Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

Henry let the slug-the moving disk-fly. It zipped across the table toward the target disk. The camera overhead flashed four times. It whirred and dispensed a flimsy paper photograph of the disks twice before and twice after the collision. From that they would be able to calculate the linear momentum transfer between the two disks. John retrieved the target disk and replaced it with a disk twice the mass.

“Why are you checking up on me?”

Grace actually looked confused, and John realized he was being paranoid.

“We’re not checking up on you! We’re just-you know-interested,” she said.

John sighed again. He should have changed lab partners after the first lab, but instead he’d stuck with Henry and Grace. He also should have kept his big mouth shut about things that were common in his universe and not here. Of course it was hard to know what those were until he got a blank stare in return, which meant it was better to not talk with anyone at all. But he was stuck with these two.

“It was just a game, not for betting, and there probably was only one of them ever made,” John said. “And it was a long time ago, which is why you didn’t find any reference.”

“Explain,” Henry said.

The slug hit the heavier disk and the camera flashed.

“Inclined plane, ball bearing, flippers,” John said. “You bounced the ball off the scoring things until the ball slipped past you.”

“I don’t get it,” Grace said.

“Yeah,” Henry added.

John found himself explaining pinball while they bounced more disks together. They worked through six weights of disk, as well as three mystery weights, which they had to calculate via the equations of momentum.

“I’m gonna have to see it,” Henry finally said, which was the most John had ever heard him say in one conversation.

“Well, we can’t go to Las Vegas!” John cried, frustrated.

“We can build one,” Grace said. “Henry and I are on Lab Squad.”

“Lab Squad?”

“All the freshmen got a letter last year about Lab Squad,” Grace said. “You must have thrown yours out. Lab Squad is the coolest student group in the engineering school. We help the senior and grad students in the lab with their work, and we get to do our own experiments during off-hours. We have keys.”

“I didn’t get that letter,” John said.

“Oh, right, you’re a nontraditional student,” Grace said. “Good thing you know us. We can create a pinball project, and you can help us build a pinball… device.”

“Pinball machine,” John said automatically.

“I like ‘pinball device’ better,” she said.

“It doesn’t matter,” John said. “We’re not doing it.” Anything like that, any exploitation of technology from across universes, felt too much like John Prime and his schemes for John to stomach.

“It’s just a-,” Grace began.

“No.” John slammed the disks into their slot in the box. He shoved his notebook into his backpack and left the lab.

He wasn’t going to become like Prime. There was no way John was doing something like that. Cross-dimensional trade. No way. Prime was an exploiter. He was a user, and John wasn’t anything like that. And why were Henry and Grace pushing him? It was better if he just switched sessions and did lab on Mondays. He couldn’t get too close to anyone in this universe. He was leaving, as soon as he figured out the device.

He found himself in the Student Union, cutting through to get to the far side of campus where his apartment was. A word on a bulletin board caught his eye: “ Findlay ”. It was a ride share board. Someone needed a ride to Findlay, for gas. John had planned to go see Bill and Janet the next weekend anyway. He read the name on the board: “Casey Nicholson.”

His hand hovered over the tab with her phone number on it. Oh, no, he thought. Not her.

He reached out and tore her phone number away.

That Friday, John drove his car over to Benchley Hall, one of the undergrad women’s dorms, but the U in front of it was jammed with cars. He parked at a student lot about a kilometer away, then walked back.

He was nervous, and he chided himself for it. She didn’t know him; he didn’t know her. The Casey he knew was far away. She was John Prime’s now for all he knew. Prime certainly had shown interest in her.

But this Casey was an unknown factor. She might be completely different from the one John remembered. She might have the same name but a totally different genetic makeup. She might be dark haired and short, not the tall blonde he knew. She might be mean-spirited. She might be a lesbian. She might have a boyfriend.

She probably did have a boyfriend, a pretty girl like her.

John brooded as he walked the last hundred meters.

This was all a mistake, he was sure. He should be minimizing his problems, not adding to them. What would he say to her? We shared a class, but you don’t remember me. I had a crush on another version of you. He’d sound like a total wacko.

The front atrium of the dorm was a madhouse of people: It seemed like everyone was going home for the weekend. Laundry and luggage were piled everywhere. John found the house phone and dialed Casey’s extension.

“Hello?” someone said, definitely not Casey. Benchley Hall was all quads, so Casey shared the room with three other women.

“Is Casey there?”

“Is this Jack?”

“Uh… no. I’m her ride to Findlay.”

“Oh, right. She’ll be right down.”

He hung up wondering if Jack was her boyfriend. Jack was probably on the football team. Or he was a medical student. Or he was a professor in the music college. Not any of whom John could compete with. Not that he would. She wasn’t his Casey.

He stood by the elevators waiting. She got off, carrying a green duffel bag. Her hair was blond and bobbed, one of the current styles in this universe; he was glad she wasn’t wearing a beehive. She wore baggy dungarees and cowboy boots. Her coat was a lettered jacket from Findlay High School. Casey looked just like he remembered.

“Casey?”

“John?”

“Yeah. I’m your ride. Can I carry your bag?”

She hitched it up her shoulder and said, “No. I got it. Let’s go.” They fought their way through the throng at the door. “This is worse than move-in day,” she called over her shoulder.

“Johnny! Johnny!”

John turned at the shrill voice.

“Hey, Johnny,” Grace said. She wore a shirt that said: “I’m Not Dead Yet.” She had hold of the inside door behind him.

John looked back at Casey, holding the outside door, looking back at him, and then over his shoulder at Grace.

“Hey, Grace,” he said, trying to not match her shrill, piercing tone.

“Did you hand in your lab notebook?”

“Yeah, I did,” he said, turning again to look at Casey. She looked back at him with a smile. “I’ll see you later,” John said to Grace.

“Okay. Happy Freya Day! Bye, Casey!”

“Right.”

Casey nodded and turned away. Then they were through and into the crisp evening air.

“How’d you know it was me coming off the elevator?” she asked.

“Your jacket.”

“Oh, yeah,” she said, looking down at the jacket. “As close as Findlay is, you’d think more people would be from there here at the university.”

“Yeah.”

“But not many people in my class went on to college.” She looked at him. “You go to Findlay High?”

“Uh, no,” he said. “But I know people who did.”

“Where’d you go then?”

“School in Columbus. I know people in Findlay, though. That’s where I’m heading for the weekend.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Bill and Janet Rayburn. They’re my aunt and uncle.”