I tilted my head, one eye moving closer to the distorted face that stared back at me. As I drew in closer, the eye I saw staring back at me seemed to balloon out in size. I drew my head back, and the face shrunk back to relatively more regular proportions.

"Well, it's definitely... something."

The balding, mustachioed man behind the counter chuckled. "This one's caught your attention, eh?"

The silvery ball I held in my hand had, indeed, caught my attention. For all intents and purposes it looked like a highly reflective sphere—certainly, it reflected the contents of the cluttered pawnshop around me as accurately as a spherical mirror could. Except, of course, for the face that stared back at me. It blinked in time with me, matched my expressions perfectly, and perfectly replicated my lip movements as I spoke. If it had been the face of a grizzled man with bags under his eyes and a bad case of five o'clock shadow, all would be well with the world.

The fact that it was instead a teenage girl with sparkling golden eyes sporting hair of an impossible shade of blue, done up in a neat side ponytail, meant the world was in trouble somehow or another. I shook my head with a sigh, noting how the ponytail swished in response to the motion.

"Where'd you get this one, Dale? I need details."

I turned so Dale's "reflection" should show up in the periphery of the sphere just in time to catch his lips turn up in a smug smile. Or, at least, the lips of the roughly four-year-old boy with flame-red hair and blue eyes who had taken his place in the distorted image.

"Inherited it. Reclusive aunt of mine—twice removed—passed recently and left me with her old billiard table, trophies and a couple other boxes of stuff—she used to play professionally, and I was the only one in the extended family stupid enough to still challenge her back before she shut herself in. Guess she remembered me with enough fondness to write me into her will. Anyway, that somehow ended up in the box with the billiard balls."

The girl in the reflection rolled her eyes along with me. "Sorry, I should have been more specific. Relevant details, Dale."

The four-year-old raised an eyebrow, waiting for something more.

"I am not saying please." I finally turned away to look the sloppy, middle-aged man in the eye.

He shrugged. "Worth a try. Anyway, there's not much more to tell. The boxes hadn't been opened before they made it to me, and according to all reports they'd been sitting and collecting dust in her basement for around two decades. The most logical answer is that my aunt—her name was Heart Lynford, since I guess that's relevant, or whatever—anyway, she was probably the one who slipped it in there. There's no way to know for sure since she holed herself up in her house and refused to interact with anyone in person for the last 24 years."

I ran a hand through my greasy hair, wincing at the texture. It had been far too long since I'd last had a chance to take a proper shower. "Well, it's not a total dead end. Forward me all the info you can—address, known contacts, the works. You shouldn't have a problem with that since you're directly related this time around." I pursed my lips. "Why you're such a magnet for these objects is a question I'd love to get a proper answer for one of these days."

"Hey, you and me both, buddy."

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I funneled all my displeasure into the action of narrowing my eyes at him.

"Er... pal? Okay, okay, not pal, either! Geez, you need to lighten up and take a break once in a while." When he saw I clearly wasn't going to humor that with a response, he went on. "So, uh, what are you gonna do with it now that you've got it?"

I broke eye contact and let out another sigh, shoulders slumping. "Not take a break, that's what. I'll bring it in for testing. We need to figure out where this thing actually came from, and what it's for."

"What, don't tell me you don't have any guesses, yet? You figured out that infinite Pez dispenser right away, last time. Don't tell me you're getting rusty."

I turned back to the ball, studying the faces of the girl and the boy reflected in it, taking our places. It was difficult to shake the feeling that she was actually the one studying us. "There's a big difference between a Pez dispenser caught in a resetting time-loop and a mirror made out of an unknown material that replaces your reflection with someone else." I paused. "That said, I do have a couple guesses."

Dale let out a scratchy chuckle at that. "That's what I thought! So...?"

I brought my fingers to my temple and began to massage it in an attempt to alleviate an oncoming headache, watching the girl for any discrepancies. There! It had been barely perceptible, but she'd angled her hand slightly differently to avoid the ponytail.

"Well, it's got 'Many Worlds' written all over it. The human genome doesn't allow for the kinds of traits the reflected people exhibit—and no, they're definitely not wigs or contact lenses. I find it unlikely the hair is dyed, either, because the color of each strand is consistent, but varies slightly from strand to strand. No hint of a different color trying to peak in from the roots, and good luck trying to dye your hair one strand at a time—"

I was interrupted by a yawn from Dale, followed by a sheepish expression as I glanced over at him. "Oh, no, please go on," he said with a flicking hand gesture.

I rolled my eyes again, looking back at the girl and forcing my face to relax when I saw how irritated she looked. "I'll get to the point, then. They exhibit traits that we wouldn't see in humans in our world. Meaning, they are likely from another world. As for why they replace us in the reflection... you always see the same person when you look in the sphere, right?"

"Yeah, same little boy every time."

"Then they're either being reflected in real time from such an alternate world and just so happen to take the same exact actions we do because the mirror tracks the timeline across the branching possibilities where their movements most closely align with our own, or..." I trailed off, vaguely aware of the girl's eyes flicking back in forth in thought as the scenarios in my head organized themselves.

"...Or?" Dale prompted impatiently, surprisingly seeming to follow the explanation thus far. Maybe I didn't give him enough credit.

"Or," I continued, "in addition to that, this orb has an actual function, and what it's showing us is relevant, somehow—and it is, therefore, potentially far more dangerous. It could be that these people in another world really will replace us somehow. Perhaps there's a hidden trigger word that will cause that to happen. Maybe it will cause us to switch places; us heading to their world and them coming to our own." I growled in frustration, "or it could be something totally different. Like I said, I need to bring this in so we can run some tests—and probably wait a few months, or even years—before we start to learn anything concrete."

The young boy in the orb gave a reassuring smirk, and Dale's voice piped up from the periphery. "Hey, you'll get it done. The Earth hasn't been destroyed yet so far as I can tell, so you're doing a great job in my book! I should probably let you get on with it; I've got dusty shelves to keep company, here. I'll get you that info you need and call you up if any other special things turn up."

Giving the orb one last squint-eyed examination, I pocketed it and threw up an arm in farewell to Dale. "Your cooperation is appreciated as always. You already know not to disclose anything at risk of having your memories wiped in accordance with our contract."

"Yeah, yeah, and you have a nice day, too."

I gave a snort, but the edges of my lips tugged up just a little. I walked out of the pawn shop with a lot to think about, and my exhaustion pushed just a little further back in my mind.

The spherical object in my pocket shifted slightly as I strode away. Time to get to work.