Eli (2 page)

It had started to rain, the first time since early April. Conrad reached over and turned on his wipers. The blades had rotted from last summer’s sun, and their first few passes left dirty smears. How ironic. Here he was driving a $72,000

Jaguar but couldn’t find the time to replace its wiper blades.

But that’s how it was with everything in his life—too busy winning the prizes to enjoy them. And he had won them, won them all, everything he’d ever wanted and more: great job, great pay, esteem from his peers, plenty of toys, beautiful wives (although a few more than he’d intended), and the list went on. Yet over the past several years, the list had begun to grow more and more meaningless. And, though he tried his best to ignore it, an empty hollowness had begun gnawing hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 6

6 and eating away at him. He’d won the game, all right; the only problem was that neither the victory nor the prizes meant anything.

He pumped the washer fluid a few times and the smearing on the windshield thinned. Glancing at his speedometer, he eased back to 70. Besides the oil that had accumulated on the pavement these many rainless weeks, there was also the recurring amnesia Southern Californians suffer whenever it comes to remembering how to drive on wet roads. He’d been in several fender benders since moving to L.A., many of them thanks to the rain.

He rolled his head, trying to work out the tension in his neck. He pulled a bottle of Motrin from his coat pocket, popped another handful into his mouth, and glanced around for something to wash them down. Nothing. Just a couple empty Taco Bell bags, some wadded up Big Mac wrappers, and a stale bag of corn chips. Ah, the glamorous life of a TV

reporter. He held the pills on his tongue until he accumulated enough saliva to swallow one. Then he repeated the process for the next, and the next, and the next—each one going down a little harder than the last.

A sign read
23 Freeway North.
Good. Just a couple more miles, then down the steep grade into Camarillo. He’d already put in a call to his favorite cameraman, Ned Burton, as well as to the lighting and sound guys, to meet him there. And, before that, to Professor Endo, who was only too happy to oblige with another interview.

“Something tangible?” the doctor had asked in his faint Japanese accent.

“Exactly,” Conrad said. “Your theories and formulas, they’re all very interesting, but we need something we can show on tape, something the audience can grasp.”

“Certainly, that will be no problem.”

“Really? Like what? Eyewitnesses? People who have seen these—”

The old man chuckled. “I am afraid that if there are eyewitnesses to such universes, you would find them locked up in insane asylums, or involved in drug rehab programs.”

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“Then what?” Conrad asked. “How can you physically prove the existence of parallel universes if no one has seen them?”

“It is an old experiment, really. I am sorry I did not mention it to you before.”

“What do you need to set it up?”

“I have all that is necessary at the lab. Just a board with two small slits cut into it and a low-powered laser.”

“That’s it?”

“That is all. We shine the laser onto the two slits and record how many slits of light appear on the wall behind it.”

“I don’t understand. Two slits in the board will cast two slits on the wall.”

“Actually, they will cast several more than two.”

“Several? That’s impossible.”

“You will see for yourself. And if we cut two more slits in the board how many will appear on the wall?”

Conrad frowned. “I’d say four, but you’re going to tell me twice as many as whatever the two slits were.”

“Actually, with four slits there will be half as many bands of light as if there were only two slits.”

“That’s crazy.”

“Yes, if you are thinking in terms of a single universe. But ask today’s best scientific minds, Stephen Hawking and others, and they will say invisible light beams from other worlds similar to ours that are involved in the very same experiment at the very same time are actually interfering with some of our beams.”

“And you can prove this?”

“I shall be waiting for you in the lab.”

Even as he thought over the conversation, Conrad shook his head. To think that there was another one of him traveling to another Camarillo to meet with another professor at this exact same moment—it was incomprehensible. And not just one of him, but millions, all identical. Well, not exactly identical, because according to Endo, each of his counterparts still hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 8

8 had a free will to make different decisions along the way. One Conrad Davis could have waited to ride with his crew.

Another could have agreed with his boss to cancel the segment. Or another could have decided to pursue philosophy in college instead of journalism. And on and on it went, the possibilities infinite.

Then there was the matter of time . . .

“It is my personal belief,” Endo had said, “that these various realities may also be traveling at different velocities. For some, an entire lifetime of seventy to eighty years may be lived in just a few of our hours. For others, it may be just the opposite.”

“You’re telling me that there’s someone exactly like me in another reality who’s only living a few hours?”

“A few hours by our standards, yes. But by his, it will be the full eighty years.”

No wonder Harrison and the others thought the story was over everyone’s head. But if this sort of thing could be proven in the lab and actually captured on videotape . . .

The rain came down harder, and he turned the wiper speed to high. Conrad was nearly fifty years old, but the methodic
swish-swish
,
swish-swish
of the wiper blades still brought warm memories of his childhood in Washington State, where the sound of windshield wipers was a part of many a car trip.

He crested the ridge and started down the steep grade into Camarillo. Even shrouded by clouds, it was a beautiful sight.

The coastal mountains rose on either side, giving one last burst of rock and cliff before dropping suddenly to the flat coastal plain seven hundred feet below. In the distance, the furrowed fields of onions and strawberries stretched all the way to the ocean, or at least as far as the newest housing development that encroached upon them.

Swish-swish
,
swish-swish
. . .

The left lanes of traffic had slowed, so he threw a look over his shoulder and pulled into the far right where there hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 9

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was less congestion. He glanced up through the windshield.

It was still there. Up to the left. The jagged rock formation that looked like the profile of a noble Indian surveying the valley.

Being the first to spot it was a favorite pastime of Suzanne and little Julia whenever they took their Sunday drives up the coast.

Swish-swish, swish-swish
. . .

Sunday drives up the coast—one of the few bribes that had actually worked in luring Suzanne away from church.

She’d been a good woman. The best he’d had. Committed to her family at any cost. Granted, she may have been a little fanatical in the faith department, but her beliefs in God posed no real threat for them. He gave her her space, and she gave him his. And, truth be told, the older he got, the more wisdom he saw in some of her God talk.

God . . . if all this multi-world business was true, it would be interesting to see how the theologians would try and squeeze him into the picture. And what about the great religious leaders? What about Jesus Christ? If, as Suzanne had always insisted, this world needed to be “saved,” then didn’t all these similar worlds need to be saved as well? Again Conrad shook his head. The implications were staggering.

Swish-swish, swish-swish . . .

He could smell the mixture of dust and water that came with the first rain. Under that, the faint aroma of onions waft-ing up from the valley. He smiled, almost sadly, as he remembered little Julia holding her nose, complaining about the smell. Those had been good times. Some of the best. In fact, if he could pick one season in his life to freeze and forever live in, it would be—

The blast of an air horn jarred Conrad from his thoughts.

He glanced up at his mirror and saw a big rig approaching from behind, flashing its high beams.
Come on,
he thought,
no
one’s in that big of a hurry.
Sure, he’d moved into the truck lane, but he was already exceeding the speed limit. Besides there was traffic directly ahead, so what was the big—

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The horn blasted again. Longer, closer.

Conrad looked back into the mirror. The truck was rapidly approaching. In a matter of moments it would be on Conrad’s tail, trying to intimidate him. But Conrad Davis was not so easy to intimidate.

More blasting.

“What’s your problem?” Conrad mouthed the words into the mirror, raising his hands, motioning to the traffic around them. “What do you want me to do?”

And then he saw the driver. A kid. He wasn’t looking at Conrad. Instead, he was fighting something in the cab. Perhaps stomping on foot pedals or wrestling with the gearshift—Conrad couldn’t tell for certain. He didn’t have to.

Because when the young driver finally looked up, Conrad saw the terror in the boy’s eyes.

Conrad quickly looked to the left, searching for a way to slip into the adjoining lane and out of the truck’s path. There was none. All three lanes were packed.

The horn continued to blast. The truck was nearly on top of him—so close Conrad could no longer see the boy, only the big rig’s aluminum grill.

Up ahead, about thirty feet, a cement truck lumbered its way down the grade. Conrad pushed back his panic, looking for some way out. He glanced to the right, to the emergency lane. Suddenly, the Jaguar shuddered and lunged forward.

The rig had hit him, hard, throwing his head forward, then back. Instantly, the car began picking up speed.

Conrad hit the brakes. They did no good, only threw him into a screaming skid, making it harder to steer.

The cement truck lay twenty-five feet ahead now, rapidly drawing closer.

Again Conrad looked to the right. The lane was narrow, with a steep rock wall rising beside it—a wall that a more experienced big rig driver might have used to slide against and slow down. But this kid was not experienced.

They continued picking up speed.

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The cement truck was fifteen feet away. If Conrad was to act, it had to be now. He cranked the wheel hard to the right.

But as the Jaguar swerved to the right, the big rig followed.

The kid had lost control. He was going into a skid, jackknif-ing. As he did, he continued shoving Conrad forward . . . but forward into the emergency lane and toward the rock wall.

Conrad fought the wheel.

Tires shrieked and smoked. The horn blasted.

He struggled with all of his strength to turn the car back onto the road. But it was too wet, the surface too slick. The Jaguar hit a small curb at the edge of the emergency lane. Suddenly it was airborne. The wheel turned easily now, but it made no difference. The rock wall loomed ahead, filling Conrad’s vision. When he struck it, the explosion roared in his ears. He was thrown forward, metal crushing around him.

The air bag deployed, but nothing would stop his headlong rush at the rock.

“My God!”
he screamed, lifting his hands against the jagged wall as it crashed through his windshield. But he could not duck. He could not move.

And then there was nothing.

v

Twenty-seven-year-old Julia Davis-Preston woke with a start. It took several moments to get her bearings as she glanced around the dimly lit 757 cabin. She’d just had another dream about her father. The hallway dream. It didn’t come often, but when it did it always left her a little weak and shaken. In the dream she was a girl of five dressed in a chif-fon party gown. She wore flowers in her hair, and in the more vivid dreams she could actually smell them. They were magnolias—from the tree at their home in Pasadena.

As always, she had been groping her way down the long, dimly lit hallway. As always, her father’s dark walnut door waited at the far end. And, as always, it was closed.

“Daddy,”
she called,
“Daddy, I’m scared.”

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She knew he was there. He had to be. She could hear the muffled voices, the wisps of conversation.

“Daddy . . . please . . .”

And the laughter. There was always laughter.

“Daddy.”
She ran her hand along the wood paneling.

The laughter grew louder.

“Daddy?”
She could barely see the door for the frightened tears welling up in her eyes.
“Daddy!”

Then she arrived. With trembling fingers she reached for the doorknob. She could feel the cold brass in her hands as she began turning it. Further and further it turned until—

Julia awoke. Sometimes she opened the door, sometimes she even entered the room. But not tonight. Tonight she had remained outside in the hallway. She never knew if the details of the dream were based on actual fact or if they were something her subconscious had manufactured. It didn’t matter. Regardless of whether the details were fact or fantasy, the substance was just as true.

She looked down and smoothed her tweed skirt. The cabin had grown a little chilly, and she thought of rising and grabbing her matching jacket from the overhead compartment. But the old gentleman in the aisle seat beside her was sleeping too peacefully to disturb. Besides, the jacket wrinkled easily, and it might be better to give it a head start on what could be a very long day.

Julia turned and looked out the window. In the darkness, the lights of a small Nebraska town twinkled up at her. As she stared, her thoughts drifted back to her father. She hated it when they did that. Not because she hated the thoughts, but because she hated him. It wasn’t something she was proud of, but it was the truth. And if there was one thing her father had instilled in her, it was the value of truth. “A reporter’s stock in trade,” he was so fond of saying. “A person is only as good as his word, never any better, never any worse.” It was perhaps this fact more than any other that had helped make Julia Davis-Preston one of the fastest-rising prosecutors in Atlanta’s hththt 5/14/01 11:34 AM Page 13