His anxious tone and words to the guard had produced the intended effect. Front door standing open behind him, Boles was waiting for him as the Aurora squealed to a halt in the circular driveway.
“Good to see you again, Max.” The inventor wore a golden California senior’s smile as he approached the car. His tan was the stuff of Chicago dreams. “What’s so important that it brought you back so soon? The gate guard said you looked downright nervous.”
“Nervous?” Max shut the door and hurried around the front of the car. “Yeah, you could say I’m a little nervous. I was robbed last night.”
Boles’s expression turned instantly sympathetic as they entered the house. “No kidding? That’s a damned shame.”
“Damned might be the right description.” Max looked around and without being asked, fell onto a massive leather couch. Until that moment he had not really stopped running, physically or mentally. Now he was exhausted, but adrenaline flow kept him alert and talking as Boles took a seat opposite.
“So tell me what happened.” The inventor offered M&Ms from a silver container. Max waved them off.
“I get home last night and find a guy trying to take my TV for a walk. As I’m confronting him another guy shows up. He looks exactly like the first. I mean, exactly. While they’re arguing about who’s who, a third kibitzer comes through the door and guess what—he looks just like the other two. Same build, same look, same voice, same clothes—they even argued alike. If you take their words and their actions at face value, they’d never met before that moment.”
He eyed the candy uncomfortably. What he needed was a good, stiff Scotch, not chocolate. But as long as he had Boles’s attention, he did not want to send him off to search the household bar. Health freak that the older man was, it was entirely possible that the only alcohol in the house resided in the medicine cabinet anyway. He put the craving out of his mind.
“Eventually they calm down. Then they tie me up and work things out among themselves, the downside being that they leave not just with my TV but also my stereo and my computer.”
Boles was nodding sympathetically as he listened. Not once during Max’s deposition had he laughed, or even smiled. “Fascinating. Maybe even remarkable. But what has it got to do with me?”
Max rolled his eyes. “Wait, there’s more. Today I go down to the beach and after ten minutes of lying in the sun this absolutely stunning lady materializes and tells me she’s thirsty. So I sit up right away and give her a cold soda. We start talking, everything’s going exceptionally well, and then guess what? It seems she has three sisters. Three sisters who all look almost exactly like. Not as alike as the three burglars, but close. And you know what they tell me as I’m sitting there with my blood starting to congeal? They tell me that they’d never met before, didn’t even know of one another’s existence, until they met in a hotel restaurant the previous night.” He gazed fixedly at the inventor. “I don’t suppose any of this means anything to you?”
“Of course it does!” Boles was on his feet now, gesticulating excitedly as he paced rapidly back and forth. “They’re paras! First the thieves, then the girls.” He halted and stood staring at a high shelf of books, shaking his head slowly. “It works. The damn thing works.”
“There’s that word again.” Max sat up straight, his eyes never leaving his host. “Paras. Want to tell me what it means?”
Boles looked over at him. “As I told you when you were here yesterday, my intention was to break through the barrier, or barriers, that separate parallel worlds, and find a way to enter one. The system did just that, but instead of allowing us to enter, it permitted the inhabitants of those parallel worlds to cross over into ours. And not just those of one parallel world, but in the case of your burglars, two, and in the case of the young women, three.” His eyes were alight. “Who could have imagined such a result? Astonishing! Extraordinary!”
“Weird. Almost as weird as the stuff I write. I wonder while we’re sitting here how many other people out there are running into newfound twins and triplets and quads and so forth.”
“I can tell you. Zero. Nobody.” Boles’s excitement gave way to an intense, focused curiosity. “You and I were the only ones present when the field was activated. I was behind the console and you were, as I recall, quite close to the field arch. It is not only possible but likely that you are the only one who has been affected, Max.”
The reporter’s expression narrowed. “Affected? What do you mean, ‘affected’?”
Boles weighed his answer carefully before replying. “Based on what you’ve just told me, my guess is that instead of being narrowly focused and harnessed within the confines of the arch, the field seems to have expanded far enough to encompass your position where you were standing at the moment of maximum sustained convivial interaction. Furthermore, the result seems to be that instead of you entering the field, the field seems to have entered you. Interesting. Parameters will have to be redefined. Somewhere in the equation a letter needs to be flopped.”
“Flop my ass,” Max muttered. “Talk to me in English. What’s this about a field entering me? What are you trying to say?”
Boles was scrutinizing him in much the same way an entomologist in Peru might look upon an entirely new, highly attractive, but possibly toxic species of beetle.
“What I’m saying is that you may now be a kind of nexus, Max.”
The reporter looked alarmed. “Hey, I was raised a Presbyterian and I don’t even want to be that. I’m still not following you.”
The inventor struggled to compose an explanation simple enough for any layman to comprehend. Even a tabloid reporter. “You are the gate now, Max. The effect has settled within you—or around you. Without detailed study I can’t be certain of any specifics. You, or rather the effect now centered on you, drew not one but two parallelities, or paras, of that burglar into your orbit. Into your apartment.
“I want you to stop and think a minute. Did you go any-where near the restaurant where those four ‘sisters’ claimed to have met?”
“No! From here I went straight home. I didn’t stop, I drove straight …” He broke off, sudden realization chiseling at his memory. “The hotel they were staying at is right on Ocean. I went right past there.”
Boles nodded sagaciously. “Obviously that was close enough for the field to affect them. No telling how many others your passing influenced. Fortunately, the strength of the field and its consequent effects appear to be of a highly intermittent nature.”
“I don’t get it. I didn’t feel a thing. I don’t feel a thing.”
“Evidently you won’t,” Boles told him. “If you were going to feel anything, you would have by now. It’s others, in other worlds, who are suffering the effects of what happened to you.”
“But I don’t feel affected.” Max’s initial fear was giving way to a growing anger. He was used to being in control of what was happening around him, not the unwilling carrier of some cryptic, fluctuating physical effect. If what Boles was saying was true, he was more out of control of his surroundings than any man had ever been.
“If I’ve been infected somehow by this whatever-it-is, I want it removed. This effect, or field, or whatever you want to call what I’m carrying, I want it wiped out, erased, neutralized, and cured. Right now.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Max.” Boles sounded genuinely apologetic.
“You can’t? Why not?” His voice rose. “I’ll sue!”
“That won’t change things or put the universe back the way it was before I activated the field. You can’t litigate physics, Max. I can’t fix things because I don’t know precisely how the effect was generated, much less how or why it locused in you. I was trying to open a gate, not make you into one. I can’t fix what I don’t understand.” When the downcast reporter turned to stare worriedly out the broad picture window behind the couch, Boles was moved to comment further.
“Don’t look like that.” The inventor pleaded with his guest. “I kno
w this has to be disconcerting for you. I’m not trying to dismiss your condition as hopeless.”
“Oh, now that’s encouraging,” Max mumbled disconsolately.
“It’s obvious that you’ve got a problem. But I’ll work on it, I promise you that.”
“Great!” Max dropped his head into his hands and used the heels to rub hard at his forehead. “So what am I supposed to do in the meantime? While you’re trying to figure out how to reverse this, or terminate it, or whatever?”
“Do?” Boles eyed him curiously. “Why, the same things you always do. Live your life, write your stories. Are you in pain? Have you suffered injury because of the effect? Has your health deteriorated?”
“Only my sense of confidence in the stability of the world around me.” The reporter looked up. “Otherwise, I feel okay.”
The inventor looked satisfied. “Then what are you bitching about?”
Max considered before finally offering an indignant reply. “I lost my TV. If those—what did you call them? If those paras hadn’t shown up and decided to cooperate instead of fighting for dominance, I wouldn’t have lost my stereo and my computer.”
“I’ll buy you new ones. I am sort of responsible for what’s happened to you.”
“Sort of!” Max sputtered.
“Would you like a drink?”
“Sure, why not?” Max mumbled. “Anything’s okay, so long as it’s cold and full of alcohol.”
Boles carefully filled two glasses with ice and amber-colored liquid from a corner bar, in the process answering Max’s earlier question about whether or not the inventor was too health-conscious to consume liquor. He presented one glass to his guest and kept the other for himself. Max swallowed urgently.
“This is all so very interesting.” Boles was thinking aloud again.
“So were the first A-bomb tests, but I don’t know anybody who wanted to study them from ground zero.” The harsh yet sweet liquid burned the reporter’s throat.
“I’m pondering possible ramifications. If two of your nocturnal visitors were paras, then that means they have gone missing on two parallel worlds. The same holds true for the four ‘sisters,’ only their absences are much more likely to be noted. Because they’re here and this world is apparently so analogous to their own, they will all be familiar with it. Oh, there’ll be plenty of confusion when they try to apply for the same job simultaneously, or pay bills with one bank account, but I suspect they’ll manage to sort it out. By way of explanation, each of them will ascribe their personal situation to confused memories or some such. That’s what people do.
“But they will have left behind holes in the para worlds they were drawn from. Disappointed boyfriends, angry employers, puzzled parents, and more. It would be fascinating to be able to visit those parallel worlds and observe exactly what the effects of such disappearances are.”
“I’ve got it,” Max informed him sarcastically. “Why don’t you fire up that monstrosity in the basement again and see if it will infect you with the unsolicited ability to attract people from parallel worlds?”
Unperturbed, Boles smiled. “For a tabloid reporter you have a delightfully droll sense of humor, Max.”
“Which I am rapidly losing. Isn’t there anything you can do?”
His host shook his head regretfully. “Not without a great deal of additional study, I’m afraid. I can offer one positive thought.”
“What’s that?” The distraught reporter was ready to clutch at the tiniest hint of optimism.
“The effect may be temporary. Given the limited amount of energy available for the experimental run, it most probably is. Even as we sit here discussing the matter, it may already have run its course. The notion of a cure being required may already be irrelevant.”
“Yeah. Right. How will I know if it has? Run its course, that is?”
“I should think the answer to that would be self-evident. Go about your business and see if you run into any more multiples, any more paras. If not, then I think we can safely assume that the effect has worn off. The possibility that any measurable results from the propagation of the conjectural field might be extremely transitory in nature was one that always concerned me. It appears that if confirmed, my greatest worry may turn out to be all for the best.”
“But what if it’s not transitory, or at least what if it takes a couple of days to wear off, or fade away, or dissipate, or whatever it is that it’s going to do? What if the effect is sustained for a while and I do run into more of these paras? How many should I expect to have to deal with?”
The shrug Boles gave him somehow managed to contain within it all the imposing majesty of experimental physics past and present—or at least something more than insouciant indifference.
“Who can say? Theoreticians have speculated for hundreds of years on the possible existence of worlds that parallel our own. It’s only recently that the math and computing power has become available with which to shape actual hypotheses. I won’t try to explain the algorithms I used to help design and build my system.” His tone grew cold and deep. Suddenly he sounded less like a gracefully aging surfer and more like a highly motivated if slightly addled prophet.
“There could be hundreds of parallel worlds, Max. Millions. Numbers beyond imagining, many exactly like ours or so nearly alike as to be indistinguishable, others different in minor or extreme ways we can’t begin to imagine. For example, you mentioned that the four sisters differed from each other in very minor but distinctive ways.”
He nodded. “That’s right. Three were blondes, but one had red hair. Another had a mole, here”—he tapped his right thigh—“but the others didn’t.” He smiled thinly. “I really wasn’t paying much attention to petty differences. There was too much else to look at.”
Boles was nodding thoughtfully. “Parallel for sure, but not always identical. A single strand of DNA in one person might be enough to comprise the sole difference between this world and another. At a different level more pronounced differences would appear. A mole, for example. So much possibility for variation!” He downed a long swallow from his glass, but it was an empty gesture, one designed solely to recognize the presence of the tumbler and its contents. His heart and his mind were elsewhere.
“Resume your life, Max. Right now that’s the best advice I can offer you. As long as you are the one drawing paras into our world, into this world, the effect on your existence, and mine, should be minimal. As the locus, you are likely to be the only one who notices them. I know this is upsetting to you, but neither is it like you’ve been cast down into the lower regions of Purgatory. How bad can it be if the worst that happens is that you lose some home electronics that I will gladly reimburse you for, and that four beautiful women want to ask you out on a congruent date?”
Max summoned up his last vision of the four Omaha sisters, sitting on the sand, bright sunshine glinting off their para hair, reflecting from their identical para eyes, casting teasing shadows across their startling para bodies. Maybe being a locus for parallel worlds wasn’t such a bad thing, after all. Especially if Boles was right and the effect would wear off of its own accord.
If that was the case, he reflected, he needed to return to that hotel and look up his most recent para acquaintances before they snapped back into their pertinent parallel worlds. In the absence of any harmful side effects, it was an experience he ought not to miss. Especially if they all thought like sister Sherri. Some simultaneous notions might not be such a bad thing.
Get on with your life, Boles was telling him. Could be that the old boy’s attitude was as right on as his science was way off. In any event, it would not do any good to sue him—not even in California. What kind of accusation could be brought? “Plaintiff was made an attractant to parallel worlds without his consent and with malicious intent?” Any lawsuit that made even oblique reference to Boles’s bizarre scientific theories would be laughed out of court. Even in California.
“I do have one idea for canceling or negating t
he effects of the field if it doesn’t dissipate on its own,” the inventor was telling him. “It’s awfully premature and I hate to mention anything so wild.”
“What do you call my condition now?” Max challenged him, waving his glass. By this time it was empty save for melting ice cubes.
“From a scientific point of view, enviable.” Boles’s reply contained not a trace of irony. “I wish I had been the one affected, not you.”
“Finally. Something we agree on.” Max’s concurrence was heartfelt. “Let’s give your idea a try, whatever it is. The results can’t be any wilder than my current reality.”
“It isn’t going to be that easy. Certain preparations have to be made. The system must be modified and checks run.” The inventor considered. “Come back next Tuesday.”
Sure thing Doc, Max mused sourly. After all, I’m way overdue for my yearly reality shot.
Other than being passed by two apparently identical black Mercedes E-600 sedans headed north on Lincoln Avenue, a wary Max was not assaulted by any blatant parallelities on his way to work Monday morning. At the office friends and acquaintances remarked on his unusual pallor and a lack of the familiar energy that customarily seemed to radiate from him. Max barely acknowledged their stares and whispered comments. Anything that caught his eye and smacked of unnatural redundancy, from people to pencils, caught and held his attention.
He turned in the medium story for publication, the clever embellishments he had added in the course of reliving his visit to the bereaved Collins household cheering him as he reread them. The brilliance of his own writing never failed to inspire him. He hesitated over the Boles story, finally dismissing his concerns with a mental shrug. A story was a story, whether it involved him personally or not. He had written selectively about the colorful and lively demonstration of Boles’s equipment, downplaying the laughable aspects of the inventor’s theories. There was a chance that the sharp-eyed Kryzewski would sniff out the omissions, but Max could not laugh at that which he no longer found funny.
Parallelities Page 6