It felt to Prospero like all of it had been done. Like Stark and his Gestapo no longer cared what they did.
It took a long time before the lights came back on inside his head. He was not in the infirmary, not in a local hospital. He was in one of the big communal showers. Fully dressed, soaked, wrapped in those towels.
“Jeezz-us,” said a voice. “I thought I was going to lose you for a while. You look like shit.”
Prospero turned his head very slowly and carefully. The lights were low and the locker room was empty except for him and Leviticus King. The other boy sat cross-legged on the floor beside him, elbows propped on his knees, the neck of a Coke bottle dangling from between his index and forefinger.
“How… how bad is it?” asked Prospero, his voice thick with pain and shock.
“Your face is still pretty, if that matters,” said King.
“It hurts,” moaned Prospero. “You got anything?”
King held out the Coke bottle. “It’s high octane.”
He helped Prospero sit up and steadied the bottle while his friend sipped. Prospero gagged at first. It had to be at least three-quarters vodka. But he took a breath and took a second sip. And then a couple of gulps.
King sat back and took a pull, too.
“El Comandante told me that you won’t be leaving us tomorrow,” he said. “I think he had a boner when he said it. Your dad must have written him another check.”
Prospero nodded.
They passed the bottle back and forth.
King sipped some booze. “What exactly is the God Machine anyway? You said it was some kind of EMP thing?”
“That’s only part of it. It’s not an EMP, it’s a null field. It interrupts electrical conductivity above a certain level. Anything stronger than the central nervous system of a person. Machines.”
“He already has that, though. I mean… isn’t that what he took when you were a kid?”
Prospero nodded again. He felt like something was broken inside and could not tell if that was true or not. It felt like he was dying.
“He stole a prototype. It was the best I could do at the time, but it wasn’t right. I’ve… learned so much since then.”
“And—?”
“And it doesn’t work. There is a brief null field when you switch it on, but the core processors melt down. It’s useless. I’ve been working on fixing it, and I’ve been giving him bits and pieces of it. What I really need are the last of the Unlearnable Truths. There’s a code hidden in some of the books. I think I’ve figured out how to find it, but I don’t have all the right books.”
“A code for what?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Tell me anyway,” said King.
Prospero wiped a trickle of blood from his ear. “The God Machine is built like a particle accelerator, only instead of colliding particles it superaccelerates them to open a doorway.”
“To—?”
“Another world,” said Prospero. “If I’m right, then maybe to an infinite number of other worlds.”
“You lost me. You talking like Mars and Jupiter and shit?”
“No. I said it wrong. Imagine that there are an infinite number of worlds. Each is almost identical to Earth except in one little way. Like in one world I have blue eyes instead of green. Like that. Some of the differences would be so subtle that you could never tell. You might never see where the difference is. But some would be radically different because of cause and effect. If the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs had hit another chunk of space rock first it might have broken up and been smaller, which wouldn’t have killed all the dinosaurs. Or it might have been bigger and destroyed the world. Or it could have hit later in the day and because of planetary rotation hit a different part of the world. You see how many possibilities there are? It’s chaos theory applied to interdimensional physics.” Prospero took a ragged breath. Talking was helping him regain control. His knowledge was the level place on which he could find balance. “Now, imagine the possibilities. If we can access all these worlds, we can find worlds where, for whatever reason, humans never evolved. Those worlds would have no pollution and all of the natural resources would be untouched. You could mine them for minerals or you could move there. Or just let humanity expand outward through an infinite number of worlds.”
“Wow. And that’s what your dad wants?”
“I wish. Right now he wants to use the side effects. The null field and some other stuff. I don’t know that he even believes in the omniverse.”
“But you do?”
“Yes. I think I came from one of those other worlds. Somehow. I don’t know how. But I believe it. And I think my god is not the god of this world, but the god of some other universe, and I can feel him calling me home.”
King took a sip, thought about it, took another, and handed the bottle back. “That is some deep, deep shit.”
“I know. It’s the fundamental belief in my personal faith.”
“Um. Sure. So what’s the problem? Why not just finish the machine you built here and go the fuck home?”
“I wish. The problem is that in order for the God Machine to cycle high enough to open the door, the power has to be very precisely regulated through a network of crystals. Gemstones.”
“Like the ones you have to check out of Stark’s office every morning.”
“Yes. But having the gems doesn’t solve the problem. The sequence of channeling power through the crystals is the key. There is only one way to do it to allow the God Machine to cycle up to full power. Use the wrong sequence and as soon as you rev above a low idle there are catastrophic errors.”
King grinned. “Like when you blew the ass off this place?”
“Like that, yes.”
“Have you figured it out? Do you know the sequence and are just keeping it from your old man?” asked King. “I mean… have you actually solved it?”
Prospero turned and took a long, hard look at his friend. “Why are you asking me this?” Fear suddenly leapt up in Prospero’s heart. “Oh my God… please don’t tell me you’re in on it….”
“In on…?” Then King stopped and smiled. “You think I’m a snitch for Stark? You think I’m a snitch for your dad?”
Prospero was too frightened to say anything. He felt lost. Totally lost. He wished he still had the stone carving of his god, but Stark had taken that from him on his first day at Ballard.
King nodded. “Yeah, I can see how shit-scared you are right now. You’re paranoid as fuck and I don’t blame you. Your dad — your own dad — sold you out and he’s keeping you here as a slave. That’s some rough shit. And you’re a cash cow for Stark. Your dad must be shoveling gold at him.” King shimmied closer. “Now, you listen to me, man, and you listen good. I don’t give a high-flying shit about much. I hate my family and I hate everyone in this shit hole of a place. I’d burn it to the ground if I had somewhere else to go, and yeah, that’s fucked up because I don’t have anywhere else to go. You want to know how many times I laid in my bunk and thought of killing myself? I could do it, too. There are a lot of ways to do it right and I know them all. Here’s the thing, though; you want to know why I haven’t hopped the night train? You want to know the only goddamn reason I’m still alive and still want to be alive?”
He leaned forward and poked Prospero in the chest.
“You. Laugh if you want to. Make fun of me, or do whatever, but it’s true. You are the only friend I’ve ever had. That’s sad, too. Cry me a river, but there it is. Since you came here it’s been you and me. I don’t like anyone else and I sure as shit don’t trust anyone else. You and me, Prospero. A couple of rejects kicked to the curb by everyone who is supposed to give a damn. Sad, sad story. Someone should make a movie. Girls would cry buckets.”