The Broken Universe

by Melko, Paul

  “We hear rumors and stories,” she said. “In them, Visgrath is a hero, who is maligned and unjustly sent away.”

  John snorted.

  “Exactly,” she said. “A hundred years ago, the Alarians—then only in a single universe—managed to obtain transfer technology. More than likely, they stole it from some poor traveler who didn’t know what they were getting into.”

  “What universe?”

  Englavira shrugged. “I have no idea.” She shrugged again, looking away. “You believe because it’s all you know, but it’s all myth and ancient history. And I make it seem like we were slaves. But we were pampered too. Mothers of monsters. Sucklers of evil.” Her laughter was cold. “I am not innocent. Neither is Clotilde. Look who her father was.” She made a fist and seemed to throw empty air at the ground. “Good riddance to him.” She looked embarrassed at her outburst.

  “What was the myth?” John asked after a moment.

  “Visgrath was Teiwaz’s son, he claimed. He was the liberator,” she explained. “He wanted to use the technology to enslave the multiverse. And he did it, he used nuclear weapons on a universe to subjugate them. Purifying fire. And it worked. He conquered entire universes. How can you fight an enemy that can appear anywhere with nuclear warheads?”

  “Yes, how?” John Prime said. He had neared the two as they talked. In fact, all the Alarian women nearby were listening to Englavira’s story.

  “You can’t, if you don’t have the technology,” Englavira said. “Two, three universes. Then five were vanquished. Not Alarian worlds. Worlds like this or with other histories. Not like ours. But it couldn’t be ignored. People notice when universes are broken, destroyed, nuked.”

  “Who noticed?” John asked.

  “The Vig noticed,” Englavira said.

  John and Prime shared a glance. It was the same word that Corrundrum used for some omnipotent patrolling force.

  “What or who is the Vig?” John asked.

  “They police the multiverse,” she said. “They allow certain universes to use the technology in exchange for commerce rights, and stop others. And by stop, I mean they destroy cultures that violate their rules.”

  “Destroy?” John said.

  “Yes, what they did to the Alarian world. Nuked it to oblivion, or so the story goes. But not before Visgrath was marooned here. His allies turned on him—can you blame them?—and exiled him to this universe—what he called the Prison.”

  “How did he know the home world was destroyed if he was exiled?”

  “The Vig had already destroyed our conquered universes,” Englavira said. “Cauterized the wound. It was only a matter of time. And when no rescue came, no punishment, no travelers at all, Visgrath knew that the home world was destroyed.”

  “Where did Charboric go then?”

  Englavira shrugged.

  Prime said, “He had a safe haven universe. Somewhere he had scouted out and hadn’t told anyone else about. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

  “Yes,” John said. But his mind wasn’t on Charboric. He was thinking about what the Vig had done to the Alarians when they found out they had transfer technology. But there was a difference between conquering universes and using the technology to arbitrage goods. What would the Vig do if they found the Pinball Wizards? Would they cauterize the ten settled universes?

  “Englavira?”

  They turned as Grace called her name.

  “Yes?”

  “We’re ready for you,” she said, nodding toward the notary.

  Englavira nodded. “I hope I’ve helped you understand our broken universe,” she said to John.

  “Yes, you did, thank you.”

  * * *

  John Ten and Clotilde returned by the time the third group of Alarian women had been bussed over to the quarry site.

  “We found housing for all of us,” Clotilde said. “It’s perfect.”

  “Camp Bobby Kavanagh,” John Ten said. “Old Boy Scout campground. Hasn’t been used in years. But safe, isolated, and cheap.”

  “We can live in a barracks,” Clotilde said. “As long as no one is there to watch us all the time.”

  “We can probably buy it,” John Ten said.

  One of the Henrys suddenly called down from the roof through the small access hatch.

  “Company!” he said. “Two black SUVs on the side of the road. Watching.”

  “Okay,” John cried. “We load up the rest right now! Let’s get these women out of here!”

  “Hold on,” Grace said. “We need two more.”

  “Grab the two,” John said. “The rest of the women can get in the minibus.”

  “Here they come!” the Henry on the roof cried. “Eight of ’em. Looks like one of them is Gesalex.”

  “Oh, no,” Clotilde said. Grace grabbed her shoulder.

  “It’ll be okay.”

  Casey appeared from the kitchen with her purse. In it was her gun, John knew. Their eyes met and he shook his head imperceptibly. She nodded, knowing to keep the gun from sight unless needed.

  “Are they armed?” John cried.

  “Not in the open!”

  “Let’s meet them in the lobby,” Grace said. “Load the minibuses from the loading dock.”

  John started for the lobby, Grace falling in at his side.

  “Shouldn’t you be getting the last two certificates?” John asked.

  She startled, then smiled. “Oh, yeah. I guess that’s the play, isn’t it?”

  “Yep,” John said. He felt calm at the coming confrontation.

  “I’m coming,” Clotilde said, following him.

  “You don’t have to,” John said.

  “I do.”

  He, Casey, Clotilde, and John Ten entered the lobby, stood in front of the double doors, and waited.

  Clotilde’s face was pale, her chin trembling. John watched John Ten take her hand and she smiled at him.

  The eight appeared around the corner. They were dressed in dark suits; they didn’t appear armed. But any of them could have weapons strapped under their jackets. Gesalex was in the middle.

  The first goon opened the door savagely.

  “Stop!” John shouted. “Stop right there, you bastards. You are not allowed to enter these premises.”

  Gesalex motioned the two men in front aside.

  “You have something of mine, Wilson!” he cried.

  “And what would that be?” John replied.

  “The precious matrons of our society,” Gesalex replied. “Return them.”

  John smiled. “Oh, it’s okay to shoot, kidnap, and torture us, but you draw the line at our liberating your women?”

  “Return them now.”

  “We’re not going back,” Clotilde said softly.

  “Silence!” Gesalex cried.

  Clotilde cringed, then straightened her back. “We’re not going back,” she said, louder.

  “You have no say in the matter.”

  “Oh, really?” John said. “Is slavery suddenly legal here?”

  “The laws of this place mean nothing. You should know that.”

  “Then you can explain that to the police when they get here,” John said.

  “We will explain,” Gesalex said, “that you kidnapped fifty helpless women against their will.”

  The last minibus of women rumbled by behind the Alarians. Gesalex didn’t turn, but if he had he would have seen the pale faces of fifteen women staring at him.

  “What women?” John said. “They’re in another universe now.”

  “What?” Gesalex cried. “What have you done?”

  He motioned to two of his men to go forward. They advanced, but after they’d taken a step, Casey smoothly drew her gun and fired a single round into the wall above the door.

  “No,” she said. “You may not enter the premises.”

  “This will not … stand!” Gesalex cried.

  The doors opened and Grace appeared. In her hand was a stack of paper, signed and notarized stock certifi
cates of Grauptham House, Incorporated. She smiled at John.

  “Mr. Gesalex,” she said. “I now own fifty-three percent of Grauptham House, and you’re fired.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Maybe it was that statement from Grace or perhaps the wail of sirens in the distance, but Gesalex stared at them for a moment, his face a pale, stricken slab of flesh, and then he turned and ran. His entourage followed.

  The sound of the gunshot still echoed in John’s brain, but his heart had begun to beat again.

  “Fifty-three percent?” he asked.

  “Yeah, fifty-three,” Grace said. “The price of that brick is coming out of your commission check, Casey.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “What do we do now?” John asked. “I mean, we own one of the largest companies in this universe. What do we do now?”

  “In the multiverse,” John Ten said.

  “They’re going somewhere,” Casey said. “In a hurry.”

  Grace shrugged. “Meh, we’ll deal with that after the Alarians are settled in. Though I should call our lawyers. They probably need to know about this.”

  “You think?” John asked. “And once the Alarian women are settled into 7601?”

  Grace grinned. “We scrub that company clean of any sign of those bastards.”

  * * *

  Monday found them in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, explaining their case to a judge. No Alarians were present. The judge ordered a freeze of all Grauptham House assets and the start of meetings between the major shareholders and the current management of the company.

  With the writ in hand and three federal marshals, they invaded the corporate office buildings in downtown Pittsburgh. They took the high-rise elevator to the top floor and barged into Gesalex’s office. The Alarian stared at them for a moment, drew a gun, and shot himself in the temple.

  * * *

  Four days later, the party was boisterous and wild. Gesalex was dead. Grauptham House was theirs. As far as they could see, their enemies were vanquished.

  The pinball factory thumped with music that Henry Case was playing from a huge stereo system that they had transferred in from his universe, Universe 7625 or Universe Case, which was one of the few universes where John had gotten into the Case Institute of Technology. The center of the factory floor had been cleared and Johns and Caseys, Graces and Henrys moved in rhythm to the sound. John found himself dancing closely with a Casey he couldn’t be sure was his. After a moment of concern, he decided it didn’t matter. Perhaps it was Casey Prime. He found himself momentarily aroused by the thought.

  Even Clotilde was there, the only singleton among them. She was easy to spot on the dance floor, taller than any other woman out there, and platinum blond. She was dancing close to John Ten, John assumed. The rest of the Alarian women were in 7601.

  Though they could have returned to 7650, the Alarian women chose not to. They were already looking for jobs in Toledo, as store clerks, cashiers, cooks, and maids. John made it clear that they could do whatever they wished; Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional, would support them indefinitely. This was firmly and politely refused. Englavira had spent the first three days in 7650 identifying all the remaining Alarian half-breeds by looking through the personnel files. Each Alarian was fired and offered a cash buyout, if they happened to own stock. The ticket to another universe remained open, and most took the offer. A dozen Alarians remained unaccounted for, and a hundred stock certificates, which was ten percent of the company.

  The song changed, a faster tempo, more chaotic than before, and John extracted himself from the Casey he had been dancing with. He took a seat on the steps going up to the office. Things were wild. The media had had a field day with the takeover. Gesalex’s death had been the main event. But the purging of the Alarian half-breeds, their disappearance in many cases—hardly a crime but the Wizards couldn’t explain the transfer of all the half-breeds to 7466—and the amazing takeover itself fed the Pittsburgh newspapers every day that week.

  “Tired?”

  John turned to see Grace—which Grace, he didn’t know—peering at him through the iron railing.

  “It’s been a busy week.”

  “You know we own the Palladius Hotel in Columbus?” she said. “We could have had our party there.”

  “The Palladius?” John said. “That’s the nicest hotel in the city.”

  “We own a dozen hotels now,” Grace said. “That I know of. I’m still working my way through the books.”

  John knew it was Grace Home then, the CEO of Grauptham House, the media sensation of the week.

  “We have enough frenzy around us,” John said. “A picture of twenty Johns, Henrys, Caseys, and Graces at a party in downtown Columbus would be all we need.”

  “It would make things interesting,” Grace said.

  “More interesting,” John countered. “Any luck finding those last hundred stock certificates?”

  “None, and there’s still Alarian male half-breeds we haven’t found,” Grace said. “Not that I care too much about that. They’re cut out of the company now. A ten-percent owner is nothing.”

  “You own ninety percent after all.”

  “Ninety percent of a mess,” Grace said. “It’s gonna take us months—years, maybe—to figure out what we’ve got. They’ve been running this for fifty years with no oversight, with no real corporate goal except to exploit this world, and make themselves money.”

  “You mentioned the hotels,” John said. “What else do we own?”

  “Copper mines in Utah and Arizona. Banks in the Caymans and Britain. Aluminum smelting companies in Brazil. Construction companies in Boston and Chicago. Millions of acres of land in Canada.”

  “Canada?”

  “Great fly-fishing, but otherwise useless for anything,” Grace said. “The company has sixty thousand workers.”

  “And none of them knew they were working for sadistic bastards from another universe.”

  “How could they know?” Grace asked. “Profit from the technology exploitation went to finance these marginal companies. Many of them show no profit at all, certainly less than the cost of money. But the Alarians seemed willing to buy into anything that they knew might go big. Medical inventions, speculative technology, things they might have known about from other universes but didn’t know exactly how they worked.”

  “How do we sort this all out?” John asked.

  Grace shrugged. “With a little help from our friends,” she said. “The upper layer of management may have to go. I met with a general manager of a cartage company today. Asked him for his P and L sheet. He had no idea what I was asking for or decided to play dumb.”

  “What did you do?”

  “He has until Monday,” Grace said. “Or he’s gone.”

  “You can’t replace everyone at that level.”

  “A few as object lessons,” she replied.

  “Is this what you want? To run a company like this?”

  Grace shrugged again. “To run any company? No. To control Grauptham House? Yes. We’ve beaten the Alarians. Charboric is gone, never to return. Gesalex and Visgrath are dead. We’ve won.”

  “But?”

  “But nothing. We have it all, John,” Grace said. She reached over and squeezed his hand. “But if you’re asking if my problems are gone, then, no, this doesn’t solve that.”

  “I guess…”

  “Don’t worry about it, John,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

  John nodded and looked away at the dance floor.

  “What kind of music is this?” John asked.

  “Henry says it’s called grunge disco,” Grace replied. “Very hip, very cool. In some universes.”

  John focused on the dancers, realizing that the Henrys and Graces were a single writhing mass. The Johns and Caseys had actually moved off the floor and were coupled together. John smiled at the dynamic, but frowned when he saw two Graces kissing. He turned away quickly, looking at Grace again.

  Was she
smiling at him?

  “Um,” John said.

  Now he was certain Grace was smiling at him.

  “I’m gonna go dance,” she said. “I won’t ask you to join me.” She stood and disappeared into the swirl of Henrys and Graces, and John soon lost which of the Graces was her.

  * * *

  At the end of the night, slightly tipsy, he and his Casey were standing on the roof of the building, looking up at the starry sky. The September night was crystal clear. John rubbed Casey’s goose-pimpled arms as she shivered in her short-sleeved shirt.

  “Want to go back in?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll be all right.” She pressed against him.

  The door to the roof swung open and another John and Casey appeared. It was the second time they’d been interrupted by a John and Casey; the first couple had disappeared to the far side of the roof for privacy. This one waved and walked some distance away. If one John thought the roof would be romantic, so would the others. My romantic overtures are not so unique anymore, he thought.

  “Have you ever partied with yourself so much?” John asked.

  “Not that I recall,” Casey said with a laugh.

  Below was a sudden loud chorus of laughter. John looked down and saw the Henrys and Graces leaving, climbing aboard one of the minibuses.

  “I hope one of them is sober enough to drive,” John said.

  “I don’t think the Henrys drank too much.”

  Two of the Graces were locked in an embrace. A third joined them, and then a Henry too.

  “What are…?” John said. “Are they…? What’s going on?”

  “You’re a little oblivious sometimes,” Casey said. “They’ve been doing this group thing for weeks. Maybe from the time Grace Top and Henry Top met Grace Home and Henry Home.”

  “Group thing?”

  “As far as I can tell, the Henrys and Graces are interchangeable in their relationship.”

  “But—” John’s mind churned as he watched the minibus drive away. “But—”

  Casey shrugged. “Whatever floats their boat.”

  “You … we … won’t ever.”

  “John, it seems we Caseys and Johns are pair-bonding monogamists,” she said. “You won’t have to sleep with Prime or his Casey.”

  “Oh, good,” he said, though the thought of bedding Casey Prime, his first Casey … It aroused him. “I just didn’t think that—”