"That's a rather odd philosophy for a CEO of a corporation to take," John said.

"You've changed everything, John," she said. "Again."

They finished up for the weekend, without John getting anywhere near the pinball factory. Suddenly it seemed irrelevant. The longer he could avoid Charboric and Visgrath, the better. Unfortunately, when John got home there was a dark SUV in the street in front of his apartment and Charboric was leaning on the rail of his apartment steps smoking a cheroot.

"Good evening, John. Let's talk."

CHAPTER 35 35.

"Charboric."

"If I didn't know how stupid it was, I'd think you were dodging me," he said. He stamped the cheroot out on the cast cement stairs. There were at least half a dozen of the stubs littering the ground.

"It would be stupid, wouldn't it," John said. "But as you know, I have engineering school and a job and a life as well." He opened the door to his apartment, considered for a moment not inviting the man in, then thought better of it. John was keenly aware of the device in his backpack. He let Charboric in in front of him.

"Why do you even bother with the backward physics of this world?" Charboric asked. "It's not even worth knowing."

John shrugged off his backpack. He walked it into the bedroom and laid it carefully on the far side of the bed.

"How long have you been here, Charboric? Fifty years?" Charboric nodded. "How long do you plan to live?" John asked. "I don't rate my chances high of ever leaving."

Charboric eyed John, then nodded again. "You understand something that Visgrath sometimes forgets." Charboric's expression softened, and for a moment John almost felt sorry for him.

"Engineering is a philosophy of science," John said. "Even if the science changes, the process remains the same."

"Indeed," Charboric said. "But we sometimes lack the patience for study."

"Knowledge is power," John said.

"Power is power," Charboric replied.

John shrugged.

After a minute, Charboric added, "Visgrath has explained our situation, has he not?"

"He has."

"We've been trapped here for a long time awaiting rescue-we are not going to debate the benefit of that strategy. In that meantime we have made ourselves as comfortable as possible by exploiting what we know from other... locations."

"Scuba," John said.

"Local law limits the length of time we can exploit our ideas."

"Patents."

"The time frame for patents in this universe is twelve and a half years."

"But you can still market a product after the patent time," John said.

"The most profit occurs in the time of monopoly," Charboric said. "Afterwards we sell the patent and adjunct company. We have little patience for compet.i.tive markets."

"So after decades you're running out of ideas," John said.

"We've accreted a rather extensive entourage beyond the original dozen," Charboric said.

"Thus your interest in pinball."

"We knew it was an extra-universal technology. We of course know how to exploit technology here. The decision to invest was obvious."

"But you don't do compet.i.tive markets," John said.

"It was a strategic decision," Charboric said with a smile and nod toward John. "You've been mainline much more recently than we have. An alliance would allow us to exploit everything else that you might know."

"But I'm not that old," John said. "I don't know that much."

"You'd be surprised. You've been immersed in a highly technological world for your lifetime. There are hundreds of objects-inane in that universe-that are valuable here."

John struggled to come up with some argument. "Yes, but everything was so different there."

Charboric shrugged. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small spiral-bound pad of paper and a pencil. "Carry this with you. Write down anything you think of. Ideas will come to you when you're driving or in the shower or taking a s.h.i.t. Keep this with you. Write down what you remember."

"Uh, okay," John said. He took the pencil and pad. The pencil had teeth marks near the eraser.

Charboric stood up. "We'll talk again in a week. Don't dodge my calls. This is important. I'll expect you to have ten ideas on that list. Ten good ideas."

"Sure."

Charboric paused at the door. "I don't need to remind you how important secrecy is. Your business partners should know nothing of this."

"Of course."

John listened as the car door slammed shut on Charboric's SUV. He looked down at the pad of paper in his hand.

"What the h.e.l.l am I going to do now?"

He opened the pad and wrote: "Rubert's Cube" at the top of the first page.

"What a dumb idea."

He scratched it out.

Henry and John took turns going to cla.s.s the next week. The one not in cla.s.s spent hours hunched over the opened device in the old factory, tracing threads with the voltmeter. Slowly the neural mapping within the marshmallows took form. Grace drew the connections as they went along and John or Henry verified them so that there were no mistakes. If they made one, there was no way to correct it unless they started from scratch.

"I don't understand these at all," John said, staring at the diagram.

"We need an electrical engineer," Grace said.

"Electrical engineering is not till junior year," John said. "We can't wait that long."

"I'll buy the textbooks," she said with a laugh. "They'll be here next week."

They finished another thread. While Grace drew it on their huge sheet of drafting paper, she said, "Casey keeps asking about you."

"What?"

"Casey, remember her? Tall, blond, broke your heart."

"I remember."

"She says you two broke up over a big secret," Grace said. "You wouldn't share."

"Yeah."

"Is it this same secret?"

John sighed. "I guess so."

"Well, the cat's out of the bag on that one," Grace said.

"What do you mean?"

"You can tell her the truth, can't you?"

"Too many people know already!" John said. "It could put you in danger."

"What will happen to her if we build a device and leave?"

"Nothing." John found the next thread within the device. Beside him the Geiger counter clicked a single beat. They kept it nearby in case, but there'd been nothing but background radiation. "Besides, she's probably with Jack." He remembered the sight of her and Jack on Thanksgiving Day, kissing and groping in front of her house.

"She hasn't seen Jack in months! Not since... Thanksgiving. She dumped him on the day before Thanksgiving."

"She did?"

"Yep. Jack was a total a.s.shole."

"I agree with that."

"So go see her," Grace said.

"She's probably dating someone else," John said.

"She's not."

"How do you know? You moved out of the dorm." Grace had moved into an apartment near the factory when she stopped going to cla.s.s.

"I still keep in touch," Grace said defensively. "I still go back for lunch at the cafeteria. It's really good mac and cheese."

John laughed.

"Call her; see her," Grace said. "Talk to her. What can it hurt?"

"Everything."

John said no more, but his mind churned over their last argument, his last view of Casey. Not now, he told himself. It was too complicated, too wrong.

But when he left Henry and Grace to go to Dynamics, he drove past Casey's dorm and parked in the nearest commuter lot. Instead of stopping and calling her from the lobby, he walked on to cla.s.s.

On the way back, after a lecture on rigid body torque, John paused again in front of her dorm. It was nearly five in the afternoon. She was likely to be studying or getting dinner. If he had really wanted to talk with her, he should have stopped by before cla.s.s. Now it was too late.

"I'm an idiot," he whispered to himself, and headed toward his car.

"John?"

He turned. Casey was standing three meters behind him on the sidewalk with two other female students John didn't know. They peered at him curiously.

"Hi, Casey."

"What are...? How are you doing?"

He shrugged. "Busy."

"I hear. Grace keeps me up-to-date, and I read all the newspaper articles."

He was full of words and not sure where to start. The two friends, eyeing him as if he were a toad, didn't help.

"Listen. ..."

"Yeah."

"You want to go to dinner?"

"Casey," one of the women said. "Don't you have-"

"It's okay, Sheryl," she said. To John, she said, "Let's go."