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A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
CHAPTER
1
John’s ears popped as he and Grace transferred from Universe 7651
to Universe 7650.
Grace tossed the duffel bag of weapons and gold onto the
scraped stone ground. She scanned the horizon and then slid the
pistol in her hand into its holster. Grace’s normally frizzy red hair
was tied tightly in a ponytail. In her army fatigues, she looked noth-
ing like the gawky woman John had first met in freshman physics
lab nearly two years ago.
“I’ll go back for Henry,” John said.
She looked at him flatly.
“Sure, I’ll be right here,” she said, as she dragged the duffel out-
side the transfer zone. John couldn’t help feeling guilty for all that
Grace had gone through. If it wasn’t for the transfer device, she
never would have been kidnapped and tortured by Visgrath.
John reached into his shirt and toggled the switch on the trans-
fer device. Instantly he was inside their small warehouse at the stone
quarry in Universe 7651. He swallowed to clear the pressure in his
ears.
“Is Grace, I mean, is everything all right?” Henry said. He sneezed
and wiped his nose with a tissue. “Is it all clear over there?”
John nodded to his friend. He’d met Henry on the same day
he’d met Grace. The three had ended up lab partners in freshman
physics at the University of Toledo, and that partnership had led to
their building a company that manufactured head-to-head pinball
machines, an arcade game that had never existed in Universe 7650.
Unfortunately that anomaly had been what Visgrath had detected.
“All clear.”
8 PAUL MELKO
The quarry was across McMaster Road from Janet and Bill’s
small farm. It was nearly identical to the farm where John had
grown up in Universe 7533, his home universe. This farm had
been a little more run-down than his own, but when he’d come to
stay with the Rayburns, he’d done what he could to fi x the place
up. The Rayburns had become a surrogate family for him, and for
that he was grateful. When he had been tricked out of his life by
his own doppelganger, John Prime, when he found he couldn’t re-
turn home again because the device Prime had given him was
broken, Bill and Janet had taken him in.
They crossed the road and passed through the line of trees that
marked the border of the Rayburn farm, situated at the corner of
McMaster and Gurney roads. A hundred meters in front of them
was the main barn and next to it was the house.
“Car’s here,” John said. “They must be home.” He glanced across
Gurney Road. He couldn’t see the Rayburns’ second barn, where
he had built his own transfer gate. His car would be there, waiting
for him, where he’d left it six weeks earlier. The trees were too full
of green to catch a glimpse of the barn.
John tried the front door, but it was locked. He knocked and
waited.
Grace peered into the front window.
“It’s dark in there,” she said. “You got a key?”
John shrugged. “No,” he said. “But there’s one around back, hang-
ing from a nail.”
“Maybe they took a walk,” Henry said. He looked up and down
Gurney Road.
“Uh-huh,” Grace said.
Henry coughed again, loud in the quiet.
“You all right?” John asked. Henry had been unable to shake the
cold for the last couple days. Now he looked pale and lethargic.
“Yeah, just tired.”
“Yeah,” John agreed. They’d pulled a few all-nighters to get the
transfer gate in 7651 working.
John led them around back. He plucked the key off the nail and
unlocked the back door.
It squeaked as he pushed it open ten centimeters.
10 PAUL MELKO
She pushed Henry through the back door, and then followed.
John took one look at his dead parents and left them. He pulled
the door shut after him, gently setting it tight against the frame.
He didn’t have time to lock it.
They ran from the house toward the orchard. It was the only
direction they could go if they wanted to remain unseen from the
front of the house.
“The tractor,” John said.
It was old and rusted and surrounded by a clump of uncut grass.
Grace slid around it on the wet grass, and Henry awkwardly settled
next to her.
From behind the tractor, John peeked out at the house.
Shadows moved inside. There was no noise.
“Police?” Henry asked.
Grace shook her head. “There’d be warrants and examiners and
ambulances. There’d be bullhorns. That is not the police.”
“Murderers,” John said. Whoever had killed Bill and Janet had
come back.
Grace nodded.
Minutes passed, and John saw no more shadows against the
window nor any other sign of movement in the house. He chanced
moving out from behind the old tractor and ran diagonally toward
the barn. Using it as cover, he peered around toward the front of the
house.
Four men were carry ing the corpses across the road into the
woods.
“What are they doing?” Grace asked.
“Heading toward the other barn,” John said.
“Why?” Henry asked, panting.
“It’s where I built my first transfer gate,” John said. Because his
own transfer device was broken—it only went forward from one
universe to another and never backward—John had had to reverse
engineer the device and build his own in order to go back to Uni-
verse 7533 to recruit John Prime. The original transfer device fit on
John’s chest and moved from universe to universe with the trans-
feree, but the ones the team built were several meters tall and re-
mained in the universe where they were stationed.
12 PAUL MELKO
John had built the transfer gate in the barn and used it to recruit
his own doppelganger, Prime—who had given him the broken
device in the fi rst place and stolen his life— to help him save his
friends. They’d done it, but marooned themselves in Universe 7651,
at least until they had built a transfer device there.
“Hold on,” John said. “They’re armed.” All the Alarians wore pis-
tols, and some of them had rifles. Eight against three wasn’t good
odds, especially since the Alarians probably knew how to shoot.
Grace could shoot too, having spent hours firing her weapons into
the empty quarries for target practice in 7651. But Henry was no
expert shot, and he was sick. No, the odds weren’t good.
“Let’s go back and call the police,” John said.
“And then explain the transfer gate to them how?” Grace asked.
“We can—”
“They’re using it,” Henry said.
Two Alarians stood in the middle of the transfer zone holding
one of the corpses.
“Ready?” someone said in English. A technician stood at the con-
trols of the gate.
One of the Alarians nodded.
“Three. Two. One!”
The two Alarians and the corpse disappeared.
“Six against three,” Grace whispered.
Two more Alarians took the second corpse and stood in the
transfer zone. They disappeared.
“The perfect way to get rid of a body,” Henry said.
John stared at him, momentarily outraged at the cruel statement.
“Sorry,” Henry added.
“Four against three,” Grace said. “Odds are getting better.”
She stood. John grabbed her shoulder and pointed. Two more
Alarians stood in the gate transfer zone.
“Where are they going?” Henry asked.
“Who cares?” Grace said. “Away is fine with me.”
“Let’s go,” John said. He took a shotgun from the duffel, made
sure it was loaded, and stuffed a handful of shells in his front
pocket.
Grace and John ran, heads ducked low, toward the barn door.
14 PAUL MELKO
They were only a few meters away when the first Alarian—the
technician at the controls—noticed them. He looked up, his mouth
an O.
“Freeze,” John said. The man raised his hands.
The second Alarian was talking on a phone. Apparently they’d
had enough time to rig a telephone line into the barn. The second
one turned and looked at John and Grace.
He said into the phone, “They’re back. The vermin are here.”
“Drop the phone,” Grace said.
“Yes, you heard me,” the Alarian continued. He started to say
something in Alarian.
Grace raised the M4 and fired a burst of shots into the wall near
the phone. The Alarian dropped the receiver.
Henry trotted up behind John and Grace, heaving and dragging
the duffel. He wheezed, and then stopped with his hands on his
knees while he coughed.
“Hands behind your heads,” John said. “Do it.”
The second Alarian paused, glaring at him, and then slowly raised
his arms.
“Where do you all think you’re going with my transfer gate?”
John asked. “Must be somewhere special.”
The standing Alarian said something hateful in his own lan-
guage.
Grace grinned, but in no way pleasantly.
“I’m gonna have to learn that language,” she said. “It’s so mellif-
luous.”
“Over here,” John said, motioning to a spot on the other side of
the control panel.
The two Alarians started forward, and then both stopped, look-
ing toward the barn door.
John heard it too, another car coming up the road.
Grace spun and took a spot by the door.
John kept his shotgun pointed at the two.
“Kneel,” he said, but he kept looking out the door of the barn.
“What is it?”
“Another van,” Grace said. “Maybe four more bad guys.”
THE BROKEN UNIVERSE 15
They squatted in the transfer zone and the leader fired covering
slugs at John and Henry. John had no clear shot from his vantage
point behind his car.
They disappeared as the transfer gate triggered.
“Damn,” Henry said.
All of the Alarians in the van except the driver were out now
and firing at them.
Grace slid backward on her belly. She reached into the duffel
and pulled out one of the hand grenades that they’d purchased from
a shady arms dealer in 7651. She pulled the pin and threw it at the
van. It skittered and rolled, disappearing under the van’s front axle.
The driver watched the grenade disappear under his vehicle
with a look of disbelief. He dropped the van into reverse and
backed down the road. His associates, who had been taking cover
behind the van, found themselves in the open. One flopped into
the passenger seat. Another dove into the rear. The last ran into the
woods for cover.
John hid behind his car waiting for the explosion.
“Down!” he yelled at Henry.
Nothing happened.
He peeked from over the hood of his car. Grace met his gaze
from behind the barn door.
“I guess that gun dealer was pulling our legs about the hand
grenades,” she said.
“We paid five hundred dollars for that,” Henry squawked.
“It did its job,” John said. He listened as the tires of the van
screeched as it accelerated onto Gurney Road.
“What do we do now?” Grace said. She nodded at the transfer
gate.
“We take it apart and get it out of here before they come back,”
John said.