Numbers Don't Lie (16 page)

A green garden hose was attached to a peculiar fitting on the front of the TV, between the volume control and the channel selector. It snaked across the floor toward the corner with the brown sofa and the potted palm. The longer I looked at the hose, the longer it seemed. I decided it was best not to look at it. I had a job to do.

The electrical power in the tree house came from the house, via a “train” of extension cords winding through the branches from Studs's upstairs window. The TV was plugged into an extension cord dangling through a hole in the ceiling. I was reaching up to unplug it when I felt something cold against the back of my neck.

“Put your hands down!”

“Studs?”

“Irv, is that you?”

I turned slowly, hands still in the air.

“Irv the Perv? What the Hell are you doing here?”

“I came to unplug the television, Studs,” I said. “Is that a real gun?”

“Damn tootin',” he said. “A Glock nine.”

“So this is how you got all your medals!” I said scornfully. My hands still in the air, I pointed with my chin to the six-inch Dumont with the cell phone taped between the rabbit ears, then to the impressive array across Studs's chest. Even off duty, even at home, he wore his uniform with all his medals. “That's not really your Nobel Prize around your neck, either, is it?”

“It is so!” he said, fingering the heavy medallion. “The professor gave it to me. The professor helped me win the others, too, by speeding up the baggage carousel at LaGuardia. You're looking at the Employee of the Year, two years in a row.”

“The professor?”

Studs pointed with the Glock nine to the other corner of the tree house. The far corner. I was surprised to see an old man, sitting on the brown sofa next to the potted palm. He was wearing a gray cardigan over blue coveralls. “Where'd he come from?” I asked.

“He comes and goes as he pleases,” said Studs. “It's his Universe.”

Universe? Suddenly it all came perfectly clear; or almost clear. “Dr. Radio Dgjerm?”

“Rah-dio,” the old man corrected. He looked tiny but his voice sounded neither small nor far away.

“Mother took in boarders after Dad died,” Studs explained. “One day I showed Dr. Dgjerm the old tree house, and when he saw the TV he got all excited. Especially when he turned it on and saw that it still worked. He bought the cell phones and set up the system.”

“It doesn't really work,” I said. “There's no picture.”

“All those old black and white shows are off the air,” said Studs. “Dr. Dgjerm had bigger things in mind than
I Love Lucy
, anyway. Like creating a new universe.”

“Is that what's swelling up the inside of the tree house?” I asked.

Studs nodded. “And incidentally, helping my career.” His medals clinked as his chest expanded. “You're looking at the Employee of the Year, two years in a row.”

“You already told me that,” I said. I looked at the old man on the sofa. “Is he real small, or far away?”

“Both,” said Studs. “He's in another Universe, and it's not a very big one.”

“Not big yet!” said Dr. Dgjerm. His voice sounded neither tiny nor far away. It boomed in my ear; I found out later, from Wu, that a even a small universe can act as a sort of resonator or echo chamber. Like a shower.

“My Universe is small now, but it's getting bigger,” Dr. Dgjerm went on. “It's a Leisure Universe, created entirely out of Connective Time that your Universe will never miss. In another year or so, it will attain critical mass and be big enough to survive on its own. Then I will disconnect the timelines, cast loose, and bid you all farewell!”

“We don't have another year,” I said. “I have to unplug the TV now.” I explained about the Butterfly Effect and the hurricanes. I even explained about my upcoming wedding in Huntsville. (I left out the part about my Honeymoon, which was supposed to be going on right now, as we spoke, just three doors down and a half a floor up!)

“Congratulations,” said Dgjerm in his rich Lifthatvanian accent. “But I'm afraid I can't allow you to unplug the D6. There are more than a few hurricanes and weddings at stake. We're talking about an entire new universe, here. Shoot him, Arthur.”

Studs raised the Glock nine until it was pointed directly at my face. His hand was alarmingly steady.

“I don't want to shoot you, Irv,” he said apologetically. “But I owe him. He made me Employee of the Year two years in a row.”

“You also took a sacred oath!” I said. “Remember? You can't shoot another Ditmas Playboy!” This wasn't just a last-ditch ploy to save my life. It was true. It was one of our by-laws; one of only two, in fact.

“That was a long time ago,” said Studs, looking confused.

“Time doesn't matter to oaths,” I said. (I have no idea if this is true or not. I just made it up on the spot.)

“Shoot him!” said Dr. Dgjerm.

“There's another way out of this . . .” said a voice behind us, “ . . .a more civilized way.”

Studs and I both turned and looked at the TV. There was a familiar (to me, at least; Studs had never met him) face in grainy black and white, wearing some sort of jungle cap.

“Wu!” I said. “Where'd you come from?”

“Real-time Internet feed,” he said. “Video conferencing software. My cosmonaut friend patched me in on a rogue cable channel from a digital switching satellite. Piece of cake, once we triangulated the location through the phone signals. Although cellular video can be squirrelly. Lots of frequency bounce.”

“This is a tree house? It's as big as a gymnasium!” exclaimed an oddly accented voice.

“Shut up, Dmitri. We've got a situation here. Hand me the gun, Blitz.”

“You can see
out of
a TV?” I asked, amazed.

“Only a little,” Wu said. “Pixel inversion piggybacked on the remote locational electron smear. It's like a reverse mortgage. Feeds on the electronic equity, so to speak, so we have to get on with it. Hand me the gun, Studs. The Glock nine.”

Studs was immobile, torn between conflicting loyalties. “How can I hand a gun to a guy on TV?” he whined.

“You could set it on top of the cabinet,” I suggested.

“Don't do it, Arthur!” Dr. Dgjerm broke in. “Give the gun to me. Now!”

Studs was saved. The doctor had given him an order he could obey. He tossed the Glock nine across the tree house. It got smaller and smaller and went slower and slower, until, to my surprise, Dr. Dgjerm caught it. He checked the clip and laid the gun across his tiny, or distant, or both, lap.

“We can settle this without gunplay,” said Wu.

“Wilson Wu,” said Dr. Dgjerm. “So we meet again!”

“Again?” I whispered, surprised. I shouldn't have been.

“I was Dr. Dgjerm's graduate assistant at Bay Ridge Realty College in the late seventies,” explained Wu. “Right before he won the Nobel Prize for Real Estate.”

“Which was then stolen from me!” said Dr. Dgjerm.

“The prize was later revoked by the King of Sweden,” explained Wu, “when Dr. Dgjerm was indicted for trying to create an illegal universe out of unused vacation time. Unfairly, I thought, even though technically the Time did belong to the companies.”

“The charges were dropped,” said Dgjerm. “But try telling that to the King of Sweden.”

Studs fingered the Nobel Prize medallion. “It's not real?”

“Of course it's real!” said Dgjerm. “When you clink it, it clinks. It has mass. That's why I refused to give it back.”

“Your scheme would never have worked, anyway, Dr. Dgjerm,” said Wu. “I did the numbers. There's not enough unused vacation time to inflate a universe; not anymore.”

“You always were my best student, Wu,” said Dgjerm. “You are right, as usual. But as you can see, I came up with a better source of Time than puny pilfered corporate vacation days.” He waved his hand around at the sofa, the potted palm. “Connective Time! There's more than enough to go around. All I needed was a way to make a hole in the fabric of space-time big enough to slip it through. And I found it!”

“The D6,” said Wu.

“Exactly. I had heard of the legendary Lost D6, of course, but I thought it was a myth. Imagine my surprise and delight when I found it in my own back yard, so to speak! With Arthur's help, it was a simple bandwidth problem, sluicing the Connective Time by phone from LaGuardia, where it would never be missed, through the D6's gauge boson rectifier twist, and into—my own Universe!”

“But it's just a sofa and a plant,” I said. “Why do you want to live there?”

“Does the word ‘immortality' mean anything to you?” Dgjerm asked scornfully. “It's true that my Leisure Universe is small. That's okay; the world is not yet ready for vacationing in another universe, anyway. But real estate is nothing if not a waiting game. It will get bigger. And while I am waiting, I age at a very slow rate. Life in a universe made entirely of Connective Time is as close to immortality as we mortals can come.”

“Brilliant,” said Wu. “If you would only use your genius for science instead of gain, you could win another Nobel Prize.”

“Fuck Science!” said Dgjerm, his tiny (or distant, or both) mouth twisted into a smirk as his giant voice boomed through the tree house. “I want my own universe, and I already got a Nobel Prize, so don't anybody reach for that plug. Sorry if I've thrown off your butterfly figures, Wilson, but your Universe won't miss a few more milli-minutes of Connective Time. I will disconnect mine when it is big enough to survive and grow on its own. Not before.”

“That's what I'm trying to tell you!” said Wu. “The more universes, the better, as far as I'm concerned. Look here . . .”

Wu's face on the TV screen stared straight ahead, as a stream of equations flowed down over it:

 

 

“Impossible!” said Dgjerm.

“Numbers don't lie,” said Wu. “Your figures were off, professor. You reached critical mass 19.564 minutes ago, our time. Your Leisure Universe is ready to cut loose and be born. All Irv has to do is—”

“Unplug the TV?” I asked. I reached for the plug and a shot rang out.

BRANNNGGG!

It was followed by the sound of breaking glass.

CRAASH!

“You killed him!” shouted Studs.

At first I thought he mean me, but my head felt OK, and my hands were OK, one on each side of the still-connected plug. Then I saw the thick broken glass on the floor, and I knew what had happened. You know how sometimes when you fire a warning shot indoors, you hit an appliance? Well, that's what Dr. Dgjerm had done. He had meant to warn me away from the plug, and hit the television. The D6 was no more. The screen was shattered and Wu was gone.

I looked across the tree house for the sofa, the potted palm, the little man. They were flickering a little, but still there.

“You killed him!” Studs said again.

“It was an accident,” said Dgjerm. “It was meant to be a warning shot.”

“It was only a video conferencing image,” I said. “I'm sure Wu is fine. Besides, he was right!”

“Right?” they both asked at once.

I pointed at Dr. Dgjerm. “The TV is off, and your Leisure Universe is still there.”

“For now,” said Dgjerm. “But the timeline is still open, and the Connective Time is siphoning back into your Universe.” As he spoke, he was getting either smaller or farther away, or both. His voice was sounding hollower and hollower.

“What should we do?” Studs asked frantically. “Hang up the phone?”

I was way ahead of him; I had already untaped the phone and was looking for the
OFF
button. As soon as I pushed it, the phone rang.

It was, of course, Wu. “Everything all right?” he asked. “I lost my connection.”

I told him what had happened. Meanwhile, Dr. Dgjerm was getting smaller and smaller every second. Or farther and farther away. Or both.

“You have to act fast!” Wu said. “A universe is like a balloon. You have to tie it off, or it'll shrink into nothing.”

“I know,” I said. “That's why I hung up the phone.”

“Wrong timeline. The phone connects the baggage carousel to the D6. There must be another connection from the D6 to Dr. Dgjerm's Leisure Universe. That's the one that's still open. Look for analog, narrow bandwidth, probably green.”

Dr. Dgjerm was standing on the tiny sofa, pointing frantically toward the front of the TV.

“Like a garden hose?” I asked.

“Could be,” said Wu. “If so, kinking it won't help. Time isn't like water; it's infinitely compressible. You'll have to disconnect it.”

The hose was attached to a peculiar brass fitting on the front of the set, between the channel selector and the volume control. I tried unscrewing it. I turned it to the left, but nothing happened. I turned it to the right, but nothing happened. I pushed. I pulled.