He pulled his jacket off, turned it inside out, and walked away. What more could he do?

He'd brought them to a universe where food was plentiful. Sure, he'd ripped them out of their home universe. But there was no one there for them. It was better for them in this next universe, John was certain, though he had no idea what this universe was like. It seemed close enough to his own. There would be Welfare and services for the two. They would survive. He'd helped them.

John Prime had done the same thing to him, he realized. Guilt and anger knotted his stomach. He'd saved their lives, d.a.m.n it! He hadn't kidnapped them. He'd saved them. It was nothing like what Prime had done to him.

The ambulance pulled up and two EMTs began working on the woman. Moments later a university police car arrived.

John continued walking. He needed someplace to clean up. Ahead of him was the field house. He a.s.sumed it would have a locker room. Maybe he could fake his way in as he had at the Physics Library in the earlier universe. His shirt and jacket were soaked in blood. His shoes were soaked with melted snow and squeaked as he walked.

The field house was an old building adjacent to the quad he had walked through to get to the Student Union. McCormick Hall was there; he saw the telescope observatory rising above the other buildings.

There was no one barring his way into the locker room, so he slipped in and found the showers. There were a couple guys changing clothes, but no one noticed him.

John stripped down and hung the device on a hook in the shower alcove. Then he wrung out his shirt and coat. Red swirls circled the drain and disappeared. He used his hands to wash the streaks of blood off the shower curtain.

Afterwards, he dried his clothes as best he could on the hand drier. He would have preferred a washing machine, but at least the blood was gone. As he leaned against the hand drier, he wondered what would happen with the woman and her daughter. He hoped that they would, if not understand, at least cope with being in another universe. Just like he was doing.

As he walked across the quad from the field house to McCormick Hall, John was taken aback by the juxtaposition of this same gra.s.s field with the one in the other universe. The trees weren't gnarled and hideous here; they still held a bouquet of colorful leaves, as students flung Frisbees or lounged around, on one of the last warm days of the year. Some of the students were even wearing shorts, and John compared these well-fed, fleshy children to the boney, malnourished people of the last universe. There the clouds roiled; here the sun shined.

He decided not to feel guilty about bringing the woman and her daughter here. If he could, he thought, he'd bring everyone from that universe here. The inhabitants of that universe thought they had to live with the world as it was, but they didn't. Here was a universe with food to spare. Did they realize that salvation and plenty was in the universe next door? If he had a device that was large enough, one that worked right, he could transfer thousands of people through.

A large enough device, he thought. If he had a device that worked, he'd get himself home. He looked for the physics building. He had what he needed to confront Wilson now.

CHAPTER 10

McCormick Hall looked identical. In fact, the same student guarded the door of the Physics Library, asked John the same question.

"Student ID?"

"I left it in my dorm room," John replied without hesitation.

"Well, bring it next time, frosh."

John smiled at him. "Don't call me frosh again, geek."

The student blinked at him, dismayed.

His visit with Professor Wilson had not been a total loss. Wilson had mentioned the subject that he should have searched for instead of parallel universe. He had said that the field of study was called quantum cosmology.

Cosmology, John knew, was the study of the origin of the universe. Quantum theory, however, was applied to individual particles, such as atoms and electrons. It was a statistical way to model those particles. Quantum cosmology, John figured, was a statistical way to model the universe. Not just one universe either, John hoped, but all universes.

He sat down at a terminal. This time there were thirty hits. He printed the list and began combing the stacks.

Half of the books were summaries of colloquia or workshops. The papers were riddled with equations, and all of them a.s.sumed an advanced understanding of the subject matter. John had no basis to understand any of the math.

In the front matter of one of the books was a quote from a physicist regarding a theory called the Many-Worlds Theory: "When a quantum transition occurs, an irreversible one, which is happening in our universe at nearly an infinite rate, a new universe branches off from that transition in which the transition did not occur. Our universe is just a single one of a myriad copies, each slightly different than the others."

John felt an affinity for the quote immediately. He had seen other universes in which small changes had resulted in totally different futures, such as Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the electric motor. It almost made sense then that every universe John visited was one of billions in which some quantum event or decision occurred differently.

He shut the book. He thought he had enough to ask his questions of Wilson now.

The second-floor hallway seemed identical, right down to the empty offices and cluttered billboards. Professor Wilson's office was again at the end of the hall, and he was there, reading a journal. John wondered if it was the same one.

"Come on in," Wilson said at John's knock.

"I have a couple questions."

"About the homework set?"

"No, this is unrelated. It's about quantum cosmology."

Wilson put his journal down and nodded. "A complex subject. What's your question?"

"Do you agree with the Many-Worlds Theory?" John asked.

"No."

John waited, unsure what to make of the single-syllable answer. Then he said, "Uh, no?"

"No. It's hogwash in my opinion. What's your interest in it? Are you one of my students?" Wilson sported the same gray jacket over the same blue oxford.

"You don't believe in multiple universes as an explanation... for..." John was at a loss again. He didn't know as much as he thought he knew. He still couldn't ask the right questions.

"For quantum theory?" asked Wilson. "No. It's not necessary. Do you know Occam's Theory?"

John nodded.

"Which is simpler? One universe that moves under statistical laws at the quantum level or an infinite number of universes, each stemming from every random event? How many universes have you seen?"

John began to answer the rhetorical question.

"One," said Wilson before John could open his mouth. Wilson looked John up and down. "Are you a student here?"

"Uh, no. I'm in high school," John admitted.

"I see. This is really pretty advanced stuff, young man. Graduate-level stuff. Have you had calculus?"

"Just half a semester."

"Let me try to explain it another way." He picked up a paperweight off his desk, a rock with eyes and mouth painted on it. "I am going to make a decision to drop this rock between now and ten seconds from now." He paused, then dropped the rock after perhaps seven seconds. "A random process. In ten other universes, a.s.suming for simplicity that I could only drop the rock at integer seconds and not fractional seconds, I dropped the rock at each of the seconds from one to ten. I made ten universes by generating a random event. By the Many-Worlds Theory, they all exist. The question is, where did all the matter and energy come from to build ten new universes just like that?" He snapped his fingers. "Now extrapolate to the nearly infinite number of quantum transitions happening on the Earth this second. How much energy is required to build all those universes? Where does it come from? Clearly the Many-Worlds Theory is absurd."

John shook his head, trying to understand the idea. He couldn't refute Wilson's argument. He realized how little he really knew. He said, "But what if multiple worlds did exist? Could you travel between the worlds?"

"You can't; you won't, not even remotely possible."

"But-"

"It can't happen, even if the theory were true."

"Then the theory is wrong," John said to himself.

"I told you it was wrong. There are no parallel universes."

John felt the frustration growing in him. "But I know there are. I've seen them."

"I'd say your observations were manipulated or you saw something that you interpreted incorrectly."

"Don't condescend to me again!" John shouted.

Wilson looked at him calmly, then stood.

"Get out of this office, and I suggest you get off this campus right now. I recommend that you seek medical attention immediately," Wilson said coldly.

John's frustration turned to rage. Wilson was no different here than in the last universe. He a.s.sumed John was wrong because he acted like a hick, a farm boy. He was certain John knew nothing that he didn't already know.

John flung himself at the man. Wilson's papers scattered across his chest and onto the floor. John grabbed at Wilson's jacket from across the desk and yelled into his face, "I'll prove it to you, G.o.dd.a.m.n it! I'll prove it."

"Get off me!" Wilson yelled, and pushed John away. Wilson lost his balance when John's grip on his jacket slipped and he fell on the floor against his chair. "You maniac!"

His breathing coming hard, John stood across from the desk from him. John needed proof. His eyes saw the diploma on the wall of Wilson's office. He grabbed it and ran out of the office. If he couldn't convince this Wilson, he'd convince the next. He found an alcove beside the building and transferred out.

John stood clutching Wilson's diploma to his chest, his heart still thumping from the confrontation. Suddenly he felt silly. He'd attacked the man and stolen his diploma to prove to another version of him that John wasn't a wacko.

He looked across the quad. He watched a boy catch a Frisbee, and then saw juxtaposed the images of him tripping and not catching it, just missing it to the left, to the right, a million permutations. Everything in the quad was suddenly a blur.

He shook his head, then lifted the diploma so that he could read it. He'd try again, and this time he'd try the direct approach.

John climbed the steps to Wilson's office and knocked.

"Come on in."

"I have a problem."

Wilson nodded and asked, "How can I help?"

"I've visited you three times. Twice before you wouldn't believe me," John said.

"I don't think I've ever seen you before," he said. "You're not one of my students, are you?"

"No, I'm not. We've never met, but I've met versions of you."

"Really."

"Don't patronize me! You do that every f-" John stopped himself, then continued slowly. "You do that every time, and I've had enough." His arms were shaking. "I don't belong in this universe. I belong in another. Do you understand?"

Wilson's face was emotionless, still. "No, please explain."

"I was tricked into using a device. I was tricked by another version of myself because he wanted my life. He told me I could get back, but the device either doesn't work right or only goes in one direction. I want to get back to my universe, and I need help."

Wilson nodded. "Why don't you sit down?"

John nodded, tears welling in his eyes. He'd finally gotten through to Wilson.

"So you've tried talking with me-other versions of me-in other universes and I won't help. Why not?"

"We start by discussing parallel universes or quantum cosmology or Multi-Worlds Theory, and you end up shooting it all down with Occam's razor."

"Sounds like something I'd say," Wilson said, nodding. "So you have a device."

"Yeah. It's here." John pointed to his chest, then unb.u.t.toned his shirt.

Wilson looked at the device gravely. "What's that in your hand?"

John glanced down at the diploma. "It's... your diploma from the last universe. I sorta took it for proof."

Wilson held out his hand, and John handed the diploma over. There was an identical one on the wall. The professor glanced from one to the other. "Uh-huh," he said, then after a moment, "I see."

He put the diploma down and said, "My middle name is Lawrence."

John saw that the script of the diploma he'd stolen said "Frank B. Wilson" while the one on the wall said "Frank L. Wilson."

"I guess it's just a difference-"

"Who put you up to this? Was it Greene? This is just the sort of thing he'd put together."

Anguish washed over John. "No! This is all real."

"That device strapped to your chest. Now that's cla.s.sic. And the diploma. Nice touch."

"Really. This is no hoax."

"Enough already. I'm on to you. Is Greene in the hall?" Wilson called through the door, "You can come out now, Charles. I'm on to you."

"There is no Charles. There is no Greene," John said quietly.

"And you must be from the drama department, because you are good. Two more copies of me! As if the universe can handle one."

John stood up and walked out of the office, his body suddenly too heavy.

"Don't forget the shingle," Wilson called, holding up the diploma. John shrugged and continued walking down the hall.