The Walls of the Universe (2 page)

Farmboy said, "So if you are me, what do I call you?"

"Well, John won't work, will it? Well, it will if there's just the two of us, but as soon as you start adding the infinite number of Johns out there ... how about John Prime?"

"Then who gave you the device?"

"Superprime," John Prime said with a smile. "So do you believe me yet?"

Farmboy was still dubious. "Maybe."

"All right. Here's the last piece of evidence. No use denying this." He pulled up his pant leg to reveal a long white scar, devoid of hair. "Let's see yours," John said, pushing down his panic. The last time he'd tried this, it hadn't been there.

Farmboy looked at the scar, and then pulled his jeans up to the knee. The cold air of the barn drew goose bumps on his calf everywhere except the puckered flesh of his own identical scar.

When John Prime had been twelve, he and Bobby Walder had climbed the barbed wire fence of old Mrs. Jones to swim in her pond. Mrs. Jones had set the dogs on them, and they'd had to run naked across the field, diving over the barbed wire fence. John hadn't quite cleared it.

Bobby had run off, and John had limped home. The cut on his leg had required three dozen stitches and a tetanus shot.

"Now do you believe?" John Prime asked.

John stared at the scar on his leg. "I believe. Hurt like hell, didn't it?"

"Yes," John Prime said with a grin. "Yes, it did, brother."

John sat in the fishbowl — the glass-enclosed room outside the principal's office — ignoring the eyes of his classmates and wondering what the hell John Prime was up to. He'd left his twin in the barn loft with half his lunch and an admonition to stay out of sight.

"Don't worry," he'd said with a smirk. "Meet me at the library after school."

"Don't let anyone see you, all right?"

John Prime had smiled again.

"John?" Principal Gushman stuck his head out of his office. John's stomach dropped; he was never in trouble.

Mr. Gushman had a barrel chest, balding head, and perpetual frown. He motioned John to a chair and sat behind the desk, letting out his breath heavily as he sat. He'd been a major in the Army, people said. He liked to be strict. John had never talked with him in the year he'd been principal.

"John, we have a policy regarding violence and bullying."

John opened his mouth to speak.

"Hold on. Let me finish. The facts of the matter are these. You hit a classmate — a younger classmate — several times in the locker room. He required a trip to the emergency room and stitches." He opened a file on his desk.

"The rules are there for the protection of all students. There can be no violence in the school. There can be no exceptions. Do you understand?"

John stared, then said, "I understand the rule. But — "

"You're a straight-A student, varsity basketball and track. You're well-liked. Destined for a good college. This could be a blemish on your record."

John knew what the word "could" meant. Gushman was about to offer him a way out.

"A citation for violence, as stated in the student handbook, means a three-day suspension and the dropping of any sports activities. You'd be off the basketball and track teams."

John's throat tightened.

"Do you see the gravity of the situation?"

"Yes," John managed to say.

Gushman opened another folder on his desk. "But I recognize this as a special case. So if you write a letter of apology to Mrs. Carson, we'll drop the whole matter." Gushman looked at him, expecting an answer.

John felt cornered. Yes, he had hit Ted, because he was a prick. Ted needed hitting, if anyone did; he had dropped John's clothes in the urinal. He said, "Why does Mrs. Carson want the letter? I didn't hit her. I hit Ted."

"She feels that you showed her disrespect. She wants the letter to address that as well as the violence."

If he just wrote the letter, it would just all go away. But he'd always know that his mother and Mrs. Carson had squashed him. He hated that. He hated any form of defeat. He wanted to tell Gushman he'd take the suspension. He wanted to throw it all in the man's face.

Instead, he said, "I'd like to think about it over the weekend if that's okay."

Mr. Gushman's smile told John that he was sure he'd bent John to his will. John went along with it, smiling back. "Yes. You may. But I need a decision on Monday."

John left for his next class.

John walked past the librarian, his Toledo Meerkats cap low over his face. He didn't want to be recognized as John Rayburn. At least not yet. The reference section was where he expected it to be, which was a relief. If the little things were the same he had hope for the bigger things. He'd tried living in the weird places, but sooner or later something tripped him up and he had to run.

He needed a place like what he remembered, and so far, this place seemed pretty close.

He reached for the almanac. Sure an encyclopedia had more information, but he could be lost in the details for hours. All he needed was a gross comparison.

He ran his finger down the list of presidents, recognizing all of them. He already knew this wasn't a world where Washington served four terms and set a standard for a king-president serving life terms. Turning the page, he found the next twenty presidents to be the same until the last four. Who the hell was Bill Clinton?

The deviation was small, even so. It had to be, he was so tired of running.

John found a quiet table, opened his backpack, and began researching.

The city library was just a couple of blocks from the school. John wandered through the stacks until he found John Prime at the center study desk in a row of three on the third floor. He had a dozen Findlay
Heralds
spread out, as well as a couple of books. His backpack was open, and John saw that it was jammed with paper and folders.

To hide his features, John Prime wore a Toledo Meerkats baseball hat and sunglasses. He pulled off his glasses when he saw John, and said, "You look like crap. What happened to you?"

"Nothing. Now what are you doing? I have to get back to the school by five. There's a game tonight."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." John Prime picked up the history book. "In every universe I've been in, it's always something simple. Here George Bush raised taxes and he never got elected to a second term. Clinton beat him in '91." He opened the history book and pointed to the color panel of American Presidents. "In my world, Bush never backed down on the taxes thing, and the economy took off and he got elected to his second term. He was riding even higher when Hussein was assassinated in the middle of his second term. His son was elected in 1996."

John laughed, "That joker?"

John Prime scowled. "Dubya worked the national debt down to nothing. Unemployment was below 3 percent."

"It's low here too. Clinton did a good job."

John Prime pointed to a newspaper article he had copied. "Whitewater? Drug use? Vince Foster?" He handed the articles to John, then shook his head. "Never mind. It's all pretty much irrelevant anyway. At least we didn't grow up in a world where Nixon was never caught."

"What happened there?"

"The Second Depression usually. Russia and the US never coming to an arms agreement. Those are some totalitarian places." He took the articles back from John. "Are there Post-It notes in this world?"

"Yes. Of course."

John Prime shrugged. "Sometimes there aren't. It's worth a fortune. And so simple." He pulled out his notebook. "I have a hundred of them." He opened his notebook to a picture of the MTV astronaut. "MTV?"

"Yep."

"The World Wide Web?"

"I think so."

"Rubik's Cube?"

"Never heard of it."

John Prime checked the top of the figure with a multi-colored cube. "Ah ha. That's a big money maker."

"It is?"

He turned the page. "Dungeons and Dragons?"

"You mean that game where you pretend to be a wizard?"

"That's the one. How about Lozenos? You got that here?"

"Never heard of it. What is it?"

"Candy. South African diamond mines?"

They worked through a long list of things, about three-quarters of which John had heard of, fads, toys, or inventions.

"This is a good list to work from. Some good money makers on this."

"What are you going to do?" John asked. This was his world, and he didn't like what he suspected John Prime had in mind.

John Prime smiled. "There's money to be made in interdimensional trade."

"Interdimensional trade?"

"Not in actual goods. There's no way I can transport enough stuff to make a profit. Too complicated. But ideas are easy to transport, and what's in the public domain in the last universe is unheard of in the next. Rubik sold one hundred million Cubes. At ten dollars a cube, that's a billion dollars." He lifted up the notebook. "There are two dozen ideas in here that made hundreds of millions of dollars in other worlds."

"So what are you going to do?"

John Prime smiled his arrogant smile. "Not me. We. I need an agent in this world to work the deals. Who better than myself ? The saying goes that you can't be in more than one place at a time. But I can."

"Uh huh."

"And we split it fifty-fifty."

"Uh huh."

"Listen. It's not stealing. These ideas have never been thought of here. The people who invented these things might not even be alive here."

"I never said it was stealing," John said. "I'm just not so sure I believe you still."

John Prime sighed. "So what's got you so down today?"

John said, "I may get suspended from school and kicked off the basketball and track teams."

"What? Why?" John Prime looked genuinely concerned.

"I beat up a kid, Ted Carson. His mother told my mother and the principal. They want me to apologize."

John Prime was angry. "You're not gonna, are you? I know Ted Carson. He's a little shit. In every universe."

"I don't have a choice."

"There's always a choice." John Prime pulled a notebook out of his bag. "Ted Carson, huh? I have something on him."

John looked over his shoulder at the notebook. Each page had a newspaper clipping, words highlighted and notes at the bottom referencing other pages. One title read, "Mayor and Council Members Indicted." The picture showed Mayor Thiessen yelling. Another article was a list of divorces granted. John Prime turned the page and pointed. "Here it is. Ted Carson picked up for torturing a neighbor's cat. Apparently the boy killed a dozen neighborhood animals before getting caught." He glanced at John.

"I've never heard anything about that."

"Then maybe he never got caught here."

"What are we going to do with that?" John asked. He read the article, shaking his head.

"Grease the gears, my brother." He handed John a newspaper listing of recent divorces. "Photocopy this."

"Why?"

"It's the best place to figure out who's sleeping with who. That usually doesn't change from one universe to the next. Speaking of which, how does Casey Nicholson look in this universe?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Is she a dog or a hottie? Half the time she's pregnant in her junior year and living in a trailer park."

"She's a cheerleader," John said.

John Prime glanced at him and smiled. "You like her, don't you? Are we dating her?"

"No!"

"Does she like us?"

"Me! Not us," John said. "And I think so. She smiles at me in class."

"What's not to love about us?" He glanced at his watch. "Time for you to head over to the school, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"I'll meet you at home tonight. See ya."

"Don't talk to anyone," John said. "They'll think it was me. Don't get me in trouble."

"Don't worry. The last thing I want to do is screw up your life here."

"Casey, Casey, Casey," John thought as he watched Johnny Farmboy depart. Casey Cheerleader was the best Casey of all. She smelled so clean. And it was all wasted on Johnny Farmboy.

He had planned on working until the library closed, but the idea of seeing Casey was overwhelming. He halfheartedly perused a few microfiched newspapers, then packed his things up and headed for the school.

Once again he was hit with nostalgia as he walked through the small Findlay downtown. He had spent his entire life in this little town — well, not
this
particular town. For a moment he wanted to run into Maude's Used Books and rummage through the old comic books. But the counter clerk would surely recognize him.
Not yet,
he thought.

The junior varsity team was playing when he reached the high school stadium. He found a seat at the top of the bleacher and made sure his ball cap covered his face. The sun was just dipping below the far end zone, casting long violet shadows as the JV teams — Findlay High was playing Gurion Valley — moved the ball haphazardly up and down the field. Watching the shadows was more interesting.

But then the game was over, and the stands were filling. He recognized faces, year old memories, but still vivid. He shrank down on the bench, pulled up the collar on his ski coat. Then he laughed at himself. Always hiding, always running. Not this time.

The varsity cheerleaders came on the field. He spotted Casey immediately and he felt a spurt of hormones course through him. Across universes he'd come for her, he thought. How was that for a pickup line?

Goddamn, she was beautiful. He stood to get a better look.

"Hey, John!" someone shouted, two rows down.

John looked at him, shocked. He had no idea who he was. A wave of doubt shook him. He'd been gone a year; how much had he missed in that time?

"Hey."

"Shouldn't you be down with the team? I thought you were keeping stats."

"Yeah, I was just going."

John took the bleacher steps two at a time, nearly running. He had things to do before he could gawk at Casey.

After the game John left a copy of the stats with Coach Jessick and then met his father in the parking lot.

"Not a good game for the home team," his father said. He wore his overalls and a John Deere hat. John realized he'd sat in the stands like that, with manure on his shoes. Soft country and western whispered tinnily from the speakers. For a moment he was embarrassed, then he remembered why he'd had to fight Ted Carson.