by Neil Gaiman
Like I was the Old Man.
“It’s Joe,” I snapped. “And don’t look at me like I’m supposed to know what to do.”
Her expression changed, becoming sympathetic. “You don’t have to know what do,” she said, “but you’re the only one willing to try so far. Sir.”
I stared at her, at this girl I barely even knew, who was telling me I was her leader. It was true, and I knew it; I was the one who’d gathered us all together in the tiniest of hopes that we could somehow stop FrostNight. Not that I knew how were supposed to do that . . .
. . . but I had to figure it out. Because I was the only leader they had. Frustrated, I slammed my hand against the wallcom, clicking the link to the engine room. “Jai, are there any extraction teams out currently?”
“I believe Joeb took a team of three out approximately two hours previously.”
“Lock us down once they get back. No teams go out again until I say.”
“Yes, sir.”
“J/O.”
“I’m here.” His voice came immediately from the speaker. “Is everything—”
“Are the information systems online?”
“I’d kept them shut down to save on power, but I can turn them on again. . . .”
“Do it, and meet me in the library.”
“I’m kind of busy driving right now,” he said, though his usual snark was missing. He’d been particularly subdued since Avery had brought him back. I was pretty sure I knew why, but that was a problem for another time.
“Our proximity sensors are obviously working, just set the autopilot.”
“We actually hit something? I knew the readings said we did, but—”
“Something hit us,” I said. “Get to the library and I’ll explain everything.”
Jai’s voice came through the com as I was about to click it off. “Am I to extrapolate from your actions that you have a plan?”
“More or less,” I said. “Though it’ll probably get a bunch of us killed.”
“Better some of us than all of us,” he said solemnly, for once speaking plainly.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Something like that.”
I’d never been much into reading as a kid—some comics and manga, action stories and the like—but the library at InterWorld had been a refuge of sorts. I’d spent much of what little personal time I’d had sitting in the overstuffed chairs by the fire panel (decorative only, something Jaroux the librarian had insisted on for ambiance) and reading up on the histories of a thousand different worlds. It had been interesting to read about Earths where the Roman Empire had never fallen, where World War II had never happened—or, on some Earths, never ended. There were Earths where Jesus had been female and the great Egyptian emperors had conquered half the world before an asteroid wiped out the other half. It was fascinating, and that’s not even counting the histories of the worlds that were nothing like Earth at all.
This was not, of course, the same library—or it was, but far in the future—which turned out to be a blessing, since this InterWorld had had several thousand more years to build up its database.
I sat down near the shattered remains of the fire screen; the chairs were long gone. The words “The place of the cure of the soul” hung faded and smudged on the wall near the ceiling, a nod to the Library at Alexandria, which on some Earths had never burned.
“I need you to access the cataloging system,” I told J/O, who was standing over by the info kiosks.
“Okay,” he said, reaching out a hand. He inspected the port connection, then flipped one of his fingers back (it always freaked me out when he did that) to reveal a modified mini-USB drive. “What file are you looking for?”
“That is the file,” I said. “I don’t mean the title index, I mean the files with all the cataloged planets and dimensions.”
He hesitated and then reached over to plug into the system. Anyone could use the info kiosk without hooking into it, but J/O’s particular body matrix made it easier and faster for him to navigate the system. He could hook his USB finger into the port and traverse it with a thought, not even bothering with voice commands. When we’d been studying together, I’d always found it very unfair that what I had to memorize, he could download straight to his memory banks. That seemed so far away now. We hadn’t gotten along at first, but I’d gotten to know him better during our two years training together. He was a lot like me, just . . . younger. He had a lot to prove, and I know he was probably still beating himself up over getting taken over by Binary and trying to kill me.
“I’m taking a chance that you’re not still corrupted, you know.” I said. He blanched.
“I’m sorry, Joey,” he started, but I shook my head.
“It wasn’t your fault. You’re you again, that’s all that matters.” I saw a weight visibly lift from him as I spoke. I let that sink in for a moment, then added, “But you should really get some kind of antivirus or something.”
“Ha-ha.” He made a face, but I could see a small smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
“Seriously, even my world has that. Norton or something, y’know?”
“Fff. Right. Norton.”
We sat in silence for a moment. Though I’d enjoyed teasing him, my thoughts drifted back to Acacia and Avery, and Josephine. Had Avery meant it when he’d said he taught her to use a grav-board? Had they really spent enough time together, in the five minutes it was to me in the Nowhere-at-All, to fall in love? How long had it been for them? I knew that time flowed differently on some worlds. . . . Had he taken her to a place where time moved slower? If he truly had loved her, how had he been able to let her die—no, to strike the killing blow himself? He’d said severing the tie with Lady Indigo would kill Josephine, yet he’d been willing to do it anyway. Was the alternative horrible enough that killing her had been the only option?
I hadn’t liked Avery’s attitude from the beginning, but if he’d really spent all that time with Josephine, if he’d brought her back to save us knowing she’d be in danger and then lost her, I supposed I could understand his being less than friendly.
Was that what it would be like for Acacia and me, if we ever got together? Don’t get me wrong, I knew I was thinking ahead here. I still barely knew the girl, but there was enough of a something between us that I couldn’t help putting myself in Josephine’s shoes. Had she loved Avery, too? Had she known during those moments they’d spent together that loving a Time Agent was impossible?
J/O interrupted my train of thought. “I think I found it, Joey.”
I stood, going to stand behind J/O. A menu with a few different options was visible on the screen, hard to read through the dust and small cracks. It seemed to be what I’d been looking for, but . . . “Can you tell it to dictate?”
“The voice algorithms are corrupted,” he said. “The system’s been sitting so long that only half of it works.”
“Doesn’t matter. I want a list of all Earth-classified planets from F delta ninety-eight to the sixth through F epsilon ninety-eight to the seventh.”
He paused, clearly recognizing the first classification. I wasn’t surprised. It was the Binary world he’d been corrupted on, where we’d first retrieved Joaquim, the Walker who’d turned out to not be a Walker at all. . . .
Frankly speaking, it was the world where everything had first gone to hell in the proverbial handbasket.
“Okay,” J/O said. “It’s indexing.” He paused again, obviously scanning the results. “It’s . . . that’s a lot of planets, Joey.”
“I know.”
“What am I looking for?”
“Just project the list for me.”
He looked around to find a flat surface, finally settling on the wall to my left. His cybernetic eye grew brighter, the little circuits visible in the iris flaring to life. A blank square appeared on the wall, like when a projector first turns on before the movie starts, then words started to appear and scroll like the end credits, almost faster than I could read.
&nb
sp; Earth FΔ986
Earth FΔ986+1
Earth FΔ986+2
Earth FΔ986+3
Earth FΔ986+4
Earth FΔ986+5
“Go ahead and collapse subcategories,” I said quickly.
“One moment.” The classifications vanished, then started again.
Earth FΔ986
Earth FΔ985
Earth FΔ984
Earth FΔ983
Earth FΔ982
Earth FΔ981
Earth FΔ99
It went on for a while. There were a lot of different Earths (an infinite number, actually, since they were being destroyed and created every second, even without FrostNight roaming the Multiverse like a gleeful lawn mower), and it’s not like I was looking for one in specific. The problem with the Multiverse was that planets and dimensions existed all over the place; classifying and numbering them in a linear way was almost impossible. The basic idea was that the letters (mostly) ran up and down, while the numbers (mostly) ran side to side. Just knowing where FrostNight’s path of destruction started and where it ended wasn’t enough, since it could take any number of different roads to get there. My world was close enough to the end that I knew FrostNight would eventually wipe out that entire classification; I was just trying to figure out how it was getting there so I could have a chance at stopping it.
I was in the middle of figuring out how to find the most likely projected path when the numbers suddenly dimmed. I glanced over to J/O, trying to make sure he wasn’t losing power or something, but he looked as confused as I did.
“Joey, there’s a—”
More words flashed up on the wall.
OFFICER CLEARANCE GRANTED.
“J/O, how did you—”
“I’m not doing it,” he said. “It’s a programmed variable; it’s reacting to the search parameters from this location and some other factors.”
“What other factors?” I asked, but the words flashed and faded, and an image appeared on the wall.
It was faint and fuzzy, grainy, like old silent movies from the nineteen twenties. It took me a moment to even place what the image was supposed to be, but humans are trained to recognize faces first—and one face you’ll always recognize is your own, even if it is a few decades older and sporting an artificial eye.
It was the Old Man. Captain Joseph Harker, leader of InterWorld.
He was sitting behind his desk, looking seriously at whatever was recording this message. He started to speak, his mouth obviously moving, though the graininess of the video made it difficult to read his lips.
“J/O, the sound!”
“What am I, a speaker system?”
“J/O—”
“I’m trying, Joey. This file is really old.”
I glued my eyes to the image, trying to catch whatever I could of what he was saying. I almost jumped out of my skin as, a moment later, J/O started to talk in the Old Man’s voice.
“—to give you a few moments to sort out this file, since I don’t know exactly how old it will be by the time you see it. Once you have everything in order, give the voice command ‘proceed,’ or select ‘continue’ on whatever kiosk you’re at. I’ll wait.”
The way he said “I’ll wait” simultaneously made me smile and hurry the hell up; it was the same impatient tone he always used, the one that meant I’ll wait, but you’d better make this fast, before I lose my patience.
“Proceed?”
“Voice recognition’s broken, Joey, I told you that,” J/O said in his own voice. I glanced over to the kiosk, where the word “continue” was visible among the cracks in the screen. I tapped a finger to it, then two fingers. Then, when still nothing happened, I hit it with the side of my fist. The screen flashed.
“Very well,” said J/O in the Old Man’s voice, as the projection started speaking once again. “Joseph Harker of Earth F epsilon three to the fourteenth, I trust it is you receiving this message.”
“Yes,” I said automatically, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. It was just a recording. A recording that the Old Man had programmed specifically for me, one that had been floating around in InterWorld’s database for thousands of years.
“Though I am unaware of your precise situation at the time of this recording, I am certain of two things. One, that you are currently on a future version of this ship, and two, that InterWorld Prime is doomed.” He looked straight at me, and I swear it was almost like we were locking gazes, like he knew exactly where I was standing in the room.
“The HEX ship Adraedan has a lock on us, and I’ve thrown the engines into overdrive. We can’t outrun them, and we can’t out-Walk them. They’re keeping pace with our dimensional shifts, and if we stop even for a moment, they’ll have us.
“That being said, your seeing this message means I have three things to tell you.” He held up one finger. “One. I had Jaroux set certain protocols in place to alert me when this message was received. I have the precise date; binary time stamp; and, thanks to the tracer I injected you with last week, your exact location.” Before I could react to that (that stupid tracer had come into play more times than a golygon has right angles), he dropped another bomb on me.
“I have likely just given the order to evacuate InterWorld Prime entirely, which means the remaining Walkers on this ship will be coming to you any second now. I hope you have the port room ready.”
I ran to the com system on the nearest wall, jabbing my finger at the main broadcast link. “Jai, ready the port room, we have incoming Walkers!” I yelled.
“Two,” the Old Man was saying, holding up two fingers now. I stared up at the projection, skewed and larger than life now that I was standing beneath it. “Try to keep Hue with you at all times from now on. He’ll be more useful than you know.”
My stomach sank down to the floor as I listened. He was giving me advice like he wasn’t going to see me, to Walk over with the rest coming from InterWorld Prime. He wasn’t coming. . . . Why would he not come?
“Three.” He dropped his hand altogether, looking at me seriously. The barest hint of a smile ghosted across his face, just for a moment. “It is impossible,” he said. “Do it anyway. It’s worth it.” I had no idea what he was talking about, until he added, “She liked orange roses, when I knew her.”
With no further warning, the image blinked out.
“J/O,” I said, before he could say anything, “get to the port room and help Jai, now.”
He spared a single glance back to the wall where the projection had been, then darted off. I jammed my fingers against the com again. “Jai, J/O’s coming to help.”
“They’re here, sir,” Jai’s voice came back over the com. “They’re all here.”
“What about the Old Man? Is Captain Harker with them?”
“He stayed.” Another voice came over the com. After a moment I recognized Jaroux’s calm, smooth tones. “None of us knew he was going to, but he stayed. I think you know why.”
I let my arm fall to my side, gaze drifting to the wall where the projection had been. “Damn you,” I told it. “God damn you.”
“Sir?” Jai’s voice echoed through the speakers. “What now?”
After a moment, I lifted my hand to the speaker again. “Get everyone organized,” I said. “Make sure anyone who needs to eat or sleep can do that, and send any injured to the infirmary.”
“Yes, sir,” said Jai. “Should our recent arrivals expect your appearance at this juncture?”
“No,” I paused, double-checking myself, surprised by the calm certainty that had suddenly come over me. There was one thing I could do, and I had to do it. I knew I had to. “Jai, J/O, and Jo, you’re in charge. I’m stepping out for a moment. I’ll be back with the Old Man.”
There was a moment of silence over the com, and I shut it off before the flurry of protests could begin. The ship was up and running again, which meant we’d realigned with our own timestream, which meant we didn’t need Hue to Walk. InterWorld Beta had its own
formula now, which Joeb had been using for the past two days to Walk back and forth with new recruits. I didn’t have to travel through time to get where I needed to go. I could Walk, like I always did, sideways through the dimensions.
The other point was that the Old Man had stopped running to let everyone off. That meant the ship wasn’t moving anymore, wasn’t locked in a perpetual warp—which meant my old InterWorld Prime formula should work again.
The thing about the InterWorld address was that it always stayed the same, no matter where the ship was. It was static, constant, unchanging—but the ship had to actually be static for the address to work. It hadn’t been for the past few days. Now it was, and I could Walk there on my own.
I closed my eyes and drew in a breath, calling the old InterWorld formula to mind. It burned in my head like a beacon, like a North Star, like a lighthouse.
[{IW}:= Ω/∞ ]
I saw the path open up before me, and I—
—found myself flat on my back as something hurtled into me, the texture of it like a combination between glossy tissue paper and a rubber band. I opened my eyes to find Hue hovering above me, flashing various colors of concerned.
“Hue . . . ! What are you doing?” The last time I’d seen him, he’d been sleeping (or what appeared to be sleeping, anyway) in my quarters, tired out from all the TimeWalking he’d been helping us do. Joeb had taken him out a few times to help with getting Walkers, and the poor thing had been exhausted. Not only that, but I think Josephine’s death had actually hit him pretty hard. They hadn’t interacted all that much, what with Josephine having shot at him once and all, but I was fairly certain he still understood death and missed her. It was sometimes hard to figure how much he did understand, but he tended to grasp most concepts and things I asked him to do, and seemed to have his own opinions on situations.
Like now, for example.
I sat up, trying to get to my feet. Hue floated around me, bobbing back and forth. “What’s wrong with you?” I asked. “Why did you stop me?”
He flickered a few different colors, then turned black, little red flashes flicking over his surface like lightning. I wasn’t sure exactly what he was trying to say, but it definitely looked foreboding.
