Paul Melko: The Walls of the Universe

“Through there.” Visgrath nodded his head.

“Go.”

Visgrath hesitated.

“Go.”

John Prime saw Visgrath hestitate and knew he was planning something. Prime opened his mouth to order Visgrath away from the doors.

Visgrath glanced back once at Prime, then yelled and dove out of Prime’s arc of fire.

Prime pulled the trigger and splattered the door with three shots. His face stung and his ears rang. He pushed at the door, and got a glimpse of the lab within.

Three technicians in white coats turned at the sound. And there was a woman, naked and strapped to a table. Blood dripped from the red lines drawn across her arms and torso.

Farm Boy cried out in rage, and Prime was shocked to see him aim his gun and fire on the technicians. The closest man crumpled with a spray of red. Prime fired three more shots, then paused to reload.

He had no idea where Visgrath was, but he wasn’t focused on that. The two remaining technicians turned to run. Prime ran into the room, leaping over a tray of scalpels and surgical instruments. He caught the second man in the back with a shot. The third slipped behind a row of cabinets, and Prime’s shot missed his head by centimeters, thunking into the concrete wall with a spray of powder.

Prime scanned the room, caught the closing door as Visgrath skittered through. He was the leader of this group of renegades, and he might bring reinforcements. Prime dashed across the room and opened the door slowly.

Beyond the door was an empty hallway. Visgrath had disappeared. He walked slowly past doors, checking the knobs. They were locked, and the labs beyond were dark. What were these bastards doing? Probably just what he’d done. They were trying to make their marooned lives better while trying to get their lives back. But these people were nothing like him. They tortured and killed…

He killed too. He had killed Oscar and maybe Thomas. They had been the first, a hundred universes away. He had killed Corrundrum and Ted Carson. And he had done despicable acts to get his life back. What anyone would have done. Even Farm Boy had tried it, though he’d failed at the last minute.

Prime paused in the hallway to pull the rifle from his shoulder. Ahead of him, the hallway bent to the right, and he heard running feet approaching. He pushed himself into a doorway on the right side.

Two men, carrying nasty machine guns, rounded the corner.

Without hesitation, he fired his rifle into their chests, once each. They crumpled, each face marked by an O of surprise.

You never expected to die coming around a corner, Prime thought. He took one of the machine guns and stowed it across his shoulder. He was trading his ordnance up, he thought with a smile.

Did these two guards have wives? Prime wondered. Had these two gone native to find women, or did they have a partner among the renegades? Perhaps they were themselves lovers. Prime chuckled grimly. Add two more to his total. Two more fucking bodies.

He edged around the corner, but the hallway jagged again to the left and was empty. He took the next corner slowly too but found that the hallway ended in a set of windowless double doors.

He turned the knob slowly and pushed the door open, then stepped back. Nothing. The door hushed shut.

He pushed it open again and stepped through.

Prime was in a warehouse connected to a loading dock; it was piled high with boxes on pallets. There are a lot of places to hide in here, Prime thought.

Counting the stacks of boxes, Prime realized that these renegades were busy. They were acting. They were watching. It was as if they expected to find someone like Farm Boy, expected to exploit something, expected to find someone with a means to get to-what had Corrundrum said?-the Alarian Empire.

Prime was struck by the invisible threads of action just below the horizon of the universes. Who put these renegades here? Who were they waiting for? Where was Corrundrum from? Universe zero? What was at the beginning of all this?

Movement in the warehouse caught Prime’s eye. He ducked behind a pallet, and watched as two men moved from stack to stack surreptitiously.

Prime edged along the outer wall of the warehouse, trying to flank the two men. He heard voices as he neared, heard whispered orders. He hoped one of the men was Visgrath. He wouldn’t let him get away again.

Prime glanced around a box and saw two men crouched and talking. One of them was Visgrath. Prime stepped forward and a weight landed on his shoulders. The rifle in his hand discharged and then spun away from him.

He tried to roll, but the weight pressed against the back of his neck. Someone had ambushed him by jumping from the stacked boxes. They’d baited him.

“Crap,” he huffed, barely able to breathe.

From his prone position, he watched the smiling Visgrath approach until all he could see was Visgrath’s shoes.

“Finally, the elusive John Wilson.”

“Rayburn.”

“I know you have built a new transfer device. I know you have another one in your possession. You are not of the Aratoan, yet you vex us.” Visgrath squatted and looked Prime in the eye. “Well, we will have much time to discuss these matters.”

Prime knew the veiled statement meant torture.

“Listen, Visgrath, I’m not the John you want. But I can get him for you. There’s no need for torture.”

Visgrath laughed. “You kill several of my men, you try to kill me, and now you want to strike a bargain.”

“I had to. John has the device. He shanghaied me to get me to help him. He’s worse than you. I think I can help you guys.”

“I know you can help us. And you will.” He barked orders to the man holding Prime down in that same language the guard had used. “The sincerity of your offer will be tested soon.”

The man on top of him cuffed Prime’s hands behind his back and dragged him to his feet. They searched him quickly, lifting his shirt, looking for the device.

“Now we will find your twin.”

John spun around, surveying the room for Visgrath and any other targets. He saw none. The gun handle was slick with sweat. His heart was pounding, and the smell of gunpowder was overpowering.

John Prime was missing. Had he gone after Visgrath?

The lab was crowded with equipment, so others might have been hiding, but there were three other doors leading out of the room. John heard a door swing shut and assumed it was the third lab technician. Where was Visgrath?

John put the pistol next to Grace on the table, within reach, and began to work on the leather buckles binding her arms and legs. His rage boiled when he saw what they had done to her.

“Grace! Grace!”

Her eyes were closed, but she breathed. Her bloody chest rose and fell. John could not bear to look at the savage cuts on her body. This was all his fault!

He undid her arms and then her legs.

“Grace, are you okay? Can you hear me?”

Her eyes fluttered, then opened. She didn’t focus at first, and then she smiled with a smile missing one front tooth. “Johnny,” she croaked.

“Everything’s okay, Grace. Are you okay?” He realized he was babbling.

Grace grinned. “I’m not dead yet,” she whispered. “It’s just a flesh wound.”

John’s eyes burned as the tears came, and his sob turned into a foul-sounding guffaw.

“Goddamn it, Grace. Don’t make me laugh.”

“Got to,” she said, sitting up on the table.

John pulled the lab coat off one of the technicians and draped it around Grace’s shoulders. She looked shaken and pale, but her eyes were focused now.

“Grace, we need to find Henry,” he said.

She looked around the lab, then grabbed John’s shoulder to steady herself. “I feel woozy.” She pointed to one of the doors. “They brought me through there. I never saw Henry, but I guess he was in a cell near mine.”