The Broken Universe (44 page)

Prime turned at words behind him.

Two of Charboric’s aides had come after him for some reason. They were aiming guns at him.

Prime slung Charboric over his shoulder and transferred the two of them to Universe 9000.

*   *   *

Prime cuffed Charboric and left him next to a fire hydrant while he went in search of a vehicle. He found an SUV that started in a garage not too far away.

Charboric was awake when he returned.

“John Rayburn, you useless dup—”

John aimed an elbow at Charboric’s chin.

“Just shut up.”

He dragged Charboric’s limp body into the passenger’s seat. He undid the cuffs and recuffed him to the handhold above the passenger’s window.

John drove toward his camp just north of Findlay.

Charboric shook himself awake after a few minutes. He didn’t speak again, just looked out the window.

Prime felt the man’s tension grow.

“Where is this?” he cried finally. “Where are we?”

Prime glanced at him.

“9000.”

“There are no people here,” he said.

“Everyone is dead here.”

“Plague world!” Charboric lunged at him. “What have you done, you idiot?”

Only the cuffs kept him from knocking into Prime.

Prime slammed on the brakes. Charboric danced like a puppet on his cuffed arms. Prime pulled the taser off his belt.

“We’re here, we’ll be fine. I’ve spent days here and I’m fine. No plague.”

Charboric frothed and lunged at him again. His face was wild and unrecognizable. Prime tasered him again.

John Prime tied him to a tree at the camp and then drove to the quarry where he transferred through to Universe 2219 and from there transferred himself with the portable gate to Home Office.

“Did you find them?” Grace Home cried when he appeared.

“I found their camp,” Prime replied.

“You were gone a long time! We almost came through to get you.”

“It’s too well armed,” Prime said. “We’ll have to think of a good plan.”

“What can we do?”

John Prime thought quickly. “I can go back at night, with night-vision goggles, kidnap one of their guys and get some answers.”

“How heavily guarded is it?”

“They have guns, lotsa guns, vehicles, Jeeps, machine guns.”

“Sheesh,” Henry Top said. “This may be a dead end.”

“Not yet, Henry, not yet,” Prime said. “We gotta try for John’s sake.”

*   *   *

Prime said he was going to take a nap until that evening. Then he jumped to 9000 and drove back to the campsite.

Charboric was unconscious. His hands were purple where the cuffs had dug into his wrists. Prime let him down, dragged him into his tent, and recuffed him to a cot. Prime started a space heater.

Charboric’s forehead was hot to the touch, feverish. His tongue looked swollen.

“Shit!” Prime said. He couldn’t be sick. The plague had died out with the humans. This universe was fine. Prime hadn’t caught a thing!

Charboric’s eyes fluttered open. He said something in Alarian.

Prime got water and held it to his face.

Charboric’s expression focused and he stared at Prime.

“You’ve killed me.”

“I’m fine, why are you sick? It’s all psychosomatic.”

Charboric barked a laugh, and in seeming response vomited over the side of the cot. His body was so contorted and violent that he turned the camping bed over. He choked and vomited and then lay still.

“Why … why did you come for me? Revenge? If so, well done. Well done.”

“No, we need— we need information,” Prime said. Doubt was eating at his bravado. His confidence was draining away as it became clear that Charboric was infected with something.

Charboric laughed again.

“Information! You fool! Fools! All of you in every universe!”

“The Vig found us.”

Charboric’s laughter died.

“Of course. Of course. It was just a matter of time.”

“Where are they from?”

Charboric laughed until he began vomiting again. This time there were flecks of blood in the green bile.

“You’re going to take them on?” Charboric said. “You’re going head-to-head with the Vig?”

“Yes.”

“Teiwaz!”

“You don’t even know.”

“I know! Everyone knows, but you. You killed me for something every goddamn person who’s anyone knows! But it won’t do you any good. None at all.”

“Then tell me.”

“I’ll tell you,” Charboric said. “I’ll tell you because then I’ll die knowing you will die too.”

“So you think.”

He laughed.

“Universe 0010, John Rayburn. You’ll find the Vig in Universe 0010.”

An hour later Charboric was dead.

*   *   *

Prime burned the body and covered it in a shallow ditch. He returned to 7650 and lied to his friends and colleagues, even his wife. As he did so, as he fabricated a desperate offensive against the Alarians, he wondered why he felt no qualms, no remorse for what he did. All to protect the device. His device.

He transferred to 2219 and waited two hours in the brush before returning himself and all their supplies to 7650. He sat there in the cold, pretending to raid the Alarian camp. Instead he just counted the minutes until two hours were up and then he transferred back to 7650.

“Universe 0010,” Prime said.

“0010?”

“Yes, Charboric told me himself. Universe 0010.”

“How do you know he wasn’t lying?” Grace Home asked. “You should have brought him back.”

“No. I had a gun to his head. He begged for his life, and I gave it to him in exchange for the information,” Prime said.

“He could have still told you what you wanted to hear,” Grace Home said.

“He didn’t. I know it’s true.”

“We can check it out anyway,” Henry Top said. “We’ll send probes through.”

“We’ll need weapons,” John Prime said. “Weapons as strong as theirs.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need nukes.”

“Pinball Wizards, Transdimensional, has a lot of money, but we can’t buy nuclear weapons,” Grace Home cried. “Besides, that’s insane.”

“We don’t have to use it on them, we just have to prove we have the weapons,” Prime said.

John Case said, “They nuked us. We should do the same to them.”

“No!” Grace Home said. “We will not nuke our enemy! We don’t even have nuclear weapons!”

“I do.”

Everyone looked at John Prime.

“You what?” Grace Home said.

“Universe 9000 is empty, but all the infrastructure is there. Including nuclear weapons, missile subs, bombers, anything.”

“How did you … how could you know?” Grace Home said.

Prime glanced at his Casey, who looked back at him with an unreadable expression.

“I knew about it before. But I went recently,” he said. “To check it out. It’s all there, for the taking.”

“How could you—” Grace Home started, but John Gore interrupted.

“We know where they are and we have the weapons to get their attention,” he said. “I say we show them we’re not going to lie down. We nuke them and demand John back.”

Johns and Henrys cheered, while Graces frowned. Caseys shared glances. But the sentiment toward using the weapons against the enemy was strong, strong enough to carry a vote. The Pinball Wizards were going to be a nuclear power.

CHAPTER
38

John Prime flew to Amarillo on the corporate jet.

“I didn’t know we had a corporate jet,” he said to Grace Home as he, she, and Henry Top took off from Toledo’s airport.

“Largesse and extravagance of the last administration,” she said. “We’re taking care of the obvious items.”

“But a jet is useful,” Prime said.

Grace shrugged. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“No idea,” Prime said.

“I’m serious.”

He opened his briefcase. “This is the manual I took from the army base in Columbus. It covers everything I need to know.”

“Have you read it?”

“Three times.”

“We’ll expect you in three days.”

“It’s only a twenty-hour drive,” Prime said.

“Yes, I don’t want you falling asleep with a nuclear bomb in your trunk,” Grace said. “And you’ll need a day to find the damned things.”

Prime looked at Grace. She’d taken the vote well, but it was clear she wanted nothing to do with the nuclear devices.

“This is the best way to show them we mean business,” Prime said. “They nuked us first!”

“I know they did,” Grace said. “But do we have to strike back with the same force?”

“We’re not trying to kill any of them. We’re just showing we can.”

“Fine.”

“Henry is going to find us a clear spot.”

“He will,” she said. The Henrys were building robotic scouts to examine Universe 0010 for an unpopulated area. Prime hoped that the Vig had no defense mechanisms such as Universe 1214 did. “And we’ll have the demand note ready for release too.”

“Okay.”

“You sure you don’t want help with this?”

“If 9000 is a plague world, I don’t want to risk the chance someone else might get infected.”

“You didn’t.”

“Maybe I have some immunity.”

“Then we send another John.”

“Maybe one of the universes I visited gave me the immunity.”

“Maybe.”

*   *   *

From the airport, Grace and Prime headed directly to the Pantex site in Home Office, while Henry drove to the warehouse they had rented.

“We have a site tour just before noon,” Grace said. “Did you study the material? They won’t let you on-site if you don’t pass the safety test.”

“Yeah, I read it.”

“Good.”

The limo let them off in the parking lot in front of a cement-block visitor center. The lot was half full with cars. Prime and Grace were escorted to an overly-lit room where they were given a number-two pencil, an answer sheet, and a set of fifty questions. Prime hadn’t read the material, but by guessing the most reasonable answer possible, he managed to outscore Grace by five points.

The tour was led by an army sergeant, who loaded them onto a bus and trekked them across the brown earth from one end of the site to the other.

The spiel he recited seemed geared toward the concept of nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, not the creation and storage of them, which is what Prime and Grace were interested in. Prime noticed that the bus seemed to avoid certain areas, including several widely-spaced concrete hangars.

He asked, “Sergeant, what’s in those buildings there?”

“Those are assembly sites, sir,” he replied.

When he didn’t add anything more, Prime said, “And what is done there?”

“We disassemble nuclear devices at those locations, sir.”

“And assemble them?”

“When necessary. With current disarmament treaties, we spend far more time disassembling than assembling, sir.”

“And what about storage? Where do you store the backpack nukes?”

“The what, sir?”

“The SADM portable nuclear devices, Sergeant,” Prime said.

“I can’t discuss those, sir. I’m sorry,” he said, and that was the end of that conversation.

When they were done with the tour, however, they were caught from behind by a captain, who motioned them into a smaller room.

“May I speak with you briefly?” he asked.

“Of course,” Grace said.

“I must ask if you are with the press,” he said curtly.

“We are not,” Grace said. “I’m Grace Shisler, president and CEO of Grauptham House. Mr. Rayburn is a senior vice president in the research and development division.”

“Ah, the personal computer people. And how did you come to learn of the SADM program?”

“We do have government contracts, Captain,” Grace said.

“Is that why you’re here? To look for contract work?”

“It is. We’re interested in providing on-site vendor-managed services in safety, security, and maintenance.”

“You’re the CEO?” he asked, nodding at Grace.

“Yes.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

He left, and Prime said, “What do you think that all meant?”

“We’re a company with a female CEO. We match some criteria for contract work,” Grace said.

“Is that it? We get a pass because you’re a woman,” Prime said. “Awesome.”

“We’ll see what it gets us.”

He came back a few minutes later.

“Since you’re here now, I’ve been authorized to give you the real tour. Afterwards, you can meet with one of our procurement officers. If you’re inclined to bid on some of our open subcontracts, we’d greatly appreciate it.”

*   *   *

In the end, they received a tour of the SADM facility, even coming within a few meters of one of the nukes, though it was behind a Plexiglas wall. Prime made mental notes of locations so that he could find his way back here.

“We could probably help them quite a bit, actually,” Grace said in the limo on the way back. “Their security could use some advances.”

“Sure, let’s diversify even more,” Prime said.

“You don’t think it’s worth it?”

“What profit margin would we have on this compared to a technology such as personal computers?”

“It could still be worth doing,” she said.

They arrived at the warehouse. Inside Henry had assembled a transfer gate.

“This building is old,” he said. “So it probably exists on the other side.”

“You got everything you need?” Grace asked.

“Yeah, of course,” Prime said.

“You sure you don’t want company?”

“I’m sure.”

She looked at him. “You kept this from us,” she said.

Prime met her gaze. “I did.”

“What do you do there? What use is an empty world?”

Prime shrugged. “Art.”

Grace snorted.

“Three days. Then we’re coming to get you.”

“Three days.”

*   *   *

The warehouse was dark in 9000. John Prime flicked on his flashlight and played it across the walls. Empty, utterly empty.

He listened. Nothing but the Panhandle wind. Prime wasn’t perfectly certain Universe 9000 was empty. He’d not picked up any shortwave signals, nor had he found any trace at all of another living person. But his survey had consisted only of parts of Ohio. Perhaps Amarillo, Texas, was the last bastion of humanity in the otherwise plague-ridden universe.