Her name was Laurel Gray, and she was the first person to steal an interspace-ship and get away with it.
Her flight across the dock haunted Isaac. He could not shake the image of her desperate face, or the press of her hand against his shoulder as she shoved him out of the way, or the last ghostly trace of the Clarity before she vanished.
Above all else, he wanted to know why she did it.
In the chaos that erupted after the tour, he asked Lucretia, and every security guard that he saw, and the whispering cliques huddled around tables in the cafeteria. None of them had answers.
This did not deter him. He spent the whole night wandering the docks and moored boats, up stairways and down hallways, striking up conversations and steering them all toward the escape. Eventually he ran into a young, twitchy scientist who told him, between sobs, that the weaver’s name was Gray and she’d disappeared a month ago. He didn’t have the heart to press any further.
You may wonder whether Isaac was a fool to stay at the Institute after witnessing that. He often wondered the same thing. But he’d sunk his teeth into it already, and he was never any good at letting go.
The next morning, he awoke in his little stone bedroom and discovered a note had been slipped under his door.
Laurel Gray escaped by the skin of her teeth. 601-555-2113. Call from a payphone.
Isaac had no idea where to find a payphone.
After slipping the card into his wallet, it promptly slid into the back of his mind. Not that he wasn’t curious—he’d added the case of Laurel Gray to the ever-growing stack of questions he carried around in his back pocket. But in the halls of SEIDR, there were distractions and mysteries aplenty.
And he was swiftly consumed by the endless riddle of Caasi. Yaz dropped by around noon and gave him a new, updated doppelganger file. He’d ruined the first one in his unexpected plunge into the shipyard lagoon.
Doppelgangers, as he discovered, were a big fat question mark in the Institute’s records. They came from Oshun and they were almost invincible. Their origins, motivations, and level of intelligence were all unknown. They could not speak, or perhaps they simply never felt like talking. Isaac read through Caasi’s section and found it completely useless. How is he getting around, he scribbled over a grainy photo of his own face scowling up at the security camera.
It was invigorating to be so confused. Isaac loved the alchemy of problem-solving. He was propelled by the feeling that he’d lost something fundamental, something he could only identify by the gap it left behind, and if he discovered the truth it might come back. As if the secret of life was waiting at the other end of a universal equation. As if he would ever run out of things to find out.
When he’d grown bored of re-reading the same file over and over, he finally called Raimes and they agreed to meet at the museum.
SEIDR’s old museum had been lost in the flood. Their new museum was perched in one of the highest caverns, well above the waterline. Isaac climbed up six flights of stairs to reach its front doors, which were painted a vibrant purple and inlaid with gold letters reading The Museum of Oshunic History.
Raimes Kingfisher was SEIDR’s head of security and he took his job very seriously. He was a great big burl of a man. Today he wore a black suit and mirrored sunglasses, which could not fully disguise the sour look on his face.
“You must be Skinner,” he said when Isaac emerged from the stairwell. “Come with me.”
Isaac followed him through the museum’s quiet, lofty corridors to a room bathed in silver light. He recognized it from the security footage, but it seemed much larger in person. The walls were lined with white columns. Spotlights and cameras dotted the rocky ceiling. Pottery, lacquered masks, and carved pieces of bone were displayed behind sheets of glass.
The samovar exhibit was conspicuously empty. They’d cleaned a narrow path through the debris. On both sides, glass shards lay scattered across the floor, reflecting bright spots of fragmented light.
Isaac looked off to where Jon Sprenger’s body had fallen in the footage. There was a dark stain on the ground.
“I’ve seen nothing like this before,” Raimes said heavily. “People have died here. Things have been stolen or broken. But no one’s ever gotten in and out of SEIDR in one minute flat. It’s unnatural.”
“I guess that’s why I’m here,” Isaac said.
Raimes did not look pleased. “I didn’t ask for this, Skinner. You’re the last person I’d want nosing around. Your doppelganger’s done enough damage already.”
“I had nothing to do with—”
“Look, you’d say that either way. It’s meaningless.” Raimes grunted. “The director was very insistent, so you can go ahead and poke around. But I don’t like it.”
“Thanks for the warm welcome,” Isaac muttered. “What am I supposed to be poking, exactly?”
“How am I supposed to know? That’s what they hired you for. We’ve got no leads, no hints, not so much as a bent paper clip to work with, so go ahead and see if you can actually make yourself useful.”
“Fine.” Isaac glanced around. They were alone; a line of yellow tape barred the entrance to the room. “While you’re here, can I ask you a couple questions about Laurel Gray?”
Raimes scowled. “What? No.”
“But—”
“You’ve got nothing to do with her. Let’s keep it that way.”
“What was she running from?”
Raimes pulled down his sunglasses and fixed Isaac with a dead stare. His eyes were mismatched, one blue and one brown. They looked equally displeased. “Keep asking and see where you end up.”
Isaac wisely decided to shut his mouth.
He walked around the perimeter of the room, scouring the floor for clues with only the vaguest idea of what a clue might look like. His eyes wandered over the empty floors and sterile exhibits. He was hoping some kind of mystical connection with Caasi would steer him in the right direction.
After ten minutes of pacing in a circle, he discovered zero clues and zero mystical connections. He was keenly aware of how stupid he looked.
The room blurred behind a veil of anger. His fury was vague and nebulous, bouncing off the gleaming white floors and back on himself. There was no flash of enlightenment, no secret bond to guide him. He was at a complete loss. He had no idea what he was doing.
As soon as he considered giving up, something hot and tight constricted around his throat. They’d have to drag him out, kicking and screaming, before he let go of this chance.
He liked puzzles. This was nothing but a very big puzzle.
“Can you tell me about the samovars he stole?” he said, turning to Raimes.
“They’re from the 19th century. Made on Earth, but enameled with scenes from Oshun. It’s based on some kind of folklore.”
“Do you know why someone might want them?”
“Cash.” Raimes shrugged. “They’re antiques.”
“Is that it?”
“Maybe he wanted to make some tea.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“Alright, let’s put it like this. Out of everything in this museum, they’re just about the last thing I would take. But there’s a label near the exhibit, if you want to check that.”
Isaac picked his way through the patches of broken glass. There was indeed a bronze label next to the empty pedestals.
ANTIQUE SAMOVARS
circa 1820
This set of three samovars, when placed in a line, displays a theoretical scene of total obtality. Origin unknown.
“Amazing,” he mumbled. He had no idea what total obtality was.
With nothing else to work with, Isaac started pacing around the room again. As far as he could tell, Caasi had appeared, stolen, murdered, and disappeared without a trace. Was there even anything to find?
“I don’t know how much longer you want to mess around here,” Raimes said. “Let me know when you’re done, and I can tell Victor this whole thing was a bad idea.”
“I’m not messing around,” Isaac said, frowning. “It would be easier for me to—to figure something out if you weren’t distracting me.”
“Distracting you? I’ve got real work to do, and here I am babysitting you while you run around in circles. This is for your benefit, not mine.”
“Feel free to leave,” Isaac said.
“You think I have a choice? You can’t be in here unsupervised.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a crime scene and I don’t trust you.”
Well, Isaac thought, at least that was honest. “Can I watch the video again?” he asked, changing tack. “The one with Caasi. I’d like to refresh my memory.”
Raimes cracked his knuckles, turning toward the exit. “Sure. Waste more of my time, why don’t you?”
Isaac resisted the urge to respond. There was a white-hot rage stirring in his belly, and he didn’t want to say something unspeakably stupid. Still, with every step he took, the anger grew, expanding through his chest and settling behind his eyes.
He hated his own uncertainty and Raimes’s skeptical insults and Caasi himself, the Isaac who was not Isaac. He hated his lack of options. He could feel the heat pulsing in the tips of his ears. It was infuriating to be so angry and have nowhere to direct it, no target but his own face.
And then, as he trailed behind Raimes, he saw a scrap of paper drift off the heel of the other man’s shoe. It caught his eye with a flash of white. There was a bright orange arrow on it, pointing toward the edge of the page.
Isaac knelt down and picked it up off the ground. The paper was grimy and creased, with torn edges, but he could just make out the words beneath the arrow.
Stored Value
CharlieTicket
And along the edge, Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.
“Hey,” he said, holding the slip of paper aloft. “Is this yours?”
Raimes turned. “What is that? Trash?”
“It was stuck to the bottom of your shoe. Have you been to Massachusetts recently?”
“What? No. Massachu—give me that.”
Raimes took the ticket and examined it. He was quiet for a long time.
Isaac felt the rapid flutter of anticipation as his anger drained away. Something was about to happen. There was a vacant feeling in the air, vivid and surreal. The colors were all washed out and the shadows lay flat and pale.
“Interesting find,” Raimes said at last. “I can’t say for sure—well, I can’t say anything. But a flight to Boston might be in order.”
“You think it’s from Caasi.”
“I can’t rule it out.”
Isaac sank into the warm embrace of vindication. He said, “I want to go.”
“Well. Sure. As long as you don’t get in the way. But I don’t know if we’ll find anything.” He glanced at the ticket. “This could be from anyone.”
“But it’s not,” Isaac said. “You know it’s not.”
***
Isaac returned to his windowless room to pack a bag. He had to admit, SEIDR’s unsettling preparations were coming in handy. He still didn’t know how they got exactly the right type of socks—not too high, not too low—but that didn’t stop him from tossing a pair in his backpack.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A fuzzy tune crackled to life, and he jumped. It took him a second to locate the sound, which was coming from a speaker in the wall. It was painted the same color as the stone around it. He stared at it, wondering why they’d decided to pipe elevator music into his room.
The jingle resolved into a staticky voice.
“Happy Tuesday, everyone. We’ve received an emergency statement from the board of directors. They would like to address the recent attack on the shipyard by ex-weaver Laurel Gray.
“Laurel was diagnosed with delirium a month ago. She became aggressive and unpredictable as her condition grew worse. Yesterday, she stole an interspace-ship, injuring several of our security guards in the process. Unfortunately, she perished soon after leaving the shipyard. This is a terrible loss, not just of a ship, but of an excellent weaver. Laurel was a beloved member of the Institute and she will be missed. There will be a memorial service in the library at four o’clock this Friday.
“We must support each other through these difficult times. Together, we can survive this tragedy and move forward. Here at the Sasha Erdos Institute of Dimensional Research, we’re proud to turn nightmares into dreams and dreams into reality. Keep up the good work.”
The voice cut off with a sudden blip.
Isaac frowned. Everything about the announcement struck him as extremely suspicious. He didn’t remember any attacking, just a whole lot of running. And how could they possibly know if Gray died after leaving the shipyard?
He pulled out the little blue book he’d gotten from Lucretia—The Beginner’s Guide to SEIDR. Paging through it, he found not a single mention of delirium. There was, however, a brief section about the board.
The board of directors has eleven members. They are chosen from the Institute’s most experienced and trusted senior employees. They meet once a month to review policy changes, current events, and updates on the state of the Institute. They will also address any emergencies as they arise.
To contact the board, you may send a letter addressed to the Board of Directors, RM X092, through the Institute’s mail services.
From what he’d learned of SEIDR so far, he was confident that a letter asking about Laurel would get him nothing, except perhaps a boilerplate “mind your own business.”
He made a mental note about the memorial service, which seemed far more promising.
***
Isaac flew to Boston the next day, along with Raimes and two security guards in long gray jackets. It was an obnoxiously long trip, split across two flights. He slept through both of them and emerged blinking and bleary into the foggy winter streets.
Isaac had never been to the east coast before. It was unpleasantly damp, unexpectedly old, and smelled like salt. There was a surprising charm to the narrow, winding roads, but he couldn’t stand the wind. It came slicing down the streets like a knife of ice, cutting straight through his jacket. He had to lean forward with every step, rooting his feet to the sidewalk. After five minutes he was ready to leave. After ten minutes he was ready to pronounce the whole city uninhabitable.
They had no leads beyond a single MBTA ticket, so they took a methodical approach, starting with the city subways.
Isaac, Raimes, and the two guards hopped on a green line train and began to ride. They stopped at every station to poke around, but Isaac couldn’t imagine what they were looking for. The samovars? A crime scene? Caasi himself, camped out on one of the benches?
Still, he was content to sit for a while, watching the city scroll past through the windows and listening to the trains braking with ear-piercing wails. It was a gloomy day with low-hanging clouds, shrouding the skyscrapers in a gray haze. Intermittent rain pelted the windows. They emerged from the tunnels, only to plunge back underground a few stops later.
It was in the Park Street station, a busy intersection with two stacked levels of subway tracks, that Isaac began to hear a faint, wavering hum. At first he dismissed it, assuming that it came from the subway itself, or the street traffic passing overhead.
They moved on to the next stop, where a green sign on the wall read BOYLSTON, and Isaac couldn’t ignore the sound any longer. It was almost as loud as the demonic scream of metal against metal as the trains arrived. And it was familiar, tickling the back of his brain until he finally put his finger on it.
“Raimes,” he said, “I think there’s a rift nearby.”
“You think?” Raimes asked dubiously.
“I can hear it.”
Raimes deliberated for a moment. “Didn’t know you were a riptracker.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. Where is it?”
“Here. Or in this direction.”
They spent the next ten minutes gradually honing in on the rift’s location. The hum was faintly louder in one spot and faintly quieter in another.
By travelling in a slow spiral, Isaac eventually narrowed it down to a single part of the subway platform. It was near a door in the wall marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.
“It’s gotta be through there,” he said. He leaned against the wall and heard the rift pulsing like a second heartbeat. “Through there, or I’m totally wrong.”
“What are the odds you’re totally wrong?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never done this before,” Isaac said testily.
He, Raimes and the security guards all huddled around the door, looking awfully conspicuous. Nobody seemed to care. The station had a few other occupants—mostly college students, a few construction workers in neon orange vests—but they all loaded onto the next train, leaving the platform completely empty.
Raimes stared at the door, stroking his chin.
“Do we break in?” Isaac whispered.
“I’m thinking. Give me a second.”
Isaac gave him five minutes. He watched the trains come and go while the rift whispered in his ear, growing louder and louder with every passing second. Eventually, it was too much for him to tolerate. It was right there, practically calling his name.
When the platform was empty again, he walked up to the door and yanked on the handle.
Much to his surprise, it opened.
“Oh God,” Isaac said.
He was face to face with the rip, and the sound bordered on deafening. Now he recognized the tune. It was the first song he could remember, the chorus of the spheres. It was pouring through.
He was aware that Raimes was talking to him, but he couldn’t register the words. It took all his concentration to remain in the doorway instead of throwing himself headfirst into the rift.
The urge was sudden and overwhelming. He dug his fingers into the door frame. A sudden hand on his elbow made him flinch.
“What the hell are you doing, Skinner?”
“There it is,” Isaac said, pointing with a shaky finger. “You’re welcome.”
Raimes stared at it for a long moment. “Alright,” he grunted. “You found it. Well done.”
The two guards hung around on the subway platform while Raimes and Isaac ventured into the room. It was a small, triangular space. The entire back wall had been torn to shreds.
There was a black square hovering in the middle of the devastation. It sang a melodic, wordless, troubling song. It had eaten most of the wall and bits of the ceiling. Dirt, tiles, and chunks of masonry were all scattered around the floor.
Isaac sat on his haunches and stared at it. It was partly because his legs were tired and partly to keep himself from diving forward into annihilation.
“I’m not usually wrong,” Raimes said. He looked out of his element. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead, and he kept himself pressed flat against the door, as far away from the rift as he could get. “But it looks like you’re a bit more useful than I anticipated, Skinner. You’d make a decent riptracker, at least.”
Isaac did not respond. It was a half-assed compliment, as these things went, and all his attention was devoted to the argument in his head.
Most of him wanted to jump. It was, as the voice in his skull pointed out, an instant ticket back to Oshun. No bargains, no bullshit, no SEIDR. He didn’t have to chase Caasi, or get into the Wizards Guild, he just had to cross about twelve feet of flat ground before Raimes could stop him. The star was within his reach.
The prospect tantalized him, but on the other hand there was Caasi. He was a complete blind spot, a mystery seen through a mirror. Abandoning him, along with Basil and the bees, his little house by the creek, even the mystery of Laurel Gray—despite himself, Isaac was tied to Earth just as much as Oshun. The strings were pulling him apart.
“What are you doing?” Raimes asked.
Isaac realized, with the sudden self-awareness of a roused sleepwalker, that he’d been walking toward the rift. He stepped back, rocking on his heels, and put off the decision for a little longer.
“It’s different from the other one,” he said quietly.
“What?”
“The rift at the Catacomb was different. It had rough edges, it was moving. This is just a rectangle. Why aren’t there any blue lines around this one?”
“Here.” Raimes reached into a pocket and withdrew a small case, tossing it to Isaac. “Try these.”
Isaac opened it to find a pair of red-tinted glasses. He slipped them on, blinking in the altered light.
Against a sea of red, the edges of the rift lit up with a blue fire. Now that Isaac could see it clearly, the difference between the rifts became even more apparent.
The other rip had been rough and jagged, expanding and contracting with the currents of the fabric. Meanwhile, this rift was a black square, its edges outlined with hard definition. The blue strands of fabric were not unraveling around it, Isaac realized. They ended too abruptly, almost as if they’d been cut.
This was no rip; this was a doorway, a clean rectangle of void, a missing patch of reality. It taunted him with a wavering, voiceless song.
“Getting a little close there, Skinner,” Raimes said.
Isaac took a few hasty steps back. “I’m just trying to get a good look at it,” he said. “You think it’s related to Caasi?”
“I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Take a look at the floor.”
Isaac yanked his focus away from the rift, and examined the concrete floor. There were several tickets—muddy, torn, discarded—that matched the one on Raimes’s shoe.
“So he came through the rift,” Isaac said, “stepped on a train ticket, and then what? Teleported two thousand miles across the country to steal a few antiques?”
“Stranger things have happened,” Raimes said. He put on his own red glasses and groaned. “Shit. This is definitely a level five. I’m gonna have to call Felix.”
***
Nine hours later, Felix arrived in Boston. He was wired and jet-lagged, running on four cups of coffee and three hours of sleep. Raimes picked him up from the airport and drove him down to the subway station.
Felix Marchetti had exceedingly long and wavy red hair, which he spent hours preening every morning. It was the first and last thing most people noticed about him. Once he opened his mouth, most people didn’t stick around long.
He slipped on his red weaving glasses and stood there for a moment, taking it all in. Before him, the massive rift bubbled and cracked like a tar pit.
After examining it, he smiled sharply and said, “This should be easy. Clear out of the way.”
“Do you mind if I watch you repair it?” Isaac asked. He was not quite ready to leave the rift behind.
Felix took a second look at him and shrieked, “You? How—w—what the hell are you doing here? Who is that?” he asked, spinning on his heel and addressing Raimes. “Did you arrange this?”
Raimes looked as baffled as Isaac felt. “What? Did he offend you or something?”
“No!” Felix stomped his foot against the ground. “I’m not offended, you moron. I’m fucking pissed off. Who is that?”
“That’s Isaac Skinner,” Raimes said in a conciliatory tone. “He’s the one who found the rift. He works for SEIDR.”
“He,” Felix said, his voice rising with every word, “broke into my workshop on Sunday night and tried to stab me to death!”
This drew a round of silence from the whole room.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Isaac said.
“Shut your goddamn mouth,” Felix said, taking a step back. “You know—full well—I saw you—this is unbelievable. No. I’m not doing it. I refuse.”
Isaac quickly put the pieces together. “Wait a second. I think I know what’s going on here. This might sound crazy, but—”
“I don’t have to listen to a word you say. Raimes, he tried to kill me!”
Raimes said, “Now hang on for just a—”
“Listen. I have a doppelganger,” Isaac said. “Swear to God. He looks just like me. That’s probably why you think—”
Felix laughed shrilly. “A doppelganger? Bullshit.”
“I swear, if you would just give me half a second—”
“Raimes!” Felix said. “Seize him. I’m not touching a single fucking thread until he’s—”
“Could you at least shut up for—”
“Raimes!”
Raimes turned toward Isaac, wincing. “Alright, alright. Skinner, come on. I’m, uh, detaining you.”
“But this is so pointless. It wasn’t me! Victor said—”
“Victor can kiss my ass. Don’t listen to him, Raimes,” Felix said. “He should be in a cell right now. Get him out of here!”
“I am,” Raimes said, loosely grabbing Isaac’s wrist. “Let’s go.”
Isaac sighed and followed him out. “I’ve never seen you before,” he called as he stepped onto the platform. “Not once in my life.”
“Rot in hell,” Felix said, slamming the door.
Raimes dropped Isaac’s arm. The next train went roaring past with an angry metallic shriek as they both stared at their shoes.
Once the noise died down, Raimes cleared his throat and said, “Sorry. I should have warned you he can be a bit of a handful. But I didn’t see that one coming.”
“Well, I never tried to kill the guy,” Isaac said. “I don’t understand. He has to be talking about Caasi, right?”
“That’s what I figured. I’ll see if I can get any more information out of him. Explain the whole doppelganger situation, maybe get him to calm down. But we’re almost done here. You can head back to the Institute. I’ll get you a ticket and a ride.” Raimes coughed. “Thanks for the help.”
“Some thanks,” Isaac muttered.
He left Massachusetts alone, staring out the plane window as Boston became a flat brown grid. The city dwindled and vanished behind him, and he started to feel better. At least he was putting a few thousand miles between himself and that obnoxious weaver.
***
Meanwhile, Felix closed the rift.
It was not an easy task, but Felix was a good weaver. The very best, in fact. As soon as Isaac was gone, he slipped on a pair of leather gloves, pulled out his bone needles, and went to work. The rest of the world disappeared, leaving only his two deft hands and the soft, fine, impossibly blue fabric of reality.
Weaving required time, precision, and consistency. There were plenty of weavers who poured hours into their work, and plenty of weavers who could match Felix’s pinpoint precision, but nobody held a candle to his consistency.
Felix could weave through day and night, summer and winter, sunlight and storm. His hands never wavered, and his needle never slipped. In the span of an afternoon, he drew the edges of the rift tighter and tighter, closer and closer, until the whole thing shrank to a penny-sized hole in reality. Then, he let go, and watched with a grin as it spun through the air and disappeared with a sudden pop.
This was his idea of fun.
***
Isaac was falling asleep on his feet by the time he arrived back in Idaho. The day weighed heavily on him, but when he spotted a wall of payphones his exhaustion was overrun by excitement.
He pulled the note from his wallet.
Laurel Gray escaped by the skin of her teeth. 601-555-2113. Call from a payphone.
This was the perfect opportunity. Drowning in sweet, sickening anticipation, he scrounged up a few quarters and dialed.
The phone rang once. Before he could get too nervous, it clicked and a hushed voice at the other end said, “Hello?”
“Hello,” he said. “I’m calling about Gray.”
“Who is this?”
“Isaac Skinner. I was told to call this number.”
There was no response but silence and static.
He asked, “Are you the one who left the note?”
“I am.” The voice was quiet and raspy. “And you’re one of the last people who saw Gray alive.”
“Is she dead now?”
“Possibly. I don’t know. What did she look like?”
“What?”
“When you saw her, did she look healthy? Was she in pain? Did she say anything?”
Isaac paused to collect his thoughts. The memory was still fresh in his mind. “She looked scared. She was going pretty fast and I didn’t see everything, but her foot was bleeding. I don’t think she was hurt badly.”
“Did she speak?”
“No. Just ran straight to the ship. She had delirium, right?”
“She did. More’s the pity.”
“Would that make her steal a ship? If she was delirious?”
There was a strange, crackling noise. Isaac realized it was laughter. “No, no. Weaver madness does not make you steal things. She took the ship in spite of it.”
“Why did she take it?”
“To escape, of course.”
“From what?”
There was a grumble from the other end of the line. “Hm. Wish I could tell you. Let me know if you ever figure it out.”
They hung up.
Isaac put the phone down, wiping his eyes. As he wandered toward the baggage claim, he was surprised to discover a sense of elation bubbling up in his chest. He stared out the panoramic windows, watching a gleaming white plane touch down on a long strip of runway.
In this one place and time, I envy him. He was making connections. He was on the verge of truth. He was very nearly winning.
I wish it could last, but the past is etched in stone and the end is already written. I am merely transcribing it. I cannot change a word, not one syllable of fate, except in dreams.