My previous journey traveling as a stowaway had only lasted three hours, and I napped for most of it, with Nora chattering away, sounding like a radio playing in the background. There had been an energetic sense of optimism and adventure lacking on this trip. I was experiencing more than a bit of trepidation when I recalled that the station agent, back in Great Falls, had told me that in the other direction it was a two-day journey to get to LA. Something having to do with a time warp out in the desert. When I had brought this up to Saligia, all she had to give in way of a response was a short and quiet grunt in our dark and cramped chamber.

It all came back to me. Her subtle, passive-aggressive communiqué. That noise meant that she expected me to resolve the situation.

I had been all over this compartment before on my previous trip, and I knew that there were no access panels or hatchways which might take us inside the train. And even if we did that, I wasn’t certain how we’d be received. Ida struck me as the sort who’d have us tossed out into a canyon far below as we sped across a bridge, or whatever was the train equivalent to keelhauling or walking the plank.

I told Saligia that we’d be stopping in a little town to take on water. “It cools the engine, I believe.”

“If we have time, I’ll go squat behind a bush,” she said, with less sarcasm in her voice than I would have expected. Maybe she’d mellowed over the years.

“We’ll figure something out,” I told her.

But when the train finally came to a stop, I had nothing. Not a plan. Not so much as a notion.

That was when hatch flew open and our cramped hideaway filled with light. I blinked, and saw the familiar shape of the water tower of the Great Falls depot lit in silver by the moon. The bright light, however, came from an electric lantern being held by a tall man bending down.

He leaned in for closer inspection.

“Well,” he said. Just that. Then he stepped back and added: “I suspect you are wanting some fresh air.”

I pulled myself out and stretched my arms. When I arched my back, I heard a pop. A good sound, I hoped. The man with the lantern was holding, in his other hand, the water hose. His unkempt beard bore the hallmarks of having grown through neglect of the razor, and not vanity. It suited him.

“Might you be Nora’s brother?” I asked, the question emerging more folksy than I had intended.

He looked at me for a moment before replying.

“I do have a sister by that name.”

“I’m a friend of hers. My name’s Morris.” I extended my hand.

He put down the hose and shook my hand without breaking eye contact.

“McAllister Fitzgerald’s the name,” he said. “And, I know, it’s a mouthful. Call me Mack. Is Nora okay?”

“She has a job,” I told him. It seemed the appropriate response. I didn’t know how to say she stepped into a magical closet and dematerialized, and we had no idea what had become of her. Gone to LA, maybe? Seemed a burden to lay on him.

“A job?” And he laughed. “What do you know about that?” He turned and shouted to the two teenaged boys back under the water tower. “This guy’s a friend of Nora’s. She’s landed a job, working in the big city.”

The young men grinned.

“Yes,” I said. “Nora was hired on as the assistant to the superintendent of elevator services of the La Vida Tower. And I don’t doubt that there’s room to move up in a job like that.”

My quip was ignored as Saligia stuck out her head, smiling benevolently in her role of celebrity. Though if Nora was right, no one in this little town even owned a TV. Of course that wouldn’t stop Saligia from making an impression. She had that way about her.

Mack stood up straight when he saw her and self consciously ran a hand through his uncombed hair.

“Ma’am, please, stretch your legs,” he said, and then bent to offer Saligia his hand.

Once Saligia was standing beside us, Mack turned to me.

“Any more of you in there?”

I told him it was just us.

Saligia introduced herself to Mack. When he displayed no recognition of her as a famous personage, she managed to show no outward signs of disappointment.

“I had spoken to the station agent here last week,” I said to Mack. “He said it was two days to LA. It’d be nice if there was some other way we could travel on this thing without being cramped in that little compartment.”

“Mr. Maynard was not wrong to tell you that.” Mack looked down at his shoes for a moment. “However, there are some facts of which he is ignorant. Not part of his job. So let me make it quite clear, if you folks continue on your journey inside there, you’re going to suffocate.”

Saligia tilted her head to look back into the shadowy recess we had stepped out of.

“Well we don’t want that,” she said.

“I wouldn’t imagine,” Mack said.

I made some comment about how it didn’t appear that the hatch was airtight.

“It isn’t,” Mack said. “And that’s the problem.” He smiled at my look of confusion. “You see, not more than an hour into your travels toward Los Angeles, the train crosses a huge salt flat. Directly in the middle is a big blob of glowing green light, right dead on the tracks. When the trains passes through it, it goes someplace else. That’s where you spend your two days. Just in some dark and airless nothing. Some primordial void?” He shrugged. “Makes no sense to me. You’d think they’d have built the train tracks around that damn thing. Maybe it arrived later? Anyhow, if you look at this hatchway, you can tell there’s no safety gasket to keep the air from leaking out. You’ll want to travel inside the train itself. Not just because it’s more comfortable, but also because—”

“We want to arrive alive,” Saligia said.

“I know I would,” Mack said. He pointed down a ways to the door into the side of the train. “Problem is, they don’t hardly ever open that door and talk with us.”

“It’s Nora,” Saligia said. “We’re trying to get to her.”

Mack looked from Saligia to me, confused.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “A friend of ours was kidnapped and taken to Los Angeles. Your sister followed. You know, to help.”

“Sounds like Nora. Helpful and headstrong.” Mack scratched his head. “So, she came through here on this train?”

“We have this portal, well, had,” Saligia began, then turned to look at me.

I didn’t want to go into the whole game show, resurrected contestants, rogue murderer, so I tried to keep it simple.

“In the building where she worked, there’s a room. Small, like a closet. You go in, close the door, you are transported to LA. Anyway, some maniac took our friend through that, well, that portal. Nora chased after them. Now the portal doesn’t work anymore. So, we’re heading west, trying to find them.”

Mack nodded thoughtfully, as if it all sounded reasonable.

“So, Nora’s in trouble?”

“Might be,” I said. “We’re concerned enough to be heading out after her.”

“Yes,” Saligia said, her eyes on me. “We are.”

“Then that’s all there is to it,” Mack said. “We need to get you onto this train. Come along with me.” As we walked, Mack shouted to the young men over at the water tower. “Boys, get in that compartment and fetch these good people’s luggage.”

Saligia and I followed Mack along the track, up onto the platform, and we came to a stop alongside the flank of the train car with the door.

“Lucky for us,” Mack said, “Mr. Maynard is home and in bed at this hour. No need to bring the boss into this matter.”

He slip a hammer from his tool belt and banged loudly several times on the door.

“Leave all the talking to me,” Mack instructed us. “I’ll give them no other choice than to let you on. Without the water, they can’t leave. And we have control over that.”

Before we could further discuss his plan, the door was flung open, and two men in blue suits stood glaring at us. Mack held his lantern up high so that we all were well lit. The two men standing in the opening to the train wore metal badges with a star, like old west lawmen, but instead of the word “sheriff,” there was the word “porter.”

I was waiting for them to began shouting at us, but their expressions transformed instantly, and I realized they were both staring at Saligia.

“Oh my god,” the youngest of them finally said in a whisper, which he repeated, slower. “Oh. My. God.”

“Saligia Jones,” the older man said, regaining his composer sooner than the younger porter. “This is extraordinary! The famous Saligia Jones, out here, in the middle of nowhere.”

“I take exception at that, sir,” said Mack. “As would all the fine citizens of Great Falls.”

And as if on cue, Mack’s two coworkers stepped up and placed my rucksack and Saligia’s bag on the ground beside us.

“When the train was departing San Antonio,” Saligia explained in a tone of calm and slightly pained civility, “we weren’t allowed on board. In a moment of desperation, we took temporary berth in that little compartment beneath the engine car.”

“Weren’t allowed?” the older porter muttered. “Weren’t allowed? Shameful. Absolutely inexcusable.”

“Those blasted Network people,” the younger porter said crossing his arms.

“Now, now, Jimmy,” said the older porter. “They’re not all bad folks.” He held out his hand to Saligia. “Please, ma’am, come aboard. We’ll ready your accommodations immediately.”

“For me and my valet,” Saligia said, pointing to me.

Valet?

“But of course,” said the older porter.

I picked up both our bags, falling into character as a valet, though I’m not exactly sure what that all entailed.

Saligia took the porter’s offered hand and stepped into the train. I followed, turning to nod at Mack and the two young men of Great Falls.

“God speed, and give my best to my little sister,” Mack told me as Jimmy the porter closed the door behind us.

###

The train was unremarkable inside. We were escorted through a car of private compartments, so all we saw was a wood paneled corridor with recessed lighting and brass fixtures on the sliding doors.

“We always keep a stateroom set aside for an unscheduled VIP,” said the older porter. “And I can’t imagine a more Very Important Person than Saligia Jones.”

Unrestrained praise should be a good thing. But with Saligia it just fueled an appetite which was, ultimately, insatiable. And when it began to diminish, as such things tended to do in the entertainment industry, she would become resentful and morose. I’d seen it before with her. The rise up was bad enough, her behaving like a giddy child enjoying her first exciting day at school, but the inevitable journey down was a cheap bottle of wine, equal parts sour and bitter.

After we had walked the length of several cars, the older porter held up his hand and smiled at Saligia. We stopped.

“Jimmy,” he said.

Jimmy nodded and opened the door to the compartment.

Saligia and I stepped in. It was cozy, with two upholstered bench seats facing one another. Beds above. A wide window, which looked out onto the nighttime platform of the Great Falls depot.

The porters politely remained in the corridor to list the amenities. When they explained that the bar up on the observation level was serving drinks and light snacks, Saligia suggested I join her once I’d finished stowing our luggage.

Before I could respond, she stepped out, Jimmy slid the door shut, and I was alone.

Things had drifted out of my control, I realized. It wasn’t like I had a plan or anything, but I was aware of this pattern that dominated my life. Anytime I began to feel that I had finally stepped on the correct path forward, things would suddenly shift and rearrange themselves. This was how it used to be with Sy and Saligia. Periods of relative calm broken by punctuated chaos. I like the calm—I fight to find and maintain it. Still, there was an undeniable thrill in the chaos, and with Sy and Saligia I had a front seat to the frenetic dramas generated by two impulsive personalities. It suddenly occurred to me how much I had missed that sensation. There was a rush like someone had just opened the door on a jetliner. No need to fight it. Let the wind carry you away. Don’t hold on to anything, or you’ll get knocked around something fierce. Just hope you’re wearing a parachute.

There were two Morrises within me, their divergent temperaments constantly at odds: the sensible fellow who valued stability and preparedness, and the thrill-seeker. The former had been running things for too long, I realized.

I dug a deep into my brain and pulled forth what had once been my mantra. I mentally blew off the layer of dust.

Embrace the chaos.

I didn’t feel the train begin to move, but I saw, through the window, the painted sign for Great Falls slide away, and soon it was just moon-lit rocks and shrubs zooming past.

I tossed Saligia’s bag up onto one of the beds. And, before doing the same with my pack, I pulled out my drawstring pouch holding my gold coins and stashed them under the cushion of one of the seats. I wasn’t expecting theft, but as there was no lock on the door, I didn’t want to chance it. We’d probably need money in LA. That was certainly the way it used to be.

Then I left in search Saligia.

I walked forward through the sleeper cars and eventually found myself in the empty and darkened dining car. I couldn’t go further, because the door at the far end was locked and had a sign cautioning that only staff were allowed beyond. Was that to the engine car? Where we had hidden beneath? I turned and glanced around the dining area with tables covered by crisp white linen.

Observation deck? Could it be overhead? These train cars did look tall from the outside. That was when I noticed a curtain just beyond the salad bar. I pulled it back and found stairs going up.

I encountered another curtain at the top. Soft music played—some sort of inoffensive, vaguely classical music, maybe Aaron Copland—and I also heard the murmur of conversations and the scattered titters of polite society. I pushed through into a cozy space dimly lit from recessed lighting and candles on about a dozen tables. The music was clearly recorded, as I saw no musicians. There were maybe thirty people, in all, seated in intimate groups, drinking and laughing and being attended to by waiters in white suits. Large windows all around looked out onto the moonlit desert.

At the nearest table I recognized a few people from Serpientes y Escaleras. When Ida saw me, she turned her head in my direction and stopped speaking. Everyone in her group looked, and then turned away with a sort of awkward distaste.

Everyone but Ida. She made no attempt to conceal her hostility. Without breaking eye contact with me, she said something to Michael who sat beside her. I could not hear her voice over the music and general chatter of passengers, but from simply watching her lips I could make out the words.

“Another one of them,” she said, and then looked away from me.

Ah. I guess that meant she’d already seen Saligia.

I walked to the front of the car where the floor-to-ceiling curved window provided a full view through of the gleaming tracks shooting out to the distant horizon. The scenery of the desert all around us was barren and majestic.

That was where I found Saligia, sitting at the head of a table with the grand scenery behind her. About ten people were seated around her, listening as she held forth, a sly smile on her lips.

She delivered some sort of punchline, because suddenly everyone around her broke into laughter.

Saligia watched as I walked around the table toward her.

“This is Morris,” Saligia said. “He’s my camera man. Makes me look good.”

It seemed I had been promoted up from valet.

A chair was pulled up beside her and I sat.

“It was so dramatic,” a woman said, looking across to me. “I can’t believe the show’s canceled. But what a way to go out!”

“Word has it, the portals overloaded, and shut down,” a young man in wireframe glasses said. “Is that right?” This last bit was addressed to me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Saligia, you are a legend,” the woman continued, looking at Saligia with an excited flutter of lashes. “I can only imagine you’ll be able to write your own ticket on any show you want.”

All heads nodded in agreement.

These were apparently all Network people. But friendly. A far cry from Ida’s inflexible crabbiness.

The young man with the glasses fetched me a beer and I just sat back and tried to make sense of it all.

I eventually learned that our group included people working on TV shows in New Orleans, Baltimore, and Lisbon (which, I learned, now resided where the Finger Lakes once were.). All game shows. They each had portals through with people appeared—people who became contestants on the shows. Just like Serpientes y Escaleras. One was called Don’t Spin Wrong! Another had something to do with competitive cooking, I’d Eat That! How many other shows were there? I think someone mentioned productions in Chicago and Missoula.

I felt it best not to trot out my ignorance, so I kept quiet.

I learned that even though Serpientes y Escaleras was acknowledged as the most popular of the Network’s shows, it was also clear that the Network employees who worked on that show, our show, who sat over at the table with Ida, were certainly not as well regarded as Saligia. Not by the people at our table, at least. Probably because they were seated with Ida, a member of the hated upper management.

Wasn’t that how it usually worked?

God, even after the Changes, corporate politics still existed.

Eventually the star-struck woman exclaimed to the group that “we’ve been taking up so much of Saligia’s time—I think we need to let her and her friend have some privacy. They’re no doubt hatching an idea for a brilliant follow up to Serpientes y Escaleras.”

The little crowd politely excused themselves, and broke into smaller groups as they sat at various tables arranged about the observation deck.

“You’re a star,” I said to Saligia.

“Quite unexpected. I mean, it’s nice being recognized when out and about in San Antonio. But to be so well-regarded by your peers within the industry, goodness. I don’t know what to say.”

“We should have asked them some questions,” I said. “Like where do those people go when they step through Door Number One.”

“We have plenty of time,” Saligia said, motioning a waiter for another drink. “We’ve won these people over. During the next two days, we should learn quite a bit.”

“It certainly has been a time for revelations,” I said, idly looking out the window. The train emerged from a canyon and was speeding across a flat plain, washed in the light of the moon. It was the salt flat Mack had spoke of. There, dead center, was a bright green point of light. It generated a weird glow, like that from an aquarium, for miles. “Well, revelations for me, that’s for sure. Especially about Sy.”

“Sy?”

“Yeah. It was such a relief to discover that he hadn’t died. I must admit, for the last few years I’ve been wrestling with this guilt. You know, feeling somewhat responsible for—”

“As you should,” Saligia interrupted. “He did die.”

I turned away from the view. She had my attention now.

“Out there in that production truck.” Saligia had shifted so she could look out the window. “And there were witnesses who saw you running away, like a coward.” Her lips compressed, and she slowly let our her breath. “Did you know I was called in to identify the body? There wasn’t much left to work with. I was able to vouch for that tattoo on his left buttock, but mostly the medical examiner went by the dental records.”

Saligia still wouldn’t meet my gaze. I could see, reflected in her eyes, that green light we were speeding toward. I twisted around so I could look too.

I watched it grow larger as we moved closer. It was as Mack said, a big green glowing blob. I was doing my best to process what Saligia was saying while at the same time trying to figure out if we should brace ourselves for, what, impact?

The music, I realized, had been turned off. The entire bar had fallen silent, as I assumed everyone was as focused on the fast-approaching blob sitting on the tracks ahead. I, for one, could not look away from it.

“What are you talking about? He’s alive,” I said. “Sy’s alive. Or at least he was alive when he went after August and Rose.”

“I don’t know what he is,” I heard Saligia say as I leaned closer to the window, fascinated and not a little terrified by that light. “I do know he died,” she continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “Back then in that production truck. And, years later, when the portals appeared in La Vida Tower, he was the first person to come through. I’d already mourned him, put all that behind me, when, boom, back from the dead.”

And then we hit the green blob and things got weird. Well, a different kind of weird.

Click on the image above (or right HERE) to navigate to my long story, The Book That Sells Itself. You will get to the first or several parts. At the bottom of the page on the Unlikely Stories website, you’ll find a link to part two, and you can take it from there to the final, fourth part.

I surprised myself with the smooth immediacy I had used to take care of that inane robot. Add to that, my unexpected behavior back at the TV studio. I will readily admit that my life, previously, had been filled with a great deal of physical activity, often struggling with and eventually dominating other people. But not right out in public. Never on display. Those were things I had kept hidden from others. Except, well, my victims.

That was all over now. The sensation was thrilling.

And it was honest!

I had to remind myself that when I thought of “my life,” I was referencing not the past, so much, as a completely different life.

A sad life, in many ways. Small, too. I had never left my hometown. Kept to the shadows. Never been appreciated for my true work. Sent to prison for the most petty of reasons—I’d been sloppy in handling my own finances. And all culminating in the most ignominious ending imaginable—death in prison by natural causes.

That was all over. I was a new man. Reborn. The phoenix up from the ashes. How I’ve changed! Perpetrating grand actions, in public. In full sight to anyone who happened to look my way.

At the moment this woman, Rose, she was my lifeline. I needed her around to keep me from turning into some gelatinous tentacled creature. Lydia had made that clear to me. Somewhere on one of the top floors of that building in San Antonio was something Lydia called a tau field generator, and if I ventured too far away from it, I could only survive if accompanied by one of the TV show’s psychic Readers. Saligia or Rose. Lydia doubted Michael was talented enough to be of any use to me.

I had little choice but to believe her absurd admissions. But it appeared that I had been wise to act on them. Those robots had corroborated Lydia’s story. In fact, Rose’s “powers” were causing distress to the robots’ entire facility.

To that, I say, good!

And also keeping me intact, in human form.

I had to get Rose to see things my way. Lies wouldn’t work on her. She seemed to know all about what had happened to that director, Hal. In her eyes I was a murderer. No doubt she also suspected I had something to do with Lydia’s disappearance. She was smarter than most of those TV people.

I decided not to waste time with threats, either. She didn’t seem motivated by fear.

I would be honest. Mostly honest.

She needed me. And I needed her.

She needed me because of my strength and determination. I’d already proven capable of defeating the robot threat—though she might not see them as the enemy I did, even with their ray guns.

My ultimate success would be to get Rose to understand how I needed her. It was crucial to play to her sense of compassion. She had deep reserves of empathy. In fact, I hoped she could read my thoughts. She’d have no choice but to come to the conclusion that I was the victim in all this.

True, she might not come to accept that my behavior toward Hal and Lydia was justified no matter how wronged I felt, but I didn’t need to turn her into a lifelong friend, just convince her to remain in my proximity until I figured a few things out.

“We need to get out of here,” I told her. I could make my case as we moved.

Rose didn’t seem to be listening. She stepped to the railing and looked up.

“I think someone from the other side came through after Helen and Darlene,” she said. “Those robot things said tier 24. I think it’s above us. We should check it out.”

“You think someone from a game show can save us? Do you know how absurd you sound?”

“But they probably came to help.”

“They will not have come to help me.”

“No, I wouldn’t imagine.” She turned to face me. “You know, because of Hal.”

“They were holding me prisoner. You know that, right? Poking around in my brain. Forcing me to perform on a game show as some twisted entertainment. What would you have done? Me, I was just trying to escape from that madhouse. And it is still going on.” I paused a moment to let my words sink in. “Even here, wherever here is. Those two men, robots, whatever—you saw what they did to Helen and Darlene. Did they deserve that? Whatever it was that happened to them, that has been my fate all along. Seems like I was wise to try and escape.”

There. I did it.

I saw from Rose’s face, I had her. Made my case. At least for the time being. Whatever powers of telepathy she might have, she wouldn’t have need that to know I spoke the truth. Factual, logical truth. I watched as she processed it all. Then, she glanced up, I presume towards tier 24.

“Well we can’t stay here,” she finally said. “The robot had a cart, so I suspect there’s an elevator somewhere.”

We began to walk cautiously, side by side, neither having the full trust of the other.

One of the things I had learned from Lydia was that Serpientes y Escaleras wasn’t the only TV show that had mysterious portals and “reincorporated” contestants. If that was true, then shouldn’t the portals from those other shows lead here as well? And if so, why was the place so empty and quiet?

“I want to know where we are,” Rose said, not bothering to ask me my opinion. Then she frowned. “We know one thing we didn’t know before. Door Number One and Door Number Two lead to the very same place.”

What I had learned from Lydia was that the doors led to Los Angeles. She, however, claimed not to know if the two doors went to the same place in that city. So, yes, Rose was correct. I had learned something I had not known before.

It took only a few minutes for us to find, nestled in a recess, the elevator.

“There’s another one,” Rose said, pointing directly across the wide central shaft of the space.

Two elevators. Good to know. I pressed the button—the only button to be seen. As I waited, Rose walked over to the railing and looked down into the depths of the green-lit space.

“I don’t see anything special about the ground level,” she said. “Other than that pool of water. Of course at this angle it’s hard to see much of any of the other floors.”

I wish Rose would remain closer. I needed to keep an eye on her, least she make a run for it, but I also had to focus my attention on the elevator door when it opened.

And then it did.

No warning chime. No sound at all. The door silently slid aside. I was glad to see it empty, as I was not well prepared if there had been anyone inside.

It was roomy enough, maybe for a couple of people—meaning robots—along with two of their handcarts. More of that soft green light came from a panel in the ceiling. The walls were brushed metal. I stepped in, placing my hand along the door recess so the elevator wouldn’t close. Rose walked away from the railing and joined me inside.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I still held my hand in place, keeping the door open.

“This is all wrong.” I meant the panel with the column of buttons, numbered 1 through 47. “See? The numbers go the wrong way.” I had never seen an elevator control panel where the larger numbers were below the smaller numbers. Unless they were indicating multiple basements.

I gently took Roses wrist (so as not to startle her) and we both got off the elevator. I let the door slide shut.

“We’re in an underground facility,” I said. 

“Just because of how the buttons were numbered?” She seemed doubtful. “Maybe they’re just arranged different.”

“Not just that.” I pointed at the raised metal decal attached to the wall beside the elevator call button. There it was. The number 24. “We’re on the 24th floor. Or, as the robots would say, the 24th tier. When they mentioned the new arrivals, they said they were on tier 22. They indicated it was above us.”

Rose returned to the railing and looked down, toward what she had only seconds ago considered the way out.

“So, what’s that down there?” I took it to be a rhetorical question. Still, I joined her and peered down into the waters far below where I had tossed that robot. Was it some underground river? Hundreds of feet below Los Angeles? That didn’t seem right, but that hardly mattered. We weren’t headed down there.

“Honestly,” I muttered, “I’d rather not know.”

Then we both looked up.

“One of those robot’s mentioned a control room,” I said. “He told the other one to go up to the control room. I assume something that important would be at the very top. And, if we’re underground, that’s also where we need to be if we want to get out.”

Rose turned to face the elevator.

“No,” I told her. “Not unless we can’t find some stairs. Elevators are not know for their stealth. And whereas you might be comfortable walking up to strangers, be they mechanical or biological, I don’t feel that way at all.”

I was losing Rose. Stealth was not important to her.

“I need you, Rose,” I said. “Don’t give up on me. I’ve made it this far. And you heard those robots. Your ability, or whatever, seems to be keeping me from turning into…whatever Helen and Darlene became.”

“Surely, they were wrong,” she said, sounding tired. “I don’t have any sort of superpowers. I’m no one special.”

“That just not true. Please, I need your help get me some place safe, so I can figure this all out. Will you at least do that?”

Rose sighed. But she also nodded.

We continued walking.

I had not gotten all that I wanted from Lydia—towards the end it became very frustrating with her slipping in and out of consciousness—but there were two important facts I had learned. First, I was now somewhere in the city of Los Angeles. That meant if I could get free of this dreadful underground facility, I should have ample opportunities to lose myself in a large, thriving city. Second, Lydia had made it quite clear that she knew of no way to reverse the effects of the terrifying transformation that would visit me once I was away from Rose. I stilled hoped that someone, more savvy than Lydia, would hold the solution to that problem. I also hoped that Rose remained too overwhelmed by all of the uncertainties around us to come to the realization that I would never let her out of my sight until I found that solution.

But I needed to focus on there here and now. Fortunately, we soon discovered the door to a stairwell.

If you think of each circular level in this place like a watch face with the two elevators at six o’clock and noon, the stairs were at three o’clock. Probably there was another at nine.

I held the door to the stairwell and Rose obediently entered. I followed. We began the long trek, climbing up toward what I hoped to be freedom.

Not wanting to attract attention, Nora and I were stretched out flat on the floor so we could peer down at Rose and August, two levels below.

We watched in shock as August tossed that white-suited robot over the railing to his sad fate in the dark waters far below. At that moment, the severity of our situation returned to me. Though I held no personal stake in that mechanized man, I nervously kept my eyes trained on the slow churning surface of the sinister pool, hoping the robot might bob to the surface and swim to safety.

I realized that Nora, pressed close beside me, was holding her breath, and then I noticed I was as well.

“Breathe,” I whispered to her. Then I muttered, “Poor devil.”

###

When the two of us had arrived—perhaps materialized would be more apt—I am embarrassed to admit that my first thoughts were not of Rose.

My focus had been the Plan.

If there was any place I could find the answers that would allow me to give those reincorporated people a real choice in their future (other than two grim unknowns), it would be here. Wherever here was.

I needed to explore. Investigate. And be quick about it. Probably sneaky as all get out. I doubted I’d have much time.

But I couldn’t let my thoughts roam untethered for long, because I had not arrived in this realm beyond Door Number One alone.

We were still in a tight clutch—Nora and I—not because of fear, but from our giddy pose we had struck for the camera before we transitioned into the featureless and weightless void.

How long had we been in that nothingness between worlds?

Minutes? Decades?

Nora was a lively one. Quick and observant. Head-strong, yes. But what can I say? I too shared those virtuous traits. However, at times prudence was the higher virtue.

So, when we popped into existence within a green-lit glass tube, I felt a need to restrain Nora as she leaped out.

She spun around, looking perplexed at my hand holding onto her wrist.

“But we’re on a rescue mission,” she had said with dismay.

She was right, of course. We were here to rescue Rose from that maniac!

“Assess, my dear,” I told her. “We’re in a new world, and don’t know the rules.”

She smiled at me, flicking her eyes down to my hand.

“You can let go of me. I won’t run away.”

We both stood a moment, processing the fact that we were not only still alive, but a long way from La Vida Tower. And then, with care and deliberation, we looked around, doing our best to make sense of this place.

Slowly we both stepped away from the tube and stood at a waist-high railing looking out into a gigantic space. And what a space. It had all the dimly lit industrial minimalism of a Marriott hotel atrium as designed by a fourteen-year-old devote of 1980s science fiction movies. Dozens of levels of balustraded walkways providing access, not to hotel rooms, but hundreds of human-sized glass tubes into which people, such as Nora and I, might land after traveling through the ether of time and/or space. Most of the light came from glowing green orbs the size of potted ferns. Hundreds of these globes sat atop metal pillars distributed along the railings.

High above us, at the top of the huge central shaft, was a flat black ceiling with a hint of glittery reflections, as if ground mica had been glued up there. In the center was an enormous globe, half its hemisphere exposed, glowing, also, with that eerie green light. It throbbed and shimmered. And below, all the way at the bottom of the cavernous space, was water, sluggish and rolling. I think it was water. It could have been molasses for all I could tell. I wondered if the place had been constructed over a river. Maybe a river of molasses. If that were the case—and I’m not suggesting it was—than the food court most likely would be placed at the lowest level.

I almost expected tinny piano music issuing from circular speakers in the ceilings. But all was quiet. Well, a sort of soft buzz did come from all around. Probably those weird light fixtures.

The place was exotic and ordinary at the same time. But, I made it! Alive and in one piece. Here, beyond the portal. Beyond Door Number One. And what I had said to Nora couldn’t be more honest. I did not know the rules. I realized, in fact, I knew nothing. Even after years of sending contestants on this very journey, I had acquired no more than vague speculations.

Notes! I should be taking notes. But no paper. I didn’t even have a pen.

All of those observations which I would have preferred to leisurely gather and consider, had to be placed on hold when Nora alerted me to the presence of others.

“There they are,” she hissed. Now it was her time to grab my wrist.

Because Rose was still with August, we, Nora and I, with not a word exchanged between us, dropped down, out of sight.

From our hiding place on the floor, we saw that they were standing with two men in white coveralls not far below us, on the opposite side of the shaft.

“Looks like we’re the only ones in the whole place,” I said to Nora in a low tone. “The two of us, and the four of them. Seems strange. I mean, if these tubes are for transportation, they’re sure not getting much use. There are thousands of them.”

“1692,” Nora said.

“What?”

“You overestimated. 47 levels, 36 tubes per level. 1692, in total.” She looked up, then down. “That’s still a lot. Well, seems like a lot to me.” Then she turned her gaze back to the little group below.

“I wish we could hear them,” I said. The two men in white seemed so officious, probably they were employed to process the arriving contestants who were sent through Door Number One. White, like angels? Were similar men, though dressed in red devil suits, waiting in some other similar place for those assigned to Door Number Two?

If this was supposed to represent heaven, I’d like to have a chat with the design team. Theatrics should take a higher priority. White jumpsuits? Oh, please! We were holding up our side—back in San Antonio, running a smooth, professional show. But this? Not impressed. It had the Network all over it. Shoddy half-assery.

“Whoa!” Nora said. She sucked in her breath.

There had been a green flash down below us coming from the tube right beside Rose. New arrivals! It was Helen and Darlene! Oh, if only I could see what was going on back in the studio. I sure hoped Morris turned on the video recorder. It must be exquisite chaos—the best kind!

But wait, I couldn’t imagine anyone on crew who would have sent the women through Door Number One. That’d just be bad TV. They would have been sent through Door Number Two. Because if Door Number One and Door Number Two both led to the same place, that would make no sense at all. That was worse than a rigged game. That would be…pointless.

“They’re busted, now,” Nora said.

“What?”

“Those two glass things,” she said, pointing down. “They’re broken.”

She was observant. The tube that brought Helen and Darlene was smoking. A bit. And the tube next to it, too. It was probably the one Rose and that killer used. Also, those two devices looked different. Then I realized that every tube in the whole place had a subtle green glow to them. I hadn’t noticed because it was so faint. But when they went dark, as had those two below, they stood out.

Nora taped my shoulder and pointed behind us to the tube which we had arrived in. It was dark as well.

Maybe the chaos back in the studio was less exquisite and more disastrous. I wondered if that might impact our chance of returning.

Then there was another flash. Green again, but very vibrant and powerful. One of the men in white had just zapped Helen and Darlene.

“Oh, no,” Nora gasped.

The women weren’t women anymore. They looked like Cleo, all tentacles and floppy bulges. They twitched there on the floor, helpless. One of the men grabbed up both the creatures and loaded them into a rolling cart. And then, he took them away.

Lord, was that what happened to all of our “lucky” contestants?

But wait, the remaining man in white was aiming his ray gun at August.

When August grabbed one of those rolling carts and slammed it against that guy in the white jumpsuit, all I could think of was good job! The man in white collapsed.

“Sparks,” said Nora. “Sparks are coming out of that man’s head.”

“A robot,” I said. “Those sort of sparks don’t come out a human. How interesting.”

“Oh, he’s okay. He’s standing up. Wow! I love robots!” Nora laughed quietly. “Well, I’ve never met one, but what’s not to love?”

“You think those two women would be so forgiving?”

“Mr. Moreno, we don’t know the full story. Remember, we’re assessing.”

“Please, call me Sy.” And then we saw August chuck that robot over the edge. When it landed in the water far below, it didn’t splash so much as ooze out of sight. I was beginning to lean towards molasses. “Now, that’s how you handle a robot.” I was starting to warm toward our cold-blooded killer.

I was still watching, wondering if it might eventually come up for air, when Nora poked me.

“They’re on the move,” she hissed.

Indeed they were. Momentarily unencumbered by any robot threat, August and Rose began heading off. 

We crept away from the edge before standing. We walked along the mezzanine, keeping close to the glass tubes lining the wall.

“We want to avoid being noticed by our friend, the murderer,” I whispered to Nora. “But, also, there’s that other robot skulking around.”

No sooner had I spoken the word, than there he was, moving our way, pushing his rolling cart with its unsavory contents. I grabbed Nora and pulled her into an alcove.

He—and I suppose a robot could be a he—hadn’t seen us. I was pretty sure of that. But he’d find us soon enough.

“Sy!” Nora hissed in my ear. Ah, finally, no more of that Mr. Moreno.

“What’s up?” I asked, shifting my gaze to where she was pointing.

“It’s an elevator,” she told me.

Well, it did appear to be some sort of sliding metal door, but that didn’t mean…I almost laughed at my own stupidity. Nora was an elevator expert!

Wait! What was that irritating sound? It flashed to mind that it must be a squeaky wheel of the robot’s wheelbarrow as it came closer. So, when Nora held her finger questioningly over the elevator call button, I nodded assertively.

When I was little my best friend Ruth had a trampoline in her backyard. We took turns to see how high we could bounce. I always won. Because I was heavier, Ruth said. I couldn’t argue. I was a chubby girl. One day, I made it so high I could see over the neighbor’s wooden fence. It was the last of three bounces, each higher than the last. At the top, I relaxed, it felt so perfect. I stretched out—in the air!—like I was lying on a cloud. The old man next door looked up from his hammock, where he sipped a soda with a cat sleeping on his chest. I must have been quite a sight, the flying girl. Our eyes met. He smiled and lifted a hand to his head, like he was saluting an astronaut about to break from orbit. Then I leaned my head back and I saw the last leaf of the season on Ruth’s sycamore tree. It brushed my face. I reached out. It was dry and brown. I plucked it from the branch. Things had slowed to a stop. I was floating. And then gravity found me again. I wasn’t ready. I wanted so much to stay up there.

That’s how I felt the moment August closed Door Number One.

When he dragged me off stage, I was terrified to feel his cool, dry hands on me. His grip so much stronger than I would have guessed. But then I heard the door click shut, and we found ourselves in darkness with no up nor down. I no longer felt August’s hands on me. I was flying. In the dark. All fear was gone.

It went on for what felt like blissful hours. I heard a peaceful rush, like that of wind in the desert. All about me was the odor of mimosa blossoms.

Then, at some point, I stopped flying and started falling.

I wasn’t ready.

When I “landed,” I didn’t stumble. My knees weren’t even bent.

I guess I didn’t so much fall into this new place, this new world, as I materialized.

And not alone.

August still held me, his hands gripped my biceps, up near the shoulders. His face so close to mine I could see his pupils dilating, now that we had emerged from that timeless void which had been barren of anything, even light. We had arrived where everything was green. August’s complexion looked like that of the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. I tilted my head to look up. Directly above us a circular panel glowed green. As I l brought my gaze back down, I watched August’s expression shift from neutral to predatory. I didn’t care for the smile crossing his lips, or the coldness coming down over his eyes. I sensed something in his mind. A dull and growing hunger. Then it vanished, as did his smile. He was looking at something over my shoulder.

I turned.

We were in a transparent tube. Roomy enough for a person, but cramped with two. We stood on a glass disk that glowed like the ceiling. The front of the tube was open, and it faced into a massive cylindrical room. Above and below us there were dozens of mezzanines running along the curved wall, each lined with tubes like the one in which August and I stood. The entire space was softly lit by green globes interspaced along the railings of each level.

Two men stood looking at us with curiosity. They wore white jumpsuits. Their heads were shaved, they had no eyebrows, and their skin was gray like modeling clay, but that might have been because of the weird lighting. They were interchangeable, like twins.

August removed his hands from where they held me.

“Two through one portal?” said the man on the right. “Bad form.”

“That might explain why they’re here so late,” said the one on the left. “But not why they arrived as human.” He turned around to look at the green globe nearest him. “This tau field dampener is working fine.” His eyes scanned the huge space. “It appears they all are.” He returned his attention to us and made an unpleasant face. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The two of them moved back, allowing August to step from the tube. I got out as well and stood a few feet from August.

Two heavy rubberized wheelbarrows were parked nearby, matching the men’s white jumpsuits.

The gray man to the right held a slim black box with a lighted display. He lifted it up in front of August and read aloud from the screen. “August Mathers, 5813213768.” He shrugged. “But, really, he shouldn’t be up on his hind legs, with hands and a nose and the rest.” The gray man turned the machine on me. He looked perplexed at the screen. “We’ve no record of this one.” 

The man beside him reached over to toggle a switch on the box the other was holding.

“Well, there’s the problem,” he said. “The female’s not a REINCOR.”

“Bad form,” said the other. “Sending us a civilian. That still doesn’t explain…”

“Wait,” the other said. “I have theory.” He reached into his pocket and removed a stubby baton, made from the same material as that slim black box. He pointed it at me.

I didn’t care for that, and I stepped back into the relative safety of the glass tube.

He pushed a button on the baton. The tip pulsed with a red light.

“Well, that explains it,” he said to his companion. “She’s a Reader.”

“Interesting. But could that truly override a Level 4 tau field dampener?”

“It could,” said the gray man on the right, holding the baton close to his face to read a dial on the side, “if the Reader possessed a Fitzroy measurement of over 1200.”

“I didn’t know such things were possible,” said the one on the left.

“Hello,” I said, working on my best and warmest smile. “My name is Rose.”

“A 1200 here in the facility could cause all sorts of havoc,” said the one on the left. Both were ignoring me. That’s when I felt August’s hunger return. I looked at him from the corner of my eye. His body tensed slightly. If he attacked these two men, should I take their side, or make a run for it?

I had questions about this place. Important questions. And those two men should have some answers.

Suddenly the light panel above me in the tube began strobing. Sparks flew up from my feet. I admit I screamed.

“The fools are sending more through,” said the one with the baton. “It’s much too soon.”

“And with this one standing inside,” said the other. “I wonder what might happen. Perhaps it will cook her.”

“What?” I yelled and jumped out.

The tube immediately went dark.

The gray man to the right checked the black box in his hand.

“More arrivals from Sector 210. Thankfully they were automatically shunted over to an arrival pod up on tier 27.”

“They?” the other asked. “Did I hear you right?”

“You did. Those idiots did it again. Sent two through a single portal.”

At that moment, a bright flash of light almost blinded me. August flinched, but the gray men just turned and looked at the glass tube beside the one we’d arrived in. It now glowed green, and inside were Helen and Darlene, clutching each other and looking quite confused.

“This is unacceptable,” said the gray man to the left. “Two, yet again, in a single pod. Let me guess. Sector 210?”

“The very same,” the other said. “Serpientes y Escaleras. And if this sort of irresponsible abuse of the portal system hasn’t resulted in a profound decoherence event for those provincial imbeciles, it’s just pure dumb luck.”

The tube holding Helen and Darlene, and the one beside it that we had come in, both began strobing with a dull olive light. An awful grating metallic noise came from them. And then silence. Thin wisps of black smoke rose from vents at the base of both.

“Well there you have it,” said the gray man on the right. “We’ve lost Sector 210.”

I couldn’t figure out what they were talking about. Decoherence event?

“What is happening?” Helen croaked.

“And look at them,” said the gray man on the left. “Again, in the wrong form. Such a breach of protocol.”

“It’s the Reader, remember?” added the one on the right.

“I do, indeed,” said the other.

Helen and Darlene carefully stepped out. They looked around them in awe.

“It’s not so bad,” Helen whispered.

Darlene lifted her hands, clutching her chest.

“I’m not supposed to be here,” she said to the gray men. Then she noticed me and brightened up. ”Rose here knows. I got Door Number One.” She looked around, trying to figure out who was in charge. “Do I just go upstairs?”

“I don’t care for this at all,” one of the gray men said. “REINORs talking to us. Strolling about.”

“Not in our job descriptions at all,” the other said in full agreement.

“I can vouch for Darlene,” Helen added. “She won. She supposed to be in, well, the other place.”

The gray men ignored Helen and Darlene. I was trying to figure out what my role was all this. The gray men knew me to be a Reader. Did that give me any clout? Maybe I could explain everything. And then they could help me.

“I’m with the show,” I said. “Serpientes y Escaleras. One of the Associate Producers.”

The gray men ignored me. The one on the right scanned the women with his box. “Helen Linden 3498344721,” he said, “and Darlene Mozersky 7232953105.”

“Well, now,” Helen explained, holding up her hand. “I still go by my married name, even after the divorce.” Then she smiled. “Look at me! I’m remembering things!”

Darlene clapped her hands together and beamed at Helen.

“That’s wonderful, dear!”

The grey man on the left made an adjustment to his baton.

“Let’s begin by imposing a Level 7 dampening field around these two,” he said.

“It might save us some trouble to just shut down this Reader,” the other gray man said, pointing at me.

“Me?” I asked, wondering if it wasn’t too late for me to make a run for it. “Do what to me?”

But they continued to ignore me. Well, at least my words.

“You’ll recall that we have no authority over non-REINCORs.”

“You’re quite correct,” the other admitted. “Very irksome at times, this following of rules.” The gray man with the baton pointed the device at Helen and Darlene. He pushed a button and a cone of vibrant green light shot out and hit them both. They didn’t even have time to scream. They collapsed into two gelatinous squid-like things, floundering on the floor. Instead of arms and legs, they now had short tentacles that twitched a bit like the tails of irritated cats. Their pale bulbous bodies, no bigger than sofa cushions, glistened with a moist sheen. Each had two huge and lidless eyes.

What were they?

August reeled back, grabbing the edges of the opening to our tube. He looked down at the women—or what had once been women—with revulsion.

The gray man on the right scooped up the creatures and placed them both into one of the rugged wheelbarrows. He then picked up the women’s clothing and stuffed them into a small opening in the wall labeled Waste. I saw a look of satisfaction on the gray men’s faces. One of them grabbed the handles of the wheelbarrow and began rolling away the writhing things which had once been Helen and Darlene. He spoke over his shoulder, giving instructions to his companion.

“I’ll take care of the two arrivals up on tier 47. And after you deal with this one, head to the Control Room and increase the dampeners. All the way to Level 10 just to be safe.”

I watched as he rolled Helen and Darlene around a corner.

When the remaining gray man said, “You might want to stand aside,” it took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me.

“I don’t think this will harm you,” he continued, holding up his baton. “You being a non-REINCOR and all, but best play it safe.”

He aimed the device at August. I stepped away, happy to see that things were going in a favorable direction.

But I had forgotten how quickly August could move. He leaned forward, grasped the second wheelbarrow positioned beside the gray man, and swung it hard. It caught the man before he could fire. He dropped his baton, and fell back, slamming his head against the metal railing. He slumped to the floor. I watched in horror as a surge of electrical sparks sputtered from a small crack in his skull behind his ear. A thick green jelly, like the pulp from a cactus, began pooling on the floor.

The satisfied smile spreading across August’s face did not have time to fully blossom.

The gray man, after a slight tremor ran through him, stood back up. He smoothed out his white jumpsuit and wet his lips with his tongue.

“Goodness,” he said. “That was quite unexpected.”

I was impressed by his composure. A composure he maintained even when August picked him up and threw him over the railing.

I leaned over and watched him fall in that eerie green half-light, down past dozens of levels of glass tubes until he splashed into what I thought must be water at least two hundred feet below.

I turned to August. I could feel a giddy rush of excitement coming from him.

He didn’t need to be able to peer into my mind to read the word at the top of my thoughts. Murderer. He could see it in my eyes.

“What?” he asked, with a smile. “They’re not humans. Some sort of machines.”

“I guess they are not human. But what about you?” I asked, thinking of Helen and Darlene. Had they been turned into those things, or had they been allowed to revert back to, well, whatever a REINCOR might be?

“Well, I’m not one of them,” August said, pointing down to the pool below. He bent to pick up the baton and looked at me. “Don’t want you getting any ideas.”

He tossed the device over the edge.

I don’t know how many magnetic trains there were zooming around. Maybe just the one. This cramped engine compartment certainly could have been the same I had previously shared with Nora.

“Someone said these trains are powered by nuclear energy,” Saligia said in the darkness. “I’m blaming you if all of my hair falls out.” I heard her shift around, trying to find a comfortable position. “I’m guessing you didn’t bring along a flashlight.”

Me without a flashlight? Not likely. But I didn’t bother pulling it from my pocket. There was enough light for me to see by.

“Your eyes will adjust,” I told her.

“Adjust? To what?”

“Give it a minute.”

 “You mean the glow coming from behind this panel? Is that where they keep the plutonium?”

“No idea,” I said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t monkey around with anything.”

“The thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

There was a time when such mild yet barbed banter would have shifted into a protracted session of bickering between us. But now, Saligia just sounded defeated.

After we rode in silence for a bit, she asked, “What’s that smell?”

“Smell?” Then I realized what she meant. “Almost forgot. I picked up some food for the road as I passed the Alamo. Falafel à al Charlemagne.”

I removed the parcel wrapped in waxed paper from my rucksack and we shared the falafel sandwich.

I’d been having trouble dislodging from my mind a sense of guilt involving Saligia. Not the big things—I would probably have to unpack that stuff at some point. Saligia and I had been a couple for almost a year, so we had accumulated a fair amount of baggage. But it hadn’t been just us, we also shared the same house with my previous romantic partner. An odd time in all our lives. Sy, Saligia, and myself living in that wonderful crumbling and rambling adobe mansion in the Chihuahua Desert—what Sy called Casita Ménage à Trois.

And then there was the time I never returned home. That weird and terrible day on the ranch with the dinosaur.

I knew Saligia felt abandoned whenever Sy and I would head out of town to shoot segments for Wonders Unfolding. And I can’t even begin to imagine what she went through when word reached her about the accident, or whatever it was, that caused the production truck to explode. Had she thought I died? And how the hell did Sy survive? I still hadn’t gotten a clear answer about that.

I would prefer to ask Sy instead of Saligia, except Sy wasn’t available. He was…where? LA? Really? Was that really where the resurrected Dead go?

And did I honestly think we’d see him again?

Well, stranger things have happened. Indeed they had.

The guilt I was thinking of at that moment there in the dim engine compartment was something seemingly so small and inconsequential that I’d laugh if I heard someone else trying to work his way through it. It was the guilt I felt for not recognizing Saligia when I saw her on the TV screen in that bar. Somehow, that felt unforgivable.

I tried, best I could, to play back in my memory that moment in La Condesa Cantina and Sports Bar. That was, my god, just last week! It felt years in the past. I’d not given the woman up there on the TV screen a second glance. True, I was barely paying attention. What was it about people who went to a bar to watch television? If it was that important to them, why not just stay at home where there were no distractions? Of course, I’d never understood the appeal of the shared experience, be it watching television shows with others or attending spectator sports. I found it alienating every time I’d stumble into a bar and realized I was surrounded by the vacuous expressions of a roomful of obsessed faces, all collectively staring at a screen on the wall. They would occasionally come to life to scream in elation when their team was winning, or groan in collective commiseration if the other side moved ahead. They were focused, intent. Just the way the people in La Condesa bar were focused on Serpientes y Escaleras, and the intense hostess of the show.

I certainly had not shared their fascination.

And if I had, would I have snapped to attention the second I saw her face? Rising up from my stool at the unexpected sight of a woman whose bed I had shared so often?

True, I had been preoccupied. No one could argue that. A journey across the wilderness. My first time in a city in years. The taste of alcohol after a long period of abstinence.

Also, I should point out that Saligia possessed a chameleon quality—a quality much valued in performers. So maybe I could be excused for not spotting her outright. She had been playing a role.

The problem with that line of reasoning was that her persona on Serpientes y Escaleras matched her aloof and sardonic behavior in real life. Her makeup choice, also, was the same, just a touch more severe.

Still, I was oblivious as I absently sipped my beer at La Condesa.

Was that me all the time? Shallow and noncommittal? So lacking in nostalgia that I could walk away from one life in search of the next, never to look back or even reflect in fond recollection? Not even pause, my mug of beer halfway to my lips: “Where have I heard that voice before?”

I guess all that was me.

I had moved on. Allowed Saligia to leave my mind.

But now, now she was back. I stole a glance across the compartment to see if I could detect some expression on her face that might suggest she was listening in. But I couldn’t tell. I never could tell. Whether or not she was in my mind, it certainly did appear she was back in my life, and I, in hers. Fair enough, but what were we to one another, now? Were we a we?

The faint light spilling from the engine console struck her obliquely, giving a soft warmth to the strong lines of her face, the clean jaw and high cheekbones, the widow’s peak made more prominent from her hair being tied back. She still wore her lipstick and mascara from the show. I recalled all those years ago when she would come home from hosting her psychic dating show, and how she rarely removed her makeup until the next day, when she’d wake up, with everything smeared and slightly fuzzy as though her face was out of focus. Early in the morning, when she was still half-connected to that world of dreams which she never shared with me, that was when she’d smile the most. Right after waking.

I’ve always been an idiot with relationships.

Thankfully, things between me and Sy had been fluid. Neither of us were suited to longterm commitments. Nothing much changed, really, when our relationship shifted back to us just being friends.

Saligia, well, once the the initial excitement began to wane, I realized I had no idea how seriously she took such matters. Both of us lacked the basic skills to speak openly about our feelings.

Probably I was relieved when I found myself driving away from the smoldering ruins of that production truck on the outskirts of San Angelo.

Who was I kidding? Of course I was relieved. And add to that I felt virtuous. I struck off into a life of self-imposed exile to protect a woman. A woman I loved. That was my narrative.

The demise of the us which was Morris Fisher and Saligia Jones happened because of extraordinary events beyond my control.

Strange, in a way, another event beyond my control had brought us back together. The demise of San Antonio, or whatever was happening as I slammed shut that hatch.

Maybe things back there will settle down, or even return to normal. But from the way Ida and the rest of those Network employees were rushing about to get on the train, I feared the worse.

 So, all those slamming of Doors Number One and Number Two had caused the destruction of an entire city? That was starting to sound like the insanity of the Changes. Had they returned? The Changes?

Her nervousness aside, Ida had taken the whole thing pretty much in stride. Did such things happen often? Other cities blinking out? Maybe that was how the Network went about cancelling shows.

Though that seemed extreme.

Admittedly, I didn’t have much invested in San Antonio. But I had met some interesting people. Good people. Like Fran, and all his passionate associates from the All Seeing Eye Society, with their spirited exchanges each week in that drafty basement meeting hall. Also, the unfortunate production staff Ida had left behind. Raul, Myra, and the others whose names I never learned. The whole of La Vida Tower—Sy’s penthouse. Hell, the Alamo! Just gone. And Charlemagne DeWinter, as well as his falafel stand.

All gone?

I sat there in the dim glow of that cramped space watching the way Saligia ate her falafel sandwich. It made me think of an otter or a raccoon, probably because she had the sleeves of her thin sweater pulled down so only her fingertips were exposed. She wore her nails short and painted black, like a sensitive teenager.

Once she had finished, she began to tear open an individually wrapped moist towelette Charlemagne had kindly provided.

“Are you thinking what I am?” she asked, peering at me in the dimness.

Well, here it comes. The great Saligia Jones was in my head, savoring my guilt as a sort of, what, post falafel dessert? I guess it was time to roll up my sleeves and prepare myself for the onslaught of Saligia’s critique of years of my irresponsibility and general bad behavior, culminating, of course, on the day I abandoned her. It wasn’t that I didn’t have it coming.

“Well,” I began with a sigh. “I guess it’s been a long and convoluted road which brought me—”

“Oh, don’t. Just don’t.” Saligia wiped her fingers and lips. “I’m talking about the lack of a toilet in our cramped quarters.”

Mona LeCroix

Programing Dept.

The Network Interoffice Memorandum #4517442

Tuesday, September, 23, 2025

To: Brad Vaughn, HR Dept.

From: Mona LeCroix, Programing

RE: Serpientes y Escaleras, and this evening’s loss of San Antonio, Texas

 

ISSUE

The unexpected termination of the Network’s popular show, Serpientes y Escaleras (and the unfortunate eradication of the city of San Antonio—with the associated and unavoidable loss of that city’s TV viewing audience) will necessitate the quick action of all departments here at the Network.

(Parenthetically, I need to make it clear that Serpientes y Escaleras has not yet been officially canceled, but as we have never seen a production continue after a similar incident—you will recall the catastrophe that ended Ripcord Follies—we will go ahead and work as if Serpientes y Escaleras has been canceled.)

So, Brad, the question is this. Can the Programing Department and the Human Resource Department both get a jump on things before the impending cluster f#@k that will be Wednesday morning?

 

BRIEF ANSWER

It is obvious that we have an immediate need for all hands on deck! An overnight crew must be rallied to handle all eventualities to allow for a seamless continuity of programing.

Because of the huge popularity of Serpientes y Escaleras, there are enthusiastic audiences far and wide—not just in San Antonio. For those markets expecting to see Serpientes y Escalera shows in the days ahead, we here in Programing have selected older archived episodes which we will package as “Gems from the Vault!”

As for you folks in HR, we will immediately need some specific anticipatory paperwork generated and at the ready if it is called for (which I suspect it will be). More on that below.

 

STATEMENT OF FACTS

Here is what is currently known.

Several minutes before the end of Serpientes y Escaleras, a REINCOR seated in the studio audience went “rogue,” attacking one of that show’s production staff (a Ms. Rosalinda Aguilar, employed as a “Reader,” a trained psychic, which I’m sure you’ll recall is a feature utilized by that particular production to heighten the drama). This REINCOR pulled Ms. Aguilar into a standard Class A Transport Pod and engaged the portal trigger. That’s right. Two people, a REINCOR and a non-REINCOR, together for a single transportation!

Additionally, the producer of Serpientes y Escaleras—Silverio Moreno—followed those two through the same portal pod. And yes, you read that correctly! A trained broadcasting professional did that. It only gets worse. He was accompanied by an unknown young woman, apparently not even connected to that production!

As one would expect, the portal pod began overheating.

This whole mess was exacerbated by a similarly cavalier misuse of that show’s second portal pod. Before any of the Tau Field capacitors could cool down, reset, or even switch into auto shutdown mode, the two REINCORS who had initially been chosen to be transported through the portals to Central Processing, were BOTH stuffed into the second pod and sent on their way.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should let it be known that that final transport transmission was ordered by the Network’s very own Ida Mayfield.

Perhaps a lapse in her judgement?

Maybe she had valid reasons which will eventually be explained?

Whatever the case, those extreme mistreatments to the portals had the expected results.

A full Level 11 Markowitz Discharge with a general quantum cascade causing wide scale Higgs field dampening out to a radius of 22 kilometers.

To the best of our knowledge, San Antonio, Texas has been lost.

Thankfully, almost all of our Network employees working on Serpientes y Escaleras managed to escape the devastation. This is according to the passenger manifest telegraphed from the San Antonio train depot. (See below for specifics regarding the lack of Saligia Jones’ name on said manifest.)

 

CONCERNING THE REINCOR ISSUE

Brad, remember, REINCORs are not a HR matter! Stand firm! No matter what Parcell might tell you. And certainly ignore any meddling from Ida. I will back you up on this.

As for Central Processing, I do indeed know how, in the past, you’ve lost HOURS getting the runaround from those secretive uptight weirdos who work over there. Not matter what Parcell Prescott might think, REINCORs are neither employees nor outside contractors of the Network. Furthermore, as there is no clear consensus if they are (let’s be honest here) even human, I cannot fathom why anyone would suggest that they should fall within the purview of Human Resources.

In short, they DO NOT.

And, yes, you can quote me on that.

However, to be candid, I can give you a quick update of what I’ve learned from LeeAnne over at the REINCOR Liaison Department, and what she has learned from this evening’s communique from Central Processing.

It seems that those REINCORs currently under the custodianship of Central Processing and earmarked as “contestants” for upcoming Serpientes y Escaleras episodes, will be shunted off to other productions, or otherwise resituated according to the Central Processing charter in a manner both timely and humane.

As for the fate of those REINCORs who had already arrived at the Serpientes y Escaleras studio and were awaiting processing, well that information, as they say, is “above our pay grade.” Thank god for that. Just know they have been “dealt with” in accordance with Central Processing’s protocol, internal mandates, or whatever jargon they’re using these days.

And as in similar exchanges with Central Processing, the Network will take such communiques on faith, and hope that we will not see a repeat of last year’s heinous snafu during that tragic REINCOR bottleneck that befell the beleaguered second season of Panic Bar Sots.

For the nonce, as it were, we will treat all matters REINCOR to be in the capable hands of LeeAnne (bless her heart), and the quote unquote professionals across town at the Central Processing facility. Did I already say weirdos?

 

CONCERNING S. JONES

As stated above, Saligia Jones was NOT listed as a passenger on the last Mag train out of San Antonio. We dearly hope that that is simply a clerical error, for indeed her great value to the Network is reflected by the stellar ratings of Serpientes y Escaleras. Therefore, in the spirit of optimism and general proactivity, we will assume that the extraordinary Ms. Jones will soon be safe in the bosom of the Network headquarters ASAP, so that we can quickly provide her with a new, exciting show!

Even if the unthinkable has occurred and we have lost Saligia Jones to a  full Level 11 Markowitz Discharge (a fate not to be wished upon anyone, I’m sure you’d agree!), we still need to fill a hole in programming.

And that is where the HR Dept. comes in, Brad.

 

HR ACTION ITEMS

We will need to create a new program. Even though upper management has yet to assign us with this task, I have found it best to anticipate Parcell Prescott and those people at the top.

And with a new show, there will need to be a team to run things. On the bright side, we already have this team.

The full list of those who escaped San Antonio is attached to this memo. For the sake of expedience, let’s just assume that these seasoned technicians and administrators will provide the essential personnel of our provisional replacement show. This show will most likely be similar in nature to Serpientes y Escaleras—low budget, small production—but as there is no current working title, please begin drafting new contracts for all the names on the attached list with exactly the same job titles they had on Serpientes y Escaleras. For “Program Title,” just go ahead and fill in “TBA.” 

 

CONCLUSION

In the hours and days ahead, of course, more specific information will be forthcoming. Information perhaps of a grim and dispiriting nature. But remember, Brad, we here at the Network have hit such obstacles before. Lord knows this isn’t the first time we’ve been in this place, right? And even though the loss of such a marvelous show as Serpientes y Escaleras saddens us all, we should look to the horizon with enthusiastic anticipation of the replacement show that these wonderful creative people will soon put together for the joy of all. I know I’m excited!

My news gathering background kicked into gear.

Maybe I should have switched to a camera showing something more neutral, like the game board—or even cut the live feed. But until I had other instructions, I followed the most pertinent action.

And that was the guy everyone thought was a murderer, August.

Until, of course, Sy rushed the stage.

That was when my entertainment industry training won out over journalism.

I’m not proud, but that is clearly who I am. Cut straight to the charismatic man in the bright red wig and the green sequined dinner jacket.

The camera crew kept their frames tight, but still moved with a loose-jointed nimbleness to give full coverage of all the unexpected action that unfolded.

It all happened so quickly that I knew everyone of us in the studio—not just me—crackled with a surge of adrenaline. Then, when the two most interesting subjects to have graced the set had, as they say, “left the building,” we all suddenly found ourselves with nothing to focus on. And I mean, literally.

We had no villain. We had no hero.

This immediate and unexpected stall in the action became so much more apparent in the silence that followed.

That was when we needed Sy to begin filling the dead air with music.

I stabbed my thumb down on the override button for the applause sign.

The audience responded in Pavlovian fashion with noisy enthusiasm. I know they had been excited by the unexpected events, and finally I had given them the opportunity to express themselves.

I looked around the studio. I needed to come up with something to instruct the camera operators to focus on while running out the clock.

Forty-five seconds to the end of the show.

That was an eternity in the world of live TV.

I was about to have one of the camera operators tilt up to the game board, but I noticed that Door Number Two still gaped open, with the losing contestant, Helen, standing just inside, waiting for Michael to shut the door and send her on her way. Through the headsets, I told camera one to dolly in on Helen. I told camera two to follow on Michael, who was looking off-camera to Ida, trying to make sense of her energetic gestures. Michael, still in a panic, held up his hands, uncertain what Ida was trying to tell him.

“Just send them both through door two,” she shouted.

Michael did so. He grabbed the other contestant—Darlene—who waited in the center of the stage, confused, and pushed her, unwillingly, into that little room to stand beside Helen.

“But I’m Door Number One,” Darlene cried out. “I won!”

Michael slammed the door on the two women.

Ed and Valerie were really throwing themselves into their job getting the crowd cheering and up on their feet stamping loudly.

Michael pulled Saligia to the front of the stage. She stiffened and showed her teeth, looking like a cat who was about to be dunked in a bath, but she, too, had her professional training to fall back on. She rose up with her shoulders back and she and Michael bowed in unison as if the crowd were cheering them and the wonderful work they had just completed.

As the clock ticked over, precisely 7:30, I faded out the live video and audio feed.

Myra, holding her clipboard tight to her chest with both hands, shouted out: “Annnnnnd, we’re out.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Ida yelled. “What a mess!”

I took the steps three at a time down to the studio floor, crossed the stage, and flung open Door Number One.

It was empty.

“Careful,” Saligia said, pointing with a shaking finger.

I noticed wisps of blue smoke curling out and around the edges of the door. A cold draft wafted out of the interior. The same thing was happening around the edges of Door Number Two. I opened it up. It proved empty as well.

Michael looked from the doors to Ida.

“The portals, I think they’re busted,” he said to her. “Should I check the two downstairs?”

“Don’t bother,” she said. “The arrival portals will be dead, too. Massive overload. There’s the proof.” She pointed to the audience.

Everyone in the rows of tiered seating—some in chairs, others on their feet—flickered. That was the only word that seemed adequate. Their arms and legs seemed to be shuttering in and out of reality. Some lost their balance and fell to the floor. The moans and screams had the entire production crew standing and staring. Some recoiled in utter disbelief, others just shook their heads as if this was something not completely unexpected.

I took a step forward, and froze when I noticed that those parts of the contestants I thought were turning invisible were actually morphing back and forth from human appendages into something with no more definition than bread dough—rubbery, stubby. Soon it wasn’t just the arms and legs. But their heads and their torsos. Flickering. Changing.

I remembered what Nora and Raul had said about contestants when they left the upper floors turning into things that weren’t really human.

I looked over at Saligia. She had clamped her hands to the sides of her head and dropped into one of the contestant chairs.

“Oh, this is too horrible,” she moaned.

She closed her eyes. Her hands moved to cover her ears.

I couldn’t blame her. The screams shifted to a sort of collective burbling hiss. It sounded like steam pushing aside a loose-fitting lid on a pot of boiling broth.

As I moved toward them, thinking I had to try and do something, Valerie put a hand on my shoulder. She pointed to the people filing into the studio.

The clean-up crew had arrived. I called them that, because that was clearly what they came to do.

About a dozen young men and woman pushed through the double doors. They were all dressed in matching black dress pants, short sleeved white button shirts, and skinny red ties. They rather looked like Mormon missionaries, except they all wore the heavy black rubber gloves that I remembered from high school chemistry class. Each carried a zippered bag of the same black rubber. The thing was, those bags were clearly too small for people. Maybe you could cram a couple of agreeable beagles into one of them, but a person? Unlikely. But, again, the audience members were no longer people.

Valerie and Ed escorted all of us on the production team out into the stairwell. Saligia moaned, rose to her feet, and shambled along with us.

“Let them do their work,” Ed said.

What that work entailed, I had no idea. Valerie closed the doors to the studio.

“Where the hell did they come from?” I asked.

“Where else?” Myra said. “The fifth floor.”

“Where the Network hides all its secrets,” Raul added. “I guess they’ve been down there all this time, waiting just in case something like this happened.”

“This?” I asked. “But what the hell is this?”

From their expressions, I doubted neither Myra or Raul knew much more than me.

Whatever they were doing in there didn’t take long. In just a couple of minutes the doors opened and the smartly dressed men and women filed out, each gripping a black, bulging bag.

“While I don’t care for their outfits,” Raul said as we watched the clean-up crew hurry down the stairs, “it is nice to see a return to the tie tack.”

I looked closer as the last of them passed. His red tie sported a black clasp with the Network logo, the letter N in gold.

I stepped back into the studio with the rest of the team. It was empty. The contestants, all gone.

“Right,” Ida said, looking around. She raised her voice and it cut through all the activity. “All employees of the Network, that’s a wrap! No more show. Meet me at the train station in an hour. We’re pulling up stakes.”

“Canceled?” Raul asked Ida. “Just like that? On whose authority?”

“No contestants, no producer.” Ida shrugged. “No choice.”

“But our jobs?” Myra stepped up to Ida.

“Your contract isn’t with the Network, honey.” Ida stared Myra down. “It’s with Sy’s Silver and Brown Productions. And if you haven’t noticed, your beloved Mr. Silver and Brown has left the building. You could follow him through Door Number One, but I don’t think it goes anywhere anymore.”

“Protocol Delta?” Michael asked Ida.

She nodded. “It has already begun.” Then Ida looked at me. “Good job, sir. Best episode ever. Nice to go out with what promises to be record-breaking ratings.” She turned back to Michael. “So, get all red-flagged documentation out of Lydia’s office. And if you find her—alive, I mean—tell her the final train leaves on the dot at—” Ida checked her watch. “Eight-thirty.”

“I know the drill,” Michael said, rushing away.

I hadn’t given much thought to who worked for the Network and who worked for Sy. In this business it wasn’t supposed to matter. We all were working for the same goals.

Until the project ended, that was.

I watched Ed and Valerie follow Michael out the door. As well as two camera men, the sound woman, and the makeup team.

“That’s your Protocol Delta?” I asked Ida. “Bug out of town?”

“That’s right,” she said with what appeared to be more than a touch of satisfaction.

When the double doors fell shut behind her, all signs of the Network had been expediently and surgically removed.

I looked around at my remaining baffled and shellshocked colleagues. All, apparently, hired by the absent Silverio Moreno.

“So,” I said, scanning the studio. “Who knows where Sy and Nora went?”

“The same place as Rose and August,” Raul said with an exasperated groan. “Wherever that is.”

###

Leaving town seemed the right thing to do. And so, with few words exchanged, Saligia and I agreed to meet half an hour later at the train station.

First I needed to collect my belongings.

My hope was to get in and out of the Omega Hotel without drawing any attention to myself. Luckily no one was in the lobby.

I was tempted to sit down on my bed and take a breath. Clear my mind. Think things through. What had just happened? What were the implications? What in fact was my role in all this?

But overthinking never worked out too well with me. Besides, I didn’t have the luxury of time.

I managed to stuff everything into my rucksack in only a couple of minutes—shocked, but in a pleasing manner, by how little I had to call my own.

“I thought I might find you here,” said Fran.

I turned to see him leaning against the door.

“I was down at the bar. I saw the whole thing on TV.”

I’m not sure how Fran learned I got a job on Serpientes y Escaleras. Raul. maybe? He did seem to have his sources all over town. But, always a man of discretion, all he had said to me when he saw me in the Omega Hotel lobby on Saturday morning was: “I understand that the ASES has another man on the inside. Congratulations! We’ll talk more in-depth, later.”

“I’m kind of in a rush,” I said, closing the buckles on my bag.

“Is it true?” he asked with grave concern. “The show is over?”

“Yeah.”

“That will leave a hole in so many people’s lives.” He looked to the floor, shaking his head in disbelief. Then he turned to me with a grin. “Was that a kidnapping?”

“It was. Some mad man grabbed that woman—”

“Grabbed Rose, yes. Poor girl. But she’s resourceful.” Then Fran crossed his arms and smiled. “And you said all those shows were scripted.”

“Live TV can throw a curve ball every so often.”

I shouldered my bag.

“Silverio Moreno, he’s a brave man. Chasing down that fellow. And your friend, that girl. Shelvia, right? Quick thinking.”

“They are the impulsive types,” I said, waiting for Fran to step aside.

“I see you’re going after them,” Fran said. He stepped aside, hand on his heart.

“Something like that,” I muttered. I thanked him for everything and walked down the hallway.

“The hero departs!” Fran said after me. Of course, I was no hero. “Godspeed, Stranger!”

Good lord.

###

One thing the both of us, Saligia and I, had in common was punctuality. Eight-fifteen on the dot we both walked through the gate to the platform at the same time. I had my rucksack over my shoulder, she gripped a small canvas bag.

“Where should we go?” I asked her.

She barely acknowledged me as she began walking along the platform toward that weird magnetic train.

“Where everyone else is going,” she said over her shoulder.

I rushed to catch up.

“LA?” I asked. “Right? You think that’s where Sy is?”

“Lydia told me once that the portals send the contestants to some Network facility in Los Angeles.”

“Then that’s the plan.” I wish she would relax. She was way too on edge. It’d be better once we got on the train.

“The last time I tried to get a ticket, they were way overpriced,” I said. “But don’t worry, I have plenty of money.” And I had. I’d sold another couple of gold coins just in case of something like this.

“That’s not how it works,” she said with irritation.

I stopped. But she kept walking.

“Saligia.”

She stopped but kept her back to me.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

She turned around.

“The train is just for the Network.”

“You think Ida’s going to let you on this train?” I asked.

“Us. She going to let us on this train.”

“Is that so?”

“We don’t have time to do this, Morris.”

She turned and continued walking down the length of the train.

I followed her up to where Ida and Michael stood on the platform beside the only open door of the waiting train.

The dusk was gathering and the harsh glow of the sodium-vapor lights illuminating the platform glinted off the curved sides of the train, throwing an unhealthy jaundiced tinge all about.

Suddenly everything about this unplanned plan seemed wrong. I wanted to tell Saligia that she’d be better off without me. I was a jinx. Meteors and murderers. But she’d shut me down so fast. Even without psychic abilities, she’d know I didn’t believe that. There was also an argument that Sy could take care of himself. Hadn’t he bounced back time and again? As for Nora and Rose, those women hardly seemed the type to need rescuing. I knew what Saligia would say. She’d say she needed me. Of course, she only thought she needed me. She would find within her that inner resolve she needed. She’d done without me before. Then there was those warm and encouraging platitudes Fran had heaped upon me. That heroic and glowing narrative he painted of me girding my loins and flinging myself into the maelstrom to vanquish devils and dragons.

I found myself in such a familiar and chaotic place. That place where I dither, vacillate. I flounder at the most importune moments.

I tugged the shoulder straps to my rucksack until the slack was gone. It felt light and manageable. Everything I needed was stowed away. I cold go anywhere. Or, I could continue walking down that train platform. Allow myself to become ensnared by Saligia and Sy and all that baggage from my past. Our past.

“I’m thinking of heading in the other direction,” I told Saligia.

We had just come alongside Ida.

“What?” Saligia’s eyes widened in panic as she looked back at me.

“I believe I said Network employees only,” Ida said to us.

“But, there’s nothing here for us,” Saligia moaned at Ida as her hand clawed tighter upon my sleeve.

“That’s not my concern,” Ida told her.

Saligia was trying to focus her thoughts between me and Ida. I probably should have just walked away. Instead, I stepped forward. I don’t know what I was going to say, but apparently Michael took my action as a physical threat. He waved to a figure inside the door of the train, and one of the more beefy members of the clean-up crew stepped onto the platform and walked up to us.

I wondered if they had already stowed away the black rubber bags containing whatever those poor contestants had transformed into. Though, for all I knew, they just tossed them into a dumpster behind La Vida Tower.

Ida glanced over at the newcomer who cracked his knuckles and jutted out his jaw.

She just laughed.

“Oh, I don’t think force will be necessary. Not for the likes of these two.”

“Ida, please.” Saligia took a deep breath and steadied herself. “Look, if you check the records, you’ll see that I never had a contract with Sy. I was signed on to the Network before the show was created. I have as much right to be on that train as anyone else.”

I wondered where that left me. Two days working on Serpientes y Escaleras, I realized I had never signed a contract, spoken with the HR Department, nothing.

Ida’s lips tightened into what I think she considered a smile. She barely leaned forward, but something about her demeanor caused me and Saligia both to move back a step.

“Oh, I don’t have to check anything. I know all about your contract with the Network. But today’s idiocy happened because of you. No one else. It was you who was supposed to select August. We were all in agreement. You let us down. And you saw how things turned out. The absolutely worst possible outcome. So, you’ll understand when I explain that your contract has been terminated. And good riddance! Saligia Jones is too unstable to work for anyone. I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t bother using me as a future reference.”

Ida stepped onto the train. The muscular young man followed.

Michael managed a pained and pinched smile like he had forgotten to put on pants, and he, too, stepped into the train, leaving Saligia and me alone on the train platform.

Saligia turned to me. The hand not holding her bag fluttered about like a confused bird.

“Well?” she finally said, her lips gathering into a firm and questioning frown.

“Well, what?” I wasn’t sure what she expected me to do.

“I need some help.”

“Do you?”

“Yes,” she said. “With plan B.”

“What’s plan B?”

“That’s why I need help. I don’t have one. But it does not involve heading in the other direction.”

“Plan B to LA?” I laughed. “I believe I can help you.”

Saligia followed me down the length of the train to the engine car. There was no one in sight. I twisted the lever on the low door into the engine compartment.

“In there?” she asked. “Your plan is for me to get in there?”

“It’s how I came to town. I made it fine. It’s roomier than it looks.”

She sighed and squeezed inside. I passed the canvas bag to her.

“Don’t get off at the first stop,” I said. “It’s a little town with nothing but a glacier.”

“And you’re going, what? That way?” Saligia pointed to the east.

“I think so.”

“Of course you are. It’s what you do.”

“What’s what I do?”

“You run.”

“Well,” I said nodding, “you’re not the first to notice that.”

“Sy wouldn’t give up on you,” she said.

She tried to meet my eyes, but I looked away.

Because she was right. He would.

“He’d cram himself inside an airless box like this,” she continued. “He’d steal a car, or walk across the country. He’d even try his best to fly to California in his Zeppelin.”

“His what?”

But it hardly mattered. I needed some distance from all this madness.

“Please,” she croaked “I need your help. Sy needs your help. Rose needs your help. And what about your friend, Nora?”

I had already turned from her and was walking away.

“Besides,” she continued, her voice rising, “when Ida said the Network was pulling up stakes, she meant everything. I don’t think there are going to be any more trains once this one heads out.”

I took a deep breath and stopped.

Oh, hell.

When I turned around, Saligia smiled and slid further into the compartment, making room for me. I walked back, hefted my bag into the opening, and climbed in. Fran would no doubt approve.

When I turned to shut the panel, I froze.

Well, that wasn’t good.

“Everything okay?” Saligia asked.

And I saw it again. La Via Tower flickered. It was there, then gone, and back again. It was really happening, I knew. Not just some strange effect caused by the final weak rays of the setting sun. Were the Changes returning? Or maybe those portals in the tower—the ones that shut down—had been holding everything together?

It felt like Santa Cruz Island all over again.

“It’s fine,” I told Saligia.

Before I snapped the panel closed, I saw large chunks of the city doing the same thing. Flickering.

Everything was losing stability.

I leaned back in relief when I heard the engine hum to life and felt the sudden acceleration.

We were on our way. To Los Angeles.

END OF BOOK ONE