“I was under oath,” Jack said simply.
“I see,” the doctor said.
“And the judge ordered me to have a psychiatric evaluation, and now I’m here, talking to you, and that catches us all up,” Jack said.
“Very well,” the doctor said, finishing up her notes.
The doctor stood and crossed the room to the large picture window that overlooked a placid lake. She took off her glasses and placed one of the stems in her mouth as she stared thoughtfully. She remained there for a long time, so long that Jack began to feel uncomfortable again.
“So?” he said at last. “What do you think?”
“Tell me, Jack. Do you intend to continue serving as a conduit for these ghosts?” the doctor asked abruptly. “Will you keep going to funerals?”
Jack hesitated. “Yes.”
“You realize,” the doctor said, still staring through the glass, “that I could have you remanded to a psychiatric facility.”
“You could,” Jack replied. “But people die there too. It won’t stop me.”
“Mm,” the doctor said, turning away from the window and grabbing something from her desk. “Then I suppose you leave me little choice.”
She returned to her seat across from Jack and looked down at her notes. “You said that Death knew right where to find you.”
“Yes,” Jack said.
“Because Death is smart. Cunning. Resourceful,” she said, still referring to her notes.
Jack laughed uneasily. “You sound like you’re a fan.”
The doctor finally looked up. Her eyes were glowing bright red. She raised her hand, and Jack saw what she had picked up from her desk: a glinting, sharp letter opener.
“You might say that,” Death said through the doctor’s mouth, and before Jack could react, she had jammed the letter opener deep into his chest, all the way to the hilt.
Jack was so shocked he barely felt the pain as the blade pierced his heart. He tried to say something, but only choked up a mouthful of blood. The room began fading from his vision, the edges black as his consciousness dribbled away. He could feel himself drifting, untethering, light as a feather . . .
And then, just as he was sure the end had well and truly come, he felt himself being drawn back toward his body. The pain in his chest came rushing back, but so did that old familiar tingling sensation in his feet. He was entering his own body, just as so many other ghosts had done before him.
His eyes opened and he saw the doctor standing above him. She was focused on cleaning droplets of blood from her glasses and didn’t notice what was happening until Jack took a loud, whooping gasp of breath. The doctor jumped back and hurriedly put her glasses back on.
Jack reached up and grabbed the letter opener and yanked with all his might. It slid out, along with a gusher of blood, and he let it slip from his hand to the carpeted floor with a dull thud.
The doctor’s still-glowing eyes were wide with shock. Jack put his hand over the wound on his chest and smiled at her.
Death couldn’t help smiling a bit too. The two of them considered one another for a long few moments.
“Huh,” Death said at last. “I’ll admit it. I was not expecting that.”
“Me neither,” Jack said weakly. The pain was subsiding. The blood flow was stemming.
Death reached over casually to the chair the doctor had been sitting in and grabbed a large cushion. In one smooth motion, she grabbed it with both hands and jammed it over Jack’s face.
Jack began thrashing, clawing at the doctor’s hands, but he was still too weak to fight her off with Death’s strength flowing through her. The world was muffled and dark. His hot breath spread across his face and he felt his life slowly fading once more.
He blew out his final, shallow breath, and once again felt the sense of detachment from his body. And then, just as before, he came back to himself and felt the sensation of reentry.
The doctor had removed the pillow to admire her handiwork. Jack sat motionless for a few moments, and then took in a shallow breath, looked at Death, and said simply, “Nope.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Death said, throwing the pillow on the floor in frustration.
Jack sat up and examined himself. There was a hole in his shirt over the spot where Death had stabbed him, and he was still soaked with blood, but the wound had completely healed. There wasn’t a scar or even a mark to be seen.
Death folded the doctor’s arms and scowled. “It would seem,” she said at last, “that whatever gift you have with ghosts has also made you immortal.”
“Oh yeah?” Jack asked. “Neat.”
“No, it’s not neat,” Death said snidely. “I’m supposed to be the immortal one.”
Jack thought it over for a moment. “We could be immortal together,” he suggested.
Death looked at him with the doctor’s glowing red eyes. “What?”
“I imagine immortality is probably lonely,” Jack said. “I know I don’t want to live forever all by myself.”
Death cocked the doctor’s head to the side. “It would be kind of nice to have someone to spend time with.”
“Okay, great,” Jack said. “But a few ground rules. First, you can’t be randomly trying to kill me like you just did.”
Death smiled. “Sorry. I’ll try not to. But it’s what I do.”
Jack nodded. “And you’re going to need to buy me a new shirt, because this one is my favorite and it’s all messed up now.” He held out the bloody hole to illustrate his point.
“Fine, a new shirt,” Death said. “Anything else?”
“Yeah,” Jack said. “You’ve got to come to terms with me channeling ghosts. Because I’m still going to.”
Death scowled. “Well there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about that, does there? But how about we cap it? Give them all one minute, no more.”
“Deal,” Jack said, rising and shaking the doctor’s hand.
“So,” Death sighed. “Now what?”
Jack thought it over. “Go get a beer?”
Death shrugged the doctor’s shoulders. “Sure.”
“Great,” Jack said, grabbing his coat. “Hey, can you do something about the crazy glowy eyes thing?”
“Oh,” Death said. “No.”
“Okay, we’ll get you some shades, you’ll look great,” Jack said. “C’mon, let’s get going. Eternity’s waiting.”
IV.
NO PLACE LIKE HOME
As Professor Chen entered his lab, his three assistants jumped up, their faces eager, their expressions achingly hopeful.
He looked at them and slowly shook his head.
“What?” Nina said, deflating just like the other two.
“They said no,” Chen said in a flat monotone, crossing the lab and placing his briefcase on a table near the experiment’s glowing power supply.
“But why?” asked Joseph, crossing the lab toward his mentor. “Surely they were able to see that the math checks out.”
“Oh yes,” sighed Chen. “They were able to see that.”
“And the tests?” asked Jodi. “Didn’t the tests count for anything?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Chen said noncommittally. “They were all very impressed with the test results.”
“Well then what’s the problem?” Nina asked.
“Apparently, sending a beam of light into another dimension is fine,” Chen explained, gazing longingly at the teleportation chamber on the far side of the lab. “As is sending a cantaloupe and half a dozen white mice.”
“But not human subjects,” Joseph finished flatly, and Chen nodded.
Disappointment settled into the lab like freshly fallen snow. After a few silent minutes, Jodi spoke up.
“So now what?”
Chen took a deep breath. “Now we try and come up with a commercial application for interdimensional cantaloupes.”
That night, Chen sat alone in his study, dictating notes into his recorder, a glass of brandy on a table near his elbow.
&
nbsp; “The committee said that the research shows great promise, and complimented my team and me for such groundbreaking work,” Chen said tonelessly. “But that sending humans into a parallel dimension is much too risky, and that any such test was likely decades away. If ever.”
Chen scratched his beard, unsure how much he should say.
“The trick is that no one on the committee knows that I don’t have decades,” he said, his voice growing huskier. “I have less than a year. I’m out of treatment options, and the disease is slowly but surely progressing.”
He swallowed hard.
“My only dream is to be the first human to step into another dimension, and now I’m drowning in bureaucracy and tripping on red tape. I’ve never been one to defy the university’s decisions, but I find myself in the unique position of having little left to lose.”
An unexpected grin twitched at the corners of his mouth.
“So one way or another,” he said, “I’m going through with it. The committee be damned.”
Chen made his way across campus, ducking in and around the darkness and shadows of the late hour. He didn’t encounter anyone, for which he was profoundly grateful, and he scanned his pass card at the back door of Perkins Hall, letting himself into the darkened and silent building.
He reached the lab, entered, closed the door behind him, and switched on the lights. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Joseph, Nina, and Jodi standing there, smiling at him.
“Jesus Christ!” he cried, grabbing his chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jodi asked. “We’re going to assist you with your interdimensional jump.”
Chen stared at them. “What makes you think I’m going to attempt an interdimensional jump?”
Joseph folded his arms and cocked his head. “Professor Chen, we’ve worked together for more than three years now. We can read you like a book.”
“Is that so?” Chen replied, folding his own arms. “All right then. What am I thinking right now?”
“That you’re pleased we’ve already charged up the prefire chambers,” Joseph said, “since that will save a lot of time.”
Chen frowned. “Lucky guess.”
Nina, Joseph, and Jodi started moving about the lab, making the necessary preparations.
“You could get expelled for this,” Chen said, taking off his jacket and loosening his tie. “You know that, right?”
Jodi smiled at him. “Well surely there’s a university in a parallel dimension that will have us,” she said brightly.
An hour later, all of the equipment was powered up and humming. Professor Chen, with Nina’s help, had fastened the oxygen helmet to his environmental suit. She pressed a few buttons near his right shoulder and he heard a faint crackle and whine, and then Nina’s voice coming through the speakers near his ears.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Fine,” he said, checking the range of motion in his arms and legs. “I suppose I should have peed first, though, huh?”
Nina laughed and Joseph crossed the lab to join them. “Just remember, if you use the men’s room at an interdimensional 7-11, be sure to make a small purchase.”
“I only hope they take debit cards,” Chen replied.
Jodi swung open the dimensional displacement chamber door, made a few adjustments inside, and looked over. “We’re ready,” she said simply.
Nina and Joseph each grabbed an arm and helped Professor Chen cross the lab. He stepped up into the chamber and then clumsily turned around to face them.
“Thank you all,” Chen said sincerely.
“Our pleasure,” Joseph replied.
“See you soon,” Jodi said.
“We’ve got the interdimensional tether set to maximum,” Nina said. “If things go tits up, just give a tug and we’ll get you back pronto.”
“I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures,” Chen said. He nodded to his students and they all nodded back, and then Jodi swung the chamber door shut and sealed it.
There was only a small porthole window through which Chen could see the lab, but his students were all out of sight, tending to various controls. He suddenly felt very alone, and butterflies began to take flight in his stomach. His breathing sounded very loud in his helmet.
The chamber suddenly lit with a bright pink light, and a low, resonating hum. Chen could feel the vibration throughout his body, as though every nerve was spasming at once.
The hum continued to build in loudness and intensity, and the light brightened from bright pink to the purest white. Everything was happening just as it had in every experiment they’d performed. Professor Chen was counting down in his head to the moment when the dimensional portal would open and pull him through when he suddenly heard something under the loud thrumming of the chamber. It sounded like panicked shouting. Through the all-enveloping light, he thought he saw the outline of a hand pounding on the chamber door’s porthole window
. . . and then blackness seized him and he passed out.
Professor Chen came very slowly back to consciousness, opening his eyes one at a time and taking slow, deep breaths. He stood with some difficulty, the world coming grudgingly into focus, and adrenaline shot into his veins. The scientist part of him told him to resist making a conclusion by what he was seeing, but the non-scientist part was ready to declare that his trip had been successful.
The ground he stood on radiated an alternating red and yellow glow. In some spots it looked like pockmarked rock; in others, like highly polished glass. He shuffled his feet clumsily and made a slow circle in his environmental suit. The horizon stretched endlessly in every direction under an inky, blue-black sky.
It suddenly occurred to him to activate the display on the inside of his facemask and check his vital signs and take readings on this new place. Numbers and graphs popped up in front of him and he ran through them quickly. His oxygen level and heart rate were both normal, as was his body temperature. The atmosphere outside the suit appeared to be somewhat hostile, but no more so than many deserts in his home dimension. There was definitely breathable air, but Chen thought it best to remain protected for the time being.
Another light popped up on the display, one that he didn’t recognize, and it took him a few moments to realize that the light was coming from outside. He turned off the display and squinted toward the horizon, where the pinprick of light was growing steadily brighter. His heart began hammering in his chest at the thought of what he was about to encounter.
When it was close enough, he could see that the light was some sort of floating, glowing disk, and there was something that appeared to be riding it.
It was a creature of some sort. It looked not unlike a velociraptor, except it had silvery skin, a more flattened face, and longer arms. It rode the disk like a surfboard, and when it reached Chen, it dismounted and landed gracefully on the pulsing, glowing ground. The disk hovered a few feet away.
Professor Chen braced himself, completely unsure what to expect. But the last thing he ever imagined was that the creature would greet him in a clipped, British accent.
“Professor Chen!” it said enthusiastically, smiling and presenting rows of long, sharp teeth. “Welcome! How are you?”
“How . . . how am I?” Professor Chen said, completely flummoxed.
“Yes, my dear man,” the creature said. “Are you well? Unharmed, I hope?”
“Uh,” Chen said, unsure. “Yeah. Yes. I’m fine, thank you. Fine.”
“Splendid!” the creature said.
“I do have a lot of questions,” Chen said, gaining his footing.
“Ah,” the creature said, its smile fading. “Yes. Well, you see, I’m a . . . oh, what’s the word? A conduit. No, that’s not right. A liaison? Hmm, that’s closer.”
“An ambassador?” Chen offered up.
The creature’s smile reappeared. “Yes!” it cried. “Yes, that’s precisely it, an ambassador. And as such, I’m not really authorized to answer quest
ions. But I am here to take you to those who will.”
“I see,” Professor Chen nodded. “Well . . . is there something I can call you, at least? Do you have a name?”
“I do, but it’s exceedingly difficult to pronounce,” the creature said dismissively. “You may call me whatever you like.”
“Will ‘Raptor’ do?” Chen asked, with a small smile.
“Certainly,” the creature said.
“Fine then,” Chen said. “Raptor.”
“Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, would you come with me, please?” Raptor said politely. “I know you must be eager to ask your questions, and we have a long way to go.”
“Lead the way,” Chen said.
Raptor nodded and turned toward the glowing disk. It suddenly split into two identical disks, and one slid under Raptor’s feet while the other slid under Chen’s. He felt himself being lifted a few feet off the ground, and then he was moving forward, held perfectly upright somehow, Raptor a little bit ahead of him and to his left.
They traveled for quite some time, the landscape remaining the same. Chen scanned restlessly for some sign of a building or a tree or a volcano, something he could use as a touchstone, but there was nothing to interrupt the glowing, flat surface. He was just starting to get impatient, his scientific curiosity beginning to wane, when he saw it.
Ahead of them yawned a massive canyon, one that made the famous one in Arizona look like a gopher hole. It had to be hundreds of miles across, and stretched to infinity in both directions. As he and Raptor approached the lip, Chen had a moment of panic when he was sure the disk carrying him would just plummet down to the bottom, but the disk kept skimming along as though the canyon wasn’t even there.
Chen looked down. The canyon wasn’t as deep as he’d expected, and it was crisscrossed with beams of light similar to the disks. They were being used as bridges by creatures just like Raptor, moving here and there, and down below them, at the very bottom of the canyon, were small pinkish-white creatures that Chen couldn’t quite make out.
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