CHAPTER 11

  "Now I will stand in the rain on the corner

  I watch the people go shufflin' downtown

  A-nother ten minutes no longer

  An' then I'm turnin' around 'round

  An' the clock on the wall's movin' slower

  Oh my heart it sinks to the ground

  An' the storm that I thought would blow over

  Clouds the light of the love that I found, found."

  -Led Zeppelin

  ...

  Carl knocked on Steve's door.

  "Who is it?"

  "Carl."

  "Come on in!"

  Steve was making a sandwich, a soda and chips already on the table.

  "You want a sandwich?"

  "Nah, I'm good. I stopped by because I have something for you."

  "For me?"

  "Yeah. I really dug that album you gave me...and Nano has a bunch of my music saved, so I had him transfer a bunch of my favorite albums to those music sticks. I mean, if youre interested."

  "Music from another world?! Hell yes I'm interested!"

  Carl smiled at him and dug the music sticks out if his pocket.

  "I labeled them and everything."

  Steve stood there chewing on a mouthful of sandwich smiling. He held up a finger, Carl waited until he finished chewing.

  "Can I do something for you?"

  "You dont owe me anything, I'm always happy to share music."

  "I have an idea...will you indulge me?"

  "Uh...sure."

  "This will sound weird, but, can I take a picture of you in your armor?"

  Carl cocked an eyebrow.

  "Sure, I guess."

  Steve laughed,

  "Its not for anything weird, but it will pay off."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Nope. Its a surprise."

  "Ok."

  Carl armored up, even popped the claws for him, Steve grabbed his phone and got a front picture and a side picture.

  "Perfect! Thank you."

  Steve was looking at his phone zooming and rotating the pictures, his half eaten sandwich forgotten on the counter. Carl watched him for a moment then left.

  Carl lay on his bed, his sleep schedule was all screwed up. He'd stayed up most of the night, napped from about 3am to now, which was 9:14am. He was restless and wished he had some... He opened the drawer to his nightstand. He had dumped all his pocket junk in there. The three glowing crystals rolled forward when he yanked it open. He picked one up and looked at it. Maybe he should give one to Matt to study. He dropped it back in the drawer and rooted around in the drawer. His fingers found the slightly misshapen joint. He straightened it out and stuck it in his mouth. Just what the doctor ordered. He didnt have a lighter though...shit.

  He walked to his stove and turned on the burner. He bent down, tilting his head to the side and lit the joint off of it. He walked over to the apartments single window and slid it up. He took a deep drag and blew it out. He felt it immediately, it felt nice, the stress melting off of him. He wondered if there was some kind of rule about smoking weed in a government facility. He didnt really even know if the stuff was legal or not in this world. He started to get paranoid, after he had smoked half of it, he licked his fingers and pinched the cherry of the joint, putting it out. He poked his head outside the window and looked around, no one. He turned to get up and put the half a joint back in his nightstand and saw the smoke, reflecting the sunlight, hanging in the air.

  Shit.

  He didnt think this through at all. He went to the wall switch and flipped on the fan. With the window open, that should help.

  "Whatcha doin'?"

  Carl spun around, Steve was standing in the window with a cigarette in his hand.

  "Uhh...can I ask you something?"

  "Sure."

  "How illegal is Marijuana here?"

  "Illegal? Its not."

  "No? Like, not at all?"

  "No man. What do you think I'm smoking?"

  "Tobacco?"

  "What? You smoke tobacco on your world?"

  "I don't, but many people do. So, they sell Marijuana cigarettes here...over the counter?"

  "Yeah man, you want one?:

  He held up a pack.

  "No, I just smoked. How are you allowed to do that at work? They dont care that youre stoned?"

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  "Stoned? Man, these are like 5%. Its more of just a mild relaxation."

  "Oh. Well that sucks. They dont sell it stronger?"

  "Yeah, you can get the 20% stuff, but thats expensive, like fifteen bucks a pack."

  "Huh. I guess you guys never had the "reefer madness" nonsense we had to endure."

  "The what?"

  "Nevermind."

  He flipped the fan off. Sounds like he needed to go to the store again.

  Carl lay back on the couch and let the cushions swallow him a little. Steve’s album played low from the little boombox he had bought, something slow and atmospheric. Carl didn’t recognize the instruments, or at least not all of them. There was a rhythm to it, though, a pulse that reminded him of driving late at night with the windows down, the road empty, nowhere he had to be.

  The weed had settled in behind his eyes, smoothing out the sharp edges. His thoughts loosened and drifted.

  He stared up at the ceiling and wondered what people drove here. Not the boxy government vehicles he kept getting shuttled around in, those were all function and no soul. Surely they had something better. Sports cars, maybe. Something loud and stupid. Something you didn’t need but wanted.

  He smiled faintly at the thought of himself behind the wheel of something sleek and overpowered, no mission clock ticking down, no alarms. Just… living. The idea surprised him with how easily it came. Like it had been waiting.

  Could he do that here?

  Start over, really start over. New job. New routines. Learn the city. Learn the shortcuts. Buy furniture instead of inheriting whatever came with the apartment. He imagined a place that actually felt like his, plants by the window, maybe, a shelf for records instead of a drawer full of pocket junk and glowing alien crystals.

  The music shifted into another track, something warmer. Carl closed his eyes.

  He thought of Penny.

  Not in a dramatic way. Not a fantasy. Just… Penny, sitting across from him, talking with her hands, that half-smile she got when she was trying not to laugh. He could see it. A future that made sense. Comfortable. Human.

  That was the dangerous part.

  His chest tightened, just a little.

  If he let himself want that, really want it, what happened to everything else? To Earth, to Chloe. To the rest of the people he’d left behind. To the version of himself that still believed this was temporary.

  He rolled onto his side and stared at the far wall.

  Maybe that was how it happened. Not all at once. Not with a decision. Just a slow easing into acceptance until one day you realized you hadn’t thought about home in a while. Until the ache dulled. Until it didn’t hurt enough to fight anymore.

  That scared him more than any monster or rift ever had.

  Carl sat up, elbows on his knees, hands dangling uselessly between them. The album kept playing, oblivious.

  “No,” he muttered, barely louder than the music.

  He wasn’t ready to let go. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  Hope, he realized, wasn’t some noble thing. It was fuel. And if he let it run dry, he’d stop pushing. Stop asking questions. Stop trying to find cracks in the rules. He’d wake up one day and this place wouldn’t feel foreign anymore, and that would mean he’d lost.

  He stood, pacing once, then twice, the restless energy creeping back in. His eyes landed on the nightstand. The drawer.

  He opened it and stared down at the three crystals glowing softly among the junk. Alien. Impossible. Proof that reality wasn’t fixed, no matter how much it pretended to be.

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m getting home.”

  He closed the drawer, a little harder than necessary.

  The music ended. Silence filled the apartment for a beat, the boombox clicked softly, cycling down.

  Carl grabbed his jacket and checked the time. Plenty of hours before the next excursion. Enough time to clear his head. Maybe walk. Maybe hit that store Steve mentioned and see what fifteen dollars bought you in this universe.

  As he headed for the door, the thought flickered again, cars, Penny, staying, and this time he didn’t shove it away.

  He just… set it aside.

  Later, he told himself.

  When this was over.

  Carl locked the door behind him and stepped into the hall, already feeling the pull of the next thing he needed to do.

  Carl and Andy stood outside the rift, Matt was fiddling with a new device he had been working on.

  "Alright, so point this at each rift you find, when it locks in the frequency, it will ding. Label it with the number of the rift."

  Andy nodded and put the device in his backpack.

  "Whats it for?"

  "I'm working on a theory."

  "Uh, ok."

  Carl stepped through the rift and Andy followed. They both dropped to the ground, slowed by the jet-pack and Carls thrusters. Carl looked out over the terrain of the hub world. There were multiple red X's now. Each with a corresponding number.

  "When did you do all this?"

  "When you were fighting a giant bug. I was bored."

  Andy pulled out the "frequency finder" device and started cataloging the rift frequencies. Carl found a nearby rift, #3.

  "I'm gonna head through."

  Andy gave him a nod and kept collecting frequency information.

  Carl stepped in to darkness, his thrusters fired and held him aloft while his eyes adjusted. Faint pulsing pink tendrils criss-crossed the area. He saw no ground, no sky, only what looked like pulsing veins. He turned to fly back, but couldnt see the rift. He flew where he thought it was,waving his hand around wildly...nothing.

  "Oh, for crying out loud! If I'm stuck again, I swear..."

  He reached out to one of the veins, they looked real enough. The second he touched it, his whole body stiffened. Before his eyes he saw his own life...but different. The longer he watched, the more different he realized it was. He was married to a woman named Carol, he worked at a garage, he had two boys and a Jack Russell terrier. Voices washed over him, kids laughter, the dog barking, he and Carol arguing about the bills.

  What is this?

  He let go of the vein. He was back in the darkness, it was silent again, surrounded by the web of veins.

  It reminded him of being trapped in a giant brain. He grabbed another vein.

  This one showed him a life where he enlisted in the air force. He was a captain, running missions in a fighter jet. Again the voices of the people in that life, echoed through his brain. How strange.

  He let go of the vein. Back in the darkness.

  This wasnt a rift at all, it was possibilities.

  "Carl, we cannot sustain full thrusters for too long. We must return to the rift."

  "I dont know where its at buddy. Give me thermal vision."

  His visor clicked and he looked around, nothing gave off heat here.

  "Well shit, now what?"

  "I do not know Carl. We must find something for you to stand on though."

  They flew around for awhile, searching. There was nothing though. The further they went, the thicker the vein clusters got.

  "Maybe I can hang from one of these..."

  He grabbed a vein with both hands. This time he felt a strange sensation. Every nerve in his body tingled and he was pulled into another world.

  Carl opened his eyes. He was in his apartment at the D7 facility. Something was off though. There was a painting on the wall, it showed a windmill amidst a field of poppies. Where did that come from? He started to roll onto his back, there was a hand draped over him.

  Chloe? Was he home? No, not in this apartment.

  The fingernails were painted in a metallic blue. Chloe didnt paint her nails. He gently moved the hand and rolled over to look.

  He gasped.

  It was Penny, but with blonde hair now. He bolted upright. What the hell is this?

  He stood up out of the bed, he was naked. He walked over to the dresser and started pulling out clothes. These weren't his clothes. There was a lot of green. He didnt wear green, he liked blue. This wasnt either of the worlds he called home. How was he here?

  He pulled on some blue jeans and a green t-shirt with a picture of a rock band called "The Thneeds". As he poked his arm through, something caught his eye, a tattoo on his forearm. It was the Department 7 crest. This wasn't his body. He looked in the mirror, it was his face, but thinner, clean shaven.

  "Come back to bed Carl."

  He stopped trying to put on socks and spun around. Penny was sitting up, the blanket had fallen and she was naked too.

  "Oh god. I shouldn't...I mean, I have to go."

  "Go where?"

  "I...I dont belong here."

  Penny got out of bed and walked over to him. He took her in, his eyes tracing every curve, then averted his eyes. He didnt know how to feel. He found her attractive, but hes married to Chloe. Where the fuck was he? Why were they nude together?

  "Nano? Nano? Where am I buddy?"

  Nano didnt respond.

  "Nano?"

  He held up his hand and willed the claws to pop out. Nothing happened.

  "Ok, what the fuck?"

  Penny was wrapping her arms around him, he was very aware of her nude body against his.

  "Did you have a bad dream or something? Youre acting strange. You know Nano is on the docking station. Why won't you look at me?"

  "You're naked!"

  She laughed.

  "You didnt seem to have a problem with that last night."

  "Oh my..."

  He delicately pulled her arms off him and backed out of the room.

  "This is going to sound crazy, just listen, please. I'm not...I dont belong here, I'm not this Carl! I think my conciousness must have jumped into this Carls body or something. Thats the only way this makes sense. I DONT EVEN LIKE THE COLOR GREEN! Oh my god."

  Penny just stared at him.

  "Carl...just breathe. Youre confused, thats all."

  Carls eyes wanted to roam, he was panicking, and looking at something like a naked girl might ground him, but he fixed them on the floor anyways.

  "In my reality, I'm married to a woman named Chloe. I mean no disrespect by not looking at you...it just feels wrong."

  "Ok, you are definitely not my Carl. Let's go talk to Royles."

  "Yes, please. I'll wait in the living room while you get dressed."

  Carl stood next to the couch, the door to the bedroom was cracked. He could see her pulling on panties. It still felt wrong seeing her naked, he could feel his cheeks burning. He looked anyway, even in an alternate dimension, in someone else's body, he was still a man.