Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Seeing me, though. All dressed up like this. It’s enough to spark their curiosity. Kids begin to point to us, parents hurriedly hushing them up as we pass.
Clara must notice, but she doesn’t say anything. I like this about Clara. She’s observant and smart. She knows when to just go along and when to ask questions. It’s a life-saving skill in the line of work I’m in.
The line of work she’s now in too.
The train comes, people get off, people board, but we stay still, waiting for it to pull away. Then, once it’s gone, Clara and I walk over to the edge of the platform. I jump down and offer her my hand.
She takes it and jumps without comment, looking up at me with a smile when she lands.
“Partners,” I say.
“Till the end of days,” she responds.
Then, hand in hand, we walk into the darkness of the empty tunnel.
Clara and I had a conversation about the train tunnels the day after Delta gave me the deployment and I showed her the map of the train line that was on my overlay.
Of course, she knows what a train is and we rode one to get here.
The concept of this whole thing is best introduced this way. As something familiar.
Because the train we’re looking for now isn’t familiar. It’s not even part of this world.
My overlay tells me we’ve got three minutes to find the entrance we’re looking for before another train comes barreling down this tunnel, and even though that kind of time limit is a bit stressful, it only takes about thirty seconds of walking before we find what we’re looking for.
Clara waits, silent, as I scan it. “Yeah. This is it.” Then I grab her hand because she can’t see in the dark, and we walk forward.
“How far do we have to go?” she asks. No panic in that question. Completely calm.
“About a hundred paces.”
“And there’s a door in here?”
That’s how I described it. “Yeah. A door. I’ll show you. There.” I point with my free hand. “That’s it.” We walk over to it, and when I pull on the handle, find it unlocked. We enter, me first this time, and she follows, holding on to my ruck with loose fingers just to keep herself oriented.
My overlay lights up with data, and I stop, letting all the information filter in. There’s a new control panel on my readout screen—one that operates this room, which is handy, but confusing—so I find the tab for the lights and activate them.
The place illuminates with blue light the same color as spark.
Clara and I are both silent as we look around. Me, because my overlay is lit up like a fuckin’ sun with data and even though my augmented brain gets all this information in a millisecond, it takes my human one a moment to sort it out.
Her, I surmise, because the room from her perspective is completely empty.
I’m still turning things on and off on my display when she speaks. “OK. What am I looking at?”
Which is the exact right question to ask. “You’re lookin’ at nothin’, darlin’. But I’m looking at… many, many options. Give me a sec to find the one we need.”
“OK.”
The overlay is crowded with dimensions. One pressed against the other, pressed against the other, pressed against the other like windows arranged in row. The way you might find them in a warehouse for storage.
Except these windows are all portals to other places. But because windows are transparent, I’m gettin’ glimpses of all these worlds layered over the others. It’s a fuckin’ mess.
It was like this a few times above ground too, where they would all appear at once, but only in certain places. Our bedroom, for instance, did have many worlds to choose from, but they didn’t all appear in a row like this. I had to choose them.
But here in the tunnel they all seem to be fightin’ for my attention.
“What are you looking for?”
“Hmm?” I ask, distracted.
“What does it look like?”
“What does what look like, Clara?”
“The world?”
“The one we’re supposed to be in? I’m not sure.”
“Then how will you know it’s the right one?”
I pull out of the overlay and focus on her. She’s smiling at me, so it’s hard to be annoyed with her questions, but I’m kind of annoyed because I’m working now and I’m not used to being interrupted by questions.
Be nice, Tyse. You love this woman.
So I smile back. “There’s a number attached to it. 702. Delta didn’t tell me this, though. I heard it from Stayn that night we were at his house.”
“Oh, I know that place.”
Which makes sense, because she’s from there. But I’m confused. “How do you know this place?”
“Delta mentioned it. He said…” Her eyes roll up, like she’s thinking. Then she deepens her voice to mimic the asshole god. “You are not a Looking Glass, Clara. You are a Spark Maiden from the illegal Tau Factory in Dimension 702.”