I was still a hall or two over from the port room when I stopped, my hand brushing against something tacked to the wall. I squinted; the light was dim here, only one crack letting the red sunset through, but I was able to make out the words I’m sorry written in big, bold letters. I stared at them, at the paper taped haphazardly to the wall, and as my eyes adjusted I saw another. It said nothing, but had an artistic drawing of a redheaded, freckle-faced girl. A necklace hung next to it, dangling half over an embroidered napkin.
The red light from outside hit a bit of reflective metal, brightening the hallway just slightly. More notes, scraps of fabric, and other miscellaneous items dotted this wall, and I realized it wasn’t a wall but the Wall, still being added to all these years—centuries—later.
The Wall. I just stared, taking in the faces of these Walkers who were dead and hadn’t even been born yet, already nothing more than memories even though I’d never known them.
And then I realized I was still five halls from the infirmary, where the Wall had started. I wasn’t even past the lockers yet, and the Wall had stretched this far. And if it had grown on the other side, too…
I wanted to protect them all, these heroes I’d never meet, these children who were just like me. I wanted to save them. I promised to the empty air that I would, somehow. Someday.
A flash of light filled the hall for a moment, affording me a view of the Wall in all its glory. Then it faded, and I was left in darkness more pronounced than it had been before. That flash, brief as it had been, had ruined my night vision. I squinted, ducking down against the wall, my eyes on the far door. That had most likely been my helpful whatever-it-was from Josetta, though I was expecting her to send me an object—and my senses were telling me there was movement here now, something that wasn’t me. I wished I had a blaster. Or an emitter. I’d have settled for a sharp stick at this point.
The dust motes visible in the fading light swirled in agitation as something moved in the doorway, a dark shape I could only partially see. I stayed absolutely still, watching and waiting as it hovered in the darkness, then bobbed forward—and then I recognized it.
“Hue!” I’d never been so glad to see anything in my life. My little mudluff friend brightened, becoming luminescent in the dimness; it was like having a balloon that also happened to be a lamp.
I ran forward, unabashedly throwing my arms around him, but he squeezed through my grasp, turning an apologetic powder blue. All but part of him, actually—there was a patch about the size of my hand that remained reddish, unchanged despite his other colors. If he were human, I’d’ve said it looked like a burn.
“Are you hurt, Hue?” He bobbed slightly, then stretched out a little, as he’d done in the In-Between when he’d protected me from J/O’s laser. “Oh…I’m sorry, buddy. You saved me, though.” He turned a pleased pink—all but that one patch—and started to bob back down the hall toward the port room.
“Where are you going?” He stopped, bobbed again, then continued, obviously expecting me to follow. I hesitated. “Are you taking me back to InterWorld? I mean, my InterWorld?” He brightened. I hesitated.
I wanted to go back, believe me. I wanted to erase the memory of this broken, falling-down base, go back to the reality of my classes and my little dorm room and my classmates. I wanted to see the mess hall all lit up, even if it was full of Walkers asking me about my girlfriend—which she sure as hell wasn’t now—but as surely as I knew I wanted to go back, I also knew I couldn’t. Not yet.
“Wait, Hue. I can’t go back there yet.” He paused, hovering uncertainly. If I went back, they’d detain and question me. They’d ask where I’d gone and why, and I’d have to explain about Acacia, and I wasn’t sure what I could tell them about Jay. I wasn’t even sure what I could tell them about Acacia.
“Acacia said it isn’t safe there,” I hedged, trying for a version of the truth. Hue flickered uncertainly. “I don’t know why, but I have to find out. I have to go where she is. You can do that, can’t you? That’s why Josetta sent you to me. You’re a multidimensional life-form, and the In-Between exists in all times. Time is a dimension, too, in that sense. It was the first place Acacia ever took me. The In-Between, in a different time. Can you get there, too?”
Colors were swirling uncertainly across Hue’s surface, and I got the impression he was thinking. “I know Josetta told you to bring me back, but she doesn’t know what’s going on. There’s danger there, and I don’t know what it is. I have to find Acacia so she can tell me.” That was only mostly true. I certainly didn’t want to go back to TimeWatch, but anything was better than InterWorld—then or now. I couldn’t help anyone if I was thrown in jail or kicked out again. Once I got to the In-Between, I’d…well, I’d think of something.
“Please, Hue?” The colors swirled faster, mingling into a muddy brown that slowly shifted to a lighter red. He wasn’t happy about this, but he’d do it. I hoped.
His form shifted, becoming less spherical and more…liquid. He filtered down to the floor, crawling across it to my feet, and sort of…stretched up over me. I was reminded of when I’d put on Jay’s encounter suit, after he’d died. I’d been afraid, then, as it swarmed up over my body; I was less afraid now because I knew Hue, because I trusted him, but it was still unnerving.
It felt like someone was covering me in Silly Putty, if you can imagine that. Or like being painted on, except he wasn’t cold or anything. He was no temperature at all, which just contributed to the oddness.
I looked toward the Wall as Hue surged over my shoulders, my neck, my mouth. The sun had crept down past the jagged window, the last dying rays illuminating the first note I’d seen. I’m sorry, I thought as the world around me faded. I’m so sorry.
In retrospect, it may have been smarter to go back to InterWorld. I might have been detained for questioning, but at least I could have gotten some more equipment. I’d been traipsing about the Altiverse without even so much as a one-shot blaster glove for the last few days, and I was getting really tired of having to improvise weapons. I likely wouldn’t have been as irritated if there’d been any weapons around for me to improvise with, but currently, the best I had was a wooden chair.
“You have to go!” Acacia shouted again, still struggling to free herself from the wires wrapping themselves around her. “Get out of here!”
Though I’d expected Hue to just carry me through the In-Between, to teleport me or whatever he’d done to save me from HEX, nothing had happened when he’d fully enveloped me. Well, nothing except for the fact that I could see the zeptoseconds. It was like looking through a kaleidoscope that made string theory look like connect the dots. He wasn’t leading me so much as he was allowing me to see the path. And I’d found, while Hue was wrapped around me like a second skin, that I could Walk anywhere. Time, space, relativity—it was all the same, just a hop, skip, and a jump away.
I’d looked back and seen time, seen where I belonged, and leaped millennia in a single bound. It felt like taking my first steps.
I’d had the impression of InterWorld—not like I was actually flying over it, but just like I knew it was there, I was aware of it, like when you know without looking that someone’s standing next to you. I knew it was there and full of me, full of my para-incarnations, but it was hazy. Something hung over it, a miasma I’d felt before, when my team and I had been captive on the Malefic, when we’d found the souls of dead Walkers, trapped in jars and powering the ship….
The energy crackled in the air like static, and I could follow it. Like a hound tracing a scent, I followed it back to its source. I should have known it all along.
Earth F?986. Where we’d “rescued” Joaquim.
He was already there when I Walked in, power swirling around him like electricity. We were in the very same room we’d rescued him from; he was standing near the window Jo had crashed through to get them to safety, some strange kind of energy vibrating in the air. The entire building was pulsing like a heartbeat, like a thousand heartbeats.
“Hi, Joey,” he’d said with a smile, and then I’d seen Acacia.
She was restrained by wires and circuitry, held tightly against the far wall and looking like she’d seen better days. I’d seen her because she’d called out, her voice far stronger than she looked. It was probably the anger that gave her strength.
“Joe-what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here?” It was almost all one word, discernible only by the slight emphasis on my name and the mild expletive.