by Adam Moon
Neil closed his fists but Larry put a stop to Jack’s tirade by aiming his gun at him. “You’re a hot-head, son. Let the men do the talking.”
Jack angrily turned on the old man but there was a steady quality to his gaze as he looked down the sight of the gun, like he had no problem using it to end the argument.
Neil nodded to no one in particular and strode quickly to the bathroom. He wasn’t surprised to find it was locked from the inside. He rapped on the door lightly and said, “It’s just me, Neil. I’m only here to talk.”
Henry said in a hushed tone, “You animals are going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“I’ve been studying other realms my entire adult life. Yours is a forward thinking world, but your people are brutal. Your race, as a whole, is progressive even while individuals commit barbaric acts against one another. I’m no longer safe among you.”
It was odd to hear him speaking the way he was. He was fearful but there was decisiveness in his voice that had been absent the entire time they’d been in the same room together. This was the real Henry.
Neil reassured him. “Yes you are. All we want from you are some answers. Were you responsible for the dimensional jumps?” He asked even though Henry had practically admitted it. He just wanted to make sure it was true and keep him talking to ease his concerns.
“Yes. But it wasn’t my intention to get any of your people involved. I’m on a solo mission. None of this was supposed to happen this way.”
“Can you take us home?”
“Eventually I hope to get everyone home, but if you attack me, I’ll leave you behind. It’ll be for my own safety, of course.”
“Why can’t you take us home now?”
Henry unlatched the door and slid it open. Neil looked him in the eyes, saw the panic in them and crept into the bathroom slowly.
Henry locked the door again and said, “Those men who approached the diner back on your world did something to my device. It still works but I have no control over where it takes us now. We’re adrift in the multiverse.”
“I remember a bright flash of light that came when they appeared. That was when the clocks reset and my phone shut off. Did they somehow short circuit it?”
Henry pulled something from his pocket that looked like an old cell phone, the flip type. “Your guess is as good as mine. They’ve now found me on half a dozen different worlds and each time they do, they try to kill me. The only reason you’re all here is because they attacked me on your world and I couldn’t get away. So I jumped. You just got caught in the jump radius.”
“Are the dog-men from a different dimension too?”
Henry stifled a laugh at Neil’s name for them. “I assume so.”
“Why do they want to kill you?”
“Each dimension is different. In some, the people are still living in caves. In others, they believe in a deity made of pure radiation. Many planets are devoid of humans and some are even barren of all life. Those dog-men, as you call them, are different from us, physically and otherwise. Perhaps they have a twisted sense of reality. Maybe they think they need to stop me for some reason. Or maybe they’re just psychopaths. It’s difficult to know for sure because I’m not about to wait around and ask them the question.”
“Well, apparently they also have the ability to jump across dimensions. Do you think they’re tracking us?”
“I have no idea.”
Neil stared at the device in Henry’s hand. Henry leaned back and then slipped it back into his pocket. He said, “I can transport us anytime I want but there are no guarantees the next world will be as hospitable as the probes once indicated.”
“Huh?”
“The reason we’re only jumping to worlds where the earth exists and is reasonably hospitable is because we ran tests for decades using probes, trying to eliminate the destinations that would lead to certain death. Some dimensions have no planet Earth. Others have an Earth but a runaway greenhouse has turned it into an oven. Some are solid ice. Of the nearly infinite possibilities, there are surprisingly few habitable Earth’s; perhaps as few as a billion.”
“Holy shit! Are you serious? And you said you have no control over where your device takes us so that means we might have to travel to a billion different Earths before we ever find ours again.”
“You’re right. It’s not an ideal situation, that’s for sure. But the reality is even grimmer. There’s no guarantee we’ll only visit each dimension once. The dimensional shifter in my pocket is sending us to random destinations. There’s no predicting how many times we’ll end up at a dimension we’ve already visited. And it gets worse: the coordinates I had preset were to planets where English was the primary language and people were at least civil to one another. Now that the shifter is malfunctioning we might find ourselves in hostile territory or unable to communicate because of the language barrier. I have no control over anything. That’s why I’ve been hesitant to jump unless I deem it necessary for our survival.”
“That was going to be my next question. Since you can jump at any time, I was wondering why you weren’t jumping every few seconds, especially when we found ourselves on worlds like this one, where we probably don’t belong and probably couldn’t survive anyway.”
“Hostilities are a concern, but my biggest concern is the age of the data my people acquired about each dimension. Some of the places we deemed safe decades ago are now unfit for life. Some of the alternate civilizations ruined their planet since we first visited them. My device had those dimensions blocked but now that it is malfunctioning, we might find ourselves on a planet swimming with radiation or baking to a golden crisp from greenhouse gasses. A couple of them have been rendered inhospitable by an impact event.”
“Does that mean we might accidentally jump to one of those dimensions where Earth doesn’t even exist? If so, we’ll die of suffocation in the vacuum of space before we can jump again.”
“No. Luckily those dimensions were never plugged in to the device in the first place. But there are still some worlds that are barely safe to visit and now I can’t avoid them.”
Neil scrunched his brows. “So what? If you can jump at any moment, you can just jump away the second you think we’re in danger.”
“It’s a risk I don’t want to take.”
“I think you should. At this rate, it’ll take several lifetimes to find our home again.”
“I’ll think about it. Can you talk to the others and make sure I’m safe? I don’t want to come out until I know for certain that I won’t be attacked.”
“You’re safe. But they’ll echo my sentiments. They’ll want to start jumping right away, especially to get away from planets like this one.”
“I’ll promise to jump us if you can promise me I won’t be harmed.”
“You’ve misjudged us. We’re not barbarians.”
“Yes you are.”
“Shut up. Come on. Everyone is probably eager to hear what you have to say.”
Jack had settled down and Larry’s gun was tucked back in his waistband. Everyone was seated facing the hallway to the bathroom, waiting for their return.
Kara, the teenager, looked like she was about to burst with excitement. She was the first to speak. “Is it true? Are you responsible for the dimensional jumps?”
Henry nodded and said, “Kudos to you for figuring out that we were traversing dimensions, rather than traveling through space or time. You’re smart.”
“I know.”
Henry took a deep breath. “I have the device that is moving us across dimensions. But it’s broken. Those hairy men wrecked it when they attacked the diner on your world so now all I can do is to activate it and hope it takes us to a b
etter place.”
Kim asked, “Can you get us back home?”
“You must miss your mom. I’m sorry you got caught up in this. I’ll do my best to get you all back to your loved ones.”
Kim cringed and looked away when Henry mentioned her mom. Neil noticed, though.
Larry moved closer. “So you’re saying that we can travel to other dimensions and some of them are similar, but slightly different than the one we came from? Is that right?”
“Yes.”
Larry’s eyes misted and he looked away. “I lost my daughter two years ago. Is there a chance she’s out there in another universe?”
“She most definitely is out there somewhere, but you’d never find her and if you did you might regret it. All possibilities are actualized in the multiverse, which means that the alternatives aren’t always preferable to what you have at home. It’s a basic tenet of what I do. I scout but never get attached. Let’s say you find your daughter alive in another universe, and decide to reunite with her, only to find out that she has terminal cancer and you have to watch her die all over again. The heart is meant to break and then to heal. You can try to cheat fate but you never know what the eventual outcome might be. I pray you don’t chase heartbreak. I’ve heard stories of others who have and it rarely ends well.”
Valerie interrupted. “I have the opposite problem. The world I came from sucked. I never found love or acceptance. Is there a chance that there’s a better world out there for me?”
Henry became visibly flustered. He barked, “You people need to get something through your heads right now: this is not a game. We’re not having an adventure. Our mission now is simply to get you home so that I may return to my home and fix my device. There are enemies after us who want us dead. Don’t forget that. This is serious.”
That subdued the room. Kara coughed. Her dad put an arm over her shoulder and stared out the window at the green, gassy atmosphere. He asked, “Can you jump us any time you want, or is there something stopping us from moving on just now?”
“I explained to him,” he gestured to Neil, “that the main reason I’m hesitant to move on is because there’s no way to know if the next world will be worse than this one. I’ve been waiting as long as possible on each world, hoping my device might reset itself. The only reason I’ve been jumping is to get us out of harms way.”
“Well, that air out there is noxious and it’s seeping in here. I vote we get the hell out of here before we all pass out.”
Henry said, “No one gets a vote. I’m the dimensional shifter. You are my passengers. You must understand that it has to be this way. My people have been jumping dimensions for decades. I know the pitfalls of jumping. I have history with this technology. You barely understand what it does or how it works.”
Kim coughed and her throat was whistling from constriction.
Neil said, “It’s not safe here. Take us somewhere else.”
Henry sighed. “Okay, but when we get there, I want to wait and see if my device resets. It’s supposed to go back to its original settings if it becomes overloaded. I don’t know why it hasn’t done it yet. I can’t even pull coordinates up on the screen.” He pulled it from his pocket and the room went deathly silent. Everyone knew they were looking at something that was so advanced that to them it was physically impossible.
Henry smirked and pressed a tiny button on the top. At that moment, the building vibrated and their vision wobbled. It was somewhat cathartic to know it was happening this time, but no less overwhelming.
Their ears popped and the building swayed like a boat on the water. It sounded like a thunder storm all around them but the skies were clear. They briskly jogged to the windows to see where they were. The outside world was water, for as far as the eye could see. The air was hot and humid. In the distance, a whale breeched and emitted spray from its spout.
Kim whispered, “It’s beautiful,” and it was, except that the diner was their only floatation device, and brick buildings aren’t designed to float.
Neil shot Henry a look so Henry pressed the button again, whisking them away from a watery grave.
The next world was eerily similar to their own. There was a road outside with cars speeding along it. An airplane drew a slow line across the sky.
Larry gasped. Neil knew he hoped they weren’t home, but instead on a world close to their own. If it was similar, and his daughter was still alive, Larry would do everything in his power to leave them and find her.
Henry looked at the crowd in the diner. “I told you it’s a risk to jump. What would have happened if my device malfunctioned on that water world? We’d have either sunk like stones or been eaten by sharks. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side, if you know what I mean.” Then he cocked his head to the side. “That is an expression on your world, is it not?”
“Yes, we know what it means.”
Larry left through the front door without saying a word. Henry tried to go after him but the old man was already jogging away at a healthy speed.
Henry said, “Where the hell is he going?”
“He thinks his daughter might be alive out there.”
“I already warned him about that. Isn’t anyone listening to me?”
Valerie asked, “Is this home? It looks so familiar.”
“You need to keep your eyes open for minor differences. This place is similar but very different too. Concentrate and you’ll see subtle variations.”
“Can we go outside and take a look around?”
“It’s dangerous on so many levels. What if this universe has a contagion that yours doesn’t have? What if the people are all cannibals? It’s not worth the risk.”
Sandy, who’d remained mostly silent during the weird expedition, finally spoke up. “It’s not like you heeded any of your own warnings when you were on our Earth. Why do we have to abide by rules that you ignore? I’m going out for some air. Stop me if you dare.”
Henry hung his head in defeat. “That’s fair. But stay close. If those armed creatures find me again, I’ll have to jump out of here and if you’re not close, you’ll be left behind.”
Neil rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Let’s all go with her. We don’t need to be inside the diner to jump so why should we stay here?”
Henry sighed. “The walls of the building offer protection from radiation and the elements. As you saw, it kept us afloat, albeit for just a few seconds. This building has been a Godsend. I have rations for myself but not enough for all of you. So far that hasn’t been an issue because this place is stocked with food that’s safe to consume. We really should keep using this building for transportation until we find a better alternative.”
Kim said, “I want to go with Sandy. Can I, dad?”
Neil looked at Henry expectantly. He relented. “Fine. But make it quick. If we come under attack, you all need to make sure to get as close to the device as possible. Let’s go. And if you see Larry, convince him to come back. He’s out of his element here.”
Now that they were about to venture outside, a few of them hesitated. Kara’s parents were the last to approach the front doors.
As soon as they stepped out, a plastic, oval-shaped police car pulled up to the side of the road. They knew it was a cop car because it was covered in insignia and badges and had a huge star on each door. The signage was utter overkill. A burly officer with just as many patches and badges on his uniform stepped out and looked the building up and down. He had a shotgun in his hands, like he was ready to use it at the drop of a hat.
“What the hell is this? How did this get here?”
Neil lied. “We were wondering the same thing, officer. We just went in to take a look around.”
“Did you see who put it here?”
&nb
sp; “Nope.”
“Alright then. I believe you but you’ll have to come to the station with me for a scan. It’ll just take a minute.”
“A scan? What do you mean?”
“I need a brain scan from each of you. It’s procedure.”
Kim shuddered. “I don’t want to.”
Reassuringly, the officer said, “It’s okay. It’s completely harmless.”
“What’s it for?”
“It takes pictures of what you saw. Sometimes memories can be tricky. If you saw the perp even if it was out of the corner of your eye and your brain didn’t register it, we’ll be able to see him or her.” To Neil, the officer said, “She should have already known that. You need to train her better.”
“Train her,” he spat indignantly. “She’s not a dog!”
“And she’s not going to be much of a citizen if you don’t teach her the laws. She should have learned about police procedure in kindergarten.”
The officer took in the crowd of weary people before him, for what seemed like the first time since he arrived on the scene. “What are you people wearing? Those aren’t regulation clothes. It’s a Thursday. Wearing red is prohibited. Wearing shirt sleeves is too, unless it’s over ninety two degrees, which it clearly is not.”
“You have laws about the clothes people can wear on a given day?”
The officer stared at them like they were from Mars. Then anger lit up his features. “Where are your patches?”
Neil thought about walking up to him and punching him in the face but the loaded shotgun deterred him. He said, “We must have forgotten to put them on. Sorry.”
“It’s the fifteenth. How on Earth could you forget?” he said incredulously, “Reagan died for us and you disrespect him like this. This calls for more than just a monetary fine. I haven’t had a misdemeanor felony in months. Congratulations, you bunch of philistines; you have broken the one law we hold dearest on Thursday the fifteenth. How did you even make it this far from home without being picked up?”