They weren't done, couldn't be done. Not yet. Wesley in particular was anxious to press on. Although he hadn't slept for more than three hours at a stretch in days, he felt wide awake, energized. He and Robbie walked back to his apartment while Don went home to help his wife put the boys to bed. When that was done, he'd join them at Wesley's place for an extended skull session. Wesley said he'd order some food.
"Good," Don said, "but be careful. Ur-Chinese just doesn't taste the same, and you know what they say about German Chinese--an hour later you're hungry for power."
For a wonder, Wesley found he could actually laugh.
*
"So this is what an English instructor's apartment looks like," Robbie said, gazing around. "Man, I dig all the books."
"Good," Wesley said. "I loan, but only to people who bring back. Keep it in mind."
"I will. My parents have never been, you know, great readers. A few magazines, some diet books, a self-help manual or two . . . that's it. I might have been the same way, if not for you. Just bangin' my brains out on the football field, you know, with nothing ahead except maybe teaching PE in Giles County. That's in Tennessee. Yeehaw."
Wesley was touched by this. Probably because he'd been hurled through so many emotional hoops just lately. "Thanks, but remember there's nothing wrong with a good loud yeehaw. That's part of who you are, too. Both parts are equally valid."
He thought of Ellen, ripping Deliverance out of his hands and hurling it across the room. And why? Because she hated books? No, because he hadn't been listening when she needed him to. Hadn't it been Fritz Leiber, the great fantasist and science fiction writer, who had called books "the scholar's mistress"? And when Ellen needed him, hadn't he been in the arms of his other lover, the one who made no demands (other than on his vocabulary) and always took him in?
"Wes? What were those other things on the UR FUNCTIONS menu?"
At first Wesley didn't know what the kid was talking about. Then he remembered that there had been a couple of other items. He'd been so fixated on the BOOKS submenu that he had forgotten the other two.
"Well, let's see," he said, and turned the Kindle on. Every time he did this, he expected either the EXPERIMENTAL menu or the UR FUNCTIONS menu to be gone--the sort of thing that would happen in a Twilight Zone episode--but they were still right there.
"Ur News Archive and Ur Local," Robbie said. "Huh. Ur Local's under construction. Better watch out, traffic fines double."
"What?"
"Never mind, just goofin. Try the news archive."
Wesley selected it. The screen blanked. After a few moments, a message appeared.
WELCOME TO THE NEWS ARCHIVE!
ONLY THE NEW YORK TIMES IS AVAILABLE AT THIS TIME
YOUR PRICE IS $1.00/4 DOWNLOADS
$10/50 DOWNLOADS
$100/800 DOWNLOADS
SELECT WITH CURSOR YOUR ACCOUNT WILL BE BILLED
Wesley looked at Robbie, who shrugged. "I can't tell you what to do, but if my credit card wasn't being billed--in this world, anyway--I'd spend the hundred."
Wesley thought he had a point, although he wondered what the other Wesley (if there was one) would think when he opened his next MasterCard bill. He highlighted the $100/800 line and banged the Select button. This time the Paradox Laws didn't come up. Instead, the new message invited him to CHOOSE DATE AND UR. USE APPROPRIATE FIELDS.
"You do it," he said, and pushed the Kindle across the kitchen table to Robbie. This was getting easier to do, and he was glad. An obsession about keeping the Kindle in his own hands was a complication he didn't need, understandable as it was.
Robbie thought for a moment, then typed in January 21, 2009. In the Ur field he selected 1000000. "Ur one million," he said. "Why not?" And pushed the button.
The screen went blank, then produced a message reading ENJOY YOUR SELECTION! A moment later the front page of The New York Times appeared. They bent over the screen, reading silently, until there was a knock at the door.
"That'll be Don," Wesley said. "I'll let him in."
Robbie Henderson didn't reply. He was still transfixed.
"Getting cold out there," Don said as he came in. "And there's a wind knocking all the leaves off the--" He studied Wesley's face. "What? Or should I say, what now?"
"Come and see," Wesley said.
Don went into Wesley's book-lined living room-study, where Robbie remained bent over the Kindle. The kid looked up and turned the screen so Don could see it. There were blank patches where the photos should have gone, each with the message Image Unavailable, but the headline was big and black: NOW IT'S HER TURN. And below it, the subhead: Hillary Clinton Takes Oath, Assumes Role as 44th President.
"Looks like she made it after all," Wesley said. "At least in Ur 1000000."
"And check out who she's replacing," Robbie said, and pointed to the name. It was Albert Arnold Gore.
*
An hour later, when the doorbell rang, they didn't jump but rather looked around like men startled from a dream. Wesley went downstairs and paid the delivery guy, who had arrived with a loaded pizza from Harry's and a six-pack of Pepsi. They ate at the kitchen table, bent over the Kindle. Wesley put away three slices himself, a personal best, with no awareness of what he was eating.
They didn't use up the eight hundred downloads they had ordered--nowhere near it--but in the next four hours they skimmed enough stories from various Urs to make their heads ache. Wesley felt as though his mind were aching. From the nearly identical looks he saw on the faces of the other two--pale cheeks, avid eyes in bruised sockets, crazed hair--he guessed he wasn't alone. Looking into one alternate reality would have been challenging enough; here were over ten million, and although most were similar, not one was exactly the same.
The inauguration of the forty-fourth President of the United States was only one example, but a powerful one. They checked it in two dozen different Urs before getting tired and moving on. Fully seventeen front pages on January 21st of 2009 announced Hillary Clinton as the new president. In fourteen of them, Bill Richardson of New Mexico was her vice president. In two, it was Joe Biden. In one it was a senator none of them had heard of: Linwood Speck of New Jersey.
"He always says no to the vice-presidency when someone else wins the top spot," Don said.
"Who always says no?" Robbie asked. "Obama?"
"Yeah. He always gets asked, and he always says no."
"It's in character," Wesley said. "And while events change, character never seems to."
"You can't say that for sure," Don said. "We have a minuscule sample compared to the . . . the . . ." He laughed feebly. "You know, the whole thing. All the worlds of Ur."
Barack Obama had been elected in six Urs. Mitt Romney had been elected in one, with John McCain as his running mate. In that Ur, Romney ran against Obama, who was tapped after Hillary was killed in a helicopter crash late in the campaign.
They saw not a single mention of Sarah Palin. Wesley wasn't surprised. He thought that if they stumbled on her, it would be more by luck than by probability, and not just because Mitt Romney showed up more often as the Republican nominee than John McCain did. Palin had always been an outsider, a longshot, the one nobody expected.
Robbie wanted to check the Red Sox. Wesley felt it was a waste of time, but Don came down on the kid's side, so Wesley agreed. The two of them checked the sports pages for October in ten different Urs, plugging in dates from 1918 to 2009.
"This is depressing," Robbie said after the tenth try. Don Allman agreed.
"Why?" Wesley asked. "They win the Series lots of times."
"Which means there's no Curse," Don said. "Which is sort of boring."
"What curse?" Wesley was mystified.
Don opened his mouth to explain, then sighed. "Never mind," he said. "It would take too long, and you wouldn't get it, anyway."
"Look on the bright side," Robbie said. "The Bombers are always there, so it isn't all luck."
"Yeah," Don said glumly. "Fuckin Yankees. The mi
litary-industrial complex of the sporting world."
"Soh-ree. Does anyone want that last slice?"
Don and Wes shook their heads. Robbie scarfed it and said, "Check one more. Check Ur 4121989. It's my birthday. Gotta be lucky."
Only it was quite the opposite. When Wesley selected the Ur and added a date--January 20, 1973--not quite at random, what came up instead of ENJOY YOUR SELECTION was this: NO TIMES THIS UR AFTER NOVEMBER 19, 1962.
Wesley clapped a hand to his mouth. "Oh my dear sweet God."
"What?" Robbie asked. "What is it?"
"I think I know," Don said. He tried to take the pink Kindle.
Wesley, who guessed he had gone pale (but probably not as pale as he felt inside), put a hand over Don's. "No. I don't think I can bear it."
"Bear what?" Robbie nearly shouted.
"Didn't you cover the Cuban Missile Crisis in Twentieth Century American History?" Don asked. "Or didn't you get that far yet?"
"What missile crisis? Was it something to do with Castro?"
Don was looking at Wesley. "I don't really want to see, either," he said, "but I won't sleep tonight unless I make sure."
"Okay," Wesley said, and thought--not for the first time--that curiosity rather than rage was the true bane of the human spirit. "You'll have to do it, though. My hands are trembling too much."
Don filled in the fields for NOVEMBER 19, 1962. The Kindle told him to enjoy his selection, but he didn't. None of them did. The headlines were stark and huge:
NYC TOLL SURPASSES 6 MILLION
MANHATTAN DECIMATED BY RADIATION
RUSSIA SAID TO BE OBLITERATED
LOSSES IN EUROPE AND ASIA "INCALCULABLE"
CHINESE LAUNCH 40 ICBMS
"Turn it off," Robbie said in a small, sick voice. "It's like that song says--I don't wanna see no more."
Don said, "Look on the bright side, you two. It seems we dodged the bullet in most of the Urs, including this one." But his voice wasn't quite steady.
"Robbie's right," Wesley said. He had discovered that the final issue of The New York Times in Ur 4121989 was only three pages long, and every article was death. "Turn it off. I wish I'd never seen the damn Kindle in the first place."
"Too late now," Robbie said. And how right he was.
*
They went downstairs together and stood on the sidewalk in front of Wesley's apartment building. Main Street was almost deserted. The rising wind moaned around the buildings and rattled late-November leaves along the sidewalks. A trio of drunk students stumbled back toward Fraternity Row, singing what might have been "Paradise City."
"I can't tell you what to do--it's your gadget--but if it was mine, I'd get rid of it," Don said. "It'll suck you in."
Wesley thought of telling him he'd already been sucked, but didn't. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."
"Nope," Don said. "I'm driving the wife and kids to Frankfort for a wonderful three-day weekend at my in-laws'. Suzy Montanaro's taking my classes. And after this little seminar tonight, I'm delighted to be getting away. Robbie? Drop you somewhere?"
"Thanks, but no need. I share an apartment with a couple of other guys two blocks up the street. Above Susan and Nan's Place."
"Isn't that a little noisy?" Wesley asked. Susan and Nan's was the local cafe, and opened at 6:00 a.m. seven days a week.
"Most days I sleep right through it." Robbie flashed a grin. "Also, when it comes to the rent, the price is right."
"Good deal. Night, you guys," Don started for his Tercel, then turned back. "I intend to kiss my kids before I turn in. Maybe it'll help me get to sleep. That last story--" He shook his head. "I could have done without that. No offense, Robbie, but stick your birthday up your ass."
They watched his diminishing taillights and Robbie said thoughtfully, "Nobody ever told me to stick my birthday before. That's a first."
"I'm sure he wouldn't want you to take it personally. And he's probably right about the Kindle, you know. It's fascinating--too fascinating--but useless in any practical sense."
Robbie stared at him, wide-eyed. "You're calling access to thousands of undiscovered novels by the great masters of the craft useless? Sheezis, what kind of English teacher are you?"
Wesley had no comeback. Especially when he knew that, late or not, he'd probably be reading more of Cortland's Dogs before turning in.
"Besides," Robbie said. "It might not be entirely useless. You could type up one of those books and send it in to a publisher, ever think of that? You know, submit it under your own name. Become the next big thing. They'd call you the heir to Vonnegut or Roth or whoever."
It was an attractive idea, especially when Wesley thought of the useless scribbles in his briefcase. But he shook his head. "It'd probably violate the Paradox Laws . . . whatever they are. More importantly, it would eat me like acid. From the inside out." He hesitated, not wanting to sound prissy, but wanting to articulate what felt like the real reason for not doing such a thing. "I would feel ashamed."
The kid smiled. "You're a good dude, Wes." They were walking in the direction of Robbie's apartment now, the leaves rattling around their feet, a quarter moon flying through the wind-driven clouds overhead.
"You think so?"
"I do. And so does Coach Silverman."
Wesley stopped, caught by surprise. "What do you know about me and Coach Silverman?"
"Personally? Not a thing. But you must know Josie's on the team. Josie Quinn from class?"
"Of course I know Josie." The one who'd sounded like a kindly anthropologist when they'd been discussing the Kindle. And yes, he had known she was a Lady Meerkat, although one of the subs who usually got into the game only if it was a total blowout.
"Josie says Coach has been really sad since you and her broke up. Grouchy, too. She makes them run all the time, and kicked one girl right off the team."
"She booted the Deeson girl before we broke up." Thinking: In a way that's why we broke up. "Um . . . does the whole team know about us?"
Robbie Henderson looked at him as though he were mad. "If Josie knows, they all know."
"How?" Ellen wouldn't have told them; briefing the team on your love life was not a coachly thing to do.
"How do women know anything?" Robbie asked. "They just do."
"Are you and Josie Quinn an item, Robbie?"
"We're going in the right direction. G'night, Wes. I'm gonna sleep in tomorrow--no classes on Friday--but if you drop by Susan and Nan's for lunch, come on up and knock on my door."
"I might do that," Wesley said. "Good night, Robbie. Thanks for being one of the Three Stooges."
"I'd say the pleasure was all mine, but I have to think about that."
*
Instead of reading ur-Hemingway when he got back, Wesley stuffed the Kindle in his briefcase. Then he took out the mostly blank bound notebook and ran his hand over its pretty cover. For your book ideas, Ellen had said, and it had to've been an expensive present. Too bad it was going to waste.
I could still write a book, he thought. Just because I haven't in any of the other Urs doesn't mean I couldn't here.
It was true. He could be the Sarah Palin of American letters. Because sometimes longshots came in.
Both for good and for ill.
He undressed, brushed his teeth, then called the English Department and left a message for the secretary to cancel his one morning class. "Thanks, Marilyn. Sorry to put this on you, but I think I'm coming down with the flu." He added an unconvincing cough and hung up.
He thought he would lie sleepless for hours, thinking of all those other worlds, but in the dark they seemed as unreal as actors when you saw them on a movie screen. They were big up there--often beautiful too--but they were still only shadows thrown by light. Maybe the Ur-worlds were like that, too.
What seemed real in this post-midnight hour was the sound of the wind, the beautiful sound of the wind telling tales of Tennessee, where it had been earlier this evening. Lulled by it, Wesley fell asleep, and he slept deeply
and long. There were no dreams, and when he woke up, sunshine was flooding his bedroom. For the first time since his own undergraduate days, he had slept until almost eleven in the morning.
V--Ur Local (Under Construction)
He took a long hot shower, shaved, dressed, and decided to go down to Susan and Nan's for either a late breakfast or an early lunch, whichever looked better on the menu. As for Robbie, Wesley decided he'd let the kid sleep. He'd be out practicing with the rest of the hapless football team this afternoon; surely he deserved to sleep late. It occurred to him that, if he took a table by the window, he might see the Athletic Department bus go by as the girls set off for the Bluegrass Invitational, eighty miles away. He'd wave. Ellen mightn't see him, but he'd do it anyway.
He took his briefcase without even thinking about it.
*
He ordered Susan's Sexy Scramble (onions, peppers, mozzarella cheese) with bacon on the side, along with coffee and juice. By the time the young waitress brought his food, he'd taken out the Kindle and was reading Cortland's Dogs. It was Hemingway, all right, and one terrific story.
"Kindle, isn't it?" the waitress asked. "I got one for Christmas, and I love it. I'm reading my way through all of Jodi Picoult's books."
"Oh, probably not all of them," Wesley said.
"Huh?"
"She's probably got another one done already. That's all I meant."
"And James Patterson's probably written one since he got up this morning!" she said, and went off chortling.
Wesley had pushed the Main Menu button while they were talking, wanting to hide the Ur-Hemingway novel. Because he was feeling guilty about what he was reading? Because the waitress might get a look and start screaming That's not real Hemingway? Ridiculous. But just owning the pink Kindle made him feel a little bit like a crook. It wasn't his device, after all, and the stuff he had downloaded wasn't really his, either, because he wasn't the one paying for it.
Maybe no one is, he thought, but didn't believe it. He thought one of the universal truths of life was that, sooner or later, someone always paid.
There was nothing especially sexy about his scramble, but it was good. Instead of going back to Cortland and his winter dog, he accessed the UR menu. The one function he hadn't peeked into was Ur Local. Which was under construction. What had Robbie said about that last night? Better watch out, traffic fines double. The kid was sharp and might get even sharper, if he didn't batter his brains out playing senseless Division Three football. Smiling, Wesley highlighted UR LOCAL and pushed the Select button. This message came up: