I reintegrated in the next world with my head swirling from the excess of magic I had been playing with in the last world. Casting an open-ended spell to summon revenants, and powering it with my pain could get addictive despite the agony. The physical sensation of power seduced the soul.



So I was happy to wake up in a stinking alley with a flickering yellow electric light shining down in my face. A quick check assured me of what I already suspected. Flatlined psionic and magic abilities made most of my spectacles and my skills in those areas unavailable.



The overcast skies, a gray omnipresence dimming everything to the point that day seemed closer to night, cracked open and let loose a steady drizzle.



I fished through my backpack for my medieval style cloak, also gray. The matte black M-5 I slung underneath the cloak, and behind my back from its strap. A good knife went up my sleeve with its pop-out holster.



A snap of my wrist, and eight inches of elegant and simple steel filled my hand. As in so many things verser related, the knife was a compromise. I wanted a straigtforward blade, utilitarian, but in many cultures a fancy knife was the symbol of nobility. So, I had nifty engravings put in the hilt, and filled with gold and gems which hardly detracted from its usefulness.



My backpack went on over one shoulder, and I set out into the drizzling rain with my hair beginning to drip.



The wet tarvey street and the yellow line down the middle assured me of a modern world even more than the light had. But Moscow had roads which hardly anyone used except for the nomenklatura and their bosses, the Politburo.



I searched further looking for clues as to the nature of this world. A newsbox of robin’s egg blue caught my eye as it was designed to do.



“Straits Tribune; The Union of Yukonia’s Premier Newspaper” The top line said. Yukonia: Yukon I supposed, I was probably on the northwestern coast of the American continent.

“May 10, 2007″ Told me the date, and the blaring headlines below it accusing the Mayor and the local Governor of complicity in botching a corporate espionage investigation to possibly aid one Roger Norman who would walk free, assured me. Only in a free country with a relatively law-abiding population would you find a valuable device not chained to the ground, and shouting out abuse at the local and territorial leadership.



I slipped my M-5 off my neck, and stowed it in the backpack. This world felt safer, if a bit cold and drear.



Hunger prodded me, and I looked into my financial situation. Most of my monies would either be valuable artifacts, or junk, or way too revealing if the right person got their hands on them. The photonic computer encased in a plastic poker chip saying “$5 Tunica” would no doubt excite all too much interest as would my billion year old computer clock in the coin. So I dug into my dwindling supply of pirate gold and jewels, and came up with the last handful.



Oops. I’d spent more than I expected. I should have taken the gold crusted microphone from the Aztec world with me.



I set out in the direction of the skyscrapers figuring that when I got close to them that I would begin looking around for a pawn shop.



It worked well enough, and I found Bob’s Pawn Emporium, a metal-sided small warehouse type building. I walked in underneath a gaudy glitter covered “diamond” affixed to the plastic sign looming over the broken sidewalk.



Stepping in I saw a long narrow room, and Bob bored enough to slouch on a bar stool behind the glass cases of the counter. A couple other rough-looking customers gave me the once-over, and I stared back with a warning in my face. I would fight if need be my look told them. They turned away.



Stepping through the metal detector seemed a bad idea so I mentioned this to Bob, and he woke up a bit, and looked me over. Then he pressed a button under the counter.



“SCA?” He said as I walked up to him. Delighted, I grinned back.

“Yes, and you?”

“Former girlfriend was into that stuff.” He grunted.

I took out my handful of gems, pearls, silver and gold coins. He separated the pearls.



“Not very good. I can give you five bucks apiece for them.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Ever since the Hawaiaans got those robot subs to work, the pearl markets been flooded. I expect in a few years, they will be considered costume jewelry.”

I took my ten pearls back.

“Where did you get this stuff? Kingdom of Iterin?” He said squinting at a silver coin.

“Oh, you must have hand cast these. Pretty cool.”

I smiled noncommittally not ready to expand Bob’s perceptions to include multiple universes.

“Now, you’re trying to get rid of them.”

“Something like that.” I said.



He made an offer, and I countered. Poor Bob had little experience with customers as skilled as I in the art of haggling. Most of his clientele bought things at the price offered. I’d lived places where the principle form of entertainment was insulting the merchant’s goods for an hour or two.

About the third time, I’d headed for the door, Bob gave me his final, last-really-last-offer. I thought he was sincere, or at least so tired that he would forget the deal, and throw me out.



So I took the three thousand dollars in hand, and then put it back on the glass countertop.



“That sword on the wall looks good. Why don’t you toss that in to boot?”

Exasperated he informed me that it was a real weapon, and not a cheap replica.

I nodded in agreement, and he gave me the double bladed four foot long, hand-and-a-half sword.



I walked out happy to have gotten probably half the worth of what I sold him, and liking my new sword. My stomach rumbled, and I turned back at the door to see Bob wince.



“Where’s the nearest restaurant?”

He relaxed, and gave me directions in his bored way.



I nodded and walked out into the storm which had increased to a downpour. No one bothered me on the way; it is possible that seeing the expert way I had swung that sword they thought better of assaulting me. Or maybe they were innocent customers I was maligning in my mind. Hard to say.



The Waffle House lit a smile with its dim glow in the darkening world. I walked in and crossed my fingers. It would be just my luck if they served oysters and kalamari burgers in this timeline. I don’t object too much to the above because a verser learns to eat whatever he can, and a picky stomach is decided penalty to a verser. But when I want real food; it would be hard to be gypped out of it by the universe.



Three sides of hash browns with cheese and tomatoes, four cups of coffee with cream and sugar, a BLT, three glasses of Coke, sausage and eggs, a stack of pancakes with lots of butter and maple syrup, and two slices of chocolate whipped cream pie and I was dry, warm, and contented. My waitress looked at me with a steadily rising eyebrow as I packed the food away.



“Hungry, honey?” She asked.

“You bet. Or I was, but not anymore.”



I settled up, gave her a good tip, and bought a paper in the alcove, and came back in for more Coke and another slice of pie which I moved to a booth for space for my paper. Somewhere, I had modified my body to be able to deal with excess amounts of sugar. One of the best things I ever did, I decided with a smug smile as I began to comb through the classifieds.



It being still early and before the dinner rush, the waitress came over to talk to me.

“You new in town, hunh?”

“Am I that obvious?” I replied motioning for her to sit down. She was an older woman, and from the way she stood her feet bothered her.

“It’s not like it used to be when we first got our independence from the Three Powers. The Boom has gone bust, if you ask me. I think its those idiots in Nome House. A new rule every time you turn around. My husband had a good job in the uranium extraction mines in Siberia, and then they add all those safety precautions which just happen to benefit the company that belongs to the President’s second cousin. It stinks if you ask me.”

“Three Powers?” I interjected my question into her unburdening herself.

“Oh,” She wiped her face with a work-hardened hand. “Russia, Canada, and the U.S.. That’s what we in Yukonia call them after they let us secede. I don’t think Russia wanted to do it, but it was either give Siberia to the Chinese or to us, and Canada couldn’t stop us what with the Qubecan Uprising, and well the hardcore gun nuts and the oil companies of Alaska had enough of the ecofreaks ruling from Washington about how we couldn’t drill for oil because some caribou they had never seen might suffer ‘emotional trauma’. Least that’s the way we see it up here, and if you think differently, you might be careful who you speak too because some people get a mite touchy when a Lower 48er starts spouting off.”

“No offense meant.” I assured her as I started fitting the data together.

An economic recession caused by nepotism and over-regulation, and probably an over-extension of credit in the preceding boom was what it sounded like to me. Not the best environment to find a job in, but I needed one anyways. My money would not last all that long.



I took out a pen, and began to circle jobs and housing that looked interesting. I had to ask her what the various abbrievations meant.



“You won’t be able to get most of those even if you are qualified. Gotta be a union member.”

“Can I join?” I asked back with a quirked eyebrow.

“Not easy. The Business Support Bill made it so you have to have a government permit to join the union because the unions were getting too strong, and strangling business, or so the Nome House said.”

“But if you have the right connections, grease a few palms, you can become a union member, and make good money, right?”

She nodded.

“My husband got his membership suspended, and now we can’t get up enough to get back in. So he collects unemployment, and I got a job here at sixty hours a week.”

I nodded in sympathy.

“So, what jobs can I get quickly?”

She pointed to the undesirable ones. Security guard, janitor, private detective, convenience store clerk.

This was a temporary measure, or so I hoped. I had an advanced degree, but no proof since I got it in another universe. And I had a bunch of other knowledges, but first I needed to get my feet on the ground, and have some time to think.



I looked again, and my eyes fell on private detective. It sounded interesting, and if it turned out to be only about photographing couples engaging in adultery, then I could try being a security guard. That should as I worked up a plan to start a small business if the environment was at all conducive.



I stood up, and paid my bill again, and left a couple hundred dollars on the table.

She came running after me.

“You can’t give me this, you need it. I wasn’t asking for charity.” The pride and generosity of the lady surprised me only a little.

“Its not charity. Its a consultant’s fee. Your information was very useful to me. ” She nodded acceptingly, clutching the money closer.

“You know, I’ve met kings and queens who were not as honorable and kind as you.” I said, and bowed, and walked out leaving her perplexed but pleased.



I walked down the street further to a seedy motel, and checked in for the night. A bribe made the credit card unnecessary. No one bothered me after taking a good, long look at my face. I was not looking for trouble, but I was ready to shake his hand.



In the morning, I walked out to find breakfast at the Waffle House again. Then a couple blocks north to my first target. He accepted me right away which was a warning sign.



The scraped panelling of the cut in two trailer and the pot to catch the water in were further warnings.

I told him I did not do adultery cases.

“Me neither. After I got shot the second time by some lover-boy, I gave it up. We do corporate stuff around here. Business is a little slow though.” His voice was even deeper than mine, a contra-bass growl that came from the vicinity of his kneecaps.

“I can hire you for a week, and if it picks up, and we like each other well enough, we’ll keep it going.”

“Deal.” I said thinking he probably had a project he wanted done that he did not want to do.

I took out some of my weapons, and his eyes widened. He especially liked the M-5 fletchette autopistol.

We got to trading gun stories, and he showed me his collection. He had what he called a Yukon Express heavy rifle for the frequent trips he made to the back country to fish. It seems the bears had objected to the competition on several occasions, and the YE saved his life.

My chatter got me a place to sleep, a beaten down couch of yellow and brown with visible springs next to the water catching pot. He said he’d take the rent off my paycheck, and it was a lot cheaper, and safer than the hotel.

“Nobody thinks to rob the Siegel Detective Agency. They know how good a shot I am.” He told me, and I relaxed.

“Do I need a P.I. license?”

“No way, its not like in the States. We are the last vestige of the Wild West, we detectives. Too rinky-dink for the Nome House to care about us.”



He gave me an assignment to go interview and look around this shiphard, Tycor Shipping. I was out the door, and riding a bike he loaned me before I realized that in effect he’d sent me out to drum up some business. Great, just great.



Still, I biked in the rain-freshened morning air through downtown Straits City, and enjoyed seeing the big city come to life. Elegantly dressed people walked past crews repairing the road, and buskers juggling wooden fish, and I felt the rising energy of it all. Big cities are nice places to visit once in a while.



Past the skyscrapers and the increasingly crowded streets which forced me to dodge and weave more and more, I broke out into a nearly empty sidewalk which led downhill to the harbor, and Tycor Shipping.



I walked in, and asked to see a manager for a few minutes. This felt a little embarrassing.



After half and hour, I presented my case to the PR flack who found a ten minutes for me. Siegel Detective Agency had received information from another client that led them to think illegal activities had occurred between a now fired employee of this client, and Tycor. Were they interested?



He said they were, but they didn’t want to disturb things. He spoke in such a way that made me distrust him. I got over my embarrasment, and began to smile oh so faintly as I leaned forward.



“So why don’t I take a look around, assure you that someone is not disturbing things right underneath your nose.”



Looking unhappy, he agreed, but with the warning that he could not promise any pay.



“Only if you want the final report.” I said.



I let myself out, and picked up a badge and a hardhat at the front desk. The PR flack looked unhappier still, but he let me go.



I walked out, and around back past some lounging workers who were smoking, and let myself in the open back door of the office complex at the front of the shipyard. It was the very same complex I had been too just a minute before.



Slipping through the halls with a bored purposeful attitude to ward of inquiries, I came to the empty office next door to the PR flack. Jack Whitcomb was his name.



Listening through the lightweight wall, I heard the PR flack, Whitcomb, speaking agitadedly on the phone.



“Look, Mr. Callton(??) we have a guy down here from Siegels looking for trouble. You know he hates us after we messed him over in that last case. Uh-huh. Yes. Okay, okay, I got it.”



“Uh, hmmh.” I turned and saw a man looking up at me with a curious expression on his face.

“Why are you here?”

“Here?”

“Yes, here, here in my office.”

“Did you have trouble with your copier?” I asked barely avoiding the lie, but definitely leaving a false impression.

“Yes, I did.”

I gulped a little, and set to work on his copier. My memory came to the rescue; almost all copier problems are the paper getting stuck, or out of paper. Really simple stuff to fix, but the end-user is scared to touch the machine lest he break it. At least that is what I heard.



I tried it, and it worked. The paper was stuck, and after a few minutes I worked it free, and I gave the service to him free of charge as a minor problem not worthy of charging for. This again impressed him. I wondered if I had a future as copier repairman in a small business. Something to think about.



I let myself out back, and looked to the right and the left at the big warehouses that gaped over the central paved area. Further down at the water’s edge, I could see the dry docks that totally loomed over the several story tall open sided warehouses.



I walked around flashing my badge at various foremen, and just looked for something of interest. This would be so much easier if I could just tap into a few people’s brains.



Hearing some shouting men and one lady, I moseyed in that direction. Shouting was good as far as I was concerned.



There was a small circle of suits facing each other surrounded a slight remove by a bunch of guys in yellow rubber waders with a few carrying a pipe wrench and one a sledgehammer.



The suits looked at me, and in that look I saw enough authority to order me off the property if I bothered them by say standing by and listening in. So I kept walking like I had business somewhere else.



To the south of the main office, and to the east of the southern warehouse, a collection of trailers served as offices for the less important.

I walked into that general area, and saw my aisle dead-end against a twenty-foot tall chain-link fence. Then I heard the group that I had just walked past heading my way.



So I slipped off my shoes, and tossed them under the trailer to the south of me. I leapt at the facing trailer as high as I could, and cushioned the noise with flexing legs. Rebounding blindly in the other direction, I rotated a quarter-turn along my height axis, and came down on the top edge of the trailer’s roof with my palms which I used to cushion the impact to a faint creak of the trailer. The slight noise might make a few people inside stop and listen, but it shouldn’t have them curious enough to go outside to check it out.



A handstand on the trailer’s edge, and then lowering myself straight down to my head let me roll out onto the roof in quiet.



The crew of suits and their attendant workers came down the aisle between the trailers.



“Your specs are off. You should have checked the actual measurements before you had us build the thing for your ship.”

“They were the design specs.”

“What kind of idiot doesn’t know that things change when they are getting built?”

“James, Mr. Halston has a point. They were the design specs.” The prissy and superior voice grated on my ears.

“Whose side are you supposed to be on?” James said in exasperation. From the noise of the crew, it sounded like they agreed with him.

“I was hired to be a client representative, James. Now, let me talk to the client in private, and we will see if we can work something out.” The client rep said.

“There’s no need to work something out. Its as plain as the nose on your face. Halston Ships messed up, big-time, and they are trying to stick us with the bill.” James’ outrage drew approving murmurs from the workers, and splutters of anger from the Halston Ships man.

“Possibly so, but we do want to avoid arbitration, and getting a bad reputation in Straits City shipping circles. Let me talk to the young Mr. Halston in private, and maybe we can work something out without the interference of the crew.” His snide tones of superiority to the workers grated on me. The client rep and “young Mr. Halston” entered the trailer, and outside I heard James muttering to himself, and the crew saying things like “I’ll show him interference, the pompous jerk.”, but James remembered his loyalty to the management and sent the workers back to their jobs. He and his secretary waited discussing how much of a hit they would take if Halston got their way.



Interesting.



I searched for a way to listen through the roof, but only came up on the right vent in time to hear a very pleased finale from the client rep.



“Well that’s all settled then.”



They went out, and the client rep broke the bad news to James that unfortunately due to some legal technicalities the young Mr. Halston had a point. Then the client rep walked off with a jaunty swagger.



I dropped off the other side of the trailer, and retrieved my shoes, and followed him out to his new Porsche 911. Candy apple red, and he peeled it out of the parking lot like he had no money problems whatsoever. I smelled a dead fish, and not just with my nose.



Unfortunately, my bycycle was going to have a hard time keeping up so tailing him right now was out of the question. What to do, what to do? I thought as I stood in the middle of that empty paved space.

“First thing. Let’s call the boss, and ask him what’s his beef with Tycor.” I nodded to myself in satisfaction. I was getting the hang of this detective stuff.



Taduesz