He Who Crosses Death

by Isaac Hooke

  And then, finally, he found it. A mirror version of the Dark.

  The flames of chaos erupted around him.

  Those ethereal fires were weak, the flames moving sickly, and covered with dark patches as if weighed down by some inter-dimensional tar. But they would do.

  He flinched as the sonic injector stung his neck.

  He fought through the resultant drowsiness to create a work of Fingers of Ruin. He wasn’t sure the Dark timeline would take, but he had to try.

  The Tarkwail flashed a light into his eyes to give him a brain scan, and then retreated to allow the lead dweller to question him anew.

  “What is your name?” the dweller said.

  Tane didn’t answer, trying to buy himself time to finish the work.

  “What is your name?” it repeated.

  “Tane… Ganeth,” Tane said as slowly as possible, enunciating each syllable as if it were its own sentence.

  “And who is your master?” the dweller said.

  “My master?” Tane asked.

  “Yes,” the dweller replied.

  “Why, my master is…”

  Tane completed the mirror Dark timeline.

  When he set the work in this reality, only two black fingers were available to him, since he didn’t have the level boosting effects of the Feral Necklace. He launched one of those smears at the tentacle that gripped him, and the other at the appendage belonging to the dweller that held Sinive beside him.

  The lead alien released him as if stung. Sinive was dropped, too. The stricken limbs of either dweller cracked open, though the wounds were somewhat small, and definitely less than what the work would have produced in his own universe.

  “Into the office!” Tane shouted at her.

  He hurried inside after her and shut the door behind him. Sinive was already sliding a desk toward the door, so he dodged out of the way before it slammed into him.

  The desk hit the door but immediately began to shake as the dwellers repeatedly pounded against the outside.

  Tane climbed onto the desk with Sinive and reached up to shove at the removable ceiling panels. He slid one inward and aside, then grabbed onto the metal framework that had supported the panel and pulled himself into the overhead crawlspace. He reached down and helped Sinive up after him—he realized it would have been easier to let her go first instead, giving her a boost from below, but it was too late for that now.

  When she was in, he replaced the ceiling panel and then began creating Night Vision so that he could see.

  “Follow me,” Tane told Sinive as he felt his way forward, essentially low-crawling on hands and knees. He tried to keep most of his bodyweight on the metal framework that lined the removable ceiling panels, and hoped Sinive would do likewise, because he doubted the panels themselves would support their entire weight.

  He completed Night Vision and the effect was weaker than what it would have been were he using the actual Dark, but his surroundings lit up enough for his needs. He could see the cramped duct-like compartment formed by the crawlspace, along with the conduits and translucent pipes overhead, allowing him to continue forward.

  Sinive followed just behind him: because he had engaged location sharing, Sinive would see his outline overlaid on her vision, even if she could see little else in the dim light that penetrated the panel edges. Plus he would also appear on her overhead map.

  He began another Fingers of Ruin timeline as he advanced. He heard a crash below and realized the dwellers had penetrated the room.

  Behind him, tentacles began smashing into the ceiling one at a time as the dwellers realized where Tane and Sinive had gone. Those long appendages pierced through the paneled floor of the crawlspace like swords, leaving behind small holes that allowed javelins of light through.

  He reached a bend in the crawlspace and took it immediately. A vent below showed that he was over an adjacent room.

  He reached back, wrapped his hand around Sinive’s wrist, and forcibly hauled her around the bend to join him. Her leg caught on one of the panels below her, and moved it inward slightly. Tane finished hauling her away, and a moment later several tentacles smashed into the panel that she had moved.

  Tane and Sinive hurried onward. The attacks ceased, at least for now, since they were completely above the adjacent room.

  Tane remembered the small beetle robots the dwellers had used when he had taken the ventilation system to escape the intruders at his hydroponics farm, and he hoped the aliens didn’t employ something similar in this situation. Then again, they very probably would, so it was important to get out of the crawlspace as quickly as possible.

  He hurried onward, reaching a T intersection. He took the side route, knowing it would lead above the central office area and the glass cubicles it contained.

  He crawled forward for several tense moments, trying to make as little noise as possible. He cringed whenever the metal framework creaked underneath him or Sinive. He kept expecting a tentacle to ram into his midsection, impaling or capturing him. He wasn’t sure which option was worse.

  He reached a vent, which gave him a view of the office area immediately below. The glass-walled cubicles were unoccupied. Beyond them, in the aisle that bordered the cubicles, he could see the dwellers moving between the different offices, ramming their tentacles into the ceiling panels as they searched for him and Sinive.

  He removed the panel next to the vent and peered his head out to sweep the surrounding area. It was clear, but there was a chance one of the dwellers passing by inside the bordering aisle would spot him; he waited until the aliens flooded inside a conference room next to the offices, their tentacles rapidly javelining the ceiling, and when the coast was clear he lowered himself to the desk in the cubicle directly below. Sinive dropped down silently beside him.

  They slid behind the desk, and made their way down the smaller aisle that led between the glass cubicles, moving away from the dwellers. They kept low, using the different desks for cover.

  When they reached the far side of the room, where two doors led out of the shared office space, Tane spotted a pair of dwellers that had been left behind to guard, one on either side of the doors. They held energy launchers in their tentacles.

  He would have liked to steal those weapons. But it wouldn’t have mattered: infuriatingly, the launchers were biometrically encoded to respond only to the dwellers that owned them. He learned that from past experiences.

  “On three,” Tane said. “One. Two. Three.”

  He and Sinive left cover and rushed the dwellers.

  Tane finished his next Fingers of Ruin timeline and released the smears of unreality just as the creatures reacted. He directed one smear toward each of the sideways-oriented heads. He doubted it would be enough to kill either of them—even if he concentrated the attacks against one dweller, the works were too weak here. But he didn’t actually want to kill them: instead, he intended to merely distract them long enough for himself and Sinive to pass.

  The works struck their heads and dark veins crawled up their faces; just as they brought their energy launchers to bear, the veins exploded into cracks, and the dwellers staggered in pain.

  It was all Tane and Sinive needed to slip past. Tane threw himself at the double doors, and sensors caused them to swivel aside before he could even touch them.

  He hurried into the hallway beyond, where a pair of elevator doors offered access to the different floors. He pressed the button. The power was working, but he didn’t have the patience to wait for the elevators, not while the dwellers could pursue them at any moment.

  “Come on,” he said, and hurled himself into the stairwell door.

  The two of them raced up the flights of stairs. Below, he heard a crash and he knew the dwellers, or perhaps their spider robots, were in pursuit.

  At the top floor the door that led to the rooftop wouldn’t open.

  “Let me try,” Sinive said.

  She held a hand to the interface panel next to it, and a moment late
r the door clicked open.

  “I’m surprised your hacking ability still works here,” Tane commented.

  “I’m just that good,” Sinive said.

  They burst outside. As expected, parked on the various rooftop platforms were flyers, theirs for the taking.

  22

  Tane and Sinive raced to the closest flyer.

  “It’s not a Tambo, but it’ll do,” Sinive said. Tambo’s were exotic flyers, toys of the rich. There were certainly none on this rooftop.

  Sinive hacked the locks and Tane piled into the passenger seat while she took the driver side—Tane had no flying vehicle skills. She ripped open a panel above the twin controls, overrode the drive mechanism, and grabbed the sticks to take manual control. She started up the engine, and then flew the vehicle off the rooftop and into the haze between the buildings. She dodged behind another building the first chance she could get, obviously wanting to put them out of the line of sight of the high-rise they’d just left.

  “If everything taking place out here is happening at the same point in time as when we were fleeing the dwellers,” Tane said, “then there’s an alien ship somewhere above, hidden in the thick haze. So you don’t want to fly too high.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Sinive said. “Any ideas on how we’re going to get out of this mess, by the way?”

  “We’re on 57A,” Tane said. “In a mirror universe of the Umbra. And we’ve essentially traveled back in time.”

  “So what are you saying?” Sinive asked.

  “Don’t you remember how we got back the last time we were trapped in the Umbra?” Tane replied. “There’s a triggerable lens here, placed by Tiberius. It will take us back to our own universe. Or at least, that’s my hope. I still have the location marked on my overhead map. I’m sending it to you now. We just have to hope we beat our duplicate selves to it.”

  He sent the location to her chip via the remote interface, and she accepted.

  “If we take this lens, won’t it just take us to whatever mirror universe our copies are from?” Sinive said. “And not our true universe?”

  “I’m hoping the multiverse will sort things out,” Tane said. “The link we have to our own universe is stronger than any link we might have to the copy, after all.”

  “The multiverse sorting things out...” Sinive said. “Seems like you’re putting a lot of faith in something that isn’t even conscious of its own existence.”

  “Think about it,” Tane said. “Conscious or not, the universe will want to correct the mistake that was made. Two copies of ourselves aren’t supposed to exist at the same point in time. When we travel through the inter-dimensional gate, the multiverse will seek to fix the error. We have the strongest ties to our original universe. It’s the path of least resistance.”

  “It’s great to keep your hopes up,” Sinive said. “But still just a theory. So what do we do if it doesn’t work, and end up in a copy of our universe?”

  “Then we’re screwed,” Tane said. “But at least we’ll know right away when we arrive if we’ve reached our home universe. All we have to do is check the date.”

  “Well, I agree that we essentially have nothing to lose,” Sinive said. “Hmm, wait. We might not have anything to lose, but our copies certainly do. I thought these triggerable lenses of yours could only be used once? If we use this one, then there won’t be a lens left for our copies. We’ll be trapping them here. Destroying any chance your twin has of ever returning to his own universe, and completing his own destiny.”

  “Well it’s either that, or letting ourselves be trapped here,” Tane said. “If, when we take the lens, we find ourselves stuck in a weaker copy of our own universe, we can always relive our previous lives, but this time we’ll make sure we don’t make the same mistakes.” Like allowing you to die.

  “What if this isn’t really a mirror universe after all?” Sinive said. “What if we’ve somehow managed to travel back in time, and this weird red haze that’s covering everything is the multiverse’s way of letting us know that. So by using that lens, and taking it away from our copies, we’ll be changing history. We’ll never have returned to our own universe, and you and I will wink out of existence entirely.”

  “I don’t think so,” Tane said, though he couldn’t hide the uncertainty from his voice. They might have very well traveled back in time. “But I agree, it’s a risk either way.”

  Sinive was quiet for a moment. Then: “It still bothers me that we’re trapping them here. Is there no other triggerable lens anywhere else on this moon? I thought you had a list of all their locations in your head, thanks to Tiberius.”

  “I do,” Tane said. “And there isn’t another one on this moon. So we don’t really have a choice. We’ll just have to hope our counterparts find a way to survive. We always were resourceful.”

  “Feels like I’m betraying myself somehow,” Sinive muttered. She tapped her thumbs on the control sticks for a moment. Then: “Hell with it.”

  She dived the flyer to the west.

  They came up fast to the target. Sinive set them down in a market square surrounded by close packed, blurry buildings. She knocked over a few kiosks and stalls with the downwash from the engines during the landing.

  Tane got out and headed toward the oval-shaped blackness that floated above the center of the square. He began to see Dark threads emerging from his body for the first time, barely visible and leading toward that lens. He realized his doppleganger probably wouldn’t have been able to find the lens anyway, without those threads to guide the way. Unless of course the doppleganger could see the filaments far better than Tane had been able to in this mirror universe.

  Tane continued to approach the infinite blackness with Sinive at his side.

  “Damn I miss my pistol,” Sinive said. She was glancing to and fro, searching the square for signs of ambush.

  The first time he had come here, dwellers had gathered to watch him touch the triggerable device. Apparently the aliens had decided not to show up this time, or at least they hadn’t yet arrived, as the perimeters of the square were clear of the creatures.

  Tane reached the lens and extended a hand toward the iris that towered over him. His fingers began to distort. When he touched it, the blackness flowed up his fingers and started to envelop him. It burned where it touched.

  Tane glanced at Sinive. “Hang on to me. I’m not sure the contained Essencework is as strong here.”

  Sinive wrapped her arm around his waist without question. She kissed him as the darkness, and that burning heat, enveloped them both.

  The world became dark around him, and Sinive was gone. He felt nothing, absolutely nothing at all, nor did he see, hear, or experience any other of his senses, and he understood what it was like to die then, given Sinive’s earlier description.

  Time passed, and nothing further happened.

  If he had been able to think and feel, he would have probably been filled with dread as it began to dawn on him that the mirror Essencework apparently wasn’t powerful enough to take him back to his own reality, and that all he had done was trap himself between universes. Essentially killing the two of them.

  But then a white speck finally appeared, so very faint. He grabbed onto that speck for all he was worth, and it began to grow stronger, sucking him in. He felt another speck behind him, receding, and he grabbed onto it, knowing that if he let it go, he’d lose Sinive.

  He felt his stomach turn, and realized he was falling.

  The world snapped back and he slammed into the solar paneled pavement of the town square. Above, the sun shone down, free of the choking red haze.

  Sinive was still wrapped around his side, in the same posture she had been in before they had traveled to this universe.

  He checked the digital clock in the lower right of his vision. It was two A.M, according to the universal time—still midday on this world. And the date matched up with what Tane was expecting: it was the same day he had fallen asleep with Sinive in her
quarters aboard the Mosaic. Less than an hour had passed.

  They were back in their own universe after all. Or at least one that was nearly indistinguishable from it.

  Sinive rested her head against his shoulder, and he simply held her and watched the people pass by. Some of them gave Tane and Sinive strange looks, but he ignored them.

  They were free.

  They couldn’t stay out in the open for long, however. If a city patrol came past and tagged their unblurred features, they would be arrested. And they had to take care to avoid cameras throughout the city, be it a camera in a delivery drone or a lamppost—the facial recognition AIs were linked to all of them.

  “I feel the Essence again,” Sinive said.

  “So do I,” Tane told her as he went to a nearby hat seller and purchased two big sombreros with his chip: one for himself, the other for Sinive. The seller had no actual inventory of course, but he printed them up immediately with his specialized 3D printer.

  The hats were ludicrous, considering that no one else on 57A wore anything remotely resembling them, but Tane and Sinive could wear them low on their brow, and if they kept their heads bowed as they proceeded through the city, they’d avoid detection by any cameras. He still planned to give a wide berth to any patrols he spotted along the way. He wasn’t expecting the city to be in a heightened state of alert, since the TSN had no idea they were here.

  Sure enough, they encountered no patrols as they made their way through the streets toward the closest rental apartment. Along the way, they changed their names via their ID Spoofing skills, just to be on the safe side.

  Sinive hacked into the rental unit, and they shut the door behind them.