NOTE: The Hunt is the second installment in a five part series of fiction based on The Nearside Project. Taken as a whole, these five stories are known as The Thirteenth Hour.

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Meetings

He came from another version of this world, searching for someone for a reason he had long had taken from him by the throaty chuckle of madness. Still, he wandered and searched. Hunting, perhaps.

The well dressed man, in his early thirties, walked sternly into a vast glass and steel office building. He walked up to the reception desk, and evaluated the girl sitting behind it with a long steady gaze. He cleared his throat with a cough.

“I’m looking for myself,” said the man simply. The girl looked at him.

“Very eighties of you, sir,” she smiled. He glared at her.

“Yeah. Well. Thanks for nothing,” he muttered, walking away from the reception desk. He looked around the foyer of the office buildings. He remembered when it had looked like this on the other world, before a lump of rock the size of Pittsburgh had made an impression upon the place. Now he knew what seven years looked like. It looked- boring. Nothing had changed. Except… no one seemed to remember him. The bimbo on the reception desk was a new face, so maybe it was too soon to decide. The headaches hadn’t come, though. The pain was usually the first sign that a version of himself was already here. Three weeks, without even a twinge. Odd, odd. But he knew that there were reasons and memories that were lost to him, for the time being. Travel did that.

He walked towards the glass doors that led outside. The New York streets were strangely comforting to him now, especially considering the alternative he was used to.

“I can’t believe I came all this way for no reason !” he yelled, and a few passers-by gave him a fearful glance.

He fell to his knees, clutching his head as the dam broke, and the madness that he had been containing, for a short while, washed across him, filling his heart and soul with anguish and fear. He was so far away from home. The tears came next.

“Max ?”

The voice was that of a woman, in her late twenties- Max looked up into her face, searching for her eyes. He caught her gaze, and she was frozen. He tried to think if he had seen her before. She was attractive, with short cropped black hair. Her blue eyes were cold, though. Like they had seen too much, too quickly.

She was afraid. Did he remember- no, that would be impossible. But maybe he had found out. Yes. That could happen.

“Who… who are you ?” he stammered. She smiled, as best as she could with this madman’s eyes drilling hot black holes in her own eyes. She recognised the stare.

“I’m Susan. I… we’ve met before, Max. This really is a surprise.”

Max stood, holding onto her gaze to help him up. He attempted to put a stronger lid on the seething mess that lurked below his smile.

“I don’t remember… sorry, I’ve been a bit Distant lately.”

Susan shook her head, the smile disappearing with disappointment.

“Don’t be so obvious, Max. It’s how they find us, how they search us out, hunt us down. They’d kill us like dogs if they found us. Doesn’t that worry you ?”

He narrowed his eyes, and let the echoes of Distance come to him. There was silence- his own madness wasn’t being reflected by the Distance in this woman’s soul.

That didn’t mean she wasn’t a Nearsider. It just meant that if she was, she was a damn careful one. She must carefully control her Travel, never overextending herself. She knew the lingo. That was enough for the time-being

“No… we have our own problems. No one could be bothered taking us back,” he explained. He allowed himself a deep breath, and felt the twinges of Distance fade slightly. Max looked back at Susan and smiled wryly.

“Are you just paranoid, or what ?”

Susan slapped him, hard, and Max’s eyes watered with the sting.

“Don’t be so fucking flippant. Let’s go.”

She took his hand, and dragged him towards the street. She hailed a yellow cab, and they both climbed back in.

“Central Park,” she told the driver, and the taxi pulled away into the lunchtime traffic.

Susan

“There’s a problem, you see,” she explained, “A few people in charge have found out about us- about the Nearside. This is a bad thing, since they want us to work for them or die. There’s no choice in that matter. ”

Max listened to Susan as they walked through Central Park. They were walking towards the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and he was distracted by the crowds of tourists and holiday-makers that swarmed around the paths. Like ants.

“I used to work for a government agency that was employed to search down Nearsiders. We were called, ironically, The Nearside Project. I had been told that they - we - posed a threat to humanity. Bullshit, as I soon found out. No sooner than I found out the truth - that not only were they not enemies, but that I too shared the HBA - then they sent my colleagues out to get me. I spent some time travelling, but I discovered that the more we travel, the easier it is to be ’sensed’ by other Nearsiders that I decided to find one world, and settle down there. As soon as my Distance returned to normal, I would be virtually undetectable.”

Max nodded. “So this was where you chose ? The First World ?”

She smiled. “No one would imagine that I would come back here.”

Max looked around, suddenly uneasy.

“Listen, ” he said, a wall of panic falling on him, “I’m pretty fucked up here…. aren’t you in danger even being with me ?”

She nodded.

“Yeah… but I thought I should help you find out what happened to your Variant Self here. That’s why you were in the building, yeah ?”

He nodded.

“Mmmm. Yeah.”

She smiled as they entered the MMA. She led him upstairs through the quiet, busy museum towards the art gallery.

“You stopped working there late in 1995. Stopped working altogether.”

Max was listening carefully, yet he still didn’t hear what was behind her words.

“How do you know ?” he asked.

“Because, Max, I was in charge of the operation that went after you. To recruit you.”

Max stopped dead in his tracks.

“You ? I don’t understand,” he stammered, confused. The Distance came back, and screamed in his mind.

“Not here ! Not yet !” she hissed angrily into his ear. Max allowed himself to be dragged into an anteroom, with white sheets hanging over unexhibited statues- a room full of pretend ghosts. She closed the door quietly, and shoved a large statue across the door, blocking it very effectively.

“Shut the fuck up ! You prick !” she screamed at him, and threw him against the wall. The impact winded him, and he lay against the wall, silently gasping. Susan showed the effects of years of military training. She had yet to break a sweat.

“I killed you myself, Max, because you refused to join us. You had your reasons, and by god, I loved you for them. You told me, just before you died, that somewhere out there, I was killing for the same people who would kill me whenever my usefulness to them ended. You warned me, and I listened. I couldn’t have realised that you might be a useless fuck on another Variation.”

Max listened- he had no choice. As she spoke, however, his breath returned, and he felt his cheeks grow red, angry at her words.

“Fuck off, ” he told her. “You have no idea what the other world is like.”

Susan finally smiled.

“That’s more like it,” she said. “Get angry. Get really angry, because when they come for you, they’ll kill you and laugh about it later.”

Max, from where he sat, slumped on the floor, glared up at her.

“I don’t give a shit. Let them come. ”

She shook her head. “I don’t intend to die with you. Believe it or not, I’m trying to save your life.”

He laughed. “What, because you feel guilty ?”

There was a heavy silence.

She nodded, and Max felt a bit ashamed at his hasty laughter. After a moment, he stood, and walked over to her. He offered his hand.

“Sorry, okay ? Let’s try and get out of this intact. No hard feelings.”

She measured his words, and carefully took his hand. She squeezed it firmly.

“Just don’t be tempted to repeat old mistakes,” he said softly. She smiled, but said nothing. Max felt a shiver travel down his spine.