Paul Melko: The Walls of the Universe

“We don’t know they were exiled by their own kind.”

“All the Alarians were wiped out when they were defeated. If there’s any around still, it’s because they were lost before the final battle. They don’t negotiate. They don’t deal. They take what they want and destroy what they don’t need. You two against a stronghold of Alarians who’ve had five decades to entrench? You two are walking dead men.”

“So you’re not going to help us?”

“I just did! Walk away!”

“We can’t,” John said.

“Then if you come back, remember me,” Corrundrum said. “I don’t belong here.”

“Come with us and make sure we succeed,” Prime said.

“Didn’t you hear me? You’re gonna die there.”

“Better to try and die than live in vain,” Prime said.

“You natives! You think life is to be sacrificed,” Corrundrum said. “Sacrifice is for Christers. Life is to be cherished and not wasted.”

“Isn’t your life wasted here? How long before you die, alone, in an alien universe?”

“I have years ahead of me, more than your science can provide.”

“What about Kryerol? He risked his life for you, and died!”

“Don’t bring him up! He knew what he was doing. And he shouldn’t have brought us there for some Prime treasure hunt. He deserved to die!”

“He saved you, didn’t he? Sacrifice is what he did, for you and the rest of your team.”

“Lotta good it did them,” Corrundrum said.

Prime exhaled heavily. “Fine. I thought we could help you, and I thought you could help us. I guess not.” To John, he said, “Let’s go before it gets dark.”

They were halfway to the front door when Corrundrum cried out, “All right! All right. I’ll come with you. It’s nuts, but what the heck. It’s not like there’s a rescue party coming from home universe.” He hauled himself up from the couch. “Let me get some stuff first.”

Corrundrum disappeared into a back room. John felt Prime tense up. His hand was in his pocket where he had put the pistol.

“Don’t you trust him?” John whispered.

“He’s not like us,” Prime said. “He may be half-mad from exile here.”

“I believe it.”

Corrundrum came out with a black duffel bag. He tossed it on the coffee table and rooted through it, pulling out a black handgun and a box of bullets. He loaded the gun and put it back into the bag.

“More guns,” John said.

“They’ll kill us if they can,” Corrundrum said. “Most people in this multiverse will for what you have on your chest. These people more than most.”

“We should go,” John said. It was already three thirty. If they didn’t get to the site soon, there’d be no light to search by.

“George Washington? Executed as a traitor usually,” Corrundrum said. “Napoléon? Unified Europe five times out of twelve. Christ, a minor prophet for Mithras one in twenty times.” He had been reciting useless universe facts for ten minutes.

“Shut up,” Prime said.

“Yeah, the truth sucks,” Corrundrum replied.

“Who cares what the truth is?” Prime cried. “It all depends on which universe you’re in.”

“True,” Corrundrum said. “Unless it’s home universe.” He paused. “South wins the Civil War one percent of the time. The South will not rise again; they can’t even rise the first time.”

“Shut up!” Prime shouted.

“Fine, all right.”

John pulled into the parking lot, driving upstream through the five o’clock commuters. The office complex looked just like the one that EmVis rented in Universe 7650.

“This is it.”

John pulled to the edge of the parking lot. He sat staring at the wooded lot beyond, where the fenced compound should have been. A biking path threaded its way through the trees.

“Is this it?” Prime asked.

John paused. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Corrundrum cried from the backseat.

“Maybe, I said.” John looked to the right, at a duck pond that hadn’t been there in 7650. He got out of the car, walked a short distance to the left.

“I can’t tell,” he said. He turned and looked over at the office building. If this had been Grace’s universe, his office would have been the one there on the corner. The view of the compound had been clear from there.

“We need to get inside the office building,” John said. “We need to look out of that window.”

The door was open-no key pass or other lock barred them-but there was a guard at the front desk. John just shrugged and walked past. The guard glanced at the three, perhaps because John and Prime looked like identical twins and how often did one see adult identical twins out and about?

John hit the elevator button for the third floor. The elevator door didn’t close.

“What the-?” Corrundrum said.

John pointed to the sensor below the elevator buttons. “We need a key card to activate the elevator.”

“Damn!” Corrundrum said.

Just then a woman sprinted on, waving her key across the sensor and pressing 5.

“Could you get us to three, please?” Prime said. “We’ve forgotten our keys.”

“Sure,” she said, swiping again and hitting 3.

The elevator opened on their floor. Stepping into the lobby, John was momentarily disoriented. He had expected to see an austere receptionist’s desk. Instead there was a huge wall-mounted fish tank and an arrangement of orange chairs and geometric shapes.

“This way,” he said, turning around. “My office was over here.”

The door to that wing of the building was locked.

“Damn it,” John said. There was nobody around to let them in.

Prime picked up a phone mounted to the wall. A list of numbers was taped next to it. He dialed an extension.

“No answer,” he said, dialing another.

He was through six numbers when a door on the other side of the elevators opened.

“May I help you?” a young bespectacled man said. He was carrying a briefcase.

“Uh,” John said. “We-”

“Yeah,” Prime said, cutting him off. “Josh in Facilities said to meet him here at five. We’re supposed to tour the floor. Can you let us in? We have only a bit of time before we have to see the next place.”

“Oh, yeah? Touring?”

“Yeah, they’re building a third building, you know, and it’s going to have this pattern.”

The man nodded and keyed open the door for them.

“It’s a great space. We’ve been here for a couple years now.”

“Awesome,” Prime said.

The door shut behind them, and Prime exhaled. “Too easy.”

Corrundrum said, “A social engineer.”

“Make it a big lie,” Prime replied.

“I agree.”

John sped down the hallway. The layout was the same, and his office a hundred universes away was in the spot he expected. Luckily, it was empty.

The view was nothing like he remembered, however. Of course there was no fence, no building. But even so, the landscape wasn’t right.

“Does it ring a bell?” Prime asked.

“No.”

“No? What the hell? If we come in anywhere but-,” Corrundrum cried.

“Quiet!” Prime snapped.

John leaned on the window glass with his forehead and jammed his eyes closed. He visualized the view from his office, the slope of the land, the trees. He tried to remember it without the fenced compound.

He opened his eyes. Yes, he had it. This universe’s parking lot extended too far. It had thrown him off.

“See that big oak tree?” he said.

“Yeah.”

“About six meters to the east and three meters to the north.”

“Got it,” Prime said. “Inside the fence, outside the buildings?”

“Yeah.”

John marked it in his mind.

Back in the parking lot, Prime and Corrundrum climbed into the car while John took a hazard sign from the car’s trunk. He found the oak tree and walked off six steps east and three north. Using a rock to keep it in place, he placed the orange flag on the ground in the spot, his best guess across universes. Then he went back to the car and dozed in the front seat. They had a couple hours at least.