us there for some Prime treasure hunt. He deserved to die!”

  “He saved you, didn’t he? Sacrifice is what he did, for you and the rest of your team.”

  “Lotta good it did them,” Corrundrum said.

  Prime exhaled heavily. “Fine. I thought we could help you, and I thought you could help us. I guess not.” To John, he said, “Let’s go before it gets dark.”

  They were halfway to the front door when Corrundrum cried out, “All right! All right. I’ll come with you. It’s nuts, but what the heck. It’s not like there’s a rescue party coming from home universe.” He hauled himself up from the couch. “Let me get some stuff first.”

  Corrundrum disappeared into a back room. John felt Prime tense up. His hand was in his pocket where he had put the pistol.

  “Don’t you trust him?” John whispered.

  “He’s not like us,” Prime said. “He may be half-mad from exile here.”

  “I believe it.”

  Corrundrum came out with a black duffel bag. He tossed it on the coffee table
and rooted through it, pulling out a black handgun and a box of bullets. He loaded the gun and put it back into the bag.

  “More guns,” John said.

  “They’ll kill us if they can,” Corrundrum said. “Most people in this multiverse will for what you have on your chest. These people more than most.”

  “We should go,” John said. It was already three thirty. If they didn’t get to the site soon, there’d be no light to search by.

  “George Washington? Executed as a traitor usually,” Corrundrum said. “Napoléon? Unified Europe five times out of twelve. Christ, a minor prophet for Mithras one in twenty times.” He had been reciting useless universe facts for ten minutes.

  “Shut up,” Prime said.

  “Yeah, the truth sucks,” Corrundrum replied.

  “Who cares what the truth is?” Prime cried. “It all depends on which universe you’re in.”

  “True,” Corrundrum said. “Unless it’s home universe.” He paused. “South wins the Civil War one percent of the time. The South will not rise again; they can’t even rise the first time.”

  “Shut up!” Prime shouted.

  “Fine, all right.”

  John pulled into the parking lot, driving upstream through the five o’clock commuters. The office complex looked just like the one that EmVis rented in Universe 7650.

  “This is it.”

  John pulled to the edge of the parking lot. He sat staring at the wooded lot beyond, where the fenced compound should have been. A biking path threaded its way through the trees.

  “Is this it?” Prime asked.

  John paused. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe?” Corrundrum cried from the backseat.

  “Maybe, I said.” John looked to the right, at a duck pond that hadn’t been there in 7650. He got out of the car, walked a short distance to the left.

  “I can’t tell,” he said. He turned and looked over at the office building. If this had been Grace’s universe, his office would have been the one there on the corner. The view of the compound had been clear from there.

  “We need to get inside the office building,” John said. “We need to look out of that window.”

  The door was open-no key pass or other lock barred them-but there was a guard at the front desk. John just shrugged and walked past. The guard glanced at the three, perhaps because John and Prime looked like identical twins and how often did one see adult identical twins out and about?

  John hit the elevator button for the third floor. The elevator door didn’t close.

  “What the-?” Corrundrum said.

  John pointed to the sensor below the elevator buttons. “We need a key card to activate the elevator.”

  “Damn!” Corrundrum said.

  Just then a woman sprinted on, waving her key across the sensor and pressing 5.

  “Could you get us to three, please?” Prime said. “We’ve forgotten our keys.”

  “Sure,” she said, swiping again and hitting 3.

  The elevator opened on their floor. Stepping into the lobby, John was momentarily disoriented. He had expected to see an austere receptionist’s desk. Instead there was a huge wall-mounted fish tank and an arrangement of orange chairs and geometric shapes.

  “This way,” he said, turning around. “My office was over here.”

  The door to that wing of the building was locked.

  “Damn it,” John said. There was nobody around to let them in.

  Prime picked up a phone mounted to the wall. A list of numbers was taped next to it. He dialed an extension.

  “No answer,” he said, dialing another.

  He was through six numbers when a door on the other side of the elevators opened.

  “May I help you?” a young bespectacled man said. He was carrying a briefcase.

  “Uh,” John said. “We-”

  “Yeah,” Prime said, cutting him off. “Josh in Facilities said to meet him here at five. We’re supposed to tour the floor. Can you let us in? We have only a bit of time before we have to see the next place.”

  “Oh, yeah? Touring?”

  “Yeah, they’re building a third building, you know, and it’s going to have this pattern.”

  The man nodded and keyed open the door for them.

  “It’s a great space. We’ve been here for a couple years now.”

  “Awesome,” Prime said.

  The door shut behind them, and Prime exhaled. “Too easy.”

  Corrundrum said, “A social engineer.”

  “Make it a big lie,” Prime replied.

  “I agree.”

  John sped down the hallway. The layout was the same, and his office a hundred universes away was in the spot he expected. Luckily, it was empty.

  The view was nothing like he remembered, however. Of course there was no fence, no building. But even so, the landscape wasn’t right.

  “Does it ring a bell?” Prime asked.

  “No.”

  “No? What the hell? If we come in anywhere but-,” Corrundrum cried.

  “Quiet!” Prime snapped.

  John leaned on the window glass with his forehead and jammed his eyes closed. He visualized the view from his office, the slope of the land, the trees. He tried to remember it without the fenced compound.

  He opened his eyes. Yes, he had it. This universe’s parking lot extended too far. It had thrown him off.

  “See that big oak tree?” he said.

  “Yeah.”

  “About six meters to the east and three meters to the north.”

  “Got it,” Prime said. “Inside the fence, outside the buildings?”

  “Yeah.”

  John marked it in his mind.

  Back in the parking lot, Prime and Corrundrum climbed into the car while John took a hazard sign from the car’s trunk. He found the oak tree and walked off six steps east and three north. Using a rock to keep it in place, he placed the orange flag on the ground in the spot, his best guess across universes. Then he went back to the car and dozed in the front seat. They had a couple hours at least.

  Someone nudged him awake.

  “What?”

  “Shh!”

  Corrundrum was in his face. “Out of the car,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  Corrundrum pulled the gun from his pocket. “Don’t make a sound.”

  John got out of the car. He considered nudging Prime, but he was snoring in the backseat, beyond reach.

  “Over there.”

  The air was damp and dewy on his cheeks. His breath came in a white cloud.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Keep going,” Corrundrum said. The man glanced over his shoulder at the car.

  “Corrundrum! We had a deal.”

  Corrundrum chuckled darkly. “You’re not even singletons. You don’t deserve a transfer.”

  “You can’t do this!”

  Corrundrum nudged him with the pistol barrel. “Remove the transfer. Give it to me.”

  “No!”

  “It doesn’t matter to me, except it will take longer to remove from your dead body,” Corrundrum said. “Give me the transfer. Now.”

  “I can’t,” John said. “My friends will die.”

  “Fine.” Corrundrum raised the pistol.

  There was a pop.

  John tensed, but there was no pain. That wasn’t so bad, he thought. Then Corrundrum pitched forward.

  Prime knelt ten meters away, gun held in a two-handed grip.

  Corrundrum rolled over on his back, gasping for breath. Blood welled up black behind him.

  “Jesus!” John said. “You shot him.”

  For a moment, the handgun was still pointed at John’s chest. He stared down the barrel into Prime’s eyes. Then Prime slid the gun into his pocket.

  “I don’t think I can ever trust anyone,” he said. “Except for you, except for Casey.”

  “You shot him.”

  John rushed forward and lifted Corrundrum’s neck. Blood and snot gurgled in his nose.<
br />
  “Fuck’n-Fuck’n-,” he gasped. “Fuck’n dups.”

  Corrundrum exhaled once more; then he died.

  “He’s dead,” John said.

  Prime shrugged, but his fingers were fists. He was shaking.

  “Him or you, brother.”

  “Don’t call me that!”

  “We’re closer than brothers, but there’s no words for it,” Prime said. “Grab the body. We need to move. It’s past midnight.”

  John stood up and walked past Prime. “You grab the body, bro,” John said.

  He went and stood next to the transfer point marker. Had it been a mistake to ask Prime for help? Corrundrum was dead. Prime was armed. John felt naked, even with the device tucked under his shirt.

  He turned as he heard the sound of Prime dragging Corrundrum’s body down the hill toward him. Prime grunted, then sprawled onto the ground. John felt a moment’s pity for him, then decided lugging Corrundrum’s corpse was penance for killing him.

  Prime finally managed to get Corrundrum near the marker.

  “Thanks for the help,” Prime gasped.

  John said nothing.

  “We’ll need to take him with us, to hide the body.”

  John grunted. He dialed the machine to 7650, while Prime dragged Corrundrum’s body close to them. John shivered at the nearness of the corpse.

  John found the dial that increased the radius of the field. He set it to the maximum radius.

  “What are you doing there? What does that do?”

  “You don’t know?” John asked.

  “No!”

  “Increases the radius of the field.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I took this one apart, remember? I built one from scratch.”

  “Right.”

  “Ready?”

  “No.”

  John looked again at Prime. He had one hand on Corrundrum’s shoulder. The other was rubbing Prime’s scalp. Even in the cold night air, he was sweating. He was genuinely scared.

  “You don’t want to do this, that’s fine,” John said.

  “No way. I’m coming. I owe… people.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.” John stepped next to Prime, face-to-face with his twin. “Seven-six-five-oh, here we come.”

  CHAPTER 38

  John’s ears popped, and the moonlit gray was replaced with pitch-black.

  He fell, maybe a half meter, landing awkwardly on his left ankle. Nearby he heard John Prime land against something that rattled metal on metal.