The Broken Universe (21 page)

John looked away. He wasn’t used to anonymous help.

“Listen,” John Home said. “I’ll be back in a week or so. You try selling the coins. Tell people you found them in the fields in an old box or something. Or in the attic. It’ll take a while for experts to verify the coins.”

“A week?”

“A week or so,” John Home said. “It’s okay to doubt me. You’ll see proof in the results. You can back out any time, you know. It’s not a binding contract we have here.”

“What if I run to the police?”

John Home shrugged. “And what will you tell them? What law am I breaking?”

“I’m sure the U.S. government would want to know.”

“Which U.S. government? Which president? Nationalism suddenly seems a little hard to maintain when you know there are tens of thousands of United States of America out there.”

John shook his head. “It’s a lot to comprehend.”

“That’s why I’m gonna let you think about it for a week.” He stood up. “Okay. Time for me to go. Wanna watch this?”

“Yes, go ahead.”

“I’m going to do it over here by the quarry.” John Home opened his backpack. “I think I gave you everything. Let’s go.”

They walked over to the quarry. John Home searched the quarry surface for something, finally finding a spray-painted marker on the ground.

“Here,” John Home said, handing John the flashlight. “You’ll need this.”

“Where … where are you going?” John asked. Being on his own with that daunting list of things to do suddenly seemed impossible.

“Back to Universe 7650, the home office,” John Home said. He opened his shirt, exposing the strange device again. He dialed it until the front showed the number 7650. “You’ll be all right, John. Even if you decide you don’t want to do anything else, you can keep the coins. We have more than we know what to do with.”

“Thanks.”

“And it looks like you could use the money … for your dad.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be back in a week or so. So long, John.” He disappeared.

John Rayburn had had doubts up until that very moment. Until John Home disappeared before his very eyes. He walked slowly around the spot, waving the flashlight back and forth. He was gone.

John sighed. If this wasn’t the strangest thing that ever had happened to him, he had no idea what was.

But to let it go, to ignore it, as John Home suggested? Keeping the gold coins and doing none of the things John Home had listed for him? No, there was no doubt what he would be doing for the next week. John found himself grinning with pleasure as he walked back to the farmhouse.

CHAPTER
16

John appeared inside the quarry warehouse in 7650, in a zone marked as the 7601 transfer site. With ten settled universes in action, making sure each had its own zone was crucial. But 7650 was pretty simple compared to 7651. Grace Top ran the universe depot with precision, since she maintained connections—or would when their gates were complete—with every settled universe. Only one settled universe—Universe Gold: 7458—had a gate online so far, though nine John Rayburns had been recruited. Ten, if John counted John Ten. But that John seemed ready to sign on. They’d finally decided to build a gate in 7650 too, even with the chance that the Alarians might get hold of it. That meant they had three transfer gates—in 7458, 7650, and 7651—as well as John’s transfer device.

Ten universes visited in three weeks; ten John Rayburns convinced to join the company. It had been a busy end to their summer. Though, when had he not been busy since he had received the device?

“Hey, John. How’d it go?”

Henry Home was manning the desk. He reached up and dialed a number next to the label
JOHN
HOME
, changing it from 7601 to 7650. John was back in 7650, so the big board showed it. The next satchel to 7651 would have that information, and when Grace Top sent her satchels out to the settled universes, they would know too where John was, all within two hours.

Also in the satchels were any deviations between the universes that anyone had found. Anything that differed in price or availability between any two universes was something they’d arbitrage.

“Pretty well. One conversation,” John said.

“Case Western? Stroke? Summer at the farm?” Henry asked.

“Yep.” Those simple characteristics were enough to know it had been an easy recruitment. Those John Rayburns were the ones most likely to jump at the offer to join the company. Those were the Johns who were ready to build.

“I’ll add a reminder to visit in seven days,” Henry said.

“What’s new here?”

“Crazy Rubber Bands.”

“What?”

“It’s a fad in 7510, not so much here. We’re shipping through twenty crates with a markup of three hundred percent. We buy a pack of twenty-four for two dollars and sell for six.” Universe 7510 was home to John, Henry, and Grace Quayle, a universe where Dan Quayle had become president after the assassination of Bush I. The United States had avoided the Second Depression and experienced a renaissance of science, education, and arts.

“But what are they?”

Henry handed him a colorful circle of rubber. It was shaped like a mouse.

“This is it?”

“Yeah, kids trade them.”

“Aren’t we going to saturate the market?” John asked, thinking of the gold.

“Naw. The thing is, all our designs are unknown in 7510. They’re unlisted, making them super rare,” Henry said. “We’re gonna make close to one million dollars in 7510.”

“For rubber bands?”

“Fad items, John. Fad items.”

John opened the outgoing satchel and leafed through the contents. Administrivia. Who was where, reminders for tasks, lists of arbitrage numbers on the items they were tracking. All of them like the rubber bands. Knickknacks, novelties, untraceable, cheap. Casey was especially good at spotting a fad they could exploit.

“What’s this?”

John read the newspaper clipping. It was the court report for the
Toledo Sword
. One listing in particular was marked and starred.

Findlay resident Palmer Helmon was arrested Tuesday on charges of aggravated sexual assault. He is being held at the Findlay county jail on bail of $450,000. He was arrested for the July 15th rape of a Findlay teenager, a minor and attendee of Findlay High School. Her name is being withheld. Speculation of Helmon’s involvement in three other rapes last year prompted the high bail amount. Additional charges are expected.

“What universe is this from?” John asked, and then he saw the 7458—Universe Gold. “Grace has this going to 7510?”

“All the settled universes, actually,” Henry said.

“What if this guy is innocent? What if the police in 7458 are wrong?” John said. It was the same argument he’d had with Casey a year before, based on the fact that he and Prime were such different people. Though he had come to believe it was wishful thinking alone that differentiated him from Prime. Casey was convinced they were anything but similar.

“What if they’re not?” Henry replied quickly. “If the rapes happened in any other universe on the same days, then this guy did it in those other universes.”

“Fine!” John said. “Damn! What’s she going to do with this? Tip off the police?”

“Yes.”

“But if we cause trouble for some innocent guy…”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure.” An alarm chimed from the desk. Henry checked the clock. It was nearly eleven. “Time for the last shipment of the day.” They wheeled a new platform into place and put the satchels in the center of it. With a minute to spare, the last shipment was ready. The two stepped back and waited. At precisely eleven, there was a snap.

The satchels disappeared and in their place was a woman. Grace hopped down from the platform.

“Hey, John,” she said, and by the tone alone, John knew she was Grace Top.

“Grace, how are you? You have business over here tonight?”

“More like fun,” she said, hugging him. She turned toward Henry and planted a solid kiss on his lips. Henry returned the kiss with vigor, one of his hands squeezing her butt. John had been certain that this had been Henry Home, but perhaps it was Henry Top. It would explain their familiarity. The Henry and Grace of 7651 had formed some sort of relationship, John was certain. Henry tossed the new satchel to John, who rifled through the contents.

“Oh, Grace says to tell you the restraining order has been filed,” Henry said.

“Not that it’ll matter,” John said. Twice they’d seen cars lurking in their parking lot, filled with blond-haired hulks who they could only assume were Alarians or Alarian agents. Grace had called the police the second time, and the police had arrested them before they could flee. The two brutes turned out to be full-time employees of Grauptham House. They’d decided to file a restraining order against the two as well as anyone else associated with Grauptham House.

“Grace was sure no judge would go for it,” Henry said. “But those two assholes wouldn’t even speak. The judge found them in contempt and passed the order.”

“They’ve got nothing left to do but skulk and lay in wait,” John said. “But a court ruling won’t stop them.”

“Okay,” Henry said, looking around at the room. He’d powered down the transfer gate, and everything of value was locked in the safe, a common item in all settled universes. Often shipments were gold or other precious valuables. “Looks like we’re good to go.”

“I’ll drive you over to your house,” John said. His was the only car parked outside the building.

Grace got in the back of the Trans-Am, and Henry took the passenger seat. Pulling onto McMaster Road, John saw a car sitting by the road.

“Kids making out,” John said. “My dad used to chase them off every night.” He sighed, remembering the Rayburns’ deaths in this universe.

Grace reached up and touched his shoulder.

In his rearview mirror, he caught the brake lights of the dark car flaring red. The lights pulled into the driveway to the quarry. John assumed they were turning around. But the headlights didn’t appear after a few moments.

“They turned into the quarry driveway and didn’t come back out.”

“Damn it,” Henry said.

John spun the car around in a three-point turn. He doused his own headlights as he pulled into the driveway. There next to the warehouse was the car.

“Grace, go across the street to my parents’ house and call the police,” John said.

“No way,” she said. “I’m coming.” She pushed Henry out of the way. “Pop the trunk.”

John climbed out, hitting the trunk release. Through the window of the building, a flashlight bounced around inside.

Grace took the tire iron out.

Henry picked up a rock.

John wished he had listened to Casey and bought a gun too.

“Fine, let’s go,” he said.

They ran to the door.

With a shout, they pushed it open and slammed on the lights.

Two black-clad thieves stood next to the transfer gate. One held a camera, the other a flashlight.

Grace ran for them, wielding the tire iron. Henry and John had to run after her.

The two men froze for a second, and then ran.

Grace launched herself at the camera-toting thug, and he fell, tilting at the neck from the weight of a woman dragging him down by the camera strap.

Henry landed on him with his knees first, smashing his nose.

That left the first for John. He ran for the back room, John after him.

He pushed the back fire door open and disappeared into the night. John followed, but stopped short. There were gaping open pits out there, and though he had a good idea where they were, he wasn’t going to run blindly based on that good idea.

He heard feet pounding in the dark, heading directly toward the pit just sixty meters away.

“Look out!” He followed slowly. “There’s quarry pits out there!”

The sound of footsteps ended abruptly, followed by a scream. John followed slowly, and then turned back to the building to fetch a flashlight. He found Henry tying the camera toter with a rope. The camera lay at his side, smashed, the film exposed.

“Grace is on the phone with the police,” Henry said.

“Sure, after she tackles someone she’s willing to call the police, but not before,” John said. He found a flashlight on the hip of the lassoed thug. “I think the other one may be in worse shape.”

John’s light crisscrossed the bare rock. Suddenly, the ground gaped open. The quarry hole was so deep and dark that the flashlight barely illuminated the floor of it. John finally found the mangled body of the thug. His arm moved weakly as he tried to get upright. He’d missed the water, whether for good or bad, and lay in the gravel just a meter away from it, and ten meters down. He’d clearly broken some bones; no normal leg had an angle like that.

“Help is on the way,” John called. “As well as the police, asshole.”

The man screamed incoherent, garbled words in what John had come to recognize as the Alarian language. John considered climbing down and helping him, but he had no desire to scale the rocks in the dark. Let the rescue squad figure out how to get him out of there. He returned back to the transfer building.

“Did you call an ambulance?” John asked Grace.

“No, just the police,” she said. “What did you do to him?”

“Nothing,” John said with a smile. “He fell in the quarry.”

“What an idiot.”

“This one is named Baduela Muthgalic,” Henry said, reading his driver’s license.

“Really?” Grace said. “How do they get driver’s licenses? Do they even have birth certificates?”

“This one may have been born here,” Henry said. “He’s young enough. Or maybe he was banished as a baby.”

“Do they teach you Alarian instead of English?” John asked.

A string of Alarian words erupted from his mouth.

“I should get an Alarian-to-English dictionary,” Henry said.

“How many of you assholes are left on this planet?” John said.

“Fuck you, multiple swine,” he spat.

“Listen, before the police get here and haul your defective asses off,” John said. “Tell Gesalex that I’ll transfer every single last one of you assholes wherever you want to go. Any universe out there. A free one-way ticket. Just to get you guys outta here. The offer still stands.”