The Universe Next Door: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller (Jake Corby Series Book 3)

by Al Macy

  I checked my watch. “I’m going to catch up on my family time. I’ll RTFM tonight, and we’ll go tomorrow early. Sound good? I’m taking this b-b-bully back to the hotel.”

  I threw Charli over my shoulder, and we headed for the door.

  “Jake, put me down. This isn’t funny. You’re not a caveman anymore.”

  But I felt her laughing.

  She slapped me on the butt and called out behind us. “Guys. Do not consider Jake a role model.”

  They yelled out in unison, “No worries there!”

  I turned and walked backwards a few steps. “And don’t try this at home.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  On the ride to the hotel, in the back of our government limo, Charli gave me the cold shoulder.

  I kissed her on her neck.

  She frowned but didn’t push me away. “How am I supposed to get respect when you do something like that?”

  “Oh, come on. I felt you laughing. You know how much Alex and Martin respect you.” I unbuttoned the lowest button on her blouse and blew a raspberry on her belly button.

  She giggled then frowned again. “I’m serious, Jake.”

  “Do I get any points for not slapping you on the butt, like you did to me?”

  She looked straight ahead, but the corners of her mouth were twitching.

  I kissed her on her ear and whispered, “I promise to be better, even when I’m a bit, uh … deprived … after spending two weeks with a group of overgrown parakeets. Seriously, even Gordon was starting to look good to me.”

  “Oh, Jake.” Charli laughed her wonderful, musical laugh. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “If you’re asking for suggestions for tonight, I—”

  She turned and kissed me, her body softening.

  When we got to the five-star Hotel Monaco, I resisted the urge to carry her in my arms over the threshold of the lobby.

  We had two adjoining suites—it’s nice to be rich. Marie and Sophia soon returned.

  Sophia climbed into my lap and told me what she’d seen at the dinosaur exhibit. I promised her we’d go there together, soon. I’d probably want a break from dinosaurs—and birds—but I would do it for her.

  After a wonderful dinner in the hotel’s restaurant, we went back up to the room and played a cutthroat game of Operation. Then Charli, Sophia, and I sat against the bed’s headboard and read Blueberries for Sal while Marie knitted in an overstuffed armchair.

  When Sophia fell asleep, I carried her into the adjoining suite and Marie tucked her in.

  I came back and whispered into Charli’s ear. “Ready for those suggestions now?”

  * * *

  Early the next morning, I entered the sphere’s hangar and waved to Alex and Martin. The hatch in the building’s roof slid open. I needed no special clothing to pilot the sphere. There would be no g-forces inside, and it would keep the temperature and pressure appropriate for humans.

  The technicians and military personnel in the hangar had little to do. The craft required no maintenance. It didn’t need to be recharged or fueled up. A door in the sphere spiraled open, and steps morphed into existence.

  Alex gestured to the stairs, and both kids said, “Age before beauty.”

  Wise guys. Inside the sphere, three pilot seats morphed up from the floor. They appeared more solid than the force field couches in the dinobird ships. The twins followed me in. The entry port closed, and the walls illuminated the interior with a soft, gray light.

  “Why don’t you take the center seat?” Alex said. “I’m mostly coming along for the ride, but I can also fill you in on what we’ve discovered about Cronkite.” He sat to my right.

  Martin hopped into the seat on the left. “So, you’ve piloted this for—”

  “Sheesh. Maybe ten minutes. Cronkite let me play around with it on the surface of Mars. When I tried to kill us both with a suicide plunge into the planet, he took control back. But yeah, I know how to do it: Just think about what you want to do, and it happens.”

  “Right. That’s the basic idea. And you’ve seen this, right?” The walls of the sphere disappeared, and the three of us were floating in space.

  “Yeah. The dinobirds have that, too.”

  Alex smiled. “Been there, done that, huh?”

  I laughed. “I didn’t mean to sound blasé. It never gets old. How far have you gone?”

  “I’ll take the fifth on that,” Martin said. “Let’s just say that nothing impresses a girl like a little trip to Saturn’s rings.”

  I laughed. “Bullshit. You are so full of it. You’d never get away with—”

  “Base to sphere.” The announcement came from the—invisible—comm system.

  Martin responded, “Affirm, base.”

  “You are cleared for departure.”

  “Roger.”

  In a smooth arc, the craft shot to the center of the hangar and up through the hatch in the roof. We kept going and in seconds we were looking at the curvature of Earth.

  “Wow.” I let my breath out. “Yeah, never gets old. So, how come you da man instead of some hotshot Air Force pilot?”

  Martin crossed his arms. “They called me in when they had a problem with the manual, the one the ETs sent us. The Air Force couldn’t get the dangerous features unlocked. The problem wasn’t that tough, but they had been looking at it the wrong way. A few incidents like that, and they handed us the keys.”

  It sounded crazy, but only if you didn’t know the twins. They had the magic touch when it came to anything mechanical. Good judgment, too, as long as they were being serious.

  “Plus,” Alex said, “when they understood that absolutely no flying experience was necessary, they realized they didn’t need a real pilot. When you can just think ‘Go to Paris’ and it takes you there, who needs flight school?”

  I pulled some notes from my pocket. “We’d better be quick because they need this thing in the other universe ASAP. So, refresh my memory. It’s really just an agricultural robot.”

  “True.” Martin scratched his ear. “But with the safeties off, it can be an effective weapon.”

  I stared straight ahead, thinking of the billions who had been eradicated when Cronkite had crop-dusted the planet with nanobots.

  “Here’s something you haven’t seen,” Martin said.

  We dropped back into the atmosphere and hovered high over a rocky plain. “This is a Texas test area we’ve been using.” Martin pointed. “See how it’s all rock? Hold my metaphorical beer and watch this.”

  We zipped down, sped along at a low altitude then shot back up and stopped. Along a swath below the sphere, the rock had been pulverized, as if raked with a giant garden tool.

  Martin said, “Ready for planting.”

  “Nice.” I checked my notes. “Okay, let’s see … have you ever felt g-forces in here? Is there a limit to its protection?”

  Alex laughed. “Tell him about your boo-boo.”

  “Ugh, yeah. Long story short, I was going way too fast, and I—”

  “A drone was flying where it wasn’t supposed to.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, the sphere didn’t want to hit it. The sphere put on the automatic braking, but we exceeded some limit, and I was thrown against the wall. Coulda been worse.”

  “Base to sphere. We didn’t clear you. What’s going on?” The voice on the comm system sounded confused.

  Martin frowned and replied. “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve got you coming in and hovering near the Capitol. Did you change—?”

  “No, no. We’re in Texas.”

  “Martin, the sphere is definitely in DC right now. I’m looking at a video feed.”

  I grabbed Martin’s arm and slashed my finger across my throat.

  He cocked his head. “Uh—”

  I spoke with my best command voice. “Base. Cease communicating. Sphere out.” Hopefully, someone there would figure it out.

  The twins both frowned at me.

  “Come on, gu
ys. You don’t get it?”

  The lightbulbs went on and they cried, in unison, “Oh, no!”

  “Right. Cronkite’s back.” Cronkite from Human-2.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Alex, Martin, and I sat in the sphere, hovering over Texas, just below a layer of puffy clouds. To the north, oil pumps slaved away, and to the west, a patchwork of irrigated fields spread to the horizon.

  I needed to get our sphere back to the dinobird world or all the universes would be doomed. Perhaps I could sneak back there without Cronkite noticing, but I couldn’t just leave him here to reconquer Earth.

  “Okay, guys.” I took a breath. “It’s up to us. We have to handle this just right. We’ll only have one shot.”

  Martin frowned. “He’s unaware of us.”

  “Hopefully,” I said. “So, let’s see. This is complicated. He’s the Cronkite from universe Human-2. He was off hibernating somewhere in the solar system. The rift happens, and suddenly he finds himself in our universe, Human-1. He and his sphere came back to Earth, unaware of what’s going on.”

  Martin nodded. “But he’s going to figure it out pretty quickly.”

  “So we have to hit him right now,” Alex said.

  I stood. “Absolutely. What do you think, high-speed pass, grab him with a tractor beam?”

  “And throw him into the ground.”

  Martin said, “Or the moon.”

  I sat back down. “Let’s roll. You drive, Martin. They said Cronkite was at the Capitol; let’s hope he’s still there. You know where that is?”

  “I have a picture of it in my head. That’s enough to—”

  “Hey, wait. I have an idea,” I said. “You tell me whether it will work.” I laid out the plan. They shook their heads as I talked, but finally nodded, and got to work.

  I thought: Sphere, display any news related to Cronkite.

  The sphere replied out loud. “Cronkite is broadcasting right now. Displaying.”

  That was the first time I’d heard the sphere speak. It used a male voice with a confident tone that reminded me of a NASA astronaut.

  The CBS Evening News set from the seventies appeared on the screen, the same backdrop used for Cronkite’s other broadcasts.

  I looked over at Martin, who had his eyes closed in deep neural conversation with the sphere. His hands made gestures in the air as if moving things around, pointing. He whispered some words. “Base,” “Coding,” and “Sequence.” I didn’t want to bother him.

  On the screen, the alien was indistinguishable from Walter Cronkite, the CBS news anchor. He looked into the camera and removed his black-frame glasses. “Greetings again, dear citizens of my Earthly domain.” He smiled. “Long time no see, huh?”

  Martin opened his eyes and came back to life. “Sphere, display speed, map.”

  “Wait. You talk to it?” I cocked my head.

  He shrugged. “It helps focus my mind. Plus, it lets you and Alex know what’s going on.”

  I pointed to the Cronkite broadcast.

  He glanced at it and said, “Max speed. Go!”

  The displays showed us accelerating at an impossible rate, yet we didn’t feel any acceleration. My heart hammered in my throat. This had to work. One chance.

  Arms snaked out from the sides of our crash couches and held us. That was new and suggested we were in for a rough ride.

  Cronkite continued, oblivious. “Today we are going to talk together about two issues that I will fix for you. First, what is it with you people and these long legal user agreements? For example, when you log on to a network at a coffee shop, you’re supposed to ‘Click and Accept’ to say you agree to the terms and conditions.”

  He frowned at the camera as if dealing with a naughty child. He sat there for thirty seconds. “Are you guys fucking serious? Nobody reads those. The companies know that. What, they’re pretending that everyone takes a half hour to read the fine print? Give me a break. You could put all of War and Fucking Peace in one of those things, and no one would ever notice. No. Body. Reads. Those. Period.

  “Are you people paying attention? At all?” He stared at the camera, breathing heavily.

  He sighed, put his glasses down, and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay, so no more of those dumb-ass things. Companies, you have a week to remove them. Instant death for all employees if you don’t.”

  Cronkite looked around the desk, patting some of the papers. “Let’s see, what’s next? Oh, yeah. Daylight saving time. Are you serious? For no good reason, you change your clocks twice a year. Oh, great idea. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Every year, for December, we’ll change all the scales so everyone weighs ten pounds less. Yay, you can eat more! And then in January—”

  He froze then turned to a monitor that flashed into existence behind him. It displayed our sphere: a video feed showing our Mach 30 approach.

  That’s right, asshole. Welcome to our universe.

  Now traveling in level flight only three hundred feet above the ground, we zoomed over the White House and zipped past the tip of the Capitol building.

  When our tractor beam snatched Cronkite’s sphere, I was slammed forward into my crash couch’s restraints, the first time I’d felt any g-forces inside the sphere.

  On the monitor, Cronkite flew backward as if struck by an invisible truck. The news set dissolved away.

  His human avatar was gone. We saw a true view of him: a four-foot-tall ladybug-like creature with eight long legs. He lay crushed against the back wall of his sphere.

  Good. The plan was working.

  A bird’s-eye display showed what was happening: His sphere tagged along behind us, whipping back and forth. It was as if we’d cast out a bungee cord and snagged him as we passed.

  I turned to Martin, worried about the other part of our plan. “Successful dispersion?”

  He winked but concentrated on piloting the sphere.

  Cronkite moved. He crawled off the back wall and morphed back into Walter Cronkite at the news desk. Shoot! An ugly gash across his forehead dripped blood down into his eyes.

  We were now over the ocean, already far from land.

  “He’s regained control of his artificial gravity,” I said.

  Martin looked from one display to the other. “Now, watch this.”

  Our sphere curved up into the air, away from the ocean’s surface. Cronkite’s followed at the end of its virtual tether. We arced around as if on the vertical loop of a roller coaster and headed back down.

  Martin released the tractor beam, sending Cronkite’s sphere screaming toward the surface at tens of thousands of miles per second. My foot was looking for the brake, sure we’d hit the water, but we pulled up in a loop, experiencing crushing g-forces. We shot up into space, above the atmosphere.

  Cronkite’s impact vaporized the sea. A vast area of the Atlantic, perhaps five miles wide, was just gone. The water on the sides rushed back in. I pictured tsunamis slamming into the East Coast. I blew out my cheeks. It was collateral damage that couldn’t be helped.

  Clouds formed, looking like a satellite image of a superstorm.

  The feed from Cronkite’s sphere went dark. We sat silently.

  Martin spoke first. “He couldn’t have survived that.”

  “Probably not.” I rubbed my chin.

  Alex crossed his arms. “Think it would have been better if we’d thrown him into solid ground?”

  I shrugged. “Sphere to base. Did you catch all that?”

  “Affirmative, your sphere relayed everything. We’re sending out teams to assess the status, but it’s going to take a while.”

  “Roger. We’re going to sit here and watch.” I turned to Alex. “In case he survives, what else have you learned about Cronkite?”

  “Let’s see. His name, in his language, is Saxtoden. His species name is diodone. I’ve spent a lot of time with him, at the prison—”

  Cronkite’s sphere popped out of the cloud, headed right toward us. In seconds, it was stationary, perhaps one hundred
yards away.

  Cronkite appeared on a screen, in his true, ladybug form. His four thick legs held on to some kind of stool.

  His little cricket arms shook. “Who are you?”

  “Wait, don’t answer. We can’t outrun him; we both have the same craft. Can we do that video photoshopping thing?”

  “Yes. No problem.” Martin gestured, and two new screens morphed out from the wall.

  I tilted my head forward, closed my eyes, and rubbed my forehead. “Make me a diodone.” No sooner had I said it than I appeared on one screen, and the ladybug/diodone version of me appeared on the other. Perfect!

  Martin said, “Hold on. I think you will appear as Saxtoden himself. Unless all the members of his species look exactly alike, he’ll see his twin.”

  “Hmm. Can’t be helped. Okay, Sphere. Prepare to transmit a four-word reply, and that’s all. Start transmitting when I say, and cut off our video after the four words. Ready?”

  “Ready.” The sphere displayed a video camera with a blinking red light for me to address.

  I waved one hand, and the diodone version of me did the same. “Please stand by, Saxtaden.”

  The red light went out.

  Martin coughed. “It’s Saxtoden, actually.”

  Oops. Close enough?

  Alex cocked his head. “What do you have in mind?”

  “Aargh!” I pulled on my hair with both hands. “I don’t know yet. He has no idea who we are at this point. How can we take advantage of that?”

  “How about ‘Saxtoden, I am your father’?”

  I didn’t laugh. “C’mon, we have to be serious here. Something like ‘Your mother is dying.’”

  “And that’s why we tried to kill you, just now.” Martin pulled on his ear.

  “Right. That won’t work. There’s got to be something. Any second he’s going to scan the news and find out about the universe collision.”

  Cronkite’s diodone image appeared on the screen. “You have two minutes to tell me who you are, or I will destroy you.”

  I turned to Alex. “You mentioned you had a psychologist talk with Cronkite. What did she find?”

  “He has a severe inferiority complex. That’s why he fought you man-to-man. He has a fear of authority figures.”