Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

“Hey, Lou. Give me a Coke.”

“Sure.” He poured it and then leaned close. “I want to let you know something.”

“Twice in ten minutes,” John sighed.

“Ray had a few people in to look at the pinball machine. Arcade people. I didn’t eavesdrop or anything, but he was talking about selling it out from under you.”

“What?” John stood up.

“Calm down,” Lou said. “Sit. You didn’t hear it from me, but you need to protect your interests.” He slid John’s money back at him. “This one’s on the house.”

John drank the Coke, struggling to sort his thoughts. Grace… loved him. Ray was trying to steal the pinball machine. John’s mind couldn’t get around either problem.

Henry came out of the back, his arm around the guy who had beaten him in the tournament.

“Hey, John!” Henry called. “Did you meet Steve? This guy is good.”

“Yeah, I met him.” Both of them were drunk, and John realized that Steve was underage, even for this universe. “Steve, you better crash at my place tonight. That okay with your parents?”

He nodded, looking a bit nauseated.

“Henry, we need to meet tomorrow. Tell Grace.”

Henry mock-saluted him. Drunk, Henry wasn’t so dour.

“Come on, Steve. You should have celebrated in moderation.”

“I know,” he gasped, his face white.

Grace wasn’t at the meeting, but Steve had tagged along. They met in the empty lab bay.

“Where’s Grace?” Henry asked.

John shrugged, but he assumed she was avoiding him. He hadn’t given the question of her feelings much thought. He liked Grace, but he couldn’t say he felt any sexual attraction for her. She was a friend, with many bizarre qualities. And frankly, he now had no interest in another relationship with any woman in this universe. Not after Casey.

“So, here’s what I know. Ray is trying to sell the machine to an arcade company.”

“Son of a bitch!” Henry said. “Let’s go get it right now.”

“Hold on,” John said. “He doesn’t know we know.”

“You can’t let him steal it,” Steve said. “That game is the greatest thing since… since… I don’t know what. It may be the greatest thing ever.”

“Here’s the thing,” John said. “The machine is just so much equipment. Losing it would be bad. But what we really need to protect is the technology.”

“We need to patent it,” Henry said.

“Right.”

“How much does that cost?” Henry asked.

“Does it matter?” John asked.

“I guess not.”

“And I think we need to form a corporation,” John said. “For our own protection. Like you said.”

“Can I work for you guys?” Steve said. “I have some ideas. I can help too. I’m good with a soldering gun.”

“The corporation is not yet ready to hire employees, Steve,” John said. “But we’ll keep your résumé on file.”

“Thanks!”

“Should we pull the pinball machine out?” Henry asked. “It would hurt us to lose it. The stuff we did could be reverse engineered. Any electrical engineer could figure it out.”

“But it doesn’t matter if we have a patent, I think,” John said. “If we pull it, we lose the revenue. We may need to pay an attorney.”

“We could put it somewhere else,” Henry said. “At seventy-thirty like we should have in the first place.”

“Ray will not be a happy man,” John said.

“He can’t stop us,” Henry said. “We didn’t sign a contract. We own the machine. By word of mouth we can fill up any place we put the device around campus.”

“You guys should open your own arcade,” Steve said. “Right next to the high school.”

John said, “Here’s the plan. Tomorrow, I’ll find a lawyer who can help us. Henry, you scout out some of the other bars around campus and see if we can get another place to put the machine. Steve, can you watch the bar to see if anyone tries to mess with the machine?”

“Sure. I’ve got a fake ID.”

“Steve, you’re five foot one,” John said.

“Lou’ll let me in. And I won’t drink.” He looked suddenly queasy. “Never again.”

John called Grace’s dorm room, but no one picked up. He would have gone over to see her, but Casey’s room was on the same floor and he didn’t want to chance running into her. Grace wasn’t in the lab, since he had just come from there. He tried the library, and found her reading a paperback at a study desk.

“Hey,” he said softly.

“Hey.” She didn’t look up from the book. John pulled a chair over and sat beside her.

“Grace, you’ve turned into my best friend,” he said.

“Don’t say it,” she said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Grace, you’re my best friend,” he said again, taking her hand. “There was a reason I should never have gotten involved with Casey, and that same reason applies to you.”

“Oh, please.”

“I’ll tell you why someday, but till then we’ve got to stay just friends.”

Grace wiped a tear from behind her glasses. “I was just drunk, John. It didn’t mean anything.”

John let the lie slide.

“We’ve got a crisis, by the way.”

She sat up, her eyes bright and wet. “Oh, I love a good crisis. Do tell.”

Henry found a bar on Secor Avenue called Adam’s All-Star Cavalcade that would take the pinball machine for seventy-thirty. The manager had heard about it and one of his bartenders had played in the last tournament, losing to Steve in the first round.

They met on the next Monday in the lab bay to plan the extraction.

“Ray leaves by ten each night. Lou or someone else closes up. We can be there late, then take it out the door,” Grace said.

“Will Lou help us?” Grace asked.

“What do we do with the machine then?” Henry asked.

“Bring it back here,” John said.

“Take it to Adam’s right away,” Grace said.

“All the bars close at the same time,” John pointed out.

“So we leave it in a pickup truck until the next day.”

“In the open?” Grace said. “No way.”

“Here,” Henry said. “No one will bother it.”

“Sounds good,” John said. “So here’s the revised plan: Tonight we close Woodman’s and we take the machine with us. We drive it to the lab. Then tomorrow we drop it off at Adam’s All-Star Cavalcade.”

“It’s a plan,” said Grace.

They were yawning by twelve but managed to stay awake until closing time, drinking Cokes and eating tortilla chips. Lou wasn’t working that night; another bartender, Chip, was closing the place. But Ray left by ten as usual.

“Cha-ching!” he cried as he passed them on the way out.

“Yeah,” Henry said. “You said it.”

At ten to one, the bartender yelled, “Last call.” But the place was empty except for a couple career drunks. No one was playing pinball.

“Let’s go,” John said.

They went in back, unplugged the machine, and lifted it.

“God, it’s heavy.”

They maneuvered it down the steps and past the bar.

“What the fuck you doing?” Chip yelled. “Put that back.”

“We need to make some repairs,” John gasped. “We’ll have it back tomorrow.”

“No way!” Chip stepped around the bar to block their way. Grace, on a front corner, set her side down and kicked him in the shin. As he bounced away holding his leg, they pushed the machine through the door.

It took them five minutes to load it, but it took Ray four to run down the block from his house, dressed in a robe that flapped behind him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he yelled.

“Taking our machine,” Henry said.

“Put it back, now.”

“No,” John said.

“I’ve called the police.”