I stared up at nothing. Pure nothing. It didn’t even have a color to it, which was exceptionally unnerving. I began to move through the nothing using my lower appendages. What do you call them? Feets. That’s it. Feet.
Pretty sure I had clothes too.
Right. I was a specific human, that was a thing that I was. Personification is important to a being, we can’t all be nothing forever, otherwise what’s the point of it all? Infinity has no desires, no purpose of its own, but individuals do. Individuals exist in spaces. Nothingness is boring, unassigned. Let me back into something.
Something that makes sense, please.
Me?
What am I? How do I see myself?
All this self-conception, self-examination feels off, less normal, less of what I’m used to. Right. Third person. Omniscient observation of physical reality, that’s what I’m used to... I think? That’s my advantage over others, pretending to be something specific when in reality I am a bunch of everything.
I am a very specific female supervillain Alexa Terror Nova, with a very specific objective… to save the people of a very specific green and blue planet with a specific name… Earth.
Earth circled by the ring of Titanomachy superstructure. Earth populated by mundane ordinary folks and quirky superheroes. The Earth that I want to save is just a single planet out of infinite number of others.
That’s what I normally do, want, am. Got it? Got it.
Let it be so.
----------------------------------------
Alexa dropped to the floor. The floor hurt. There was gravity here. She looked left and right. The place she had manifested in appeared to be a somewhat mundane British-looking train station filled with iron beams, mirrors and gray stone floors. There was a touch of Victorian gothic to it all, the kind of sprinkle that made the view appealing to her inner architect.
“Ehhh?” Alexa spun around, trying to locate the two heroes who had dragged her into the dimensional gateway. “Hello? Villainous heroes? Where’d you go? Weren’t you all like, ‘this is deadly dimension-X and we’re gonna totally conquer/purge it all in the name of Titanomachy’ or whatever?”
“Your companions were incapable of self-manifestation,” a voice said.
Alexa turned again, spotting a bored-looking man standing behind a ‘tickets’ counter. She marched up to the man, staring up at his lush mustache, gray eyes and gilded cap of indeterminate design.
“Say what?” She asked. “Where am I exactly?”
“You’re in a nexus transit terminal,” the man replied. “There were two others who came through with you, but they failed to self-manifest. Thus, they became confined as static structures, or plainly put… null-data, ID cards that currently reside in your pocket.”
Alexa looked down at herself. She was wearing an orange construction vest that had many pockets in it.
“Which pocket?” She asked.
“Whichever pocket you prefer,” the tickets clerk said.
“Why?” Alexa asked.
“Because that’s how things work around here,” the clerk said. “This is the Everything terminal connected to everywhere, located on the edge of the Boundary of the Magisphere of Desire and the Dead Zone, a conceptual omnistructure projected into existence by the Fractal Engines of Eureka.”
“Uh-huh, so it looks like a 19th century train station because I like trains?” Alexa mulled. "Is that what you're saying?"
“Correct,” the clerk nodded. “My appearance and the appearance of the terminal around you is approximately woven from your initial desire and expectations.”
"I should have expected some ice cream," Alexa said. "And a hardware shop. Can I have that?"
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
"This is a transit terminal, not a store," the clerk replied, his eyes staring at nothing in particular. "If you desire to buy tools, go somewhere where they sell such."
Alexa dug into her left pocket on the lower side of her vest. Her fingers discovered two cards within. She pulled them out and examined the cards.
[The Multiplier - Kondratiyev Leonovich Moor] [Subscribed world NPC]
[The Surgeon - Alexander Prim Liss] [Subscribed world NPC]
Both of the heroes appeared to be etched into the surface of the card as 2.5D holographic images. Both of them were staring at absolutely nothing, eyes set to kill, limbs frozen in position as if suspended in time, still trying to hold a girl that wasn’t in their hands anymore.
“Guess this educational experience ain’t for you two,” she commented as she slid the cards back into her pocket.
“So,” she looked back at the clerk. “Can I go everywhere from here?”
“Do you have a ticket to everywhere?” the clerk asked.
“Maybeee?” Alexa batted her lashes at the clerk.
“Give me your everywhere ticket then,” the man ordered, his hand stretching down from the desk.
“Why?” Alexa asked.
“I’ll stamp it and then you can board your train to your destination,” the clerk said.
“Uhhh, okkay, hold on,” Alexa dug through her pockets once again. Her fingers suddenly found a yellow note with a picture of an owl on it.
“This it?” She asked as she handed the ticket to the clerk.
“This is a ticket to a very specific place,” the man’s mustache bristled. “Manchester. The Foundry of System Wizards.”
“Lame,” Alexa sighed. “I was expecting more.”
“Were you really?” the man asked with a dry tone.
“Not really.” She shrugged. “I just really want to go back home and hug my friends and make sure that they’re okay without me. I did leave a copy of myself behind to handle things, but that’s not really me, right? This adventure feels hollow without my bffs. Guess I need to make new bffs.”
She looked at the clerk as he stamped the yellow sticky note. It shimmered and rearranged itself, stretching into the shape of a train station ticket, the owl shifting to the side.
“One way to Manchester, System Wizard Foundry.” Alexa read the words on the ticket as it was handed back to her. “Gate 7. Departure time: whenever.”
“Whenever, huh?” She murmured. “So I can stay here forever?”
“You could,” the clerk said. “The only problem is that your current conception of self is a finite being, one that is mortal, easily broken. This transit terminal on the other hand is limitless, infinite, liminal.”
“Liminal, huh?” Alexa said. She glanced back at the otherwise empty train station. There were eight gates there plus a multitude of smaller doors. “So I can theoretically walk anywhere from here?”
“Finite beings don’t do well in liminal spaces,” the clerk said. “That ticket will make sure you’ll end up inside Gate 7, reaching your destination sooner or later, either by accident or on purpose.”
“And if I tear it to shreds, drop it?” Alexa tilted her head.
“Then you’ll be stuck here forever,” the clerk said. “Within the transit terminal.”
“What if I’m really determined to make it somewhere?” Alexa asked.
“It doesn’t matter how determined you are,” the clerk answered. “If you wander across the liminal terminal without a ticket you will eventually become lost, end up nowhere in particular. That’s not a good place to be, especially without a weapon on you.”
“What?” Alexa blinked. “Nowhere is inhabited by someone?”
“Nowhere is inhabited by nobodies,” the man answered. “Liminal spaces are populated by liminal beings.”
“Are you a liminal being?” Alexa asked.
“I am,” the man smiled. The smile of the clerk was somehow lopsided, unnatural, made Alexa’s skin crawl as if she wasn’t really staring at a person but at an endless, nonspecific thing that was wearing a picture of a person, like an octopus that was wearing the skin-suit of a man.
She took a step back trying to grab for a raygun that was no longer there.
“So, feel free to go right ahead,” the clerk said. “Drop the ticket, choose to stay here, hell... take my place if you so desire. I’d love to use your ticket to leave this terminal, to take your place, to wear your identity for my own.”
“Are you just trying to scare me or something?” Alexa huffed, crossing her arms. “Doesn’t it defeat the purpose of you getting a ticket out to tell me all of that? You could have grabbed that ticket already and run off with it.”
“Alas, I am bound by defining rules put upon me by my maker,” the liminal denizen answered with a rumbling sigh. “I cannot simply take what is yours. It must be given up freely. You are a clueless, young wizardling, one easily bamboozled by something far beyond your understanding.”
“This some kind of a lesson?” Alexa squinted at the clerk. “Don’t deviate from the educational experience path or you get eaten by a nobody?”
“Everything is a lesson,” the liminal denizen answered with a shrug. “If you feel that you’re smart and strong enough to deviate from the path, then go ahead, I won’t stop you. There are many who deviated from their path here and became subsumed by the infinite.”
“Peachy,” Alexa scratched her cheek. “Say, how long have you been stuck here?”
“Forever,” the clerk replied.
“Isn’t that boring?” Alexa asked. "I bet you're like sooooper bored, no?"
“I get to meet lots of interesting travelers,” the clerk replied with a dry tone. "It's a job."
“Stop avoiding the question,” Alexa waved her hand. “Do you want to be free or not?”
The hollow eyes of the man bore into her face with sudden intensity.
“I want to be free,” he said, voice warping and twisting.
“How badly do you want to be free?” She asked.
“Very badly,” the entity replied, leaning towards Alexa, its body stretching unnaturally forward, looming over her like an endless shadow.
“Perfect,” Alexa grinned. “Then how about you come with me, as my personal weapon? I kind of lost my gun thanks to some dumb super-jerks and I’d like something else to be my gun.”