image [https://cdn.midjourney.com/6be50df5-a649-45ef-b44e-fed5a3893d24/0_1.png]

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Arranging with Daniel and Ariana to cover for them, the two lovers left the camp in the evening, after a light dinner. According to his counterpart's map, the portal to Earth-Two was a bit north of the processing center on Floor Three. The latter was easy to discover, the first took a bit of scouting because it was hidden in a valley and camouflaged. At some point, a truck drove directly into a rock wall and passed through it, finally revealing the location.

After waiting five minutes, they stepped inside the rock. On the other side was a factory’s parking lot. It was night. The truck they followed was parked near a storage area, but otherwise, the facility was empty.

Dismissing Stealth, Peter showed Regina a secondary exit, supposedly left unlocked. It was marked on the map, and hidden behind a pile of crates. Within seconds, they were outside, in a dark alley.

"This is… ugly," she creased her nose, looking at the dilapidated buildings. "Where are we?"

"Upper Manhattan. The portal to Earth One is in Lower Manhattan and exits near Hanover, a few miles from the college. That one is a secret portal, no one but the Resistance knows about it."

"How did they discover it?"

"I dunno," Peter turned his palms up. "The map says: Secret Resistance portal, that's all I know."

The alley gave into a larger avenue. The buildings were the same Peter saw in New York's photos, but less lighted, and their plaster was peeling. There were people around, and as one, they turned and looked at Peter and Regina.

"Is it the clothes?" she whispered.

Peter shook his head. Their clothes were about the same. The only detail that distinguished them from the crowd was their height. The average passerby was a head shorter than Peter, and three inches than Regina.

"They're so short!" Regina realized. "Wow…"

"During the Middle Ages, the average height was lower than ours," Peter said.

He stopped theorizing and accelerated his steps, making her speed up too by taking her arm. A few men, teenagers, were looking in their direction with mean eyes. Fortunately, they didn't follow. To shorten the distance, they cut through Central Park. That area was well-lighted and there were many blankets on the lawns, and people having a picnic.

"Strange," Regina said. "They're Vampires or something?"

"Let's hurry," Peter said. "This place gives me the creeps."

Leaving the park, they struggled to find the next portal, because the alley marked on the map eluded them. Confused, they stopped after turning around the block for a third time, when a man dressed in wrinkled clothes and only half a head shorter than Peter noticed them and asked: "Are you lost, Frenchies?"

"We're not lost," Peter replied, despite their obvious situation.

"We are lost!" Regina blurted. "Men!" she hissed in a lower voice, meaning: Men wouldn't ask for directions if their lives were at stake.

"What are you looking for?"

"An alley between number two hundred sixty and two hundred fifty-eight," Regina said. "It's marked on the map but… it's just not there."

"Come, I'll show you," the man waved his hand and started walking.

They followed him, stopping a minute later between the two buildings. There still was no alley.

"It's the old subway," the man pointed at an entrance. "I sleep there sometimes. Go down, follow the corridor, and you get up on Broadway. Go see The Producers, it's the best."

Digging in his pockets, Peter extracted a fifty-dollar bill. It was from Earth One but there was no difference between those.

"No, man, we're good," the man protested, stepping back. "I have a bit of French blood too, I know how it is."

"Let's say we're not from here," Peter kept forwarding the bill. "Why do the locals hate the French?"

"You're Cultivators?" the man asked, gingerly taking the money.

"Something like that," Regina said.

"Kids would be kids… You should keep your robes on…" It was clear he thought they were young Cultivators in disguise, maybe dating in secret by night. "It's about Napoleon. He hired that guy… forgot the name, he invented the vaccines… Let's call him Joe. Napoleon asked Joe to make a virus that'd kill all people taller than him. Except the French, of course."

"Really?" Regina gasped.

"Millions of people died, but the next generations adapted, and humans became shorter. And that's why people hate the French. Adolf—"

"Yes, that Adolf," Peter whispered to Regina.

"—killed a lot of them because of that. He was a head shorter than the average, you see, a lot of complexes. He was batshit crazy. He conquered the US, and Canada but failed to get the Greater Louisiana and Mexico Federation. Napoleon the Ninth's general, De Gaulle, stopped him. People say Aldolf killed himself from spite—that general was very tall and mocked him on TV—and they disguised it as an accident."

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Wow…" Regina and Peter exclaimed in unison.

"So that's the story. That’s why we’re secondhand citizens, don’t have the right to vote, and can go in the parks only by night. I would have emigrated to Louisiana for a better life, but I'm too short to be accepted. Take care," the man said, pocketing the bill and walking away, humming a tune.

"This place is crazy," Regina said.

"Definitely."

Entering the subway, they walked forward for half the passage. It was all that remained of the train station, the access to the platforms had been walled. It was in one of these brick structures the next portal was. A very faint light, barely visible, shone around it and it was smaller than the previous interdimensional passage.

"Thank goodness!" Regina exclaimed, closing her eyes once they arrived on the other side. It was still day here and they were inside a storage unit. It had a motorcycle and various gear lying around, a sort of base, even if tiny.

"I think it's better to take the bike for the first trip," Peter said. "I'd better conserve my Mana."

"Don't go too fast," she asked.

There were multiple helmets, and she took one, while Peter put on his. The bike had its tank full, which was a nice thing, and a stroke of luck. Keeping the speed at fifty miles, it took a bit under an hour to reach Rutland, Peter's home city. However, they didn't enter it, he took a dirt road and arrived at an abandoned farm. Peter parked the bike in front of a barn. It had a locked chain, but the key was hidden under a wooden bucket.

"My grand grandpa's place," Peter said. "He tried farming, after going bankrupt. My folks dream to retire here and start some biological crops. And… here it is," he pointed at a car platform with a large gesture. On it was an old motorboat, rusted and falling apart.

"That's an artifact?" Regina asked.

"He used that to smuggle booze during the prohibition. Said it was a lucky boat, the border patrols never caught him. Fast, and barely noticeable on the water. Chances are it'll float in the fog, and be invisible."

"And you want to pull it with the bike, fit it somehow into a storage unit that’s smaller, pull in by hand through the subway station and up the stairs, then on the streets of Nazi New York, and finally, to our camp?"

"Err… maybe?" Peter lowered his head between his shoulders. His failproof and glorious plan had more chinks in it than he thought.

"The System is right," Regina said.

Using a few tools, Peter managed to detach the object in about half an hour. He was sweating, as she was looking at him with great expectation, to do his manly stuff and unscrew a few bolts, which were nevertheless rusted in place. Finally, he succeeded and raised the headlight in triumph, before storing it in his backpack.

"What now?" he asked.

"Good news or bad news first?" she grinned sheepishly.

"What's going on?"

"We're not going to our parents. So you’ll not meet my dad, who’s very judgmental about...”

“The boys you see?”

She tucked herself in his arms. “Yes, but I’m not seeing you, I’m in love with you. So, he’d be worse... but it doesn’t matter.... We have to go to New Orleans, to see my grandma…" Regina fidgeted her fingers, swinging her hands back and forth. "I left something with her... a poooowerful artifact," she insisted. "It's worth the effort."

"We go on the roof and jump as far I can, and upward. I'll chain as many warps as possible before I have to land."

There was a ladder on the farthest wall and a hatch on the roof. The barn was about thirty feet high at the top. Propping his feet to the left and right of the ridge, Peter took Regina in a princess carry.

"I don't like heights much," she confessed, grabbing his neck.

"Close your eyes."

She did and looked so beautiful that Peter stopped to breathe in her sight, instead of Warping. She opened her eyes, meeting his.

"I love you too," he said, kissing her.

After the kiss, she squeezed herself at his chest. With his heart pumping joy and his body adrenaline, Peter took a few running steps and Warped. The idea was to have some momentum after the jump, so as not to roll in the air. It worked for the first three jumps, then they arrived in freezing air, a higher altitude than he anticipated. Taking the next skill activation downward they arrived over a meadow, but in a tailspin. Grabbing hold of Regina, to prevent her from sliding away, Peter Warped even lower, a couple of feet above the ground, where then crashed and rolled.

"You OK?" he yelled.

'Yuks…" she wailed, retching.

"Sorry... When I tried it alone it worked better... Let's rest for five minutes."

On his HUD, Peter's Mana was a bit under half. Taking his binoculars, he looked around. "I don't see any landmarks I recognize."

Peter took the next series of jumps slower, from one height to another, or with at most two chained jumps in the air. It took fifteen minutes to reach New Orleans Central Park, with a break for a Mana pill in the middle, and from there, they took a cab for another ten. At nine in the evening, they stopped before a small but charming house and Regina rang the bell.

"Cher catin!" a woman yelled, grabbing the girl in a hug. "What are you doing here?"

"My school took a trip nearby, and I thought you should meet my boyfriend."

"Nice to meet you, Jack," the woman grabbed Peter's hands, shaking them.

"He's Peter, Jack is history…" Regina sulked.

"Hi, Peter," the woman repeated the handshake. "Come inside." A bit shorter than Regina, she appeared to be in her mid-sixties, but still fit. For the next hour, they talked and ate apple pie while drinking homemade iced tea.

"I'll show Peter my room before we go," Regina said.

"You can stay for the night, you know. I won't eavesdrop," the woman winked.

"We can't, Mawmaw, we have to be back in the camp by early morning."

Regina's room was frozen in the recent past of her high school years, with K-pop boy band posters on the walls. It was neatly organized, though, with her things packed in boxes. "I lived here from eight to seventeen," she said. "Pa moved too much around because of his job. And I come to visit for a week every summer… Aha! Here it is. From immemorable times, our family grigri protection and my favorite teddy bear."

The furry doll shoved in Peter's face looked worse than Chucky. It was sizeable and made of disparate parts. The members were real chicken legs, only mummified, eyes made from pale blue stones that stared back at Peter, two real animal fangs in the mouth, claws on the paws, and a rattlesnake's tail.

"You slept with this?" he couldn't help himself from asking.

"Like a log. It has thirteen different protection charms woven into one. Think how powerful it is!"

"You're offending Pandy Panda!" Regina clutched the doll to her chest. "It’s a powerful totem. Apologize to it, or it’ll curse you!"

"Pandy Panda? What a nice name," Peter said, to distract her from the argument. "Let's move, it's late."

The trip back to Dartmouth College took longer, due to the flying precautions and Peter stopping to fill back the gas tank. Going through Nazi New York went much faster because Peter decided to Warp and Stealth through it. At one o'clock in the morning, they were sleeping in each other arms in the tent, back on the Third Floor, the sinister teddy bear in between.