Parallelities (10 page)

Max studied the confusion. Most of the zoo visitors had been hustled outside. A small army of cops and medical personnel continued to stream onto the grounds. Their thoughts focused on rampaging chimps, nobody paid the two “twins” the least attention.

“I guess we might as well get out of here. It’ll make a great story.” He started toward a deserted exit gate.

“Sure will.” Mitch sounded equally unenthusiastic. “You write it, I guess, and I’ll do the polish.”

“Oh sure, put all the work off on me!”

“Why not? You’re the one who’s going to get the credit. Remember, in my world I’m absent without leave.”

“Okay. You can have the story.” Max pushed through the revolving gate.

“Fat lot of good it’ll do me. No chimps are going berserk in my L.A.”

“That’s right,” Max realized. “I didn’t think of that.”

Wending their way through the advance guard of emergency vehicles that had assembled outside the main entrance, they circled to the left to avoid the surging crush of nervous, uneasy visitors who had been hustled out of the zoo. Piling into their cars, families and couples honked and beeped at one
another in their haste to get clear of the parking lot. To Max’s relief, his new car was right where he had left it, untouched and safe from the near-panic. The Aurora responded instantly when he thumbed the unlock button on the remote door key entry system.

In fact, all eight of them did.

T
hey were lined up as neatly as in a showroom lot, side by side and facing the same direction. All eight gleamed with the same champagne-gold paint, and displayed the same sharp ding on the passenger’s-side doorframe, an identical pattern of collected dirt, and the same beige upholstery. Three had license plates that differed by one digit. One had a map bag on the backseat. While curious to see what kind of maps it contained, Max was more anxious to flee the increasingly frenetic atmosphere of the zoo parking lot.

Mitch had gone on ahead and was trying doors. Released by Max’s remote, every one of them was open. “I guess we can take any one of them.” He smiled wanly. “They’re all ours.”

“Somewhere, six of us are missing their cars.” Max fingered the door handle of the nearest Aurora. “I’d sure like to leave in my own.”

“Why yours?” Mitch rejoined him. “Why not mine?” Leaning over and peering through a window, he tried to find some small detail that would separate his particular vehicle from the rest. Max joined him in the search.

They were able to eliminate the three cars with the variant license plates plus the one with the map pocket on the backseat. That left four, so identical that they might have been prepped for sequential scenes of automotive destruction by a Hollywood special-effects team.

Mitch slid behind the wheel of the nearest. “I can’t tell any of the others apart. Might as well take this one.”

“I guess that’s okay by me.” Max stood by the door. “Except that I’m driving.”

Mitch smiled up at him. “Of course you are. Aren’t I already in the driver’s seat?”

His counterpart was not amused. “Don’t start. Isn’t everything messed up enough for you as it is?”

Himself stared back up at him. “Are you saying I don’t know the way back to the office?”

“We’re not going back to the office.” Max’s expression was grim. “We’re going out to Boles’s. He said he might have a solution to my—to our problem. You ought to meet him anyway.” A thin smile split his face. “The reality of your presence will lend emphasis to the situation.”

Unable to come up with a counterargument, a reluctant Mitch slid across the seat and allowed Max to take up position behind the wheel. “I’m used to dealing with perpetual motion
fanatics and flat-earthers, but not some freak whose invention actually works.”

“He’s no freak. Actually, he’s a pretty nice guy, for a rich SOB.” Max turned the key in the ignition and the Aurora roared to life. “I could like him, if he hadn’t screwed up my life so badly.”

“Our life,” Mitch corrected him as Max pulled out and headed north.

Utilizing a back service road enabled them to avoid the horn-blaring traffic that was crowding the main entrance to the zoo’s parking lot. There was no one around to challenge the Aurora’s right to use the restricted roadway. Every zoo employee had been called to do battle with the inexplicable outbreak of chimps.

On the way out of Griffith Park, as they were heading for the nearest on-ramp to the Ventura Freeway, the Aurora passed a trio of the energetic primates scampering hell-bent for the hills of the mountainous park. Some unsuspecting hikers were in for an afternoon surprise, Max reflected.

They stayed on the Ventura all the way to Malibu Canyon Road, having no need to cut back through the west side of the city. This being Los Angeles, traffic never entirely disappeared even at midday, but once they were past Topanga it finally began to thin.

They wound through the mountains before heading down the other side toward the gleaming blue Pacific. Since Max
was concentrating on the twisting, ancient road, it was Mitch who let out a start and sat up sharply in his seat.

“Did you see that?” He was staring out the passenger’s-side window.

“See what?” Max slowed, but kept his attention on the pavement.

“Bighorn sheep. A whole damn herd of ’em!”

Max had to grin. “There are no bighorns in Southern California. You know that. Where do you think you are? Colorado?”

“Yeah, I know it.” Mitch settled back in the seat. “But I saw them.”

“You saw ordinary, everyday, domestic sheep. Maybe this bunch was healthier than usual. There are probably several hobby herds around here. Rich folks in these hills keep every-thing from lions to llamas.” He broke off as he concentrated on making a tight curve without stressing the tires.

Mitch glanced over at him. “There’s nothing wrong with our eyes, as you damn well know, and I’m as familiar with the hobby wildlife of Southern California as you are. I’m telling you, they were bighorns.”

“All right, they were bighorns. Let me know when you spot the first grizzly.”

“Don’t worry,” Mitch told him without a flicker of sarcasm. “I will.” He turned his gaze back to the window.

They reached the coast highway without encountering
any oversized bears or any more heavy-horned sheep, by which time even Mitch was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined the noble flock.

They both saw the condor, however.

It approached from behind, soaring over the front of the car, tracking the highway in search of fresh roadkill. His eyes wide, Max leaned forward against the wheel. Alongside him, Mitch did likewise.

There was no question in either man’s mind as to the bird’s identity. Its wingspan was immense, far greater than that of the state’s largest buzzard. When it settled down to roost atop a telephone pole they could clearly see the svelte, hooked beak and domed, featherless skull.

“Watch it!” Mitch yelled.

Max jerked hard on the wheel, bringing them back into the northbound lane from which the Aurora had strayed. The blaring echo of a car traveling in the opposite direction briefly assailed their ears before fading rapidly behind them. Max found he was starting to sweat. So, not surprisingly, was Mitch.

“What’s going on?” his passenger muttered darkly. “What the hell’s happening?”

Max stared forward, his fingers tight on the wheel. “Bighorns and condors. We might see that grizzly yet.” He looked over at himself. “I have a feeling that we’re not where I belong anymore, Mitch. Or you either, judging by your reactions.” He thought long and hard before continuing.

“I wonder if instead of creatures and things slipping from parallel worlds into mine, we’ve gone and slipped into a para world that’s just slightly different from the one you or I are used to. We’re not talking duplicates of existing people or critters anymore, but entirely new stuff. There are no bighorn sheep or condors in the Santa Monica Mountains.” He scrutinized the road, the houses they were passing, the power and telephone lines.

“Everything else is the same, everything’s normal, except that in this slightly different para more of the indigenous wildlife seems to have survived.”

“Wonderful. An entirely new predicament to worry about.” Mitch considered thoughtfully. “If that’s really the case, then it’s a better world than the one you or I live in.”

“Maybe.” Max was hesitant to agree. “If those are the only differences. Actually, there’s only one I’m concerned about.”

“What’s that?”

Max met his double’s gaze. “What if in this parallel world there’s no Barrington Boles? We could be stuck here permanently.”

Mitch sat back in his seat, staring out the window at the pavement ahead. It was the same Pacific Coast Highway that he knew so well, flanked by the same trees, the same fast-food restaurants, the same Malibu-trendy boutiques and shops. The same cars plied the side streets, driven by ordinary citizens intent on the familiar tasks of everyday life. Only in the Aurora
was reality distorted, only in the minds of its passengers had it been displaced.

“Well,” he observed finally, “if that’s the case then at least we know we’ll each have one friend. But I’m not sharing Lisa.”

Max frowned. “Lisa? Lisa Sanchez from down in advertising? You’re dating her?”

“Sure. Aren’t you?”

“I’ve been trying to get her to go out with me for months. She always says she’s too busy.”

“Not for me she isn’t.” Mitch grinned.

“You smug son of a bitch. Tell me: How is she? Do we have a good time?”

“A great time.” Mitch proceeded to explain exactly how. After all, it wasn’t as if he was revealing intimate secrets to a stranger. Or worse, spilling the details to a representative of his own newspaper.

They were almost relaxed when Max noticed that something important had gone missing. Point Dume, to be precise. The small, rocky peninsula, a dominant local landmark, was nowhere to be seen. The Seabreak Motel sat where it belonged, as did the Malibu pier and its attendant restaurant and parking lot, but instead of rolling up against a thrusting cliff, the beach continued northward in a gentle, unbroken line.

Mitch missed the distinctive geological formation as well. It was another indication of how radically different a para they had slipped into. But the highway continued to unwind ahead of them, familiar and unbroken. A sign showed that Trancas
and its attendant beach and community were not far ahead, exactly where they belonged. A peninsula had gone missing. Nothing to get excited about.

“Wish we could lose a few other parts of L.A.” Unable to do anything about the situation in which he found himself, Mitch was doing his best to get into the spirit of things. “There’s a building full of lawyers in Beverly Hills I could do without.”

“Why stop there?” Max was feeling a little light-headed. “Why restrict ourselves to the L.A. basin? Why not wish away Libya, or Iran? If there can be a para where there’s no Point Dume, why not one with no Hussein or Gaddafi?”

“Or no U.S. of A.,” Mitch added. That thought sobered them up fast.

The elite beach community of Trancas looked undisturbed, exactly as Max remembered it from his last visit. He was ready to believe they had slipped back into his own world until he saw the guard booth at the entrance to the gated community wherein dwelled the meddlesome Barrington Boles. The cubicle was painted a soft oceanic blue instead of the bright sunny yellow he remembered. But the guard was the same, as was the road that led to Boles’s hilltop aerie.

“He won’t be surprised to see me,” Max explained as the Aurora ascended after they had been passed on through the barrier, “but
you
ought to give him a start.”

“I hope the bastard faints and hits his head,” Mitch growled.

“He’d better not,” an alarmed Max reproached his double. “We need that head. It’s our only chance of putting things right and returning to normal, to our own worlds.”

He pulled into the circular drive, noting with relief as he did so that the house and grounds were unchanged. Even the flowers and the rest of the landscaping were exactly as he remembered them. Overhead, the sun bathed the surrounding hills in warm, hazy Southern California light. In the distance the Pacific shone deep blue. Under such conditions it was hard to stay angry at anything. A condor went soaring by overhead on vast black wings, reminding them why they were there.

It was with great relief that Max heard Boles’s voice respond over the intercom speaker set into the wall next to the door. When the inventor appeared in the portal a few moments later, the anxious reporter managed to summon a smile.

“Hello, Max. Nice to see you again.”

“Not as nice as it is to see you.”

The inventor frowned. “I don’t understand.” At that moment he caught sight of Mitch, who was standing slightly off to one side. The older man’s jaw dropped slightly but perceptibly. “I didn’t know you had a twin.”

“I don’t.” Max gestured in Mitch’s direction. “But I have a para. As you should know.”

“As I should …?” Boles halted, then stepped back. “I think you’d better come in. Both of you.”

The den was just as Max remembered it. He sat down in a
chair this time, leaving the couch to Mitch and the opposite chair to their host. Boles’s gaze kept shifting from one to the other.

“This is incredible. Simply incredible.”

“Yeah, that’s kind of how we see it.” Mitch helped himself to a handful of cashews from a dish on the big coffee table.

“You’re sure you’re not twins?” the inventor inquired guardedly. “You’re not pulling some kind of elaborate gag on me so you can make a fool of me in your paper?”

“Wasn’t I straight with you when I was here before?” Max looked longingly at the cashews.

“Yes. Yes you were.” Boles still did not sound quite convinced. “But after the failure of the system I couldn’t keep from envisioning the ridicule a publication like yours could heap on me.”

“Excuse me?” Max looked up sharply. “Failure? What failure?”

“The inability of my device to produce the effect I claimed for it, of course.”

It was comfortably warm in the room, just as it had been outside, but that did not prevent a chill cold as a death-creep from running down Max’s spine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Now who’s trying to pull a gag? Your machine worked exactly like you claimed it would. I’m stuck with this field or whatever it is unpredictably and erratically affecting the world around me. Ever since I left here I’ve been running into parallel people, parallel things, and parallel occurrences.”

He gestured at his double, who was munching away happily on the contents of the nut dish.