When It's a Jar

by Tom Holt

  “Oh. And am I?”

  Nobody in the corridor, at the end of which was the lift. “I don’t know, do I?”

  “So he could have been telling the truth.”

  “About you being a plasterer, maybe. But not about you getting better and going home. He definitely lied about that.”

  “I guess,” Theo said doubtfully. “Except I’ve got memories now. Loads of them.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And I’m not in that place with the goblins, where I’m fairly sure I didn’t belong, so arguably I am indeed home.”

  Maurice stopped dead. “Look,” he said. “Do you want me to rescue you or not?”

  “Is that what you’re doing?”

  Maurice suddenly felt very, very tired. “Listen, you,” he said. “I’m putting myself in grave danger here, I had to pay George back all his money, which leaves me short for the week, I’ve taken a day off work, and if we get caught George will probably have me killed. Therefore, I am rescuing you. Got that?”

  “Um, no.”

  “Then you’re not nearly as smart as I thought.” He pressed an apparently free-standing button in an invisible wall. “Look, take it from me, you’re being rescued. All right?”

  “Why?”

  “Because.” Ting; the lift had arrived. Maurice nudged the bed inside and said, “Ground floor. No, hold it. Goods entrance.”

  “As in goods and evils, presumably.”

  “Something like that.” Ting. “We’re here. All right, let’s think.”

  “Sure. What about?”

  Maurice peered round the invisible door of the lift. They were in a part of the building with solid, non-transparent walls, which was a relief. A large room full of cardboard boxes, with a few sack trucks and empty pallets for good measure. Directly opposite, a big steel door. “That way, I think,” he said. “And then, I think, screw the expense, we’ll take a cab.”

  “Hold it right there.”

  Maurice swung round, nearly dropping the bags. George was standing in front of the lift. To his left, a very old man holding an Uzi. To his left, a tall young man with a slice of fruit cake and a pickaxe handle.

  “Sorry, Mr Katz,” the old man said sadly. “Get him, Art.”

  The young man stepped forward, chewing grimly. Maurice’s hand (left hand – his right was holding the drip bags) flew to his pocket and closed around the grip of the plastic ray-gun. He drew it and pointed it at the young man’s head; then, remembering whom he was up against, he changed his aim and pointed it straight at the chunk of cake. “Don’t do it, Art,” he said. “One more step and the cake gets it.”

  Art stopped dead. George sighed. “Grow up, Maurice, for crying out loud,” he said wearily. “Oh come on, you two, it’s a kid’s toy. You think it’d have got through the security sensors if it was real?”

  Maybe the young man knew something George didn’t. He stayed exactly where he was, his jaws barely moving. George made a furious grunting noise and grabbed the Uzi out of the old man’s hands. “Maurice, you’re being colossally stupid,” he said. “That man is sick; he needs specialised medical treatment, and if you take him outside this building he could die. I have no idea what’s going on in that ten-watt brain of yours, but I can’t allow you to endanger the life of this poor, sick, vulnerable man. So stop pratting about and step away from the bed.”

  “You know what, George?” Maurice could hear a voice just like his own. It was coming out of his mouth. “I don’t like you. I never liked you, even at school. Nobody at school liked you, George. They all thought you were a—”

  “I’m going to count to five, Maurice,” George said. “Please don’t make me shoot you.”

  “And as for Stephanie—”

  “Steve. One.”

  “No way in hell,” Maurice said passionately, “would she ever do it with you. Not for a billion pounds. Not if it’d solve global warming. So what’ve you done to her, George? Well?”

  “Two.”

  “You.” The young man looked at him, terrified. “Here. Put that down, and grab a hold of these.” He offloaded the IV bags onto the young man’s outstretched arm. Then he dipped his right hand into his other pocket and pulled out—

  “Four.”

  —the doughnut. It was a bit squashed, but the plastic bag had kept the worst of the lint and fluff off it. “You or me, George,” Maurice said, and turned the ray-gun on him.

  “Get him, Art!” the old man wailed, but the young man just stood there, his arms festooned in intravenous drip tubes. George swallowed and lifted the gun. “Five,” he said. “Sorry, Maurice.”

  But Maurice had already pushed the muzzle of the ray-gun through the hole in the doughnut. He could feel raw energy pulsing through the plastic, as a digital readout on the top lit up a brilliant green. Setting: vaporise.

  What the hell do you think you’re doing? he asked himself, and pressed the trigger.

  There was a high-pitched shrieking noise and a dazzling blue flash, and George wasn’t there anymore. No scorch-marks, smoke, burned-flesh smell; nothing. Dead silence, except for the crinkle of crisp-packet cellophane.

  “Mr Katz?” the old man said. “What did you just—?”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  “But you just shot him. He’s—”

  “Balls,” Maurice said kindly. “I haven’t shot anyone. This isn’t a real gun. Look,” he added, pulling the ray-gun out of the doughnut and showing it to the old man. “Kid’s toy. You can buy them in Forbidden Planet. See?” He pointed it at his own head and pressed the trigger. It moaned Extermin… and glowed a feeble blue. “Battery’s flat,” Maurice explained.

  “Definitely non-lethal. Therefore, I can’t have shot anyone, can I?”

  “But Mr George—”

  “Yes? What about him?”

  “He’s not here.”

  Maurice smiled. “Quite,” he said. “And if I haven’t shot him and he’s not here, he must be somewhere else. That’s logic, that is.”

  Theo stirred slightly. “Actually—”

  “Besides,” Maurice said quickly, “even if I had shot him, it’d have been self-defence, so really, there’s nothing to get excited about, so why don’t you just take your nephew somewhere and feed him, before he starves to death? After all,” he added, “you promised your sister you’d look after him, didn’t you?”

  The old man shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that, Mr Katz, sir. You really shouldn’t.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” They looked round. “What?” Theo protested. “It’s no big deal. All he did was relocate that man back to his default reality. I think that’s what he did,” he added. “Assuming I’m right and that blue flashing thing’s a transdimensional stabilising cathode. I’m only guessing, mind.”

  “A transdimensional—”

  “There’s probably a proper name for it,” Theo said. “But logically it’s got to be something like that; it stands to reason. Well, hasn’t it?”

  Maurice took a deep breath. “He’s feeling better,” he said. “I think we’ll go now.”

  The old man was looking mildly stunned, as if he’d just cut into a Victoria sponge and a dozen chorus girls had jumped out. “Mind how you go, Mr Katz,” he said, not unkindly. “Thanks ever so much for not shooting our Art. He’s a good lad.”

  “Really?” Theo said, puzzled. “It seems to me, all he does is stand there and eat. Does he actually need all that food? Because I’d have thought, a human being that size would really only want around 2,550 calories a day, and he’s just—”

  “Theo.”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up.” Maurice took back the IV bags from the young man, who grinned sheepishly; then he looped them over his arm, took a firm hold of the bed and propelled it forward. “Would someone mind getting the door for me?” he asked. The young man sprang forward and opened it. On the other side it was dark, which seemed odd, but what the hell. “Well,” Maurice said, “goodbye for now. And, um.”

/>   “Same to you too, Mr Katz, sir.”

  He went through the door, which immediately slammed shut behind him. It was pitch dark – not just nocturnal-absence-of-sun but the sort of darkness someone had spent effort and money creating. With a certain level of misgiving, Maurice pushed the bed forward. After a couple of steps, it bumped up against something and would go no further.

  “We’ve stopped,” Theo said. “Are we there yet?”

  Maurice felt in his pocket for the plastic ray-gun and pressed its trigger. There was practically no juice left in the battery, so all he got was a very brief sputter of blue glow; enough, however, to shock him so much that he dropped the ray-gun on the floor. “Yes,” he said.

  “Oh good. Now what?”

  “Now,” Maurice said, “I turn on the light.”

  He knew exactly where to find it, even in the dark. He pressed the switch, and a landlords’-special light bulb slowly began to gleam overhead. Maurice looked round to make absolutely sure there was no mistake, then said, “Shit.”

  “Oh. Have I got to?”

  Absolutely no mistake at all. It was exactly as he’d left it, when he finished work the previous afternoon. He looked down the long rows of shelves, each one lined with innumerable identical cardboard boxes, then across to the ruined computer, on which sat the half-eaten roll of chocolate digestive biscuits he’d brought in yesterday morning. Just to be sure, he walked over and counted them. The drill was, he allowed himself one biscuit per box found, as a reward. There were nine biscuits left, which was exactly right.

  “Is this really a medical facility?” Theo asked. “I have to say, it’s not quite what I’d expected.”

  Maurice rushed to the door and tried it, but it wouldn’t budge. Omskium, the toughest material known to Man. Oh boy. He glanced down at his watch. The hands were spinning so fast they were just a blur.

  “Excuse me,” Theo said.

  “What?”

  “Where is this, exactly?”

  Maurice spun round and glared at him. “Exactly,” he said, “this is the sub-basement of Carbonec Industries plc, Evelake Street in the City of London. I should know, I work here.”

  “Ah,” Theo said. “That’s all right, then.”

  “No it’s not.” Maurice slumped against the wall and dribbled down it, ending up in a sort of huddled crouch on the floor. “Because this can’t be the real Carbonec, because two minutes ago we were in George’s building, and that’s half a mile from here. On the other side of that door, there ought to be a staircase leading to the front office. Also,” he added bitterly, “the bloody door shouldn’t be locked.”

  “Oh. Is that bad?”

  “Yes.” Maurice lifted his head. “It looks just like my sub-basement – even the biscuits are right – but obviously it’s not. And we’re trapped in it. Absolutely no way out. We’re stuck here.”

  “Ah.” Theo hesitated, then said, “I think I’m hungry.”

  “You think.”

  “Well, I’ve never been hungry before. At least, not that I can remember. Is there any food?”

  “Nine digestive biscuits.”

  “Is that enough?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Pause. “So what happens next?”

  “I think,” Maurice said, “we starve to death. Well, I do. You’ll probably die long before me, when the stuff in the drip bags runs out. It’s just possible that we stay in here like this for ever and ever, but I wouldn’t bank on it. Also,” he added, “no offence, but I think death would be better.”

  “I’m inclined to agree,” Theo said solemnly. “I have a vague recollection of being stuck in a little bare room for five years with my brother Max. Of course you’re much nicer than him, but—”

  “Death would be better.”

  “I think so.”

  “Well, we’ll find out soon enough.” Maurice got up, went to the packet of biscuits, broke one in half and offered a half to Theo, who looked at it. “That’s food, is it?”

  “Broadly speaking.”

  “What do you do? Theoretically, I assume it goes in through the mouth, and I’m guessing the teeth are for breaking it up into small bits for swallowing, but I’ve never actually—”

  “Watch and learn.”

  Theo watched. “I think I see,” he said. “It’s more or less what the young man was doing.”

  “He was better at it than me, but yes.”

  He slid the half biscuit into Theo’s mouth, like posting a letter, and watched as he closed his teeth on it. “Harder,” he advised. “There, that’s the idea.”

  “Mm. Mmm mm.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Mm mm mmm mm.”

  “Now you swallow,” Maurice replied. “Like this. Watch. All right,” he added later, once Theo had stopped coughing, “biscuits probably aren’t a good one to start off with. Not that it makes much difference in your case, I’m afraid. It doesn’t look like you’ll get a chance to try anything else.”

  “I’m not all that bothered, to be honest with you,” Theo rasped. “I didn’t enjoy that at all.”

  “Just as well, really.” He sat down against the wall and munched his half of the biscuit. “So,” he said. “What exactly do you remember?”

  “Not a lot,” Theo replied apologetically. “At least, I’m fairly sure there’s quite a lot of stuff in there somewhere, but I can’t seem to get at it, somehow. Little bits sort of float to the surface from time to time, but they’re not connected to anything, if you follow me. Like, I can distinctly remember how irritating my brother Max is, but I can’t remember growing up or being a kid.” He paused. “I think I may have blown something up at some point.”

  “The Very Very Large Hadron Collider.”

  “Yes, that’s the one. But I can’t remember what it was, or why I did it. And I think I may have created the multiverse.”

  Maurice frowned. “You mean multiverse theory.”

  “No, the multiverse,” Theo replied. “But that’s all really fuzzy. I’m just going by what I think I can remember people telling me. Oh, and I think I won the Nobel Prize, for something or other. I can remember a lot of standing about in tight shoes, and someone called the King of Norway, and I do believe it rained.”

  “Ah.”

  “Apart from that, though, it’s all just conjecture, stuff I’ve figured out as I’ve gone along, just by looking at things and trying to work out what’s going on. I mean, take this cellar, for instance.”

  “Sub-basement, actually.”

  “I stand corrected. You said it shouldn’t be here. Not next door to the other place, I mean.”

  “Definitely.”

  “Ah yes,” Theo said, “but in multiverse theory, it stands to reason that there must be a universe which is exactly the same as the one you’re used to, except that the Carbonec building’s next door to the place we just came from. Therefore, that’s where we are.”

  “Um.”

  “Which in turn begs the question,” Theo continued earnestly, “how did we get there? How did we shift from one universe to another without a YouSpace device?”

  “I’ve heard that name before,” Maurice said. “Didn’t you—?”

  “You know, I do believe I did. Or rather, Pieter did, and I—” He stopped. “I think the term would be, got lumbered with it. Anyhow, I think I got it to work sort-of-reliably.”

  “Reliably?” Maurice asked. “Really reliably or Microsoft reliably? What I mean is, every fifth time you used it, did you get blown to pieces?”

  “Fairly reliably,” Theo said, after a pause. “You need a dimensional transit chamber. I used bottles. But any glass vessel would do just as well.”

  “A jar, for instance.”

  “I don’t see why not. And then you had to have an activating interface portal.”

  “Let me guess,” Maurice said. “Doughnuts.”

  “Or bagels or Polo mints. Naturally, the activating interface portal only works in conjunction with the dimensional transit c
hamber. I think that’s why, when the jar was opened and the field got broken back in the goblinny place, things didn’t work anymore.”

  Maurice nodded slowly. “Except just now.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “When I shot George,” Maurice explained. “Something told me, put the ray-gun inside the doughnut and it’ll work. And it did. And something, stuff must be working, or we couldn’t have reality-hopped from where we were to here when we came through that door. In which case—”

  Theo beamed. “We must now be inside the active field of another dimensional transit chamber,” he said. “Not the one I was in when I kept losing my memory, because that one failed when it got opened. Therefore, there’s got to be another one. Another bottle.” He stopped, and frowned. “There were six,” he said thoughtfully. “Yes, I’m sure there were. Five brown ones and a green one. I made them, just before I—”

  “You what?”

  Theo shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I really wish I could remember, but I can’t. But I’m as certain as I can be that at some point I made six YouSpace bottles, any one of which would create a stable YouSpace field which could be activated using a simple doughnut. So, if the ray-gun turned real when you stuck it through the hole in a simple doughnut, you must be within the active locus of a stable YouSpace field, and the only way I know that that would be possible would be if you had one of my six bottles.” He stopped, frowned and asked, “Does that make sense?”

  “No.” Even as he said it, a picture appeared in his mind: two beautiful, bewildering women on a street corner. Duty and Fun. And he’d chosen—

  “What did you do with these widgets after you’d made them?”

  “I don’t—Yes I do.” Theo leaned forward, eyes wide open. “I gave them to people. Max. I gave one to my brother Max.”

  Maurice frowned. “Can’t be that one,” he said. “He was trapped. He said so.”

  “You don’t want to go believing anything Max tells you,” Theo said, suddenly ferocious. “Not if he drenches you in gasoline, strikes a match and tells you you’re burning. Which is an entirely possible scenario, I might add. Look, didn’t you say Max kept turning up in places?”

  “Well—”

  “Max has got the bottle,” Theo said firmly. “He’s been using it to screw me around. Just wait till I—”