Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144277 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 721(@200wpm)___ 577(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
And if it came down to it, I’d do that just to save him.
Sacrifice.
It’s kind of a thing where I come from.
But Tyse Saarinen is worth it.
5 - TYSE
Clara Birch falls asleep in my arms with a tiny smile on her face. Like she just had the best day of her life. But if she could see herself in a mirror, her heart would be beatin’ as fast as mine is right now because she looks like crap. Utterly pale. No color at all in her cheeks.
I took all the spark inside of her to make this jump across worlds. Her body is limp, like I stole every bit of energy in her muscles.
And I’m just not sure it was worth it. For what? To stop Lover Boy from blowin’ up god towers on a train line? I mean, it’s his world. Maybe I should just let him?
But then I think about Tau City. My Tau City and how the veil was so thin that Anneeta could see the phantom towers. The threat is clear. It’s bleedin’ through. Clara’s world and my world. And even though it doesn’t appear that she comes from a place like the Outlands, there’s no tellin’ what might go wrong back in 1440 if it bleeds through with 702.
And this world hopping? It feels like a break. At the very least, a tear in the membrane that separates the worlds. Did I have to rip open every world between 1440 and 702 to get us here?
And if so, what effect does that have on the worlds we just passed through?
Maybe this is how the Outlands started? Some augment was jumpin’ worlds and broke them.
It’s too early to know, I tell myself. It was our first time. We’re just figuring things out. We don’t know the limits yet, that’s all. We just need a little time. A little bit of practice.
I want to believe it, but then I look down at the woman in my arms and all the hope fades. She looks like shit.
And I don’t know what to do about it.
Which is a lie. Because I do know what to do about it.
I don’t have any spark inside of me to give her. To replenish her.
But that’s what she needs.
And I know where to get it.
I don’t need Clara’s energy to see other worlds. And as I think these words in my head, without even looking through my data display for frequencies, the worlds begin to appear. A chaotic and simultaneous overlapping, hundreds of layers deep.
It would be very easy to reach over and take what I need. The problem is, this particular space, on whatever grid is organizing all these worlds, doesn’t seem to be inhabited by anyone because we’re not only underground, we’re hidden from the train line. This place, in the same space in other worlds, is probably just rock.
There’s no spark to steal.
At least, easily.
Because the odds that there is no spark here at all, are so low, they might as well be zero, and here’s why:
Frequency is limitless. There are an unlimited number of frequencies because it comes in fractions, not whole numbers. Even if I only take the decimals out to three places, that’s an infinite number of options. Infinite. Meaning, if I look long enough, I will find someone to steal spark from.
But just because I can do something, doesn’t mean I should.
Unless it comes to saving Clara Birch.
Will she recover on her own?
I can’t know. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn’t.
So I have to look. I have no choice.
I hold her tight as I go inward, sifting through all the overlapping worlds crowding my overlay. One by one, I go through them. One by one, I find nothing.
It takes me hours to find a single worker, but there’s something wrong with it. It doesn’t have any spark to steal, for one. And it’s also… alien.
It looks human. A gleaming and smooth white body with arms and legs. But it’s not skin or clothes that it’s wearing. It’s some kind of carapace. Like a suit. And it’s got no face, so that must be a helmet.
A soldier?
No.
It’s not a soldier.
It’s a bot.
Just thinking the word makes me shudder. Bots were outlawed so long ago, I couldn’t even tell you the date. Back when the gods first took over the world after the sandy Sweep covered everything, leaving nothing but dunes in its wake.
I stare at it for a few minutes, gazing across the veil. Wondering what it’s doin’. But then, the woman I’m holding in my arms shifts, pulling my full attention back to her.
Her face is nearly transparent now. Little blue veins appear under the thin skin of her cheeks and neck. Little spidery lines that scare the shit out of me as I hold her limp body in my arms.