---Chapter 4
Raggsy settled back down in his chair, taking a long swig of the brandy before beginning his story, “when I was hardly more than a pinky, this town was not like it is now. I can just remember my poor ol’ mudder taking me into stores and buyin’ t’ings there. Wonderful t’ings! Big pieces of roasting meat, loaves of soft white bread, blocks of yellow cheese and bags of somthin’ they called potato chips. Wonderful stuff we haven’t seen in ages. The young generation jus’ don’t know what they’re missing anymore.”
Lenny considered how often he had taken those very things for granted. Being able to walk into a store and buy whatever items he wanted. He had never been rich, but there had always been meat on his table when he wanted it.
“Anyway,” Raggsy sighed, thumping his chair legs down against the floor loudly. “There came the shortages, the govern’mental problems, rebellions and all that sort of thing. That was when I was still just a young squeaker, too small to do much about it. The city fell apart, government fled, country left to its own devices. But still, t’ings weren’t so bad. You could walk the streets most days and not be mugged. A few stores struggled on and Ratpeople weren’t quite so bent on destroying each other as they are now. T’ings slowly ran down until it was a tough existence. But not one out of a nightmare. Then came the Change. It was only about, oh...”
Here he had to stop to look at his claws and do some mental calculations. “About as many days ago as there are claws on my hands, three times over. Maybe four. Not so long ago. Then t’ings got really crazy. Battlehounds started to appear, some wild, others used by maddened Ratpeople to hunt their own type through the city. Strange purple smears have appeared on t’ings and the Bloodsworn started to gather at night. Nothin’ has been the same since the Change. Not even the feeling of the air.”
Seeming to realize for the first time what he was doing with the bottle in his hand, Raggsy set it on the table and pushed it away from himself. It was supposed to be for emergencies.
Meanwhile, Lenny had done a quick calculation. “Thirty or forty days? That was about when odd things started to happen in my world as well...first the AI riots, then the strange creatures being reported lurking around back alleyways and dark streets. The laws have always been pretty strict in my home town of Belltoh, but they became more strict then. They almost outlawed, for no apparent reason, the use of all artificial intelligence, including computers in cars, communication aids...everything.”
Lenny trailed off, not sure why he was telling them this instead of just thinking it silently. He had been part of those AI riots, when the people came together in an insane, howling pack to throw rocks at buildings and demand that the laws did not pass.
He had only been a small part of them, joining in the protesting more than the violent scenes. That was why he had been able to escape without being recognized or 'hauled in’ for it. But he still felt slightly ashamed of his actions now, at the same time as, confusingly, proud of them. The whole world had seemed to change on that day. Since then he had not spoken to anyone of what he had done during the riots. They were as much of a secret as the cybernetics under his skin.
“Yeah, my home started getting messed up then, too!” Jax exclaimed, banging a fist down on the table. “And that’s when the nine worlds drew together, cutting off all of the others. We have to find out where this power core is and how it works! Someone on one of the worlds has to know more about it. We’ll keep looking until we find them.”
“You said that you know something about this corrupting influence.” Lenny turned to their host with his question, “can it help us now?”
Raggsy shrugged, “aw, I don’t know much, I’m afraid. Just this: before the Change, there was a sort of gang leader in these parts, called Ratcombo. Big fella’ with marvelous strength. Anyway, I’ve heard that, since the Change, he’s gone mad and keeps ranting about 'purple energy’ and 'doing what the master commands.’ That might have sometin’ to do with it, or he might have just gone off of his rocker.”
“Unless there is someone who corrupted the power on purpose,” Jax suggested darkly, “he could be the ‘master’ who is commanding the ‘purple energy’ that this gangster was talking about.”
“I don’t know. Maybe,” Raggsy yawned, making Lenny remember how weary he really was. The trek through the confusing city, the fight with the little Ratperson’s dogs and the shock of being in a new world was all starting to catch up with him. His head drooped towards the table. He heard Jax say, “look’s like its time for some sleep. You mind if we stay here tonight, Rags, and leave in the morning?”
“If you’ll take me with you like you promised, I’ll even give you beds and a breakfast,” the Ratperson promised, bustling up out of his chair. “Anytin’ to get away from this city, as it’s become. It’s just nothin’ like when I was a squeaker.”
Lenny forced his eyes open to watch as Raggsy went through another door and pulled a pair of old, dusty mattresses through into the little room. These he flopped on the floor and covered unceremoniously with a pair of frayed blankets from under his bed.
It was not a cold night, underground in the cozy room. Raggsy turned the generator off, leaving the light to run for a little on his one old car battery. Lenny moved over to one of the beds, crawling gratefully under the musty, knitted blanket. “Thanks, Raggsy. You don’t know how good this feels.”
“Oh, yes I do!” the creature returned gleefully, landing with a thump in his own bed. Jax also flopped down and immediately started chattering about how much he enjoyed having a bed to sleep on, how many times he had gone without one in strange worlds and how lucky they really were. Lenny did not answer, letting the words spill over him as he drifted slowly into darkness. It was his first night on another world, in another dimension, but he was too tired to appreciate the differences. Only the fact that sleep was the same in this world as in his own.
In the morning Raggsy woke them up clattering around getting breakfast on the wood stove. A strange smell, somewhere between burnt hair and browned sugar, met Lenny’s nose as he poked it out from under the blanket. Sitting up, he pushed away the cover to rub his eyes with the backs of his hands and orientate himself. It was strange to look around and see the wooden walls and dingy furniture instead of his own modern apartment. Even stranger to see the form of a giant rat bending over the stove, cooking something in a cast-iron frying pan.
“Yuck!” Jax sat up nearby, kicking his blanket into a tumbled heap at the end of his bed. “What is that smell?”
“Brekky!” The Ratperson exclaimed, obviously in a cheerful mood. His tail waved back and forth in a jolly manner as he stirred the contents of the pan with a spatula, dumped in some sort of seasoning from an old clay mug and almost danced around the stove with impatience for it to cook.
“But what is it?” Jax pressed, “I hope it’s not something really gross, like refried rice. I hate rice, it’s so plain and boring. And it had better not be beets, either! I just wont eat those, not after what happened last time.”
“Nah, it’s just potato and cruncher hash,” Raggsy explained, at the same time as Lenny asked curiously, “what did happen last time?”
“The elf sitting across from me at the high Elvenlord’s table told me that it was boiled beets on swan liver that we were eating,” the traveler told them with a wry twist of his face, “but it turned out to be human blood...and liver, I think.”
“Ugh.” Lenny frowned at him. “Don’t make such disgusting jokes before breakfast.”
“But it’s not a joke!” Jax protested.
Lenny did not believe him and would not listen when he kept trying to explain that he was serious. Instead, Lenny stood up and went to sit at the table, where Raggsy had already set some assorted eating aids. None of the plates matched (one was tin, one wood and the last ceramic) and the forks were all a little worn about the handles. One even seemed to have been gnawed on by a creature with large, square teeth. Comparing sizes, Lenny thought that they must have belonged to Raggsy.
But despite the appalling odors, the breakfast was not bad when it was served up. Not exactly what Lenny would call a good breakfast, but not bad, either. There was a large pan of some sort of cubed potatoes and small, crunchy bits which tasted like unsalted bacon, all mixed up with salt and a spice which he could not identify. He and Jax together ate about half as much as the Ratperson ate alone. Then they drank boiled water to wash it down. Heated, it wasn’t as foul as straight from the gutter.
“So, what exactly is a ‘cruncher’? They were pretty good in the hash,” Jax inquired, fastidiously wiping his lips on his sleeve.
“Heh, you liked ‘em?” Raggsy grinned across at them, running a surprisingly long and thin tongue through the tines of his fork.
“They weren’t as bad as I expected, considering the smell,” the traveler admitted.
“Yeah, earwigs don’t smell so great cookin’. But they sure taste good cooked up as crunchers!”
There was an instant silence, both of the young men looking at each other in horror. Then Jax ran hastily out of the room, while Lenny stood up to get another drink of water.
Despite the adventures of breakfast, they were soon ready to make another jump into the next world over.
This required them to find a sheet of metal, for which they went out into the upper world. Raggsy had packed a large bag of 'provisions’ to take with them. Lenny remembered his own pack and wished that he still had it, but it was far across the city and probably snatched by some other Ratperson, by now.
Dawn was just coming gray and gold over the tops of the buildings, lighting the drab streets with its pitiless glow. Somewhere off in the city an engine was growling quietly to itself, while nearer a sign swung creaking on its post.
Raggsy drew in a long breath of his native air. “Gosh, it might be a little harder than I thought to leave this place. All my life has been spent here.”
Lenny nodded silently, understanding how he felt. But the Ratperson was not gloomy for long.
“Ah, well. No more bein’ chased around by murderous neighbors for me! Say, what do all of those little do-dads on your electro-thingy do?”
These last words were directed to Jax, who had taken out his Di-jump to make sure that it had cooled all of the way and was ready to use. Lenny noticed that, like the jetboard, he had pulled it straight out of the inner side of his overcoat, without seeming to have much of a bulge there for a pocket.
“Oh, these?” Jax held it for both of them to see clearly as he explained, “this gauge shows the strength of the signal I am receiving. The colors are a bit backwards, I suppose, but the green shows a signal that is too weak for us to use safely in jumping between dimensions, the yellow means that it is somewhat stronger and the red is a world that is close enough to jump to easily. Lately, I’ve pretty much only got red signals; all the other worlds are so far away that they don’t even register. Below it is this cluster of four buttons. The top one flips through 'channels’ so to speak. That is, it changes what world you are trying to jump to from one to the next. This other button does that as well, but it flips back through them the other way. Are you getting all of this?”
Raggsy put a claw to his snout thoughtfully. “Uh, kind’a. Your sayin’ that these worlds you can go to are like radio channels. The buttons flip between them and the gauge tells you how strong the signal is. But, er, what if there are no other worlds in range to go to?”
Jax blinked. “That’s never happened to me before. In fact, it’s impossible unless you went to one dimension and then it was somehow rifted from the others afterwards. Otherwise, you can always go back to the last world you were on. Which used to mean that you could find new nearby worlds easily, though now I can only find one ring of nine near enough to jump to, as I said.”
“Oh.” Raggsy scratched one ear, before nodding. “Well, go on. What do the other three buttons do?”
“These two are simple.” Jax pointed out a pair, one red and one green. “The green one turns the Di-jump’s power on and off. If it’s off, nothing can happen. The central red button is the one which actually activates the jump. And you don’t want to push it until you’re ready, let me tell you!”
Lenny pointed out the one with ‘Panic!’ written above it. “What’s this one for?”
“Just what it sounds like,” Jax replied, picking that moment to tuck the Di-jump into his pocket. “Now, are we going to find a sheet of metal to use, or stand here yammering all day?”
Having lost all interest in the Di-jump machine, Raggsy quickly took them over to a large sheet of metal laying on the ground near his underground house. It looked like it had once been part of a large truck’s cab, perhaps the roof, but was now laying torn and rusty on the ground. It creaked when they stepped onto it, making Lenny wince and glance around hastily. They did not want to be overtaken by rampaging rats or Battlehounds just before making the jump.
“So...what’s this other world going to look like?” Raggsy asked as Jax began unfurling wires and clips to connect to them. He only had three in his pocket, temporarily limiting their numbers to the amount of people present.
“Who knows?” Jax flashed him a grin. “It could be like anything, or nothing at all!”
Lenny hoped silently that it would be a world with fairly advanced electronic technology and computers like his own. His energy reserves needed to be refilled for his cybernetics, though the passive ones always ran on a tiny trickle of power taken directly from himself.
Stolen story; please report.
Raggsy did not like to wear the alligator clip on his paw, but when they assured him it was a necessity he allowed it to be installed. Jax insisted that it go on the soft portion of his delicate, flexible fingers, claiming that the claws might insulate it too much. This made the Ratperson grimace, though he said that it did not hurt too much. “Just feels pinchy, ya know?”
Finally they were all three in place and Jax pressed the button for them to jump to the next world over.
---
Once again Lenny tried to keep his eyes open and found that he could not. The world blurred, he blinked and found himself opening his eyes in a place that felt refreshingly, coldly new. One of the first things which struck him was the smell of freshly cut grass, sharp and sweet. Next was sunlight filtering down through tree branches rich with leaves, throwing dappled shadows on the ground. Blinking and looking around, he took in the whole scene.
They were standing on a patch of lawn grass surrounded on three sides by neatly-manicured trees and shrubbery. A cement walk cut through the bright green grass like a pale river, flowing across a pleasant park of open woodlands. On a pond nearby floated a pair of billing swans, like petals of a gigantic scale. Beyond the park could be seen the skyline of large buildings, many of them domed or with slanted roofs. None of them appeared to be built of metal or complicated composites like the structures of Belltoh or even Raggsy’s city. They looked like they were mostly wood or brick, with tiled roofs or ones plated in a thin metal which gleamed like copper.
Nearby, people were strolling sedately on the park walk or even picnicking on the grass. To Lenny’s relief they were human, though their dress was archaic and strange to him.
Men were either wore somber black dress clothes, with roses in the buttonholes and top hats on their heads, or flat, straw hats and natty pinstriped suits. Their boots were tall and shiny, most of their clothing being ornamented with heavy latches, buttons or broaches of brassy metals.
The women’s clothes seemed even stranger to Lenny. They wore full-skirted gowns with narrow waists and many pleats, the fabrics being in any color that humans can comprehend. Their hats were wide-brimmed, often with flowers or fruit balanced thickly on them. Most women carried a parasol, if not a fan and a pair of long gloves to go with it. They, too, had broaches and buttons of gold-tinted metals such as copper and brass, often larger than was strictly necessary.
Lenny stared at a couple going by on the path only a few yards away. The man had a large monocle in one eye, which seemed to have some sort of gears turning on the side of it, linked to a spindle twirling by the side of his head. It looked like it was clockwork, connected to an invisible mechanism inside his tall hat. The woman’s umbrella had a clockwork train running around the edge of it, pulling cars containing the tiny machinery.
“Hey, Lenny.” Jax grasped his arm, pulling him towards the shrubbery. “Quick, back here.”
He was also shepherding Raggsy ahead of him, pulling them both back into a dingy space in the bushes that was hidden from the rest of the park.
“What’s wrong?” Lenny snapped alert, glancing around over his shoulders to see if some sort of enemy was after them.
“We don’t want to be spotted,” Jax explained, waving a hand at both of his companions, “you two especially. Your clothes stand out too much, Lenny, and a Ratperson would look like a freak escaped from the circus to them!”
“T’anks,” Raggsy growled, giving him a glare. “That’s just what I’ve always wanted to hear.”
But Lenny could see the reasoning behind this statement. In his world there was so many different fashions that a person’s clothes could look like almost anything without giving him away. It was mostly well-fit bodysuits of black or silver, like his own, but you would only be considered an odd character for wearing very different dress, not a complete weirdo.
But this dimension seemed fairly regulated in its uniforms. And so far as Lenny could see, there was nothing like a Ratperson in sight.
“So what are we going to do?” Lenny asked, “your clothes aren’t much better.”
He did not wish to leave this world too soon, as it looked like a promising one. Besides the fact that the Di-jump would be too hot to jump with so soon.
“Oh, yes they are,” Jax retorted, pulling his coat together in the front so that it hid his 'Galaxy Gas’ shirt. “Luckily, black coats are considered respectable in almost every world I’ve been on. It doesn’t matter what sort of technology they have.”
And with the coat buttoned securely up to his throat, he certainly did look a little more like the jacketed dandies in the park. His hair was the only problem. He tried running his fingers through it, but it still stood up in jags and spikes. Raggsy offered him some of the brandy from his provision pack to 'slap’ it down with, but Jax demurred. Finally, they decided that he was respectable enough to go into the town and find Lenny some less noticeable clothes as he was. Once Lenny had some more ‘dimension correct’ clothing he could blend in with any crowd. Raggsy was simply too hard to disguise. He was told to stay out of sight in the large shrubbery section of the park, but otherwise to do as he wished.
“Well, I guess that ain’t such a bad fate, after all,” the Ratperson agreed, “You kids can go walkin’ your feet off across the city. This place looks nice to 'ang out in. Grass, blue sky, fallen leaves that prob’ly have tasty grubs under them...”
Jax made a disgusted face and started to push his way through the shrubbery, “Whatever. I’ll be back with a coat for you soon, Lenny.”
“Do you have money that they will take here for it?”
Jax turned back to give him a wink. “Gold is accepted in almost every world, just like black coats. Besides, clever people don’t need money to survive.”
And with that, he hurried off across the park. Crouching down in the crunchy, fallen leaves on the ground, Lenny found a place where he could see out of the bushes without being seen. In the distance, he could make out a happy couple picnicking on the lawn, hats thrown aside and hair shining in the sun. They were evidently laughing and chatting together easily, their heads tossing or turning towards each other with shy grace. Lenny felt a stab of jealousy, watching them. As far as he had seen, it did not appear that their world was greatly affected by the corrupted power core. Or at least, this small space of it was not.
They did not have friends disappearing overnight, or their jobs suddenly folding up in their faces like a fan. They had never had to flee their world because they were unacceptable on it.
“I wonder if Sara will be on any of these places...” Lenny sighed, feeling bitter. He turned over in the leaves to look at the sky. Raggsy was nearby, snuffling through them like a dog. Glancing up, his big, dark eyes glittering, he asked, “what’s wrong?”
“Sometimes I just feel lonely,” Lenny admitted, “it seems like no one has ever really understood me. No one who stuck around for long, that is.”
“Ah, kid, I know what you mean.” The Ratperson threw himself down in the leaves nearby, wiggling his shoulders until he was comfortable. “That’s part of life for everybody. I’ve lived alone so long that it’s strange to be travelin’ with somebody now. ‘Specially people like you, if’n you’ll forgive me. I mean humans. I’d heard of you types before, but never met ‘em.”
“So there are humans on your world?”
“A few, far away, on another continent.” Raggsy shrugged, waving a paw in the air lazily. “They keep to themselves, but some of the greatest Ratpeople adventurers of all time traveled to their place and talked to ‘em. They aren’t as...er, sophist’cated as you kids are, though. More like savages.”
“Just like Gulliver’s Travels,” Lenny muttered quietly, before saying aloud, “I hope Jax doesn’t get into any trouble in the town by himself. He seems so impulsive, I don’t know what he’ll do next. Like jumping off that building to save you.”
Raggsy chuckled, “yeah, but I, for one, am glad of that. 'Sides he knows what he’s doing. From what I’ve gathered, you’re not much more experienced at this game than I am.”
Lenny had to admit that this was the truth. And, in fact, it was not long until Jax returned, a large grin on his face. Over one arm he was carrying an off-white colored jacket with orange and red strips running vertically on it, while in the other hand he had a flat, wide-brimmed straw hat with an orange ribbon tied neatly around it.
“You’ll have to just stay with silver pants,” he remarked, “but I thought these would match 'em. Button up and let’s go! This town is a rum one.”
Lenny thought that Jax’s fashion tastes were questionable, but he did not protest as he slipped on the jacket and buttoned it up. It had wide clasps of a coppery sheen, and was fit tight at the waist, while loose at the end of the sleeves. He felt mildly foolish as he stuck the light summer hat on top of his head. “Well? Do I blend in?”
“Perfectly,” Jax laughed, slapping him on the back. “Next thing we know you’ll be strolling along the street with one of these ladies dressed in a circus tent! Come on.”
They looked each way, stepped out of the bushes and brushed the stray leaves off of themselves. Then they began to stroll along the cement walk, eyes constantly moving to take everything in. They passed a man selling balloons with an important air, children dressed in tall stockings and short clothes, and a fountain with marble statues holding marble buckets overflowing with water around its edges. Finally they went out of a large, wrought-iron gate onto a cobbled street in the center of the town. A carriage pulled by white horses went by, soon followed by a contraption which made Lenny stare.
It was like a car, a very old-fashioned car with rubber tires and spoke wheels, but it was evidently steam-powered. A large stack puffed smoke into the air while a man in servant’s uniform fed the fire of a boiler in the back. In the front, a driver dressed in dust jacket and goggles steered with levers which stuck far up at his side. A glimpse of dials, gauges and many little levers could be seen ringing his cockpit. The whole car was slickly built, painted black and covered in a mixture of moving levers, turning gears and golden frills. Lenny could not help noting that some of the gears were not being used for any practical purpose: they simply turned around for the look of the thing.
“Did you see that?” he whispered to Jax as they started across the street towards the sidewalk on the other side.
Jax nodded complacently. “Steampower is the main motivator, here. I don’t think you’ll find many computer chips, electrical wires or outlets today.”
Lenny nodded, hiding a frown. If this was not a world where electricity was used for power, he would not be able to refill his energy reserves to use his cybernetics.
Passing a group of women in aprons and men with bowler hats gathered around a fruit stand, the young men heard them arguing over prices. Not vehemently, but with a gentle rivalry that proved the city was a prosperous one. It was an abrupt change from the last city they had visited.
“Jax, why does everyone in these worlds speak the same language as we do? I would think they would be far different, as the dimension developed separately.”
Jax leaned closer to answer, so no one else would hear. “As I said in the beginning, these worlds are a little like mirror images of our own. We teleport to somewhere random in them, but close to the same co-ordinates as we left the last one. Being mirror images, many of them have the same languages, even if the dialects change slightly. Only a few places I have been to before have tongues that I can’t understand at all. We’re in the same part of the world, it’s just a different dimension.”
Lenny nodded slowly as they turned to walk down a side-street, out onto a main thoroughfare. Here, small stores lined the street, prosperous and cheerful with their many-colored awnings. But it was also the first spot that Lenny noticed a sign of the corrupt power center effecting this place. It was a brick wall, whitewashed and trimmed in blue paint, before which a large crowd had gathered. At first the travelers could not see why, but when they approached closer the scene became clear.
In front of the crowd a tall, thin man standing on a wooden box was holding a stick, pointing at the wall behind him. On it was a large smear of smoldering purple, the center so dark that it was like a black hole, drawing in the light around it.
“You see?” the tall man was shouting, “it is a judgment against us! The writing on the wall has become manifest in our society! Why, you ask, is this abomination here? To show us that the road to evil is wide open before us, while the path to salvation is narrow and straight! Do not walk into this gaping hole of evil, my friends! Do not walk the ways of the Dark One.”
There was much nodding of heads and shouts of approval in the crowd, though others just laughed or shook their heads and walked away. Too many had put their hands near the patch to believe that it was just paint, but some of the people still suspected a trick. The two young men were about to move on from behind the crowd, when Lenny suddenly arrested his friend with a painful whisper, “Jax, look at that!”
They looked and saw, near the edge of the people, one man in his early thirties who was standing alone. He wore a tight vest of brilliant scarlet, buckled with black, wing-shaped latches up the front. There was black lace on his sleeves and collar, as well as on his hat. But the thing which had caught Lenny’s attention was the man’s hand. He was holding it in front of his face with an expression of disbelief, but half-turned from the crowd so that they could not see what he did. Lenny could just make out that the man’s fingers were a dark, creeping purplish color, while his nails seemed to be turning black. And by his expression, this was not through any form of dye.
“He must have touched it!” Jax hissed as the man in the red vest tucked the hand in his pocket and began to move rapidly away. “Quick, follow him.”
Their quarry strode down the sidewalk, turning on his heel into an alleyway nearby. Jax and Lenny ran after, almost too eagerly. For when they turned the corner they found the man to be only a few yards away, standing with his back pressed against the wall and the touched hand once again held in front of his face. But this time his left hand held the right tightly by the wrist, as if to keep it in place, while his face showed something near panic.
“It’s eating me!” he gasped, not noticing the boys standing nearby. “I can feel it like a cold numbness...spreading down my arm.”
There was a car parked in the alley as well, a little like the steam powered one they had seen earlier but much sleeker and smaller. There was no servant riding in it: it appeared that the driver must fuel it for himself. Steam was hissing quietly out of a relief valve on the side, while a trickle of dark smoke poured upwards. Suddenly the man looked up and saw them standing there, upon which his face twisted in fury.
“Who are you? What do you want? Begone!”
“We were just wondering--”
“No! Begone, I say!”
With that he flung himself at the car, scrambling into the driver’s seat with some difficulty, as he could not use his right hand. As he fumbled at the levers to get it under weigh, Jax stepped forward to lean one hand on the open cockpit’s side. “Sir, did you touch that purple spot back there?”
“It’s none of your business,” the driver screamed, pulling a lever which made the car shiver and jumped ahead. Jax just had time to step out of the way before it rolled passed, gather momentum as it neared the end of the alley. Looking over his shoulder, Lenny saw it career across the street, narrowly miss hitting a respectable young lady in a white frock, before it went shooting down the road out of sight.
“Golly, what a sorehead!” Jax exclaimed.
“You might feel sore too, if your hand was being corrupted like that,” Lenny pointed out, still staring towards where the car had disappeared. “Poor man. I wonder if there is anything that can help him, in this world? I know Dr. Devi could have saved him.”
“How, by hacking that limb off?”
“Yes and--” Lenny paused, hesitating a minute as he realized what he had been about to say. Finally he finished lamely, “healing the wound.”
But Jax was not listening to him any more. He had a hand to his forehead and was pacing back and forth in thought. “So, touching those spots can contaminate people as well. I’m glad I never did it. Last I knew, they were all over my town. But no one there was foolish enough to touch them, so far as I know. Too cold and spooky.”
Lenny let him ramble to himself for a few minutes before putting in, “I almost touched one the first time I saw it, too. But if they can effect a person with a touch, will that person effect whatever they brush up against next?”
Sober for once, Jax looked up at him. “Let’s hope not.”
Quietly, they walked out of the alley and started down the street again.