I clambered out sideways from my geodesic dome made of bamboo and banana leaves and strung together with cane rope.  The white sand under my feet was cool unlike the glare of the solitary five in front of me.

Each of them, I noted as I stumbled over to my campfire, and dug for a coal to light it again, stood apart from the others, but not too apart.  They were frightened, and skittish.  I had already sensed that they were versers, and by their looks I deduced that they were first-timers.  In other words, they had been living a normal life for them, in some universe, and then scriff, a very odd substance, and Thanatos had arrived at the same time.  This sufficed to make them versers, of which I will explain more later.

So I asked for help.  The curly-haired brunnette had a five gallon container of Haldonson’s Coffee.  I murmured my thanks as I directed the huge guy who was as tall as me, and four inches thick in the chest to fetch a log from the jungle for a stool.

"I’m Beka." The brunnette replied.  "Whats…?" I raised a hand to stop her with my best mysterious smile on my face.  This is one of the tricks a wizard uses.  It makes you look knowledgeable and wise when usually you are screaming in your head for a plan.

The Asian man came back with dry leaves for tinder, and small branches.  The last man, with his V-shaped face marred by a sneer, laughed at the puny load he had brought.  But it was perfect for re-starting a fire. 

"Thank you, sir. And your name?" 

"Captain Tenchi Yamashiri, sir."  He bowed, and clicked his heels, and the others laughed gently.  I didn’t.  I saw the grace with which he moved, and the well-trained way one hand always rested near his katana.  That plus his deadpan eyes let me know I was in the presence of a killer of men.  I did not judge, for what am I, but Tadeusz, Sledgehammer of Justice, destroyer of the wicked, and so on and so forth.

The big man with the thick black hair came back with two logs, quietly showing off his strength, and sufficient to seat everyone, but me, and I grabbed a log of my own where I had spotted it the night before.  Then as I drank my coffee, I pointed at the big man.

"Roger Houston. Second round draft pick for the Philadelphia War Chiefs."  He was letting me know he was a man of consequence.  Problem was that was back in his own world.  Here he was a very strong man.  We would see if he was a team player or a prima donna million dollar crybaby.

So far my plan was working.  I had them following me, and although they would think I owed them because they had each done me a favor, in reality, emotionally it went the other way.  You do a man a favor, and you tend to like him more for it.

I pointed to the sneering one with the light gold hair, that looked like it had been permed, and bleached.  His head was V-shaped, and he was not unhandsome, but I did not trust him.

"Dalton Dalrieux.  I’m a model, and you are…"

"Getting to meet each of you, first." I replied evenly.

The last girl swore, and jumped to her feet.  No, flounced is more accurate.  In her cut-off, recently I thought, jeans, she wanted to make sure all the guys had a good look at her legs.  I’ve met Lady Winterblest, High Queen of the Elves, who rule the Night of Ice, and more than that, I have promises to keep and universes to go before I make my way home.  A gold ring burned on my finger, and reminded me as if I needed it.

"Stephanie."  She still stood, and turned to me.  Another one who intended to try to take over the meeting.  Problem was, I could scare her back into her seat, but that would not work well.  So instead, I went back to my duffel bag without a word, and toted the thing slowly backwards as if it was a great deal of trouble.  Roger offered to help, but I crankily denied the need.  But he still came and toted it for me.  Things were looking up.

And by this time, Stephanie was feeling foolish just standing there waiting for me to come back so she could interrogate me like she was an ambitious DA out to shred some innocent guy’s life on her quest to become governor.  So we all found our way back to our seats, and I held them still, but delicately.

"I’m Tadeusz.  Sometimes I’m called Stormlord, and other times Ghost, and always and everywhere the Sledgehammer."  They laughed, but a trifle uneasily as I just smiled softly back at them.  Captain Yamashiri stopped first, and his hand went to his katana.

I spoke in Nipponese to him.

"Peace. I mean you no harm."  Warily, he nodded acceptance.

"I could and will tell you a story. I will tell you what happened to you, but perhaps its best we do it my way.  I’ve done this before, and I don’t really enjoy screaming hysterics, so I’ll try to make it easy for you."

They shifted, now thorougly alarmed.

"Where are we?" Dalton asked, and I applauded him mentally.  He hadn’t said "Where am I?"

"An island. Now, no further questions."

"Are we dead?" Beka asked.

"You breathe do you not?" I avoided the question with one of my own.  "Now, tell me this, who were the last five presidents in your country?"

Again, they stared at me with disdain.  Such a silly man I was.  I motioned for them to go on, and when one didn’t I pointed to Roger.  He shrugged his massive shoulders.

"Cooper, Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush Jr."

"Hey don’t you mean, Carter, yah nitwitted jock." Stephanie burst out with her derogation.  He shook his head.  I turned to the other end of the circle, and pointed at Stephanie.

"Carter, Jimmy for the first two terms. Then Clinton, she was a major player in the Wall collapsing after she nuked Havana.  Then Stephens who was her vice, and Dover who was an idiot in the other party."

This set them to babbling.  Each one trying to shout down the others.  They were starting to rise to their feet, so I nodded to Captain Yamashiri.  He took the whistle hanging about his neck, and let birds a half mile away know we were there.  Then he barked out something in Nipponese about "disgraceful childish foreign devils."

That shut them up, and I motioned them back to their seats.

"Okay, what about Jap boy here?" Dalton said with another sneer.

"All in good time. Beka, please."

She swallowed, not being the type who liked public speaking I could see.

"Well, there was JFK, and then Goldwater, and then Nixon who negotiated the flight of the Politburo from Russia to the French Riviera, and then Reagan."

"But JFK was in the sixties." Roger said perplexed.  HIs large face wrinkled up as he wrestled unsuccessfully with the problem.

"Well, yes." Beka replied not understanding his problem.  But I did.  Roger had left his earth later, perhaps near 2000 or even later.  Beka had left in the early eighties, I’d guess.

"Mr. Dalrieux? If you please."

"Its Mr. Dalton, if you don’t please." I nodded calm and slow, just accepting the information.  Worlds where the last name was said first were not as common as the other, but not exactly uncommon either.  The others stared at each other in perplexity at his complaint.

Stephanie, either because of genuine stress, or because she had not been getting enough adoration began to cry.  Roger and Dalrieux both gave her tissues to wipe her nose with.  I just waited.  She stopped, evidently not willing to challenge my leadership right then.  But I could tell she hungered to be the de facto, although not de jure leader.

I looked at Beka to check out how my other female was doing.  She seemed withdrawn, and her eyes were a tunnel of fear.  I snapped my fingers, and said firmly.

"Pay attention."  Resistance flared for a second in her eyes, and then she acquiesced.  I worried about that.  It could be a sign of good sense, or a fading spirit.

"Mr. Dalrieux."  I reminded them.

"Carter, Reagan until they killed him, and then Bush, and then Bill Clinton for three terms."

"Interesting. One last question of my last game show participant, and perhaps you’ll see whats going on more clearly."

There were a few ‘buts’ and an ‘um’, but it was plain that the group was gripped by fear.  I had to keep them under control, but at the same time not let them descend into madness.  It is one of the dangers of the First Transition.  Its easier for a number of people to simply retreat into delusions, or even into catatonia rather than face reality.  I had heard of, not met, but another verser told me of seeing one "Wonder of Science" in a world.  A man who had rested in a catatonic coma for over three centuries.  Of course, he was a verser, and my friend had tried to help him, but couldn’t with all the guards about the Most Famous John Doe on the planet.

"Captain Tenchi Yamashiri?"  I stood and bowed.  He did likewise.

"I cannot fully answer your question, sensei." Interesting indeed.  He had decided I was some sort of wise man.  "The only president of America I am familiar with was the honorable Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  He died in the Burning of Philadelphia.  Since then, it has been Military Governors and Reichsfuhrers.  My current leader is Military Governor Yosi Li who recieved his appointment directly from the Emperor.  Long may he live."

There was a bit of a gasp at this.

"What year is it, Captain?"

"By the old Christian calendar it is 1957."

This brought down the house.  Again shouted claims and denials rang forth, and then people realized that each of them was claiming a different year.

Roger claimed the latest with 2004 Anno Domini.  And then he stepped up to me, and bellowed in my face.

"You tell them its 2004, or I’ll snap your neck."  So I swept his feet out from under him, and dumped him face first in the sand.  Then I put my foot on his back.

"Panic is unneccessary, and unproductive.  I believe most of you should be aware of the notion of alternate time lines.  That is worlds in which reality followed a different path than it did in your world.  I think it should be obvious to each of you that every one of you is from a different timeline."

I paused, and looked down.

"Are we calm now, Mr. Houston?"  He flexed his great muscles, and I moved not an inch.  His breath thundered in his chest, and I waited.

"Yes, I’m calm now. It won’t happen again."  I stepped back, and he got to his feet giving me a puzzled look.  Ordinarily, I don’t get such as I’m quite a big man myself, but he was of the mold of a NFL fullback.  Three hundred fifty pounds of muscle and five percent body fat described him well.  Of course, we were the same height, and the same weight.  Its just much of my weight came from cybernetics in addtion to the smaller, but well-developed muscles I had gathered over the centuries.

"Are you saying there are worlds, timelines, where I am not in California as mayor of Saucillito?"  Tenchi seemed fearful, but I had to press on the blister and hope for the best since one of the others would be bound to say it if I did not.

"Even worlds where the Japanese Co-Prosperity Sphere did not extend to Alaska and California and…"

"To the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, and to cover Mexico.  We still fight guerillas in the Rocky and the Andes."

"Even worlds where Japan lost to America."

"But how, this is not possible. They have no fighting spirit?"  He pleaded with me to make my horrible words untrue.  I shrugged my shoulders back at him in sympathy, but not all that much.  He fell to his seat, and began to softly cry.

I cleared my throat.

"I think its also obvious that you’re not there right now."

"Another timeline. With its own presidents. Great." Dalrieux said grumping.

"Its worse than that. Last night I looked into the sky, and I didn’t see the Big Dipper or the Southern Cross."

They stared at me, and Stephanie required Beka to explain it to her.  And then Beka jumped forward and shouted with great, if restrained force.

"Then where are we?"

I paused, and let them recover so they could hear me.

"I don’t know."

This brought many cries, and some suspicions, and laughingly I said.

"Look, I really don’t know.  Its not like I’m God, okay."

I meant it as a joke, but I saw from several of their faces that they had been entertaining the possibility that I, Tadeusz was the Supreme Being.  If only they knew just how small they were, and even how small I, a multi-centuried being, was in comparison to many of the greater spirits who themselves were tiny before the mighty lords of the cosmos who themselves quaked before the boundary line between Finite and Infinite which none of us on this side could encompass.

In the vast scheme of things, in a possibly infinite Multiverse they were microbes, but then so was I, and yet we were Known.  For one of the prerogatives of Infinity is being Infinite which means among other things having all the storage space you might ever need to hold the photo albums of your 10 to the 10,000 children.

"I knew you weren’t God." Dalrieux said triumphantly.  "He doesn’t exist.  Philosophy proves…."

"Nothing."  I interjected harshly.  "An axiom is chosen, and the implications of that axiom are explored.  But if I start with the axiom that you’re an idiot, and then explore the results which is to declare every plan of yours idiocy, does that prove anything?"

He glared at me, but not for long as the force of my arguement and the force of my personality hit him at the same time.  I took the moment to re-cloak myself in soft manners and quiet ways.  I did not want them to see the fire that burned in me, for they were too much like children, and I could easily burn them.

"Please, everyone take from your pocket a coin, or some other minor items suited for throwing."  I grinned lightly at them, and they followed, by now thorougly captured, at least for the moment.

"Beka, toss me your coin."

She did, and I examined it.

"A 1972 silver double eagle with a bas-relief of …."

"Madison."

"On the obverse side.  Also, ‘We place our trust in the Almighty.’"  The others giggled as I glanced sideways at the recovering Dalrieux.

I put it behind my back, and shuffled it. Then I held out two fists.  She shook her head, not believing she could guess it.

"Relax." I said, demonstrating by sagging, and half-closing my eyes.  She did, and then her eyes flew open, and with trepidation she pointed to my right hand.  And then with her hand to her mouth, she looked at me, and pointed to the others in perplexity.  I put my finger to my lips.

We did the experiment again, and again.  I hid the coin with a magician’s flair in my pocket, and she found it.

"Now, what you’ve seen.  You all can do.  With your own item.  But first, one more illustration."  I tossed her coin back to her, and then pitched one of my quarters to Roger.

"Toss it in the waves as far as you can."

"You have a double in your pocket." Dalrieux scoffed.

"Okay, tough guy. I’ll turn my back, and you can draw whatever you like on the coin with a marker."

He laughed, and I heard some scritching behind me, and then Stephanie came up and put her arms about my head to close my eyes.  I heard a grunt from Roger, and I could feel the coin sailing away.  It plunked into the outer edge of the lagoon.

I went out after hyper-oxegenating, and dove/swam to the lagoon floor.  From there, I walked.  For you see, one problem of my cybernetics is that I don’t float that well.  I used psi to push me further and faster than one could go, but by the time I got to the coin which rested on some corral guarded by an ill-tempered Morray eel, my lungs were burning.  I climbed the coral, and broke free of the waves with a gasp of air.  Then I went around the long way via way of pulling along the corral to the edge of the cove, and walking about the circumference of the cove.

I held the coin in full view the whole time, and tossed it to Dalrieux who was boggled, as well he should be.  Shaking a bit, he gave it back, and now I had a quarter marred by an asterisk with nine lines, and his initials.

"Now, lets everyone try."

They did, but just as quickly they exclaimed that they could sense each other. 

"Did it happen with you, Beka?"

She grinned and nodded.  The joy of discovery, of new powers, new capabilities was outweighing the fear for the moment.  The cheerful mood spread, until Stephanie tried to bring it down so that we would focus on her again.  I ignored her, although I did see the glances her provocative behavior drew from some of the others.  That could be a problem.

Women have the power to drive men mad just as men have the power to physically dominate and overawe.  The world’s a better place when these powers are used in their proper way, and in moderation.  But I fear if Stephanie were offered Galadriel’s Choice, she would take the Ring, and all men would desire and fear her for she would be a Terrible and Dreadful Queen.  My problem, which I didn’t know how to solve right yet was that as a verser, she could become just that.  It might take her a century, but I could easily wind up in a world run by the Dark Mistress Stephanie.

Its a problem for versers.  We have such potential for good and for evil, and oftentimes so little restraining us.  So not knowing what to do, I prayed, and commended the matter to the Most High, and moved on.

"You all are versers. Worldwalkers. Gatesmen and ladies."

"What, what does that mean?" Captain Tenchi Yamashiri asked slowly, and the good humor drained to a more sober level from the group.

I sighed.  It was now or never time.  I could still lose them.

"A verser is someone who has been infected with scriff."

For four of them, lights went on in their expressions. But not so for Tenchi.

"Typically, its some hi-tech piece of equipment.  A bit of electricity gets loose.  It charges the scriff, and charged scriff has a liking for bioelectric systems….like your nervous system.  Its also a wonderful conductor so that electric shock just roars through you."

"You’re describing death, aren’t you?" Roger said slowly.

"Semantics." I replied firmly.  "Look, the closest thing to describe what happened to you is you got matter transported like in the Star Trek show.  And something extra got added to you."

I paused hoping that everyone except for Tenchi had seen Star Trek.

"Don’t you mean Star Voyager?" Stephanie asked, and then her hand went to her mouth when she realized the implications of multiple timelines.

"Right. This scriff, which infected all of you, even Tenchi, wants to go home.  It seeks the space between universes.  It gets there, and it can’t stop because it has your atoms with it.  So, the atoms and the attached scriff get ejected into another material universe with a different history.  Perhaps even different rules of reality."

I added the last bit, and waited for a bite.

"Hold on. Different rules…" Dalrieux began extending his hand to me with a triumphant look on his face.

"I wish to adress my concerns first." Tenchi interupted.  Dalrieux thought about it, and noted the katana and decided to step back with good grace.

"This is not what happened to me."

"Then what did, Captain."

"I was, was asleep.  And then the Ghost Lady, she came for me.  She kills many officers trying to force the Emperor to abandon California.  I see her on my bed with knife at my throat.  I remember the Emperor and my family, and I throw my all into the fight, but it is not enough."

"Did you say…. bite…?"

"I bit her ear."  He says calmly now after his great flurry of hand-waving and extremis of emotion.

"Scriff can be transferred from one verser, like this Ghost Lady, to another person via way of blood.  However it tends ot leak out over time, and one never knows if it will take.  So, your blood is not an immortality potion, and killing people you like to make them versers might just kill them.   Stone dead."

"Okay, rules of reality. My turn." Dalrieux said into the ringing silence.

"Okay. Magic works.  Better in some universes than others.  Same with technology, psionics and body related skills."

He openly scoffed at me.

I shrugged.  I had been meaning to test a new spell of mine I had been designing a few worlds ago.  You see, I know how to summon a fire or air elemental.  I’m not so good at summoning an earth or dust elemental.  This is especially so when I don’t have a pure sample of elemental earth on hand, which is practically all the time.

So, instead of the sacred earth, purified by heat, and then crushed again, and strained again, and then heated again to turn it back into clay, for seven times, I had a plan to use plain beach sand or whatever other dirt came to hand.

To substitute for the major power boost from the sacred earth, I intended to use ten mana wheels, and one Word of Power plus nine delimiting words to confine the effects.  This was major mojo.  Mana is one method of using magic.  One gathers such magic power which tends to pool in places of note like battlefields and the site where two destined people met each other for the first time, but it can also be strained from the ether by meditation, and confined in spirals made of will and concentration.  These spirals are then tied off with a word.

It was the same word that I used for the delimiting words which I thought rather elegant.  I could get two effects for one word.  I’d unleash the power and confine it at the same moment.

Now a Word of Power is something altogether different and more hazardous.  I know only a few of them.  It is the tongue of Angels some say.  Others claim it is the language the gods used to form the univeses the Creator sublet to them.  In any case, the Lady Winterblest, who had ruled her Night of Ice from since the planet was made, I suspect, had been most pleased with me for slaying an ice dragon, and had gifted me with some of these words.

Now, you may wonder why I needed such mojo, but it was that I intended to summon a dust giant.  In its way, the elemental giant is a creature almost as formidable as a djinn lord.  Now, my spell which involved other elements was overkill, I was quite sure, but one wanted to be safe.  Triple redundancy seemed about right to me.  Besides, I kid you not when I say some name me an archmage.  I have in one night summoned the vengeful dead, an Irish god, and a small set of the Host of Heaven.  So, I knew what I was doing.

I took Dalrieux the Doubter out to a clear spot in between the palm trees, and waved for the others to stay back until they retreated a good forty feet.

I then laid down my circle of protection against renegade elementals.  For good measure, I added a circle of purity which would keep out any baneful influences in case a demon dropped by, or so I hoped.

"Wake me when you’re ready." Dalrieux said, and laid down to sleep in the midst of my rather large circles.  I stared at him in disbelief.  Even now, I could feel the singing of power from the circles I had quickly sketched in the sand with my bare foot.

A box I drew holding me and Dalrieux as a symbol of the Earth.  And then in the midst, I wove with handfuls of sand a triple weave in a tight circle while I chanted in Latin.

I closed my eyes and breathed out, and opened them to my Second Sight.  The circles gleamed in my magesight, and the box glowed, and the weaved circle stood as solid as the rock at the base of the island which I think it was attached too.

"Pretty." I head, and looked up.  All my spectators who were supposed to be at a safe distance were standing looking on my work.  Of course, they could not see the magic, but I did note that Tenchi’s katana glowed as well.

I suspected his was an ancestral honor blade which often carried various forms of magic.  I closed my eyes, and forsook the second sight since it would only distract me.

Giving in, I waved them back but ten feet, and then I nudged Sleepy awake with a toe.  He scrambled up, and saw my workings.  And he laughed loud and long.

"This is great.  I mean I guess I believe you about being a verser, but magic.  I’d say you have to be kidding me, but evidently not."

He was greatly enjoying getting some of his own back from me.  I had schooled him, and now he sought to repay the favor.

I closed my eyes, and felt for the spirals of mana set.  There they were.  With eyes still closed, I bent over and began to scrawl in the dirt inside the weave each and every one of the Periodic Table of Elements from Hydrogen to Stenium at 305 which was the last of the stable transuranic elements I knew  to speak of.

It was hard.  I had to keep focused as the soft talk of the trio washed over me, and the breezes off the ocean promised cool dips if I would but put aside my designs for a boring stuffy creature of earth, and embrace air and water instead.  My circle did not keep them out since they were not attacking, and nor were they evil.  But they did distract.

I clamped down and pushed onward with each element getting harder than the last.  I felt my own strength winding into the spell, and I considered stopping there, but I was already up to Uranium.  Besides, I would have to gradually release the energy built up with yet another spell which would be a pain to get ready.

I pushed onward, and as I passed into the stable transuranic elements, I became aware of a beating pressure on me.  It was a wind that gusted and grew in strength, and slammed face first into me.  It was not a material thing, but quite real for all that.

Uncertain of the cause, I paused as long as I could to study it, but my mental searches for neaby beings of power, or ancient runes under the sand revealed nothing.  I tested the wind, and nodded to myself.

Then, with eyes still closed, I stood, and gave thanks with arms outstretched.  After that, I spoke the Word of Power.

Lightning rumbled in the heavens and as another time, the ground shook.  I heard people stumble.

"No." Dalrieux said forcefully.  And I felt a jolt in my soul.  Now, I knew what was the resistance.  Dalrieux did not believe in magic.  I opened my eyes, and saw his fear-struck ones gazing back at me.

"Magic." I said and laughed as the thunder boomed again.

"A tropical storm, you madman." He shot back, undisturbed.  I wondered if it was my place to force him, but then he had sorta stepped up to the plate, and asked for a fastball.  So I would give him one.

"Magic doesn’t exist.  There is no God.  No soul.  No spirits from the great beyond.  If you can’t measure it, it doesn’t exist.  And don’t tell me about love either.  Love is a merely biochemical expression which means nothing."  He took a breath to shout more, and I took the chance to mentally recite the first word on the first mana set.

Energy sparkled and fizzed through me, and raced into the symbols on the ground.  To me, it looked like light, and to the skeptic, it might have seemed a random ray of sunshine.  Except today was cloud-free.

Another mana set, and I felt sure the ground was jumping under the periodic table.  And I reached for another and felt hard, pure disbelief slam into me.  I fought it, I gouged it with my fingers, and I said another word which confined the power already released, and the new power.

The word dripped from my mind like pain.  I pushed again, and gasped as knives cut me through the middle.  The onrush of power was not finding steady channels to leave the body, so it sought some of its own.

"Most impressive acting.  I like the shake and rattle routine." He laughed at me, and I felt hard walls go up between me and the rest of the power.  I staggered forward, and considered stopping.  But the problem with my elegant design was that I needed each of the nine words in order to fully contain the power.  Only a few of them would not work.  And the power was surging and flariing inside me now.  With more power, it would be worse.

If I stopped now, I would have an uncontained flare of probably killing amounts of energy.

"Dance!" Stepanie yelled gleefully at the edge of my consciousness as she leaned against Roger’s shoulder.  She did not know what was going on either.  None of them had second sight or other mage sights.

I wobbled back and forth, and spat out another word.  The power roared in me, and I think the earth shifted under my feet.  Word after word poured out of me.

And Dalrieux shouted out denials.  And I bled inside from the effort of pushing on.  The power was barely in control, and I took the whole flaming mass of which rested in my center chakra point, and shoved it into the periodic table.

But, seeing something happening, and not sure what,  Dalrieux shrieked out a fatal denial.  And the power coiled down.  It struck the table and took the easier path to where my and Dalrieux’s footsteps had erased part of the weave.

Sick with horror, I looked and saw that Dalrieux’s laughter had erased the outer circcles and the box as well.  The unconfined weave which anchored in the bedrock thus took the power, and sucked it down, and began to take me as well.  My lifeforce spun out of my hands like a rapidly unspooling thread, and this anomaly down below ate it all.  Or at least all it could gets its hands on.

It did not have any box to confine it, and to make it wishful for an earth giant.  Instead it created a conduit.

I cut off the power, and suddenly there was a reaction.  The ground shook, and we all fell to our feet.  Dalrieux got to his feet again even as a crevasse separated me from him.  And then it shook again.  And Dalrieux flew forward, and his bare hand touched my weave.

Power flashed bright as day, and twice as scary.  It flung Dalreiux into the air even as the ground grew still and quiet.  And there he flew, and there he landed with his head smashing against a palm tree trunk.

For a second, he looked to be dying.  For that next second and the rest, he simply vanished. 

The ground grew steady, although with faint rumbles.

Stephanie murmured to Roger who asked me dangerously calm.

"What happened to him? What did you do?"

I fell to my knees, and begged in silence for forgiveness.  When it came, I looked up with tear-streaked cheeks.

"I–I.  He’s a verser.  You die, and poof, you’re in another universe."  Then I bowed my head.  "I was too arrogant.  Too eager to show him up.  I tried a new spell.  It failed….badly."

"How badly?" Beka asked.  I wiped more tears from my eyes, and pointed at the top of the volcano.  White smoke raced skyward from it.

"Thirty minutes or less from ka-boom." Tenchi said.  "Do we have any boats?"

I shook my head even as the ground rumbled.

"My spell was connected to the bedrock. I also didn’t count on the great fervor he has which made my spell much more difficult to handle.  When I messed it up, I messed up the bedrock."  I paused, and they all looked at me.  "I wish I had more time.  Know that the multiverse is stranger than you can imagine.  Know that good triumphs over evil.  Know that you are immortal.  Know that…."

And I could not say anymore because a black cloud was racing down the sides of the volcano.  The pyroclastic cloud would incinerate us very rapidly.  And so with the island bucking beneath my feet, I was left to whisper blessings on their heads.  And then the cloud hit us, and we were not there anymore for the cloud had thrust us into the Between.

I woke in my hotel room on the seventeenth floor with the plan to track down the rest of the versers, and see if I could figure out what was bothering me, niggling at my subconscious, this feeling of impending doom.

And tonight I was supposed to meet the three M.J.’s at the Old Spaghetti House. I wonder if they could sing tenor.

A quick shower, and I got dressed, and out to the elevator. I have only a couple changes of clothing, and it occurred to me that I might as well go clothes-shopping today if I was going to stay here a while.

Its generally best not to take too much stuff with you as you verse into a new world, because you are probably going to have to carry it. Unless there is enough magic to shrink it, or some other means of dealing with the problem.

I just tend to limit myself to a really large backpack which does have a few special pockets that I only open in certain worlds because those pockets are magical.

Downstairs, I found the lobby full, and the hotel restauraunt manned by overstressed waitresses. It seemed two different groups were in town. One, a convention for Amra, which was power meter readers, and the other, a trade show for quilters.

The first group was mostly guys, and the second mostly women, and they all wanted hotel space which was not to be had.

So I walked down the street, and found a McDonald’s tucked into a four-story tall building. A rather rude man pushed past me, and got in front of me as I reached for the front door.

When I huffed, he just gave me a venomous stare out of his dark eyes, and turned away. I shrugged. I like cities, but you run up against the whole cross-section of humanity in them and that includes those with a grudge against the morning or their fellow citizens.

Eating my sausage biscuit, and sipping my “Happsi” (it tasted rather like a mild version of Dr. Pepper) carbonated beverage, and the worldwide Happsi company was headquartered in Atlanta, I walked out, and searched about with my scriff sense for targets, for other versers.

Walking a five square block of streets to try to figure out the vector changes, and the likely distances, I found one on the far western side of town, and two across the river, and one close by, and more easterly.

I figured I’d hit the western one first, and come back here to get the others.

Hailing a taxi, I had some difficulty explaining what I was doing. From the weirdness of my directions which were “Go west, and I’ll give you more directions as we go.”, and from the language barriers. He demanded money down first since he thought I sounded nutty.

We drove past the protestors who were out again. And that set my driver off since he evidently was from the Kingdom of Persia, and he had been busted by the police a couple times when he was totally innocent, or so he said.

But I asked him a couple questions, and he refused to admit the simple thesis that deliberately killing civilians was evil.

“One had to understand the rage of the oppressed.” He said, and I looked at him narrowly from the back seat. It seemed he believed that the insults and tragedy suffered by his people made whatever the more extreme of them did acceptable.

I did not wonder anymore why the police had questioned him.

After an hour, we came to a very nice neighbourhood with tree dappled medians in the center of residential streets, and the power lines were properly buried underground, and yards were manicured acres, and houses started at five thousand square feet, and went up from there.

My driver told me this is why he had come to America so that he could get rich and have a house like this. He proudly told me he already owned a duplex that he rented and a laundry, and I just shook my head. People are weird. He hated America on one hand, and loved it on the other.

It took some circling, but I isolated my target. Stone walls, and an iron gate made it even more exclusive than the other houses.

I got out, paid off the driver, and asked him to stay a few minutes. He nodded happy with his hundred dollar bill.

Upon walking up to the gate, I realized several things. The owner was paranoid, or maybe security conscious. The wall looked easily climbed, but on closer inspection, it was made of slick stones, and I bet it had broken glass on the top of it, and I could see a tire buster that could pop up out of the sidewalk.

And the guard, dressed in black, and wearing a vest, and a HK submachine gun under his jacket looked fearsomely competent, and polite to a point.

I paused realizing I would need to change my approach strategy. No knocking on the door, and saying “Hi there.”

“Please tell the master of the house that Tadeusz, also called Ghost and Stormlord, would like to talk to him.”

He all but chuckled at me.

“Mr. Ghost, the owner is busy. You’ll have to make an appointment.”

I shifted my stance from the other side of the iron gate, and gave him a look, and suddenly his sense of humor at me being a figure of fun faded, and he gave me a hard look measuring my combat potential.

“Please give that message, and this coin to the owner. My gift for bothering him.” And I fished out a solidus of gold. He examined the coin, and saw the foreign writing, and the engraving of Conan looking stern (which Conan was very good at), and weighed it in his hand.

He nodded, and summoned another guard.

A few minutes later, and I was welcomed in with apologies. Indeed, they even refused to search my small travelling backpack that I had taken with me this morning.

The winding and narrow driveway between the trees passed over a steep-sided stream, and a metal bridge that did not look to fit the idyllic setting. And then I put things in place.

The bridge could collapse, and that would leave a steep ravine about five feet deep that stretched across the property. A beautiful, and functional tank trap.

Whoever this verser was, he took his security very seriously. But evidently he knew me.

We walked counter-clockwise around the house, and looped past the olympic sized swimming pool out back, and onto a three thousand square foot patio which had a gym mat under an awning, and I saw the two Shawns duking it out with kenjutsu staffs.

They had full armour on, and they needed it as hard as they were hitting. When I got closer, they both stopped, bowed, and the better one of the two walked up to me, and shook my hand.

Lemonade was brought since it was a hot day, and we sat down on some wickerwork chairs under an umbrella.

I told him I was surprised at his set-up, and I studied him a bit to see if he was going clinical on me. Paranoia can get to you after all.

Shawn and I, among versers, at least those that are in normal contact with reality, have an unwanted competition. Whose the most ruthless verser in the land?

Both of us had sadly more than enough familiarity with causing megadeaths, and both of us were good with a sword, although with a gun or knife he beat me, and I usually beat him with magic.

But while I judge the wicked, and try to give them a chance to choose right, he tends to just deal with them, in a permanent fashion, straightaway.

“Its simple, I was getting tired of bouncing from world to world with nothing to show for it, so I began collecting small valuables as rewards for my work, and learning some magic to help me find things.

And then I arrive here, and I find…” His dop came up, after changing into some swimming trunks.

“That my alternate has started a business. Kidnap-retrieval. Bad guys kidnap, we kidnap back.”

The alternate spoke.

“It was going well, but I was running into cash flow problems, and I was starting to make some serious enemies. Then Beta here, by the way, I’m Prime because this is my world, anyways, Beta here shows up with a bag full of diamonds, and the training of the ninja, and we put it together. My contacts, and my business, and his money, and frankly his greater skill, and I’m proud to say that we have the world’s best KRT firm. And for charity, we have a contract with the city even though they cannot really afford us.”

“And the defenses are because you have enemies.” I said.

“Lots of them.” The alternate said, and then excused himself to go swim fifty laps in the pool.

We talked more, and I showed him Conan’s sword style, after he sent an “associate” to the hotel room to get my fifteen pound longsword. At first he found it ridiculous, but after I explained to him the special rules of that world where thrusting damage was inconsequential, and holding steel kept the swordsman from being tired, he got interested.

It was close to nightfall, and I realized the dinner was upcoming, and I would have to wait on the other versers for the next day.

We agreed to talk soon, and he sent me back with a limosine that could survive an RPG round.

Showered again, and dressed for dinner.

Met the three M.J.’s, and we talked in the light of glittering brass panels, and walked up to the buffet past a railroad caboose inside the restauraunt. It was gaudy and wonderful.

The biggest item of conversation was that the mayor was being forced to give up racial profiling, fire his police chief, and attend a seminar on “sensitivity”. That last bit reminded me of some old English king having to walk barefoot through the snow, and then wait outside the bishop’s house for the bishop to deign to see him, and to un-excommunicate him.

I talked about my worries, and all three of them shared them. I got their phone numbers, and left.

First thing, next morning, I tracked down a cel phone company, and got one. Then I went out clothes shopping. Due to the press of conventioneers, it took nearly an hour to get checked out of the Target store, and then lunch at Deke’s.

I wanted to continue searching, but I felt tired, and so I gave myself the night off, and watched football.

This was the day I had agreed to spend with Shawn. So I visited him, and trained at his gym. David came by, and we got some of the guards to join us, and we first had a kumite with the proviso that the opponent got to choose your combat style, if you knew it.

So they made me fight a guard, Drunken Monkey style, which I’m not very good at, and I got trounced.

David got the overall championship which was rewarded by being shoved into the pool, and then that night we went paintballing.

I felt like we were wasting time that I should be spending on finding out what was going on, but Cynthia corrected me.

“This is pack-bonding time. You are learning to know each other’s moves, to trust each other.”

What can I say, the wolf-girl was right. And that game ended in a tie.

We had finished, all but them in a “all against all” game, and we were watching from the road where Shawn had placed himself at the edge of a steep hill covered with shale, and brambles. This guarded his back, and we thought he was somewhere along a seventy foot stretch at the rim of the hill. Even with infrared gear which had been banned in the game, we could not be sure.

Then suddenly Cynthia is charging up the hill through brambles and across shale at speeds an Olympic sprinter might manage on an open track. Shawn’s double-faked us, and he is facing toward the hill rim, but as he rises, she fires wildly driving him back down with her left gun.

As near were as she is right now, its hard for her to pull a trigger with her claw-like hands, and then Shawn is back up with a string of three shots dead on target, and we think its all over, but she flings her empty gun into the path of the paintballs, and the perfection of his shooting works against him since the shots are nicely lined up for her to knock down with one thrown gun.

This is superhuman speed, and you don’t absorb what happened until you replay it in your mind.

He is reloading, and she opens up at close range, and one, two misses, and three is upcoming, and he reloads, and his and her shots splash in the centermass at the same time.

She streaks past Shawn, and begins to beat her gun on the ground trying to break it, so upset she is.

“I thought I had him this time.”

And David has to go over and get his rather volatile wife to calm down.

I went over to the hill, and examined it. There was no path through the brambles where she ran, and that was only partially werewolfed that she had done that attack. This world did not let her become her full, eight foot tall, car-flipping, strike faster than the eye could see engine of destruction.

The next morning, and I wished I had not gone out there. The three scriff sources, I still wanted to track down had moved drastically. They had all left the city, and I hoped they were coming back soon. Otherwise, this mission was going to be a cross-country air travel extravaganza.

I spent the morning running over to a hill that overlooked the city, and then praying over the city. As I prayed, a certainty overcame me. The doom I feared was already here. It grew like a poisenous plant seeking the sun, and then to spread wildly. But as I sought answers, I felt an opposition, from far out of the East, a power raised against me that blinded my eyes so that I could not discern the threat.

But even this told me something. For I felt sure that others prayed to their gods against me, and that meant a human plot, and not a natural disaster had come to Louisville.

And then like a hand of gold reaching out of the fog that obscured my intuition, a prompting came to me. And I began to run. Down the hill with its suburban streets, and into the city, I went. My path was long, and arduous even for me, and I felt pressure on me that hindered my steps, and mischance dogged my feet such that I nearly fell in front of a bus going down the street.

The track took me to the airport, and then to a hotel, and then past, I blush to say, but a strip club, and a Waffle House, and then it stopped, or so it seemed, but I waited. And then I ran further on to a convention center where the Amra people were clearing up, and then to the quilt show which was in its last day, and by a McDonald’s I had ate at, and to the bus stop, and to a police station, and city hall, and the stadium, and then back to the airport.

Exhausted, I got a taxi home, and fell asleep on the way. Upon being awoken, I paid up, and went inside, and slept like the dead for that night, the day, and the next night.

Upon getting up, I went down to the hotel lobby, and saw a couple late-leaving quilters who were both flying home, and both of them were afflicted with red noses, and runny eyes. The flu was going around it seemed.

I checked for scriff, and (yahoo!), they were all back.

First, I tracked down Lara, and found her at the hospital cafeteria eating with her alternate. There were posted signs warning people of the flu, and requiring frequent hand-washing.

I told her of my magic run, and asked her to look into it. A handful of solidus secured her help for two days; I was right, she worked as a private detective for her own firm she had just established three weeks ago when she arrived.

“Lara Looks, Inc.” was the business, and the insignia had a girl peering under a bed for the monster under the bed. Too cute for words.

Her nurse alternate thought it was funny, and laughed at my lemon-sucking expression.

A walk back toward the east, and I arrived in the Jefferson street area where I had been propositioned. A bit trepidatious, I approached one nice Victorian, and rang the doorbell.

A man in a dog collar opened the door, and thankfully, he was not the verser. But he did not want to introduce me to his housemate because of jealousy.

“Show some respect, don’t come to my door, of my house, to try to pick up my man.” He hissed at me, and prepared to slam the door.

I goggled at him, and then raised my left hand with its wedding ring to assure him that I was profoundly hetero, which he sneered at saying that many liked it both ways, and so on he went.

“I’m a member of the same ’social club’ as your friend.” I tried to say, but he did not listen.

I growled at him. Maybe I shouldn’t have, but he was really getting on my nerves. He paled, and then went to get the other guy who I really, really hoped was verser.

He was, and he came stomping up to the door to yell at me for upsetting his boyfriend. That had definitely been a mistake. I apologized thrice, and endured having a finger shoved into my chest, before I finally had enough.

“Enough.” And I knocked his arm aside with a snapblock. He paused, and then nodded. Both of us were tall, and muscled, and I had just told him in deeds that another finger in my chest was going to mean a fight.

He listened as I told him of my worries, and introduced myself.

“Do you know this guy?” The boyfriend asked suspiciously from the stairs which I had been chased down.

“Yeah, well sort-of. We are members of the same ’social club’.” The other verser, Jack Robley, replied. “But don’t worry, he’s not a friend. I’ve heard of him, a fascist jerk.”

I nodded.

“So he doesn’t know?” I asked quietly, and Robley shook his head.

“Immuno-compromised, and soon to die due to the fascist policies of this government, and I tell him, that I’m immortal? No way.” A dark shadow hooded his eyes, and I nodded in respectful sympathy.

“If you need anything, here’s my phone number.” I handed him a piece of paper, and walked away sadly.

It looked like the flu had spread to this area as well, I thought as I saw several sufferers on Jefferson Street.

Now, I got a taxi to take me across the river to Kaintuck. We went over a large bridge over the Ohio River, and down on the other side.

It was a rougher neighbourhood, but not bad, not really, with plenty of typical commercial establishments even though I only recognized a few names. Target, a department store, and Seven-Eleven convenience stores (which had vanished from my homeworld, I think), but the rest, Gogh’s Bakery, Lott’s (a grocery), Flickerflash Photomart, Irish Eyes gasoline were new to me.

And then I came to an industrial park. After weaving through it a bit, I found Optical Memories, Inc., a large campus with about a dozen buildings that was in the process of being renovated. Construction equipment was being used to dig new trenches connecting buildings to lay down cables, and I almost stopped when I saw MP’s guarding the gate, but I got the taxi to let me out when I saw Kelly walking up to the front door.

I hollered at her, and was surprised to hear in my mind, a whisper.

*Tadeusz?* She must be skilled indeed to do telepathy in this world, I thought. She walked over, a bit oddly, and the MP who had displayed annoyance at me straightened up, and saluted.

“Let him in.” And so it was done, and I got a security badge on her word since she was chief of security at the installation.

We walked into her office, and after sending out the secretary for coffee, I asked her what was going on?

Why was she working for the military?

She laughed, and assured me that none knew of versers.

“Its a bit of a long story. I arrived here, a couple months after Shawn did, but I did not meet him then, and I searched out my doppleganger for fun, and I found she had gotten in trouble. She had decided to teach in a problem school, and then came across some drug dealing, and corruption that went up to high levels, and she was in way over her head.”

She turned suddenly cold eyes toward me.

“I discussed things with the principals. And that went all to pieces, since the rot went way higher than I thought. I ended up running from the FBI and the CIA for a couple weeks until we collected the info to bring down a U.S. Senator, and clear my name. Well, at that point, I got a number of offers, ones I was not totally sure it was wise to refuse, and so I joined up with No Such Agency.”

The premier codebreakers of the world; I nodded in understanding.

“There I taught myself codebreaking, and learned interrogation of suspects. And best of all, when a young scientist came to the government looking to get a grant to construct miniaturized laser communication ‘walkie-talkies’, I was able to get him the grant, and introduce him to a young English teacher.”

“You matchmaked this world’s Matt and your dop from this world?” I guessed with a smile. And she grinned back.

“Best of all, when Matt versed in here, he tracked down his alter ego, and thus found me. Now, I’ve got the both of them working in this new facility. My Matt is here working on a disease diagnoses laser system that could revolutionize the time to begin treatment. It would almost be as good as one of those tricorders off Star Trek. And the local Matt is finishing up on his ‘walkie-talkie’, and the two of them are ginning up something they like to call a ‘Gut Instinct’, a Grand Unified Field Theory of the Universe.”

“And you?”

“I run the shop here, and do the security as well to keep my hand in. Its a pain going before the Select Intelligence Subcommitte of Congress, and explaining what I’m doing here, and why they should keep funding us, and then riding herd on the Matts to make sure they don’t get too excited by some odd new thought. I’m an Assistant Undersecretary for Photonics Research.”

I blinked, and thought. President, V.P., Attorney general, NSA chief, Undersecretary of Reseach and Development, and my host.

“So if say the top hundred or so people get struck by lightning, then you would be Madame President, leader of the free world?”

She grimaced.

“Something like that. Lets go see the Matts.”

We got up, and she took me down into the basement where a laser fusion device was being tested.

I was impressed until I heard a voice from behind me.

“It old stuff. I’ve got something much cooler.” I turned and saw a young guy with old eyes who was wrapped around himself, or his legs were over his head and touching his lower spine.

He uncurled himself.

“Yoga exercises help me think.”

And then he took me on a tour of his facility. We passed the other Matt, and the two started jabbering in what sounded like their own language, and so the verser set off on a run to another project.

Unlike talking to Graeme, there was no following the idea stream. It was disjointed, rapid, and yet somehow I felt a unifying theme.

And then I looked closer at him for he felt different than the old, calmer Matt I remembered.

And he grinned widely.

“I heard what you did to yourself at Starsong, and I wondered if I could do as much. Turned out I could not as yet, but thats for the good since it turns out your model had serious flaws in it.”

He paused.

“I have a partially functional optical and quantum, if the bias supports it, which this world’s doesn’t, computer attached to my brain. It gives me flashes of superhuman intelligence” And then he grinned.

“Thats one of the things the other Matt and the lady in charge do is to keep me grounded. Sometimes this hookup is like riding a tornado, and I’m afraid its turned me into a bit of the stereotypical eccentric scientist. I get lost in a thought, and walk into doors.”

I shivered a bit from desire and fear and worry. The desire was for having that godlike understanding back, and the fear was of having it back for with it went an understanding of one’s own self that was not all that pleasant, and the worry was for my friend.

He smiled at me, and suddenly it was like the fellow I had traipsed through the playground with. His slightly manic manner calmed, and the preternatural sharpness in his eyes dimmed.

“Don’t worry, Tad. I’ve lived with it for fifty years now. I just have to make sure I spend at least twelve hours a day off it, or I start hallucinating and seeing the answers to the Universe in the fall of leaves.”

And then I looked deeper with all my psionic skill which barely touched his mind, this world was so difficult, and I found something. Wholeness, sanity on a level that went far deeper than most people ever have a chance of attaining despite years or decades of meditation.

“I understand myself far better than before, and so I’ve learned, at least somewhat to not lie to myself quite as much as most people do. Its the gift or curse of the computer chip in my head.”

And then the other Matt came up, and led us off to see the diagnostic device. We shined a laser beam on some Happsi, a stick of peppermint gum, and on a gold solidus, all of which I concealed in my hand, or behind my back, and they shined the laser beam through my hand, but through my chest with its abundance of cyberware confused the poor program.

“But there are only three cyborgs on the planet.” Kelly said laughing “So its not much of a problem.”

I wondered about that ‘three’, and Matt filled me in as we walked back to the front door.

“Bout three worlds ago, me and Kelly landed in a cyberpunk universe. She decided to become a street samurai, hyper reflexes, triple normal strength, IR vision, a few guns hidden here or there.”

I popped my titanium half-inch nails out, and Kelly popped her six inch long claws out, and we all laughed almost hysterically.

Matt walked me to an official car which they were going to loan me, and before I got in the undistinguished Chevy, he gave me a serious look.

“There’s something bothering you, and I think its the same thing that’s got me spending so much time in hyper-link.”

“Yeah, I feel like doom is coming.”

“Doom.” He paused. “That’s a good word for it. I can feel my mind chewing at it. You’ve just given me another piece of the puzzle. Talk to me later.” And he wandered off to stroll under the night sky and think thoughts too complicated for mere humanity to follow.

I drove home to the hotel.

The next day, I got Lara’s report. She said there had been a high incidence of flu, and she gave me a list of the hardest hit companies. A stewardess on a flight from Kazahkistan, a taxi driver usually gone to the airport, a clerk at my McDonald’s, and more.

It looked like someone flew in. Spread the flu, and left. Unfortunately, they hit a lot of places where people congregated, and where people would then take the flu back home with them. Those conventioneers would spread the flu over the whole of North America.

So it looked like I had a lead on Case Zero of a flu epidemic which while important in a scientific sense was not earthshaking.

I thanked Lara who had used her nurse dop’s connections at the local hospitals to find this data, and went off to think and pray some more.

I checked in with the local MJ, and it was official. A really bad flu epidemic had hit the town. I filled him in on my data, and he called in the Alchemist who had one pointed question.

“Why would someone with a bad flu travel, visit for a day, hit two totally dissimiar conventions, and leave?”

Put that way, it was doggone suspicious.

I called up Kelly and asked for new data. She had none other than China was getting miffed with America again about our supporting Taiwan, and they had kicked our ambassador out. Closed the doors of the Middle Kingdom, and hissed at us.

She was not worried. It was a typical melodramatic play for attention that would blow over. We would offer them some leniency on a trade talk, and they would be our ‘good friends’ again.

David had nothing, but Cynthia took the phone away from him, and told me…

“The Earth, she groans in fear.” Which was nicely spooky, but did not enlighten me.

David and I went to the Visitor, and asked him for help. Magic help. He took some time off from the concert he was prepping for, and in the back stage area we worked up a magic spell.

We prepared the area, sanctifying it, and warding it. Our magics were many, and potent, of a number of different schools although we found unity in miracles, and the Visitor led us with his bardic singing to see the man who had come to the town.

Despite pressure against us, we pierced the veil of time, and I saw the man who had been rude to me in the McDonalds. We followed him as he got off the plane and wandered the city in the path I had run.

Despite his sickness, he pressed on, and did nothing but travel, and he made no real effort to cover his face when he coughed.

We followed him back to the plane the next day, and he got on. And there the trail stopped once his plane flew off for we were now in the realm of our enemies greater power. Dragons or djinn, I am not sure assailed us in the mystic vision, and broke our seeing.

Panting, we collapsed back to our normal senses, and the Visitor tipped over his bowl of water to break any connection.

Obviously, this man was up to something. But what? I wanted to talk to him, and now.

So I placed a phone call to Shawn, and got him on the job. Now he would be the kidnapper.

“Consider it done. Fourty-eight hours, and he should be in your hands.” Shawn said with that determination that scared his opponents after he heard my story.

And then greatly fearing I went back to my hotel room, and slept with many nightmares plaguing me.

A soft tapping, and I thought I heard the hoofbeats of the Four Horsemen, especially one, and then I awoke with my shirt stained with sweat, and heard a tapping at my door.

Grabbing my gun, (yes, I was feeling paranoid), I went to the door, and opened it.

Jack Robley stood there with fear trembling his arms.

“Come quickly, I need your help.”

And he strode away.

“What?” I asked as I grabbed the rest of my clothes, and threw them on, and then chased him down the hall.

“I need help, and my love is afraid of the hospital. And I figured you’re an experienced verser, you would know some medicine.”

“Right.” Unfortunately, while I knew some, first aid, amputations, and some herbalism, and a few other tricks, I was not even a nurse, let alone a doctor.

“Let me get a friend.”

We took his car since it was far faster than mine, a Porsche, and I called Lara who got me in contact with her dop.

We picked them both up, and went to Jefferson Street at a tire-squealing speed.

Inside, the old Victorian, I saw the boyfriend. He looked dreadful. A rash covered his face, and terribly strong flu bedeviled him, and he was barely conscious.

The nurse demanded we take him to the emergency at once. It seemed this flu was possibly measles, they had determined at the hospital, and this man was a really severe case.

When she was told he was immuno-compromised, her face became pale. And she told Robley that he should prepare for the worst.

That decided Robley who felt his companion would prefer to die at home. But, I felt something creeping up my shadow. I called Matt up and asked him to ‘put his thinking cap on’.

Then I described the symptoms, in Latin, in case anyone was listening. He and I had spent some time I remembered in Second Century Rome.

“Ave et Morituri.” Which is “We who are about to die salute you.” or therabouts. It was what the gladiators said to the Emperor.

“What?!?” I said in English.

“I don’t know, it just seemed appropos of the moment. Whatever, that is not measles. We’ve obviously been attacked by a bioweapon, and no one is going to use measles as a bioweapon. I’ll talk to you later, I have to wake Kelly so she can talk to Washington. Also, tell Graeme to cast off from shore, now.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, its just a good idea.”

And then he hung up. I called Graeme, and relayed the suggestion with all the necessity I could, and he understood.

“I’m clear of the main infection areas. If the city gets cut off, I’ll be a form of transport on the outside. Could probably bring in supplies and float them in without actually docking.”

“But the Coast Guard would stop you from that last trick.”

Graeme chuckled.

“Not this boat. They would all fall asleep at the same time for five minutes as I sailed by, or something else would happen.”

I had forgotten his magic sail.

I briefed him, and then he hung up to retrieve his dop and to make sail.

Then I got Robley to take a picture of the ill man, and I wondered what to do with it, but it had seemed the thing to do. Maybe I could take it to Matt, and he could do an instant diagnoses, but then, I remembered his machine.

And I was sprinting out the door after snagging the keys and I raced across town and over the bridge.

The MP had the machine waiting for me at the front gate, and I took it, and went back as fast as I had come. I left two cops wailing futile sirens behind me as I almost flew over the bridge doing a hundred and forty.

Once there, I walked into the room where the sick man lay among brocaded ottomans and pictures of happier days. Several of the pictures were Robley’s and they showed universes other than home; I bet his party guests thought they were Photoshopped.

The crowd parted, and I ran the scanner over his body from scalp to heel. And then I pressed the button to reveal the hidden horror.

*Smallpox, variety unknown. 67% similiarity to Major strain, 52% similarity to Minor strain, 11% similarity to Hemmorhaghic strain, 4% similarity to Flat strain.*

The scanner slipped softly onto the heavily carpeted floor with its overlay of Persian rugs, and I fell back to the same floor.

Dear God, let this be wrong, I prayed as tears leaked from my eyes. Meanwhile, words ran through my mind. Smallpox, virgin field epidemic, the Red Death, fatality rates were at least thirty percent, I thought from vague memory. I remembered what had happened to the Native American tribes when smallpox came to them. They had no resistance, and it slaughtered them wholesale. We might be in almost as bad a state as them.

Lara grabbed the scanner, and read it to her nurse doppleganger.

“Oh, no, oh, no.” They both wept in unison. And Robley leaned over the body of his love, and began to cry without hope.

Tadeusz