Neil Gaiman - Eternity’s Wheel

I was more than a little outgunned.

They were slowly surrounding me, moving like liquid, fanning out in a semicircle. The moonless night and scattered streetlamps made some of them all but invisible in the dark. I did the sensible thing: I ran.

Well, I Walked.

I heard the music box again and a sound like bowling pins toppling over. I smelled something salty and saw a splash of bright pink as I slipped through the In-Between and into yet another version of Greenville.

The street was empty again, but I kept moving anyway, back the way I had come. There was no point in going to Josephine’s house, not in that dimension and not in this one. I couldn’t sense another version of me here; I didn’t know if that was because that version had died, or been captured by Binary or HEX, or if this was the home world of one of my fellow students back on Base. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about it.

When I’d expanded my senses to look for Josephine, right before I’d felt HEX’s attack, I’d felt her—and she hadn’t been home.

What was a version of me, not even seventeen years old, doing away from home at three A.M.? It wasn’t like Greenville had an active nightlife (although I suppose this one had a twenty-four-hour diner, at least …) and I had never been the most popular of kids. I certainly hadn’t been cool enough to hang out with anyone who’d stay out all night. Maybe this version of me was different, but I doubted it.

I kept moving, occasionally hopping into a different dimension to throw off any pursuers. When I’d first started Walking, I’d done it instinctively—and, apparently, badly. One of my teachers had explained that I’d basically punched a hole in the wall instead of finding the door. I’d gotten better at it since then, and it was easier to slip between the worlds without causing as many ripples. I could Walk as many times as there was a portal around; HEX and Binary were operating on borrowed power, so my hope was that being a moving target would discourage them from chasing me too far.

I eventually made my way back to Josephine’s Greenville, a few blocks over from where I’d started. The HEX agents didn’t seem to be following me anymore; I couldn’t sense them when I tried.

I could sense her. She was a couple of streets away from where I was now, out of the residential area. I could see the brighter lights of the business district off in the distance, which was definitely where the familiar tug was leading me.

I sighed. Nothing was ever easy. …

With my senses on high alert and my ribs aching again from all the movement, I started down the street.

It didn’t take me long to track her down, though I was still at a loss as to why she was apparently in an abandoned office building. The hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. The last time I’d been in a place like this, I had found Joaquim, the Walker who’d turned out to not be a Walker at all, who’d betrayed my team and caused Jerzy’s death. He’d been pretending to be a captive of Binary so we’d “rescue” him. … Had Josephine been taken captive, too?

It was seeming more and more likely. The HEX scouts outside her house … maybe they hadn’t been waiting for me, after all. Maybe they had found her.

This was bad. I was still running on borrowed time, dealing with several injuries, and had no weapons. I had no one I could call for backup. Josephine was supposed to become my backup.

The smart thing to do would be to cut my losses and go—head to another version of Greenville and find another me. Like I said, as long as there were portals, I never had to stop Walking. I could go anywhere I wanted, as long as I got there before FrostNight destroyed everything. …

I was berating myself for not ever being able to do the smart thing as I picked the lock on the abandoned building.

See, when HEX and Binary capture a Walker, they don’t just kill them. They use them. I’d explained that to Mr. Dimas, but I hadn’t explained how. HEX boils us down, literally puts us in a giant cauldron, still alive and screaming, and boils us like lobsters. Down past the skin and bones, to our very essence. Then they put that essence in a jar and cast some kind of spell on it and use it whenever they need to Walk. And that’s not the worst part, no way.

The worst part is, in some small way, we’re still alive. Still aware . And we know what’s been done to us and what we’re being used for.

I’d rather die right now—rather let all the worlds be destroyed—than allow that to happen to even one more of us.

I stepped through the door, stopping to let my eyes adjust. It had been dark outside, but it was darker in here; the only light that found its way in was through the windows, and most of those were covered with signs saying RENT THIS SPACE.

The floor was marble, one of those nice-looking entryways that made you forget you were probably here to see a therapist or dentist. There were doors on either side of me, both closed and sporting tinted-glass windows, and the lobby stretched out into darkness ahead of me.

Everything was silent as I moved, walking carefully across the pristine floor. I listened hard, alert for any sign that I wasn’t alone, and a subtle change in air pressure warned me a second before I heard a distinct click behind me.

I whirled, going immediately into a crouch, only to discover the figure behind me doing the same.

“Don’t move,” she hissed, and in her hands was a gun. It was pointed directly at me.

Now, I’d seen all kinds of guns since I started training at InterWorld, from all worlds and times. Blasters, emitters, ray guns, laser guns with detachable Bluetooth scopes, plasma guns, you name it. This was a modern handgun, a Colt .45. Basic, easy, and still able to kill me twice before I hit the ground.

“Whoa,” I said, holding my hands out in front of me.

“Don’t move,” she repeated. The gun was leveled at me unwaveringly, and from the look on the face behind it, this wouldn’t be its maiden voyage. I wondered if that’s how I looked in my weapons training classes. I imagined it wasn’t far off, since we shared the same face.

“Josephine,” I said, trying to make my voice as soothing as possible. “It’s okay. My name is Joe, I’m—”

My words didn’t have the calming effect I was hoping for. “It’s you, ” she snarled, and her hands began to shake. “You’re the one who was in my house that day!”

“Yes,” I said, but didn’t get any further. She started to stand. So did I, but she gestured me back down with an angry jerk of the gun.

“You ruined my life,” she spat, edging closer. I was well versed enough in weapons to know what a bullet from that gun would do to my head if she fired. She was still shaking, though it was obviously from anger rather than fear.

“You don’t want to fire that,” I said, trying to be reasonable. I hoped she couldn’t hear the panic that was threatening to shatter my calm. “The police station isn’t too far from here, they’ll hear the shots.” That was a guess, actually; I remembered that the police station was on a street of the same name as this one, but I had no idea how close or far it was from here.

“I don’t care,” she said, standing just out of my reach. She was about my height, dressed in loose jeans and a baggy hoodie, both of which looked like they’d seen better days. Her frizzy red hair was short, barely touching her cheeks, and looked like it hadn’t been brushed in a while. Despite the baggy clothes, I could see that she was thinner than was healthy. All this added up to a desperation that made me believe her next words. “It’ll be worth it. Even if I go to jail, it’ll be worth it. They’ll finally stop coming after me.”