Part 3 (1/2)
”It couldn't have been that long ago,” John said. ”A year? You'll remember soon enough.”
”Yeah.”
Prime peered out a small window. John could hear his father puttering out to the orchard on the tractor.
”What's up between you and your dad? Anything heavy?” Prime asked.
John took off his coat and handed it to Prime, taking his in return. John shook his head. ”We talked last night about the Carson thing. He wanted me to write the letter.”
”So that's it. What about your mother?”
”She was p.i.s.sed with me before. She still may be. We haven't talked since Thursday.”
”Anything happening this afternoon?” Prime took a pencil out and started jotting things down.
”Nothing until tomorrow. Church, then ch.o.r.es. Muck the stalls. Homework. But I'll do that.”
”What's due for Monday?”
”Reading for physics. Essay for English on Gerard Manley Hopkins. Problem set in calculus. That's it.”
”What's your cla.s.s schedule like?”
John began to tell him, then shook his head. ”Why do you need to know that? I'll be back.”
”In case someone asks.”
”No one's gonna ask.” John pulled Prime's jacket on after struggling to get his arms through the right holes. Why were there no sleeves? he wondered. He used his binoculars to gaze out at the sun-filled orchard. ”I'll watch from here. If anything goes wrong, you pretend to be sick and come back to the barn. You'll brief me and then we switch back.”
Prime smiled. ”Nothing's gonna happen. Relax.” He pulled on gloves and climbed down the ladder. ”See ya at lunch.”
John's hands shook as he watched Prime walk across the barnyard toward the orchard. What had he gotten himself into? And yet the mystery of it was a magnet and he was the iron filings. He had to understand what this John was about. It was a conundrum.
Prime cast a glance over his shoulder and smiled, while John watched with his binoculars. He raised his hand and waved at John's father.
John's father barely glanced at Prime, and said something.
Prime nodded, then gripped a branch and pulled himself into the tree. His foot missed a hold, and he slipped.
”Careful there,” John heard himself say.
Prime made it into the tree and began pulling apples. He said something and John's father laughed in reply. John felt a twinge of jealousy as he watched his father laugh. He wondered what Prime had said. Then John realized that if his father was laughing at Prime's jokes, there was no danger of being found out.
The precarious nature of John's situation bothered him. Effectively, Prime was him. And he was... n.o.body. Would it be that hard for someone to slip into his life? He realized that it wouldn't. He had a few immediate relations.h.i.+ps, interactions that had happened within the last few weeks that were unique to him, but in a month those would all be absorbed into the past. He had no girlfriend. No real friends, except for Erik, and that stopped at the edge of the court. The hardest part would be for someone to pick up John's studies, but even that wouldn't be too hard. All his cla.s.ses were a breeze, except for Advanced Physics, and they were starting a new module on Monday. It was a clear breaking point.
John wondered what he would find in another universe. Would there be different advances in science? Could he photocopy a scientific journal and bring it back? Maybe someone had discovered a unified theory in the other universe. Or a simple solution to Fermat's last theorem. Or... But what could he really do with someone else's ideas? Publish them under his own name? Was that any different from Prime's scheme to get rich with Rubik's Square, whatever that was? He laughed and picked up his physics book. He needed to stay caught up in this universe. They were starting quantum mechanics on Monday after all.
”Here's lunch.”
John looked up from the physics book, startled.
Prime handed John a sandwich.
”You went inside?” John asked, alarmed. ”You weren't supposed to go inside.”
Prime shrugged. ”Your mom didn't notice either.”
John took the sandwich. Prime looked different. He was covered in sap, there was a scratch on his cheek, and his clothes were grimy. ”You look happy,” John said.
Prime started. He looked down at himself, then smiled. ”It felt good. I haven't done that in a while.”
Around a bite of sandwich, John said, ”You've been gone a long time.”
”Yeah,” Prime said. ”You don't know what you have here. Why do you even want to go to college?”
John laughed. ”It's great here for the first fifteen years; then it really begins to drag.”
”I hear you.”
John handed Prime his jacket. ”What will I see in the next universe?”
Prime caught his eye. ”So you're gonna take me up on the offer?” he asked.
John thought about it for a moment longer. He had to know whether Prime was a crackpot or the giver of a fabulous gift. If Prime was nuts, John had lost nothing and could go about getting rid of him. If Prime's device worked, the whole universe was open to him.
”Yeah, I think so. Tell me what I'll see.”
”It's pretty much like this one, you know. I don't know the exact differences.”
”So we're-one of us, I mean-in the next universe?”
”Yeah. I wouldn't try to meet him or anything. He doesn't know about us.”
”Why'd you pick me to talk to? Why not some other me? Or why not all of us?”
”This is the most like home,” Prime said. ”This feels like I remember.”
”In one hundred universes this is the one that is most like yours? How different are we from one to the next? It can't be too different.”
”Do you really want to hear this?”
John nodded.
”Well, there are a couple types of us. There's the farm boy us, like you and me. Then there's the dirtbag us.”