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Applied Science

by Lawrence Person

Thirty minutes late, with both his regular parking garages full, Brian Bowery spotted the tiny lot wedged between the liquor store and the adult theatre on his third circle around the block. When he got close enough to see the prices on their sign, he was shocked to find them half of normal New York rates—mere extortion rather than highway robbery. He quickly pulled in, gave the attendant his keys, and set off at a run toward his office. He had gone less than half a block when he realized that his sales charts were still in the trunk.

Bowery rushed back to the lot just in time to see the attendant pull his car into an open spot—

And disappear.

A few seconds later the attendant reappeared in the space, sans car.

“Oh, mother,” said the attendant, watching Bowery watch him. “You weren’t supposed to see that. ”

“How—” began Bowery.

“You’ll have to talk to the Doc,” said the attendant. “He can explain it better than I can.

A bespectacled old man with frizzled white hair and a wide hula-girl tie peered at Bowery from behind his desk. “Mr. Bowery,” he began, “How much do you know about extra-spatial physics?”

“Well, I’m an advertising executive, so—”

“Nothing! All right then. When the Universe was just created, itty-bitty microseconds after the Big Bang, all twelve of the forces in the Universe were squished together like a giant matzoh ball. Then, a tinier microsecond later, BOOM! Everything splits and collapses, like the New York real estate market. Lost your shirt on those condos, didn’t you?”

“How did—”

“Never mind that now! Anyway, even though we can only see three of those twelve dimensions, those other nine are still connected to our own, and by tunneling through the cracks in the Nth dimensional spacetime continuum, we can travel to worlds where there’s lot of space, but no people. That’s where we take the cars. ”

“You mean—”

“Yes!” said the doctor triumphantly, a crazy gleam in his eye. “Parallel Universe Parking. ”