I DOUBLE-CHECKED EVERYTHING. The phone and the tablet in my purse along with the list of information I needed to find. Enough money to stay at a cafe with free WiFi for a few hours while Jill was buying us a new electric car. Ricci and Vinsor would need time to shop for the other supplies.

My clothes all came from the other world, so I shouldn’t attract any attention. Jeans and a baggy t-shirt. If I had another incident like that time in New York, I might die of embarrassment or get stoned to death.

“You’ll be fine,” Jill assured me. She had saved me in New York. “If anyone tries to talk to you, tell them you are working for a multilevel marketing company that sells healing crystals.”

I wrote her suggestion down in my notebook. The chances of me ever re-reading it were slim, but it helped me remember.

“Alright. Let’s do this.” If I got in trouble, I could always call Ricci. He wouldn’t be as busy as Jill.

We got to the center of the main cave and lined up shoulder to shoulder with Ricci on my right, Jill on my left, and Vinsor behind her. Hands linked, I imagined the flow of time, the expansions of space, the apple falling off a tree, then disappearing. The universes flipped, changed flavor. The air around us pulsed and cracked until the rocks under our feet turned into to concrete.

“Police. Hands where I can see them and no sudden movements.” A man I had never seen before stood at the entrance of the barn, his gun drawn and pointing at us.

Oh, damn. This was supposed to be a safe landing bay. My hands went up and I really, really wished I could do magic in this world, but I had to rely on amulets. Vinsor still had his mind-reading abilities. He wore a single contact lens to hide his red eye, so he could still use the black eye to read this man’s mind.

“Officer, what are you doing here?” Ricci said in that strange tone elves used. I couldn't fathom why Ricci pretended to be an elf, but it was usually a bad sign. “Don’t you have to have a search warrant to be here?”

“Seeing you with a Stinger constitutes a probable cause.” The man still had his handgun pointing at us. “You should start talking right now. Who the hell are you, people?”

“Ahhh…” Jill stammered as she looked at Ricci, then back at the man in front of us. “We come in peace.”

“What are you doing? He’s gonna think we’re aliens,” Ricci said, the elf tone gone now. “We’re not aliens.”

“You’re not supposed to lie to a police officer.” Jill pointed at Ricci without lowering her hand and added, “He was born and raised in the US, and I’m an emergency room nurse. If you get hurt on the job, you never know if I’ll be the one patching you up. You should be nice to me.”

Technically, Vinsor and I were illegal aliens from a parallel dimension. Not something I should say. Probably best not to mention world travel at all.

“You got a name, emergency room nurse?”

“Jill Fraizer,” she answered. “I’m a US citizen. You can’t shoot me without due process.”

“And you?” The police officer asked me.

“Nasilain.” Why did he have to go for me next? I knew the least about this world.

“Do you have a last name?”

“No.” Damn it.

He gave me the ‘cut the crap’ look. Maybe I could divert his attention from names to who we were in general.

“We are Doctors Without Boundaries. Our mission is to save wounded soldiers, even if they don’t have medical insurance.” I wasn’t sure what the last part meant, but Jill and Ricci had told me it was important in this world.

“We don’t turn frogs gay.” Vinsor must’ve read something in the policeman’s mind.

“No, evil corporations do that. We’re a nonprofit.” Ricci said.

“Doctors with rocket launchers?” The man lowered his gun, though he still held it firm and could shoot our brains out at any moment. “How the hell do you teleport?”

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“Magic,” I blurted out, then clasped my hands over my mouth. “I’m sorry. I forgot you people can’t do magic.”

The policeman looked like he couldn’t believe what I'd just said. I chose the wrong words, didn’t I? People in this world were strange about the way they phrased things.

“Your people are magically disadvantaged?” Oh, damn it. It wasn’t working. He was still looking at me that way. “Please, don’t shoot me. I swear, I’m not racist.”

His eyebrow rose a notch. “Lady, this is the most sensible thing you said this entire time.”

Oh. Really? Saying it worked this time? Could I lower my hands now? My arms had grown tired.

The thin wooden amulet on my wrist caught what little light came in through the open doors. “Could we just?” I tried to show my three companions the amulet. They would know what I meant.

“The land is under my name,” Ricci answered.

Their government’s desire to keep a record of everything always made things difficult for us.

The policeman’s eyes narrowed as he took a step toward me. “What's that?”

I tried to pull away and trap the amulet between my fingers, but his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. The wood snapped. The air pulsed with my magic. The world exploded into light.

“Oh no,” I whispered as the ground disappeared from under my feet and weightlessness carried us between the two worlds.

His hand still gripped me as the barn turned back into the main cave. He let go immediately, but only to lift his gun and point it at Bralazin, then the elves. At least I could do magic now, and Bralazin had a gun. But, if Jill said we couldn’t lie to a police officer, then we shouldn’t kill him either.

“Can we not shoot in the caves, please? It takes days for the air to become pure again,” one of the elves said.

“That’s an icicle. Let’s not shoot at all. We’re all friends here, and we all know killing is wrong. Right?” I turned to the policeman, hoping he shared the sentiment.

“Icicle?” he asked.

“Water in solid state coming to a point. A solid point.”

“Who’s that?” Bralazin asked.

“He saw us teleport.” I still didn’t know much about him beyond that. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“Seth Palmer. What is this place?” He still kept his gun out, but at least he pointed it down.

“This is our base. The caves are mostly the hospital facilities, and everything else is in the tents outside.”

“You really are doctors?” He looked around the cave. “Or just doing anal probes on your abductees?”

“No anal probes, but how do you know about the abductions?”

Before I could get an answer, the damn elves started talking over each other.

“Does he bring impurities into our midst?”

“He must not know perfection to spy on Jill.”

I hated doing this, but if I didn’t calm the elves down, they’d start a riot. “Listen to the bullshit of the most studied sorceress of the word of Jill. We must show love and kindness to all forms of life, even those who are imperfect. Only through love could we ever achieve our own perfection.”

The air began to pulse again. Finally. The difference in the time flow was killing me, but Jill, Ricci, and Vinsor followed only seconds behind, according to the other world.

“Nasi,” Ricci said as soon as he saw me, and then Seth with his gun still pointing down. “Thank God, you’re okay.”

“I’ll bullshit the elves while you figure out what to do.” Jill waved me away and took my spot. She knew her own cult better than anyone. She understood that the elves would be difficult right now.

“Bullshit the elves?” Seth repeated as he looked from Jill to me.

“That’s a long story.” I couldn’t go into the origin of the cult or why we had decided to make elves believe bullshitting was a good thing. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Yeah, we don’t have a lot of time,” Ricci agreed. “Bralazin, maybe you should come with us instead of Nasi.”

I wanted to download more books, but those cafes were terrifying. Would they be able to get everything I wanted? Probably not as much. But I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone from their world. Except Seth.

“Wouldn’t it be safer for me to stay?” Bralazin asked. “Considering we have a guest from your world.”

“No, Nasi would do better,” Ricci said. “She knows our security measures, and she won’t need to carry a gun with her.”

That was true. I could blast Seth with a lightning bolt if I had to, and he wouldn’t even know where it came from. Seeing an unarmed woman instead of a six-foot-tall man with a sniper rifle might put him at ease and hopefully prevent an altrecation in the first place.

“Alright.” I handed Ricci the list of topics I wished to know more about. “Can you look these things up on your way to the city? The red ones are the most important, then the orange and then the green. The rest can wait. Also, can you get me more color pens?”

“You got it.” Ricci walked over to the cabinets we had in the corner and pulled out more amulets. “Good luck with the newbie, not that you need it.”