Free Pandora's Gun by James van Pelt Page A

clinging to slopes and rock to the front, to the left and right and above. The vast, broken cityscape existed in what must have been a giant cave that went for miles and must be miles high, although caves are dark, while here, in the distance behind and above, the light streamed around the hanging hills.
    Peter reeled, closed his eyes, triggered the gun. When he looked, he saw that he’d walked through the mud almost to the pitcher’s mound.
    “Oh, man, that was awesome. Do it again,” said Dante. “The icon next to it is almost the same. Choose that one.”
    Christy shook her head. “Was that another world? Could we have walked into that? What if we did and couldn’t return?”
    Peter’s heart raced. The icon screen showed four more symbols with the two stick-figure birds and an accompanying shape, different from the reversed “C” of the first one. “We won’t go in,” he said.
    The gun clicked. This time no crosshair appeared on the screen. Instead a solid picture of a hand in red, palm toward him, fingers extended (there were six) filled the screen. He showed it to Dante and Christy. “That looks like a ‘stop’ symbol to me, or at least a strong caution.”
    Dante disagreed. “Who knows what that might mean to a six-fingered person. The aliens who designed this probably have a whole other set of symbols than we do. Do you remember the ‘white flag’ scene from the old War of the Worlds ? The meteor cracks open, and the three guys are trying to decide what to do, so one says, ‘Wave a white flag. Everyone knows when you wave a white flag you want to be friends,’ so they wave the white flag and the Martians turn them into ashy silhouettes on the ground. A hand, open like that, might mean ‘Welcome’ or ‘Come on in’ or ‘We’ll wash your cat.’”
    “We’ll wash your cat?” said Christy, her eyebrows raised.
    Peter counted the fingers on the hand again. “You think this is an alien’s gun now, not a secret government project?”
    “It’s a theory,” Dante said. “Why don’t Christy and I get behind something solid, and then you can press the trigger.”
    That was the last rational event for the rest of the afternoon. Later, when he went to bed, Peter lay on his back, eyes wide open, thinking about life-altering moments. Before today, the only one he’d had that didn’t sound stupid, like discovering that Santa Claus was his dad putting presents under the tree at three in the morning, was when his mom died. Eight days before Peter’s tenth birthday, Dad helped Mom to the car so they could go to the hospital. He had wrapped the quilt around her that she’d used for the last couple of weeks to keep warm while lying on the couch. They had told Peter that she was “under the weather,” but it turned out to be much worse, and she never came home. At the funeral, everyone hugged him and said, “It will be all right,” and it did get better. At least the emptiness filled and he quit thinking about her all the time. The world might even seem “all right” again, but it was never the same. That’s what a life-altering moment meant.
    Peter shrugged, pointed the gun to the middle of the field again, and activated it.
    The air vibrated. The gun’s handle grew warm while, inexplicably, the gun felt heavier. Peter struggled to keep it from sagging in his hand. He grabbed it with his other to keep it steady. On the field, an orange light appeared and grew larger. Peter’s jaw dropped. Just on the other side of the first base line, only fifteen feet away, the world seemed to be peeling away. What he could see of the field unfolded, like a fruit rind pulling from the fruit, like a portal opening before them, but not a round one. It was a ragged hole, growing larger and larger. The size of a tennis ball, then a basketball, then a hoola hoop. On the other side, a landscape bathed in a sickly orange revealed itself. There were tree things: busted, leafless branches hanging broken from moldy