Death Ray Butterfly, Tom Lichtenberg [most read book in the world .TXT] 📗

not where you belong”, said Melvin Eldon (the first).

“In other words”, said Eldon Melvin, “You shouldn't be here. You should be there.”

“And where is there?”, I wanted to know.

“Where you were. Where you came from. To whence you must return.”

“And how am I supposed to do that?”, I snorted. “Click my heels together three times and say the magic words?”

“Use your lighter”, said the first.

“Yes, we know all about it”, said the other. “Sadly, we also know it's been preset. You may never return to your own place, and yet you must try, or forfeit one of your souls.”

“One of my what?”

“Souls”, said the first. “What you have seen in the spitter was the soul of your other.”

“Spitter?”

“S-P-I-D-T-R”, explained the second. “Spiritual inter-dimensional tracker. Quite a device, I must say.”

“Invented by our friend in San Francisco”, continued the first. “It's how we know.”

“And it is our job to know”, added the other.

“Then you know about Jones”, I said.

“Of course”, said the first. “But that is none of your concern, any more than is his companion, Racine.”

“His companion? But he had her killed.”

“One of her, yes, we know. But again, this is not your business. We understand why you think it is. After all, we are also law enforcement professionals.”

“But on a different level”, added his partner.

“We give you this choice”, said the first. “You have precisely twenty four hours. Try and get home, and if you succeed, then all is well and good. Otherwise you will forfeit this soul.”

“In other words”, said the second, “One of you, the one you presently think of as you, will be erased. The others, of course, will go on as usual.”

“No harm done, really”, said the first.

“Why only twenty four hours?”, I wanted to know.

“Because of your friend Jones”, said the first. “Tomorrow at this time, those little gadgets he stole will be added to everywhere's stuff list. They are easy to find. We know exactly where all of them are. Our friend is particular about his inventions.”

“In other words”, said the second, “The gadgets will not only self-destruct at that time, but their possessor's soul will also be taken along with them.”

“What if I give it to you now?”

“I wouldn't”, said the first. “You might want to give your self at least a chance.”

“In other words”, added the second, “If you give it to us now, we will be required to collect your spirit now as well.”

“Keep it”, advised the former. “Who knows? You might even get lucky.”

“But wait a minute, hold on a minute”, I said. “How do I know that I'm not, as you say, where I'm supposed to be. Everything seems the same to me. I don't think I even believe in this parallel universes gag.”

The two looked at each other for a moment, then turned back to me.

“We're not permitted to tell you much”, said the first.

“In other words, we can only tell you a little,” added the other.

“For one thing”, said the former, “Where you came from, presidential elections are a matter of course. They occur on a rather regular schedule.”

“In other words”, added the latter, “they happen every four years.”

“And there are no identity roundups”, continued the first.

“Then what do the generals do?”, I asked, incredulous.

“They don't interfere”, said the first. “And neither will you, if you take our advice.”

And with that, they spun on their heels, jogged back to their car, piled aboard and drove off as if they were already late for their next appointment. What a job, I thought to myself, collecting souls in violation! And that bit about elections. Seriously? That didn't seem normal at all, but I couldn't tell which one of me was surprised, and which one of me could no longer be surprised by anything.

Nineteen

I think I must have got a little sleep because I was woken up early the next morning by my assistant, Kelley, who'd come to check on me. Kelley was worried because there was a crowd or reporters already gathered outside of HQ clamoring to talk to me because of what happened on the Kerd Palliver show. Kelley didn't want them besieging me at home, so we went in together in the squad car. There were a bunch of them all right, maybe twenty or thirty huddled around the entrance. I recognized a few of the loudest - Rae Beth Smirkins, from Channel Ten, Benny Schnizzle from Twenty Two, and the notorious Jan Etor from the National Set. I thought about sneaking in the back way, but it wasn't going to happen. They had spotted me and rushed the car. I had to get out and face it. They were shouting all at once and I had to wave my hands around to get their attention, calm them down, promising to answer each and every one of their questions.

“What can you tell us about the Palliver murder?”

“Where's Cricket Jones now?”

“ How did he get away?”

“What about the frigid caveman with the bullet in his skull?”

“What do you know about the sudden global extinction of the butterflies?”

It was not my shiningest moment. I really couldn't tell them much about anything they wanted to know, and I wasn't going to tell them anything about what I didn't want them to know. Nobody seemed to have the slightest idea about what Jones was really up to. They all assumed there was a trap door or some other parlor trick that explained his vanishing act. I wasn't going to raise an alarm about how this guy could apparently appear and disappear at will throughout unlimited parallel existences. That would scare the crap out of everyone!

I didn't know anything about the murder. I hadn't been assigned to the case, even though my name was explicitly linked to it thanks to Jones, and I could only assume that the regular schmoes had already botched the job in their customary fashion. Kelley had told me on the way that the bullet they took from Palliver matched the one that was taken from Reyn Tundra as well as that from the desiccated corpse of the former Racine. I already figured it did. Jones had a thing for that particular gun and those particular bullets. Most killers are superstitious, like professional athletes or anyone who wants something badly enough.

What caught my attention was the thing about the butterflies. When Schnizzle asked me that one, I turned the tables and asked him instead. What did HE know about it? It was the first I had heard. He told me, and the others confirmed his version, that out of the blue that very morning had come reports from around the world that butterflies were dropping like, well, like flies, as the saying goes. No one knew why, but it seemed to be happening everywhere. I of course suspected Jones, but how did it happen? Nobody knew. Scientists were stumped. The creatures had all simply stopped breathing.

Rae Beth Smirkins wanted to get personal, as was her trademark. How did I feel about being singled out by Jones for public mockery on the airwaves. How was my family handling it? Was there anything I wanted to express to the citizenry at large. Yes, I told her. It's not about me, and I don't care about my family anyway. Jones is a criminal, a fugitive on the run, and I was certain the authorities would catch him and justice would be served. Of course, I didn't really believe that. It seemed to me there was no stopping him now. He'd continue to rip through the fabric of the space-time continuum, tearing holes in it willy-nilly, for whatever reason he was doing so. I didn't understand him, not at all, and that did not bode well for me. For once in my life I was the one being hunted. I was half expecting him to show up at any moment.

I got through the journalistic ritual. The reporters weren't satisfied but after I'd repeated my non-answers often enough they finally gave up and drifted off. Then I went into the building, where I faced another barrage of inquiries from my fellow officers. It went pretty much the same way. Nobody had a lead on Jones, of course. Everyone was expecting me to handle it. I even heard from the Chief, who almost never talked to me. He just stuck his head into the break room where I was hanging out and said,

“Mole? Get this all straightened out, will you? The generals are bugging me about it. Get it? Bugging me? You know, the butterflies and all?”

The Chief thought he was hilarious and wandered off, laughing loudly at his little joke. My peers all gave me knowing nods and winks, and my juniors gave me thumbs ups as they passed by. What a bunch of jerks. Even my assistant, Kelley, was not much use. He made some excuse about paperwork and took off, leaving me all alone to, to do what? I realized they were all expecting me to DO something, like I could flip a switch and solve all the mysteries just like that. The truth was, I didn't even know where to begin. I was in way over my head.

Twenty

The big question I had to answer was, should I try and chase after Jones, or should I give it up. Really, it boiled down to that. If I went after him, that would mean using the lighter, hoping that the next preset would take me to where he was. I had good reason to think it would. I believed he had programmed it that way, in which case, I would always be at a disadvantage. I would be going blind, and he would be there waiting, just as he knew where I'd be the last time I did it.

And yet, I still didn't quite believe. After all, I had clicked the thing and it seemed like nothing had happened. I remained at my house, I didn't feel a thing, and after awhile Jones had showed up, but that might have happened anyway, even if I hadn't touched the device. The peach-tie twins assured me I had crossed over, but why should I believe them any more than Jones? That bit about presidential elections was confusing. I did remember those, of course. They still had them when I was a kid, but things were much more orderly now the generals were in charge. There was no more gridlock, no more stalemate, no more political posturing, no more puny half measures. Things got done, and if we had initially complained about losing our "freedoms", we were reminded often enough that freedom wasn't free, in fact it was damned expensive, and we were all saving a whole lot of money this way.

So, maybe Jones did have some kind of magic trick he used to apparently vanish, and maybe he was just another psychotic serial killer, in which case I should try and track him down the normal, police procedural way. Legwork. Interviews. All that stuff. I ought to be getting off my fat ass and doing my job, but I remained, rooted to the spot. I had in fact already decided I would give it up. That's why I was even there at HQ and not at home, where the lighter was, where I would be tempted to click it, and keep on clicking