Elsewhere

by Dean Koontz

“I’m Jeffy. Jeffrey Coltrane. This is my daughter, Amity. And this”—he took Harkenbach’s quantum voodoo from his daughter’s hand—“is the key to everything, a beam-me-up-Scotty teleporting gismo that can shoot you across the multiverse to parallel worlds. I curse the scientist who invented it, the day he gave it to me, and Albert Einstein, who started the whole mess with his theories. So tell me—who’re you?” The hotelman peered down at him in silence. Processing. Finally he said, “What was that damn hideous thing?” “What damn hideous thing?” “That six-legged saucer-eyed door-busting thing.” Jeffy looked at Amity, who said, “It was a humongous bug-form robot, one of an army controlled by the totally insane AI that went to war against the human race and probably killed everybody on that world, a lot of the time by gassing them in the streets, like I saw them trying to do back there on one point seventy-seven.” Jeffy shuddered and, with a quiver in his voice, said to the big man, “Did you hear that?” “I heard it clear enough. Can’t say it made a lot of sense.” “You still haven’t told me who you are?” Jeffy said. “Charlie Pellafino. People call me Duke.” Jeffy got to his feet, holding Amity close. “What now?” Pellafino considered for a moment. “I imagine some people are looking for that doohickey of yours.” “You imagine right.” “And they’re not sweethearts.” “They’re vicious scum.” Amity said, “They leave a mess when they search a place.” Pellafino nodded. He chewed on his lowe...

Poor Duke is at least trying to sort things out...for the moment he's in shock