by Paul Murray
‘Yo.’ Mario waves his camera phone. ‘Ready when you are.’
‘Excellent.’ Ruprecht straightens his cape and clears his throat. ‘Well, you’re probably wondering why I brought you here. The concept of the multiverse –’
‘Cut!’ says Mario.
‘What?’ Ruprecht regards him captiously.
Mario explains that his phone can only record in twenty-second segments.
‘That’s fine,’ Ruprecht says. Narrowing his eyes, he continues his historical speech in twenty-second bursts. ‘The concept of the multiverse is not a new one. The idea of parallel worlds goes right back to the Greeks. With M-theory, however, we have our strongest indication yet of what the structure of the multiverse may look like – an eleven-dimensional ocean of Nothing, which we share with entities of various sizes, from points to nine-dimensional hyperuniverses. According to the theory, some of these entities are less than a hair’s breadth away from us; that is to say, gentlemen, they are here in the room with us right now.’ A tightening of the silence succeeds his words, save for the near-inaudible hiss of hairs standing up on the backs of necks. Steepling his spongy fingers, he fixes each of them in turn, the crespuscular light of the computers glistening on his damp brow. ‘The problem is, of course, access. The higher dimensions are wrapped up so tightly that current Earth technology cannot supply anything like the amount of energy required to break through to them, or even to see them. But the other night I had what I can only describe as a revelation.’
He steps over to an easel stencilled ART ROOM! DO NOT REMOVE! and flips back the cover to reveal a star map. ‘Allow me to introduce Cygnus X-3.’ He levels his pointer at one among an innumerable array of dots and splodges. ‘What it is we are not quite sure. Maybe a large, spinning neutron star. Maybe a black hole that is devouring a sun. What we do know is that it emits gigantic quantities of radiation that bombard the Earth’s atmosphere daily, at energies ranging from 100 million electron volts to 100 billion billion electron volts. In approximately –’ he glances at his watch ‘– twelve minutes, we’re going to have the biggest radiation burst since the summer. On the school clock, a specially adapted receptor is waiting to harness that energy.’
‘Like in Back to the Future!’ Geoff exclaims.
‘From the receptor –’ Ruprecht ignoring this ‘– the radiation will be fed into this Escher loop.’ He indicates a heavy-duty cable that snakes over the floor, under the boys’ legs and out the door. ‘The loop has a radius of approximately a quarter-mile, taking it around the rugby pitches and back. The cosmic rays are cycled around the loop using the Escher free-acceleration process, building up more and more energy until enough has been created for our purposes. Then it comes back in here, into this Cosmic Energy Compressor. Having achieved optimum capacity, the gravitation chamber in the pod will be activated, allowing us, if all goes well, to create a tiny rift in space. Effectively, what we’re doing is borrowing energy from a large, distant black hole to create a small, local and controllable black hole, right here in the basement.’ He allows a moment here for awed murmuring, then resumes: ‘We know from Einstein’s equations that for a black hole to make sense mathematically, there must be a mirror universe on the opposite side. We also know that the infinite gravitation of the hole will instantly crush anything that enters it. However, by aligning it along the exact trajectory of the axis, it may be possible, in the moments before the rift repairs itself, to pass an object through the centre of the hole unscathed and into whatever lies on the other side. Tonight this toy robot will be our Columbus.’ From a schoolbag he produces a plastic red-and-grey android about ten inches in height.
‘Optimus Prime,’ Geoff whispers approvingly. ‘Leader of the Autobots.’
A low hum emanates from the foil-covered pod. Beside it, the computer screens throw up impenetrable screeds of numbers, like digital incantations, or the ecstatic babblings of some distant reality now very close –
‘Hey, Ruprecht – these other universes – will we be able to go there? Like, if your portal works?’
‘If the portal works,’ Ruprecht says, solemnly handing goggles to each of them, ‘it’ll be a whole new chapter in the story of humanity.’
‘Holy smoke…’
‘Goodbye, Earth! So long, you piece of crap, except for Italy.’
‘Think of it, Skip, there could be millions of parallel Loris out there! Like whole universes full of them?’
‘Oh, sure,’ Dennis chips in. ‘And planets of lingerie models addicted to sex? Galaxies of girls who have built their entire civilizations on the moment the Virgins from Outer Space arrive in their little jumpsuits?’
Ruprecht glances at his watch. ‘It’s time,’ he says. ‘Witnesses, don your goggles, please. For your own safety, I must request that you keep your distance. There may be some radiation emitted by the vortex.’
Skippy and the others lower their masks, and even Dennis is not immune to the pregnant tingling that pervades the dingy basement, the undispellable sense that something is imminent. Ruprecht inputs some last figures into the computer, then gently lowers Optimus Prime into a kind of metallic crib. And there, for a moment, on his knees by the foil-lined pod, he bides – like Moses’s mother, perhaps, with her bulrush basket on the banks of the Nile – gazing reflectively at the robot’s painted eyes, thinking that to do anything, epic or mundane, bound for glory or doomed to failure, is in its way to say goodbye to a world; that the greatest victories are therefore never without the shadow of loss; that every path you take, no matter how lofty or effulgent, aches not only with the memory of what you left behind, but with the ghosts of all the untaken paths, now never to be taken, running parallel…
Then, rising, he throws the switch.
What seems like a long moment elapses in which nothing happens. Then, just as Dennis is about to emit a caw of triumph, the pod begins to thrum, and very quickly the room fills with heat. Geoff looks at Skippy. Skippy looks at Geoff. Mario gazes intently at the tiny screen on his phone, where the scene is reproduced in miniature as it happens, although there is nothing as yet to actually see, there is only this hum, which is getting louder and louder and also with every passing instant less smooth, more of a judder, accompanied by disconcerting whines and rattles… The heat, too, increases by the second, pulsing from the cable beneath their toes, until rapidly it is almost insufferable, like being in a sauna, or an engine room, or an engine, like being inside an actual engine; foreheads drip with sweat, and Skippy is just beginning to wonder exactly how healthy a state of affairs this is, when he chances to glance over at Ruprecht, nibbling the ends of his fingers, nervously eyeing the humming pod – and has the sudden and extremely disquieting intuition that his friend has no idea whatsoever what he is doing – when there is a loud electrical zap! and an eyeblink of blinding white light, as if now they’re inside a lightbulb, and then absolute darkness.
For an alarming spell the darkness is also a silence, with only the hiss of the Escher cable to assure Skippy he is still in the basement and not himself in a black hole, or dead; then from somewhere over to the right, Ruprecht’s voice rises quaveringly: ‘Nothing to worry about… please remain in your seats…’
‘You fat idiot!’ Mario says invisibly from Skippy’s left. ‘Are you trying to kill us?’
‘Perfectly normal… small power outage… no need to be alarmed…’ Noises issue from Ruprecht’s portion of the darkness, as of someone picking himself up from the ground. ‘I must have… the, ah, limiter seems to… bear with me for one moment…’ A narrow shaft of torchlight appears and waves about the room as Ruprecht attempts to get his bearings. ‘Very strange.’ He clears his throat officiously. ‘Yes, I’d imagine what happened is –’
‘Ruprecht – look!’
The beam whips around to pick out Skippy’s thunderstruck face, and then back in the direction he’s pointing in: the open door of the pod, where the ellipse of light hovers for an instant before dropping to the floor as Ruprecht’s hand
falls slackly to his side.
‘He’s gone…’ Mario whispers.
Optimus Prime is no longer in the crib.
‘Holy shit, guys,’ Geoff Sproke breaks in urgently, ‘Dennis is gone too!’
‘I’m over here,’ a faint voice calls from the far side of the room. With his keyring-torch, Ruprecht illuminates a pile of dusty cases and motherboards, from which Dennis comes clambering out.
‘How’d you get over there?’
‘Some kind of force…’ Dennis says dazedly, hugging his arms to his chest. ‘I was sitting watching the pod, and then… and then…’
‘Ruprecht,’ Skippy says steadily, ‘what just happened?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ruprecht’s whisper almost non-existent.
‘Where’s Optimus Prime?’ Geoff asks. ‘Did he get vaporized or…?’
Ruprecht, who seems more surprised than anyone, shakes his head. ‘If he was vaporized, there’d be traces,’ he mumbles, staring into the empty crib.
‘Which means…?’ Skippy attempts to fill in the blanks.
Ruprecht looks at him, an expression of unadulterated rapture spreading across his face. ‘I have no idea,’ he says. ‘I have no idea – in the world!’
The others – when they have recovered sufficiently to speak – want to call the news stations right away. ‘You just teleported a robot into another dimension, Ruprecht! You’re going to be on TV!’ But Ruprecht insists they verify their findings before they call anybody.
‘Come on, Ruprecht, it’s not like Optimus is going to reappear.’
‘Yeah, you should be celebrating. You can verify tomorrow.’
Ruprecht smiles benignly and continues about his work. ‘First verify. Then celebrate. That’s the way we do it.’
He is oddly calm. Apart from a maniacal twitch that pulls sporadically at the ends of his mouth, the vertiginous weirdness of what has just happened, the world-historical hugeness of it, seems to have passed him by, or even had a sedative effect on him; he moves around the room with a quiet surety, setting up the equipment for another run, like a man who after long months roaming in an unknown territory has spotted a landmark for home.
‘Guys…’ Since the experiment, Dennis has been hunched over on a piece of styrofoam. ‘I don’t feel well.’
‘You don’t look well…’
Dennis’s complexion is pale and clammy, his hands wrapped protectively around his stomach.
‘What’s wrong with him, Ruprecht?’
‘Do you think he got radiation from the rays?’
‘It’s not impossible.’ Ruprecht frowns. ‘Although they shouldn’t do him any harm…’
‘Maybe you’ve turned radioactive, Dennis!’
‘Holy shit, Dennis – maybe you’ve got superpowers!’
‘I don’t feel super,’ Dennis says sorrowfully.
‘You should go and lie down,’ Skippy says.
‘I don’t want to miss the verifying.’
‘We’ll tell you what happens.’
‘Plus, I can film it on my phone, which ironically you said earlier was no use.’
‘Okay,’ Dennis agrees reluctantly. Hands still clutching his stomach, he limps to the door. But there he pauses. ‘Hey, Ruprecht?’
‘Hmm?’ Ruprecht, bent over his keyboard, quarter-turns.
‘I don’t know what just happened here. But all those things I said before, about how you were a big fat fake and a liar, and your portal was a piece of crap that couldn’t heat a bowl of soup, and you were gay and all scientists were gay?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well… I was wrong. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right,’ Ruprecht replies gallantly. With a nod, Dennis makes his sickly way out of the basement. Among the others, this uncharacteristic show of contrition causes a brief flurry of concern, tied to speculation over the nature and desirability of an irradiated or super-Dennis; but it is quickly lost in the excitement as Ruprecht primes the pod, this time with Skippy’s wristwatch inside it, and invites them to lower their goggles again.
Verification, however, proves harder than expected. Enough power from the original radiation burst should remain, by Ruprecht’s calculations, to facilitate a second teleportation; but while the pod hums as before, the cable overheats and the power surges, the magical apex of the first experiment, that consecrated instant in which Optimus Prime was snatched away, never rearrives.
At breakfast the following morning the mood is greatly changed. ‘I just don’t understand it,’ Ruprecht says, staring into space and chomping his cereal disconsolately. ‘Why would it work perfectly the first time and then every other time not work at all? It just doesn’t make any sense.’
To make matters worse, it appears that Mario’s phone for some reason failed to capture the original successful experiment. ‘But we saw it, Ruprecht. We saw it.’
Ruprecht will not be consoled. ‘Who’s going to believe a bunch of fourteen-year-old schoolboys? They’ll say we dreamed it.’
Leaving his toast uneaten, he returns belowstairs to wrangle some more with his creation; as the hours drag by, it seems that even two storeys up in their dorm, Skippy can feel his friend’s exasperation, the exuberance of last night bleeding away. Did they all just dream it? Was it just some kind of consensual illusion they’d conjured up from sheer boredom, like the others said he’d done with Lori?
Dennis will have none of this. ‘That robot left that pod,’ he says, ‘and that is a fact.’
‘Okay, but even if it did work that time, what if he never gets it to work again?’
‘Well, Skipford, I’m no scientist, but I can tell you this: if anyone can open up a gateway to a parallel universe, it’s Ruprecht.’ Dennis is in his pyjamas on Skippy’s bed; he seems to have recovered from his dose of radiation-poisoning, and isn’t showing signs of paranormal or any other ability, aside from a new-found and somewhat unsettling appreciation of Ruprecht.
‘He didn’t seem like he thought it was going to work again.’
‘That’s why he needs us to support him,’ Dennis says. ‘We might not know much about science, but we can help by believing in him.’
‘You believe in him?’ Surprised to hear Dennis even use the word, Skippy turns momentarily from the computer.
‘Of course,’ Dennis says simply.
But Skippy – eyes darting involuntarily, for the hundredth time since lunch, to his unlit phone, and from there through the window to the empty yard of St Brigid’s, like a grey showcase for the rain – is not so sure. What if the truth about other worlds is that when they touch yours – through a gateway opening, or a perfect kiss – it’s only ever at a single point, for a single moment, before the turning of the Earth drags you away again? What if the world is not just a bare stage where magic sometimes but usually doesn’t take place, but rather a force actively opposed to magic – so it doesn’t matter whether these other worlds, gateways, kisses, were dreamed or real, because either way you will never be able to get them ba–
Wait –
‘Did you find tits?’ Dennis clambers up to peer over Skippy’s shoulder at the computer. ‘What is it – holy shit…’
Night falls. In the Junior Rec Room the legendary barbarian warrior Blüdigör Äxehand, a.k.a. Victor Hero, calls a timeout from the fell Mines of Mythia, where he and the other doughty souls of Lucas Rexroth’s role-playing group seek the legendary Amulet of Onyx, to take a bathroom break. He proceeds through the door and is passing down the corridor when he is descended on by a large, Lionel-shaped mass.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t the Prince of Gays, off for his evening poncing.’
‘Get off me!’ Victor/Blüdigör shrieks, writhing uselessly under Lionel’s splayed, block-like knees.
‘Out hunting for kisses? How about a kiss from Uncle Lionel. Open wide…’ A huge gobbet of sputum unspools from Lionel’s mouth to quiver just over Victor’s lips – Victor, revulsed, increases his thrashings, which only brings the mucus-pendulum swinging closer. A
nd then, soundlessly, the power winks out. Victor takes advantage of the darkness to scramble out from under Lionel, who, rising in pursuit, finds his slaver pasted to his chin – ‘Damn it!’
‘Damn it!’ In the basement, Ruprecht, emerging from his tinfoil radiation-blocker, shines a torch through the smoking air to peer into the crib. But there is Geoff’s shoe, exactly where he left it.
‘It didn’t work?’ Geoff, hopping over, isn’t entirely devastated to find his shoe still inhabiting this universe. He bends over to retrieve it from the pod. ‘Well, it’s not the end of the world – I know, why don’t we try…’ His eyes flick around the basement as he squeezes his shoe back on. ‘Mario, do you still have your lucky condom?’
‘Ha ha, no way are you putting that inside this foolish death-machine.’
‘But maybe its luckiness would help the experiment,’ Geoff cajoles.
‘I am not going to hand over my fail-safe secret weapon to some parallel-me in another universe,’ Mario says firmly. ‘He can get his own bitches.’
‘Okay…’ Geoff’s eye sets to roving once again. ‘How about…’
‘What’s the use,’ Ruprecht cuts across him desolately.
‘What do you mean, what’s the use?’
‘I mean, it’s not going to work. Clearly what happened with Optimus Prime was some sort of fluke. Maybe the result of an external factor we didn’t take into account, the position of the moon, the quantity of moisture in the air. It could have been anything.’
‘But that doesn’t mean you should just give up on it…’
‘Let’s just call it a day,’ Ruprecht says monotonously, prodding the charred computer keyboard with his foot. Sixteen hours of repeated disappointment have etched themselves into his face, like an acute strain of the grey necrosis of disillusion the others feel creep across them every second of every day, transforming them into adults.
‘What about the future of humanity?’ Geoff appeals; but Ruprecht has already turned his back and is shuffling geriatrically around the room, shutting down the computers one by one, when the door bursts open and Dennis and Skippy come running in.