Paradox Alley s-3

by John Dechancie

  "Didn't cost a hell of a lot, either," Dave told us. "Amazing possibilities, if you think about it."

  What did Debbie do, mostly, over at Bob and Shelly's? "Watch TV, sit and read movie magazines. Eat a lot. I've put on five pounds. I like TV."

  She liked rock music, too. She adored the Rolling Stones.

  There were dangers inherent in the situation of having two versions of the same human being running around in proximity to one another. Dave was worried that the other Carl might drop in some time, as he was wont to do on occasion. We forestalled that eventuality by having Dave call Carl up and tell him that he'd be away for a month or two-up in the mountains writing a feature film script. There was still the possibility that the two Carls might bump into each other. But the consensus was that, as Carl had no memory of encountering a twin of himself, it never happened. Ergo, it wouldn't happen. We could have rewritten the textbooks on logic that summer, if we'd have put our minds to it.

  Something else was bothering Carl. I tried to sound him out on it, but didn't get very far. Obviously the prospect of reliving the abduction, compounded by the monstrous irony of his having to take part in it, was taking its toll on his nerves. There was nothing I could do except to assure him it would all go according to plan.

  And I wondered myself, Whose plan?

  The summer wore on and the crisis approached. The Paradox Machine clanked and whirred and shot bright blue sparks, its spinning sharp-toothed wheels up to full speed.

  We summoned Arthur.

  It was a balmy California evening. We stood in a hollow in back of Dave's house, watching the skies. There were few stars; only the biggest and brightest could make it through the hazy glare that the sprawling electric grid of Los Angeles threw back at the sky

  "I've got goose bumps," Dave said, playing his flashlight beam up into the night. "This is like a scene out of The Day the Earth Stood Still."

  "A movie?" I asked.

  "Yeah. And if Arthur looks anything like Gort, I'm going to shit enough bricks to build a barbecue pit."

  "I can't say for sure, but Arthur probably doesn't look anything like Gort. Arthur doesn't look like anyone or anything I know."

  "There?" Darla whispered, pointing to a distant shape moving against the semidarkness.

  We heard a low droning accompanied by a chopping sound.

  "Helicopter," Dave said. "See the lights?" Dave stamped his foot. "Damn, there's a lot of air traffic tonight."

  "Probably better that way," I said, wishing I had the communicator. Lori had it. She was out somewhere with Carl Two. Arthur said he already had Dave's house pinpointed and would be able to land if we stood near the site and signaled visually. Carl One was in the house, biting his nails. Would Carl Two repeat history and go up to Mulholland Drive, there to meet his destiny? Only time would tell, and time wasn't telling yet.

  Dave gasped, and I looked up.

  There was the ship, ghosting over the lip of the hollow, its dark ovate bulk outlined by a constellation of flashing red and blue lights. I smiled. Arthur had done a good job of camouflage. The lights were positioned to mimic the configuration of a conventional aircraft. I wondered if he'd been tracked on radar. Soundlessly, like some sort of dirigible whale, the craft cased to the ground, its immensity filling up the hollow. The main cargo bay dilated and we went in.

  "Je-sus! This is your truck?" Dave said, awestruck.

  "That's it."

  "This thing's a monster! You say it's atomic powered?"

  "Nuclear fusion. Want to climb in?"

  "Je-sus."

  He did, and we did. I gave him the tour, and Dave oohed end aahed for a while, then fell into silent wonderment.

  "What's the matter?" I asked.

  He took his hands from the steering bars. "You know, up till now, I gotta admit that there was a tiny bit of doubt in the back of my mind about all this. I was secretly hoping, desperately hoping, I guess, that I'd fallen into a group delusional psychosis thing, like those saucer cultists who camp out in the desert waiting for the aliens to come down and save the world." He slapped the instrument panel. "But here it is, in all its mind-shredding reality. You know, there were times when I thought-"

  Brought up short, he stared numbly out the viewscreen. "Oh, my God," he said in a hollow voice.

  I looked. It was Arthur. "Yoo-hoo!" Arthur waved.

  We got out, and I introduced Dave to our quasiandroid servant.

  "Are you tracking Lori?" I asked.

  "Yes, indeed," Arthur said.

  "Where are they?"

  He gestured vaguely. "Out there somewhere. Nowhere near the pick-up zone, which you said wasn't far from here."

  "Well, we have some time," I said, then glanced around. "Carl should be here. Darla, would you run and get him?"

  "Sure."

  I noticed that Dave was still gawking at Arthur, who was returning a supercilious glare. Suddenly self-conscious, Dave averted his eyes.

  "Dave's been a real help," I said to Arthur. "Don't get on his case."

  "Well, excuse me," Arthur sniffed.

  "My fault," Dave said. "I was staring. I've never seen a seven-foot tall, pink and purple person before."

  "And yellow," Arthur said, pointing to an appropriate section of his plasticlike skin.

  "Yeah. Sorry."

  "Quite all right. You know, Dave, I'm not as strange as I look."

  "That's right," I said. "He's stranger."

  "All I get is abuse," Arthur lamented. "A servant's lot. One of these days I'm going to rise above my station in life and tell you how passing strange I think humans are."

  "We know we're strange, Arthur," I said. "Don't forget. You may not look it, but you're human, too."

  "Don't remind me."

  Arthur conducted Dave on a tour of the ship.

  "It's so empty," Dave remarked, perplexed. "There's nothing in here."

  "Oh, there's plenty of auxiliary equipment," Arthur said. "It's all built in." Arthur went to a bulkhead and ran his index finger over its surface, outlining a simple oblong shape. Suddenly, the pattern materialized and the portion of bulkhead that it described tilted out. Arthur detached it and held it in both hands. "This is a weapon, for instance. There are lots of things hidden in the walls, everything from scientific instrumentation to-"

  Darla came running in. "Carl left," she said breathlessly. "Took the Chevy."

  "What?" I yelped. "Where'd he go?"

  "He was raving that he'd had enough crazy stuff and that he was going to get Lori and go away somewhere and forget all this. I tried to stop him, but he was already pulling out of the cul-de-sac."

  "Great," I said. "Arthur, do you have another communicator?"

  Arthur crossed to the opposite bulkhead and did the same trick, pulling a smaller oblong out of the wall. He handed it to me.

  I said, "Is there any way to track Carl's Chevy?"

  "Do you know what type of propulsion system it has?"

  "Of course not. Hell, I'd never catch him, anyway. But it's a good bet he'll find Lori. So just guide me to her."

  "Should I take the ship up? I've got the outside surface tuned properly now. It should be radar transparent. And with the camouflage, we'll be fairly inconspicuous."

  "Yeah, for a flying saucer. Just stand by. Dave, I'll take the VW and go after him, if that's all right with you."

  "Okay," Dave said nervously. "I'll stay here in the dimension of imagination."

  "Hm? Right."

  A balmy, subtropical California night, traffic-choked and many-peopled. We raced north on the San Diego Freeway. By this time I could dart and weave between lanes like a native.

  "I wish there were some way for Arthur to contact Lori," I said.

  "It might be awkward for her if Arthur's voice suddenly came out of her handbag," Darla ventured.

  "It might. Again, where did Lori say they were going?"

  "Out somewhere in the San Fernando Valley, to watch a drag race."

  "A which?"

>   "Drag race?" Darla flipped both hands palms up. "Do you have any idea-"

  "It has something to do with automobiles, but beyond that…"

  "In this culture," I said, "what doesn't have something to do with automobiles?"

  Traffic thickened as we got into the valley. I was used to the incessant rush of traffic by now. The automobiles no longer looked hopelessly antique to me. I rather liked their rococo flourishes and useless adornments: tail assemblies that stuck up like shark fins, massive and totally functionless chromium "bumpers," kitsch statuary mounted on hoods, whitestriped tires, garish paint schemes, buffed wax finishes, radio whip antennae, blinding tail-light configurations, and other embellishments.

  "Arthur?" Darla called into the communicator. "Are you tracking them?"

  "They haven't moved. You are now about five kilometers west of their position."

  I took the next cutoff and headed east on Roscoe Boulevard, then made a series of lefts and rights at Arthur's direction as he zeroed us in on the signal emitted by the communicator that Lori was carrying. We passed a big parking lot adjacent to a brilliantly lighted outdoor stadium.

  "This might be it," Darla said.

  Howling engine sounds came to us from the other side of a curving grandstand. I hung a U-turn and headed back. The sign at the entrance to the lot read VALLEY DRAGWAY.

  "You're right on," Arthur said.

  It cost fifty cents to park. We. got out, I locked up the VW and we jogged toward the entrance to the track, an opening in a corrugated metal fence blocked by turnstiles and a ticket booth. As we neared the booth, Darla stopped. She pointed left toward a row of cars. I looked and spotted Carl's Chevy.

  "Which one is it?" Darla wondered. "The double's?"

  "No way to tell. Let's look around. If we find another one, that means our Carl's here."

  We searched the immediate area but came up empty. It would have taken us an hour to cover the whole lot.

  "He might have parked out on the street," I said. "Let's go in."

  The ticket girl said that there were only a few heats left to run, but sold us two tickets anyway. We bumped through the turnstile and walked through a concession area littered with scraps of sticky paper, coming to a passageway between two sections of grandstand. We mounted steps and came out into the seating area.

  The grandstand was crescent-shaped. A long, straight strip of asphalt began in the middle of the crescent and ended about two thirds of a kilometer out in brush-covered flats. Two bizarre vehicles, which were nothing more than long, low, open metal carriages with overgrown motors mounted on them, were poised at the starting line, bellowing like dinosaurs and shooting blue flames. An array of lights on a pole changed color, and the two things took off like demons loosed from hell, trailing smoke and fire. They reached the end of the course in no time, and parachutes blossomed from their back ends. The noise was incredible. A pall of gray haze hung over the track, and the air was pungent with fuel exhaust and the smell of burnt rubber. An announcement was made and a roar went up from the crowd.

  "What's this all about?" Darla shouted above the din as two more outrageous vehicles approached the starting line.

  "A display of exotic automotive technology," I said, "or a circus. Probably both. Let's look around."

  "What do we say if we run into Lori?"

  "Nothing," I said. "We wink and act as if we don't know her. But we stick close, and if our Carl shows up, we try to intercept him. And don't ask me what we do if Carl Two catches sight of Carl One. I'm playing this strictly by ear, and my goddamn ears are killing me."

  "Right."

  We climbed to the last row and walked along an aisle, looking down over the heads of patrons. Besides the smoke and the fumes, I smelled women's perfume, tobacco, and cooking grease. It was a good crowd for a Tuesday night.

  There were a good many young couples, some of which, at first glance, I mistook for Lori and Carl Two. Kids seemed to dress alike in this time and place. Maybe they do in all times and places. The grandstand was a huge affair and the crowd thinned out toward the far end of the crescent. No Lori in sight. We doubled back a ways, then went down-steps and walked along the bottom aisle, looking up and scanning for three familiar faces, two of which would be identical.

  We saw nobody.

  "Where could they be?" Darla fretted.

  "Don't know. It's a huge place. Maybe we just missed spotting them. Let's go back to the concession area."

  The hot-dog stand was closing down for the night, and people were leaving the track in steadily increasing numbers, filing through an exit on the other side of the concession area. I sent Darla to check the women's room while I glanced in the men's. The latter was being used, but not by either Carl. Datla reported no luck. I told her to stand by the exit while I went back to search the grandstand one more time. The voice over the loudspeakers announced the last race, to be run by two vehicles which looked a shade more conventional. I walked along the middle aisle scanning up and down the grandstand. "Jake?" came a quiet voice inside my pocket.

  "Arthur?" I answered. A man in a green T-shirt turned his head to me with a curious look. "Wait a minute," I said.

  I took steps up to the last row, found some empty seats, and sat down. I took out the communicator.

  "Go ahead," I spoke into it.

  "I'm tracking the other beacon. It has left your area."

  I wondered how we had missed them. "Right. We're leaving.

  Hurrying back, I spotted Carl. It was our Carl-I recognized his clothes. He was caught in a crush of people at the head of the stairway leading down to the concession area. Just as I was about to close with him, he turned and saw me, then forced his way through the crowd, plunging down the steps. I followed, leaving jostled, angry teenagers in my wake.

  As he neared the exit gate, Carl saw Darla and slowed. I caught up with him. Darla ran over.

  "They left, Carl," I told him.

  "I know," he said, continuing toward the exit.

  "Did you see them?"

  "No, they weren't up in the stands."

  "Where, then?"

  "I finally remembered. Most of that night is fuzzy to me. We went to the races, but we didn't sit in the stands. I found out a buddy of mine was racing, and we went down to the pits. I still don't remember everything, but we must have left by the pit entrance and walked around back to the parking lot."

  "Let them go, Carl;" I said.

  "I have to be there tonight," he said vehemently.

  "Carl, you can't," I said. "Look. Forces are operating here that we have no control over. I don't know what would hapIxw if you intervened and prevented the abduction. Nobody knows, but it's a good bet that the universe wouldn't be the name. You might throw it entirely out of whack."

  We walked through the exit and out into the parking lot. "I know," Carl answered. "I still have to be there."

  "Carl, what is it with you? Something is bothering you, something you haven't let on yet."

  "That night, the night it happened," Carl said. "Tonight. It's about Debbie. The way she acted… the way I acted."

  "Are you worried she'll be hurt?" I said. "We've gone over that. Arthur told us that when your double pushes Debbie-Lori-out of the car, she'll float. She won't fall. She'll still be in the gravitational beam the car is in. After Arthur tucks the Chevy into the small cargo bay, he'll lower her down and we'll pick her up."

  "That's just it," Carl said. "I remember now. I didn't push Debbie out of the car. That was where I was all screwed up in tny memory of that night. I wasn't trying to push her out. I was trying to keep her from jumping. But there was something else…" He stopped and looked around. "Oh, God."

  "What is it?"

  "'The car. It's gone."

  We were in the general area where Darla and I had found it. "This is where you parked yours?"

  "Yeah. He was parked way over on the other side, but when he was walking back this way from the pits, he must have seen the super-Chevy here and figured he r
emembered wrong. I do that all the time-forget where I parked. Now he's got the super car." He sighed, holding up a set of car keys. "This is the original key. It fits both cars, of course. And he wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I made the super-Chevy identical to the ordinary one."

  I didn't know that to be a fact, but I did know that the vehicle he had created had been identical in every detail to the one he'd been driving when we met on the Skyway-the one I stole from him-down to the pair of fur-covered dice hanging from the rearview mirror.

  "How could you do that?" I asked.

  "I did the custom job on the original myself," he said. "I spent two years doing it. Bought the thing when I was fifteen, before I could legally drive. I know every inch of that car."

  I nodded. "Okay, then that solves the problem of how we make the switch. Your double's already got the super-Chevy."

  "Yeah. But there's one more thing I have to do."

  Carl turned to leave and I caught his arm. "Carl, don't. You're coming with us."

  "Sorry, Jake, but-"

  He swung a wild left. I put up my forearm, but it was a feint, and I was slow to block his quick right jab. The punch landed squarely enough to daze me. Darla rushed in, but Carl had already begun sprinting away. Darla chased after him but couldn't keep up. He disappeared into the streams of people exiting the track.

  Darla ran back. "Are you all right?"

  "Getting old," I said. "He suckered me good."

  "Should we go after him?"

  I rubbed my jaw, shaking my head. "No way to make a decision. We might screw things up by trying to prevent him from screwing things up. I'm coming around to thinking that nothing anybody does or tries to do can thwart fate from taking its course. This is turning into a Greek drama."

  "I've always hated Greek drama," Darla said.

  "Me, too. It's those damn choruses breaking in and yapping all the time."

  We found the Volkswagen and got in. We went nowhere. The exits were jammed up, and we had to wait in line. We were held up a good fifteen minutes, arid we tried to catch a glimpse of the other Chevy. Carl either had beaten the rush or was tied up at another exit.