Sven woke up from his nap. He had spent time looking through the picture book he had grabbed off the shelf before sleeping in his hideaway. Voices drifted to him through the hidden door of his redoubt.

He looked through the peephole he had carved out. Humans wandered the store below. They sorted through the books as they wandered the shelving. The fussy man from the night before had a clipboard with paper on it. He seemed to be trying to figure out what was wanted from the papers he had.

Sven listened to his stomach growling. He needed food and water and to find another place to stay where he could set up a new life.

Being discovered over the sales floor didn't mean that much either way, but he didn't want to use his weapon on people who seemed to be unarmed.

He looked down at his weapon. It changed shape as he stared at it. He rubbed his face with his free hand.

The picture book had shown him a number of weapons that had not been programmed into it. Copying some of the weapons had triggered its intelligence to grow some while it worked. It was useless while trying to fix the data given it, and a distraction as it changed shaped every few seconds into something new.

He needed to keep out of sight while waiting for it to fix its programming, but he also needed food and the use of the facilities. And he couldn't explain what he was doing inside while the doors to the shop were closed to customers.

At least he could hide his bag and guitar in the space while he tried to sneak out. He had no doubt he could come back after the place closed and let himself inside with his weapon if it stabilized between that moment and the end of working hours for the salespeople.

Sven hoped the weapon wasn't broadcasting his location to the Asgar and the Jotun. Both sides would want to talk to him about his desertion and flight to this Earth.

He decided that he could ask the weapon to go to standby mode. That would pause its current operation while he tried to get out of the store. He could turn its search back on when he was outside and looking for a place that would give him food.

He wouldn't be able to use the weapon while it was standing by, but that seemed like a necessary risk if he wanted to pass unnoticed among the humans.

And if he told it to become active again, it wouldn't work until it had assimilated all of the new knowledge it had copied.

He wondered what the Asgar would do with some of the things he had seen in the picture book. They seemed happy enough with bows and swords instead of the firearms they could be using with their technology.

Some of the Asgar relied on weapons capable of killing armies. It didn't matter what the weapon looked like if they found an excuse to carve an enemy to pieces.

The Jotun had their own weapons capable of shunting things across the veils with ease. A small meteor strike had been used against the Wall once. That had been enough to stir Tor up to throw lightning across the horizon.

Sven had seen three or four sorties over those things. It had crystallized the desire to get away from the city and let the war fight on without him. He didn't regret that choice even with the uncertain future it brought to him.

He saw an opening when the doors were unlocked for the day. All he had to do was get down to the facilities and act like he was a customer that had gone in there first. Then he could leave without drawing attention to himself.

That left him with trying to fit in with the rest of the world, and looking for work. He wondered how hard it could be to make money singing songs. His guitar could be something that earned his keep instead of drawing stares.

The resurrected forces of the Valhallen had no time for music. It didn't kill like a blade, protect like a shield, or carry you to your enemies like a horse. That made it useless to most of his comrades.

Sven liked playing, so he had fought the comments trying to eat at his confidence. Things didn't have to be about the war all the time. Some times you needed something more.

He wondered if the humans around him felt the same way about the things that didn't pertain to their occupations.

He crept to the hatch he had used to get into the space. He dropped down and crossed the floor as fast as he could to the restrooms. He stepped inside the Men's and counted to sixty before leaving, and walking toward the door.

He stepped outside and took off his coat. The air warmed his face. The sun beat down on him. He took a breath. The world smelt different than what he was used to smelling. He smiled.

Stolen story; please report.

This tiny bit was worth leaving his post.

Of course, if they caught up with him and dragged him back, punishment for desertion would be flogging until he was dead.

That thought didn't take away from what he felt right that moment. Also if his weapon came back on-line, the new shapes it could take would be worth it to help him fight his way out of an arrest.

He needed to check things out and see if there were other places he could stay without drawing attention. Sneaking in and out of the bookstore could be done for a bit, but someone was bound to notice. He didn't want to fight his way clear of that if he didn't have to do it.

On the other hand, if he had a reliable door he could use that didn't enter the book store at all from the ground, that meant he had a space that no one would know he had. His weapon could allow him to build on to it if he could get the right technology for it to create a spare space like a termite hole in a tree.

And that space would hide him from his comrades when they came to look for him. A veil to another area would defeat probes unless they were in the same space as he was.

He spent the day looking around the neighborhood. He found the bookstore stood in a small city of other stores, restaurants, and several places for entertainment. He watched everything while trying to blend in.

The signs with the hours written on them were a bigger help. They let him know when he could break in and steal food, watch a show, or take the electronics he might need to set up his own space outside space.

That was important since he didn't have any of the local money, and had no occupation to get it. Thievery would have to tide him over until he figured out how to get on his own two feet.

His weapon would be helpful in finding the things he needed when it settled down. He would have to wait the assimilation period out. He didn't like that, but he had some food in his bag that he could eat after hours when the bookstore people went home for the night.

When the weapon was ready, he could break into the restaurants and cook for himself.

He didn't doubt the locals had weapons, but his should be enough to get him out of any trouble without having to kill. Let his comrades stab some local officer of the law. He just wanted to settle somewhere that no one would come looking for him.

Sven paused as he walked across a lot full of local vehicles. He looked around. He didn't see anyone in the lot with him, but it wouldn't be long before someone from Asgar, or the Jotun was in the lot looking for him. He needed to get under cover before that happened.

He didn't need a fight attracting the wrong kind of attention to him. If he fought off the Asgar, or Jotun, emissary, he could expect someone from one of the other regions to try to recruit, or get rid of him, because he was a free agent.

He was trying to be an independent. Working for the Mountain, or the Yellow, was different from that. You had more freedom than the army of the Asgar, but you still had to fight someone for someone else with questionable motives behind it all.

Sven decided the next picture book he looked through would be one page at a time so he didn't knock out his weapon again by accident.

Now that he was on his own, he would need his weapon more than he had behind the wall.

He decided to keep his weapon on stand by until the pressure lifted. He headed back to the bookstore. He could use the bathroom to get back to his hiding place. When he was alone, he could turn it on and use it to start on building his refuge.

He stepped inside the store. He pulled on his coat as he looked out the window. He thought he saw intersections over the area. They didn't look close, but they also didn't look natural.

Someone was dropping into the area.

Sven walked into the men's room. He looked around to make sure he didn't have anyone in the room with him. He debated calling up his weapon. The door to his hiding place was in the back of the store. He needed a secondary door, and he needed it quickly.

He took his weapon off stand by mode. The shifting had died down to only a few shapes that he didn't recognize. He asked for a simple blade. The weapon struggled through an array of swords until it settled on one that the deserter could use to cut through the ceiling of the bathroom.

He climbed on the back of the toilet and then pulled himself to the top of the partition. He sliced through the wooden panel and slid the oval out of the way. He pulled himself up through the hole. He slid the chopped section back into place. He had to catch it before it fell down through the hole.

He placed the lid out of the way before crawling over to his bag. He searched its contents until he found some spare guitar strings. He grabbed three of them and used them to hold the makeshift cover in place with some improvised holes.

He could do better when he had more time.

He placed his weapon back on standby so that its signal would be muted. He hoped the minutes long use of it had not been detected by the forces looking for him. He didn't want any of the locals caught in the crossfire if his people showed themselves.

He laid down so he could see through the peepholes. He wanted to be ready if someone from the Asgar walked into the bookstore. There was a slim chance they wouldn't know he was there.

He wanted to be ready in case they did know he was hiding there.

He figured he could use the shelves for cover, and break out through the windows. The problem became how fast could he run to another intersection and move to another Earth, or some other demimonde.

He might have to steal one of the local machines and drive it. His weapon should let him start the thing and get him moving away from the bookstore.

What did he want to do?

He decided to wait until he was sure they were close to finding him. He would know when the store came under attack. Then he would move. His weapon might give him an edge, or it might sink him before he could get clear.

All those intersections felt like they wanted him for more than desertion. He didn't know what was going on, but he wasn't going back. He had decided to escape and build a life in the backwater. He could fight for that where he didn't feel like fighting a cold war over some abstract principle.

Let someone else make war because the prophecy said it.