Is this world real, or something more?

The flickering dance floor stretched endlessly in all directions towards a dark horizon. Countless ceilings of glittering glass, liquid metals, and prismatic lights floated under the starless sky. Gravity existed only in tiny pockets, around the barstools and seats, in the glasses keeping the drinks in place, or inverted and refracted on the walls and ceilings.

People danced everywhere, upside down and sideways, floating in the air, clothed in starlight and nebulae, wreathed in neon and liquid darkness. They fell in from the sky and stepped out of doorways that blinked into existence on the walls or in empty space.

The music was what all other club anthems devolved from, perfect and impossible. Each note was forgotten as soon as the next one played, but it drove the people to hysteria.

Above the throbbing sea of dancers, on a long, roofless platform that floated alongside a swarm of catwalks and balconies, three figures sat across from eight others. The three wore featureless robes severed from the lineage of actual clothes, and masks of dull uncolored plastic. The eight were sitting on or standing around an identical couch that seemed to be carved from the pure black sky, dressed in a style that was half mobster half Wall Street, with touches of cybergoth and paramilitary at the edges. Other than the odd tie, streak, ring, or design on their masks, they were so dark they almost disappeared into the floor.

“Quite a close call, wasn’t it? I’m told it was your last operative that made the kill.” One of the three men said in a voice like a very convincing AI.

“No. We had two others still active.” Michael’s voice came out altered so that a listener would only remember the words and not the sound.

“Well, it was quite a close call all the same.” the man said.

“Does that mean you won't be recommending us?” Celeste’s voice was like a phone sex operator.

“Not at all. For the price, I didn’t expect you to do anything but scare him, to be honest. Hopefully bring him to the table.”

“Sounds like we should raise our prices,” EP was sitting on the armrest and the rabbit ears on her mask flicked when she spoke.

“You would have had to track him again if we just scared him,” Michael said. “Someone bought him a Doormaker, and Hunters aren’t cheap,”

“Yours was.” said the man, with a smile in his voice.

“Well, it won't be that way for long,” Lindsey said, her voice pitched up and distorted. “We’ve got a few successes under our belts now. Better hire us while we’re still at a discount.” She sipped molten silver in a rocks glass.

“We don’t have any jobs for you at the moment, but we’ll be sure to keep you in mind.”

“In that case, we’ll be leaving.” Michael stood up and the others on the couch followed suit. Phillip was halfway to the door while the men were still giving their goodbye bows. As the team walked away, one of the men who hadn’t spoken before called out in a voice that seemed unaltered.

“Who made the kill?”

Gradie stopped and faced them.

“That’s me.” His voice came out like a speak and spell. Luke laughed into his mask. EP muttered “Jesus”.

“Well played, putting yourself in that building. Staying under until the last moment, quite the trick.”

No one moved besides Phillip, who finished walking to the door.

“Thank you.”

“If you keep making moves like that, you’ll be worth a lot more.” the man said to Michael.

“I’ll remember that the next time you hire us.”

They bowed at each other, and the three men disappeared into a door that opened in the air behind them.

Philip waved open a large elevator in the wall. They all walked in and the doors snapped closed. After a moment, Michael waved his mask out of existence and everyone else did the same.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“So, do I get like a bonus—” Gradie started. Philip turned on him and the elevator stopped.

“You got lucky. Through your own incompetence.”

“I’m the one that killed—"

“After the rest of us handed him to you on a fucking platter. Dropping out the moment you come in and pissing yourself in a call center for half the job isn’t a useful skill in this game. It worked this time. That’s it.”

“He has a point, Gradie,” Michael said. “It’s not the kind of thing you can rely on. I need you aware at all times, or I can’t use you.”

Gradie nodded and pressed the *1 button repeatedly. Philip glared at him.

“Good shooting though,” Michael said. “Unfortunately, almost everything else went to shit, which is my fault. Before our next job, there’s going to be some restructuring. We’re still acting like two separate units.”

“Teamwork makes the dream work, baby.” Luke grinned as Lindsey and Philip grimaced at him.

“"Despite that, good work all around," Michael said. "Can't say we're lacking in raw effort." Philip sighed as the elevator opened on the office.

The Allcity skyline rippled outside the massive window. Swarms of people zipped around like insects. Crafts of all shapes and dimensions, free from the restrictions of gravity or aerodynamics, moved at impossible speeds, turned sharply at right angles, and floated by lazily while prismatic lights pulsed inside. The sun beamed down from its permanent three pm position, and the thousands of wild structures and suspended pools reflected it in blazing pieces. As strange as each part was, together it was even more unsettling. Gradie still wasn’t used to it.

He stepped out into the office, a three-story tall loft with two railing-less square catwalks rising above. A floating spherical garden hovered in the air, a chandelier of flowing water and blooming dwarf trees below a glass skylight that let in the gentle evening of some other world. Doors evenly spaced a foot apart covered the walls. There was a crystal bar off to the side and a half circle of couches, some floating and one made of smoke, in the center of the room.

EP and Celeste went through two of the doors and Sam waved over her shoulder as she flew up to the second level catwalk and disappeared through a doorway. Luke hopped up on a floating couch and summoned a screen. Philip stopped next to the bar and took a drag on a thick cigar, then frowned at it.

“Try this one.” Michael threw another cigar out of nowhere and it floated towards him like zero g, trailing smoke. Philip caught it and watched Gradie like he was waiting for him to leave. Gradie went behind the bar and looked over the bottles.

“Why haven’t we mentioned the elephant in the room?” Philip said.

“What are you talking about?” said Lindsey, leaning on the other end of the bar, her drink from the club still in hand.

“Me losing M240 privileges,” Luke said. Philip ignored him.

“Those guys had enough money to hire a Doormaker, but skimped on a bunch of second-rate operators?”

“Those second-rate operators gave us enough trouble.”

“Don’t get all touchy. You know they weren’t near the cost of a Doormaker. Not even close.”

“They probably skimped on the hired guns so they could afford the door.” Michael said.

“But why? Who sets up an op skewed towards failure?”

Gradie tried to remember what Michael had told him before the job, about doors and how they work. They linked one Hardworld to another, but only for one person? It seemed like that had been months ago.

“Maybe they’re just stupid,” Lindsey said.

“Stupid people can’t afford Doormakers,” said Philip, pointing his cigar.

“Says who?”

“All right, whatever. Who cares, we got paid right? I’m just saying, for the record, I smell a method to this madness.”

“Some people just like a plan B,” said Lindsey. It’s funny you can’t even comprehend that.”

Philip scoffed and drew on the cigar. Suddenly, Gradie felt the familiar sensation of being pulled by a strange gravity.

“I’m going out.”

“You don’t have to announce it every time,” said Michael. “We won’t even notice anyway.” Gradie looked out at the city and felt himself slip away. It always seemed everything was about to move on without him, even though he knew he wouldn’t lose any time.

The same sad question came to him, and he sighed uselessly, in the absence of air or lungs. He understood now why they took these jobs. In the Hardworlds, he never had time to wonder if all of this was real.

A fear bolted through him, like the fear of death. In a moment, he wouldn’t remember any of this. Would that other him, on the other side of that vast abyss, still be him if he couldn’t remember? Or would it become just another one of the infinite versions of himself that he stepped into on a job, separate and untouchable? He felt his body and the room fall away and a stranger moved in from the edges, pushing everything out. For a moment, he was one with the nothingness.

The alarm rose in Gradie’s ears and the last remnants of dreams slipped out of his mind like mist. He rolled out of bed in a hurry.

* * * *

Paul was locked into a chair made of numbing vibration, at the center of a lit square of floor floating in solid darkness. A man sat across from him, his face as featureless and immobile as a mannequin, even when he spoke. His voice came from all around.

“Don’t look so disappointed. We would have gotten you eventually. The team that took you was at our lowest price point.”

Paul didn’t speak and tried not to think. The man sensed it and laughed.

“Rather than lock you in another Hardworld or ship you off to Nightmare, why don’t we make a deal?”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s nothing difficult. We just want you to remember something.”

Paul laughed, hollow.

“You serious? I’m fucking cashed out. You know that! I didn’t even foot the bill for that off-brand protection your boys tore through.”

“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. Let us in, and if we find what we’re looking for, we'll set you up on one of our worlds until you’re forgotten. Maybe even get you a day in Paradise if it all goes well. Deal?”

Paul stared at him and recalled a bit of advice he had gotten years ago.

“No one gets in for free.”

Some memories really aren’t worth a damn.

“All right. Deal.”