Love on the Run

by Katharine Kerr

  “Okay,” Willa said. “Basically, we’re in danger of losing touch with Terra Six. It’s always floated, and these days it seems to be floating farther and farther away. It’s getting harder and harder to exchange information with it.”

  “The trans-world router’s not working there, you mean?” Spare14 broke in.

  “Not what I meant, no, although their routers are probably the next thing that’s going to go blooey. I’m talking about something different, a concept from that old-fashioned quantum physics. We—world-walkers—are the information that gets exchanged when we go from world level to world level. Think of us all, you, me, all of us, as packets of information that vibrate at a given frequency. Each world has a distinct frequency, which is why the orbs have different colors. When someone vibrates at a new frequency, their information travels to that new world level.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Like the transporter in Star Trek?”

  Willa coughed. “No, honey,” she said in a soothing tone of voice. “Kind of different from that. Don’t worry about it.”

  “Um,” Spare14 put in. “Perhaps we shouldn’t spend time on the background briefing. What are the practical consequences?”

  Although he spoke firmly, I realized that he felt as I did—as dumb as a bucket of mud.

  “Good idea,” Willa said. “The consequence is that it’s damn hard to get in to Terra Six these days. The head of my team and I ran a check this morning from Three. It has the most gates, and so we figured it was the best world level for the tests. The overlaps to Six are floating. Some may close right down. We don’t know yet.”

  We stared. She sighed.

  “This means,” Willa continued, “that a world-walker can’t travel back and forth with a focus orb alone. We’ll need a proper gate or transport orbs to help boost the frequencies. It’s the damage to Interchange that’s made Six so unstable. They were linked, and those links were broken. Three should have been anchor point for Six.” She paused to look at us each in turn, perhaps to judge if any of us understood what she was telling us. “Anyway, Six moves, the whole world level, not just Terra Six. The stars, the galaxies, the whole shebang from the big bang on. It’s swinging in an irrational arc through the quantum foam.” She paused again and sighed. “Okay, I’ll spare you the details.”

  “Please do,” Ari said. “So the upshot—are we going today or not?”

  “Ever direct, that’s you, Agent Nathan.” Willa grinned at him. “I’m pretty sure I can get you there. I’ve got a transport orb for Six with me. I’ll be able to leave without one. Whether or not I could ever get there again—I don’t know. Murphy was born on Six. She shares its substance. Its frequency is bred into her, as it were. If she were well enough to travel, things would be easier. But she isn’t. The knife wound in her side just missed a lung, they tell me.”

  “How many times was she stabbed?” I said.

  “Three, but one was just a scratch, and the other hit her upper arm when she tried to defend herself. She’s damn lucky she didn’t bleed to death.”

  I remembered Murphy’s pale, nearly bloodless face—shock and pain, I’d thought at the time. Near-death experience was more like it. More and more I realized that Ash needed to be locked away from knives.

  “Last night I checked various databases,” Spare14 said. “I found a good many reports of orb theft.”

  “Way too many and just lately, too,” Willa said. “Orbs have gone missing from vaults and from world-walkers getting mugged just like Murphy did. What evidence we’ve found always leads back to Terra Three and SanFran as the destination for the stolen orbs.”

  “The Axeman’s original location,” Ari murmured.

  “So,” Willa said. “Time’s a-wasting. Sneak, are we going or not?”

  “First a question,” Spare14 said, “Without you, can the team leave Six again?”

  “Probably.” Willa shrugged. “I brought a couple of orbs for Four to get them back. I’m assuming they’ll work. So is our research team. We’re not guaranteeing anything.”

  “After all the lousy trouble I went through to get permission for this trip,” I said, “we had damn well better go!”

  “The situation does seem to warrant the risk.” Spare14 rubbed his chin in thought. “The question is, do I have the power to authorize without a formal risk assessment?”

  Willa rolled her eyes heavenward. I could smell bureaucracy in the air. In case you’re wondering, bureaucracy smells like sour grapes and spilt milk.

  “O’Grady,” Ari said, “please don’t scream.”

  “Okay, Nathan,” I said. “For you, I won’t.”

  In the end, screaming proved unnecessary. Spare14 fired up his trans-world router and checked in with his HQ. For some while they conversed as usual, in numbers interlarded with English words. Ari and Willa both seemed to understand what he was saying. I waited to be enlightened. Finally, Spare14 smiled and logged off.

  “Permission granted,” he said. “On the condition that the world-walker agrees.”

  “She does,” Willa said.

  “Good!” Spare14 continued. “One last thing. Nathan, you can trust the liaison captain in San Francisco Six. I know him well, JaMarcus Spivey. We were at the Police Academy together. They assigned roommates alphabetically, and so we ended up sharing quarters. We’ve been friends for thirty years.”

  If this were a Star Trek episode, I thought, Spivey would have turned traitor or been killed. Both Picard and Kirk’s old friends always seemed to do one or the other. I refrained from saying so, of course. Ari and Spare14 were strangely ignorant about such important cultural matters, and—let’s face it—the thought was weird even for me.

  “Yes, Spivey’s a good man,” Willa said. “Now can we get on the road? We’ve wasted a couple of hours as it is.”

  “Back to South Park?” I asked.

  “Nope. The closest overlap with Terra Six is in McLaren Park. When HQ linked with Six, they put the TWIXT office near it on purpose. Real convenient.”

  CHAPTER 5

  IN BOTH WORLDS, ours and Terra Six, McLaren Park lies in the southeast corner of San Francisco. It sprawls across the crest of the hill still known as University Mound, even though the college that once stood there is long gone. The hill rises above the Excelsior district to the west and the Portola district to the north. To the east on our world level, you can look down to the bay and the Hunter’s Point shipyards. These are not locations known for famous landmarks unless you count the big blue water reserve tower up in the park, which I suspect you don’t.

  Just as in our world, the park on Terra Six featured mostly grass and trees, dotted with a structure or two: a children’s playground, a tiny Greek theater, a small lake rimmed in concrete, a public golf course. The deviant world overlap area lay across a bulge on top of the hill, Bernt’s Knoll, it’s called in both worlds, though on Six it rises from a street called Redwood Drive instead of Shelley. Willa brought us through successfully to a big square of decaying concrete surrounded by trees and shrubs. Weeds poked up through the slab here and there.

  “This is the overlap area,” Willa said. “Don’t try to use the transport orb anywhere else if you can help it. If someone’s chasing you with a gun, sure, use one of the orbs, but I suggest you pray while you’re doing it. You’ll only have about thirty seconds to get into the cloud, remember, so don’t take any time to kiss your boyfriend here.”

  “Very funny,” I said. “Ha ha.”

  “I take it,” Ari said, “that one needs to throw them onto something hard enough to shatter the glass or whatever that material is.”

  “They’re made of frequency-wave-stabilized ice. Think of it as lasers for water molecules. That’s why the shards melt away once you destabilize the stuff—they turn back into ordinary ice. So, yes, bouncing them on the lawn isn’t going to get you squat.” She paused to rummage in her bag. Eventually she brought out two blue-green orbs, each about the size of a large orange. “Here you go, O’Grady. These’ll get y
ou back to Terra Four. Put them in that bag of yours. I’ll show you the path down to the office, and then I’m getting out of here. I can feel the float, and it’s making me dizzy.”

  I took the orbs. “They don’t feel cold,” I said.

  “That’s because they’re stabilized. The stuff won’t absorb heat energy from their surroundings until you violate the sphere’s integrity.” She grinned. “That means breaking them.”

  Willa led us east on a narrow path. When we came clear of the trees, we had a good view down to the city streets below and the bay beyond, a view that shocked me. In our world I would have seen far below the big cranes and docks of the Naval Shipyard. On Six I saw only houses and what appeared to be small business districts stretching out to a bayside green belt.

  “There wasn’t any war with Japan here,” Willa told us. “Didn’t need the ships.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “Where’s the TWIXT office?”

  “See that concrete building down there?” Willa pointed to a flat-roofed, three-story, grim gray structure just across a street from the grassy lawn marking the edge of the park. “That’s it. Second floor. They should be expecting you. I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

  “Neither do I,” Ari said. “The briefing was more than a bit ambiguous.”

  Briefing? I thought. What briefing?

  “I bet!” Willa said. “Well, good luck. I’ve got to get out of here before I throw up.”

  She turned around and trotted back west to disappear among the trees.

  “Shall we go?” Ari said.

  “Sure, but what briefing?”

  He looked vaguely guilty. “It came this morning in e-mail. You weren’t cleared for it.”

  “Bastard!”

  I strode off on the path downhill. Ari swore under his breath and caught up with me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “but Spare14 had already authorized one release of classified information. A second one would have been a bit much.”

  “You had better hope that I don’t need the information in that briefing. That’s all I can say, Agent Nathan!”

  I set off downhill through the trees. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets and followed sullenly along.

  In two more strides we came clear of the overlap area. As soon as I stepped out of it, I felt the pull. A psychic sensation grabbed me as palpably as the clutch of a hand. Something close by belonged to me or needed me and wanted me with a desperate longing. If I gave in, the Pull, as I called it to myself, would drag me downhill in the wrong direction. I stopped walking and caught my breath in a gasp.

  “What’s wrong?” Ari slipped a hand into his jacket and reached for the Beretta.

  “You don’t need that,” I said. “I think I must have family on this level.”

  “Not precisely family.” He took his hand away from the gun. “They may have genetic similarities, but they’ve been raised in a different environment and culture.”

  “Yeah, yeah, but I overlap with them. I can feel it.”

  Ari snorted and scowled.

  “And what’s so wrong with that?” I set my hands on my hips.

  “I don’t want you brooding about your father and mother’s situation.”

  “Oh. Well, okay. You’ve got a point. We’ve got work to do, and I need to keep my mind on it.”

  I also needed to shield myself against the Pull. If I had put up a full psychic shield, I would have insulated myself from the entire aura field. My talents would have vanished and left me confused and helpless. Instead I tried a different technique. I visualized a flaming torch and swung it—mentally only—around and around me at the edge of my personal aura. The Pull gave up and faded away.

  “We’re heading into a difficult situation,” I said. “Let me run more scans.”

  Ari waited patiently while I did a Search Mode: Location on the gray office building. I registered a few psychic talents, all minor, but SM: Danger brought more dramatic results. At least one person, a male, in that building was panicking over something. He was furious, brooding violence, frightened that he was about to be caught out, and trying to hide all of those feelings from the world.

  “Okay,” I said to Ari. “Be on alert the whole time we’re in there. Someone knows we’re coming, and he’s not happy about it.”

  As we made our way downhill, I stayed in contact with Mr. Panic. In a few moments his fear spiked, to be replaced by the smooth surface of a psychic shield. I stopped and held up one hand to tell Ari to do the same.

  “He knows I know,” I said.

  Ari nodded to show he understood. I could follow the track left by Mr. Panic’s shield like following a lump in gravy with a spoon. Get too close, and it would dissolve. I felt him travel away from me, leave the building, head downhill. Another mind, unshielded, joined his, a woman though not Ash. Her, I could follow easily. They got into a vehicle and drove away toward the west and the city. She must have been driving because he had the leisure to extend his shield and cover her.

  “Damn!” I said. “I’ve lost them.”

  We continued on to the gray building and discovered that it housed three different agencies. First floor was a credit union, second floor the Interpol offices, and at the top, a security guard firm. Smooth pale marble coated the ground-floor lobby and made our footsteps echo as we walked in. On the far wall I saw a pair of elevators with bronze doors. According to the indicator panels above them, each car waited at the second floor.

  “I don’t like this situation,” Ari said. “It’s too quiet.”

  “I’m picking up danger. It’s emanating from above and in the direction of the far wall.”

  Ari sniffed the air. He walked over to the elevators and sniffed again, just like a dog hunting for a scent.

  “Do you smell that?” he said.

  “What? No.”

  He started to answer just as the street doors swung open. A pair of young men walked in, very ordinary looking citizens in jeans and T-shirts. In one hand the red-haired guy held an old-fashioned bank book clutched around a pile of paper checks. I scanned. Nothing wrong with either of them. They were talking about baseball as they headed for an elevator. As soon as one of them reached toward the call button between the elevators, the warning hit me hard.

  “Don’t!” I yelled. “Don’t touch it!”

  “Police!” Ari drew the Beretta. “Everyone outside! Now! Move!”

  The young man spun around to face us. I got a clear look at his terrified face: pale, thin dark hair cut short, a scraggly mustache under a beaky nose. The two men ran, and so did we. Once we’d gotten to the sidewalk, Ari holstered the gun and took out his small black TWIXT communicator. He pressed a couple of buttons while the two young men gawked at him.

  “Agent Nathan here,” he said. “We have a terrorist emergency. Clear the building, but do not, I repeat, do not use the elevators. Come down on the fire stairs only. I repeat, on the stairs only.”

  The dark-haired young man sat down quite suddenly on the ground. His friend knelt beside him and trembled. Ari went on speaking into the communicator. I heard a distant wail from down the hillside toward the west and the city. From inside the building a deep-throated horn began hooting an alarm in short bursts. I felt as if I’d been stretched very, very thin, turned into mist, maybe, a cold foggy mist. The sunlight brightened to a white glare. When I grabbed my terror and suppressed it, the sunlight returned to normal, as did my body-consciousness. Other wails broke out down below, more sirens, these from police cars. Fire trucks screamed up the hill and squealed to stops out in the street. The two young men got up again. The dark-haired guy looked at me.

  “I nearly set it off, didn’t I?” His voice shook and swooped like a terrified child’s. “Ohmigawd!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “but you didn’t. It’s okay.”

  He turned and ran off downhill. His friend gave me a sick little smile and followed.

  The front doors burst open and the first evacuees raced out, all of them d
ead silent, white-faced, and grim. They pushed past me and ran across the street in a well-rehearsed troop, not a mob. They’d practiced this drill, I realized: terrorist alert! Run but carefully. Don’t get in each other’s way. Stick with your office mates. I turned to watch as they organized themselves into little groups on the distant sidewalk. For each group one person walked back and forth, counting his charges. I studied them and ran scans. Here and there I picked up a trace of talents, but nothing as strong as those of the man I’d spotted earlier, the one who’d driven away just in time.

  Yeah, he sure had, hadn’t he? Just in time.

  A bright red car and a sleek black one arrived in a scream of sirens. The men who got out of each wore uniforms dripping with gold braid. They ran to huddle with Ari. The hooting of the warning horn stopped abruptly. One last person walked out of the lobby, a tall, lean Cal-African man in a gray business suit that matched the gray in his close-cropped hair. His eyes narrowed as he looked over the crowd. He glanced around and started to join Ari and the others, then noticed me. When he waved me over, I went. He wasn’t the kind of man whose orders you disregarded.

  “I’m JaMarcus Spivey.” He had a dark voice worthy of a Russian basso. “Are you O’Grady?”

  I ran a discreet Subliminal Psychological Profile. He was exactly as Spare14 had described, honest and trustworthy.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Did Spare14—”

  “He’s just ‘Spare’ here.” Spivey’s mouth flicked in a brief grin. “But, yes, he did. Let’s get across the street. I need to check with the group leaders, and then move everyone farther away. If this thing blows, the rubble’s going to rain down like hellfire.”

  I walked with him across the street to the edge of the park. By then the danger warnings were pounding on me like fists. My body wanted to turn and run away as fast and as far as possible. My mind kept me where I was. Uniformed police were trotting up and down the row of small businesses on either side of the office building, pounding on doors, ordering the inhabitants to evacuate. Just in case, they said. Situation under control, but just in case. Once Spivey determined that everyone who worked in the building had been accounted for, he barked crisp orders.