87

Several worlds removed from Amity and Michelle, with the ear-piercing security alarm shrieking as though Hitler's Luftwaffe must have traveled in time and space to conduct a major bombing raid on Suavidad Beach, Jeffy raced up the stairs in another version of the Pellafino house, close behind Ed.

One of the two cops on the porch, watching through the front door, seeing them armed with pistol and shotgun, shouted, "Police!"

"We know, shut up, shut up, we know!" Ed shouted back at them.

This version of Harkenbach seemed to be more tightly wrapped, mentally and emotionally, than the one whom Jeffy had befriended in his world. However, the two versions shared the same genes and many of the same formative experiences, and it was possible, even likely, that under enough pressure, this Ed would crack just as the other one had. Jeffy had not forgotten a single turn of events that had led him from a peaceful dinner in town with Amity, two days earlier, to this mortal and chaotic moment; yet it was incomprehensible to him that she was worlds away, under threat of death, and that their lives were in the hands of an eccentric physicist who shaved his head and took off his bow tie and thought himself transformed beyond recognition.

At the top of the steps, Jeffy glanced back, afraid that the police might force entry, not sure if that was a violation of the standard rules of engagement in a situation like this.

They didn't have to use force. One of them tried the door. Incredibly, it wasn't locked. Maybe Duke's security system alerted him on his cell phone and allowed him to unlock the house remotely for the police.

"They're in the house," he warned Ed as he hurried after the old man, along the upstairs hallway.

He followed the physicist into a bedroom on the right and slammed the door.

"We've got to brace it," Jeffy declared, but he didn't see a straight-backed chair with which he could easily do the job.

"Not necessary," Ed assured him. "They won't burst in on us. They'll take up positions out there and call for backup."

"Let's jump home, let's go, get us the hell out of here."

Frowning, Ed put his shotgun on the bed and began to search his pockets. "You didn't notice if by chance I put the key down in the study, when we were raiding the gun cabinet?"