He nodded, looking serious, and bowed his head. Then gave himself one final nod. As if coming to a decision.

He looked up smiling, stepped forward, and punched me in the throat.

I staggered back, pain exploding from my neck, but he stepped forward at the same time, looking bored. He punched me in the face so hard I spun sideways and slammed into the wall, something crunching in my nose, and he kept stepping forward, grabbing my wrists and kicking my feet out from under me. He twisted my arms as I fell so I landed face first, and still he kept moving with me, descending with his knee in my back so when I hit the ground his full weight slammed down on top of me. He punched me hard in the kidney, twice, grinding my face into the carpet with his other hand now somehow on my head.

My mouth was open but I couldn’t breathe, or scream or speak or think for lack of breathing. My throat felt crushed, my lungs paralyzed. Pain like a stab wound tore open my side. I couldn’t think enough to move my muscles.

Never taking his weight off the knee digging into my spine, he pulled something from his bag. I heard a rip, and was so sure it was some part of myself it confused me when I felt no pain. Something sticky wrapped around my wrists, tugging at the hairs on my forearm. Duct tape. And now I did struggle, feebly trying to dislodge him, kicking my legs. Pathetic as a half-squashed bug, twitching, not realizing it’s already dead. In moments he’d bound my ankles, too, and then my knees.

It had all taken maybe ten seconds.

I tried to make a sound, to beg him to stop, or ask why he was doing this, but all that came out was a coarse rasp, not even a gasp. So I begged with my eyes instead.

He met them and laughed. He knew what I was trying to say. It amused him.

He frisked me: hands patting my ass, my pockets, my crotch. “Gun,” he said, impatient, “where’s the gun?”

I had just enough breath back to grunt a word. “Dropped.”

“Stupid.” He cuffed the back of my head. “There’s worse things than me down here. And worse mes.” He smirked, but his hands had found my back pocket, felt what was inside. They reached in, urgent, and dragged out the key. His breath caught.

He bent down and shoved it in my face, suddenly angrier than he’d looked while beating the shit out of me. “What’s this? How long ago did you find this?”

My head spun, trying to think of some way to regain control. “Couple,” I gasped. “Hours.”

“Have you used it yet? Gone through?”

I didn’t want to answer his questions, but I couldn’t see how lying would help me, either. I shook my head.

He stood up and punched the wall, leaving his fist in the cracked indentation it made for a long moment. Then he started to pace, furious. Thinking. I groaned and rolled partway onto my side. The pain in my kidney was evolving from a stabbing into a roiling burning sickness, like something inside me boiled, threatened to burst. Breathing felt like forcing air through pipes sealed with rust.

“My Niko,” I rasped. “Looking for me. Won’t let you. Do this.”

“Your Niko’s dead,” he said, and he said it so simply, so matter-of-fact, it sunk into me like another punch. “I found him and got rid of him before I found you. I always kill the Nikos first. Makes the headaches go away faster.”

It felt like the room was dropping, like he’d cut some elevator cable I hadn’t known was holding me up. I didn’t want to believe him. I fought not to. “No,” I gasped. “Bull. Shit.”

He reached distractedly into his shirt pocket and pulled out what I’d thought was a penlight. It wasn’t. It was a finger.

He tossed it onto the carpet by my face and it rolled once, coming stiffly to rest a few inches from my eye. It was cut through at the knuckle and pale and dead. But more or less the right color.

“I’ve killed him hundreds of times,” he said, sounding bored again. He was watching me, though, and as he noticed my tears he gave them a small, sad smile, as if touched by my naiveté. “And you, too, you little bitch. You’re even easier. Always freeze up at first. Or if you don’t, you try to grab my arm. But exactly the same way every time, right? So that makes it simple to break your wrist. When you double over whining, it’s easy to grab your skull and smash it into the ground until you stop moving.”

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He knelt down, turning his head sideways to study my face, as if curious about the effect his words were having on me. “This time’s different, though. You’re not lost yet. You know the way back.” He reached out and tousled my hair, playful-rough. “And you’re going to take me there, Orion. Take me back up. Or you’re going to die.”

He stood up again. “But this fucking key. Complicates things. You said you’re on the wrong side, from your perspective. Yeah?” I didn’t answer; he went on as if I had. “That means there’s another you who’s also found a key. The twin key to this one, on the twin side. And if that other you didn’t get ambushed by his old bestie”—a wicked grin—“he’ll pop through to this side soon enough. Because. You find a key, you’re almost certainly only a few hours away from finding its door.”

I couldn’t see how this changed things. “Why does that m-matter?”

He turned the key over and over in his hand, staring at it. “Staying in sync. Wasn’t that always our theory?” It was like he was asking the key. “I think we have to. Buddy. I told a lie earlier. I don’t always kill you both right away. Sometimes I... ask questions.” He scraped a thumbnail along the key. “Find out where you’ve been. What happened before. The ones who have it worst are always the ones who got too out of sync. With their doubles. And if they lose it entirely... if things warp too out of true...” He made a sucking sound through his teeth, rising to a crescendo and then abruptly cutting off, like a tire popping in reverse.

He glanced at me, then back to the key. “That’s what happened to me. My double and I, we... diverged. And something tore. Or popped, maybe. Think pairs of soap bubbles, floating in infinite void. They need each other to stay stable. Our universes got too far apart and it wasn’t good for them. They’re gone now, or too far to ever reach. Dark.

“But yours...” He grinned even more broadly. “A ripe pair. Undamaged. Still connected. To each other, and to you. You. I can follow you back into them like a thread. Like a fucking thread, Orion. Up and out and back and into the light.”

This is the part where if I was a spy or an action hero, I’d be secretly digging a knife out of my pocket, working my way free of the bonds, taking advantage of the villain’s distracted ranting to try to get my freedom. But I wasn’t a spy. I was a Bio major. I’d never been in a fight. I was trussed up, I couldn’t move, the pain was still excruciating, and I had no idea what to do.

As if to reinforce my stupid squandered opportunity, Niko seemed to notice me again. Abruptly he put the key in his pocket (his front right pocket, I noticed, desperate not to be completely helpless) and dug through my pack. With a satisfied grunt, he pulled out rope, and proceeded to tie my hands and lower arms behind my back, so tight my elbows almost touched.

My freedom was slipping away. I tried to keep him talking. “But...” I had to clear my throat, heavy. “If you... if Niko’s dead—my Niko—isn’t it too late? How can anything be in sync now?”

He paid no attention to this, continuing his rope work. When he was done he wrapped the end a few times around my neck and fear spiked through me, but then he lifted me gently to a sitting position, leaning against the wall.

He went to the pack and pulled out my flashlight, shaking it. “This thing work?” I didn’t answer: he was already toggling the switch on and off with no effect. He grunted, dug some batteries from his own pack and slipped them in, nodding in satisfaction as the light came on. Pocketing it, he rummaged through my pack, eyes lighting up when he found my cache of food. He ripped open the wrapper on a power bar and took a huge bite, grunting in satisfaction. Ignoring me.

“Niko,” I said, trying not to cry. “Please let me go.”

He grimaced, like what I’d said had hurt him, and scooted closer to me, still chewing. He grabbed my chin and forced up my head. Stared into my eyes with a frown. Like he’d lost something in them.

“I told another little fib earlier, bud,” he said, swallowing. “Sometimes those houses down there do have power, like I said. Who knows why or where it comes from, but sometimes they do.”

I kept my eyes on his, hoping to find some empathy or humanity there.

He took another bite. Chewed more slowly this time.

There was nothing in his eyes.

“Power,” he said, mouth half-full, “but the fridges and pantries, in all those houses? They’re empty. All of them. There’s no food down there, Orion. None at all.”

I was trembling. I couldn’t look away from his eyes.

He swallowed again, shoved the last of the bar into his mouth. “But you and me,” he said, mouth full, “other versions. Man, there’s so many of us. Popping up out of those houses, those millions of houses. Lost. Always lost. Pathetic. Eaten all their food. Starving, out of their minds. They’re already dead, really. Or a nudge away.”

He swallowed the last of the power bar, licked his lips and the crumbs off his fingers. Then he leaned forward, slow, like he was going in for a kiss.

He stopped, face inches from mine.

“Wouldn’t it be such a waste?” He spoke quietly, carefully. His breath smelled of processed figs. “Such a shame for all those deaths to be for nothing. To have served no purpose. Don’t you think?”

“Niko,” I begged, wanting it to mean so many things.

He touched a finger to my lips. “I think you get it. So. We have to find the door this key connects to. Yeah? We have to wait for your doubles to come through—yours, and your dead friend’s. Swap places with them. Pass back to your side. Keep things synchronous. And then head up, up, up into the shallows, back to the surface, away from this place forever, and synchronicity can go fuck itself.” He stood up, reaching down, and grabbed my shirt, jerking me roughly to my feet and wrapping the end of the rope around his arm.

“But we’d better get moving. Cause your door’s going to be farther down from here. And best for both of us if we get to the surface before I get too fucking hungry.” He gestured back toward the way out of the jumbled room of metal tubes, mockingly polite. “After you, amigo.”