The Broken Universe

by Melko, Paul

  “Yeah, I was just thinking that,” John said.

  “I know.”

  They found the spot on the rock where they had come through, a blank piece of floor in the warehouse in 7651—Universe Top. Henry Top had taken to painting out circles as drop zones for travel between any universe and Top. That way there was no problem with someone materializing into an object. John and Prime transferred through to 7651.

  Grace Top looked up.

  “Gentlemen,” she said. “How was your trip?”

  “Angsty,” Prime said. “Frustrating.”

  “But we know where we’re going next,” John said. “7312 is where Superprime found the device.”

  “He found it? He didn’t get tricked by some Superduperprime?”

  “No, he found it.”

  “Interesting.” She checked her watch. “Hey, can you wait a few minutes? We’re testing out the mail system.”

  “Cool,” John said.

  “Mail system?” Prime said.

  “Watch and see.”

  Grace rolled a platform into the transfer zone for the fixed gate. She placed a small satchel on the top of the transfer platform.

  “Mail!” she said.

  “What do you need to send?” John asked.

  “That James Bond film that was made here but never in 7650, a letter for Grace, a letter for Henry, a silly limerick I wrote.”

  “Is that VHS tape going to work?”

  “Yep. We checked!”

  “A transdimensional movie rental system,” Prime said. “Now, that’s entrepreneurship.”

  Grace counted down on her watch. She set the gate controls.

  “Oh, almost forgot!” She took a second watch, made sure it showed the same time, and slipped it into the satchel. “We need to stay synced!” She paused, waiting. “Three … two … one!”

  The lights dimmed. The machine hummed. Suddenly Henry was standing on the platform.

  “Henry!” Grace cried. “I thought we weren’t going to practice with people yet!”

  “I know!” Henry said. He hopped down from the platform. “Hi, John. Hi, John. But we had successful transfers five times in a row. I figured we could do a real person on six.” He grinned. “It worked.” He gave Grace Top a kiss on the lips.

  “They found Superprime,” Grace said. “Now they’re heading to 7312.”

  Henry said, “Oh, yeah? How’d he get the device?”

  “Found it,” John said. “In a cave, not too far from here.”

  “Mark it down,” Grace Top said.

  “Right,” Henry replied, and marked a note in his notebook.

  “What is he marking down?” Prime asked.

  John shrugged.

  “Universe 7312 is Universe Cave,” Henry said.

  “Universe 7423 is Universe Superprime,” Grace Top said.

  “Oh, right.”

  “We’re building our corporate culture,” she said with a smile.

  “Okay,” Prime said. “I still like plain numbers,” he added to John quietly.

  John said, “Grace, set the gate to 7312. We have some exploration to do.”

  “You got it.”

  John and Prime climbed atop the platform. Prime crouched a little, as if he was unsure that the radius would include his head.

  “Three … two … one! Transfer!” Grace cried.

  John’s ears popped. He looked around at the bare landscape.

  “I hope we never find a universe where they decided to dig the quarry here,” he said.

  “They’re usually water-filled,” John said.

  “Usually.”

  It was late afternoon, and the sun was reflecting off the white scraped stone. Prime walked to the edge of the quarry pit, some fifty meters away. He peered down into the gaping hole.

  “I don’t see anything,” he said.

  John followed the edge of the quarry with his eyes, about three meters down, all the way around. Much of the quarry was covered in shadow, and he had no clear view of it.

  “Kids,” Prime said.

  “What?”

  “Kids are coming.” A car pulled into the driveway of the quarry, skirting the old rusted rail that blocked the way. John watched them for a few moments, and then shrugged. They were just kids, looking for fun and probably a place to make out.

  “I’m going to walk around the edge and see if I can spot the opening,” John said.

  “If it’s still there,” Prime said. “There are a lot of gravel spill-ins that could have covered it again.”

  “We’ll find it, even if we have to drag Superprime out here to show us where it is.”

  “He can rot in my old universe for all I care.”

  John shielded his eyes from the sun as he walked the east side. Prime was walking the other way. Halfway around, he thought he saw something, a half-covered hole in the wall of the quarry, darker than the surrounding stone. He noted where it was, taking a bearing by a boulder farther back in the quarry and a distinctive streak of dark gray in the granite.

  The kids had eyed the two of them for a few minutes, and then gone about their business. John heard a whoop as one of the boys—there were two boys and two girls, maybe in their early twenties—jumped from the cliffside into the water below.

  The splash sent ripples across the blue water.

  “Ahhh!” he cried.

  “Is it cold?” one of the girls called.

  He replied with chattering teeth, “No!”

  They watched John as he passed, giving him a measured look. The girls were dressed in bikini tops and cut-off shorts. The boy just had shorts.

  “Whatcha doing, man?” the boy said.

  “Just looking for fossils.”

  “Sure, lots around here.”

  They turned back to watch their fourth make his way up from the water, via a zigzagging path of stone near their jumping point.

  “What did you see?” Prime asked, meeting him as he came around.

  “I think a hole in the wall. Hard to tell,” John said.

  “Did you ask those kids?”

  “Naw.”

  John found the colored streak of granite that he’d spied from across the quarry.

  “Here,” he said. “About three meters down.”

  Prime grinned at him. “You going?”

  “Sure.” John lay on the edge of the quarry and slipped over the side until his feet found the ledge. “Here I go.” Fingers gripping the edge, he lowered one foot until he found the next ledge. Then the other foot, and then once more.

  “Well?” Prime asked.

  “Yep, there’s a cave opening here. A little to the left of where I am. I can reach it.” He scooted along the ledge until his foot could reach the floor of the cave. He swung in and landed awkwardly on the cave floor.

  The cave was chilly, and, by the weak light through the opening, covered in milky white stone ceiling to floor. Stalactites and stalagmites reached up and down. He had a flashlight and pulled it from his pocket. The cave disappeared into the dark, its walls opening wider than the beam played.

  John stepped carefully over the rocky floor. Light from the cave opening flickered and he turned to see Prime dropping in from above. He was glad for the company suddenly.

  “Anything?”

  “Not yet.”

  Prime and he walked farther in. The cave floor dipped and suddenly there it was, the petrified universe traveler.

  He was half embedded in the rock of the wall. It was no skeleton, but rather a desiccated corpse. The face was in rictus, the skin shrunken across the well-preserved muscles. He looked as if he had died in agony.

  His clothes clung to him in shreds, bits of gray fabric, that John expected should have decayed away years before.

  “He transferred right into the wall,” Prime said. “The poor bastard died unable to reach the device.”

  It was true. The man’s hands were both trapped in the rock. It appeared he had transferred in from another universe partially embedded in th
e rock and unable to move his hands to reach the device. One arm, his right, was reaching across the chest, but was encased in rock at the elbow.

  “But why would he have transferred into rock?” John asked. “Transferring underground would have been a death sentence.”

  “Unless he had no choice,” Prime said.

  “Or he didn’t think he would have a problem,” John said. “Remember, the device is broken. Maybe going just one direction isn’t the only way it’s broken.”

  “Sabotage?” Prime asked. “Murder?”

  “You’ve probably thought about it as much as I have,” John said. “Why would a civilization as advanced as one that could create multidimensional travel create a device that fails as easily as this thing did?” He pointed to where the device sat strapped across his chest. “It only goes one direction, and we know that’s easy to get around. We built a device that goes both ways. This thing beams you into solid matter, if such exists on the other side. What advanced civilization would allow that sort of failure to happen?”

  “None I can postulate,” Prime said.

  “Exactly.” John pointed at the cadaver. “This guy died a horrible death because his technology was either broken or sabotaged.”

  “What do we do with—”

  “Hey!”

  They turned to see someone entering the tunnel. John’s hand went to the device, and then he pulled it away. There was no way he’d ever transfer under solid rock. Not after viewing the body of the first traveler.

  Prime shined his flashlight at the approaching figure, and John realized it was one of the swimmers. The guy was still dressed in dripping trunks.

  “What are you doing back here?” he cried.

  “What concern is it of yours?” Prime asked.

  “It’s a big concern,” the guy said. He pointed at the cadaver. “I’m the appointed guardian of this guy, and I don’t like you poking around him ‘looking for fossils.’”

  “Appointed guardian, huh?” Prime said. “Then you should have called the police to let them know about this.”

  “Get that flashlight out of my face!” He swung his hand and knocked the light aside. Prime let it drop, and its reflection illuminated both their faces.

  The guy stopped in shock. His eyes went from John to Prime and back again.

  “Johnny?” he said softly, looking at Prime. “Johnny?” he said again, looking at John.

  John peered closely at him. The face had aged with the change from adolescence to adulthood, leaner, more rugged. He was six centimeters taller and more muscular. The tattoo was new, but John recognized his boyhood friend. Only it wasn’t really his boyhood friend.

  “Hello, Billy Walder,” he said. “But we’re not the John Rayburn you knew.”

  * * *

  “So, he’s still alive?” Billy Walder asked. They had climbed out of the cave, when Billy started shivering in the cold underground air. They stood on the bare rock above. His three friends were watching from a distance. He’d waved them off when they started toward them.

  “Yes, he’s alive.”

  “Damn,” he said. “That could have been me. It could have been me who disappeared like that.”

  “Yeah, one of you had to press the trigger,” Prime said. “Good thing you weren’t too close to him when he did.”

  “Why?”

  “It would have taken half your body with it,” Prime said. “Leaving the rest here.”

  Billy Walder shuddered.

  “And so you two are here why?”

  “Looking for answers,” John said. “We want to know where the device came from.”

  “Space aliens,” Billy said.

  “Uh, aliens?”

  “Yeah, I been thinking about it longer than you two have,” he said. “It’s the only explanation. Cause if humans made that sorta teleporting thing, then everyone would know about it, right?”

  “It’s not a teleporter,” John said.

  “Whatever. It moves you from place to place, right? Teleporter,” Billy said. “If the U.S. government did it, it woulda leaked out. No one keeps a secret like this, right. So, aliens.”

  “Uh, sure,” Prime said.

  “So, you guys see ’em?” Billy asked. He leaned in close to them. “The aliens, I mean.”

  “We’ve seen some weird things, but no aliens,” John said.

  “Yeah, I guess they’d want their stuff back if you found them,” Billy said. “You still have it, so you must not have found them.”

  “Good logic,” Prime said.

  Billy Walder paused for a moment, looking away. “His mom took it real hard,” he said. “I mean he was fourteen, and just gone. No trace. They were pissed at me for a long time. Even though I had no idea.”

  “What did you tell them?”

  “Nothing. What could I tell them?” Billy said. “I still have some of his stuff.” He nodded down at the ground, toward the cave where the petrified man waited.

  “His stuff?” John asked.

  “Yeah, he had other things on him than the thing,” Billy said. “You want to see them?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Sure,” he said. He scratched his head. “I can’t remember where I put them. Oh, yeah.” He pointed across the street where his parents’ house stood. “Hid the stuff in a trunk at my parents’ house. Come on.”

  He led them over to his three friends.

  “What’s going on, Bill?” one of the girls asked.

  “These guys are old childhood friends of mine,” he said. “We’re going to walk over and talk to my parents for a minute. I’ll be back in a few.”

  “Bill, you said we were going to swim,” the girl said petulantly.

  “And we will,” he replied sharply. “Come on,” he said to Prime and John.

  The Walder house was across the street from the Rayburn house technically, though you couldn’t see one from the other due to the line of intervening trees. The Walders had always had a yard full of old cars, tractors, and appliances. And this universe was no different.

  “Stay here,” Billy said. “I’ll be right back.”

  John and Prime leaned against an old tractor and waited.

  “I wonder what other artifacts the traveler had on him,” Prime said.

  “I wonder if there’s more under the limestone,” John said.

  “You want to chip him out of there?” Prime asked.

  “I think we should,” John said. “If for no other reason than to give him a proper burial.”

  “Yeah.”

  Billy appeared a few minutes later carrying a box.

  “Sorry, Mom wanted to talk.” He handed the box to John. “Those are things that he had on him. On his wrist, around his neck, on his finger.”

  John opened the box. There was a ring, a wristwatch, and a simple chain necklace with a pendant hanging from it. John picked it up and saw that it was a curled snake in a figure eight, eating its own tail. The wristwatch had a display, but nothing showed on it.

  “Couldn’t ever get that thing to work,” Billy said. “You’re welcome to that stuff. I was afraid to touch much, afraid I’d disappear too.”

  Prime reached for the items, but Billy pulled them back.

  “Can you bring John back?”

  Prime stared at him, but John said, “Maybe. He’s made a life for himself somewhere else.”

  Billy shrugged. “Well, you ask him for me,” he said. “I’ll give you this stuff, but you ask him if he wants to come back. And if he does, you bring him back.”

  “I’ll ask,” John said.

  Billy handed the traveler’s items to Prime.

  “Thanks, Billy.”

  “Naw, thank you,” he said. “I’ve always wondered. Now I know. But you ask him.”

  CHAPTER 15

  John Rayburn let the door slam behind him. It rattled in its frame, and then dropped an inch on the handle side. He should have fixed that, but he had little enough time as it was. He’d promised to help his parents out
during the summer, while he took a couple summer courses at the University of Findlay. But with his father’s stroke, it looked likely that he’d be dropping those courses. Going back to Case Western in the fall seemed unlikely as well.

  The day had been sweltering, and his body ached from the hours he’d spent spraying the cornfields. At least the crop looked good this year. A bad yield, combined with his father’s health issues, and his parents would have had to sell everything. John touched the back of his neck. It stung where he was sunburned.

  Any way he looked at it, he was stuck here, helping his parents. At least for a year, while Dad recovered. He knew Mom was assuming the worst. But John was sure that Dad would work through it. He was home now, against the doctors’ wishes, but there was no way they could afford any more nights at the hospital. They had a nurse coming in to help with the rehab. She said he was doing better. And he seemed to be. John could understand most of his words. He was all there upstairs; controlling his body just wasn’t so easy.

  John kicked at the dirt. He headed past the barn. A swarm of gnats swam around his head at the corner near the lamp there. He loved his parents. He did. But he had his own life to live. Getting into Case Western hadn’t been easy, and swinging the work-study meant he had no time for anything but bussing tables at the Faculty Club and studying physics. But it had been worth it. His parents did want him to do something other than farming, and though they’d never come out and said he should stay in the fall …

  What choice did he have?

  Something moved in the woods.

  “Who’s there?”

  A stick snapped.

  John whirled. He should have brought a flashlight.

  Then a light swung left and right. Someone was in the line of trees along the road.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Hi,” someone said. “John Rayburn?”

  “Yeah, that’s me,” John said. He forced himself to relax. It was just one of his friends maybe, someone from high school. Yeah. Sure, and whose phone didn’t work.

  Someone stepped out of the woods, shining a flash at the ground. He strode confidently toward John.

  “Who are you?” John asked. “What are you doing out here?”

  “John Rayburn, John Ten?” the person said. “I’m John Home.” He flashed the light on his own face, and John gasped. It was his own face.