Mayfair

When the door of the booth closed, I found myself in pitch darkness. After a moment, I reached to open the door again, thinking the booth had malfunctioned, but the door didn't seem to be there anymore. It also seemed like the seat of the booth had vanished, along with the floor. In fact, the entire booth had vanished, and I was floating in black nothingness.

Well, finding Mayfair was turning out to be as weird as the rest of the crap that had been going on lately.

I floated awhile before an image began appearing, the kind of afterimage that is imprinted on your eyes after staring at a bright light, but quickly became realistic and lifelike. What appeared was the design that I had seen on Tub'la's book and tattooed on the angel, made of what appeared to be a multicolored diamond of a size that dwarfed me. The colors in the design began to shift and strobe, faster and faster, making my eyes water, until they finally resolved into a picture of Jack and I, sitting in a private room in Grindlebone's bar. I felt a jarring sense of being in two places at once, as I felt like I was both in the scene and watching it from somewhere behind my head.

From my divided perspective I watched my life of the past few weeks run again, from the moment before Tub'la and his men made their entrance to the room at Grin's. The dream of the angel, committing a kidnapping for Jubjub, and the meeting with Vard flashed past. Then came my abduction by and escape from the nightmare creature, which led to my strange arrival on the deck of Sachiko's ship, the Void Dog. Cobo Landing, the Blind Lady, being taken in by the Sig Nomad, my trek across the primordial desert; all of these happened again, and I felt each sensation associated with each experience. Awe, terror, desperation, safety, pain, comfort, thirst; each came back as I lived through the appropriate scene.

Finally, my life came again to the small information booth on the quiet street corner, and again I stepped inside. And darkness enveloped me, again.

Another period of nothingness passed, until finally more images began to appear.

I saw myself as a youngster. Living on the streets of a dingy city, I would snatch purses and wallets for money. I saw myself threading my way through dense traffic, a constable in close pursuit. I dodged and weaved my way across the street, then dove through a tiny hole at the base of a wall. Before the constable could make his way over the wall, I'd sped across the lot behind, kicked open a wooden door that lead out into an alley, and slid through a small window at the base of the building. I'd already skinned the money from the wallet and dropped it in a furnace by the time the constable's feet pounded by the window and out to the alley. Sit tight five minutes, then saunter casual-like somewhere to buy food.

But I could see that this time, I'd cut my left hand good and long on the wall as I rolled through it. And over the next months, I watched the infection spread and kill the hand slowly. Felt it, too, in the hand I didn't have anymore. It hurt, and slowed the younger version of me down enough that I finally got nicked. Time in the Gaol for theft, time in a government home for not having parents, time with doctors getting my dead hand cut off. Time fighting in the yard, finding out how to poke out eyes with my stump, how to hit the solar plexus right on. Then, one day it all went away, except for a flash here and there, nothing I could make sense of, except that the crimson metal hand that replaced my real one would flash by now and again. Then nothingness.

A huge image of the hand appeared, turning in the darkness. I felt a cold interest from the void around me, and I knew that whatever had studied me was studying the hand just as closely.

The angel design reappeared alongside the hand, and images of the angel and the book locket superimposed themselves behind it. Vard the demon swirled into view next to the angel.

As I thought the word 'angel', a sense of wrongness came from the void. An image of mind destroying beauty and light flashed in front of me, a feeling of purity and power came along with it, which made me cry out in shock and pain. The image was too much for any tiny being like myself to bear.

That was an angel.

What I'd seen in my dream was... angelic. That got a feeling of rightness from whatever it was that was surrounding me. It wasn't pure enough to be an angel. And Vard wasn't a demon, he was demonic. Neither one was more than a pale shadow of what the presented themselves as.

After the feeling I'd gotten from the picture of a true angel, I took a moment to feel grateful that whatever was running this show hadn't felt the need to display a true demon.

More images, with accompanying understanding, came to me. The angelic and the demonic didn't want me, really, they wanted... my hand? Yes, something about my prosthetic was what had attracted them. Tub'la and the nightmare creature, too, they had wanted to remove the hand from me. But the void around me, which seemed to know so much, couldn't say why the hand was important. It hadn't been able to unlock the blank period in my memory, which covered the time when I had come into possession of the hand.

As enlightening as this all had been, I had been getting more and more aggravated by the high-handed manner in which I'd been treated since entering the booth. I didn't like having someone, something, rummaging around in my memories. So I closed two of my eyes, and opened the third.

I wasn't in darkness anymore. I was surrounded by coruscating light. The booth, and whatever space I was now in, they were both extrusions of a higher dimensional being. This was Mayfair. It wasn't a person, moving by hidden pathways from world to world, but something above us; not a super-being, but a supra-being. Mayfair was holding me like a man would hold an insect, except that Mayfair could see inside of me, and into my mind.

With my Eye open, Mayfair's messages were crystal clear. It couldn't tell me why the hand was so important, but something in it held the key to something that a lot of people wanted. The hand couldn't be taken from me, or the hand's intelligence would rebel against the taker. But if I gave it up freely, it would be of some use in discovering whatever it was it held the key to. Some who were searching for the hand wouldn't care about that, and would kill me and take the hand just to keep others from gaining access to it. Mayfair had managed to divine one thing from my fractured memory: the name of a place where the hand might have originated.

Seeing the totality of Mayfair was more disconcerting than the rerun of my memories, so I closed my Eye and returned to the blessed darkness.

Home and away again

Forty-eight hours after walking out of the desert, I found myself standing with Van Zandt on an odd street corner in one of the newly opened realities on the edge of Congeries space.

The intervening two days had been quite full. I'd intended to get to Grin's place immediately, but the call of a good night's sleep at my place in Paedarc had overrode that impulse. I'd showered, slept, showered again, burned the remnants of clothes I'd walked the desert in, showered a third time, then made my way to the bar. The welcome from Grin and Van Zandt was equal parts 'we're glad to see you' and 'where the hell has your dumb-ass been', which was seconded by Jack when he ran in a few minutes later. Ever been slapped in the back of the head by an all metal hand? Not a lot of fun.

I gave them the rundown on how I'd come to be missing for three weeks, local time, and we'd spent some time chewing over the various questions all of what I'd been through raised. No one was quite sure what had kidnapped me originally. Van Zandt was fascinated by both the deep ships and the Sig Nomad; Her interest in new cultures most definitely included the cultures of various types of travelers. Everybody was keen on the Sig Nomad's method of travel, and were very interested in Sachiko. Van Zandt and Grin shared a meaningful glance when I mentioned her. Sigh.

Jack had read the crystal I'd gotten from the Jubjub Bird, giving the location of Mayfair the ethnographer. Four different locations, actually, two of which none of us had ever heard of. The closest one was just a hop, skip, and Step away, though. But it did only give the location, not any clue as to who at the location might be the elusive Mayfair. The directions just said to go to a particular city, to a particular street corner, and look in an information booth. I suppose there couldn't be too many people in there.

Jack had also brought back a data stick from Charom, containing a copy of the mind of the recently executed Gundar Tub'la, the man who'd burst in so rudely on Jack and I a few weeks before. So far, all that he'd been able to glean from Tub'la's cyber-psyche was that Gundar was an angry man who didn't feel like answering any questions. The only thing that brought any type of other answer was when he was asked about the locket/book with the angelic design, which only made the display show the design itself. Interesting, but hardly informative.

The four of us talked for a good long time, and proceeded to get pretty well into our cups as the hours waxed on. Van Zandt finally helped Grin stumble out of the room, telling me she'd set me up with a place to sleep once she got the big guy situated. Jack and I chatted, and I was about to ask him if he actually got drunk, or if he just faked it to make his biological pals feel like he was part of the scene, but I fell asleep on the couch first.


I'm not sure what kind of arm-twisting Van Zandt did to Grin that he didn't object when she said she was coming with me to meet Mayfair, but given how sheepish he looked when she said it, it must have been something to see. Jack wanted to come, too, but the info on Milgrum, the just-opened locale where Mayfair was supposed to be, didn't say what the locals attitude towards non-humans might be. Jack could pass for a robot quite easily, but we didn't know if that would be any better. So it ended up being just Van Zandt and me. She was almost giddy when we headed out.

It took a few hours to cross the territory to a place where we could Step into Milgrum. While I'd been away, Grindlebone had used his connections to secure a list of relatively safe transfer points across the outer zone, where the area of the Traveler's Guild gave way to the unknown. Milgrum was right on the edge of the Guild's sphere of influence, at the point on the map where the gray of uncontrolled space turned to the black of the unknown. The Guild would not have been happy they knew where we were trying to go. This wasn't just a case of the Guild being contrary; the uncontrolled worlds didn't have any safeguards in place to minimize the risk of dangerous things crossing into world that weren't ready for them. Our crossing to the very edge of their space did represent a bit of a danger, but we weren't planning on buying any fruit, so I figured we were gonna be OK.

Milgrum turned out to be quite pleasant, all in all. The trees that lined the wide boulevards of the city we landed in were an odd brownish purple color, but otherwise it was like most cities I'd been in; Cobo Landing had seemed more obviously alien.

We landed a short distance from the location Jubjub had given us, and a quick walk got us to a deserted street corner. Oddly shaped vehicles rolled quietly past, but none of the locals seemed to be about. The only thing of any interest at all was a small green kiosk, which had 'Information' written down the side in white letters. Van Zandt and I spent almost half an hour loitering, making small talk, and shuffling back and forth nonchalantly, while no one at all walked by. Finally, out of bored desperation, I asked Van Zandt to go over what she knew about Mayfair.

I nearly jumped out of my skin, because just after I said 'Mayfair', the door of the green booth snapped open. The open door let us see the comfortable, if small, interior of the booth. A small screen above the door flashed to life, and words scrolled across it.

'Questions? Questions about Mayfair? Enter, and ask to your heart's content!'

The Long Walk

Even through my dark goggles, the glare of the desert would burn my eyes when the sun was high. From rise to set, the sun would force my eyes into a tight squint and make them water. By the end of each day, each side of my face would have a line of salt running down it, marking the path my tears had taken. The heat of the sand rose through my boots and scorched my feet, and every breath was like inhaling fire while the sun was up. Time was broken not by seconds and minutes, but by single trudging steps taken up and down the slopes of vast sand dunes. For days I had followed the silent man through the desert, maybe weeks. I had lost track in the unchanging cycle of cruelly hot days and painfully cold nights.

In the few seconds of rest and clear thought I managed, in the moments just before exhausted sleep or just after waking, I would question my choice to follow the silent man into the desert.

When Sachiko had mentioned the Sig Nomad to me as an option for making my way across the unfriendly reaches of the Boundless Realm, she had spoken of them as a group of freedom fighters, striking against the Realm's Jump Cops. When I had actually made contact, though, I found out that the Sig Nomad which fought for free travel in the Realm was only a small part of a large confederation of wanderers, most of whom were only slightly concerned with the actions of the Jump Cops.

The majority of the Sig Nomad were just that, nomads who wandered all the paths between realities, no matter how basic or esoteric they might be. Most weren't concerned with annoyances like the Realm because the Realm's ability to hinder the Sig Nomad's travel was negligible, at best. The Realm simply didn't know enough to be able to stop the nomads from going anywhere they wanted to.

So the small group who, more as a lark than anything else, bedeviled the Jump Cops, had passed me on to other members of the Sig Nomad who they said would be better able to help me. After some discussion, the elder members of the Sig Nomad had decided that I could be helped. Maybe.

I had always thought of my being able to Step across dimensional barriers as a gift, something that set me apart from most beings I encountered in my normal life. Sure, they could travel from place to place by gate almost as easily as I could, but only almost. They had to depend on gates, and spells, and continua craft for their movement, while I could Step at will from place to place, anytime I wished, mostly. But the Sig Nomad thought of my gift as the bare minimum of what would be considered acceptable for a nomad. My ability was circumscribed in ways I didn't always understand, which they found both unacceptable and hilarious in varying degrees. To the nomads, a gate or a bridge or a spell of traversal, and even my ability, were expressions of a misunderstanding about the nature of space.

The nomads saw all places as one, the seeming separation being an expression of the limits of the minds of most beings. They 'walked' from place to place only because that was the easiest way for the three-dimensional brain to convince itself to shift its focus from one 'place' to another. True masters were said to be able to manifest themselves anywhere they wished to, and in as many locations as they wished to. Like masters of any art form, though, nomad masters were rare as true oracles, honest politicians, and real love.

So the Sig Nomad agreed to let me learn to 'walk' from place to place, if I could. I was taken to a town on the edge of a vast desert, presented to the silent man, and told to follow him wherever he went. If I survived, it was possible I'd learn enough to get where I wanted to go.

So I followed the silent man as he walked behind the caravan for days, and I followed the silent man when he left the caravan and walked into the desert.

If all places are one, then all deserts are one. If you walk into the desert, away from anything else but the sand and the air and the sun, and into the place where there is only desert, where you aren't in a desert but in the desert, the desert that is the mother of all deserts, it's just possible that you can pass to another place altogether.

If the desert doesn't kill you first.

The silent man could have lead me through a forest, or out into the ocean, or across frozen wastes. The details would have been different, but the experience would have been mostly the same. Humans, in particular, have to be damn near killed before they can give up the attachment to being in one place, and one place alone. It's remarkably hard to let yourself be... indeterminate.

There was a change, one day that was exactly like the ones before. There was a change in where I stood in the universe. I was nowhere, and I knew exactly where I was.

I knew if I went that way, I'd be near home. So, I walked that way. It wasn't until night fell that I realized that the silent man had been following me.

For two day, I knew I was walking in the right direction, but my destination grew no closer. I'd found my way to nowhere, but I didn't know how to get out. Another day of heat and plodding steps followed, another day of moving without getting anywhere. At midday I stopped, feeling the heat of the sun through my head cover, and the heat of the sand through my shoes, and the pull of the place I wanted to go in front of me, and the feeling of nowhere at my back. I took a step forward, but I didn't move. The pull ahead of me was no stronger, and the feeling of nowhere behind me had not lessened at all.

I stood with my eyes closed. I willed myself towards the pull. Nothing changed. I was suspended between nowhere and somewhere, perfectly balanced.

If all places are one, somewhere and nowhere are both here; Right where I am, I thought. One being in front and one behind was arbitrary. It might as well be that one was above and one below...

Suddenly I was falling. My feet were firmly planted, but the feeling of dropping precipitously was undeniable. I fell, the sand painful against my hands and knees. While I tried to collect myself, something became clear. The pull of my destination was stronger. I hadn't moved, and yet I had.

What if my destination was downhill?

I stood up, and trudged up the next dune, all the time sliding downhill in my mind. When I crested the dune, I could see, shimmering in the distance, a small fort on the edge of the desert; a fort where just a short while ago, I had kidnapped a man in exchange for information. A fort that I knew was only a short series of Steps from home.

I looked back at the silent man. We looked at one another for a long moment until, with a short nod, he turned and walked back the way we had come. Two hours later, I walked out of the desert.

Thoughts on troubles

I don't know what was kept in the bag before it had been put over my head, but I counted myself lucky it hadn't been anything too stenchful. The ropes around my wrists and the manner I was being transported were both relatively comfortable, too. The Sig Nomad might have not been sure they could trust me, but at least they weren't making the experience of being taken to see their local commander more painful than it had to be. I sat, eyes blinded and wrists bound, in what, from the sound, seemed to be a horse drawn conveyance, listening to the men guarding me chat companionably about this and that, sprinkling insults on the Epsilon Soldiers liberally through their discourse.

The Epsilon Soldiers of the Boundless Realm, known colloquially as 'Jump Cops', didn't control individual dimensions or worlds, for the most part. What they did control was the means of traveling from one place to another, through their stranglehold on trans-dimensional gates. They were the only ones allowed to manufacture or operate the gates, and they were the only ones who had sensors that let them track any movement across dimensions, be it psychic, magic, or scientific in nature. If you wanted to trade with the world next door and you were in the Jump Cop's territory, you had to pay them, and you had to agree to enforce their rules. If you didn't pay, or enforce the rules, or kowtow to whatever their whims might be, your access to trade and travel could be cut off like wheat under the scythe. If you tried to trade without paying their tithe anyway, the Epsilon Soldiers would declare your world to be forfeit, which would mean invasion and destruction of a scale most places had never known. When the dust settled, the world you used to own would be theirs to use as they saw fit, and so would you. And no one would some to your aid, because no one else wanted to be next on the list for invasion.

They didn't trust magic, and they didn't trust psychics, and they had a habit of doing things to the ones they caught to keep these 'messy' forms of travel in check. If you were going to travel, you went through their gates, and if you went through their gates, they wanted to know why, and the reason had better be one they liked. Stepping under my own steam, I wouldn't have made enough progress to make it worth the energy it would have taken, or worth the beating I would have gotten once the Jump Cops got their hands on me. Trying to move through their gates would have seen me detained the first time I tried to cross, and held until they figured out what I was up to.

Which, given that Cobo Landing, where I was, had the whole of the Boundless Realm between it and Grindlebone's, where I wanted to be, meant I was in a bit of a pickle. It was theoretically possible I could have traveled by deep ship, or under my own power, around the outer edge of the Realm, but I didn't have the years it would have taken to spare.

Sachiko, the new friend I had made after dropping onto the deck of her deep ship in mid transit, had suggested I attempt to contact the Sig Nomad, who she said were dedicated to wresting free movement from the Realm. Doing so was what had led me to being in the back of this vehicle, blind and bound.

With this time on my hands, and very little to occupy my mind, I couldn't help but wonder if I'd ever make it home. There was a lot of distance and any number of obstacles between where I was and where I wanted to be, and there was nothing to say I'd ever make it back. I felt more alone than I could ever remember, and lost. Even Sachiko had only been able to say that the Sig Nomad might be able to help. They were the only hope I had, right now.

I had considered, briefly, seeing if I could use the hand to tear away another hole, like the one I'd used to escape the beast that had captured me, the hole that had led me to land on the deck of the Void Dog. Even if I had known how to make the hand do that at will, it still seemed like ripping holes in the local fabric of reality would be a very bad idea. Unneighborly, to say the least.

Right now, more than anything, I wanted to be back at Grindlebone's bar, sipping a whiskey and listening to Jack and Van Zandt trade stories. My life had been only moderately interesting before this week, and I'd quite enjoyed it that way. I didn't need angels and demons and monsters coming after me for reasons I couldn't seem to grasp. I didn't want armed thugs ruining quiet drinks with friends. I did want quiet uncomplicatedness.

But that didn't seem to be up to me, right now.

The Blind Lady's place

The fortune teller Sachiko sent me to was not at all what I expected.

I'd hit the Sanctum of the Blind Lady directly after finishing business at Pendross' shop. The old man behind the counter had been fascinated by my left hand. He'd insisted on opening the whole thing up, kept muttering technical specs and oohing and aahing as he looked through its innards. I'd practically had to pry the thing out of his hands when I wanted to leave; he'd wanted to keep the thing for a night so he could take it apart. When he'd let go of it, sighing with regret, and asked me to do him the kindness of bringing it to him if the hand should ever need repair, but the look in his eye seemed to say he didn't think that would be any time soon. With the hand back in place on my arm, and the fear chip the old man had removed from it secured in a small compartment I hadn't known the hand possessed, I left Pendross' and headed to see the next person Sachiko had recommended, the Blind Lady.

Her shop was small, nestled between a bar and a large emporium, but seemed impressive nonetheless. It was light stone, a single story structure with a bowed front, and two large, curtained windows on either side of a solid wooden door. Above the door, there was a round window of colored glass, shaped into some sort of mystic symbol, or so it looked to my untrained eye.

I'd gotten a picture in my head of an old woman with paper-thin skin, wrapped in a shawl and sitting behind a table with a crystal ball on it, maybe throwing yarrow rods or rings to tell people their future. But when the door opened, after a small eye set in the door popped open and scanned me from toes to hair, I set eyes on a strong woman, a few inches taller than me, dressed in sweat-stained workout clothes. She had broad shoulders and her sleeveless arms showed well-toned muscle, and the only thing that seemed out of place was the blindfold of blue cloth embroidered with gold stars that covered her eyes.

“My apologies. I'd hoped to be cleaned up before you arrived, but the Sight can be a little off when comes to exact timing.”

“Ah... OK. I mean, it's fine. I mean, I didn't mean to be late...” I took a breath and got a hold of myself. “A friend of mine, Sachiko, she said it was worth coming to see the Blind Lady. My name's Red Hand.”

“I can see why. Sr. Pendross must have been beside himself with joy when you walked into his shop. Welcome to my house, Sr. Hand; enter in peace. I 'm Aisling Guida.” She stepped back and held the door wide, motioning me to enter.

The room I entered was spare, holding only a table and two chairs. Though the windows that flanked the door were curtained, the white-washed walls and floor spread the colored light coming through the upper window, and managed to make the room feel both open and intimate. A second door, opposite the door I'd just come through, lead farther back into the building, with the table directly between them.

At the Lady's gesture, I sat in one of the chairs. Settling herself opposite me, she laid her hands flat on the table and regarded me silently for a few moments. The cloth over her eyes didn't stop the weight of her gaze from settling on me. Then she nodded, as if satisfied, and relaxed a bit.

“So, how can I be of assistance?”

“I'm not sure. A friend of mine, Sachiko, she sails the Void Dog...”

“Yes, I know Sachiko.”

“Right, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to see you, before I moved on from here.”

“Did you have a specific question you wanted help with?”

“No, not really. Like I said, Sachiko said it might be worthwhile to come, but I don't have anything in particular, y'know, she was right about going to Pendross', so...”

“Hmm. Well, would you like me to do a reading for you?”

“What would that entail? I mean, what do I do for that?”

“Nothing, really. Just clear your mind of any specific thoughts and give me your hand.” She said, extending her own hands towards me. Without really thinking, I put my metal left hand in hers. When I tried to pull it back, stammering, hoping she didn't think I was trying to be funny, she wouldn't let me. She pulled the hand closer to her, bringing my chest flush with the table. She leaned forward, bringing her clothed eyes near to the hand's reflective surface.

“My. My word. Mr. Pendross must have been very excited to see you.”

“He did seem excited, yes.”

“Your friend is old. Yes. It's memory is somewhere else, now, but the substance knows its own age. It likes you, very much. This is a gift, Red. You gained much more than you lost, when this hand was joined to you. The one's who gave it to you didn't know it. They had no idea, no idea at all.”

“Can you tell me about them? The people who installed it?”

“No... it was lost for a long time, and when it was found, you gained it immediately. Whoever gave it to you barely touched it.”

“Just my luck.”

“Again, whatever happened that brought it to you, you came out ahead.” Looking unsatisfied, she curled the metal fingers and let go of them. “There's quite a lot more, but it's beyond what I can see. I think you might have more success asking it yourself. Your metal friend is quite self-aware, and it trusts you much more than it trusts me.”

“That's good to know, at least. I just found out today how smart it is. Thanks. Sachiko said you'd work with me on some form of payment?”

“Drop anchor, there, sailor. Miss Aisling's wonderama and floor show isn't over yet. Give me your other hand.” She rapped the table twice and held out her hands again, smiling at me mischievously. I put my right hand in hers. She focused on it, running her fingers over my palm.

“You had a rough start. Not much in the way of being taken care of. You drifted, in more ways than one. Much of it you've locked away, and for good reason. Then, darkness falls... you didn't do it, it was taken away from you.” She turned my hand to catch the light better. “You've traveled far, and you'll travel farther still. You're not a hero, but you will be called on to perform as one, rising to the occasion when you must. Death will come near you, but not to you, many times before you end.”

“Should I be happy or sad about that?”

“That's up to you.” She flashed me another smile, then returned to scrutinizing my hand. “Those around you are oak, strong and constant. You flow like water, finding the path that others miss, that they cannot see, that even you may not see. Right now, there are a number of different forces centered on you, and your metal friend. There are different factions that seek to gain your allegiance, but none would benefit you more than keeping control of your own destiny would. They want to use you, not help you, but their greed gives you opportunity, if you can seize it. In the near future, answers will come to you on the journey you've become. By the time you reach your destination, you will have all you need to play your own game.”

“Should any of this make sense to me?”

“Some of it does, I know. The rest will only be clear in hindsight.” She smiled apologetically. “That's how fortune-telling works, most of the time. Sorry.”

“Can't complain, really. What I did get was... more than I thought I would. More than I thought you would get, I mean.”

“I hear that a lot.” She stood up and opened the door for me. “Good luck to you. You will need it, but I think you'll have it when the time comes.”

“So, what do I owe you?”

“I think I'm going to let you have this one on spec. Just... remember me when this part is all over. What's coming up now looks like just the start of a long road, and we might have a lot of business to do, sometime relatively soon.”

“Are you sure? I don't know if I'll ever be in this neighborhood again, y'know.” She nodded, and we shook hands. The Blind Lady's hand tightened on mine, and she reached out and held it in both hands for a moment before letting go.

“One last thing. When the big show starts, there have to be four of you.”

Talk to the hand

The sign on the shop had 'Pendross Cybernetic and Bionic' in basic, blocky script. I stood in a shaded doorway across the road from the shop, one who's faded paint and dusty windows seemed to say it hadn't been used in a while. I'd been watching Pendross' door for ten minutes or so, holding my left fist, clenching and unchlenching, in my right hand. I didn't want to cross the street. I didn't want to go in.

I had come to Pendross' because Sachiko had said the owner might be able to tell me something about the prosthetic metal hand I wore on the end of my left arm. This suggestion had come after I had mentioned that I didn't know anything about my prosthesis. This was true. I didn't even know how I'd gotten it.

I have some things about my past I don't remember, that I don't want to remember. Most of my childhood is hazy, at best. It wasn't very pleasant, most of it. I don't have any memory of my mother or father, although I assume I had the usual compliment of both. There were a lot of years of living with different people, and a lot more living on different streets and different squats. A lot of living on scraps, and fighting for leavings out of dumpsters. It's all bits and pieces, without much continuity. And there's a decent stretch of time, I don't know how long, that's pitch black.

I'm pretty sure I got the hand during that period. I think I have might have learned to Step across dimensions somewhere in there, too, although some earlier memories seem to happen in a lot of odd places, so I can't really say. After the black period, the earliest thing I can recall is being escorted out of a place that could have been a laboratory, out to a street in a strange city. The two large individuals escorting me, who looked like men but weren't, took me to a room with a bed, where I slept. When I woke up, I was in a different bed, in a different room, and a different city. I stayed there for two days, mostly sleeping, until I was thrown out by a couple of people who didn't speak any language I could understand.

In the years since, I'd managed to carve out a nice life for myself, and I hadn't thought much about the past. I'd actively avoided it, to be honest. The days before the blackout, they were nothing worth remembering, and there were some things... anyway. The few times I'd tried to think about the blackout period, I'd experienced more than a little panic. Very bad panic. I'd ruined a very nice pair of pants, to be brutally honest.

I knew the hand had its own intelligence. There had been a couple of occasions where it, acting on its own, had saved my life. I thought of it as a friend, albeit one I could barely understand. Having it checked out was logical, though, something I should have done a long time ago. But it had never occurred to me before. I don't know why. Maybe there was a reason for that.

So I stood across from the cyber-shop, metal fist in real hand, fighting down an urge to run.

I looked down at the balled metal fingers. Something else I'd never thought of occurred to me.

“Are you afraid?” I asked, hunched down over the fist. “Is there some reason you don't want me to go in there?” The curled metal fingers loosed, and each one tapped the palm three times. The feeling of panic lessened just slightly. “It is you, isn't it? You're what's making me feel so frightened?”

The feeling vanished, like a soap bubble popping. But that led to a new kind of fear.

“How long... do you do that all the time?” The fingers spread wide, wider than my real fingers could. A point of light appeared on each fingertip, and each curled up until they were pointed at the palm of the hand, making five points of light on the red metal surface. The lights began to move, and letters formed, scrolling across the palm.

'no'

“But sometimes you do, right? You just did!”

'program activates when certain thought patterns emerge. neural feedback is initiated to cause flight response. not under active control. temporary program interrupt in effect'

“You can read my mind?”

'supposition incorrect. alpha waves are scanned for particular pattern. pattern emergence causes sensory interface feedback program activation'

“So, you were built to scare me if I think certain things?”

'supposition incorrect. feedback program non-standard, added as chipset just prior to unit installation on current user'

“You were altered to scare me just before you were put on me? Why? And by who?”

'supposition correct. reasons for alteration: unknown. identity of those responsible for alteration: unknown. warning: program interrupt will become ineffective in 69 seconds'

“Oh, man...”

'to prevent resumption of ill effects due to feedback program, unit must be removed. query: does user wish to remove unit'

“Yes! Now!”

The hand began to cycle through its removal process, releasing its grip and unplugging from the sockets on my forearm. As it finished, I took its weight onto my right hand.

“Is there any way to kill that program? And any others like it you might have in ya?”

'program is chipset. removal of chip from socket 3-SSA will remove program from unit. chip contains only non-pain related response program in unit.'

“Pain related response program?”

'unit can assist user by deadening pain at user request'

“Good to know. If I have the chip pulled, will that do anything to you?”

'unit's efficiency in completing primary function will increase by 1.392%'

“And your primary function is replacing my hand?”

'supposition correct'

“Any particular reason you haven't let me know any of this before now?”

'user made no request for information prior to this point'

“We need to have a long talk sometime soon. How long has it been since you were 'installed'?”

'unit installed on current user 11986355 seconds ago'

“Very informative. Were you on any other users before me?”

'unknown. unit memory begins 2100 seconds before installation on current user.'

“Nothing at all before that?”

'supposition correct. however, memory tags indicate unit memory archived and wiped just prior to installation on current user.'

“That's interesting. And I'm guessing the location of your memory archive is unknown?”

'supposition correct'

“OK. Just to be on the safe side, is there anything this guy might discover by taking a look at you that will get me into trouble?”

'unknown. unit is not familiar with laws of current locale'

“Well then, anything you need him to tend to in ya?”

'unit functioning near optimal, no service currently required.'

“Nine years without a checkup, and you're functioning near optimal, huh? Hardy fella, aren't ya?”

'supposition correct'

I laughed all the way across the street.

Starting homeward

Three days after Sachiko found me on the deck of the Void Dog, we made port in Cobo Landing. For all three days, I had been feeling the occasional pull of a Stepping point as the spheres of different realities had revolved past the deep ship. Sachiko had found it very interesting, and had begun talking about the uses of having someone with dimension hopping skill as part of an exploratory crew. In the normal course of events, Sachiko would have had to 'land' the Void Dog in an unexplored dimension to find out anything about it, and actually finding the proper entry point was hit or miss, at best. But I could feel when Stepping points were approaching, and when they were closest. I actually got to earn a bit of my keep by Stepping to Cobo Landing and arranging for the slip Sachiko needed for the Void Dog.

Transferring to the slip from the void was very interesting. Stepping is like a bad jump cut in a film; suddenly the scenery is different. But docking a deep ship is gradual, like coming out of a dream. Shapes began to appear in the blackness, solidifying around the ship until the void was gone. In less then five minutes, we were fully docked in the Landing. It was fascinating to experience.

It was nice to be back on solid land, but that was balanced by the fact that I had no idea where Cobo Landing was, and how I was going to get back home. I had assumed that Sachiko's dislike of the Traveler's Guild put me somewhere near my normal stomping grounds, the section of the void she sailed turned out to be, by her choice, quite far away from anywhere the Guild controlled. She said that most deep sailors avoided the Guild worlds. The Guild had no way of tracking ships like the Void Dog, and tended to be heavy handed in their methods of trying to curtail the deep sailor's wanderings. Sachiko's normal route lay just outside the area controlled by the Jump Cops, the so-called 'Boundless Realm'. The Realm, while quite large, was miniscule compared to the Guild's Dimensional Congeries. The Guild's reach extended quite a bit further than I had ever thought. Sachiko had never heard of any of the places I named, except the Gambling Hell, which also seemed to be a much more widespread operation than I had assumed. Her collection of maps might have shown some areas I knew, but the deep sailor method of listing location names and relationships were too foreign to my understanding to be much help.

Sachiko did have some suggestions for at least finding my way back into the Guild Congeries, which might be all I needed.

“I wish you well in your travels, Runcible.” Sachiko told me as I stood on the dock next to the Void Dog. “It has been most enjoyable and illuminating to have you as a guest. Your help today was, also, much appreciated. I hope that your path back to your home is untroubled. Would it make you uncomfortable to receive a gift?”

“Sachiko, my friend, I would be more than pleased to accept anything you might offer.”

She stepped close to me, and placed a light necklace around my neck. It was shaped like a crescent, with the upturned points connected to the links that held the necklace to me. The crescent was silver, with a blue filigree pattern on it. When I slipped it under my shirt, it felt cold for just a moment, then felt like nothing at all.

“You've been very kind to me, Sachiko, and I feel lucky to have landed on the Void Dog. I wish you sailed closer to my home. I'd love to have you to talk to again. I also wish there was some way to repay you for your help, but right now a thank you is all I can offer. I hope to be able to return this gift in kind, one day.”

“The help was given freely, as was the gift, Runcible. The necklace will allow you to feel when a deep ship is near, and may allow me to sense you, if we are ever near one another again. Take care, and be well.”

“And to you.”

I walked down the dock towards the city. When I reached the end of the dock and looked back towards the Void Dog, Sachiko had disappeared.


Cobo Landing was a busy port, hosting port facilities for space, sea, and deep ships. Like any port city, it was bustling with traffic and business being done, both legal and otherwise. Drovers moved various loads in animal drawn carts, powered vehicles, and by their own strength. Vendors hawked dozens of types of foods and sundries. I enjoyed it all, and kept an eye out for pickpockets.

Sachiko had told me about a few places I should visit; a cybernetics peddler who might be able to tell me something about my metal left hand; a fortune-teller of good reputation; and a group who might be able to help me find my way through the Boundless Realm, known as the Sig Nomad.

I headed away from the deep ship moorings, heading for the cybernetics dealer. My mind was filled with thoughts of Yendin Baddo, and as I walked I clenched and unclenched my own left hand.