The Universe Builders: Bernie and the Putty

by Steve LeBel

  If it had words, you might have heard it say, “My Sun… My Sun… Please wait for me.”

  Billy’s Gang

  It hadn’t taken long for Billy to form a new gang after starting work at The Business. It had been ridiculously easy. All it took was a few choice remarks like, “Gosh, I’m really looking forward to working here. Uncle Shemal and I have always been close, and now we get to see each other every day.” Builders were smart people, and they had no trouble reading between the lines of that message.

  Billy appraised the people sitting at his table. They were a cut above his lieutenants, RedDog and Butcher, back in school. These young gods were builders. RedDog and Butcher had been just muscle. They followed orders, but they weren’t good for much else. Well, they laughed at all his jokes, but that had never been a problem. When you’re the king, everyone laughs at your jokes.

  Billy didn’t delude himself. He knew the young builders at his table were only here because they feared him. He didn’t mind. He knew plenty of ways to keep their anxiety levels elevated. From time to time he even threw them little rewards by saying things like, “Gee, that really pleases me. I’m going to tell Uncle Shemal what a terrific employee I think you are.” Of course, the real joke was he and Shemal were never close. They only saw each other once or twice a year at family get-togethers.

  Jimmy and Candi were in the Division when Billy arrived. Billy’s sixth sense led him to them right away. Although they came across as competent and confident, Billy knew only the first was true. One of his greatest skills was reading someone’s insecurity and using it to manipulate them. Jimmy was a basic soldier. He did whatever he was told. It was easy to manipulate him—just let Jimmy believe serving Billy was the same as serving Shemal. Candi, on the other hand, was different. She had her own opinions and would even voice them. In addition, Candi was strikingly beautiful, which made her headstrong, the way beautiful women sometimes are. But Billy knew how to make her afraid, and when she was afraid, she did what she was told. After all, thought Billy, I don’t care about adoration. All I want is obedience.

  The third person at the table was Donald, transferred into Final Assembly seven months earlier. Most people believed Donald had been transferred in the hope Shemal would do the dirty work and fire him. Donald probably believed the same thing, because from the moment he arrived, he’d tried desperately to attach himself to Billy. Billy held him at arm’s length for a while, knowing it wouldn’t help his image if one of his associates got fired. It might give people the idea Billy didn’t have as much power as they thought. But after Shemal completed a few reviews without firing Donald, Billy finally let him into the group.

  The rest of the table consisted of a person or two Billy invited to stop by for lunch. No one ever refused, because no one wanted to anger Billy. It was the same as angering Shemal, or so they believed.

  Today, Billy was talking about Bernie, as he often did. “Yes, poor Bernie is not long for our department. A little birdie told me he’s having problems with his universe again.”

  “Why are you doing this to him?” Candi asked. “He never bothers anyone. What did he ever do to you?”

  “Ah, now that’s quite a story, dear Candi,” Billie said as he casually stroked the hideous scar that ran from his eyebrow to his cheek. He’d seldom met anyone who hadn’t fought to suppress a shudder when they first saw him. His gruesome scar reminded every god of his own mortality and the fine line between living forever and sudden death. A moment of carelessness or an act of violence was all it took.

  Billy took a moment for the effect to reach its maximum. “It’s the tale of a young boy who did not know his place in the world. And even though his betters tried to explain, he resisted his lessons at every turn. Then one day, this foolish boy resorted to violence to the disadvantage of his betters, whose only sin was trying to help him understand his proper place. But do not fear, young Candi, for Fate has a way of setting things right with the finality of a boot in pants and the sound of a slamming door.”

  Billy’s sinister smile lingered. “And who is to be this instrument of Fate, you might ask? Somehow, I suspect Uncle Shemal has been chosen for that part.” Billy laughed. “Although perhaps a little birdie nominated him for that role.” At that, Billy laughed more.

  That’s pretty funny, he thought.

  Divine Intervention

  The god looming above the planet took time to study it. He saw the continents and oceans of the world resting on a thick shell of solid rock. Bernie had designed the planet to minimize global stresses, but it was easy enough to get around that.

  The outer crust of the planet floated on a layer of hot magma. The thick layer of rock protected the oceans and the land from the intense heat below, and as long as it remained intact, there was little danger from the inner forces trapped below. The looming god knew this could be changed with a few carefully designed cracks. It wasn’t hard at all.

  From high above the planet, the god made deep cuts in the crust, giving the pressure below its chance to escape. As he created more cuts in more places, more pressure was released. But carefully, thought the god. It must look unplanned. And so he worked to create a mosaic of fractures around the planet.

  Then, to make sure he had planned well, he advanced time to observe his work. By the end of the first million years, he could see the edges of the continents begin to shift. Earthquakes along the fault lines rumbled dire warnings. By the second million years, he knew he had done well. Jagged edges along the coastline could be easily seen. It would take millions of years to break up the continents. But that wasn’t his goal. His goal wasn’t to destroy this world. He wanted a world full of scars, proof of the incompetence of its creator.

  He looked proudly at his work. It was not overdone. Bernie would see it and think he had done something wrong again.

  The god smiled as he thought of his enemy. Bernie was feeling the pain. There wasn’t enough pain yet; there would never be enough. But this was a start.

  And there would be so much more to come.

  The Sun

  A long time ago…

  The cold night had begun once again. The Sun had set for the day, and everyone was returning home.

  The people didn’t like the night. They liked the Sun. Each day it warmed them, and it gave them comfort as it had for years beyond counting. But every night, the Sun went away.

  For a long time, they prayed for it to stay. But no prayer, no ritual, and no sacrifice ever made a difference. Nothing could prevent the Sun from leaving each night. And so, after a time, they prayed instead for the Sun’s safe and speedy return.

  So the years passed. Nothing disturbed the peace of this place. They dwelled in a garden, a garden of plenty, where none went hungry or thirsty. It was also a time of learning. They explored the ways of wood, making their homes from the trees in the great forests that covered their land. Later, they discovered stone from the mountains and used it to make strong buildings. The bright stones were perfect for the temples because they reflected the light of the Sun. With it, they built tall pyramids, reaching ever upward in the direction of the Sun. As the population grew, they used their knowledge to build cities. And as their needs became more complex, so too did new skills emerge, and they learned writing and mathematics, which aided in building their perfect world.

  Unlike other worlds, these were peaceful people, united in their admiration for the Sun, who nurtured and protected them. The Sun provided plenty throughout the land for everyone.

  Although content in their world, they yearned for one thing. They sought to better know their benefactor, the great Sun who created their world and who provided such bounty for them. In this alone, they remained unsatisfied.

  And so the years passed.

  Not My Fault

  Bernie learned to expect bad things to happen every three or four days. Most often they happened while he walked home from work. By the time he reached home and checked his world, the damage was done. Only once more ha
d he caught a glimpse of the shimmering figure, but it disappeared before he could confirm it was Billy.

  Bernie began his morning inspection, as he did every day when he arrived at work. Something seemed a little off. The first clue came from the plants. They were the right plants, but there were subtle changes. Somehow, they had evolved. Bernie designed his planet for stability, so not a lot of new niches were opening and closing, yet something had given rise to several new species. None of the new species were harmful, nor had they displaced any of his original plants. That, at least, was a relief.

  If he wasn’t trying to hurt my plants, thought Bernie, then what was he doing? Why else would he have advanced time? Finally, he found the answer to his question—there were hidden cracks all over his world.

  By lunchtime, he was still upset.

  * * *

  “You’re all shimmered up. What’s wrong?” asked Lenny taking the seat farthest from Bernie instead of his usual one next to him. His eyes darted around the table, searching for signs of cloud activity.

  “I feel like I’m losing ground,” Bernie complained. “Every time I do something, Billy messes it up, and I spend the next day straightening it out.”

  “What did he do?” Suzie asked.

  “I knew something was wrong, but at first I couldn’t figure it out. My first clue was when I found some new plant species. Billy advanced time on my world by two million years. But that wasn’t the problem. The real problem was he’d gone all over the ocean bottom making dotted-line cuts crisscrossing the planet.”

  “Why would he do that?” Suzie asked.

  “He was making fault lines,” said Lenny, who got it immediately. “That’s really nasty. Once those things get going, you’ll never keep your continents in the same place. Things start drifting every which way.”

  “After two million years, my main continent started to break up, and my ocean lab had a cracked rim and was leaking into the main ocean,” said a very bitter Bernie.

  “Can’t you just go back and erase it?” Suzie asked.

  “No, the Past Barrier was in place. I couldn’t go back and fix anything. I fused the fault lines so there shouldn’t be any more breaks, but I can’t do anything about the continental drift that’s already happened. The shifting has stopped, but my planet looks like a war zone,” Bernie grumbled.

  “Did your plant ecology get disrupted by the unsupervised evolution?” Lenny asked.

  “I don’t think so, but I’ll have to take an inventory later. I have a couple of species that are inclined to wander.”

  “Hey, Bernie. I have a great idea, exclaimed Lenny. “You remember the OWT device that can jam your time lever? I have one at home. Maybe that’s what you need. Then if Billy messes something up, at least he can’t run things way into the future where you can’t do anything about it.”

  “Oh, wow! That’s really good, Lenny. If Billy can’t advance time, he won’t be able to do nearly as much damage. Even if he wrecks something, it’ll be easier to fix if no time has passed.” Bernie became excited. “This is really, really good.”

  That was Suzie’s cue to be concerned. “I don’t know, Bernie. Sometimes your ideas come back to bite you. Besides, I’ve never heard of anything that could stop someone’s time lever.”

  “That’s easy. You know there isn’t really a physical time lever, right? It is just a concept for talking about what we do with our minds—” Bernie started to say as Suzie interrupted him.

  “Of course, I know that, Bernie. I took some builder classes too, you know.” Suzie sounded a little miffed.

  “Oh, yes. Sorry. Well, there was this one universe built by a god who was forever going back and forth in time, to check things out, you know. Mostly, he kept tweaking the culture to force people in the direction of higher technology. But it backfired. His higher life forms apparently didn’t like all the back and forth—”

  “So they built something that gave their god a nasty headache every time he tried to use his time lever,” Lenny blurted out.

  Suzie frowned and said, “But that will affect you too, Bernie. How are you going to build if you can’t move back and forth in time?”

  “That’s easy. Technology like this has an on and off switch. I’ll just turn it off when I’m working and turn it on when I leave for the day.” Bernie smiled.

  “Bernie, come to my place after work. I’ll lend it to you, and you can install it tonight,” said Lenny.

  “Thanks, Lenny. That sounds great.” Bernie was as excited about being invited over to Lenny’s as he was to get the time lever jammer. “I’ll meet you out front after work.”

  The First Expedition

  A while ago…

  No one was sure where the Sun went at night. Nor did they know why the Sun came back in the east after it departed in the west. The priests said the Sun traveled under the ground at night so it could return to the east where it rose again every morning. But no one knew why the Sun would do this.

  Many years ago, the Senate organized an expedition. They wanted answers to these mysteries. They sent explorers to the west to follow the Sun when it ended its day. The explorers traveled for a long time. They came, at last, to a place where the land ended. Beyond that, there was only ocean. They watched as the Sun sank into the farthest edge of the western sea, but they could get no closer.

  The Senate then sent them to explore the land to the east. There too, they found the end of the land. They saw the Sun rising up from the eastern ocean. The expedition reported no discernible effect on the Sun when it rose up from the water, just as they had seen none when it had sunk below the waters to the west. It was theorized there was a place beyond the waters from which the Sun rose in the morning and retreated at night. But no one knew for sure.

  Not satisfied with these answers, the Senate ordered the explorers to go beyond the land. And so they built a large sailing craft, the largest ever made. The expedition bravely sailed east to see where the Sun came from each morning. They did not return. This marked the first great tragedy the people had ever known. Almost a hundred men and women lost their lives trying to find answers to the most important question of all.

  All the world grieved for their loss.

  The Central Plaza

  Lenny’s invitation pleased Bernie immensely. He had school friends, but he had few after-school friends. The builder curriculum had kept him busy, of course, but that wasn’t the real reason.

  When Bernie’s dad left, it marked the beginning of hard times that left deep scars on both Bernie and his mom. She couldn’t afford their home, so they were forced to move to a project home on the outer-most edge of town. Bernie had friends before his parents separated, but he never saw them after they moved to the projects. Why had they stopped seeing him? Was it because of the fight with Billy? Was it because Bernie lived in the projects now? Or because they were poor? Bernie was never sure. He just knew his friends weren’t around anymore. He grew up feeling apart from the rest of the group and, somehow, a little less worthy.

  He found Lenny waiting at The Business’ main entrance. “Hey, buddy,” Lenny called out. Bernie returned the greeting with a big smile.

  Central Plaza was a favorite gathering place. The wide-open area allowed the sun to reach every corner. The abundance of sidewalk restaurants and cafés around the plaza were proof the gods loved to spend time there. Evening was also a time for the plaza because once their work was done, even the gods took time to relax. In the plaza, you always saw people you knew.

  In the center, an ancient artesian well formed a water mushroom that fell back into the pool below. The ancient gods created four streams for the water to exit the pool, each stream departing at a cardinal point and continuing in a long outward spiral, eventually circling The Town before cascading off The Edge of the plateau on which The Town was built. A walk from Central Plaza to The Edge meant crossing each of the four streams as they spiraled around The Town.

  Important buildings, like The Business, The Town
Hall, The Museum, and The School were all located there, called Section One. Farther out, in Section Two, were the retail establishments. Most people lived in Sections Three or Four, the preferred areas being closest to Central Plaza. Only the poorest residents made their homes in Section Five, where the woods battled with the wilderness beyond the plateau for dominance. Bernie lived in Northeast Quadrant, Section Five, which was the very edge of town.

  Four quaint little bridges in Central Plaza carried people over the streams as they walked around the plaza. Four other bridges were found at the edge of the plaza, and they were unique. When you entered one of these bridges, you could exit after crossing any of the streams in that direction. The gods had made these bridges with the same skill they’d used for their buildings, but instead of using inner space, they used outer space to span greater distances with the bridge, which meant you could travel from the center of town to the outer edge in a few minutes, instead of over an hour on a normal bridge. Even Bernie, living as far out as he did, had just a twenty minute walk to work, most of which was the time it took to get from his home to the bridge. It was a good system, and the gods hadn’t found any reason to change it. Admittedly, it might take a few minutes longer if you ran into friends along the way and stopped to talk, but the gods considered that one of the plusses.

  “Hey, let me show you something cool,” said Lenny as they approached one of the plaza’s fountains. Each fountain had been brought back, piece by piece, from another world. Fountain figures depicted legendary or mythological beings from that world, and a favorite pastime was speculating about the beings and their stories.