by Eric Flint
"Yeah," I said and this time did manage to extract my arm from her grip. My heart pounded as I backed away. "What fun."
She stepped into the hazy night and was gone, as though between one step and the next, a light had been extinguished. I followed, but found myself instead in the smoldering rubble of my own Chicago.
Tonight, almost two years later, I didn't see Alont when I pushed through the doors. After the suffocating summer heat of my world, it was cool inside, as though the depths of winter were just a few feet away. Jaeko's hairy form was behind the bar, looking more human than usual.
"She's not here," he said, mopping at an invisible spill on the bar's gleaming black surface. His words were much clearer too, in keeping with his improved appearance.
"I'm not looking for her, or anyone else, for that matter," I said and slipped onto my usual bar stool. "I just want a drink."
"Sure," he said. His eyes, bright with some emotion, perhaps disbelief, flicked to the door, then back.
Did other versions of me come here sometimes, I wondered, looking for Alont, or fighting with Otts? Did I leave my blood as a scarlet offering on the floor some nights? Maybe in other worlds I was tougher or smarter. Maybe in other lives, I had something important to do and someone still to love.
Jaeko brought me a hot, bitter concoction, which reeked of sage like Thanksgiving dressing. I let a sip burn down my throat.
Then it seemed suddenly, as though I remembered another life, one without hostile, disinterested students and gangs and rubble, one in which a stainless-steel-and-glass Chicago gleamed under the sun and impeccably dressed people hurried to work. I was one of those people, confident and assured. I carried a briefcase, talked with an elegant woman who walked along on my arm, had friends . . . associations . . . prospects . . .
I blinked and shuddered, mired in someone else's life. Where had that come from?
Jaeko seized the glass out of my hand. "Time to go," he said briskly. "Pay up and hit the road."
"But I'm not finished!" I said as he dumped the steaming contents of my glass down the sink.
Three Rammats strode past, their long dirty hair clicking with beads, the last one bleeding from the shoulder. Her blood was curiously dark, almost purple, but perhaps that was only the cafe's lights. Over in the corner, someone, or something, sat down at an unfamiliar instrument, a bit like an oversized vacuum cleaner, and played music born of no tonal scale ever favored by humans. The raw notes battled with one another and scraped my already bruised nerves.
"Go!" Jaeko said and motioned an ungainly waiter with the face of a toad over to a side table with a tray of spoiled-looking food.
"I'm not ready," I said and dug a few wrinkled bills out of my pocket. "Look, I haven't been here for weeks. You can't be tired of my company already."
In the back, someone was smoking a substance that smelled like burning plastic. My eyes began to sting as the red smoke feathered along the ceiling.
"Terrible night," Jaeko said without meeting my gaze. "Trouble all round. Come back some other time."
"If I leave, I may not get back for months," I said. "You know that."
"Not exactly the worst that could happen." His hairy ears twitched.
The black doors quivered, then Alont walked in, but she was different, her orange hair cropped short, her face unscarred. She wore long robes of flowing red, a hood pushed back on her shoulders. A kunj soldier took one look at her, then edged away as she flung herself into a chair at one of the tables and stared down at clenched hands.
"New look," I said and slipped into the chair next to her.
"Shag off," she said and her hand darted to the sheath on her belt.
"Whatever you say." My chair scraped across the tile as I stood and retreated out of reach. The memory of severed fingers danced behind my eyes. "Have you been in one of those other worlds you were telling me about?"
She looked at me sharply. "You and me've talked before?"
"A bit."
"Some of me do that sometimes," she said, "talk to fricking strangers. Don't know why."
"Just friendly, I guess." An Ott with blood on its face peeked out of the back room, grinned at me savagely, then withdrew.
"I shouldn't waste time on hair-faces," she said. "Got too much to do."
I studied her weary face, the bloodshot orange eyes that gleamed in the dimness, maps of someplace I wouldn't want to venture. "Like what?"
"You're real nosey," she said and drew her knife. At least it was the same, the metal rippled and evil looking.
"Sorry," I said and found a small round table set back in the shadows. Maybe Jaeko was right and I should leave. Tonight wasn't looking promising. Only the thought of my boring, cramped, empty apartment kept me from heading back.
Two Lobos burst through the doors, their faces painted gray and black to mimic wolves, their eyes as feral as anything that ever bayed at the moon. I looked away. In the way of the cafe, if I didn't see them, then maybe they weren't really here.
Feet shuffled, then a hand seized my shoulder and artificial claws bit through my shirt. I jerked to my feet, warm blood trickling down my ribs.
"Howl much, brother?" a voice rasped in my ear.
"Sure," I said, rigid with pain, "every night, just like clockwork."
The claws tightened and agony shimmered through my brain like sheet lightning, white and fierce. I tried to twist free, but the claws only tightened in my torn flesh.
"I don't think so," another voice said, higher, female, probably. "He don't look to have the knack."
Something cold sniffed the nape of my unprotected neck. My skin crawled. "L-look," I said, "I don't want trouble. Just tell me what you want!"
"A good hunt." The female's breath was hot and moist against my bare skin. "But you don't look like the one as could give it to us."
"Oh, that there fellow's soft as mallow," Alont said. "That all you're up to?"
"You got something else in mind then?" The male cast me against the hard edge of a table, where I sank to the floor, winded and trembling.
Above, Alont's rippled knife gleamed in the cafe's dim lights. "Come ahead and find out!"
The three of them stared into one another's eyes, hackles raised, noses twitching. The Lobos weren't just painted fools, I suddenly realized. There was more of the true animal in them than I had ever credited. Obviously, I never looked closely enough all those times I'd encountered one here. I gathered my knees to my chest and shivered.
The Lobos glanced aside, then backed up in tandem until they reached the doors.
Alont crinkled her eyes and laughed until the pair turned and fled. "They always do that," she said, reaching down to pull me to my feet. "Got no bottom, if you just stand up to them."
"I guess I n-need to come armed, then," I said, my teeth chattering with reaction. Cold sweat glued my shirt to my back. "I'll do better next time."
"What you need, bucko, is to stay out of here, if you can't take care of yourself," she said. "This here's no playpen."
Jaeko emerged from behind the bar long enough to shove a glass of something cold and blue into my hand. I threw back my head and downed half in a single gulp. Molten ice seeped into my shattered nerves and eased my shaking, chasing the pain of my clawed shoulder before it.
"Your world's too soft," she said. "Hell, you're too soft. This place is not for the likes of you."
"Then I'll have to toughen up," I said and sat down heavily at the bar, staring at my hands around the glass. Jaeko snorted and turned away to stock bottles out of surprisingly mundane-looking cardboard boxes on the floor. "I bet you didn't have it so easy the first few times you found your way to the cafe either."
"This? This here's nothing," she said and resheathed her knife. "Fact is folk from my world come here to relax."
"Oh, yeah, I forgot," I said. "Your world is so terrible, much worse than this." I tipped the last of my icy blue drink down my throat.
"You want to see bad?" she said and seized my ar
m.
"Hey!" I tried to pry her hand off.
"Come on, then. I'll show you!" She dragged me backwards off the stool and out the double doors.
Outside, the black night sky shimmered red and gold, like some mad aurora borealis. I struggled to free myself, but Alont just laughed, her coarse orange hair flying in the wind, and marched me onward as though disciplining an errant child.
"It changes, you know," she said, "every time one of you lot comes through the door. You bring the Lobos and the Otts, and even me, when you decide to see us. We don't just come here on our own."
My shoulder ached as I dug my heels in and managed to slow her down. "I do not!"
"It's the nature of this fricking place." She released my shirt and stood back, hands on her solid hips. "Everyone who walks in changes it."
I looked around. The ruined buildings I'd expected to see were gone. The dark horizon was flat and remote, unimpeded by construction of any kind. Overhead, a black shape swept through the sky like a bird, but far too large. I shivered even though it was hot. We weren't in my Chicago. Just a few steps beyond the cafe's doors, she'd forced me into unknown country. How did she keep doing that? Overhead, rose and green streamers intertwined like snakes and danced across the sky. "Where are we?"
"In the place I made." She blinked up at the unseen stars. "I didn't mean to, anymore than you meant to make yours, but I didn't know any better back when I started out."
The black shape banked and turned toward us. Alont drew her knife and stared upwards with a fierce joy. "Nasty creatures about—got to be careful here."
The air was cleaner than my world's, filled with unfamiliar woody scents. My heart was racing as the eerie lights overhead reflected from her knife. "How do I get back?"
"Open your eyes and decide to see it," she said, her own gaze fixed on the dark flyer. The wind picked up and swirled her tattered red robes around those long, bare legs.
"See what?"
"Whatever you want." With a sharp screel, whatever-it-was angled its wings and plummeted toward us like a stone.
I swore and fell to my knees, arms over my head. "Get us the hell out of here!"
"Do it yourself," she said. "Me, I fancy a good fight!"
The cafe still lay behind me, I realized. I lurched back onto my feet and fled toward its familiar face. Inside, a trio of Otts were quarreling over a bloodied body that looked a bit like Jaeko, but he was still unpacking bottles behind the bar.
He nodded his hairy head, his eyes gone red this time, where before they'd been black. His human aspect had faded. "Troubl, tha one," he lisped. "Didn I tel you?"
I slid onto the stool and tucked my hands under my arms, unable to stop shaking. Jaeko was right. I really had to stop coming to this place. With a sudden strong pang, I wanted to go home, but feared what might lie beyond those swinging doors.
"Go hom, Raf," Jaeko said. "Haven you had enough fo one nigh?"
The doors opened again and a man stood framed in the blackness of the night outside. He was of middle stature and clearly human with wavy brown hair tousled by the wind, puzzled hazel eyes, a deeply wrinkled brow. A battered briefcase was clasped under one arm. He turned to scan the room and I could see someone had scratched a gang sign into the black leather with the careless tip of a knife. I remembered that day, the briefcase lying on my desk, my back turned for just a second as I wrote on the board, then the burst of laughter that filled the classroom.
"Too lat." Jaeko shook his head and reached for a damp cloth. "Shoul hav lef when I said." He raised his voice and called out to the man, "She's no here tonigh! Go hom!"
"Alont?" The stranger raised his briefcase with both hands before him like a shield. He took another step into the room and I felt him, as though he were trying to climb into my skin. Our eyes met and something leaped between us. For a second, we were one, he, standing in my shoes, I, in his. Our minds fused and I saw that he was still married to Marissa, while in my world she had left me over two years go.
Whatever was between us flared, so hot and bright, I could taste his essence, then we both fell back on our rumps. When I could see again, he was gone and I sat on the floor, while a newly arrived crowd of half-naked blue humanoids stepped around me.
Jaeko peered over the bar at me and shook his hairy head. "You would thin two of th same person woul neve com here at the sam tim, but it always happen. The more simila they are, the more likely to overlap."
But all I could think of was that there were still worlds where Marissa still loved me. The knowledge soothed my mind like a sweet balm. Worlds where she still stretched out beside me at night, her skin warm and moist from the shower, fragrant with her favorite soap, worlds where she could still look at me with love.
Other Rafes. Other Marissas. The desire to live in one of those places twisted like a white hot poker in my gut. I pulled myself back onto my feet using the bar stool, trembling.
"Oh, sit dow," Jaeko said and took me by the arm. His eyes stood out in his animal face.
"But I've got to go to her!" I passed a hand over my hair, finding it wild and disordered. "She's out there, in his world. If I hurry, maybe the way is still open."
"Idiot, you knocked him loose." Enunciating with exaggerated care, Jaeko deposited me on the stool as though I weighed nothing, then shuffled back behind the bar, his motion rocking apelike side to side. "He won't be going home, but it could have easily been you. Think about that."
"She's there." The possibilities whirled through my mind. He'd had my briefcase, even down to the defaced side. He must have had my same job, many of the same details of my life. If I could just find my way into his world instead of my own—
Then I thought of what Jaeko had said and looked up as he placed a simmering orange concoction before me in a tall glass. "What did you mean—I `knocked him loose?'"
"When two similar bodies meet here, sometimes they overlap, like me, and you get the sum of their parts, and sometimes they collide and go their separate ways, with at least one of them knocked loose from his own world, sometimes both."
We could have been merged then, like Jaeko, but instead we had repelled each other. "So where is he?" I said. "Did I somehow fling him back into his own world, with her?"
"You're still here, so he must be the one who's lost," Jaeko said. "The poor bastard's unstuck from everything he's ever known, wandering."
I took a drink of the orange liquid. It tasted like battery acid. I shuddered. "I didn't mean to hurt him."
"Yeah, righ," Jaeko said, lapsing back into his lisp. "Forget it. No one ever listen anyway." He ran the tips of his fingers over his muzzle. "I didn."
"If he's lost," I whispered, "then she'll be alone. She'll need me."
"It won be your she," Jaeko said wearily, as though he'd given this warning many times. "And you're no her man."
"But I could be!"
Alont sauntered through the door, looked around the room, settled her gaze on me. Her hair was black with green highlights tonight, not orange, her face unscarred. Another Alont, just like there had been another me. So many worlds.
"You." She headed in my direction.
I slid off the stool. I wanted Marissa, not this hulking amazon. "Got to go, Jaeko," I said and shoved a handful of paper bills across the counter.
He nodded, then curled his fingers around the money and waved me off.
"I got a message for you." Alont blocked my path.
"Some other night," I said and ducked my head.
"No, now!" She seized a handful of my hair and nearly jerked me off my feet.
I wrenched free, leaving behind a sizable quantity of hair. My head stung and I was suddenly angry. "I don't want to talk," I said, "or dance, or fight, or any of the other things you think you do so well! I just want to—"
"Go to her!" she finished, her black eyes scornful. "Right?"
"Right!" I swung at her face.
She slipped aside easily, then struck me to the floor. "Well, the message is she don'
t want to see you."
My head reeled. I put the back of a knuckle to my split lip. "You don't know that," I said. "In fact, you have no idea who we're even talking about."
"I know," she said, a thin crooked smile on her lips. "Marissa."
I stared, at a loss for words.
"Now you done your part, she don't want to see you no more. This here was her place first."
"She's been here before?"
"Every night, bucko, 'til you started showing up. Now, she slips out the back door when you come in."
"But I found this cafe on my own," I said. All around us, creatures and humans and things that might have been human a long time ago were watching us, listening, more than a few with smirks on their insufferable faces. Bastards. I'd been here often enough to know how they loved a scandal.