My previous journey traveling as a stowaway had only lasted three hours, and I napped for most of it, with Nora chattering away, sounding like a radio playing in the background. There had been an energetic sense of optimism and adventure lacking on this trip. I was experiencing more than a bit of trepidation when I recalled that the station agent, back in Great Falls, had told me that in the other direction it was a two-day journey to get to LA. Something having to do with a time warp out in the desert. When I had brought this up to Saligia, all she had to give in way of a response was a short and quiet grunt in our dark and cramped chamber.

It all came back to me. Her subtle, passive-aggressive communiqué. That noise meant that she expected me to resolve the situation.

I had been all over this compartment before on my previous trip, and I knew that there were no access panels or hatchways which might take us inside the train. And even if we did that, I wasn’t certain how we’d be received. Ida struck me as the sort who’d have us tossed out into a canyon far below as we sped across a bridge, or whatever was the train equivalent to keelhauling or walking the plank.

I told Saligia that we’d be stopping in a little town to take on water. “It cools the engine, I believe.”

“If we have time, I’ll go squat behind a bush,” she said, with less sarcasm in her voice than I would have expected. Maybe she’d mellowed over the years.

“We’ll figure something out,” I told her.

But when the train finally came to a stop, I had nothing. Not a plan. Not so much as a notion.

That was when hatch flew open and our cramped hideaway filled with light. I blinked, and saw the familiar shape of the water tower of the Great Falls depot lit in silver by the moon. The bright light, however, came from an electric lantern being held by a tall man bending down.

He leaned in for closer inspection.

“Well,” he said. Just that. Then he stepped back and added: “I suspect you are wanting some fresh air.”

I pulled myself out and stretched my arms. When I arched my back, I heard a pop. A good sound, I hoped. The man with the lantern was holding, in his other hand, the water hose. His unkempt beard bore the hallmarks of having grown through neglect of the razor, and not vanity. It suited him.

“Might you be Nora’s brother?” I asked, the question emerging more folksy than I had intended.

He looked at me for a moment before replying.

“I do have a sister by that name.”

“I’m a friend of hers. My name’s Morris.” I extended my hand.

He put down the hose and shook my hand without breaking eye contact.

“McAllister Fitzgerald’s the name,” he said. “And, I know, it’s a mouthful. Call me Mack. Is Nora okay?”

“She has a job,” I told him. It seemed the appropriate response. I didn’t know how to say she stepped into a magical closet and dematerialized, and we had no idea what had become of her. Gone to LA, maybe? Seemed a burden to lay on him.

“A job?” And he laughed. “What do you know about that?” He turned and shouted to the two teenaged boys back under the water tower. “This guy’s a friend of Nora’s. She’s landed a job, working in the big city.”

The young men grinned.

“Yes,” I said. “Nora was hired on as the assistant to the superintendent of elevator services of the La Vida Tower. And I don’t doubt that there’s room to move up in a job like that.”

My quip was ignored as Saligia stuck out her head, smiling benevolently in her role of celebrity. Though if Nora was right, no one in this little town even owned a TV. Of course that wouldn’t stop Saligia from making an impression. She had that way about her.

Mack stood up straight when he saw her and self consciously ran a hand through his uncombed hair.

“Ma’am, please, stretch your legs,” he said, and then bent to offer Saligia his hand.

Once Saligia was standing beside us, Mack turned to me.

“Any more of you in there?”

I told him it was just us.

Saligia introduced herself to Mack. When he displayed no recognition of her as a famous personage, she managed to show no outward signs of disappointment.

“I had spoken to the station agent here last week,” I said to Mack. “He said it was two days to LA. It’d be nice if there was some other way we could travel on this thing without being cramped in that little compartment.”

“Mr. Maynard was not wrong to tell you that.” Mack looked down at his shoes for a moment. “However, there are some facts of which he is ignorant. Not part of his job. So let me make it quite clear, if you folks continue on your journey inside there, you’re going to suffocate.”

Saligia tilted her head to look back into the shadowy recess we had stepped out of.

“Well we don’t want that,” she said.

“I wouldn’t imagine,” Mack said.

I made some comment about how it didn’t appear that the hatch was airtight.

“It isn’t,” Mack said. “And that’s the problem.” He smiled at my look of confusion. “You see, not more than an hour into your travels toward Los Angeles, the train crosses a huge salt flat. Directly in the middle is a big blob of glowing green light, right dead on the tracks. When the trains passes through it, it goes someplace else. That’s where you spend your two days. Just in some dark and airless nothing. Some primordial void?” He shrugged. “Makes no sense to me. You’d think they’d have built the train tracks around that damn thing. Maybe it arrived later? Anyhow, if you look at this hatchway, you can tell there’s no safety gasket to keep the air from leaking out. You’ll want to travel inside the train itself. Not just because it’s more comfortable, but also because—”

“We want to arrive alive,” Saligia said.

“I know I would,” Mack said. He pointed down a ways to the door into the side of the train. “Problem is, they don’t hardly ever open that door and talk with us.”

“It’s Nora,” Saligia said. “We’re trying to get to her.”

Mack looked from Saligia to me, confused.

“It’s complicated,” I said. “A friend of ours was kidnapped and taken to Los Angeles. Your sister followed. You know, to help.”

“Sounds like Nora. Helpful and headstrong." Mack scratched his head. "So, she came through here on this train?”

“We have this portal, well, had,” Saligia began, then turned to look at me.

I didn’t want to go into the whole game show, resurrected contestants, rogue murderer, so I tried to keep it simple.

“In the building where she worked, there’s a room. Small, like a closet. You go in, close the door, you are transported to LA. Anyway, some maniac took our friend through that, well, that portal. Nora chased after them. Now the portal doesn’t work anymore. So, we’re heading west, trying to find them.”

Mack nodded thoughtfully, as if it all sounded reasonable.

“So, Nora’s in trouble?”

“Might be,” I said. “We’re concerned enough to be heading out after her.”

“Yes,” Saligia said, her eyes on me. “We are.”

“Then that’s all there is to it,” Mack said. “We need to get you onto this train. Come along with me.” As we walked, Mack shouted to the young men over at the water tower. “Boys, get in that compartment and fetch these good people’s luggage.”

Saligia and I followed Mack along the track, up onto the platform, and we came to a stop alongside the flank of the train car with the door.

“Lucky for us,” Mack said, “Mr. Maynard is home and in bed at this hour. No need to bring the boss into this matter.”

He slip a hammer from his tool belt and banged loudly several times on the door.

“Leave all the talking to me,” Mack instructed us. “I’ll give them no other choice than to let you on. Without the water, they can’t leave. And we have control over that.”

Before we could further discuss his plan, the door was flung open, and two men in blue suits stood glaring at us. Mack held his lantern up high so that we all were well lit. The two men standing in the opening to the train wore metal badges with a star, like old west lawmen, but instead of the word “sheriff,” there was the word “porter.”

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I was waiting for them to began shouting at us, but their expressions transformed instantly, and I realized they were both staring at Saligia.

“Oh my god,” the youngest of them finally said in a whisper, which he repeated, slower. “Oh. My. God.”

“Saligia Jones,” the older man said, regaining his composer sooner than the younger porter. “This is extraordinary! The famous Saligia Jones, out here, in the middle of nowhere.”

“I take exception at that, sir,” said Mack. “As would all the fine citizens of Great Falls.”

And as if on cue, Mack's two coworkers stepped up and placed my rucksack and Saligia's bag on the ground beside us.

“When the train was departing San Antonio," Saligia explained in a tone of calm and slightly pained civility, "we weren’t allowed on board. In a moment of desperation, we took temporary berth in that little compartment beneath the engine car.”

“Weren’t allowed?” the older porter muttered. “Weren’t allowed? Shameful. Absolutely inexcusable.”

“Those blasted Network people,” the younger porter said crossing his arms.

“Now, now, Jimmy,” said the older porter. “They’re not all bad folks.” He held out his hand to Saligia. “Please, ma’am, come aboard. We’ll ready your accommodations immediately.”

“For me and my valet,” Saligia said, pointing to me.

Valet?

“But of course,” said the older porter.

I picked up both our bags, falling into character as a valet, though I’m not exactly sure what that all entailed.

Saligia took the porter’s offered hand and stepped into the train. I followed, turning to nod at Mack and the two young men of Great Falls.

“God speed, and give my best to my little sister,” Mack told me as Jimmy the porter closed the door behind us.

###

The train was unremarkable inside. We were escorted through a car of private compartments, so all we saw was a wood paneled corridor with recessed lighting and brass fixtures on the sliding doors.

“We always keep a stateroom set aside for an unscheduled VIP,” said the older porter. “And I can’t imagine a more Very Important Person than Saligia Jones.”

Unrestrained praise should be a good thing. But with Saligia it just fueled an appetite which was, ultimately, insatiable. And when it began to diminish, as such things tended to do in the entertainment industry, she would become resentful and morose. I’d seen it before with her. The rise up was bad enough, her behaving like a giddy child enjoying her first exciting day at school, but the inevitable journey down was a cheap bottle of wine, equal parts sour and bitter.

After we had walked the length of several cars, the older porter held up his hand and smiled at Saligia. We stopped.

“Jimmy,” he said.

Jimmy nodded and opened the door to the compartment.

Saligia and I stepped in. It was cozy, with two upholstered bench seats facing one another. Beds above. A wide window, which looked out onto the nighttime platform of the Great Falls depot.

The porters politely remained in the corridor to list the amenities. When they explained that the bar up on the observation level was serving drinks and light snacks, Saligia suggested I join her once I’d finished stowing our luggage.

Before I could respond, she stepped out, Jimmy slid the door shut, and I was alone.

Things had drifted out of my control, I realized. It wasn’t like I had a plan or anything, but I was aware of this pattern that dominated my life. Anytime I began to feel that I had finally stepped on the correct path forward, things would suddenly shift and rearrange themselves. This was how it used to be with Sy and Saligia. Periods of relative calm broken by punctuated chaos. I like the calm—I fight to find and maintain it. Still, there was an undeniable thrill in the chaos, and with Sy and Saligia I had a front seat to the frenetic dramas generated by two impulsive personalities. It suddenly occurred to me how much I had missed that sensation. There was a rush like someone had just opened the door on a jetliner. No need to fight it. Let the wind carry you away. Don’t hold on to anything, or you’ll get knocked around something fierce. Just hope you’re wearing a parachute.

There were two Morrises within me, their divergent temperaments constantly at odds: the sensible fellow who valued stability and preparedness, and the thrill-seeker. The former had been running things for too long, I realized.

I dug a deep into my brain and pulled forth what had once been my mantra. I mentally blew off the layer of dust.

Embrace the chaos.

I didn’t feel the train begin to move, but I saw, through the window, the painted sign for Great Falls slide away, and soon it was just moon-lit rocks and shrubs zooming past.

I tossed Saligia’s bag up onto one of the beds. And, before doing the same with my pack, I pulled out my drawstring pouch holding my gold coins and stashed them under the cushion of one of the seats. I wasn’t expecting theft, but as there was no lock on the door, I didn’t want to chance it. We’d probably need money in LA. That was certainly the way it used to be.

Then I left in search Saligia.

I walked forward through the sleeper cars and eventually found myself in the empty and darkened dining car. I couldn’t go further, because the door at the far end was locked and had a sign cautioning that only staff were allowed beyond. Was that to the engine car? Where we had hidden beneath? I turned and glanced around the dining area with tables covered by crisp white linen.

Observation deck? Could it be overhead? These train cars did look tall from the outside. That was when I noticed a curtain just beyond the salad bar. I pulled it back and found stairs going up.

I encountered another curtain at the top. Soft music played—some sort of inoffensive, vaguely classical music, maybe Aaron Copland—and I also heard the murmur of conversations and the scattered titters of polite society. I pushed through into a cozy space dimly lit from recessed lighting and candles on about a dozen tables. The music was clearly recorded, as I saw no musicians. There were maybe thirty people, in all, seated in intimate groups, drinking and laughing and being attended to by waiters in white suits. Large windows all around looked out onto the moonlit desert.

At the nearest table I recognized a few people from Serpientes y Escaleras. When Ida saw me, she turned her head in my direction and stopped speaking. Everyone in her group looked, and then turned away with a sort of awkward distaste.

Everyone but Ida. She made no attempt to conceal her hostility. Without breaking eye contact with me, she said something to Michael who sat beside her. I could not hear her voice over the music and general chatter of passengers, but from simply watching her lips I could make out the words.

“Another one of them,” she said, and then looked away from me.

Ah. I guess that meant she’d already seen Saligia.

I walked to the front of the car where the floor-to-ceiling curved window provided a full view through of the gleaming tracks shooting out to the distant horizon. The scenery of the desert all around us was barren and majestic.

That was where I found Saligia, sitting at the head of a table with the grand scenery behind her. About ten people were seated around her, listening as she held forth, a sly smile on her lips.

She delivered some sort of punchline, because suddenly everyone around her broke into laughter.

Saligia watched as I walked around the table toward her.

“This is Morris,” Saligia said. “He’s my camera man. Makes me look good.”

It seemed I had been promoted up from valet.

A chair was pulled up beside her and I sat.

“It was so dramatic,” a woman said, looking across to me. “I can’t believe the show’s canceled. But what a way to go out!”

“Word has it, the portals overloaded, and shut down,” a young man in wireframe glasses said. “Is that right?” This last bit was addressed to me.

“Yeah,” I said. “Something like that.”

“Saligia, you are a legend,” the woman continued, looking at Saligia with an excited flutter of lashes. “I can only imagine you’ll be able to write your own ticket on any show you want.”

All heads nodded in agreement.

These were apparently all Network people. But friendly. A far cry from Ida’s inflexible crabbiness.

The young man with the glasses fetched me a beer and I just sat back and tried to make sense of it all.

I eventually learned that our group included people working on TV shows in New Orleans, Baltimore, and Lisbon (which, I learned, now resided where the Finger Lakes once were.). All game shows. They each had portals through with people appeared—people who became contestants on the shows. Just like Serpientes y Escaleras. One was called Don’t Spin Wrong! Another had something to do with competitive cooking, I’d Eat That! How many other shows were there? I think someone mentioned productions in Chicago and Missoula.

I felt it best not to trot out my ignorance, so I kept quiet.

I learned that even though Serpientes y Escaleras was acknowledged as the most popular of the Network’s shows, it was also clear that the Network employees who worked on that show, our show, who sat over at the table with Ida, were certainly not as well regarded as Saligia. Not by the people at our table, at least. Probably because they were seated with Ida, a member of the hated upper management.

Wasn’t that how it usually worked?

God, even after the Changes, corporate politics still existed.

Eventually the star-struck woman exclaimed to the group that “we’ve been taking up so much of Saligia’s time—I think we need to let her and her friend have some privacy. They’re no doubt hatching an idea for a brilliant follow up to Serpientes y Escaleras.”

The little crowd politely excused themselves, and broke into smaller groups as they sat at various tables arranged about the observation deck.

“You’re a star,” I said to Saligia.

“Quite unexpected. I mean, it’s nice being recognized when out and about in San Antonio. But to be so well-regarded by your peers within the industry, goodness. I don’t know what to say.”

“We should have asked them some questions,” I said. “Like where do those people go when they step through Door Number One.”

“We have plenty of time,” Saligia said, motioning a waiter for another drink. “We’ve won these people over. During the next two days, we should learn quite a bit.”

“It certainly has been a time for revelations,” I said, idly looking out the window. The train emerged from a canyon and was speeding across a flat plain, washed in the light of the moon. It was the salt flat Mack had spoke of. There, dead center, was a bright green point of light. It generated a weird glow, like that from an aquarium, for miles. “Well, revelations for me, that’s for sure. Especially about Sy.”

“Sy?”

“Yeah. It was such a relief to discover that he hadn’t died. I must admit, for the last few years I’ve been wrestling with this guilt. You know, feeling somewhat responsible for—”

“As you should,” Saligia interrupted. “He did die.”

I turned away from the view. She had my attention now.

“Out there in that production truck.” Saligia had shifted so she could look out the window. “And there were witnesses who saw you running away, like a coward.” Her lips compressed, and she slowly let our her breath. “Did you know I was called in to identify the body? There wasn’t much left to work with. I was able to vouch for that tattoo on his left buttock, but mostly the medical examiner went by the dental records.”

Saligia still wouldn’t meet my gaze. I could see, reflected in her eyes, that green light we were speeding toward. I twisted around so I could look too.

I watched it grow larger as we moved closer. It was as Mack said, a big green glowing blob. I was doing my best to process what Saligia was saying while at the same time trying to figure out if we should brace ourselves for, what, impact?

The music, I realized, had been turned off. The entire bar had fallen silent, as I assumed everyone was as focused on the fast-approaching blob sitting on the tracks ahead. I, for one, could not look away from it.

“What are you talking about? He’s alive,” I said. “Sy’s alive. Or at least he was alive when he went after August and Rose.”

“I don’t know what he is,” I heard Saligia say as I leaned closer to the window, fascinated and not a little terrified by that light. “I do know he died,” she continued in a matter-of-fact tone. “Back then in that production truck. And, years later, when the portals appeared in La Vida Tower, he was the first person to come through. I’d already mourned him, put all that behind me, when, boom, back from the dead.”

And then we hit the green blob and things got weird. Well, a different kind of weird.