Paul Melko - The Walls of the Universe

The ward was dark and quiet except for an occasional lit room, a faint TV, and the beep-beep of hospital equipment. He found Casey’s room at the end of a cul-de-sac of rooms. The room was dark, and she was asleep inside.

A nurse suddenly appeared.

“You are?”

“Her boyfriend.”

“Oh, visiting hours are almost up.”

“I know; I had to see her.”

“I understand,” the nurse said. She paused. “She’s stable. The bullet has been removed, and we’ve given her something to sleep. Do you know her family?”

“Yes, I do.”

“We’ve contacted the university to get hold of them. But no one has come yet, except her uncle.”

“Her uncle?” Casey’s mother and father were only children.

“Yes, he just left. Sat with her for an hour, waiting. Said he’d call the parents, but he never picked up the phone.”

“Tall man, blond?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t let him back in.”

“What?”

“It wasn’t her uncle,” John said. “Have the police been here?”

“Police? Briefly. They said to call when she awoke.” The nurse suddenly looked worried. “Is she in danger? I can-I can call security.”

“Do that.”

John felt a moment’s panic. He should have been thinking of Casey. They might come back for her. John sat in the chair next to the bed. Looking at Casey’s pale face, John felt sick. She had been shot. Because of him. He felt no anger at Visgrath. They did what they did, but because John had meddled. He had to set things right.

John reached forward and grasped Casey’s hand.

“I’m sorry, Casey,” he whispered. Perhaps she moved; perhaps she squeezed back. John wasn’t sure.

“Touching.”

John bolted upright. Visgrath stood in the doorway of the room. He was dressed in a suit. A blond bodyguard stood behind him.

“Get out,” John said.

“Or what?” Visgrath laughed. “John, our fates are bound now. You can’t shake me.” He took two steps into the room and sat in the other chair. The guard blocked the doorway.

“You were not entirely forthcoming to me when last we talked,” Visgrath said. “It didn’t come up in our conversation that you had in your possession a transfer device.”

“You didn’t ask.”

Visgrath laughed. “You played me, for what reason I don’t know. But now we’re here together, and we both have things to trade.”

“Henry and Grace.”

“They’re not even singletons!” Visgrath said intensely. “I don’t know why you care. But clearly you do, and I will use it to my advantage.”

“Singletons?”

Visgrath paused.

“Yes, singletons. Surely you’ve heard the term.”

“No.”

Visgrath laughed. “Again I have made assumptions about you that are wrong. A singleton, like me, is a person who has no doubles in the universes. We are the special ones, the unique ones. Don’t you understand that?”

“No.”

“Look at her! There’s a thousand of her next door! What does she matter? You feel some… lust for her, so sate yourself, use her, and move on. Any one of them is worthless.”

“What are you talking about? She’s a human, just like you.”

“Value comes from rarity!”

John shook his head. Visgrath’s manner, the reason for his disdain for anyone not in his inner group, was suddenly clear. “I’m not a singleton either. I’m just some kid from Universe 7533.”

Visgrath looked at John blankly, then began to laugh. He glanced around the room for some weapon. John had not brought a gun or the tire iron or anything else into the hospital.

“A kid! From 7533!”

“And singletons or not, you’ve kidnapped my friends, and I want them back.”

Visgrath’s face went stone flat.

“Yes, the crux of the matter,” he said. “You will give me the transfer device and your friends will live.”

“I’ll go to the police!”

“And your friends will die. You know what we are. You know how much money we have. We own this world.”

“And if I give it to you, what assurances do I have?”

Visgrath’s face twitched. “I said I would do it.”

“But we’re not even singletons like you,” John said. “We have no value.”

“My honor is of value to me! Give me the device and your friends live. If you are obstinate, then you will get one of them back and the other will die.”

John realized he was dealing with a monster. He could not trust Visgrath or deal with him in any way.

“No,” John said.

Visgrath rose, his face a mask of fury. “I can just take it! And if you don’t have it, you’ll tell me soon enough.” He motioned to his bodyguard. John stood to confront him.

“That’s enough.”

A young uniformed man stood behind the bodyguard, his hand on a holster. His voice quivered as he spoke, but he stood solidly.

“This woman needs her rest, and visiting hours are over,” he said.

The bodyguard glanced over his shoulder, then at John, and finally at Visgrath.

Visgrath nodded slightly and the bodyguard seemed to deflate. John took a breath.

“Indeed, she needs to recover for her next… tribulation,” Visgrath said darkly.

“You harm any of my friends and you’ll never get the device,” John said softly.

“You don’t give me the transfer device and you’ll never see your friends alive,” Visgrath replied civilly. At the door, he added, “You know how to reach me.”

John watched as Visgrath and his bodyguard left. He listened to their clicking steps down the hallway. The young guard watched too, his face slick with sweat. The elevator dinged, and finally John relaxed.

“You better go too,” the nurse said, suddenly appearing. “It is past visitors’ hours.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We’ll make sure she’s safe.”

“I appreciate that.”

John cast one look at Casey’s slack face. He was vulnerable because she was. Visgrath already had Henry and Grace. John couldn’t let him get his hands on Casey. He had to do something.

First, he needed allies.

The spring night left the barn cool. The space heater hummed when John turned it on, emitting the sharp stink of burning dust. He set it under the bench, where it toasted his feet. The halogen lamp he’d bought cast sharp shadows, but still the barn was dark in the corners. There was nothing to be done for it.

He unrolled the diagram and laid it on the bench. His heart beat too fast, and he felt a moment’s panic as he stared at the diagram.

“Damn it!”

It was like a physics problem he didn’t have the tools to solve. Too big and too hard. He had no idea where to start.

He had to start somewhere. This was his only weapon, and Visgrath didn’t know it was broken.

Or did he? Would Henry or Grace tell? Would Visgrath force them to speak?

John shuddered. He was playing a violent, crazy game and he had only half the rules.

He stood over the diagram, and his eye caught the set of circuits that tied to the display. They had to be simple. It was just an LED. He decided to try to model that first.

An hour later, he grunted in frustration. He had no idea what went with what. John popped another can of cola. It was his sixth, and he was beginning to feel jittery. At the same time, he felt inflated with knowledge and drive. He turned his attention to the next nexus of circuits. Something had to give.

John’s first breakthrough came when he found that the dial on the side of the device was tied to the power system. The dial had always been placed on the most counterclockwise position when he used the device. John Prime had said that he had no idea what the dial did. But John suspected that it regulated the strength of the device’s field. Wouldn’t power correlate positively to strength? It made sense.