The nightmares that go with every verser transition to another universe fade, but never quick enough for me.



As I wake, the murmur of vehicles and machines surrounds me like a warm bath. And the taste of the foulest beer I have ever tasted passes my lips.



Now, I am no connoiseur on beer being practically a teetotaler, but I would sooner drink the liquid in the bottom of a garbage can than that dreck again. Naturally, I spewed it to the acompaniment of complaints and the ensuing hacking coughs of my benefactor.



The alley contained dozens of garbage bags in decrepit condition, and a wreck of a man. His body-shaking coughs kept my view in the dim light of a city night down to a clean-shaven head, bald as a rock, with visible bruises and bad teeth. His clothing was of uncertain color under the grime, and I think his shirt was a burlap bag modified for its current use.



He stopped coughing, and I inquired if he was okay and where I was.



“Sure, sure I’m fine. Just a little TB-7, not very contagious. Most evenings I can get up to manage the dumpster diving.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“It takes skill to do it. You gotta know how to disable the incinerators in the dumpsters, but not permanent like, or they’ll set out poisen for you. Even still sometimes the corpers put delay tricks in the ‘ciners which ain’t very nice. Louie Cool Jel got toasted last week by those meanuns at Varitech.” He stopped for more coughing, and a couple swigs of that ghastly stuff he drank.

“Where are we?” I said as I prayed for healing, and then bent my mind to healing him by strengthening his life force, and then by killing the things that were ‘not him’; and then I pulled out an amulet of bones I got from I know not where. I shook it to drive off the evil spirits. Nothing helped, but at least he did not blink an eye at my strange behavior. I suspect he was very tolerant of eccentric behavior.

“North end of Appa, the Appalachian Line, NorthAm, you know Earth.” He added bits of data impatiently in response to my look of non-comprehension.



It turned out that a single city ran from Montreal to Miami and Nashville to Savannah. It was a Line. And there were many other lines on the planet.

Off-planet was not so crowded.

“Must be beautiful to see empty space without any people cluttering it up. But it makes them crazy, the Angels it does.”

I nodded, and thought.

“So there isn’t any medicine for this TB-7?” I asked as I figured out how to approach someone with some capital aobut setting up a lab to invent a cure. We would all do well by it. The patient, the venture capitalist, and me.

“Sure, but I do not have the 5k creds to pay for it.” That spoiled my plan.

I asked him where I could get the meds, and he volunteered to take me there.



We walked, I strode and he staggered, down a road, then an alley, followed by a curving staircase where he payed a tribute to be let pass, and then across a rickety passenger bridge high over a major business street thronging with cars and people who looked hip and wealthy.

“The meat market. They hope some corper comes along and wants a toy.” The man said contemptuously.



In the midst of the next squatter run and trash-strewn building I passed a yellow line painted on the floor and the walls.

“You are entering a Governed Zone. You are not citizens. Remember, be polite to citizens.” A concealed speaker said in very kind tones, but the message was chilling.



Things looked decidedly nicer on this side of the line. Someone made an effort to keep things up. My compatriot relaxed his hold on a cane he held as a weapon.



A dozen more yards brought us to the front door of a small shopfront decorated with holograms of cadueces and blood drops. We walked in.



The counter screen was not help as it dispensed only the most basic medicines. And I did not have any creds.

A well-dressed in a wimpy sort of way guy came out to see us, but he never got closer than ten feet.

I explained the need, and he explained the policy of Health and Happiness Megacorp of which this shop was a fully protected subsidiary immune to prosecution under national or state laws. He rattled it off just like that.

“WE do not do charity.”

I somewhat agreed with that. Charity can be debilitating to the recipient.

“I’m sure he would be willing to work to pay for his drugs. Perhaps you have something you need done.”

He snorted. I shrugged, and pulled out my pirate treasure. I showed him a little bit. Gold pieces-of-eight, a strand of pearls several feet long, a silver brooch with emeralds lined up like a sword was what he saw.

“Obviously acquired. No proof of ownership I assume. Since it is hot; probably hotter than the Sun I can give you only a percent of its value. Five hundred creds.”

The bland viciousness in his face accompanied by the astonished choking of my new friend told me all I needed to know.

“No.”

“Take it or leave it.” He said carelessly. Something was wrong here, I decided, and turned toward the door.

“No, I mean leave the coins. You have infiltrated this shop with a viral carrier. This is against clearly stated store policy. It will require a great deal to clean this shop up again.”

He pointed to the window, and a section glowed around some words painted on the window.

“No carriers or infected may enter. Clean zone.” I read the reverse words. Thing is I was pretty sure those words had not been there when we walked in. Even if they had been; what sense did it make to have a clinic where the sick were not allowed to enter?

I just looked at him, and he avoided my glance.

“He could have had someone else come in for him.”

“And if a sick person had no one then what?”

“Just leave the money on the counter and get out.” His suppressed shout and the way he hardly could look at me let me know that he knew he was wrong. But greed was riding him, and he thought he had a fig leaf of respectability.

Robotic autocannons popped out of the wall, and bracketed both of us. Even if I had left my Lekostian cyberware on after the last trick it played on me, I do not think I could have saved both of us.

“Leave the money, Angel-lover.”



His victorious sneers followed me out of the shop as I pumped my hands, ground my teeth, and fought back tears. A half-dozen bored and menacing armoured police waited outside to make sure we were escorted out of the Governed Zone.



The voice at the zone edge informed us that we were both persona non grata for one month. Trying to enter would be fatal. Have a nice day.



My friend was upset with me. The best dumpster diving was in the Governed Zones.



“You called me an angel; that twerp called me an angel-lover. What’s an angel?”

“They live in orbit, and they are like totally nice and sweet.” He went on for a while in a mix of paranoiad fantasies about how the angels experimented on the Mudfeet, and dreams of their utopia. He held a peculiar mixture of love and hatred for them.

One clue that stood out for me was that he held only a mixture of tolerance and hatred for the corpers. I was curious to meet an angel, but still worried because often utopias turn out to be the most hellish places possible.

“Let’s go meet an angel.”

“We can’t. The bottom of Jacob’s Ladder is in the punks zone. I live in the Quiet Zone where nothing much is worth anything. The punks’ll kill you as soon as look at you. It’s too noisy for me.”

“Sounds good, I am in a mood to make some noise.”



So saying, I slipped out my plasma cannon, and my needler, an uzi and strapped them on. A pair of bagh nakhs, tiger claws, followed with the curare poisen injectors operational. I was immune to that poisen due to an operation that inserted a gland in my chest.

Then with misgivings, I switched the Lekostian cyberware back on by thinking the correct code at the proper spot in my head.

It came on smoothly, and suddenly I was stronger, faster, and the equivalent of a master of martial arts.



My friend tagged along behind coughing as he went. I gave him some of my cough drops.



The street gave way from trash to an occasional sleek car amidst wrecks. Bully boys began appearing in alleyways. Girls in leather mini-skirts kept their hands near their purses as they walked out to party the night away.



A jittery energy touched the scene, and I suspected that most of the heavily armed individuals were doped up on something or other. The thought of facing someone armed with an incendiary shell automatic shotgun high on the late 21st century’s equivalent of LSD made me fearful. But no one bothered us with more than a glance.



We went down another long road, and clubs appeared with beautiful people waiting for the party to start. An occasional corper surrounded by hulking bodyguards would show up to do whatever they did. We got offered all sorts of things by the people in the lines.



My face was like stone, and I cautiously, but courteously studied everyone that came by for a hint of a threat. And my finger was on the trigger of the cannon. Nobody threatened us.



Suspicions were confirmed when we came to the base of a black cable that stretched up into the low-hanging clouds. It was a skyhook. A skyhook is an elevator cable stretching from Earth to geosynchronous orbit. The cable is longer than twenty-three thousand miles.



The street seemed peacable and calm.



“Sir, would you please put up your weapon.” A robot rolled up to me and asked the question. I looked around.

“You will not be molested, sir. You have the guarantee of the L5 Collective on that.” The slightly fruity tones of its voice held assurance and respect based on my humanity, or so I interpreted it.



Putting up my cannon, I considered the word ‘collective’. Inherently not bad, but so often a danger signal.



“My friend here is sick with TB-7. We have little money.”

“That is a problem; readily solved in orbit.” The robot said from its waist height level. It rolled back a little bit on its treads.

I tried to fish for more data about this collective, but the robot refused saying I could not understand until I actually saw it.



I consented after consulting my friend, but I resolved not to go into a concentration camp without a fight.



We rode up the cable in an elevator box. My friend was confined in a ‘breathing bag’ of clear plastic which supposedly kept him from infecting the others. The crowd was half mudfeet and half starborn.



The starborn seemed similar in many respects. They were all healthy, and secretive, but bubbling over with enthusiasm for the Collective.

I might have joined a cult which was often not that different from joining some sort of radical political movement. Still they assured us we could leave at any time.



Hours past, and I slept. Even a very fast elevator takes a long time to go twenty-three thousand miles. It got up to a top speed of five thousand miles per hour.



We arrived, and disembarked into a huge conical garden space. The roof was green and blue and over a half-mile away. I think it might have been the biggest enclosed volume I have ever stood, er, floated in.



The docking had been at the central axis where gravity was microgravity, or zero g.



The Lagrange Five O’Neill Space Station was beautiful, spacious, and like a taste of Heaven, or at least a taste of an ice cream sundae after being forced to eat liver. The people were taller from better nutrition and from the lower gravity. Flocks of birds flew past, and I recognized the passenger pigeon.



Our guide had come up and waited on us newbies who were frankly gawking. I had seen more marvelous things than this, and so I recovered first.



“Very nice. I had thought to find a cult or a totalitarian dictatorship.” I blurted out the first thing that came into my mind to the attractive female guide.

She smiled and approached.

“Well read and with a deep understanding of history. We should be able to offer you any number of jobs or even a chance to start your own with those skills in use.”

I noted that there was no mention of finding me a job; only offering me opportunities to make use of. This subtle emphases calmed me.



“Why, why?” Someone said, and then started to cry.

“Why can’t we bring this glory to the suffering people of Earth?” The guide said.

“There are a number of reasons. Most of your fellows do not want a change enough to really change their lives. They want to be the same, only better. When you got on the skyhook; you showed courage, great courage considering the rumors the megacorps spread about us. You chose to be different.



And the megacorps do not want us to interfere. And as strong as we are, they are terribly strong as well. If we freed the people of Earth it would require bloody war. And despite our wealth we are only a few hundreds of thousands against the billions the megacorps could persuade to fight us.”



Someone started cursing the corp, and the rest except for me joined in. The guide noticed.

“You are different.”

“I think he is a creation of a genelab. He just appeared out of nowhere. I think they FreezeBrained(r) me, and tossed him away.” My friend proposed his theory for how I had come into the world. I merely smiled.

“Not quite, but I am a friend.”

“We know.” She said with a peculiar calm authority. “We do not pry, but we can see that.”



Puzzled, I looked around. Perhaps, a hidden biosensor detecting moods?



“There is another reason we cannot do this there as we can here. We are a Collective. Or should I say We/I is a Collective, but not to fear the I is the dominant part of the Collective.” The guide non-explained. Looks of fear showed on people’s faces as the expected shoe began to drop.



*I think it is better explained this way* We heard her whimsical voice in our heads. *On Earth, there seems too much ’static’ is our best theory. The Powers of the Mind that connect all of us do not work down there.*



Fear and joy bloomed as other voices in the hundreds welcomed us into the Collective. The fearful were assured of their privacy and of their own autonomy. It was only that one always had a friend ready to offer aid unless it was explicitly not wanted. And the brilliant visionary with the lack of precision in his speech had the help of a noted speaker in explaining himself.



I could see it making the computer revolution a poor second-best in the advancement of technology. These people could create their own dreamworld, and in concert design almost anything not limited by the inadequacies of speech.



I spotted something.

*Yes, we are building a starship. How did you catch on to that so quickly?* The guide asked, and suddenly around me were a dozen bright, shining, clever, courteous, and cautious minds.

*If you wish to go back; we would have to supress the memory.*

“No, that would be wrong” Our guide said out loud, and suddenly I realized that she was not some lowly one, but one of the key moving spirits of this place. The others assented even though they risked greatly with the corps finding out about the starship. The corp would not want them developing independently.

*So, can you do telekinesis?* I asked.

*Only a little* An image of penny experiments was suddenly there in my mind like I was actually present at the experiment.

*That’s all that is needed* I thought as I drifted off the ground and flew down into the “gravity field” which got as high as .8 g.



A general silence fell in the mental hum of the warm ocean as they first waited for me to go splat, and then even more profound when I rose back up to the docking point.

*Here’s how you build a telekinetically administered stardrive. It requires very precise controls of dozens of variables, but luckily you can do that with the ‘penny pushing’ force you can exert.* And I showed them in my mind a design used by the non-physical Varinaxz species I met in the Confederation of Species. (Their favorite question had been. “What are you?” They asked it in incredulous tones that seemed to imply that I was some sort of raging impossibility to their science. Us physical based lifeforms get no respect in some corners of the multiverse.)



A delicate pause, and then a very bright mind said.

*That does require a motive force, telekinetic, able to push with megatonnage power.*

I laughed, and the world laughed with me as they saw my point.



So that is how I got a job as Main Drive for an interstellar starship. I trained others up to my level. And we ended up colonizing and terraforming a planet in a star system far away.



On it, the psi did not work, and the technology did not work either. So they thought the landing party was in trouble.



So I prayed, and miracles happened.



Decades later, the new planet was fully usable, and the psi powered starships were coursing the galaxy, and the megacorps with our subtle encouragement filed for bankruptcy which let the nation-states and their allies the cyberpunks turn loose a flood of technology which transformed the Earth.



Bitter old men drank coffee by a river that once had watered the eyes just to stand by its polluted horror, and schemed. They had ruled the world, and truth and justice had triumphed. So they sought a symbolic victory. Luckily, they chose me.



The old megacorps were subtle and devious beyond any of their competition. Even their enemies had conceded that they were better spies than we were. The thing was that even if they found our secrets; they could not understand them. It was not only that we were dealing in what they considered to be pseudo-science, but that the Darkness could not comprehend the Light.



But the Darkness was up for one last pointless act of rebellion despite the mercy we had shown them. Or at least a few of them were.



I still do not know how they did it. I fell over in my office above Earth, and four cackling old men watched me die. I hope it gave them nightmares when I versed out. I expect they were firmly and forcefully psi-inhibited against harming anything, even a fly, ever again.



But I enjoyed my decades in that universe with its differing rules of reality. And I was glad to see virtue rain down on a fortress of evil to melt it away.



Tadeusz