The Broken Universe (6 page)

“You’ve already said, our head-to-head models are totally different than anything you’ve seen. We’ve made something unique based on the original idea.”

“True.”

“Virgin territory.”

“But who lives over there to sell,” John said. “That takes away from the people working here. If I move to 7651 and handle logistics and sales there, that’s one less person here to help build.”

Grace, Henry, and Casey shared a glance.

“What?” John asked, feeling like the three were plotting against him.

“There’s a Grace over there,” Grace said.

“But we agreed not to disturb ourselves!” John said. When they had first arrived in 7651 in the alternative Columbus, they had all four agreed not to contact their doppelgangers.

“We agreed not to contact them,” Grace said quickly. “We didn’t agree not to look them up.”

“Grace!” John had wanted the Johns, Graces, and Henrys in 7651 to live on in oblivious happiness, without ever being looped into any multidimensional madness.

“Don’t scold me, John Rayburn,” Grace said sharply. “I didn’t call her on the phone and listen to what a normal Grace sounds like, or visit her and watch her with binoculars to see how she laughed, talked, and smiled. I didn’t do that. But I could have.”

“Okay. I’m sorry.”

Their food arrived, and John was left to ponder Grace’s statement. A normal Grace. She thought of herself as broken, as abnormal.

“Who else?” he asked.

“What?”

“Is there a Henry? A John?”

“There was a Henry, but you didn’t exist, as far as I could tell.”

“What about me? Did I exist over there?”

“Sorry, Casey, I didn’t look for you.”

“Oh,” Casey said with a smile. “That’s okay.”

“But we could look.”

“But why?” John said. “Why do you want to get those versions of us mixed up in this?”

“I’d want to know,” Henry said. “All of me would want to know.”

“Me too,” Grace said.

“Really?”

“Yes, we didn’t experience what you did, John,” Grace said. “We only see the good we can have from the device, not the bad.”

“But if something goes wrong—”

“Then we’ll deal with it.”

John was silent. What if they hired Henry-7651 and Grace-7651 to man their transfer gate there? Who else can you trust if not yourself? That hadn’t worked out so well in the case of John Prime.

“Where are they?” John asked.

“University of Toledo,” Grace said, grinning. “Just like here.”

“Do you think they know each other?” Henry asked.

“They must,” Grace said. “We were in all the same classes.”

“But do you think…?” Henry stopped.

Grace gave him a sly look. “Oh, I think so. You are a handsome man in every universe, I’d say.”

Henry blushed and Casey laughed.

For a second they were all silent. John realized he’d been wielding the device like a dictator. Because Prime had done that to him. But these were his friends, his best friends in the universe, or rather universes.

“Okay,” he said. “We do it.”

“Really?”

“It makes sense,” John said. “And it’ll—” He almost said that it would be good for Grace. “And it’ll be smart for business. And safe for the device.”

“Good. When?”

“The sooner the better,” John said. “We need to move some machines.”

“We had an encyclopedia in 7651,” Henry said. “But it was impossible to spot the differences from memory alone. If we could go through an encyclopedia from there and here, side by side, we could spot everything that’s different.”

“Everything that’s exploitable,” Grace said.

“How?” John asked, looking from Henry to Grace. “How are you going to convince them?” He recalled how he had once confronted his one-armed self, ready to steal back his life from some other John. How would they react?

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “Or rather, I have no plan. What better evidence than myself?”

“When?”

“Now.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Fine,” Grace said. “I’ll convince Grace-7651 tomorrow.”

*   *   *

It was raining in both universes. Drizzle collected in the scraped lines on the top of the quarry, forming gray puddles in 7650. John activated his portable device, and the huddled friends were in an identical place, only now the shack they had built around the transfer gate was there.

Same rain, same water molecules falling on them for all John knew.

He let go of Grace and Henry.

“We’re here.”

“Wow,” Henry said. “I never get used to that.” He turned toward the shack, unlocked the door, and went inside.

Grace stood for a moment, peering out over the bright blue water-filled quarry. No plants grew, driven away by whatever leached from the walls of stone into the collected water. Then she followed Henry.

John saw that the transfer gate was undisturbed, as was their small cache of 7651 money in a strongbox on the floor. They had selected the quarry because it was near John’s house, near Toledo, and in a stable, isolated area. They had managed to lease the land for twelve months in 7651 for next to nothing.

John opened the strongbox.

“Two thousand one hundred and some change,” he said. As far as they could tell, exchange rates between 7650 and 7651 were pretty even. A dollar there seemed worth a dollar here.

“All clear here,” Henry said. “Let’s go.”

They had rented a generic white van in 7651, after procuring fake driver’s licenses. It had been amazingly easy to find someone who could provide the documents for a price. How much scrutiny they could withstand, John didn’t know, so he drove the speed limit and no more as they traveled to Grace’s hometown of Akron. It was summer break, and Grace was certain Grace-7651 would be home working a low-paying job at the local Dairy-D-Lish.

“Dairy-D-Lish?” John asked. “That’s a little different than being CEO of a small company.”

“I didn’t have a whole lot of options,” Grace said. “And we do get free ice cream.”

“Oh, fringe benefits.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. She was sitting next to John as he drove, looking off at the Ohio scenery. Her leg kicked faster than the rock music on the radio.

“You nervous?” John asked.

Grace shrugged, looking down at her leg, as if it had betrayed her. “I guess so. I hope she likes me.”

“You think she won’t?”

“You remember how I was as a freshman,” Grace said. “Shrill.”

“Shrill,” John said at the same time.

“Yeah, shrill. Maybe she won’t have matured and will see me differently than I see her.”

John was silent for a mile or two. Then he said, “Why are we really doing this, Grace?”

“Oh,” she said. She smiled gently. “For all the reasons I said, but also because it’s therapy for me. I want to see what I was, you know. What I used to be.”

“You think it’ll help?”

“Who knows.” She glanced back at Henry, asleep in the back. “I’m treating him horribly, you know. I’m sharp with him, distant. I do things on purpose to push him away.”

“He loves you so much he blames himself for everything that’s happened.”

“Love-struck boys,” Grace said. “He needs to find a hobby other than me for six months. Not leave or anything, but stop obsessing.”

“I don’t think he knows how.”

“It’s always Casey and you in every universe, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” John said quickly, unsure where Grace was heading.

“You were my first choice,” Grace said. “But you were love-struck too. Only Casey exists for you. And I’m just some gawk.”

“Grace!”

“Some shrill gawk, who is always quoting dumb movies, not knowing how to act socially.”

“You’re someone a little different than that now,” John said.

“Yeah, I guess so,” she said. “We’ll see in a couple hours how different I am.”

*   *   *

Grace’s house was in an older suburb of Akron, full of split-levels on medium-sized lots with huge trees in the backyards filled with trampolines and aboveground pools.

“There it is,” Grace said. “That one.”

John pulled the van to a stop in front of a yellow house. A station wagon sat in the driveway.

“Looks the same,” she added.

“You gonna go knock?” Henry asked.

“And what if my—her—parents answer?” Grace said. “How do I explain that?”

“I’ll go then,” Henry said.

“And if she recognizes you from school? How will you explain that?” Grace said.

“That just leaves John,” Henry said.

“Me?”

“You don’t even exist in this universe,” Grace replied.

“And what do I tell her?” John asked.

“The truth,” Grace said. “Just get her out to the van where we can talk in private.”

“Okay,” John said, breathing deeply. “Let’s give this a try.” He got out of the van and walked across the dandelion-covered lawn.

The doorbell was out of tune. He heard a dog yap somewhere in the house, then a woman appeared, wiping her hands on an apron.

“Yes, can I help you?”

“Hi, Mrs. Shisler?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“My name is John,” he said. “I’m a … friend of Grace’s from college. Is she around?”

“Oh, a friend from college.” Mrs. Shisler peered around John at the van out front. Grace had ducked low, but Henry was there looking out the window. “Is that Henry too? I didn’t know he was coming to visit.” She called out, “Hello, Henry!”

“Hello, Mrs. Shisler.”

“Uh, yeah, road trip,” said John.

“Well, you’ve missed her,” Mrs. Shisler said. “Grace is at the Dairy-D-Lish.”

“Oh, where is that?”

“Just take Long to Wilson and turn right at Main. You can’t miss it. Oh, she’ll be so happy to see you!”

“I bet,” John said. “Thanks.”

John climbed into the van. Grace was huddled in the well of the passenger’s seat.

“That was my mom,” she said. “My doppelmom.”

“Uh-huh,” John said. “You’re at the Dairy-D-Lish.”

“Oh, the Dairy-D-Lish,” Grace said. “That bastion of the swirly cone. I’ve worked there every summer since I was fourteen, mostly because I could bike there.”

“Oh,” John said. “Your doppelmom knew Henry.”

“Then Grace and Henry here know each other,” Henry said excitedly.

“Enough that she brought Henry home at least once,” John said.

“Or, she met him at the university, because he’s some creep who’s always hanging around Grace,” Grace said.

“Hey!” Henry cried. “I’m a nice creep!”

“Indeed.”

The Dairy-D-Lish was packed. A line of six people stood in front of each of the two windows. John parked the van in the last spot in the lot, and they tried to peer through the windshield into the shop.

“I can’t see anything through the mesh,” Henry said.

“Keeps the flies out,” Grace said. “But not the heat.”

“We’re not going to be able to talk to her with all those people around,” John said.

“Not till after eight, which is when she gets off,” Grace said. “If I know her schedule.”

“I guess we wait,” Henry said.

“Go get us each a swirly cone,” Grace said to John. “She won’t know you.”

“Right.”

He spied Grace-7651 through the front glass, working the line to the right, so he edged into that line though it was longer. She looked the same, same smile, same laugh.

Of course she was the same. As similar as he and John Prime. More identical than identical twins. Twins had the same genetic makeup but different environments, no matter how closely you dressed them. This Grace and their Grace had lived the same life through high school. Closer than twins.

“I’ll have three swirly cones,” he said to her.

“Three swirly cones coming up,” she said. “You want chocolate and vanilla or vanilla and chocolate?”

“Uh.”

“Just kidding,” she said with a donkey laugh. “It’s the same swirl either way!”

“I’ll take three with double chocolate and double vanilla.”

She paused then screeched another laugh. “That’s funny. Coming right up.”

“Thanks, Grace,” he said, then paused. Was she wearing a name tag? He looked. No. Oops.

“No problemo…” She paused. “Do I know you?”

“Um, I was a couple years ahead of you in high school,” John said. “You know. Small town.”

“Sure, yeah.”

John hurried away, but felt her eyes on him the whole way.

“Well, she didn’t know me.”

“She’s in there for sure?” Grace asked.

“Yep. It’s you … or rather her. It’s Grace.”

“She’s the same?”

“Kinda shrill, yeah.”

“Oh.”

The three ate their swirlies in silence.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” Grace said. “Maybe you’re right and we should let this all go. No need to get this Grace wrapped up in all this—”

The back door opened and Grace-7651 walked out. She looked right at John, without looking at Grace.

“Hey, you forgot your change,” Grace-7651 said. “Three swirly cones, right?”

She walked right up to the window, holding out the two dollar bills and the handful of coins. Her eyes traveled across John’s face to Grace’s.

“Hi,” Grace-7650 said to Grace-7651. “I’m Grace.”

CHAPTER
6

John expected fireworks. He expected disbelief. Maybe anger. Something other than enthusiastic acceptance. Perhaps he just needed to face the fact that he was a pessimist.

The Graces became fast friends and fell in with one another in a truncated form of English that left Henry and John out.

“Pinball?”

“Yeah, arcade-style game with flippers and a ball.”

“Never heard of it. Why?”

“Big market. Fun to play.”

“Oh, I see.”

“You want in?”

“Yeah.”

Grace-7651 had finished her shift—only half an hour more—and run out to the van afterward. The two had sat in the back while Grace-7650 explained it all to Grace-7651. She had no problem believing.

“This went better than I expected,” John said.

Henry gazed at Grace-7651. “Isn’t she amazing?”

“Uh.”

“Your Henry?” Grace-7651 asked.

“Yeah. Yours?”

“Yeah. Like Steve Ciaratha.”

Grace-7650 giggled.

“What does that mean?” Henry asked.

Grace-7651 smiled. “Steve had braces. He slobbered a lot when he kissed.”