Multiverse Consultants, Inc.

On the twenty-seventh floor of the New Empire State Building, in her gleaming white, very modern, very chic office, Mauve Dishman’s comset awoke from its slumber.

“Webgnar Holtz!” it announced excitedly. It turned to Mauve and awaited her approval.

Grimacing, Mauve scrunched up a stack of microfilm sales reports. Webgnar Holtz, the call that she had been dreading.

Un-scrunching the sales reports as best she could, Mauve gave the comset a reluctant, misshapen thumbs-up. After a fumbling moment, the comset managed to secure the connection and Webgnar’s pale, bloated face zapped onto the screen.

“Hello, Webgnar,” Mauve said blankly.

“Hello, Mauve,” mumbled Webgnar. His face pursed up, as if he had just tasted something sour. “Have you heard the news?”

“Yes,” Mauve said.

“How bad is it?” Webgnar asked sheepishly. “My Mr. Assistant won’t tell me and I can’t seem to gather up the nerve to turn on my Cronkite.”

“I’ll dial it up.”

Mauve reached across her desk, flicked on the Cronkite unit and cranked it over to the correct story. After a moment, the Cronkite came to life and began to speak.

“Holtz Tower Collapses in Massive Fire. A.P., New Chicago,” it said authoritatively. The Cronkite unit paused, shuffled a sheaf of papers with its fully articulated one-quarter scale arms and continued.

“The Holtz Tower and Casino Mark VII, real-estate tycoon Webgnar Holtz’s latest and greatest mega-project, collapsed late last evening in a tremendous shower of spark and flame, a mere seventy-two months short of its estimated completion date. Investigators do not yet know the cause of the inferno, and say it may take years to sort through the debris field, which covers an area of approximately eighty-five square kilometers. In the interim, the Holtz Company plans to offer tours of the ruins to the general public to recoup at least...”

Webgnar winced. “No, that’s enough, Mauve.” He paused, as if paralyzed. “Five trillion inflate-dollars, down the drain.”

Mauve lifted a porcelain mug to her lips and sipped.

Webgnar stared at her, evidently awaiting an explanation. “Well?”

Mauve gestured philosophically. “Well, I guess win some lose some. That’s the way of business.”

“Like hell,” whined Webgnar. He buried his face in his hands. Was he crying? Mauve always was puzzled as to how a man so rich could be so depressed by the loss of money.

“The thing is, Mauve,” Webgnar continued, “this is just what your services are supposed to circumvent. Everything’s tried, everything’s been tested in those alternate realities.”

“Prospect realities,” Mauve corrected him.

“Oh, ok,” Webgnar said. “I guess you’re going to give me the marketing mumbo jumbo.”

“Well, that’s what they are,” Mauve said. “Don’t shoot the messenger. I didn’t invent the term. Anyways, you know what I’m going to say. We at Multiverse Consultants Inc. make no guarantees as to the success or failure of any venture we bring to our clients’ attention. We can accept no liability. The fact of the matter, however, is that Holtz Towers was a ringing success in Prospect Reality number 24-2341-9543-A, a reality from which we have sourced many successful projects in the past. Can we be held to account if some act of god erases a trillion here or there? There’s no predicting it.”

“I know,” Webgnar said, his brow knitted. “It just has been happening more and more. That other project, last year, that was another trillion there, too. The inverted pyramid building in Saskatchewan, you remember?”

“Imploded.”

“That’s the one.” Webgnar nodded his head. “And then there was the levitating building in Toronto. I think it was recently sighted in the vicinity of Saturn. They have become more frequent, haven’t they? It’s not like the old days. You’d have these projects lined up for me, one after the other; each was a quarter of a trillion in profit per year. Bang, bang, bang. Just like that. And now they’re imploding, they’re exploding, they’re disintegrating.”

“I know, Webgnar.” Mauve drummed her fingers on her desk. Worry lines began to creep across her face.

What Webgnar said was true. Accidents, acts of God, had become more common. The prospect realities, from which they had gathered up so many unforeseen moneymaking schemes, had been as of late giving them lemons. And what she knew, but Webgnar did not, was that the other realities that formed the Greater Universe Mutual Exchange Corporation, or GUMEC, had also experienced a rising number of disasters, catastrophes, and total write-offs. In fact, Reality number 24-2341-9543-A had just last month lost an oil refinery and an airport to an electrical fire and an air traffic control snafu, respectively. But these coincidences, as they hopefully were, were certainly not discussed with clients.

“Mauve?” Webgnar said.

“Yes, Webgnar?”

“I think, Mauve, if this kind of thing continues, I’m going to explore other options as far as sourcing my prospective investments.” The man seemed to shrink back into himself, instantly unsure if what he had said was a good thing or what it would really mean. He’s operating out of an only dimly recollected instinct, Mauve realized. He really doesn’t know what he’s doing anymore.

“Care to rephrase that, Webgnar?”

“I’m going to have to let you go.”

Mauve sighed. “Webgnar, you’ve been our client for how many years now? Fifteen? Twenty?”

“Something like that,” Webgnar said sheepishly.

“And have you ever tallied up how much profit our prospects have earned you? Hm?”

“Including commissions, I’d say around forty six trillion, nine-hundred and thirty three billion, eight-hundred and-“

“So fifty trillion,” Mauve said.

“I suppose so.”

“And we take twenty-five percent of your net,” Mauve said. “So that leaves you with forty trillion in profits, which is more than, oh, say Austria, takes in every year. You’re a country unto yourself, Webgnar Holtz, and you’re going to strangle the golden goose- that’d be us- because of a few measly construction accidents.”

“My net loss has been on the order of two trillion for the past few years,” mumbled Webgnar meekly. “You have to understand, Mauve, it isn’t the past gain that matters. What matters is what’s happening now, and what’s happening now is losses. I have to look around for other solutions. I can’t keep taking the losses, no matter how well it’s worked in the past.”

Mauve leapt up from her chair. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”

She felt incredulous. Webgnar was acting irrationally. He practically couldn’t lose, in the long run, taking bets that had already paid off in prospect realities. And none of the other prospect realities of the GUMEC, each with their own version of Multiverse Consultants Inc., had taken long-term losses either. It was perfectly non-zero-sum. And despite this tremendous weight of scientific and pragmatic proof, Webgnar Holtz was going to find something different.

“What?” asked Mauve. “What are you going to switch to? Hire real-estate developers? Where will you get them? The market’s cornered by GUMEC, and, through GUMEC, us. We’ll outcompete you. There’s no way a non-multiverse consultancy could possibly hope to go up against us.”

Webgnar folded his hands in front of him and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I’ll do it the old fashioned way. I’ll find the projects myself, select them myself, like I used to do. That’s how I began, that’s how I became successful. It wasn’t ever easy, Mauve, not even back then. I had many failures before I found success. But now I’ll have additional competitive advantages. I can still make money. I think I can.”

Mauve eyed him severely. “Webgnar, as your multiverse consultant for the past decade and a half or two decades, I urge you to reconsider.” She sat back, stony faced, and awaited his reply.

Webgnar visibly waffled. He never used to waffle, Mauve thought. When he had first hired Multiverse Consultants, he was a bit of a maverick. He dove headfirst into the Prospects handed to him and profited handsomely. If that Webgnar had been here, she thought, we would already be fired. Christ. When did things become so screwed up? She remembered the words spoken by a sage somewhere out in the Old American Midwest, centuries ago, when they had still been mostly prairie and cornfields. The three ABC’s of business failure, he had called them: arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency. Which of the three had they succumbed to? All of them? It might have only been natural for that to be the case, seeing as they were the sole proprietors of multiverse communication technologies in this reality. Webgnar suddenly shuddered and turned away from th mset.

“I’ve got to go, Mauve,” he said. “It’s nothing personal, but I can’t keep losing money. Maybe when I get going again I’ll give you a call. A job offer.” He glanced at the comset. “But, as of right now, our business is terminated.” A deafening silence filled Mauve’s office. She reeled in her chair, stunned.

“Webgnar, wait!” Her mind raced. “Perhaps what you’ve said is true. Perhaps we have been letting you down, getting sloppy. I still chalk it up to chance, but perhaps our methods could use tweaking. We could more thoroughly vet the various social and cultural contexts of prospective projects. We could even alter our commission schedule. The bottom line is, Webgnar, that we want your business. And after over twenty years of serving you, I think we deserve that chance.” She waited, dumbfounded by what she had just said. They would alter their commission schedule? Well, yes, possibly. As long as they kept it quiet, a reduction of the firm’s profits would be preferable to Webgnar’s exit altogether. And that now seemed more and more possible, and not even because of avarice, but because of some weird mutated form of cowardice.

Webgnar sat motionless, a quarter turned away from his comset. “Ok, Mauve,” he said. “You’re right, I do owe you that. See what you can do. I’ll be over in an hour.” With that, the comset screen clicked off, leaving Mauve silently staring wide-eyed at her own reflection on the blank screen.

And that had been bunk too, she thought. Webgnar doesn’t owe us anything; it’s purely a business matter. The old Webgnar would have known that. Mauve swung her chair around and faced the large glass plate windows that looked out onto New New York. This city, she thought, was to a large degree built by the old Webgnar. What would the old Webgnar have done? He would’ve dropped us like a hot potato and done it his way, she thought, failing or succeeding on his own terms. Just own more piece of evidence for Webgnar’s decline. And thank god for it. He’s gone soft, and because of that, we have an opportunity to salvage this thing. Determined, Mauve got up from her desk, tippity-tapped across the smooth, white porcelain floor and took the elevator up to the twenty-eighth level, where she would confer with her boss, Harry Anderson.

*

Harry seemingly half-listened to Mauve’s account of the situation, leaned back in his chair, smiled, and began to light a cigar. “It’s not a problem, Mauve. Let him drop us. See what we care.”

“Not a problem?”

Mauve was incredulous. First Webgnar, now Harry. He’s gone soft in the head, she realized. He’s become an imbecile.

“He’s, by far, our biggest client, Harry,” Mauve said. “As he goes, so we go. We have to figure out some sort of solution. Now, I’ve been looking at our schedule of commissions. I think I’ve developed an effective compromise that can preserve our short-term viability while we scout new possibilities. And also, I’ve been thinking about directing our prospecting department to find more dissimilar realities. Some new, fresh ideas. Too much dissimilarity can cause implementation problems, but I figure that some innovation is in order. Perhaps we’ve stultified.”

“Tell Webgnar to pound sand.” A stable glow finally stood out on the end of Harry’s cigar and he let out great big puffs of smoke that were immediately suctioned into the vacuum unit mounted on his desk. Invention from Prospect Reality number 63-2406-0982-J, Mauve recalled. Particularly high-selling among corporate types. Was that what Harry had become? A corporate type? The man who, in this reality at least, was responsible for the advent of the multiverse telephony system? God, Mauve thought, Webgnar has become too soft, and Harry has become too hard.

“You must be crazy,” Mauve said. “Webgnar is the biggest construction magnate on the planet. He keeps us afloat.”

“Not anymore.” Harry smiled, reached over his desk and hit a switch. “Constance, will you get Dick Glip up here on the double?”

“Yes, Mr. Anderson,” buzzed Harry’s secretary.

Harry switched off the intercom and got up from his desk. He began to pace in circles around the chic, modern, white office. On all sides of the office, the DR-40 transmission machines silently worked, transferring data between realities, exchanging information through the GUMEC, keeping the wheels of multi-dimensional business greased and profitable. Harry now appraised the gray transmission machines. “We’re ahead of the eight-ball, Mauve. I’m creator of the multiverse telephony system in no less than twenty-seven percent of the realities we’ve made contact with. But, here, in this reality, I’m going to set myself apart from the doppelgangers.”

“I take it you have a plan,” Mauve said.

“You’re damn right I have a plan,” Harry said. “Listen, I know all about the problems we’ve been having. They’ve been building for a while, right? Insidiously creeping up on us. Construction projects go bust, new products flop. A definite pattern has emerged.” Overhead, a ceiling mounted suction-unit vacuumed up drifting wisps of cigar smoke. Blockbuster invention sourced from Prospect Reality number 27-9833-6112-T, Mauve noted. “Not to say any of that is your fault. I mean, sales are fine, you’re pushing the stuff well enough.”

So I’m not the only one, thought Mauve. Harry sees it too. Despite the seemingly bulletproof business model she and Harry had developed together twenty years ago, in conjunction with the first Prospect Realities they had contacted, something had gone wrong.

“What do you think it is, Harry?” asked Mauve. “What’s gone wrong?”

“I’ll tell you,” Harry said. “But first, you tell me, is Webgnar the same old Webgnar?”

“He’s practically in diapers now,” Mauve said.

“Right,” agreed Harry. “The man has regressed. He can’t make up his mind on anything. He waffles. He doesn’t set goals and stick to them. And the people working for him sense that lack of direction. It infects them. The whole Holtz enterprise is effectively diseased. And, I’ll tell you what else, Mauve, it’s happening in the other realities too.” Harry paused for emphasis.

“Geez, I know that, Harry.”

“You do?” Harry looked shocked but quickly recovered. “Of course you do. So I don’t have to tell you that it’s been priority one for my office. It’s a funny sort of problem, too, Mauve. Did you know, it’s rarely the same projects that go bust? There’s a whole mishmash. Some of the prospects that are native to our reality have gone belly up in our partners’ realities. And real similar realities, too. There’s no predicting it.” Harry stopped pacing and looked up at the ceiling.

“In your opinion, is this change due to our activity?”

“That’s exactly it,” Harry said. “Exactly. Most everything we build or do is now sourced from outside. Very little is home grown, so,” Harry shrugged, “we’ve all become generally incompetent.”

Just then, the door to Harry’s office inched open and the tiny, bespectacled, white-smocked figure of Dick Glip shuffled towards them. “Hello,” he muttered to Mauve as he passed. He did not make eye contact. “Hello, Mr. Anderson.”

“Hi, Dick,” Harry said. He slapped the smaller man on the back. Dick coughed. Harry glanced at him and smiled. “This,” he said, pointing to the diminutive researcher, “is the answer to my problems.”

“Our problems,” corrected Mauve.

“Right,” Harry said.

“More precisely,” Dick said, “this machine over here is the answer to Mr. Anderson’s problems.”

Mauve rose from her chair and walked over to the machine that Dick had pointed out. It was about the size of a turbo-thrust manifold and slate gray. In its various extensions and protuberances it resembled an ordinary multiverse telephony transmitter, only it was about four times as large and its control panel was vastly more complicated. Dick Glip shuffled over and stood beside Mauve. Harry sat down in one of the puffy white armchairs that surrounded the coffee table in the center of the office and continued smoking. The coffee table inhaled the cigar smoke eagerly. At the moment, Mauve couldn’t quite remember where they had found that one.

“The principle involved is quite different,” Dick said. “Even though in its extensions and protuberances the machine much resembles the standard DR-40 multiverse telephony transmitter, underneath the hood is a complete overhaul. Several new sections have been added, to work in conjunction with the standard DR-40 transmission mechanisms. And the effect is rather different. The possibilities are enlarged. With my new DR-50 transmitter, we can accomplish more than mere communication across the multiverse. We are no longer limited to the transmission of massless data. We can, in fact, transmit material objects, removing them from one universe, and placing them in another.”

Harry now appeared behind them. His eyes were glowing. “And we’ve already got a client and made our first delivery. Our first payment is scheduled for today.”

Mauve whirled. “You got a client? Without me? I handle the clients around here, bucko.” She jabbed her forefinger into Harry’s chest. He coughed up some cigar smoke which was quickly absorbed by his silk tie. For good measure, Mauve jabbed another finger in Dick’s chest. The man quickly scurried away. “How freakin’ dare you go over my head like this, Anderson!”

Harry smiled. “I’m sure you can understand this was a very sensitive matter, Mauve. As far as we know, no other reality that’s a part of GUMEC has yet devised one of these machines. It’s a substantial industrial secret. Need to know basis. Anyways,” he went back over to the armchair and began adjusting his socks, “I can now let you in on it.”

“Well thank you,” Mauve said mockingly. “It’s nice to know I can be ‘let in on’ a business that I built.”

“But this is a different kind of business, Mauve,” Harry said. He was now quietly contemplative. Mauve knew that if Harry contemplated anything, it was money. Substantial figures must be involved. Figures that were arrived at without the help of Mauve Dishman. She began to feel ill at ease. Her left eyelid began to twitch. Forces that she recognized as irrational were boiling up within her. “This is a business where we completely, utterly have the upper hand,” Harry continued. “No more equal exchange with the other members of GUMEC, and then bargaining with the monopolistic likes of Webgnar Holtz, et al. No, with this new business model, made possible by Dick Glip’s alterations to my own machine, we are able to exercise total control. And we can set whatever price we want.”

“Go on,” Mauve gritted. Her jaw was clenched; the words barely escaped her mouth.

“See, Mauve, we’re able, with this machine, to contact universes that have not devised multiverse telephony technology. We’re able to contact backwater universes. Stultified universes. And not only are we able to contact those universes, we are also able to both send and bring back material from them. You see?”

“No,” Mauve said stubbornly.

“That means,” Harry said, “that instead of merely exchanging information with a universe, and depending on clients within our own universe for payment for that information, we can accept payment directly from these backwater universes. And, oh, Mauve, you won’t believe what we think, what we know, that they’ll accept in terms of commissions. They’re hungry. Our first employees, as I will now refer to them, agreed to a commission rate of five percent. Trust me, that’s barely enough to buy bread on. Mauve, some of these universes haven’t even developed comsets.”

“Surely not,” Mauve said.

“You can see the potential,” Harry said. “Can you imagine how much I could make selling comsets to these backwater universes? Or electric toasters?”

“I can see it,” Mauve said. “You’ll also send the plans for walkie-talkie sets or air conditioners or spring-loaded tennis shoes to some reality that resembles an entire planet of Titan fnorp outposts, and they’ll send back buckets o’ gold and boxes of Georgia peaches. Is that right?”

Harry nodded enthusiastically. “That’s right,” he said. “That’s exactly right.”

“What’s your first product?” asked Mauve.

Harry smiled and said, “Bubblegum.”

Mauve groaned.

“Don’t groan, Mauve,” Harry said. “I had some boys in the accounting department work over the economic datum sent over by this first universe. The hunger for even bubblegum is sure to be enormous. A sale to a large firm capable of manufacturing the product and we’ll net, I don’t know- ten billion inflate-dollars per month.”

“Ten billion selling bubblegum,” Mauve said. “If that’s the case, where do I fit in, Harry? It doesn’t take much of a salesman to sell scraps to a dog, does it? Where’s the sales angle?”

“I hadn’t considered that,” Harry said. He put his hand on his chin. “But, here, what about this: I need someone to begin cataloging the products to be sold to these new backwards realities. Beginning with the simplest and moving up the chain to more complex, useful, technologically sophisticated products.”

“So you’re demoting me,” Mauve said. “From handling sales to…data entry. But anyone could do that, Harry. No thanks. I don’t want to be a charity case. You’ve laid out your plans, and they simply don’t involve me, that’s all. Now, Harry, I won’t get in your way. I won’t interfere with your new enterprise. But I want something in return.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“I want to continue the Multiverse Consultants, Inc. operation,” Mauve said. “As CEO. You’ve obviously given up on the business, but I think it can still be worked out. I, for one, still have hope. So, let me continue on with my work, and you can continue on with yours. Just give me the control to accomplish that.”

Harry was quiet. Dick Glip, a hand still massaging the lung that Mauve had nearly perforated, approached and stopped at a safe distance. “Unfortunately, Ms. Dishman, that won’t be possible.”

Mauve turned and shot Harry a look. “What’s he mean?” she grated.

“He’s right,” Harry said. He began to pace again, rubbing his hands nervously through his hair. “Mauve, you see, we’re withdrawing from GUMEC, and we’re converting all the multiverse transmission machines to these new DR-50 types. Cannibalizing the transmission parts. We’ll need all we can get. So, you see, there won’t be any way for the old business to continue on.” He glanced meekly in her direction.

Mauve silently seethed. Webgnar had changed in one way, Harry in another. The greedy fnorp, she said to herself. The low-down, two-timing, thieving, good-for-nothing jerk. She stared at Harry. On some level, these thoughts were being beamed directly into his head, Mauve knew. They had worked together for so long that Harry would be sure to pick up on her hatred for him in this moment. They were intertwined. So why had he seemingly simply forgotten about her? It had been a genuine revelation to him, the fact that he had just cut her out of the company, left her jobless. He had simply overlooked it. Was it greed? Ambition?

“This is what I think of your new business.” She spat on the perfectly white porcelain floor. A squeegee emerged rapidly from underneath a tile and quickly took care of the mess. We’ve become infants, Mauve said to herself. Self-indulgent infants. “You’re a louse,” she said to Harry.

Harry was turning red. His jaw was set. Mauve heard Dick Glip’s tiny feet begin to propel him backwards, up against one of the machines. He was preparing for a real fight.

“And you’re an ungrateful, useless brat,” Harry said. Spittle rained down. “I built this company, Mauve, not you. I invented the Multiverse Transmitter, not you. It’s mine to do with as I please. And as of right now, you’re fired. Understand? Pack your things and get out. I offered to save you a place. But you threw that back in my face. You’re terminated.”

“Fine by me,” Mauve said. “Without me, your company would have become nothing. I got, and retained, all of the major clients. I kept things running smoothly. And now you’re going to trash all of that. So, before you do, I want all my stock liquidated. I want my severance. Because it won’t be long before there’s nothing left to collect.”

“Uh, Mr. Anderson?” It was Dick Glip.

“What?” barked Harry.

“Sucker Reality number 40-7354-3100-Q is signaling.” Dick pointed to the new DR-50 machine. Atop, a yellow light was blinking. A large, heavily-built tray had extended from within its steel skin, covered by a dome of glass. “They’re ready to transmit the first installment of gold coin.”

Harry turned back to Mauve and viciously smiled. “You want severance? Ok, Mauve, we’ll settle your account right now. Your severance will be the first gold transmitted back with my new machine. Let it serve as a reminder of what you turned down. If you want the rest of what you’re owed, sue me. I’ll see you in court. Hit the switch, Dick.”

Mauve watched as Dick pressed a small button mounted on the front of the machine. Its insides began to whirr and whine. An ethereal glow began to fill the room. Then Mauve heard a pop, and everything went dark.

*

“What happened?” Harry asked, from somewhere nearby. It was almost, but not quite, pitch black.

“I think the lights went out,” said Dick Glip. “Perhaps the DR-50 overloaded the building’s circuit. The old landline telephone should still be working, though. I’ll phone down to maintenance and see if they can correct the problem.” Mauve heard Dick start to clumsily grope his way through the office.

“No need,” she said. She turned to face where she thought Dick Glip stood. “There should still be light coming in from the windows. Why would the power going out affect that?” She sensed the two men suddenly cease moving, considering her logic. Something else was going on; she felt it, and she knew that they felt it too.

“Auto-darkening window glass,” suggested Harry. “We imported the design from Prospect Reality number 81-7249-5528-P five years ago. Perhaps the power outage affected the glass.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Anderson, auto-darkening window glass consumes power to darken, not to let light through.” It was Dick Glip. “Ms. Dishman is right. Something else has happened.”

“Oh.” Harry sounded disappointed.

“Well, I guess we’ll find out,” Mauve said.

Around her, she made out vague, black on gray shapes. Half blind, she gently snaked her way around the shapes, bumping into them and tripping over debris. The layout of the room was wholly unfamiliar. “Harry,” she said, “I think we’ll just have to accept the fact that we’re not in your office anymore.”

“Damn,” Harry said.

At last, she came to where the plate glass should have been and stuck out her hand. She felt a rough, uneven surface, and not cool to the touch. Certainly not glass. She sidled along the wall and came to a rectangular depression. Mauve stuck her hand in and felt horizontal wooden slats. These would be blinds. Mauve still remembered how they worked. She found the cord, pulled and daylight flooded into the room.

They were in an office, but it was certainly not Harry’s office. File cabinets, not DR-40 multiverse transmitters, lined the walls. There were chairs, but they were rectangular, not ellipsoid, and constructed of wood instead of plastic. The desks were also wood, massive and littered with papers, lamps and ancient machines that Mauve knew to be called ‘typewriters’.

“What the hell,” Harry said. He looked around in dismay. “What a dump.”

Dick Glip sat down in one of the old wood chairs and tugged at his collar. “It would seem,” he said, “that we have been transported to an alternate reality, instead of payment being transferred to ours. We have changed universes.”

“And this,” Mauve said, “would be Sucker Reality number 40-7354-3100-Q, correct?”

“That is the most likely explanation, yes,” Dick said.

“Well, what a glitch, huh?” Harry said. “Quite amusing, to be transported to such a quaint alternate reality.” He picked up a bundle of papers and waved them around. “Still using tree pulp for record storage. Interesting. Well, it’s been fun, Dick, but throw the switch. Let’s get back.”

“Quite obviously,” Dick Glip said, “there is no switch to throw. There is no DR-50 machine in this room, and thus, no switch.”

Mauve saw Harry wheel and scan the office. As his alarm grew, his face began to contort. “Well, then, how do we get back?”

Dick Glip shrugged. “I don’t know.”

Harry’s face settled on an expression of rage. He rushed over to Dick, lifted him by his collar and began to shake him. “What do you mean you don’t know?! It’s your machine, you built the thing! What’s going on?”

“Put him down,” yelled Mauve. She ran up to Harry and lightly jabbed at his ribs. Harry sputtered and quickly relented, letting go of Dick’s collar and retreating to a chair. He buried his head in his hands.

“Thank you,” Dick said to Mauve. He turned to Harry. “I may have built the machine, Mr. Anderson, but you provided many of the parts. The DR-50 is so complicated, so technologically advanced, that no one individual can be blamed for its malfunction.”

“Let me guess,” Mauve said, also turning to Harry, “You traded for the parts. They’re designs you got through GUMEC, on the exchange and you just cobbled them together. Most of the parts are from the Prospect realities, aren’t they?”

Harry’s head temporarily emerged from its cradle. “Well, where else would I get them? We don’t have the engineering capacity on Earth anymore to undertake such a project. A lot of the designs for parts we needed had to be gotten off-the-shelf. We needed to utilize the Prospect realities to become independent of them, don’t you see?”

“So, let me get this straight,” Mauve said. “You recognized that there was a problem with individuals in our own reality implementing the designs and products of other realities. You theorized that we, as a species, were becoming less capable. And your solution to this problem was to import even more designs and attempt to implement those?”

“The machine works, Mauve,” Harry said.

“Yes, but it only takes one error to send us to Sucker Reality number 40-7354-3100-Q!” Mauve replied. Harry buried his head back in his hands. Mauve shut her eyes and tried to remain calm. Well, she thought, this outcome has at least one positive aspect: it has ruined Harry’s plans. He deserved it. And he brought it upon himself. He had become blind to his own shortcomings, which had suddenly seemed to balloon, just as Webgnar’s had. And Dick Glip, too, probably. And maybe even her. How far had they fallen? How would they compare to the relatively self-sufficient beings in this new reality? She didn’t want to find out. She wanted to get back. She turned to Dick Glip. “Dick, what sort of equipment did you provide to this reality?”

“We transmitted them a stripped-down version of the DR-40 multiverse transmitter, as well as a cupola with a locator beacon, upon which they would place any hard currency. The DR-50 locates the beacon and transmits whatever is in the cupola back to our reality. And, of course, the DR-40 we provided them with can only receive calls, it can’t make them.” Dick smiled slightly. “Mr. Anderson thought it prudent to restrict our partner’s ability to make contact with other universes with which they could trade. He desired a monopoly.”

“And he was right to do so,” Mauve said. “The error was to think he could pull this off while cutting corners. Not doing his due diligence. Anyways, our first order of business is to find their DR-40 transmitter, and to monitor it. If our staff notices we are missing, perhaps they will be able to trace us here, contact us, and we can find a solution.”

“Agreed,” Dick said. He scanned the office, picked a destination seemingly at random, and set off to search amid the clutter and debris of an office that relied so heavily on wood pulp for record keeping.

“Harry, you too,” Mauve said. “Get up, stop feeling sorry for yourself.” Harry groaned, cantilevered himself upright and began to shuffle across the office.

Mauve surveyed the scene. Probably, they had been deposited in this particular place for a reason. In size, the room did not resemble Harry’s white, modern, chic office. The building was also likely to be entirely different, perhaps constructed with thick, load-bearing masonry walls. She quickly eliminated the possibility that their transmission had deposited them in the same relative spatial location. That meant that they had been deposited according to their relationship with some other element. Probably in relation to that cupola thing, she reasoned. When the machine had been turned on, they had all been gathered around the tray onto which the gold was to be deposited. And when the transmission had ended, they had also been gathered close together. Where? Mauve traced her steps back through the room, and her eyes settled near the back of the office. A painting hung there, an inexpertly done oil of a large sailing ship on a stormy sea.

Quickly, she tore the painting away from the wall. Behind it, a cavity had been dug out of the plaster. A false wall, Mauve realized. And in the cavity sat a large wooden box.

“Dick, I think I may have found the cupola,” she called.

Dick scurried over and examined the box. “Yes, it’s about the right size, if I can, mmf.” Dick removed the box and began to pry open its lid. “It’s nailed shut.”

“Here, let me,” Mauve said. She gripped the lid, pulled and the box tore apart. Inside was a glass dome, and under the glass, a few golden coins. Harry approached and inspected the find morosely.

“Cupola?” he inquired.

“Cupola,” Mauve confirmed. “And that, beneath it, would be your payment I would think.”

Harry regarded the few gold coins with distaste. They couldn’t have amounted to more than a couple of million inflate-dollars. “Rats,” he said.

“Not much of a payday, is it?” asked Mauve.

“No. No, it’s not,” Harry said. “I should’ve known that these nincompoops wouldn’t be able to take advantage of our services. Hell, they’ve constructed a backwater reality for a reason. They’re just not too capable.”

“It’s almost like we were made for each other,” Mauve said.

Harry glanced at her resentfully, then nodded. “I suppose you’re right.” He paused. “What I don’t get is why the weirdos put the dome in a box and hid it in the wall. And why they, presumably, closed the blinds just before transmission.”

“They were cautious,” Mauve said. “They didn’t want anybody to know just what they had stumbled onto. It was their industrial secret. It was probably right of them to ferret away the machinery as best they could.”

Dick Glip stood up and retreated to the row of file cabinets he had been examining. “I will continue to look for the DR-40 we sent them,” he said. “I suggest you two do the same.”

Mauve placed the glass dome, the few gold coins, and the wooden box on a nearby desk and resumed her inspection of the room. As she was probing the edges of one of the file cabinets that lined the wall directly opposite the windows, a familiar voice filled the room.

“Ms. Dishman?” it said. “Ms. Dishman, are you there?” The voice, remarkably, sounded exactly like Constance, Harry’s secretary.

“It’s Constance!” Harry exclaimed. “They’ve found us! Quick, where is that voice coming from? It sounded like an intercom somewhere. Maybe over here.” Harry shot over to the desk nearest the windows, manically brushing paper, envelopes, pens, pencils and paperweights from its surface. His face suddenly showed joy and he hit a switch.

“Constance,” he said, “it’s Harry here. Boy, am I glad to hear your voice! How’d you find us?” He tilted his ear toward the intercom speaker and listened, a grin stretched over his face.

“Erm,” Constance said after a pause. “I’m calling for Ms. Dishman, Harry.”

“Oh.” Harry regarded the intercom disdainfully, then waved Mauve over. She approached the intercom, pressed the appropriate button and said, “Hello, Constance, this is Mauve.”

“Oh, good!” said Constance. “Ms. Dishman, you got a call on that motion-picture screen again. But it’s not Mr. Anderson’s brother this time. It’s your sister, out in Hollywood. Boy you two sure do look alike. Are you twins?” The voice paused. “I’m never going to get used to this thing. It’s so unnerving. Anyways, she’ll be calling back in five minutes.”

Mauve pressed the switch. “Thank you, Constance, we’ll be right out.” She paused and pressed the switch again. “I’m sorry, Constance, I’m feeling a bit light-headed. Where is the…‘motion-picture screen?’”

“Why, in the storage room right outside of my office! Boy, you must be feeling bad. Want me to call a doctor?”

“No, thank you, Constance,” Mauve said. “That won’t be necessary.” She lifted her finger from the intercom button and stepped back.

‘Motion-picture screen’. What was a ‘motion-picture screen’? It sounded vaguely like a comset. Of course! thought Mauve. That would be the regular communicative element of the DR-40. But there was one other thing: Mauve’s ‘sister’. Of course, the meaning of that, too, was now clear. Mauve turned to Harry, who was sheepishly inspecting his fingernails.

“You never told me you were dealing with our doppelgangers,” Mauve said.

“Well, naturally,” Harry said, without looking up. “We deal with our doppelgangers all the time. Why would it be any different with this new arrangement?”

“Well, now we’re getting a call from one of them. You know what that means, don’t you?”

“It means,” Dick Glip said, “that we haven’t merely been transported to this reality. Our doppelgangers have likewise been transported to our reality. And now they are attempting contact.”

“Yes, and that Constance on the intercom: it’s not our Constance, it’s the alternate Constance,” Mauve agreed. She paused. “And your ‘brother’- that’s really you, isn’t it, Harry?”

“All true,” Harry said. “We concocted a little story for the secretarial types to hide the true nature of what we were doing. Told them I was my alternate’s brother, out in Hollywood, and we were testing out a new ‘motion-picture screen’- whatever that is. The cover, obviously, was developed with a great deal of help from our alternates. They’re the ones that know this world, after all.”

Now Mauve approached the crux of the matter. “And the person you were working with, or, rather, nearly extorting, that was my doppelganger, wasn’t it? Constance called asking for me, not you. Here, she’s my secretary. So, in this reality, you don’t run the firm, I do. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes,” Harry said.

*

Working together, the three of them together managed to heave the DR-40 machine out of storage, through Constance’s office and through the door to Mauve’s office, where they roughly deposited it in the center of the room. Mauve arranged three wooden chairs in front of it and sat down in the center chair. Harry reluctantly seated himself to her left, and Dick slouched down in the right chair and closed his eyes. They awaited the incoming call silently. Dick began to snore gently and Mauve elbowed his left arm.

“Stay awake, Dick,” she said. “We don’t want to look like a bunch of idiots. Even though we are a bunch of idiots. We don’t want to look like it.”

“Sorry,” Dick said.

Harry fidgeted nervously in his chair, adjusting his position, trying to get used to the feel of hardwood. To Mauve, the wood felt reassuring, stable. She was now, de facto, the head of her own firm, for the time being. Harry clearly operated as her underling in some way, judging by the tone Constance used with him. And Dick Glip probably was still Dick Glip. After all, how much variation could be extracted from his type of personality? The yellow light on the DR-40 began to glow. Dick leaned forward, hit a switch, and the screen blinked on.

A severe, austere, ruthless face greeted them. Mauve recognized it as her own, yet it was sharper, and harder. Lines were etched more deeply. Color had been drained. I’ve been pampered my whole life, Mauve realized. We all have. By the luck of the draw we were born in a reality that was soft, accommodating and successful. This person on the screen was not. The person spoke.

“Well,” she said, “I’m glad that I’ll be dealing with you at least, rather than your horrible version of Harry. How you could have operated under that insufferable blowhard for so many years is beyond me.”

Mauve realized this was her doppelganger’s version of a greeting. She didn’t quite know what to say. “We find ourselves in an unusual situation,” was all that she could manage. Christ, she’d have to do better than that.

“Certainly,” said her doppelganger. “However, I didn’t call to check in on you. I called to talk business.”

“Sure thing,” Mauve said. “Here’s my proposal: if you get a team of technicians in there, figure out what went wrong, and transmit us back to our own reality, we’ll up your commission rate from five-percent to twenty. How does that strike you?”

Mauve’s doppelganger sneered. “You’re not coming back. All three of you might as well disabuse yourselves of that notion immediately.”

Harry groaned. Dick Glip seemed nonplussed. Mauve felt hardened.

“Well,” she gritted, “if we’re not coming back, then what kind of business did you want to discuss?”

Her doppelganger leaned back in the ellipsoid, plastic, overstuffed chair and stretched out her long, sinewy arms above her head. “Your reality is very comfortable. Too comfortable. I would think that any person raised in this world would have a tough time surviving in my native universe.” She eyed Mauve keenly. “I would think you’d need all the help you can get. Therefore, I offer to continue our previous business arrangement. Only the roles will be reversed, you understand. We will send you the formulas, designs, information that you can sell to various businesses, and you will send the proceeds of your sales back to us. And you can keep a two-percent commission.”

“Criminal,” Harry muttered.

“QUIET,” yelled Mauve’s doppelganger. “I’ve had enough out of you for a couple of lifetimes. You were oh-so high and mighty when you were in this chair, but now you’re not. You’re in that chair, and I’m in this chair and I dictate the terms.”

Harry glowered.

“Twenty percent commission,” Mauve said. “We’ll take a twenty percent commission on sales. And I’ll tell you what you get in return: we’ll advise you on how to conduct the business of Multiverse Consultants Inc. Otherwise, you’ll be entering an already established industry, with thousands of GUMEC Prospect reality partners and thousands of customers. Without us, you won’t be able to navigate that landscape, the business will collapse, and we’ll both be finished.”

Her doppelganger regarded her for a moment, and then said, “Five percent.”

Mauve shook her head. “Twenty.”

“Ten percent,” said her doppelganger.

“Twenty,” Mauve said.

“Fifteen percent, and I won’t give you any more.”

“Now it’s thirty,” Mauve said. “Think about it and call us back in an hour.” She reached out, hit the switch and cut the connection. The startled face of her doppelganger hung frozen on the screen for a split second, and then faded back to gray.

Dick Glip sat back up in his chair. “Bravo,” he said. Harry said nothing, and continued to sit silently, his arms folded, a wounded expression plastered across his face.

“She’ll call back,” Mauve said. “Anyways, it’s not like it makes much of a difference. Apparently the salesmen here aren’t any good, judging by the first payment they intended to transmit to you. But, it’ll be better than nothing. We’ll be able to eat. And, apparently, they had some sort of stable business running here, so maybe we can continue that as well.” Mauve reexamined the office, trying to find hints of possibility. “Harry, what sort of firm is this?”

Harry sighed. “Advertising firm. For the junk peddlers that pass as corporate accounts in this god-forsaken place. We have some documentation as to their product design and quality. Trust me, it isn’t pretty.”

“I can attest to that,” Dick Glip said. “Completely unacceptable.”

Across the room, the intercom once again crackled to life and the alternate Constance’s voice rang out. “Ms. Dishman, Mr. Holtz is here to see you.”

Mauve crossed the room and hit the intercom switch. “Webgnar Holtz?”

“Who else?” buzzed Constance.

“Send him in,” Mauve said.

So they’re working with Webgnar, thought Mauve. Apparently, despite the backwardness of this universe, that relationship endured. But in what form? She wondered if Webgnar was the salesman that had unsuccessfully tried to peddle the bubblegum. If that was the case, then this version of Webgnar would be as degraded as the Webgnar she knew. It wasn’t a pleasant prospect. The office door slammed open and into the room strode an unfamiliar figure.

This Webgnar had a resemblance to the old Webgnar, but whereas the Webgnar she had known was portly, this Webgnar was thin, sinewy and tough. The old Webgnar had had eyes like an old dog, but this Webgnar had alert, clear blue eyes that cast a quick, appraising glance on everything and everyone in the room. Webgnar shut the door behind him, strode across the office to an empty chair and sat down. He pulled out a pouch of tobacco from his coat pocket and began to roll a cigarette.

“Okay,” he said, “who are you people? You’re not Mauve Dishman, Harry Anderson or Dick Glip, that’s for sure. Or maybe you are, but just different versions of- aw hell, you know what I mean.” Apparently Webgnar, unlike Constance, had been informed of the existence of other realities. Webgnar lit his cigarette and began to puff out smoke, which was not absorbed by his tie, hat, or any piece of furniture in the room.

“There’s been an accident,” Mauve said. “We’ve somehow been switched over. And the old Mauve and Harry and Dick, they were sent where we used to be.”

Webgnar cocked an eyebrow. “Is it permanent? Will I be dealing with you from here on out?”

“That’s what it looks like,” Mauve said. “You know the whole set-up?”

“Sure I know,” Webgnar said. “I’m selling for you, or for the other versions of you, or whatever. I’m dealing with clients, who are going to ask certain questions, and I got to know the truth so I know what not to tell ‘em.” He looked at Mauve. “Say, why are you doing the talking? I thought in that sucker reality, or whatever you call it, Harry was in charge.”

Harry’s head jerked up. “What’d you say?”

“I said I thought you were-” Webgnar began.

“No, before that,” Harry said. “Sucker reality, where’d you hear that term?”

“Well, it’s what they called you guys.”

Harry looked from Webgnar to Mauve to Dick Glip.

“Why’d they call us suckers, Webgnar?” asked Mauve.

Webgnar smiled. “Because they were holding out on you. The first payment they were going to make is a fraction of what they really owed you. They’re cooking the books.”

Harry got up out of his chair. “Criminals!”

Webgnar glanced at Harry with curiosity and then turned back to Mauve. “Anyways, there’s no reason for me to hold that back. If I kept the extra for myself, I’m sure the other Mauve would find some way of having me killed…or something else worse.”

“So, you’re doing well, then?” asked Mauve.

“Well?” exclaimed Webgnar. “Well? We’re doing more than well, we’re making a killing!”

“I’ve put in for a commission of twenty percent with my other self,” Mauve said. “But we’ll probably end up with fifteen. How does that set us?”

Webgnar smiled at Mauve. “I guess you two aren’t so different. Both tough as nails.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed one leg over the other. “That sets us real pretty. Real pretty. We’re grossing about a million a week. Net is about a hundred and fifty thousand.”

Harry sat back down. “A hundred thousand,” he moaned. “That’s a trifle. A trifle. Why, you can’t even buy shoes with that kind of money.”

Mauve put her hand up. “Wait a sec,” she said. “Money probably works differently here. What’s that in terms of gold, Webgnar?”

Webgnar screwed his face up for a minute in concentration. “Well, gold’s about twenty bucks an ounce, so, gee, I don’t know. You wouldn’t be able to lift it, anyways.”

“Twenty bucks an ounce,” mouthed Harry.

“These aren’t inflate dollars, Harry,” Mauve said. “What’s gold go for an ounce back home? A million? This operation is generating a significant amount of income, and all off bubblegum.” She clasped her hands in front of her. The market potential in this world was far, far greater than she had realized. It wasn’t all developed, like it had been back home. There was building and manufacturing and selling to do here, and on a vast scale. A yellow light flashed on the DR-40. They were receiving a call. Mauve walked back over to the machine, hit the appropriate switch, and sat down in the middle chair. Her doppelganger’s rough face once again appeared on the screen.

“We offer you twelve-and-one-half percent,” she said flatly. “We’re unfamiliar with the products available here. You’ll have to instruct us as to what formulas and designs will be most profitable. We’ll call back tomorrow.” The screen clicked off.

“Hm,” Mauve said, “My doppleganger sure doesn’t waste time.”

“Time is money,” mumbled Harry.

“Oh, come off it, Harry,” Mauve said. “You’re a scientist, not a businessman. You invented the DR-40, I made money off of it, and then you got big ideas in your head and look how it turned out. From here on out, I’ll handle the business. That seems to be the natural order of things here.” Mauve got up from the chair and walked over to the large desk placed in front of the windows. She sat down behind it, grabbed up a pen, and began to fidget.

Webgnar, eying her intently, cleared his throat. “Out of curiosity, how’d you manage to crank up your commission? The Mauve I know isn’t that easy to buffalo, and, to be frank, you don’t quite look her equal.”

“I reasoned with her,” Mauve said. “If she’s going to make a living in our universe, for the time being she’ll have to handle our business. I told her I’d show her the ropes.”

“And do you intend to follow through with that?” asked Webgnar.

“Unfortunately, yes,” Mauve said.

“And what happens when she’s been shown the ropes and knows how to operate on her own? What happens when she has a reliable income, and you’re just a drop in the bucket?”

Mauve thought about it. “I guess she’ll either cut us off entirely, or drop the commission down.” And then where would they be? Nowhere, unless they had something to fall back on. On the other hand, would being on their own really be so bad? “There’s something else, Webgnar. Back in our old universe, excessive importation of technologies from other universes caused a gradual degradation of our capabilities. I don’t know if I’d want the same thing to happen to this universe.”

Webgnar snuffed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “Well,” he said, “The Harry and Dick I knew were pretty good with a monkey wrench. Same in your universe?”

“Same,” Mauve said. “Yes, you’re absolutely right, Webgnar.” She turned to Harry and Dick. “Think of it as a permanent vacation. You’ll have new and interesting work. You’ll be ahead of the times. And you won’t be reliant on other universes. We’ll fund you initially, and then when my doppelganger eventually stabs us in the back, we’ll be off and running. Webgnar and I will take care of the business. You and Dick come up with something we can sell.”

Harry rose to his feet. His soured manner was departing. “I’ll go with Dick today and look for a space. We’ll find out what kinds of tools are available and get set up with suppliers. Only I don’t know what I would want to make first.”

“Take a while and think about it,” Mauve said. “Have a report on my desk in a week.”

Harry nodded, motioned to Dick, and they strode out of the room purposefully. And the whole drama begins again, Mauve thought. In a way, the natural order of things had been restored. After all, if Harry hadn’t invented the DR-40 and struck it rich, he’d have been a tinkerer or an inventor. That was his natural aptitude. More a Tesla than an Edison, who reportedly was a cutthroat businessman. That wasn’t Harry. He would be happier this way. But would she? What did this world have to offer her that her old world hadn’t?

Mauve got up from her chair and went over to the window. With a jerk of the cord, the blinds came flying up. She peered down below. The streets were flooded with noisy, antiquated vehicles that neither floated nor teleported. They crawled along, like ants. Still, they were interesting in a way. And the building across the street looked more like a cave than a place where human beings would live. But hadn’t caves been the first living places of humans, anyways? Like Plato’s. Mauve turned away and sighed. Webgnar was still in his chair, rolling another cigarette.

“Tell me, Webgnar,” she said. “Is this a good sort of place to live in? Do you like living in this universe?”

Webgnar paused his rolling and stared off into space. “It can be a hard world, Mauve,” he said. “You seem much more humane than your alternate self, so that tells you something.” He paused. “Terrible things happen. But there are moments of beauty too. But I’m just a salesman, so what the hell do I know?”

Mauve regarded Webgnar for a moment, then sat down at her new desk. Most likely, in perhaps a few years, they would be completely cut off from the multiverse. The DR-40 would sit idle, receiving no calls. For them, everything would be as it had been before the invention of multiverse transmission telephony.

And it would not be coming back. Ever. This would be it.

This would become her only reality. The rest of universes would be cut off and let loose into the wind, becoming insubstantial, and perhaps, in the end, only fantasies. And the possibilities of her own life would be cut down to a nub. She would lose contact with all those other versions of herself out there. They too, would become merely figments of a rapidly receding imagination. And then there would only be one Mauve Dishman.