Doughnut

Part Five


One Empty San Miguel Bottle To Bring Them All And In The Darkness Bind Them





Subconsciously, he didn’t want to wake up. What, me, his inner being said to his awareness-of-self, go back out there and deal with all that weird, crazy shit, when I could stay in here where it’s nice and snug and nobody wants to tell me anything or make me do stuff that screws up my world view to the core? Get lost, said his inner being. Go pester someone who gives a damn.

But, apparently, he had no say in the matter; and so, some indeterminate time later, he opened his eyes and –

(He’s smart, my brother. Oh boy.)

– saw a pair of flowery chintz curtains drawn across a window, set in a wall with brightly coloured wallpaper figured with nursery rhyme characters. There, for example, was Humpty Dumpty, sitting on a wall, looking uncannily like Dick Cheney; there were the three little pigs in their house of straw, on the point of finding out that good ventilation isn’t always an unalloyed blessing; there was Mary and her lamb, and –

He pulled his arm out from under the sheets and stared at it. Not visible. So he was in his native reality, at least. Small mercies.

“How are you feeling?”

The voice came from his left, and he was horribly afraid he knew who it belonged to. He rolled over, sighed and said, “You.”

The old man beamed at him and nodded. “Young Art’s just nipped out to get a bite to eat,” he said, “so I’m kind of minding the store, so to speak. Talking of which,” the old man went on, “I do hope you’re not going to get violent again, because I am authorised to use lethal force if absolutely necessary.”

“What do you—?”

“Sorry.” The old man tugged at something in his ear. “Hearing aid’s playing up,” he explained. “Say again?”

“What do you mean, lethal – forget it,” Theo sighed. “Look, where am I? What the hell is going on?”

The old man gave him a sympathetic half-smile half-frown. “Sorry,” he said. “Need-to-know basis, that is. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

“You’d have to—”

“Say what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Theo said, and let his head rest gently against the pillows. They were wonderfully soft, perhaps the most luxurious things he’d ever felt. A person could go to sleep, lying on pillows as soft as that.

“Art wanted me to tell you, he’s really sorry he had to hit you like that.”

“Why? Did he spill his soup?”

“He’s a good boy. Mr Bernstein, really he is,” the old man said passionately. “He’s not usually violent, you know, in fact he’s very sensitive and creative. You should see the drawings he done when he was a kid. Trees and sheep and all that. His mum’s still got them stuck up on her fridge.”

He rubbed the back of his head with his invisible hand. “Sure,” he said. “Quite the young Damian Hirst. Where does he put it all, by the way? He should be fat as a pig.”

“It’s his glands,” the old man said sadly. “They never been right, his glands, but he never complains.”

“How could he? His mouth’s always full of sandwiches.”

The old man couldn’t bring himself to answer that, and looked away. So did Theo, who was scanning his immediate environment for something he could use as a weapon. The old man looked reasonably harmless, but Theo had seen enough martial arts movies to know that the deadliest fighters on the planet are doddery ninety-year-old Chinese. The old man didn’t look Chinese, but the way his luck had been running lately, he wasn’t inclined to take chances. Unfortunately, the most lethal object within arm’s reach was a large pink stuffed rabbit, with a satin bow round its neck and a sort of twisted Anthony Perkins look on its face that sent a cold shiver down Theo’s spine. So what. Necessity is the mother of invention, which probably explains why invention’s father left home on the pretext of buying a newspaper and hasn’t been heard of since.

“So,” Theo said, “where exactly are we? Oh, I forgot, you can’t tell me that.”

“Sorry, Mr Bernstein.”

“How about telling me who you’re working for?”

“Sorry, Mr Bernstein.”

“Well, I know the answer to that one. Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz, obviously. You had enough of my sister, then.”

“No comment.”

“God knows I don’t blame you. She was bad enough when she was ten. Tried to letterbomb the local zoo as a protest against man’s inhumanity to small furry animals. Would’ve succeeded too, except she hadn’t quite appreciated that not all fertilisers make good explosives. What they got was an improvised timing device strapped to a bottle of Baby Bio.”

“That’s very sad, Mr Bernstein. Probably she was unhappy at home.”

“No more so than the rest of us,” Theo replied, yawning and stretching, and in the process grabbing the horrible rabbit with his invisible hand. “My mother had the good sense to clear out, but the rest of us were stuck there: me, Janine, Max and Dad. It wasn’t a good combination. We got complaints from the vipers’ nest next door saying we lowered the tone of the neighbourhood.”

“Is that right?”

“You bet.” Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he dragged the rabbit under the covers. “On balance, I guess Max was the worst, but Janine came pretty close, bless her. She never liked me, I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever did anything to deserve it. Quite the opposite. I was always the one trying to keep her from getting into trouble. Don’t do it, I said, you’ll regret it later, it’ll all end in tears. But Max kept egging her on.”

“Some people are funny like that, Mr Bernstein. Not me. I like everybody.”

“Me too. Well, everybody except Max. As far as Janine goes, I try very hard not to bear a grudge. Mind you, when it rains I try not to get wet, but sometimes you can’t get your coat on in time, you know?”

“I got a sister myself. We’ve always got on very well. Would you like to see some photos?”

“Freeze.” With a snake-like movement, Theo pulled Disturbed Rabbit out from under the bedclothes and thrust it at the old man as though it was a gun. “There’s an improvised explosive device hidden inside this toy,” he said. “Try anything and I’ll blow us both to hell.”

The old man frowned. “You sure, Mr Bernstein? I been here all the time and you only just woke up. There wasn’t time.”

“I work quickly.”

“Improvised out of what, exactly?”

“I’m a physicist,” Theo snarled. “It was physicists who split the atom, remember? Well, this thing’s crawling with atoms.”

“Yes, but—”

“Listen,” Theo said. “You know the Very Very Large Hadron Collider? I blew that up using nothing but a pencil and a scrap of paper. Don’t mess with me. I mean it.”

“Now then, Mr Bernstein. Don’t do anything stupid.”

“What, like rescuing my brother? No chance. That’s why I’m getting out of here. In one piece, for choice, but if not, in lots and lots of little tiny bits.” He gave the rabbit a wild shake, and its ears waggled alarmingly. “I’m going to count to three, and then—”

“All right.” The old man’s eyes were wide with fear. “Don’t blow us up, Mr Bernstein, young Art could be back any minute, I promised his mum I’d look after him. Please, Mr Bernstein.”

Grinning, Theo clambered out of bed, the rabbit gripped firmly in his outstretched hand. “I’m going now,” he said. “But first, you’re going to answer a few questions. Who are you working for?”

“I can’t tell you that.”

Theo pushed the rabbit into his face. “One.”

“Mrs Duchene-watsername. Honest.”

“Thank you. Where are we?”

“I don’t know. Really I don’t,” he added, as the rabbit’s ears danced like treetops in a gale. “I got given one of those SatNav things, it said turn left here and take the second exit, I just did like it said. Some place out in the country, is all I know.”

Theo gave him a ferocious scowl, but he was fairly sure the old man was telling the truth. “Where’s the car?”

“Round the back. Keys are in the ignition.”

“Fine. You’re a hostage. Move.”

“Mr Bernstein.”

“Don’t be a hero, old man,” Theo said. “Think of Art. Think of all the bacon sandwiches he’ll never eat if he’s blown to kingdom come.”

“It’s not that, Mr Bernstein. I just thought, you might want to get dressed first.”

A valid point. “Don’t move, all right?” Theo said. “Stay absolutely still. Don’t even breathe.”

“Right you are.”

Theo looked round. “You wouldn’t happen to know where my clothes are, would you?”

“In the wardrobe, Mr Bernstein.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

It was awkward, putting on his trousers and shirt with just the one invisible hand while brandishing Disturbed Rabbit menacingly with the other. Worth it, though. The alternative – staying put and having to cope with what he’d learned – didn’t bear thinking about. With any luck, his old job at the slaughterhouse might still be available. When he thought about it, those happy, stress-free days before he’d ever heard of YouSpace, the nostalgia was almost too much to bear. “Right,” he said, fumbling the last button into its hole, “we’re off. And don’t try anything, understood?”

“Whatever you say, Mr Bernstein.”

Theo waited for a moment, then snapped, “Move!”

“Sorry, I was waiting for you.”

“You go first. I follow you.”

“Ah, got you. Sorry. This is all new to me, I never been a hostage before.”

“That’s perfectly all right,” Theo said. “When you’re quite ready.”

“Where are we going, exactly?”

“The car,” Theo said.

“Sorry?”

“The car.”

“Right, yes. You want me to drive?”

“Yes. No. You sit in the back and stay absolutely still and quiet. Got that?”

“Loud and clear, Mr Bernstein.”

The house was huge. He’d felt twinges of agoraphobia the first time he’d been shown round the VVLHC site (the echoing man-made caverns, the vast, perspective-twisting white-tiled tunnels), but that was nothing compared to this place. God could’ve played hide-and-seek there and had a really boring time. What made it ever so slightly worse was the décor: pink, white and pale blue, with satin tiebacks on every curtain and enough scatter-cushions to fill the Mariana Trench. There was only one person in the world with taste that bad, and he’d known her all his life.

“Nearly there. Mr Bernstein,” the old man wheezed, as they clattered down a grand pink-marble staircase into a sitting room the size of Syntagma Square. “We can get out through the french windows and on to the drive, then round the side and we’re there. Mr Bernstein?”

Theo had come to a dead stop. He wanted to get out of there, in roughly the same way a bullet is anxious to leave the barrel of a gun, but there was a noise coming from the other side of a door, and somehow he couldn’t move past it without confirming his suspicions. He knew that noise. Only one thing had ever sounded quite like that.

“No, Mr Bernstein, you really don’t want to—”

But Mr Bernstein really did. He opened the door, and saw –

It all made sense, now he saw it. The whole house had been built around it, leaving a huge space in the middle, in which stood – well, you’d have to call it the Very Very Very Very Large Hadron Collider, or maybe even the Ridiculously Big Hadron Collider’s Big Brother. He was standing on the outer circumference of a circular room, looking up at the underside of a dome. Every surface was panelled with mirror-polished titanium alloy plating, and around the curved walls coiled a glowing blue transparent tube, spiralling upwards like a compressed spring. Far away in the dead centre of the chamber stood a glass and steel tower, glowing Mordor-green, partially masked by a swirling cloud of dry ice. The hum came from under the floor, ran up through the soles of his feet and out into his fingertips and the ends of his hair. In the distance, a machine voice was counting down: a million and thirty-six, a million and thirty-five. Ten feet away from him stood a small aluminium trolley, on which rested a laptop, some diagnostic equipment, a pair of lead gloves and an empty coffee mug marked World’s Best Dad.

He looked down at his hands. One was invisible. The other was slightly translucent.

That wasn’t good. With what little self-control he had left he pulled himself together, turned round and headed for the door, only to find that he wasn’t alone. Five more or less human shapes in dull grey metallic suits were lumbering towards him, their faces indistinguishable behind the visors of their goldfish-bowl helmets. He had a feeling they weren’t there to sell him souvenirs.



The cell was small the way the collision chamber had been big. He could stand up if he ducked his head, but why bother? Instead, he sat on the concrete bench and stared at the door, which was lead-lined and a metre thick. There wasn’t a window or even a light bulb, but he didn’t need one. He could see perfectly well by his own pale blue glow.

There are worse ways to die than massive radiation poisoning. Four of them; and they’re no fun, either. Right now, he didn’t feel too bad. In fact, he felt perfectly fine, apart from the cramp, hunger and a pressing need to go to the toilet. Of course, it was only a matter of time before the first symptoms made themselves felt, and then that’d be it. Meanwhile, if he was really lucky, he might have just enough time to try and make sense of it all and fail miserably. Better, on the whole, not to bother. Let’s just sit here and think about nothing at all.

He was just getting the hang of thinking of nothing at all when the door opened and the goldfish-bowl-heads bustled in. They grabbed him, put him on a gurney, stuck a bag over his head and took him for a long ride.



“Really, Mr Bernstein. What are we going to do with you?”

What a question. “I’m not sure,” he replied into the darkness. “You could try a really thick lead coffin and dumping me at the bottom of the sea, but that’d be a bit harsh on the local fishermen. Other than that, it’s a problem. Luckily, not mine.”

Something tugged at the back of his head, and he was blinded by a star going supernova. It turned out to be a single low-wattage light bulb. “Hello, Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here, you know.”

“You idiot,” she said. “You were told not to go in there, and what did you do?”

I know who you are, he thought. But there’s no point going into all that now. “Look who’s talking,” he said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m glowing blue all over. The surgeon general has determined that glowing-blue people are bad for your health.”

She raised an eyebrow. “I’m touched by your concern.”

“Oh, you know what they say. Thicker than water. In my case right now, of course, maybe not.”

She nodded slowly. “You’ve figured it out, then.”

He was mildly offended. “I should damn well think so,” he said. “You haven’t exactly made it difficult. More a case of saturation bombing with bloody great hints. I have to say,” he went on, “as far as I’m concerned, this isn’t a joyous experience.”

She shrugged. “Too late to do anything about it now,” she said. “Anyhow, let’s get on with it.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re going back to the Disney planet,” she said. “To save Max.”

Theo grinned. “No I’m not.”

“Yes you are.”

“No I’m not.”

“Yes you—” She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly. “Let me spell it out for you,” she said. “You’ve been exposed to a lethal dose of van Goyen’s radiation—”

“Good name,” Theo said. “Classy.”

“Your only hope of survival,” she went grimly on, “is purging the radiotoxins by means of quantum displacement via the YouSpace device. As you’re now aware, we’ve reconstructed the YouSpace technology here in this building. We’ve reverse-engineered the guidance system software from our analysis of the single-use bottles. All we’re lacking is an understanding of how to operate the software.”

“The user’s manual.”

“If you like, yes. The only person with that knowledge, apart from Pieter van Goyen, is you.”

“Not quite,” Theo interrupted. “Matasuntha—”

“Very well, the only person apart from her. The point is, we have the car but you’ve got the keys. And if you don’t go now, you’re going to die, thanks to your idiotic—”

“Right, thanks, I get the point.” Theo shook his head sadly. “Where’s the bottle?”

“Bottle?”

“The YouSpace bottle. You said you’d made one.”

Exasperated hissing-kettle noise. “I said we’d built a van Goyen Accelerator,” she said. “You saw it. The big shiny thing that made you sick. That’s it.”

Theo gave her a horrified look. “I can’t use that,” he said. “All I know about is using the bottle Pieter left me. The one that got broken. Without it, the user’s manual won’t work.”

“Try it.”

“I can’t,” Theo snapped at her. “It’d be like trying to steer a car with a rudder. It can’t be done.”

Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz narrowed her eyes. “Wing it,” she hissed.

“Fine.” Theo shrugged. “In that case, I’ll need a piece of paper and a pencil.”

Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz nodded, and a goldfish bowl produced the back of an envelope and a biro. “Now push off,” Theo said. “I need to concentrate.”

Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz hesitated, then made a shooing gesture. The goldfish bowls withdrew. “You too,” Theo said. “I can’t think with you peering over my shoulder.”

“Try.”

“No, really. It’s not something I can do with people watching. I promise I won’t run away.”

She gave him a look as long and cold as a Canadian winter. “Please yourself,” she said. “I’m warning you, though. Don’t mess with me. I want Max back, alive, in one piece. Once you’ve done that, I really don’t give a damn what happens to you. Understood?”

Theo smiled. “Perfectly. Goodbye.”

She looked at him, frowned, shook her head and left the room. Theo spent the next twenty seconds flushing her out of his head. Then he looked down at the piece of paper.

I can do this, he told himself. After all, Pieter did it. And I think I know how.

He closed his eyes, took the pen in his invisible hand and rested it lightly on the paper. Suppose, he told himself, just suppose I’m Pieter van Goyen. I want to do something, but I know for a fact that it’s impossible. Well, yes; impossible in this reality, because it breaks all the local laws of physics. But the multiverse is infinite. Therefore, every possibility, however impossible, exists somewhere within it. Therefore, somewhere, there’s a parallel reality where the rules are completely different, and this thing I want to do is as easy as sneezing in a pepper factory.

What I want to do is travel from one version of reality to another. Can’t be done; not here. There, it’s a piece of cake. I’m not there, I’m here. But if I was there, it’d be ludicrously simple for me to travel from there to here, and back again. And if, while I was at it, I happened to collect myself and give myself a lift back to there, it’d save me all the effort, pain and frustration of doing all the maths and stuff here, only to find that what I’m seeking to do can’t be done.

The multiverse is infinite. Therefore, somewhere, there’s a version of reality where (a) the rules are completely different, and (b) reality-hopping is as straightforward as climbing aboard a bus, and (c) I’m already there. Being me, I know that I desperately want to be collected and given a lift. True, in so doing I’ll create a spatio-temporal paradox resulting in a feedback loop and possibly endangering the entire quantum continuum, but what the hell. Like I give a damn. After all, didn’t I blow up the VVLHC and dump the blame on my poor, long-suffering former student just so I could test out a theory? When you’re me, none of the rules apply.

In which case –

He looked down. The pen and the envelope had vanished. In their place lay a small green bottle. Tightly curled and stuck in the mouth was a scrap of yellow paper. He teased it out, unrolled it and read –

Hello, you.

Fine. The Disney planet, he thought, and closed his eyes.



In the beginning was the Word.

To understand the operation of the multiverse, we have to know what that Word was; because everything thereafter came from, was posited on, relied on, followed on from it. Without the Word, the rest of the Sentence can’t possibly make any sense. For example, if the rest of it is shut the door, we can’t do anything until we know whether the Word was please or don’t.

Finally, thanks to extensive research by a dedicated team of scholars in a reality long ago and far away, we now know what the Word was. We even have the primordial punctuation that goes with it.

The Word was Help!



He opened them again.

Then he closed them, mumbled “Oooh”, and groped wildly for the handrail he’d briefly glimpsed before the view got too much for him. A gust of wind made him stagger, and he screamed.

Then he opened his eyes and looked sideways. Not down, because he didn’t want to have to think about what he was standing on, which appeared to be nothing at all, or what was under nothing-at-all, which was a very distant prospect of royal-blue sea. The sideways view wasn’t much better. He could see blue sky, a fat white fluffy cloud, and what looked like a very large quantity of matchsticks, arranged vertically, under a massive bank of red and white balloons.

He shifted his feet just a little. Nothing-at-all was solid and smooth. Very carefully, he lifted his left foot and lowered it again, clipping nothing-at-all with his heel and making a noise like a minimalist tap-dancer. Glass. He was standing on glass.

Standing on glass, and there was a wooden handrail, which he was holding on to with two solid, visible hands. Tightening his grip until his tendons started to hurt, he leaned his head back and looked up, at the underside of a balloon.

He opened his mouth and yelled “Doughnut!”, but he couldn’t hear his own voice. Besides, he remembered, doughnuts wouldn’t work. They’d been specific to Pieter’s bottle, which was broken.

The balloon, he noticed, was connected to the glass floor by four ropes; correction, four cables or hawsers. Allowing for perspective, he guessed they were roughly as thick as his waist. A floor (albeit glass), a handrail and a balloon no smaller than the dome of the Kremlin. He tried to find that reassuring, but another gust of wind made the whole structure sway.

When it settled again, he looked down through the floor. That and a distinct feeling of giddiness (altitude sickness) led him to estimate his height above royal-blue sea level at approximately twenty thousand feet. Christ!

Moving very slowly and deliberately, he wrapped his arms round the handrail and clasped his hands together. The rail felt reasonably solid; some kind of wood, planed and varnished. He felt as though he’d just run ten miles uphill wearing a rucksack full of bricks.

Someone was coming. A tiny figure was making its way along a row of matchsticks – correction, a far-away glass floor – heading in his direction. Whoever it was, the figure seemed to be walking at a perfectly normal pace, the way people walk on the ground. He shouted “Help!” at the top of his voice a couple of times, but he might as well have been starring in a silent movie. The distant figure gradually drew closer. It was wearing a duffel coat, a scarf and a red bobble hat.

Deep breaths, he told himself. Deep, slow breaths, and for crying out loud, don’t let go. He tried to move his feet, but they skidded on the glass, lost traction and slid out from under him, leaving him hanging from the handrail by his elbow. Something warm trickled slowly down the inside of his right trouser leg. The best he could say for it was that it probably wasn’t blood.

Hello.

He looked up, and saw a face. Part of a face; not very much, sandwiched between the scarf and the bobble hat. He could see a small pointy nose and two bright blue eyes. The voice was inside his head.

“Help,” he whimpered. Mute button still on, no sound.

Are you all right?

The voice in his head was female. He had no idea how he knew that, because the words were feeding directly into his brain without any sound at all. Also, he couldn’t see a mouth, but the scarf hadn’t moved. Te-

Lepathy, yes. You’re not from around here, are you?

Concentrating very hard, he tried to think: HELP. GET ME DOWN. The eyes narrowed, implying a puzzled frown. You what?

I SAID HELP. HELP. GET ME DOWN.

My God. You’re a –

(Bizarre feeling of someone groping about inside his head for the right word)

– not-telepath. Well?

He nodded.

Seriously? You can’t –

He swung his head slowly from side to side.

Really?

Numerous studies, including Ostrogorsky (2006), Baumann and Stern (2009) and Denkowicz and Chang (2012) have concluded that telepathy is impossible. In our universe, at any rate. Theo nodded until he felt a definite twinge in his neck. The eyebrows shot up and vanished into the red wool of the hat. All right. Let’s see. Um. OK, try this. Don’t try and do words. Just think.

He thought: Think?

Think.

Think. Think think think.

No, think.

I am thinking, you stupid woman.

Ah, got something. Irritation. You’re annoyed about something.

Suddenly, Theo felt very, very tired. Nevertheless, he ushered everything else out of his mind and imagined –

Himself. Himself, falling. Not all that difficult to do, actually. Himself, letting go of the handrail and slipping through the gap between the rail and the floor he couldn’t actually see, and falling, arms flailing, legs kicking –

Oh for heaven’s sake. It’s all right. You’re perfectly safe.

Head swivelling helplessly from side to side, mouth wide open in a wordless, silent scream –

Don’t be such a baby. Come on. Let go of the rail and take my hand.

He looked at her. She wasn’t holding on to the rail. Instead, she was leaning forward slightly, holding out her pink-woolly-mittened hand. On her feet she wore grey sheepskin boots, standing (apparently) on thin air poised twenty thousand feet over an unspecified ocean.

I haven’t got all day, you know.

Ah, the great leap of faith. The ones you get to hear about, of course, are the ones that don’t end in long drops and messy landings. History tends to skate over those: the aeronautical pioneers who proved that it’s not possible to fly simply by jumping off tall buildings flapping your arms like a bird. For every Wright Brother there are ten thousand equally earnest believers who got scooped up and buried in jars, and whose memories weren’t preserved by succeeding generations, because nobody wants to admit they’re descended from an idiot. On the other hand, it was painfully obvious that he couldn’t stay where he was indefinitely: his fingers were getting numb from continuous feverish gripping, and he had cramp in both legs from hanging at an awkward angle. Oh well, he thought. He let go, grabbed wildly with his left hand and closed it tight around a full set of slim, wool-covered fingers.

Good boy. Now stand up. There, now. What was so difficult about that?

It’s a million miles to the ground and I’m standing on a thin sheet of glass, and – Well. Now she came to mention it, nothing, really. Simple. Straightforward. Easy as falling off a –

Whoa. Steady.

Easy, and let’s not mess with images of falling off anything. Instead, he equalised his weight on both feet, straightened his back and imagined himself saying, Thank you.

You’re welcome. Now, let’s get in out of the wind, shall we? It’s a bit nippy out here.

She turned and walked, and he followed, keeping his eyes glued to a small area of duffel coat covering the place between her shoulder blades. Occasionally, roughly every thirty steps, he felt his foot skid a little on the glass. Ignoring it was possibly the hardest thing he’d ever done.

Just when he’d resigned himself to spending the rest of his life staring at six square inches of coat, she stopped. He adjusted his focus, and saw that she was standing in front of a door. It was just eight planks nailed to a couple of crossbars, but when she pushed it, it opened. He followed her through it, and suddenly there was a visible floor instead of blue water. His head swam and he staggered, and fell back into, of all things, a chair.

“Here we are” said a female voice. “Sit down and make yourself at home. I’ll get you a nice hot cup of tea.”

“You’re talking.”

“Of course I am.” She’d gone into another room. “It’s much easier talking than thinking. But you’ve got to think outside because the wind’s so noisy.”

The voice he was hearing wasn’t anything like the voice he’d imagined to go with the words condensing inside his head. It was younger, higher, more ordinary – someone you’ve just met in the street, as it were, rather than a goddess or a guardian angel. He considered the room he was in. Bare wooden walls. Some kind of fibre matting on the floor. A low wooden table, with a wooden bowl of apples and slightly brown pears. The chair he was sitting in and two others. No electric light, just a sort of Venetian blind arrangement set in the ceiling like a skylight. No metal of any kind to be seen anywhere.

“Nice place you’ve got here,” he said.

“What?”

“Nice…” She was looking at him with her head on one side, like a bewildered dog. “Doesn’t matter. Where is this?”

“You don’t—?”

“No.”

“I see. What’s the matter with you?”

Where to start; oh, where to start? Fortunately, a stray seed of inspiration floated in through his ear, took root and blossomed. “Amnesia,” he replied. “Guess I must’ve hit my head or something.” He dabbed behind his ear. “Ouch,” he added, by way of corroboration. “I can’t seem to remember anything.”

She nodded. “Right,” she said.

“You don’t seem surprised.”

“Well, we had that other case this time last year.”

“That other case.”

“Yes. Over on the East Float. They found this man clinging to the rail, and he couldn’t remember anything at all; not his name, or which Float he was from, or which sect he belonged to. They had to tell him everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

“I’d like that,” Theo said passionately. “Do you think you could see your way to…?”

She pursed her lips. “Everything?”

“Oh, yes please.”

She thought for a moment, then sighed. “Oh, all right, then.” She took off the hat and the scarf, revealing a small, pretty face and an absurd amount of wavy red hair. “Drink your tea,” she said, “and I’ll tell you everything.”



It all started (she said) about a thousand years ago. A thousand, or two hundred, something like that. We don’t actually know, and who gives a damn?

Anyway, something really bad happened down on the surface. Some people think it was a war, others say it was chemicals or something, or it could have been scientists doing an experiment that went badly wrong. Anyhow, there was this very, very, very large explosion, and nobody could live on the surface any more. If we stayed on the land or the sea, we’d all die. So that just left the sky.

You’re not drinking your tea. Yes, it’s supposed to taste like that. We like it.

Luckily, there was like a thirty-year window where we could make all the necessary preparations. So, they had a big meeting, all the survivors from all the old countries, and they figured out what to do. The idea was, Venice-in-the-sky. We don’t actually know what that means, but it must’ve meant something, or they wouldn’t have called it that, would they?

It works sort of like this. There are four Floats, OK? Each Float hangs from something like a million fifty-thousand-litre helium-filled balloons. We call them the Bubbles. Now, it was clear from the start that we’d never be able to go back down to the surface again, so either we had to take stuff with us, or else it had to be sustainable; that was the key word, sustainable. It meant, we had to be able to make it or grow it twenty thousand feet up in the air.

The big breakthrough, which made it all possible, was aeroponic cultivation. Basically, that’s where you grow stuff in air rather than dirt. The idea had been around for a long time but nobody bothered with it much, because dirt was easier, apparently. Anyhow, we grow all our food that way. And, of course, the rubber trees.

Oh yes. Vital.

Well, everything, really. We use the wood for repairing the Floats, building houses, making all the stuff we use. The rubber is what we use for the Bubbles, and for cars and lorries and all that, and waterproof roofs. We twist the bark into ropes, and we rot down the leaves and everything that’s left over to make methane to power the generators. Nearly the whole of the South Float is covered with rubber plantations, and there’s about two thousand hectares on the East Float as well.

And that’s about it, really. You’re born into a sect: gardeners, rubbersmiths, carpenters and sunlighters. I’m a gardener, I work on the smaller cabbage farm on North 36C. It’s a bit of a hike, this being East 607J, but I’ve got my own car, so it’s no bother, really. Of course, when I was little I wanted to be a sunlighter, everybody does when they’re little. Very glad that particular dream never came true, thank you very much.

What? Oh, right, you don’t know. The sunlighters are the poor devils who look after the Bubbles. Very glamorous, of course, and everybody thinks you’re wonderful, but you’d have to be nuts to actually do all that stuff. Well, I’ll give you an example. If you’re a sunlighter, after five years in the job they give you a medal – real metal – and a big house and a pension for life. Or that’s the theory, anyway. Nobody’s ever survived long enough.

Anyhow, that’s really all there is to it. Nothing much ever happens, you see. Everybody’s too busy doing their work to make things happen. Once a year we all get together on South Float and drink a cup of tea, eat a rice bun and sing the national anthem, but otherwise one day’s pretty much like all the others. And of course, everybody knows everybody, and there’s just the Floats, unless you get really bored, in which case you can take your car and drive to Mount Everest; that’s the only point on the surface anyone ever goes to. They reckon you can stay there for fifteen minutes and it won’t do you any harm. But it’s a three-month drive, so you’ve got to be really desperate. I’ve been twice. Actually, there’s not much there, just the pointy top of the mountain and a little platform you can stand on. But it makes a change.

Say what? Legal system? Oh, you mean laws, yes, that’s right, we were told about all that stuff in school. Fancy you remembering about laws, when you’ve forgotten absolutely everything else. Well, we don’t have them any more, of course. Don’t need them. Basically, everybody gets on really well with everybody else, so… All right, yes, if six people sign a declaration saying you’re horrible, then they push you over the edge. But nobody’s been horrible for, what, two hundred years or something. We’re all really nice to each other. Why wouldn’t we be?



Theo swallowed carefully; his mouth had gone dry. “No idea,” he said. “I try to be nice to everybody all the time. At least,” he added quickly, “I’m sure I do, though of course I can’t remember. But if I wasn’t nice to people, they’d have chucked me off the edge years ago, so it stands to reason I’m nice, doesn’t it?”

She gave him an odd look. “Well,” she said, “that’s all I can think of to tell you. How was the tea?”

“Delicious.”

“We make it out of rubber-tree bark chippings mixed with finely ground maize husks. Just as well you like it, because that’s all there is, besides water.”

“I like water. I expect.”

She looked at him some more. “You know,” she said, “it was really weird, about the other guy.”

“Oh yes?”

“Mphm. I mean, like I said, everybody knows everybody, so you’d think, if someone showed up who’d lost his memory, it wouldn’t be long before he got recognised by someone who knew him. Or at the very least, the other people in his sect would wonder where he’d got to, or his family, come to that. But the other guy, he’s been here a year and nobody knows who in sky he is. To begin with we all thought he must be a sunlighter who’d fallen off a Bubble and bumped his head. But nobody in Sunlighter Guild’s ever seen him before.”

“Maybe he’s from—” Theo paused. “Somewhere else?”

She laughed. “There isn’t anywhere else, silly,” she said. “For heaven’s sake, we’d know about it by now if there was. Unless you believe in little green men from Mars, of course. But he’s not green. Nor,” she added with a tiny frown, “are you.”

“Um. I mean no, definitely not. I’m sure I’m really quite ordinary and nice, if only I could remember.”

“I’m sure too,” she replied, with a slightly forced smile. “Anyhow, I think the best thing we can do is take you down-float so you can meet the Duty Officer. He’ll know what to do.”

“Duty…?”

“Oh, it’s just a name left over from the old days,” she said casually. “It means whoever’s in charge. We all take turns, you see. Each one of us, just for one day. There’s never anything to do, of course, you just sit in a big chair and look important. I’m due for my turn in twenty-six years, four months and three weeks come Thursday.”

“I see,” Theo said. “And whoever’s turn it is today will know what to do with me?”

“Of course,” she said, “he’s the Duty Officer. Come on, we can go in the car.”

Theo suddenly felt a tremendous reluctance to get out of his chair. “Go out there, you mean.”

“Well of course out there, silly. He’s not going to come to us, is he? It’s only a four-hour drive. I can drop you off on my way in to work.”

Drop me off, Theo thought. “I really don’t want to be any bother to anyone,” he said. “Why don’t I just stay here and try very hard to remember what I’ve forgotten?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t you want to meet the Duty Officer? Most people do. He’s the most important person on the Four Floats.”

Theo grinned feebly. “Well, in that case,” he said.

You can’t help feeling just a tad pathetic and sad when it takes you every last scrap of your courage and moral fibre to face something that’s just another stage in someone else’s daily commute. Hop in, she thought into his brain, as he teetered on the edge of the invisible platform, looking down in terror at what appeared to be four planks of wood hanging from two pink balloons. All around him, the wind screamed and howled, tugging at his shirt like a bored child. It was a yard from the edge of the glass (he could just see it, a slight refraction of sunlight against the blue backdrop of the far-too-distant sea) to the nearest plank. She skipped the distance lightly, then turned and scowled at him. Come on, I’ll be late for work.

One small step for a man. One giant leap of faith for a man on the verge of falling a very long way and then going splat. He closed his eyes and hopped, making the little raft shake horribly. She grabbed his hand and pulled him off the edge into the middle. Scaredy-cat. Well, yes.

He opened his eyes. She was standing behind him, engaged with a device that looked a bit like an old-fashioned mangle; she was turning a big wheel with a handle, and a couple of large wooden cogwheels were slowly going round and round. It occurred to him that he ought to offer to help, but that would involve standing up and moving, and besides, it might come across as chauvinistic. He stayed where he was.

She gave the wheel one last turn, then pressed a little wooden lever at the side. At once, a broad wooden propeller he hadn’t previously noticed began to spin at the back of the mangle, and the raft shot forward. She pounced like a cat and landed next to him, kneeling on the planks.

Off we go.

Mostly to keep from looking down, or sideways, which was almost as bad, he studied the mechanism she’d been messing about with. After a moment or so, he figured it out. The gear-train and the flywheel turned the propeller, which made the raft go. What drove them, and what she’d been winding, was a foot-wide, anaconda-thick rubber band.

Well, yes. Of course it works. Yes, you’ve got to wind it up again when it runs down, but so what? Well, you think of something better, then, if you’re so clever.

Desperately, Theo tried not to think of an internal combustion engine.

Oh, that’s just silly. That’d never work in a million years. For one thing, it’d blow up.

Well of course it would. Silly me. What on earth could I have been thinking of? (Well, this –)

Oh. Oh, that’s clever. So that’d stop the gas coming through all at once. And that bit there goes round and round, and the burnt gas gets pushed out through that tube there. Gosh.

Theo groaned. He didn’t have a rule book in front of him, but his instincts told him that utterly changing a society, almost certainly for the worse, was not the sort of behaviour to be expected from a well-mannered guest. He tried to think of –

Yes, but what would you run it on?

Good point. Excellent point. Yes, you’ve got me nailed to the floor on that one. So, let’s forget all about it, shall we? (Actually, methane, or alcohol distilled from rubber leaves, or – No! Stop it!)

That’s brilliant. They’re going to be so excited when I tell them about it. Just think. No more stopping every five minutes to wind up the stupid rubber band.

Theo started to hum. He made no audible sound, of course, but he’d heard once that it was what the Maharishi used to do, to blot out all conscious thought. It worked up to a point. He could still hear her in his head, jabbering on about how wonderful his invention was and how it’d revolutionise travel between the Floats, maybe make it possible for them to build new ones; but at least he couldn’t make out all of the words.



Eventually, after a dozen rubber-band-winding stops, they pulled up next to a long, low wooden hut, floating serenely under three enormous purple balloons. Getting off the raft proved easier than getting on, mostly because he wasn’t quite so sure he cared whether he fell off or not. Inside, it looked pretty much the same as the girl’s house had done, except that there were five chairs, and a pampered-looking rubber plant in a brass pot.

“That’s the sacred rubber plant,” she whispered. “That’s why it’s got a real metal pot.”

“Ah.”

A door opened, and a man came out. He smiled at the girl, then frowned. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t think I know—”

“It’s another one,” the girl said excitedly. “He showed up on South 388H, and he’s completely lost his memory, I’ve told him a bit about everything, and he’s got this utterly amazing idea—”

“Um,” Theo said loudly. “Are you the Duty Officer?”

The man looked shocked. “What, me? Do I look like the—?”

“He doesn’t remember,” the girl interrupted. “Anything. Except, he knew about laws. And he’s thought of an incredibly clever way of making cars go without—”

“I’d like to see the Duty Officer, please,” Theo said firmly.

“What, now?”

“If that’s possible.”

The man frowned. “I don’t know about that. I’ll have to ask him. Excuse me just a moment.”

He withdrew, closing the door firmly behind him. The girl was looking at a piece of paper pinned up on the wall.

“The Duty Roster,” she said. “It tells you who the Duty Officer is. Gosh.”

“What?”

“Fancy that,” she said.

“I can try, but you’ll have to meet me halfway. What’s so—?”

“You’ll never guess who’s on Duty today.”

“No, almost certainly not. You could try telling me, though, if that wouldn’t be seen as cheating.”

She turned and beamed at him. “Him,” she said. “The other one.”

“Excuse me?”

“The other one like you,” she said. “You know. The man who turned up and couldn’t remember anything. Apparently, today’s his turn.”

Theo was just about to say something when the door opened again, and a different man came out. He froze in the doorway, stared for a moment, then clicked his tongue as loud as a pistol shot.

Theo, for crying out loud.

Theo couldn’t do telepathy. Presumably it took time, and he’d only been there an hour or so. So he had to make do with words. “Hello, Max,” he said.

Shut your face and get in here now.

The girl was gawping at the pair of them. “You know him?” she said.

“No,” Max and Theo said simultaneously. “Go away,” Max added. “Please. And you,” he added, as the man came out to see what all the fuss was in aid of. “Vital affairs of state,” he explained. “Essential meeting, total secrecy. Nobody must know. Got that?”

The man shrugged. The girl nodded eagerly. “Is this something to do with the exploding-gas car-propelling machine? Because I think it’s really great.”

Max grabbed him by the shoulder, shoved him through the door and slammed it shut behind them. “Theo,” he said. “You total bastard.”

Theo held up his hand. “Max.”

“Yes?”

“Do I take it that you can do this telepathy thing they’ve got around here?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Fine. Read my mind.”

Didn’t take long. Max’s eyebrows shot up; then he said, “I see. I’m sorry you feel that way.”

“I’m not.”

“You’d really like to do that to me?”

“Yes.”

“With a tablespoon?”

“Yes.”

Max looked hurt. He was so very good at it. “Well, tough,” he said, “because all the spoons in these parts are made of wood, and they’d snap. You’ll just have to wait till we get home. Which won’t,” he added firmly, “be long now. Will it?”

Theo made an exasperated gesture. “Max, you arsehole,” he said, “what are you doing here? You should be on the Disney planet.”

“Which is exactly where I would be,” Max replied angrily, “if it’d been up to you. And chances are, I’d have been Tigger-fodder by now, so it’s just as well I used a bit of initiative and escaped, isn’t it?”

“Max—”

“And why exactly are you trying to get these innocent, Arcadian people to abandon their sustainable, eco-friendly technology and start building gas engines? What harm did they ever do to you?”

“Max.”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

First time in their joint lives it actually worked. Even then, Max’s reaction was to sulk. He folded his arms and sat down. “Max.”

“Hm?”

“For pity’s sake, how did you get off the Disney planet? You didn’t have any of the kit. No YouSpace bottle, nothing.”

Max did one of his insufferable smirks. “Oh, that,” he said. “I just used my head, that’s all.”

“Makes sense. It’s big enough, God knows. What did you do?”

“Oh, I was really brave,” Max said. “You remember where you abandoned me, in that cave? Well, after a while I couldn’t stand it any more, so one night I sneaked out, walked to the village, somehow managed to creep past the heavily armed guards without getting shot, broke into a bakery store and stole a doughnut. It was still pitch dark and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, so I dragged myself all the way back to the cave. As soon as the sun rose, I looked though the hole in the doughnut, just like you told me to, and guess what happened? Nothing.” He gave Theo a furious scowl, then went on, “Absolutely nothing at all.”

“Max—”

“So I asked myself,” Max went on, “is my dear brother playing funny games with me, or is it just he’s so stupid he can’t even—?”

“Doughnuts don’t work like that,” Theo said wretchedly. “It’d have worked for me, because the bottle was user-specific, but I’d have had to take you with me. And anyhow, the bottle’s broken now, so it wouldn’t work at all.”

“Theo.” Max blinked twice. “I know drivelling’s what you do best, but there’s a time and a place for everything, so please stop. Thanks,” he went on, before Theo could explain his explanation, “but I’d sort of gathered the doughnuts weren’t working. So I had to think of something else.”

“What?”

Max’s face suddenly changed. For Theo, who’d known him for so very long, it was quite an extraordinary moment; almost as if Max had cut himself, to reveal blinking coloured lights and circuitry under his skin. “I’m not sure, really,” he said. “To be absolutely honest, it wasn’t anything to do with me. I was sitting on the floor of the cave, wondering what I’d done to deserve being shafted and abandoned by my own brother—”

“Max.”

“When suddenly,” Max went on, “there was the most amazing bang, dust started coming down from the roof, and a huge great hole appeared in the floor. It must’ve caught me off balance, because the next thing I knew was, I’d fallen through the hole and landed on one of those ghastly see-through sidewalks they’ve got around here. And I’ve been here ever since,” he concluded, “settling in and becoming really rather popular, though I say so myself. Mind you, wherever I go, people just seem to like me. It’s a gift.”

Theo opened his mouth, but no words seemed to want to come out and play.

“Oh, and there’s one other thing,” Max went on. “Doesn’t actually seem to matter particularly much, but it’s still as weird as a dozen ferrets in a blender. Take a look at this.”

He took his left hand out of his pocket and extended it, fingers splayed. The centre of his palm was translucent.

At last, Theo found a word. It was, “Um.”

“Theo?” Max narrowed his eyes. “I can tell from your face you’re not quite as surprised as you ought to be. Does it mean something? What?”

Before Theo could find a way of not answering, the door flew open. Theo swung round and saw the man he’d first encountered when he arrived. He was scowling at them, either through barely controlled rage or because of the strain of holding a powerful-looking catapult at full draw.

“That’s him,” the man said. “Get him.”

Half a dozen men in green smocks, also wielding catapults, pushed past him, grabbed Theo and shoved him up against the wall. The room was filling with people. Max tried to make a discreet exit, but they grabbed him too, although rather more politely. In the squash, Theo could just see the girl who’d found him. She looked furiously angry.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” someone said.

The crowd parted to let through a very old man, leaning on a stick. He tottered forward and examined Theo’s face through a lens on a piece of string round his neck. Then he glanced down at the ancient scrap of paper he held in his left hand. It was a newspaper clipping.

“Yes,” the old man said eventually, “that’s him all right. That’s Theo Bernstein.”

There was a deafening roar of angry voices, abruptly cut short when the old man raised his hand. “Well?” the old man said.

Theo nodded. “Yes, I’m Theo Bernstein,” he said. “But how did you—?”

The rest of the sentence was washed away by the surge of horrified gasps. “You admit it.”

“Well, yes.”

The girl burst into tears. Several catapults creaked ominously. “You’re the Theo Bernstein who blew up the Very Very Large Hadron Collider?”

Sigh. “Yes, that’s me.”

“He admits it,” someone yelled. “What’re we waiting for? Chuck him off the edge, quick.”

But the old man shook his head, and the crowd calmed down a little. Then someone said, “This can’t be right, you know. All that stuff happened a thousand years ago. He doesn’t look a thousand years old.”

The old man gave the speaker a withering stare. “In fact, the explosion took place two hundred and seventy-three years ago.”

“All right, he doesn’t look three hundred. It can’t have been him.”

“Look at the picture,” the old man said angrily, brandishing the clipping under the sceptic’s nose. “It’s him, it’s the same man.”

“And he’s admitted it,” someone else called out. “Quit fooling around and chuck the bastard, before he blows all of us up as well.”

This suggestion met with considerable popular support, but the old man hadn’t finished yet. “Just to make sure,” he said, and turned to Theo once again. “You freely and sincerely admit that it was you who blew up the Very Very Large Hadron Collider?”

“Yes. Well, if you’d asked me that this time yesterday I’d have said yes, no question, but since then I have reason to believe that—” He looked round and decided not to try explaining about what Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz had told him Pieter might’ve done. They didn’t seem to be in the mood. “Yup,” he said. “It was me.”

This time the old man didn’t have to impose silence. Everybody seemed too stunned to speak.

“You blew up the Very Very Large Hadron Collider,” the old man repeated solemnly, “thereby causing the ecological catastrophe that made our world uninhabitable and forcing the survivors of our race to forsake the surface and adopt this wretched, primitive existence among the clouds.”

“Yes – I mean, what? I didn’t—”

A deafening chorus of booing and jeers, which the old man had some difficulty in damping down. In the end he had to stamp his little foot. “You didn’t realise,” the old man said scornfully. “Well, perhaps you didn’t. I’m inclined to doubt that, though. After all, there’s the evidence of the note.”

“Note? What note?”

“The note you left,” the old man said grimly, “on your desk at the Institute, written in your own distinctive, very untidy handwriting.” From his pocket he produced another piece of yellow, crumbling paper. “Would you like me to read it to you? It says—” The old man cleared his throat. “I did it to rescue my brother Max. Mr Bernstein,” the old man went on, folding the paper and putting it away. “That sounds very much like a confession to me.”

Uproar. The girl, in floods of tears, was yelling, “Chuck him! Push him off the edge!” Then the man who’d been there when they arrived roared for quiet, and everybody stopped shouting.

“That other man,” he said. “When they met, just now. That one called him Max.”

Suddenly, every eye in the room shifted to the far corner, where Max was trying unsuccessfully to hide behind a very small chair. “That’s what he said. He said, hello, Max. I heard him.”

The old man’s eyes were bulging out of his head. “Is it true?” he demanded breathlessly. “Is this Max?”

“Um.”

“Well?”

Theo took a deep breath. “No,” he said. “No, it isn’t. I thought it was, but it’s definitely not. I never saw this man before in my life.”

The old man gripped his shirt front with both hands. “You’re sure about that, are you?”

“Oh, absolutely. Don’t know why I ever thought it was him. For a start, my brother Max was quite good looking.”

Theo glanced at his brother, who was clearly torn between wanting to be good looking and fear of death. It was touch and go for a moment. Then Max said, “He’s right. I never met him before. He’s definitely not my brother.”

The old man squinted at him. “How would you know?” he said quietly. “You’ve lost your memory.”

That seemed to settle the issue. They hauled Max out of his corner and frogmarched him and Theo out of the hut on to the invisible walkway. They were chanting, “Horrible! Horrible!” Theo had no idea how many of them there were, but it was considerably more than six.

They pushed them forward until their feet were right on the edge. The wind sawed at Theo’s face, sharp as a blade.

Oh well, Max said inside his head. You tried.

He turned and looked at his brother. It was a little late to forgive him now, but –

Just not hard enough. Typical. You always were a useless bastard.

Then something nudged the small of his back, and he toppled and fell.



It occurred to Theo, as he fell and fell and fell and fell, that if he’d had his wits about him he’d have pointed out that, since he’d lost his memory too, nothing he’d said by way of admission or confession could be taken as reliable evidence, and all of it should therefore be disregarded. Or, if they were suddenly prepared to admit such evidence, at the very least they’d have to listen to Max when he told them he’d never met Theo before. It was, he felt, a pretty good point, and it was a real shame he couldn’t go back up there and make it.



You wouldn’t think you could get bored falling to your death, but it all depends on how far you have to go. Usually, it’s just ten or twelve storeys, and you’ve only just got time to do the engulfed-with-terror thing and blurt out a quick blanket repentance of sins before you touch down and lose a dimension. But when it’s a really, really long drop, there’s a definite risk of ennui. Theo watched his past life flash in front of him, which took up maybe a second and was thoroughly depressing. He had his moment of regret about the unmade losing-his-memory argument. He turned his scientist’s brain on to figuring out clever ways of surviving a drop from twenty thousand feet and came to the conclusion there weren’t any. He hated Max – that used up a whole second and a third. And then he simply ran out of things to do. Not good enough, he felt. On a trip this long, the very least they could do was serve a simple meal and screen an in-fall movie.

It was only when he was very nearly there, and the wild blue sea was plainly visible below him, so close that he could see the white beard of froth on each tumultuous wave, that an idea struck him and made him gasp. Even while it was flashing through his brain like electric current across a sparkplug, he couldn’t help howling with rage and fury at the inopportuneness of it all. Ten minutes earlier, and he’d have had the answers to everything, the whole bloody stupid mess, at his fingertips – in time, just possibly, to sort it out and get himself and his worthless brother to safety. As it was –



Theo sat up.

He’d got water in his eyes, his ears and up his nose. He coughed violently and spat out a mouthful of it. On all sides, the waves rippled and heaved.

He was in a bath.

And why not? It was, after all, water, and everything is just a matter of scale…

No! He shuddered with rage, slopping water over the side and on to the floor (carpeted in a sort of neutral beige). It’s not fair, it’s not right, I shouldn’t be sitting in a warm tub engulfed in patchouli-scented suds, I should be dead –

He played that last phrase back and decided he was overdoing the moral indignation just a little bit. Even so, he was genuinely angry. He was a scientist, dammit. Inexplicable phenomena – magic, he glossed scornfully – just wasn’t on, even if it saved him from a watery grave.

He lay back and stared at his little pink toes, which rose up out of the froth like ten bashful mermaids. I was falling. They shoved me off the edge, and I fell. I hit the water and here I am.

Which reminded him. He sat up, and caught sight of something on the white-wood-chipped wall. It was a framed embroidered sampler, which read –

You Are Here.

No map, just the words. Ah well.

He completed the survey, which revealed a heated towel rail, over which was draped a white towelling robe with a YS monogram on the pocket. He did a double-take, then, as the implications sank in, breathed a long sigh of relief. YS could only stand for YouSpace. In which case, this environment was something to do with the program (or, as he preferred to think of it, Pieter’s fault) and he wasn’t dead and in some sort of ghastly, logic-defying, scientifically impossible, Dawkins-baiting afterlife –

– And, now he came to think of it, he was safe, and well, and not in the slightest bit drowned, and Max was nowhere to be seen. He let out a long, long sigh of sheer joy and flopped backwards, shooting a tidal wave of suds over the bath rim and on to the floor. I’m alive, he realised. That’s really quite nice, actually.

The joy didn’t evaporate. It faded very slowly and gradually, roughly at the same rate as the bathwater cooled, from snugly warm to tepid to blood heat, until he decided it was time to (a) get on with the rest of his life, and (b) get out of the bath before he caught his death of cold. He put on the bathrobe, pushed open the door and found himself on a landing, opposite a door. He pushed that open too. He saw a small, nondescript room with two old, comfy-looking armchairs, a slightly out-of-shape sofa, a TV set and no windows. He shrugged and went in.

The TV set was on. It was broadcasting soft white noise and showing black and white lines, but when he walked in front of it, the noise stopped and the screen turned blue. Then text started to roll up it, Star Wars intro fashion, while an orchestral arrangement of ‘Killing Me Softly’ played in the background –

Muted congratulations!

If you’re reading this, you’ve found the YouSpace Clubhouse. Welcome!

The YouSpace Clubhouse is a facility provided free of charge exclusively to YouSpace users. If you are not a registered YouSpace customer, please leave now through the door in the west wall. To make the door appear, say Door.

About The YouSpace Clubhouse. The YouSpace Clubhouse is available to all YouSpace users as a communal area, social networking arena and leisure and recreational facility. To access the Clubhouse, input Clubhouse into your personal interface module.

Why Muted Congratulations? We note that you didn’t enter the YouSpace Clubhouse using your personal interface module. Therefore, you have accessed the YouSpace Clubhouse using the LastChance™ facility, an integral part of the YouSpace program.

About LastChance. LastChance™ is a function of FailSafe™ For YouSpace, the pre-installed YouSpace personal safety manager. If, during your YouSpace experience, you should encounter a situation inevitably resulting in certain death (such as, for example, getting killed) YouSpace will automatically transfer you to the YouSpace Clubhouse during the last fraction of a microsecond of your existence. Since linear time does not pass inside YouSpace, you can now exist indefinitely within the YouSpace Clubhouse. While here, feel free to enjoy the wide range of leisure and educational facilities and gourmet cuisine provided for your comfort and wellbeing. Please note, however, that should you leave the YouSpace clubhouse (by walking through the door in the west wall accessible by saying Door; see above) you will immediately die. Please note that LastChance™ and FailSafe™ are registered trademarks of PVG Enterprises (Holdings) Inc.

Theo’s mouth opened in a silent, wordless scream. He staggered, backed awkwardly until he bumped into one of the armchairs, and collapsed into it. For a long time, he could do nothing but sit, staring at the screen, trying to find a handhold that’d help him climb out of the well shaft of horror and despair he found himself in. Not alive after all, a voice kept saying in his head. True; and not dead, either. Instead, stuck in perpetual standby mode, in a small living room with light blue wallpaper and a slightly tatty beige carpet.

Finally, after a great deal of frantic scrabbling, slipping and falling back, he found the handhold, clung to it and hauled himself back up into the daylight of partial hope. True, he was as good as dead, trapped in a horrendous Sartre-esque nightmare of grotesque semi-existence, from which there was no way out other than total oblivion. But, he told himself fervently, it could have been so much worse, given the circumstances of his arrival. He might (he shivered from head to toe) have been trapped in this godawful place for ever and ever with Max –

“Theo?”

This time, the scream was neither silent nor wordless. True, the word was only “Nooooo!”, but that was the best he could do by way of eloquence under the circumstances.

“Theo, pull yourself together and get a grip, for God’s sake,” Max said irritably. “Have you seen what it says on the TV?”

No words. Theo just nodded.

“It’s awful. We can’t just stay here. This place is a dump.”

Nod. Manic grin.

“That’s totally unreasonable. We can’t be expected to hang around in this shithole for the rest of eternity. That’s just stupid. I’d rather be dead.”

“Door.”

A patch of the opposite wall glowed blue, and the outline of a doorframe appeared, as though sketched in by a vast unseen Rolf Harris.

“I didn’t mean it literally, you idiot,” Max said irritably, and the door vanished. Theo whimpered and buried his head in his hands. “That’s charming, by the way. Absolutely charming. You should be glad I wasn’t killed outright.”

“Why?”

Max ignored him. “Oh hell,” he said. Then he dropped on to the sofa and put his feet up. “This is all your fault, by the way.”

“My—?”

“Of course. If you hadn’t blown up the VVLHC and trashed those poor people’s planet, they would’ve have thrown us off the edge.”

“But I didn’t,” Theo yelled. “I blew up our VVLHC in our universe. What happened back there was nothing to do with—”

Max shook his head sadly. “And you call yourself a physicist,” he said. “Clearly, when the collider blew, it had quantum repercussions throughout the multiverse. All of which,” he added helpfully, “are your fault too. I don’t know, Theo, you always were such a careless bugger.”

“Not my fault. Not!”

“Screaming and yelling won’t make you right,” Max said gently. “When you look at it calmly and dispassionately, it’s obvious that when you blew up the VVLHC, you caused a fundamental rift in the fabric of, Theo, what are you doing with that cushion? Ouch. That hurt.”

Theo threw the cushion on the floor, dropped back into the armchair and buried his head in his hands. He wanted to sulk, but sulking requires a fairly intensive level of concentration, and what Max had just said about the VVLHC kept coming back to him, like the taste of a frankfurter. A fundamental rift. Of course Max was using terms whose meaning he didn’t really understand. He might have been Pieter’s student for a while, but he’d never done any work; most of what he actually knew about quantum physics had most likely been gleaned from mid-afternoon reruns of Star Trek. Even so. A fundamental rift –

“It said something about gourmet cuisine,” Max said after a while. “I’m hungry.”

“What?”

“Gourmet cuisine,” Max repeated. “You seen a kitchen anywhere?”

Theo looked up. “No. Maybe it’s slipped down the back of the sofa.”

Max mimed an exaggerated laugh. “If there’s no kitchen,” he said, “presumably there’s some sort of room service.”

“In hell?” Theo grinned wildly at him. “You think you can ring through to Reception and a demon with horns sticking out of his head’ll come running with a toasted sandwich on the end of his pitchfork?”

Max frowned. “You’re overstating it a bit there, aren’t you? This isn’t hell exactly.”

“It is from where I’m sitting.”

“I bet you,” Max went on, “that around here somewhere – ah, here we go.” He pounced like a swooping osprey and brandished a TV remote. “Now then.” He pointed it at the TV set and methodically pressed all the buttons in turn. Eventually, a menu appeared on the screen.

“Guest Services,” he said. “That’ll be it. Right, let’s see.”

Theo looked at the screen, as Max scrolled down a list until he came to Food & Drink:

If you entered the Clubhouse via the LastChance facility, we regret that you are not permitted to access the Food & Drink facility. This is because you are a split second away from death and therefore do not need to eat or drink. Instead, why not enjoy the wide range of entertainment and leisure activities on offer in the Fun N Games locker, situated behind the sofa?

“Bastards,” Max growled. “I’m starving.”

Theo laughed out loud. Eternity, with nothing to eat, and Max. It just got better and better. “You’re closest,” he said. “Find this locker thing.”

“I don’t want entertainment and leisure activities,” Max said furiously, “I want food.”

“What you want,” Theo started to say, then thought better of it. “The locker,” he said. “Now.”

Grumbling, Max slid off the sofa and investigated. “There’s a shoebox,” he said. “That’s all.”

“That must be it, then. What’s inside?” Pause. “This can’t be it.”

“Really? Why not?”

Max stood up, holding a small rectangular box. “All we’ve got in here are some kids’ games,” he said. “Pack of cards. Ludo. Snakes and f*cking ladders. Happy Families.”

“That’s appropriate.”

“That,” Max said forcefully, “is not my idea of a wide range of entertainment and leisure activities.”

Theo could see his point. “You sure there’s nothing else?”

“Yes. No, I tell a lie. There’s also a ball of wool and two knitting needles.”

“Ah. That makes all the difference.”

“It’s junk,” Max snarled, throwing the box on the sofa. “Sorry, but I refuse to spend eternity playing Ludo.” He grabbed the remote and pressed some more buttons. “Surely there’s at last something to watch. Yes, here we are. Options, that looks good. History Channel, boring. Home Improvement Channel. Well, it could do with it. Arts and Literature Channel, you must be kidding. Ah. Adult Channel, now you’re talking. Oh.”

To access any channel, first insert your credit card in the slot and key in your PIN.

“Don’t look at me,” Theo said. “They cancelled all my cards when I lost all my money.”

“And I’m legally dead. Wonderful.” Max dropped the remote on the floor and collapsed on to the sofa. “No TV, no entertainments, no food. This is a nightmare.”

Theo breathed in deeply and counted to ten. It didn’t work. It never had. “Max.”

“What?”

“You know something?”

“What?”

Theo smiled sweetly. “You,” he said, “are an arsehole.”

It was as if he’d suddenly started speaking Portuguese. Max simply didn’t get it. “Huh?”

“Arsehole,” Theo repeated clearly. “You’re horrible. You’re the most pathetic excuse for a human being it’s ever been my misfortune to meet. You’re selfish, thoughtless, arrogant, inconsiderate, totally self-centred and quite unbearably annoying. You don’t give a damn about how much trouble you cause for other people. You’re feckless, shiftless and no damn good. And your feet smell.”

“They do not.”

“Your feet,” Theo repeated sternly, “smell.”

Max hesitated. “All right, maybe they do, a bit. But all that other stuff—”

“Perfectly true.”

Long silence. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“Am I really all those things you said?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

There was a moment of absolute stillness, such as hasn’t ever happened since the beginning of the universe. Then Max said, “Really? You’re not just saying it because you’re pissed off?”

“No, Max. I meant every word. Every word was true.”

“Oh.”

Max was frowning. He looked rather like a scientist on the verge of making a revolutionary new discovery, something so original and out-of-the-box that the words to describe or define it don’t exist yet. “I never realised,” he said. “Nobody ever said anything before.”

“Well, they wouldn’t,” Theo said kindly. “It’s so obvious, they assumed you knew. It’s like, when you go to Egypt, you don’t grab the locals by the arm and point and go, ‘Look! A pyramid!’ ”

“But people like me.”

Theo nodded. “True,” he said. “For a short while. Then they get to know you. Then the fact that you seemed pleasant enough at first glance only makes it worse.”

“I’m popular.”

“People were trying to kill you,” Theo reminded him. “That’s why you had to disappear.”

“Yes, but only because I’d stolen their money.” “People can be so unreasonable.”

“Not,” Max said severely, “because I’m a basically unpleasant person. You do see the distinction.”

“Don’t wriggle, Max. You’re a toad. Accept it. If we’re going to have to stay cooped up in here for ever and ever and ever, it’s vitally important that you acknowledge the fact that you’re a shit.”

“Would you go that far?”

“Actually, that’s not far enough. You’re a complete shit. You’re what shit shits. Don’t argue,” Theo added firmly. “Just say, Yes, Theo. Can you do that?”

“Look—”

“Yes, Theo.”

An agonised look spread over Max’s face; somewhere between the torment of self-realisation and toothache. He opened and closed his mouth three times. Then he said, “Yes, Theo.”

“What?”

“Yes, Theo.”

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that. Say again?”

“Yes, Theo.”

Theo smiled beautifully. “Thank you,” he said. “You know what,” he added, leaning back in his chair and resting his head on the headrest, “it’s almost worth it, being stuck here and all, just to hear you say that.”

Max looked at him. “Really?”

Theo nodded. “It means I don’t have to hate you any more.”

“Hate. Rather a strong word, isn’t it?”

“In context, no.”

“Ah. But you don’t, any more.”

“No.”

The silence that followed combined the golden glow of peace and joy with the toe-curling embarrassment that always happens when men talk about their feelings. It lasted five seconds, which was plenty long enough. Then Max said, “How about playing snakes and ladders?”

“Love to.”

“Fine. I’ll be blue.”

“No. I’ll be blue.”

Max opened his mouth, then stopped. “Sure,” he said. “You be blue. You want to go first?”

“You can go first, Max.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.”

They played snakes and ladders. Then they played Ludo. They found that, if they cooperated instead of trying to win, they could stretch the game out for a very long time. Neither of them had a watch, there was no clock, and no window to indicate whether it was day or night outside (Theo had a shrewd idea there was no outside), but Theo eventually calculated, by counting seconds while feeling his own pulse, that the average game took nineteen hours, twelve minutes. When the score stood at 16 games to Theo, 16 games to Max and 378 games drawn (snakes and ladders), 29 games to Theo, 28 games to Max and 1,775 games drawn (Ludo), Theo said, “You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m bored with this. Let’s do something else.”

“What?”

“Let’s escape.”

Max looked at him. “The only way out of here is through the D-O-O-R in the wall,” he said. “You know, the one that appears when you say the D word. I don’t really think you want to go there.”

Theo shook his head. “The only way out we’ve been told about,” he said.

“Theo.” Max made a noise like a tree being ripped out by its roots. “You’re talking about sneaking out of death, right?”

“If you want to look at it in those terms, yes.”

“Theo.” Max leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Over the last few days—”

“Six years.”

“Huh?”

“Six years. That’s how long we’ve been here.”

Max went very pale, but went on, “Over the six years we’ve been here, I’ve come to value the bond that’s grown up between us, so the last thing I’d want to do is jeopardise our rapprochement by speaking out of turn.”

“Same here, Max.”

“Splendid. So, would it be all right if I just said something off the record and totally without prejudice?”

“Sure.”

“And if you don’t like it, you won’t be offended or anything?”

“Of course not.”

“You’re an idiot, Theo. You’re a complete moron.”

Theo nodded slowly. “I’m not offended,” he said.

“Good. Look, you may be a top-flight physicist and all that crap, but when it comes to sneaking out, compared to me, you’re nothing. A novice. A sneaking-out virgin. I’ve snuck out of everywhere over the years – bedrooms, hotels without paying, countries ten minutes ahead of the cops. You name it, I’ve got out of it, in my underwear, by the skin of my teeth. If there was a Nobel prize for last-minute absconding, I’d be climbing out the bathroom window with it tucked under my arm. And I’m here to tell you—”

“Max.”

“Death,” Max said firmly, “is the one thing you can’t sneak out of. There are no kitchens, there is no fire escape. This place here, it’s not somewhere you can sneak out from, it’s where you sneak out to. This is the walk-in closet in Death’s bedroom, Theo. Now that we’re here, we’re here. Face it. There’s no escape.”

“Max.”

Max gave him a furious glare. “What?”

“There’s a door.”

“There is now that you’ve said the D word. “

“No,” Theo said quietly. “Another one. Look.”

He pointed. Side by side in the wall were two doorways. One of them glowed blue. The other one was just a door; white, rectangular, panelled and fitted with a plain wooden doorknob.

“There,” Theo said. “See?”

“That wasn’t there before.”

“Correct.” Theo stood up, but didn’t move towards the door-infested wall. “The other one only showed up when I said there’s a—”

“Shh. Don’t say that.”

“Get a grip, Max, it’s already here. It’ll go away in a second. There,” he added, as it faded away, leaving nothing behind except a blur on the retina and a faint scent of primroses. “But the new one’s still there, look.”

“Keep well away,” Max said nervously. “We don’t know anything about it.”

“Don’t be so feeble,” Theo said. “It could be our way out of here.” He studied it and frowned. “Or it could just be somewhere to put coats and stuff. We just don’t know.”

“We haven’t got any coats. Or any stuff, come to that.”

“It could be a pantry. You know, food.”

That was a word that hadn’t been spoken for quite some time. At the sound of it Max twitched slightly, like an old fish that’s been hooked and thrown back half a dozen times, but still can’t quite resist the implausibly dangling worm. “No reason to think it’s that.”

“No reason to think it isn’t.”

But Max only shook his head. “I’m not going through that,” he said. “Not unless it’s guaranteed a hundred per cent safe. Whoever designed this place has got a seriously warped mind.”

Theo sighed. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll go.”

“What, and leave me here on my own for the rest of eternity? Over my dead body.”

“Actually, I’m not sure that’s even possible in here. Look, if you’re afraid of getting left, come with me.”

“No. It’s dangerous.”

“Max, for crying out loud. It’s a d—”

“Don’t say it.”

“Flat piece of wood with hinges and a handle. What is there to be afraid of?”

“Gosh,” Max said, “let’s see, now. There’s death, and serious injury, and not-so-serious-but-still-nasty injury, and perpetual imprisonment, and the annihilation of the soul, everlasting damnation, let’s not forget that—”

“Max. You haven’t suddenly gone and got religion, have you?”

“It’s an infinite multiverse,” Max snapped. “Who knows what’s out there? In an infinite multiverse, it’s pretty much inevitable that somewhere there’s a universe that was created in seven days by an old man with a long white beard and outmoded views on extramarital sex. If the stuff they made me read in school is anything to go by, I really don’t want to end up there, thank you ever so much.” He shrank back into the angle of the sofa, as if it was a snail’s shell. “The more I think about it, the happier I am here. I mean, we’ve got light, heat, furniture, games. Each other,” he added, just a fraction of a second too late. “What more could anybody ask, really?”

“Max.”

“No. Forget it. I’m not going.”

“Look.”

The doorknob was turning. Max whimpered and grabbed a cushion. The door creaked, swung slowly forward, then abruptly vanished. In its place, sitting on the floor, was a jar of pickled walnuts.

“Oh,” Theo said.

Max peered out over the top of the cushion. “Has it gone?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that?”

Theo peered. “Pickled walnuts.”

“Food?”

“In a sense.” Theo frowned. “No, stay there. I need to think.”

“It’s all right, I’ll save you some.” Max was on his feet, heading for the jar.

“Max.”

“Theo, I’m hungry.”

“Sit down. I think I know…” Theo tailed off. It sort of made sense, except that it was the kind of sense that had no trace of logic about it whatsoever. “Oh come on,” he said suddenly. “It can’t be. That’s just silly.”

Max stared at him in agony. “Theo, what are you talking about?”

“That.” He waved towards the jar. “I mean, yes, it fits. But it’s so childish. And it doesn’t mean anything.”

“What?”

Theo let go the deep breath he’d been holding in. “Think about it,” he said wearily. “What’s the oldest, feeblest joke in the world?”

Max frowned. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” “The other one.” “When is a—Oh.”

“Precisely. When is a door—” The wall started to glow blue. “Not a door.”

“When it’s a—”

“Jar, yes.” Theo folded his arms and scowled. The blue door glowed and faded. “Thank you,” Theo said. “Sorry, right. When it’s a jar. Hey presto, a jar.”

“Pickled walnuts.”

“Probably just a random selection.”

“I like pickled walnuts.”

“Then it could be your subconscious mind affecting the otherwise random choice of contents, that’s not the point. It’s meaningless. It’s a stupid, boring old joke, that’s all. That’s the point.”

Max yawned. “In that case, maybe it’s part of the entertainment and leisure facilities,” he said. “Actually, that wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“It’s got to mean something,” Theo persisted. “Otherwise, what’s it doing here?”

Max leaned forward. “If you’re right,” he said thoughtfully, “and if the pickled walnuts are just random contents, possibly influenced by my subconscious—”

“Yes?”

“Then it won’t matter if I eat them, will it?”

Theo growled, then shook his head. “Go ahead,” he said. “Be my guest.”

“Thanks.” Max vaulted over the end of the sofa, jumped across the room and grabbed the jar. “Oh,” he said. “Shit.”

“What?”

“They’re out of date.”

“Max.”

“But you’re not supposed to—”

“Think about it, will you? Where we are? Time has no meaning here.”

Max turned the jar round slowly in his hand. “So you reckon they’re probably OK?”

“Time has no meaning.” Theo hadn’t meant to shout, particularly not a phrase that made him sound like one of those strange men who preach on street corners. He lowered his voice a little. “So,” he went on, “if we’re in, effectively, a time-free zone, why is there a date on the label?”

“It’s the law. Trading standards.”

“The jar came from somewhere else.” He rubbed his forehead with his hands as though he was trying to cold-start it. “Let’s think about this,” he said. “That stuff on the TV. You can get in here if you’re a registered YouSpace user.”

“Are there any?”

“Me. Or I was. Don’t know if I still am since the bottle got broken. Pieter, I guess, but he’s stuck on the Beach Boys planet.” He scowled ferociously; he was missing something, something really quite obvious. When is a door…?

Blue flicker, again. He ignored it and sat bolt upright. “When it’s a jar.”

“What?”

“The joke. It’s a clue.”

Max drew a deep, sad sigh. “You know,” he said, “I never could see the attraction in leaving cryptic clues. If it’s important, you run a very real risk of nobody getting it. If it’s not important, why the hell bother? Much safer just to say what you want to say; the treasure’s up in the roof, George killed me, I didn’t actually write this stuff—”

“Max.”

“All right, it’s a f*cking clue. What does it mean?”

“I think—” Theo was staring at the wall where the door-that-wasn’t had been. “It’s – well, one of those things we don’t talk about. But when it’s not one of those things we don’t talk about, it’s a jar.” Suddenly he sprang to his feet, crossed the room in three giant strides and snatched the jar out of Max’s hands. “You know what this is?”

“Don’t you start.”

“I think,” Theo said, “that this isn’t a jar. It’s a bottle.”

Max frowned. “Nah. Neck’s too wide.”

“I think it’s a YouSpace bottle,” Theo said, in a high, brittle voice. “Because where does it actually say they’ve got to be bottles? They could be jars. Well, couldn’t they?”

“You’re doing it again, Theo. It’s not kind, you know. Do please make an effort not to talk drivel.”

Theo wasn’t listening. “It’s a glass container, open at one end. That’s all it is.”

“Full of walnuts,” Max pointed out. “Does that make a difference?”

“The wine bottles were full of wine.”

“So I should hope.”

“So it shouldn’t matter.” Theo’s fingers closed around the lid, but he couldn’t seem to find the strength to twist it off. “Here,” he said. “You do it.”

“Me? Why me?”

“I don’t know.” Theo gazed at him blankly. “I guess it’s the thought of maybe just possibly getting out of here, after six years. I can’t actually bring myself to do it.”

“You’re scared.”

“Yes, maybe I am. So are you.”

“Ah,” Max said sagely, “but in my case, fear is an essential function of my finely honed survival instinct. You’re just chicken.”

“I’m afraid it might not work.”

Max looked at him for quite some time. “Here’s the deal,” he said. “If I open it, and it’s not what you think it is, I get to eat all the walnuts. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

Slowly, Theo passed the jar over to Max, who snatched it, took a lingering look of pure desire at the walnuts, and tightened his hands around the lid like a finalist in the World Strangling Championships. “Doesn’t want to budge,” he muttered, “how about we just break it?”

“No!”

“Yes, but – hang on, I’m there.” There was a faint pop as the seal broke, and Max lifted off the lid. “It’s open.”

“Good. Give it to me.”

“No chance,” Max said. “Not until I’ve—”

And then he vanished.



Theo sat for a while, staring at the place where his brother had been, now occupied by an empty jar.

Empty. The walnuts had vanished at the same moment as Max. Did that mean something?

Maybe. Maybe it meant that, wherever Max was now, he was just starting to feel the first pangs of indigestion that inevitably follow if you scoff a whole jar of pickles. Or maybe it was the crucial point which made all the –

Stop, he ordered himself. Think. Before we go any further, it’s time for a Universal Theory of Everything. That’s what a scientist would do. Besides, the easiest way of finding a path through a minefield is not necessarily the safest. Think.

He thought.

A tune he’d heard recently was playing in a loop in his head, over and over. If everybody had an ocean; that was as far as it went, nine notes. He shut it out and tried to assemble the data from which he was to draw his inferences.

Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz – well, more about her later, but she’d said it was Pieter who’d blown up the VVLHC, just so as to test a component.

He’d been thinking about the maths; also, the eternal question, why me? The two were kind of linked:

– The maths didn’t work; that was the little something about them that had been nagging away at him all along. He, Theo Bernstein, could make them work, but maybe that was the point.

He thought back to his days as Pieter’s student, the set of problems he’d been given which had first caught Pieter’s attention. According to Pieter, the way he’d set about solving them had been unique, revolutionary, totally original. It had also, of course, been wrong. The answers, as written down on a sheet of paper, had been incorrect. And yet Pieter had been astonished, riveted, captivated when he’d read them. Now, then. What exactly was it that Pieter had seen in those answers?

If everybody had an ocean

He ran a finger round the rim of the empty jar. What Pieter had seen – it came to him slowly and opaquely, as if viewed through frosted glass – was a different sort of mathematics; maths from another reality. One in which two plus two really does make six.

Pieter was looking for a way into other realities. Suddenly, in a routine dollop of homework, he recognises the mark of someone who’s been there – like Columbus, roaming the streets of Madrid dreaming of a new world, bumping into a stranger wearing an I Love New York baseball cap.

But, Pieter reasoned, this man, this kid, can’t have been there, because as yet no bridge exists.

But, Pieter reasoned, he must’ve been there, because he’s wearing the baseball cap.

Therefore, Pieter reasoned, it’s simply a matter of time. He will go there, he will acquire the baseball cap, and then he’ll come back.

But, Pieter reasoned, travelling from the future to the past is impossible.

In, Pieter reasoned, this reality it’s impossible. Not where he’s been. Not where he got the cap. Where he’s been, time must be different. Time must have no meaning.

At which point, Theo conjectured, a bright light would’ve lit up inside Pieter’s head, and he’d have reasoned something like this –

There is a multiverse where everything is possible.

In some place in that multiverse, what I’m trying to do is possible. Here, it’s not possible. There, it is. Now, if only I could go to there, what I’m trying to do would be possible. My problem is, not that I can’t get where I’m going, but I can’t get there from here.

But, Pieter reasoned, if only –

Theo snatched his hand away from the rim of the jar as if it was red hot. If everybody had an ocean. Well, yes; the ocean is a reasonably convenient metaphor. It’s an element that both separates and connects the land masses. Everybody, every reality, does indeed have an ocean, namely the barrier that keeps each different reality separate from the others. What everybody doesn’t have, what everybody needs –

(He closed his eyes.)

– is a boat.

Put it another way. What do you do if you know what you want the answer to be, but you can’t make the maths come out that way? You cheat.

And Pieter had cheated. But that sort of behaviour always comes with a price tag. The trick is, if you want to come out on top, to get someone else to pay.

Theo took the jar in his two equally visible hands.

Free access to the Clubhouse is available to all registered members. They can come, and they can go. They can also, if they feel so inclined, import pickled walnuts, to enjoy as a savoury snack between exits and entrances. What they do with the empty jar after they’ve finished with it is a matter between them and their ecological sensibilities. If they choose to leave their trash behind them, so be it.

Theo looked into the jar. He had an odd feeling that the jar was looking back at him, but that was probably just because he’d read Nietzsche and had a vivid imagination.

The operating system of YouSpace, he decided, is that it doesn’t have one. You just say what you want. Of course, if nobody bothers to tell you that, or if they leave you a set of completely false and misleading instructions, you can get yourself into all sorts of bother. But if you know the truth, it’s so very, very simple.

I want to go home.



But, to make it interesting, he went the long way round.

Also, he stopped at various points on the journey, to test his newly minted hypothesis and establish a few facts. He stopped, for example, at his parents’ house, approximately a week after he’d been born. He paid a flying visit to Pieter van Goyen’s rooms at the university, back when he’d been a student there. He dropped in on the Very Very Large Hadron Collider, half an hour before it blew up. Once he’d got the hang of it, it was a bit like being a bird flying over both time and space. Provided you kept your head, didn’t lose your way and stayed well clear of falcons and cats, it was a piece of cake. It was fun.

One last circuit – from the Beginning to the End, in a low, lazy, circling sweep – and then he banked into the flow to slow down, selected a point on which to land, swooped, deliberately stalled and dropped (just like a bird landing on a twig) into the time and place of his choosing. It was all right, he thought, just before he got there. It’s just like a faculty party. I don’t have to stay here if I don’t like it.



He knocked on the ancient oak door and waited. Pieter’s voice called, “Come in.”

Pieter, sitting in front of a roaring log fire with a glass of sherry in his hand, was much younger, of course. You don’t notice so much how people age if you see them regularly; and then you happen to find an old photograph, and suddenly it’s painfully obvious. In Pieter’s case, the change wasn’t so much downhill as sideways; the straggly hair over his ears was a sort of smoker’s fingers tawny yellow. Also, the wrinkles he had yet to acquire had suited him, made him a bit more grave and wise looking, a bit less like an elephant seal in glasses.

“Hello, Pieter,” Theo said. “Max.”

Max just looked like Max. His hair was longer and he hadn’t shaved in a while – sheer affectation, of course, because even when he’d been on the run from the bloodthirsty gamblers he’d owed money to, he hadn’t exactly been sleeping in ditches, and would’ve had ample opportunities for shaving and combing his hair. But that was Max for you. If he’s on the run, he has to look like a fugitive. Correction; he has to look like What The Well-Dressed Fugitive Is Wearing This Season.

“Theo,” Pieter said, frowning slightly, “shouldn’t you be in New York?”

“Should I?” Theo tried to remember. “Oh yes,” he said, “of course I should. You sent me to some damnfool seminar on isotonic wave diffraction. I wondered why at the time. Now I know.”

Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Theo beamed at him.

“You’re looking well, Max,” he said. “Death suits you.”

Max glowered at him. “That’s nice,” he said. “I’d have thought you’d be pleased I’m still alive.”

“I was,” Theo said, “when I found out. Well, not pleased. That’s not really the word. Torn between impossible hope and desperate reservations. It’s all right,” he added, as Max pulled a bemused face, “I’ve had time to get used to your continued existence. You don’t know it, but we just spent six years banged up in a tiny apartment together, playing Ludo. Pieter,” he went on, before Max could reply, “why on earth did you ever give your students sherry? You hate the stuff and nobody under the age of seventy drinks it any more. Is it just tradition, or is it written into the university’s charter somewhere?”

Pieter raised both eyebrows. “Would you like a drink?” he said.

“Love one,” Theo replied. “I haven’t had a drink for six years.”

Pieter shrugged and poured him a sherry, which Theo slung back in one frantic gulp. “Another?”

“Oh yes.”

He made the next one last a whole second. “I expect you’re wondering,” he said, “what I’m doing here.”

“Just a bit,” Pieter said, “since you’re supposed to be in New York. Did you miss the plane or something?”

Theo shook his head slowly. “No,” he said. “I caught the plane, got there safely and on time, spent four days sitting through a whole bunch of very dull lectures and presentations, then came home when it was all over. And to this day I don’t know what isotonic wave diffraction is. Not that it seems to have made much difference.”

“You can’t have spent four days,” Max put in. “The seminar only started yesterday.”

But Pieter was looking straight at him. “Shut up, Max,” he said. “Theo—”

“Yes?”

“I can explain.”

“Excellent. That means I won’t feel the need to kick your head in.” He smiled and put the empty glass down. “First, though, I need to ask you something. Who’s Dolly Duchene-Wilamowicz?”

Pieter looked startled. “Dolly? She’s my sister. Why? You’ve never met her, have you?”

“That’s fine, Pieter. Good answer. Now, then.” He sat down and put his feet up on Pieter’s Louis Quinze card table. Pieter winced but didn’t say anything. “I’m going to tell you what you want to know, and then you’re going to explain, and then I may just murder both of you. It’ll depend on what sort of a mood I’m in when we get there.”

“Theo—”

“I say murder,” Theo went on, “but I don’t imagine any jury would convict. Not homicide but pesticide, they’d say, and they’d be quite right. I’ll have another sherry, Pieter, since you’re offering. It tastes like stale diesel, but I’m getting to like it. Thank you.” He looked down into the glass, thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe not. All right, where shall I begin?”

– But that was such a good joke that he couldn’t stop himself from laughing, which he did for quite some time, until Pieter said, “Theo!” quite sharply. That did the trick. Theo sat up straight, cleared his throat, and said, “At the beginning, I guess. Well, there was this enormous explosion. The Big Bang. With me so far?”

Max was giving him a scornful glare, but Pieter had gone very pale. “We can skip that, don’t you think?” he said.

Theo frowned. “All right,” he conceded, “but we’ll come back to it later.” That was another really good joke, but this time he kept a straight face. He looked down at his hands, as if to reassure himself of something, and went on, “Fast forward,” he said. “What’s today’s date?”

Max looked at his watch. “18 August 2007. Why?”

“Just checking. A few other salient facts. Max, you’ve just been declared officially dead. Pieter, you’ve just proposed my name for the shortlist to run the proposed Very Very Large Hadron Collider project. Yes?”

Pieter nodded. “You’re not supposed to know that,” he said. “But, yes, I’ve recommended you. I think you deserve it.”

Theo gave him a horrible look. “I’ll pretend you never said that,” he said. “Also, Pieter, you’re looking for financial backers for a really weird, far-out new product that’ll revolutionise the entertainment industry.”

Pieter nodded slowly.

“Not that it matters a lot,” Theo went on, “but your principal backers are your sister, who married a billionaire—”

“Otto Duchene-Wilamowicz,” Pieter said. “He was ninety-one, she was twenty-seven. They warned him, marrying a girl that age might prove fatal. You know what he said? If she dies, she dies.”

“Whatever. Also, someone called Bill, with a daughter called Matasuntha.”

Pieter’s eyebrows shot up. “How did you—?”

“Coming to that. The trouble is,” he continued, snuggling into his chair as far back as he could go, “you’ve done all the maths, and realised it won’t work. What you have in mind isn’t possible.”

Pieter hesitated, then nodded.

“And then you remembered me.”

Pieter closed his eyes. “Yes.”

Max was obviously dying of repressed curiosity, but, before he could say anything, Theo went on, “I can’t be bothered to tell you a whole lot of stuff you already know, so here’s the bottom line. It worked. I’m back. I did it.” He paused for effect. “I created YouSpace.”

“You what?”

“YouSpace. That’s what it’s called.”

Pieter frowned, then shook his head. “Don’t like it. We’ll need a snappier name than that if we want it to really take off.”

“Tough,” Theo said firmly, “because that’s what I’ve called it. I created the YouSpace device. Not you. Me.”

Max said timidly. “What’s YouSpace?”

“Ah.” Theo smiled and turned to him. “Here’s where you’re just about to get involved. On 15 August ’07, Pieter’s only just got the germ of the idea. Suddenly, out of the blue, who should turn up on his doorstep but his prodigal pupil Max Bernstein. Help me, pleads Max, they’re after me, I need a place to hide, you’re the only one I can really trust. Odd you should say that, Pieter replies, because it so happens I’ve got a really ace hiding place, I just need someone to try it out for me. Oh, and some poor fool to take the blame, of course.”

Pieter looked away. Max just looked terminally vague.

Theo held up his two visible hands. “YouSpace,” he said. “Really good idea, shame it won’t work. You know why? Because, in order to access all the possibilities of all the alternate realities in the multiverse, you’d have to go back to the one point in time when all those possibilities were still gathered up together in one place, in one primordial glob of protomatter, right at the Beginning, before the Big Bang. It’d be like going to the central bus station; from there, you can get a bus direct to anywhere. Well? Am I right?”

“Theo—”

“Not now, Pieter, I’m on a roll.” Theo smiled joyfully, and reached across the table to pick up a newspaper. He flicked through and found the page he wanted. “Top Scientists Warn VVLHC Project Could End Universe,” he read out. “Of course, there’s bound to be scaremongers, flat-earthers, fruitcakes with sandwich boards saying the end is nigh. But there’s always a tiny grain of truth in the pearl of tabloid lunacy. If the VVLHC did go wrong and blow up, in a certain very specific and improbable way, it could do really weird stuff. It could rip a hole right through the fabric of space and time. Couldn’t it, Pieter?”

“I guess.”

“And so it did.” Theo dipped his head in a respectful salute. “Really great bit of science, by the way, figuring out exactly how to sabotage it so it’d make a hole you could navigate through. But like I said, I’ll come back to that in just a moment.” He turned to Max. “Well, we all know what you’ve been up to. Want to hear about what I’ve been doing?”

Max shrugged. “Not particularly.”

“What the hell. Here goes, anyway.” This time, he drank the sherry. When the burning feeling had passed, he gave them a brief summary of his career, from the explosion at the VVLHC up to the point where he’d watched Max open the walnut jar and vanish—

“You’re crazy,” Max said. “Nuts.”

Theo nodded slowly. “Look at my hands,” he said. “You can see them? Both of them?”

“Of course.”

“Of course you can. I guess,” he went on, putting his hands behind his head, “I should’ve figured it out much earlier; when I landed in a succession of alternate realities that’d been hit by some sort of catastrophic disaster. The Disney planet, the Australian pope planet, the global warming planet, the Venice-in-the-sky place, all had something in common. Some clown had done some catastrophic thing, and pretty much trashed a huge chunk of the planet. At the very least I should’ve tumbled to it when the Venice-in-the-air people recognised me. What I should’ve realised was, in all of them the same thing had happened. The VVLHC had blown up. It’s the one and only event that’s common to all realities, every single reality in the multiverse. Or at least,” he added, giving Pieter a good, solid stare, “it is now.”

Long silence, then Pieter shrugged. “Good call,” he said. “Just like you said. A hole I could navigate through.”

“Which you made,” Theo said, his voice suddenly cold, “deliberately, so you could move from one to the other. YouSpace. With a little help from me.”

Pieter’s head lifted, then dropped. The movements were linked, and deliberate.

“Thank you,” Theo said solemnly. “I’ll take that as a confession. And we’ll come back to it in a minute. Before that, I’d just like you to confirm my hypothesis. After all, we’re scientists, aren’t we?”

Pieter drew a long breath. “When I sabotaged the Collider, you were still inside the building. You survived the blast only because you were projected into the rift I’d made in the fabric of the multiverse. Satisfied?”

“Go on.”

“The moment I saw that amazing calculation you did in your first year I knew you’d already been to an alternate reality. The technology to do that didn’t exist. Therefore, you’d travelled in time as well. There was a temporal paradox. You’d been there, but you hadn’t been yet. But” – Pieter pulled out a huge white handkerchief and dabbed at his forehead – “that didn’t seem to matter. The experience was somehow retrospective.” He folded the handkerchief neatly and dropped it on the floor. “Like you being here now, I guess.”

“You guess. Good guesser, aren’t you?”

“You’d been there,” Pieter said furiously, “it’d already happened. So, I knew, when I shot you into the rift, I knew you’d survive, and come back. And then—”

“In order to get back, I’d have to either discover or invent YouSpace.”

Pieter lifted his head defiantly. “Which you’ve done,” he said. “Obviously.”

“You cheated!” All the anger came rushing out, like the crowd at the end of a big game. “You couldn’t figure it out, so you cheated. You stole my work which I hadn’t even done yet. Call yourself a scientist? You’re a phoney.”

“Let’s call it a collaboration,” Pieter said. “Naturally, it’s more usual to tell your collaborator first, but I know you too well, you’d have got stroppy about—”

“About blasting an enormous hole in the structure of reality. Yes, just a tad.”

Pieter looked at him. “But I didn’t,” he said. “Not really. You know that. I just—”

“We’ll come back to that in a minute,” Theo said icily.

“It’s been well over a minute,” Pieter replied. “But I don’t need to say it, do I? You know.”

“I don’t,” said Max.

“Shut up, Max,” Theo and Pieter said simultaneously. Then they looked at each other. Theo nodded his head slowly. “You know what this means,” he said. “You and me—”

“Yes,” Pieter said. “Hell of a thing, but someone had to do it.”

“We’re God.” Theo scowled horribly. “And, to be canonically correct, there really ought to be three of us, but I’m damned if I’m going to be part of a Trinity with him.”

Pieter shrugged. “Holy Ghost,” he said. “Well, he’s legally dead. And besides,” he went on, “isn’t that what all scientists really want to do, deep down? Play God?”

But Theo shook his head. “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “Not in the ordinary run of things, and especially when he turns out to be me.”

“Your choice,” Pieter said. “I prefer to see it as a duck scenario.”

“A—?”

“If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. After all,” he said with a grin, “now you can be anywhere you like, any time you like, and to you all things are possible. As far as eternal life goes, there’s this Clubhouse thing you mentioned. Seems to me there’s only one divine attribute you’re lacking, even if it is rather an important one.”

“Really? What’s that?”

Pieter grinned. “Forgiveness.”

Theo thought about it for five seconds. “Nah,” he said. “To forgive is divine, and I’m not. Sorry. Ask the Holy Ghost there, he’ll forgive anybody anything for a handful of pickled walnuts.”

“I don’t know why you’re both picking on me,” Max said. “I haven’t done anything.”



After he’d stormed out of Pieter’s room he walked for a while, just walking, going from rather than going to. Eventually, he found himself on a high bridge over a river. It was just starting to get dark, and the white and yellow lights of the city sparkled in the water. Theo stared at them balefully. No point in jumping, he’d just wind up in the Clubhouse again. He might just possibly have the courage to launch himself off a bridge – been there, after all, done that – but walking through the glowing blue door would be something else entirely. He’d never be able to do that.

“Wonderful,” said a voice beside him, “you’ve finally stopped. What are you doing here?”

He looked round and saw Matasuntha. She looked exactly the same as when he’d seen her last. That was, of course, all wrong.

“You can’t be here,” he said. “You’re fifteen.”

“Fourteen and a bit, actually.” She dabbed a stray strand of hair out of her face. “Right now, I’m probably at home, in my room, with my headphones on, listening to a Lizard-Headed Women CD. How about you?”

“New York,” Theo replied. “Seminar. Or, more likely, in the bar. How did you get here?”

She smiled. “I got bored waiting,” she said. “So I thought I’d come and find you.”

“Untrue.”

Shrug. “All right,” she said. “I was waiting for you to come back, and suddenly Max appeared.”

“Ah.”

“With his mouth full of pickled walnuts.”

“I was wondering where they’d got to. And?”

“And he said, Hi, babe, gave me a peck on the cheek, borrowed a thousand dollars and bolted. So then I thought I’d come and find you.”

Theo nodded slowly. “How?” he said. “The bottle smashed, remember?”

“I’m not sure.” She frowned. “I was down in the wine cellar, looking on the off chance that there’d be a bottle that’d take you to find your own true love—”

“Why? I thought you said you were looking for me.”

“When suddenly,” she went on, giving him a foul look, “there I was, standing in a draughty corridor in front of a big old oak door. And I could hear voices, and yours was one of them. Also,” she added, “Max.”

“You eavesdropped.”

“Naturally. It helped that I was still holding the wineglass I’d brought in case I found a suitable bottle in the cellar.” She looked at him. “I think I understand,” she said.

“Good for you. Maybe you can explain it to me some time.”

“But if I’m right,” she went on, “then surely I don’t exist.”

Theo sighed. “What we need,” he said, “is an all-night café and cake shop opposite the Candelaria in Rio.”

She looked at him. “Can we—?”

“Oh yes.”



There was just such a café, also selling cakes. The bay was empty, half the city was derelict and the sky glowed an ominous shade of green, but Theo was getting used to that sort of thing. They ordered coffee and sticky buns and sat down at a table in the far corner.

“And that’s about it, basically,” Theo concluded. “Nobody ever invented YouSpace, as such. I got shot into a universe where it already existed, found out how it worked, more by luck than judgement—”

“Hang on,” she interrupted. “The powder compact… “

He shook his head. “Garbage,” he said. “Smoke screen. The operating system is, there is no operating system. You just think what you want to happen, and it happens. In the reality I got booted into, Pieter neglected to tell me that. Instead, he left me a fake user’s manual setting out a totally bogus operating system.”

“Oh. Why?”

“So I’d make a point of finding him,” Theo said with a grin. “Whereupon, he’d be able to take possession of a fully operational YouSpace; job done. Only,” Theo went on, “he didn’t know me as well as he thought he did.”

She frowned. “I don’t—”

“He assumed,” Theo went on, “that as soon as I learned that this thing existed, all I’d want to do is get it working and play with it. My desire, conscious and subconscious, would program YouSpace to do just that; meanwhile, the fake OS in the powder compact would take me straight to Pieter.”

“Ah. Well, no, actually, I still don’t—”

“Instead,” Theo went on, “what I really wanted – deep down, where even I couldn’t see it – was, first, to know if my poor dead brother Max was still alive somewhere and if so, to find him; second, to find my mother, who abandoned us when we were kids; third, to fall in love and live happily ever after. Playing with some toy was way down the list. So, you see, it all screwed up.”

She shook her head. “Your mother.”

“Mrs Duchene-Wilamowicz.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

Theo beamed at her. “Actually,” he said, “it was her who put me on the right track, figuring it all out. Like, at one point she said she was staying at her daughter’s house. When I got there, it proved to be my sister Janine’s place.”

“So she really is your—”

“She also said, about Pieter, he’s really smart, my brother.”

Her eyes were round as full moons. “So she’s your mother and Pieter’s sister? That’s so—”

Theo was shaking his head. “Too much of a coincidence? Of course it is,” he said, “in this reality. Wildly implausible. Real Darth-Vader-is-Luke’s-dad stuff. But, in an infinite multiverse—”

“Ah.”

“Somewhere,” Theo went on, “there’s a reality in which she is my mother; right there in front of my nose for me to find, at a point when finding her is my number two priority. Just what I asked for, in fact. And that,” Theo said, “is when I started looking at my hands.”

“Your—”

“Yes.” He reached out with one of them and took a piece of sticky bun. “Enormous hint, which went right over my head like a GPS satellite. When did my hand vanish? When the VVLHC blew up. What really happened when the VVLHC blew up? I moved from my native universe into a different, highly speculative reality absolutely riddled with temporal paradoxes and causality loops. The invisible hand was Nature’s way of telling me that the place I was in was all wrong, but I was too dumb to realise.”

Matasuntha nodded slowly. “So Mrs Duchene—”

“Pieter’s sister. But not my mother. I went back and checked. After she left my dad, my mother married the senior partner of a firm of actuaries in Canada somewhere. To the best of my knowledge, she’s perfectly happy. In my native reality, of course. Here—” He looked out of the window at the green afterglow of the sunset. “God only knows. Actually, no He doesn’t. Sorry, private joke.”

Matasuntha looked like she was doing mental arithmetic. “So the version of reality you were in after the explosion,” she said. “It’s what you really wanted.”

“Apparently.” Theo shrugged. “Only goes to show. In spite of really intense competition for the job, I’m still my own worst enemy.”

“The version of reality with me in it.”

“Yes.”

“Designed to carry out your third priority.” “Yes, but let’s not go there.”

“In which you fall in love with me, but I’m already in love with Max—”

“You see? Even when fulfilling my wildest fantasies, deep down I’m a realist.”

She was trying not to laugh. “So really, you wanted to lose all your money. And your wife.”

“I suppose I must’ve.”

“And you wanted a job shovelling guts in a slaughterhouse? That’s icky.”

“I think that was just part of a package deal.” He looked straight at her. “If you want to yell at me, that’s fine. I deserve it.”

“Probably. Why?”

“Why? I’ve been—” Pieter’s phrase. “Playing God with your life. I dreamed up the reality you’ve got to live in. You, not the kid with the headphones on. The one you’re stuck in.”

“You so didn’t. I was born there. I’ve always lived there. You didn’t invent it, you just turned up one day. So don’t go thinking you had anything to do with it. Who do you think you are, anyway?”

Theo smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile, and the joke it proceeded from was pretty dark humour. “Actually,” he said.



She was staring at him, and he couldn’t help thinking, she’s smart, she’s getting there without my help. On the other hand, he really needed to tell someone; mostly because, if he’d got it all wrong and there was a glaring mistake in his logic, he desperately wanted to hear about it.

“What does that mean?” she said.

He took a deep breath. “Here goes,” he said. “All right. Pieter van Goyen blew up the VVLHC.”

“Yes.”

“In order to make a hole – more than that, a tunnel. A wormhole. Yes, that’s a good word. If ever there was a worm, it’s Pieter.”

“Yes.”

“So far, so appalling. It gets worse.” He paused, trying to structure what had to come next. “Have you ever wondered,” he said, “about the Big Bang?”

“Well. Not often, I have to say.”

“I have. When I was a kid, I used to lie awake at night thinking about it.”

“You did? That’s—”

“Yes. And what I asked myself was, if in the Beginning there was a big explosion that blew up a lot of stuff, where did the stuff that got blown up come from?”

“A fair question,” she said charitably.

“And all I could come up with,” Theo went on, “is that the multiverse must be a circle, not a straight line. If the multiverse is curved, not linear, and Time is a loop—”

“There’s no beginning.”

He shook his head. “That’s one way of looking at it, but not helpful. I preferred to think that any point on a circle can be the beginning. Or the end. Or both.”

She shrugged. “I could do with another coffee. How about you?”

“Now,” Theo went on. “Consider what conclusions we’ve arrived at about YouSpace.”

“Sure,” she said. “after I’ve ordered another coffee. Where’s that waiter?”

“Shifting between realities only works,” Theo said, “if you can go back to the source, the terminal, the bus station. The point at which all possibilities are still implicit. In other words, the moment before the Big Bang. That’s when all the matter and all the energy is still cooped up in one single blob. A second later, and it’s already starting to fly apart. Directions have been chosen, trajectories have been committed to. As soon as the Big Bang goes bang, there’s no going back.”

She’d forgotten all about coffee. “No,” she said. “No way.”

Theo shrugged. “If it’s a circle, the beginning can be any point. Also the end. And the end of the universe is exactly what some people said would happen if the VVLHC ever blew up.”

“Nutcases,” she said. “Journalists.”

“Maybe they were right. Maybe, when Pieter set off his fireworks, the multiverse ended. And began.” He licked his lips, which had become very dry. “I was there. It was a pretty big bang.”

“Oh my God.”

“We’ll come to that,” Theo said drily, “in a moment. Let’s think about what happened next. All across the multiverse, I came across realities that all had one thing in common. A disaster. I think it was the VVLHC. And what’s the only thing every reality in the multiverse has in common? The beginning.” He breathed out slowly. “I think that in the beginning were the words, and the words were, Pieter, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Followed by an explosion. Followed by—” He shrugged. “Genesis.”

Her eyes were as bright as stars. “Making him—”

“Him and me. But not Max. I’m sorry, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.” He breathed in again. “And that’s why YouSpace works. I imagine Pieter would say something about omelettes and eggs; knowing Pieter, immediately followed by, which came first, the omelette or the egg? To which the only answer has got to be, both.” He looked at her. “Have I missed something? Please tell me I’ve missed something.”

She looked him straight in the eye. “And on the seventh day, God made himself scarce, hotly pursued by the product liability lawyers. Sorry, I’m not a scientist. I’m not qualified to comment.”

“Please?”

“What do you want me to say? It’s not your fault? Earthquakes, wars, mortality, entropy, the perennial paradox of evil in a dualistic moral system? Sorry, I’m not sure I—”

“Please.”

She nodded. “It’s not your fault. There. Better?”

He smiled feebly. “I guess it’ll have to do,” he said.

“My pleasure,” she said. “Actually, I do feel for you. I remember, when I was a kid, there was an old priest we knew, and I asked him that old chestnut about can God make a rock too heavy for Him to lift.”

“Yes? What did he say?”

She grinned. “Yes and no. A good answer, I’ve always thought. One I’ve always tried to live by, at any rate.” She leaned forward a little. “If you really are God,” she whispered, “do you give out lottery numbers?”

“I can do. The wrong ones, naturally.”

“Of course.” She leaned forward slightly more; he leaned back. “So,” she said. “What about Max? And Professor van Goyen?”

Theo signalled to a passing waiter. “I forgave them. Sort of.” The waiter had reached the table. “I’d like six empty beer bottles, please.”

“Senhor?”

“Gostaria seis garrafas de cerveja vazias, por favor.”

“Vindo direto.”

She scowled impatiently. “Max.”

“What? Ah yes. I forgave them. For some reason, they seemed rather put out about it.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Theo shrugged. “Though maybe that was because I told them they couldn’t have YouSpace. Or at least, they couldn’t have access to the operating system I’d designed to go with it. And there was no point in them trying to figure it out for themselves, because it’s fiendishly complicated and riddled with the most diabolical booby traps.”

She frowned. “I thought you said there wasn’t a—”

“I lied.” A thought struck him and he smiled. “Which must mean I’m not, well, Him, mustn’t it? Needless to say,” he went on, “I’ll relent and forgive them properly in due course, after I’ve taken a few simple precautions so they won’t be able to do any harm to anyone. Ah,” he added, as the waiter came back with five green bottles and one tall brown one on a tray. “Thank you.”

She looked at the bottles. “Let me guess.”

“No need.” He patted his pockets. “Got a pen?”

She took one from her bag. He reached for the bill and tore it into five equal pieces, on each of which he wrote the words terms & conditions apply. Then he put one slip of paper into each of the five green bottles.

“This one,” he said, picking up the brown San Miguel bottle and slipping it into his jacket pocket, “is for me. No terms and conditions. Complete freedom. I reckon I’ve earned it, don’t you?”

She was gazing at the five Michelob bottles. “What about…?”

“One for you.” He pushed a bottle across the table at her. She stared at it but didn’t touch. “And one for Pieter, one for Max, one for your Uncle Bill, since he did put all that money into Pieter’s damnfool project. And one,” he concluded cheerfully, “for fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yes, fun.” He touched a fingertip to the neck of the bottle, which glowed blue and vanished. “Hey,” he said, shaking his hand and putting the fingertip in his mouth, “did you see that? That was cool.”

Her eyes were still fixed on her bottle. “And the one you’ve kept for yourself—”

“Well.” He made a vague and-why-not gesture. “One empty San Miguel bottle to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. If necessary,” he added. “But it won’t be, I’m sure. After all, I’ve given the others to people of unimpeachable integrity, so what could possibly go wrong?”

“What about the sixth bottle?”

“Oh, that.” Theo smiled. “A pound to a penny it’ll end up at the bottom of the sea. In which case, it’ll get eaten by a fish, which in turn will get caught by the seventh son of a seventh son. That’s what usually happens, and we’re all still here, aren’t we?”

She’d shrunk back when the bottle started glowing blue. Now she leaned forward again. “And what about you?” “Ah. I’ve been thinking about that.”

“And?”

He hardly had to think; it just happened. They were standing on a mountainside, looking down on a lush green valley quilted with maize fields. Above them, a white-capped peak rose into a clear blue sky like a helpfully pointing finger.

“For pity’s sake, Theo,” she said. “You could’ve warned me. It’s freezing.”

“Not to worry.” He turned his head and saw what he was looking for. “You’re going back home in a moment or so. This way.”

He headed up the steep slope until he reached the mouth of a cave. Inside, the embers of a fire were smouldering in the middle of the cave floor. At the back of the cave he could see a neatly folded blanket and a big stack of books. “Perfect,” he said.

She stared at him. “What?”

“The life,” he said, “of a simple hermit. A chance to catch my intellectual and spiritual breath. Oh, not for ever,” he added reassuringly. “I’ll probably be ready to come down again in, what, five years? Ten at the most.”

“Ten years? In a cave?”

“Absolutely. When you’ve spent most of your life wallowing about in unearned money like a mud-wrestler, you need something like this just to get clean. Peace,” he went on, sitting down on the floor and crossing his legs. “Quiet contemplation. And, of course, no material possessions except the absolutely basic necessities of life.”

A solemn procession was winding slowly up the narrow track towards them. At its head, two old men in peasant garb each held one handle of a basket. Behind them, two more villagers and a second basket; behind them, a third. When they reached the cave they put the baskets down, bowed low three times and withdrew, walking backwards. Theo sat perfectly still until they were out of sight. Then he sprang to his feet and started to rummage.

“Ah,” he said. “Not bad.”

In the first basket there was crevice of tuna and scallops with caviar and fennel, crayfish ravioli with artichokes, sea bass braised in wild asparagus and cucumber, assiete of roast lamb, goats’ cheese soufflé, rhubarb and strawberry crumble and a bottle of ’77 Margaux. The second basket contained three designer suits, silk underwear and pyjamas and an inflatable water bed. The third basket was crammed with DVDs, games, the latest model X-Box, a laptop and a selection of upmarket lifestyle magazines. “I’ve always maintained,” Theo said happily, “that the hallmark of a civilised society is how they look after the poor.”

She helped him unpack and ate most of the ravioli. Then she looked at him. “It’s nice of you to give Uncle Bill a bottle,” she said.

He shrugged. “Terms and conditions apply.”

“What terms and conditions?”

“Ah.”

She frowned, then grinned. “Anyway,” she said, “it was a nice thought.”

“I dragged him into it,” Theo replied. “You too. Just out of interest, though.”

“Yes?”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“You brought me here.”

“Why would I have done that?”

She gave him a beautiful smile. “I told you,” she said. “I realised Max wasn’t for me. That made me ask myself where my true feelings lie. So, here I am.”

He nodded slowly. “You honestly expect me to believe that.”

“Of course. After all, you chose this version of reality. You wanted to find true love. Admittedly, it was only your third priority, which some people might find just a tad insulting. Still, there it is. Your wish is the multiverse’s command.” She edged a little closer. “What were you thinking of doing about it?”

Theo yawned. Far below in the valley, thin wisps of smoke were rising from the hearths where the villagers were cooking his dinner. Presumably, if he went beyond the mountains, sooner or later he’d come to the radioactive wastelands left behind by the explosion of the VVLHC, but he couldn’t work up the energy to feel guilty about that. And the morning and the evening were the eighth day. “Not sure,” he said. “Like I said, I’m going to stay here and think about stuff for a while. Then I’ll know.”

“Oh, wonderful.” She pulled a face. “So you expect me to hang around waiting for you while you do your hermit-on-a-mountaintop gig. That’s so—”

“I don’t recall asking you to wait for me.”

“You implied it. Find true love, you said, and your subconscious press-ganged me. And now I’ve got to hang around for five years. Not meaning to be nasty or anything, but what part of the concept of free will are you having difficulty with?”

“Free will,” Theo said, “is only meaningful in context.”

“Huh? What context?”

“… ‘With every personal injury claim over $995’. For a limited period only. Oh, and terms and conditions apply. They always do.”

She sighed. “So you do expect me to go back home and wait patiently for you.”

“Yes.” He grinned. “YouSpace, remember? I’ll be back about three seconds after you. You can wait that long, can’t you?”

“I’m not sure. Don’t push your luck.”

He shrugged. She stuck her tongue out and vanished.

He sat for a while, watching the plumes of smoke and hoping they didn’t mean that the simple peasants had overdone the tournedos Rossini. Then he got up, found the third basket and tipped it upside down. As he’d anticipated, there was something left at the very bottom which they’d overlooked earlier. A lump hammer and a cold chisel. And now for a Word from our sponsors.

He took them in his hands, sat down facing the rock and tried to think of something suitable.