by Justin Bloch
“Today is your birthday?”
“Yes, all day,” he replied, then gave a wild laugh. He missed his calm voice, and sighed nostalgically.
“How old are you?” the cop demanded.
“I’m twenty-five. Why? What’s wrong?”
“What is your name, Resident?”
“Nathaniel Valentine. Why do you keep calling me resident?”
“No, your whole name, tell me your whole name,” he growled, stepping forward until he was right on top of Nathaniel. He still had the dead woman over his shoulder, and one of her shoes fell off and clattered loudly on the floor.
“Nathaniel Ian Valentine,” he squeaked.
The cop dropped the body and ran a hand through his hair. He closed his eyes and lowered his head, muttering lists of numbers. “A numerical palindrome. And one that adds up to…” He paused, his hands clenching and releasing. “And the date…he could be. I might have found him. Bertha would know. She could tell me.”
“Excuse me?” Nathaniel interjected, waving his hands in the air. He knew he was being dramatic, but he didn’t take the policeman talking to himself as a good sign. And he didn’t want to be ignored anymore, it happened to him enough in his normal life. Also, he was not thrilled that he had begun to think of everything before this insane day as his “normal life.” “What are you talking about?”
The cop looked at him again, but differently now. Nathaniel could see the undisguised hope in his eyes. The tall policeman spoke slowly, like an air traffic controller trying to talk a seventh grader through an emergency landing. “None of this is a dream. It is very real. She is very real,” he said, pointing down at the woman’s body. “Look around you. Have you ever had a dream this vivid?”
“No, but that doesn’t prove anything.”
“Nathaniel, you could be a very important person.”
He shook his head at that, not trusting himself to speak.
“You must come with me,” the cop said suddenly, bearing down on him.
Nathaniel took a step back. The room seemed too cramped, the policeman too close. A loop of silk fluttered against his ear and he snapped his head away from it, almost tripped over Vi.
“You could be the Cipher, Nathaniel.”
“Um, I don’t know what that is, but I’m not who you think I am,” he said, finding his voice. “I think you should leave.”
“If there is a chance that you are the Cipher, then I’m not going anywhere without you.” He was huge, towering over Nathaniel, filling the room. When he spoke, there was more to his voice, a deep, resonant power that pounded at Nathaniel like waves breaking against a cliff face. “You will come with me.”
And suddenly he wanted to do whatever the policeman told him. That’s not right, he thought, and pushed the impulse away. “I want you to leave.”
The cop scowled, spoke again, his voice becoming a tsunami. “You are going−”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Nathaniel interrupted. “I’m not who you think I am.”
“What if I could prove that you were?” the policeman asked. His voice had returned to normal. Then, as if he had taken a very large bite out of a very sour apple, “Please.”
The cop seemed so sure, and was it so hard to believe that he might be important? Nathaniel considered for a moment, wondered about the possibility.
The answer, he discovered, was yes.
But still…he wanted to believe. “What proof can you give me?” he asked, cautious as a man touching the tip of his tongue to a spoonful of hot soup.
The policeman drew himself up to his full height. “I can take you to the world beside this one.”
They moved into the living room and away from the woman’s body at the cop’s urging. The sun had dipped low in the sky and the room was bathed in rose light. The policeman stood by the door while Nathaniel paced back and forth, wringing his hands.
“The world beside this one. Are you talking about another dimension?” Nathaniel said. Even as he spoke, he could not believe that he was actually saying the words. Life was not a science-fiction movie. Life was office jobs and traffic jams and sleeping in on weekends. Life was boring.
The policeman shook his head. “It isn’t another dimension. It is another world, closely tied to this one.”
Nathaniel rubbed his forehead, ran a hand through his hair, and put aside the question of other worlds for the moment, the more important one finally occurring to him. “Who are you? You’re obviously not with the police, so who are you?”
He sighed and looked away, as if he had known the conversation would eventually lead to this point and hadn’t been looking forward to it. “My name is Sol,” he replied. “I am a policeman, of a sort. A karma policeman.”
Nathaniel goggled at him, his mouth ajar. He wanted this so badly, wanted to put trust in the stranger, but he just kept saying the most ridiculous things. “A karma policeman? Seriously? What, you see me steal pens from my job and make sure they leak on my shirt or something?”
The cop’s face flushed with blood, and he spoke through clenched teeth. “We are protectors of karma, not enforcers. All things balance, and we make sure of that.”
“Yeah? And what do you protect karma from?”
“Those who would disturb it,” Sol snapped. He paused, drew a breath, wiped a hand down his face. “Karma is like a river,” he began again. “There are some, like the vissika in your bedroom, who think it is great fun to throw pebbles into the water. But pebbles, no matter how small, can change the course of the current. The karma police work at protecting that river from those who try to interfere with it. On the world beside this one, the world they are from, they are called the Inhabitants.”
“And we’re the Residents. The people in this world, I mean,” Nathaniel said, still glancing around distractedly. The policeman’s words were rattling around inside his head like noisy upstairs neighbors.
“Yes, that’s right.”
“This is crazy,” he responded. “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
Sol peered at him for a moment, his head tipped to one side. “I think you do believe it. Or if you don’t, you’re beginning to. I’ve been here too long now, and your mind can’t wipe me away like it would have if I had taken the vissika’s body and left when I meant to. You know what that creature in your bedroom was. You know that nothing like her exists in this world.”
When Nathaniel remained silent, he continued. “Let me tell you about your life. You don’t have any friends. You have a job, but you’ve never made it past entry level. Your family, if you have one, pays little attention to you. Women don’t notice you. Mirrors barely notice you. You are alone. You are nothing.” He paused. “Tell me it’s not true.”
Nathaniel looked up at him, his lips pressed into a thin line. The corners of his eyes were burning. “How do you know that?”
“Tell me it’s not true,” he repeated. “I am offering you something so much greater than your sad, empty little life. You just have to reach out your hand and take it.”
Nathaniel turned away, toward his books. They had always been there when he needed them, when he was a lonely teenager, when his parents had died a few years back. They were keys to doors he created with his mind. There was a stubborn voice in his head insisting that it was impossible, all of it impossible. Karma police and Inhabitants and spider-demons. Something out of a children’s story, a fairy tale of boogeymen and true love.
But it possessed a gravity, and he could feel himself slipping into orbit around the idea. His whole life drifted out behind him, a ghost life, and he could change it. “What did you say I might be?”
“The Cipher.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve been scouring this world for years, searching for the Cipher. There were others before you who were candidates, but none as likely as you. Something has happened, is still happening, and karma has been greatly impacted. The Cipher will be the one to restore a balance.”
> “How’s he do that?”
“That remains to be seen. However, in the end, all things balance,” said Sol. His eyes shifted away, then came back. “You could be that balance.”
Nathaniel bit his lip. He could barely stand still, shifting his weight back and forth between his feet. He watched his visitor, mentally repeating the policeman’s last words, over and over, drowning out the objections of the stubborn voice within his mind. What if it was true? What if it was true and he let it pass him by?
“Are you who you say you are?” he asked, begging almost, needing it.
“Yes. Every word of what I’ve told you is the truth.”
“The world beside this one?”
“The world beside this one.”
Nathaniel paused, considering. “Show me.”
Chapter II
Nathaniel stood by the door while Sol went back into the bedroom to retrieve the body. The fading sun was casting long shadows on the opposite wall as it filtered through the swaying strands of silk hanging from the ceiling. It reminded Nathaniel of the wavering, watery shadows on the walls of the big tanks at the aquarium in Baltimore. Watching the light play on the wall soothed him, but not quite so much that he felt he could enter the room. He’d almost died there, after all, and felt betrayed and confused. He wondered if this was how owners of exotic pets felt when the tiger or chimp turned on them suddenly, without warning.
The policeman prodded the spider-demon’s body with one foot and it slumped over, revealing a face pocked with purple splotches. The skin hung from sharp jawbones like damp sweaters on a clothesline.
The cop sniffed. “Rotting,” he said, like he was commenting on the weather.
“She hasn’t even been dead an hour.”
“It’s her species. Most breeds of Inhabitants are very long-lived, and when they die, their bodies just…” He paused, searching for a word, making small circles in the air with one hand. “Just give out. Their will holds them together, in a way. And time moves slightly faster here. If it moved at the same rate on the other side as it does here, the life spans of Inhabitants would drive them all mad,” he said. He gave the vissika another nudge, then added dismissively, “Some of the oldest ones are anyway.”
“Why?” Nathaniel asked. Now that he had decided to take the policeman at his word, a flood of questions occurred to him.
“The mind can take on only so much before it collapses beneath the strain. All time is judged in terms of this world, the key world, and it cannot be changed here. Elsewhere, it’s flexible. A day here may be a year or a single minute somewhere else. Time is like a stream, and it’s possible to hinder its flow or dam it completely.”
“You really like water analogies,” Nathaniel noted.
“Simple metaphors for a simple mind,” the karma policeman retorted without looking at him. “In any event, on the world beside this one, time runs slower.” He bent and scooped up the body, heaving it over his shoulder as if it weighed no more than a pillow.
“How many worlds are there?”
“Four,” the policeman said, and left the room before Nathaniel could ask him to elaborate. The stubborn voice within, the voice which still insisted that none of this could possibly be real, was growing quieter. Nathaniel didn’t think it was because he was silencing its obstinate refusals. He thought it was just running out of things to say.
In the living room, Sol dropped the body on the floor and shoved the coffee table out of the way with his foot, then looked around, sizing up the space. “Now listen: on this side, you are protected from the Inhabitants.” He glanced at the awkward hump of the spider-demon’s corpse on the floor. “Mostly protected. Those that come here generally don’t meddle. But the other side is dangerous. It is not tame like this world.”
Fingers of apprehension tickled down Nathaniel’s spine. “But you’ll be with me, to protect me. Won’t you?” His hands, hidden in his pockets, became tight, worried fists.
“Yes, but you’ll need to be careful. We may have no trouble at all.” He pointed a finger at Nathaniel’s chest and looked him in the eye. “But be wary. Almost no one is who they appear to be, as you should well know after this.” He turned and began considering the living room again.
“Well, if it’s going to be dangerous, maybe I should just stay.” He raised his hands palms out to the karma policeman, as if trying to say, Hold on a minute, let’s reconsider what we’re doing here. This was, in fact, precisely what he was trying to say. “I mean, not that I don’t appreciate you saving me from that demon thing,” he added hastily, “but, you know, I don’t want to be a burden.”
Sol turned and something flashed across his face, something terrible. It was there and gone in an instant, though, so quickly that Nathaniel wasn’t positive he’d seen it. “No,” the cop snapped. “There is a very good chance that you are the Cipher, and if it turns out to be true, then you have a part to play in this, whether you like it or not.”
Nathaniel nodded weakly and blanked the last six words Sol had spoken from his memory. It seemed easier that way.
“I have to prepare for the bridge.” The karma policeman began rearranging the furniture, forming a crude circle in the center of the room. When he was satisfied, he stooped and hoisted the vissika to his shoulder, then stepped inside the circle, considered it carefully, and looked up at Nathaniel. “Are you ready?” he asked. His voice was a whisper, always a whisper.
Nathaniel gave the question a moment’s thought and realized he had no idea if he was or not. He nodded anyway. Judging from the policeman’s reactions, he thought it was probably the most prudent course.
“Come then, and I will take you to the world beside this one.”
Nathaniel stepped over the ottoman and stood next to the tall policeman, then glanced around his apartment, taking a final look. Robber purred in the corner, curled up on a blanket.
Robber, the stubborn voice chimed. There was more than a hint of fear in its tone now. If you’re gone a long time, what happens to Robber?
“Actually, yeah, how long is this going to take? Because I’ve got a cat, and you said time moves faster on this side. If we’re gone for awhile, he could starve to death.”
The cop looked at him, not understanding.
“I won’t let him die,” said Nathaniel. He moved away from the policeman, toward the boundary of the ring of furniture. “He can’t stay here alone, so I can’t go.”
“Don’t be foolish, the cat will be fine.” There was a knife of anger between the policeman’s words, and Nathaniel began to wonder what he had gotten himself into. The stubborn voice in his head was quick to point out that it had never been on board with the plan to trust the crazy stranger with the straight razor.
“I won’t let him die,” Nathaniel repeated. In his head, the voice cheered.
Sol sneered at him in contempt, his arms crossed over his chest. Nathaniel counted off the ticks of the clock while the voice prepared to pop the cork on a bottle of celebratory champagne. The karma policeman sighed. “I will have someone come and stay with him,” he agreed. “Your cat will be fine.”
Nathaniel regarded him closely, trying to detect any deceit in what he said. Of course, he had taken him at his word on much stranger things in the last half hour. “Are you sure?”
Sol nodded. “She’s very good with animals.”
Nathaniel tarried a moment more, ran a hand down the cat’s back, pushed his worry away and stepped back into the ring. There would be no more delays. He could feel a power in the air, a thinness to his apartment, as if it didn’t exist quite as much. The stubborn voice had retreated to a far corner of his mind, crying and seeking solace from the long lost calm voice.
Sol took a careful look at him, then spoke. “The first bridge is almost never a pleasant experience. Your body is rooted here, and it will resist my attempt to tear it away from this world. If we bridge again, it will be easier. But this first time…”
Sol trailed off and Nathaniel looked at him
expectantly. When he realized the karma policeman wasn’t going to say anything else, he tried to think of something to say himself, couldn’t, and just stood there kind of awkwardly. He was still nervous, but there was an excited edge to it now. He was going to another world, to discover his destiny. “Let’s go,” he said.
Sol wrapped his hand tightly around Nathaniel’s wrist. There was a surge of power in the instant their skin touched, and the room briefly hazed out of focus. Except that wasn’t exactly what had happened. It was more like something had tried to blur into focus and the views had overlapped, as if someone had accidentally put two slides into one slot in a projector. The sense of thinness was stronger now, a feeling that the world was only a threadbare slip cover.
A second, more powerful pulse caused Nathaniel to sway on his feet. He could feel the beginning of his body’s protests and he strained to resist the wild urge to break contact with the karma policeman and flee the circle. The floor spun beneath him. After the next surge, his skin felt somehow electric and paralyzed, as if it did not want to be still and yet could not bear to be moved. When the fourth came, a shrill, feedback whine shrieked through his head, and his eyes squeezed shut in pain. He turned his head to tell Sol that he was crying off, that it was over because he had considered all of the facts and decided that spider-demons did not exist, there was no world other than the one he’d always called his own, and he did not, under any circumstances, want to be important if this was what it entailed.
The fifth pulse struck him and the world trembled. Blackness swallowed his living room, obliterated everything and left him floating motionless in a void. He had just enough time to be really disappointed in how boring the afterlife had turned out to be when some force in the dark propelled him forward, slowly at first, then with more urgency, the speed of it drawing tears from the corners of his eyes. A speck of color appeared at the very limit of his vision then swelled in size as he sped toward it, a nebula, a grand cathedral of light.