Flux (4 page)

When she was certain the agent had passed on in search of other prey, Nellie returned to the corner store from which he’d emerged. It was obviously a building in flux, which made it worthy of a second glance. On top of this, it was a building that could supply her with everything she needed for several days. Entering the store she picked up a basket and moved along the aisles, selecting packages of candy, nuts, cold cuts, some bread rolls and fruit. Two women had followed her in and she waited them out, dawdling and scratching at fresh bug bites until they’d completed their purchases. As the clutch of bells tied over the door signaled their departure, she grabbed a large bottle of nevva juice and approached the till.

Everything seemed quiet and she could see no sign of the flux the building had displayed when the Interior agent had emerged from its east wall. Briefly Nellie considered hanging around in the hopes of another shapeshifting rush, but she had more than one goal to accomplish today and needed to act quickly. Besides, she and the clerk were alone in the store, and that simplified her next task greatly. Nellie had never seen anyone else do what she was about to do. No one had taught her this skill. It had come to her,
startlingly, after her mother’s disappearance, born out of necessity, out of flux. Setting her basket of purchases on the checkout counter, she smiled at the clerk.

“Hi there.” The girl behind the counter looked young, perhaps fourteen, her left wrist unblemished and free of scars. Heavy green makeup accented her eyelids, tapering into long wings that scooped across each temple, and silver rings swung from her nose and lips as she punched the first price carelessly into the till. She hadn’t given Nellie more than a cursory glance.

Here we go
, thought Nellie, letting her own eyelids sink heavily over her eyes.
Slow it all down, turn it inside-out.

“Inside-out”was her term for it, knowing no other way to describe the sensation of flipping backward into the darkness of her head, where she dissolved into a deep throbbing hum. At the same time she remained conscious of her position in front of the till, staring at the oblivious clerk through the narrow slits of her eyes. It was a little like being in two places at once. Anchored inside her physical body, Nellie also floated within the deep hum of her mind, sending herself beyond her own skin like an electrical field that permeated everything in its path and converted it into a vast pattern of shimmering bits of energy. As she did, solid objects lost their outlines and the molecules within each box and can of food, the counter before her, even the clerk’s body, came into focus, humming and throbbing like a massive swarm of bees.

Or souls
, thought Nellie, vibrating at the center of the vast pattern that surrounded her.
Rocks and water and walls and tin cans all have souls. Most people just can’t see them.

Tuning into the molecular plane of existence was a little like being shifted into high gear, and her thoughts raced as she scanned the throbbing pattern. As far as she’d been able to figure out, the molecular field served as a buffer—a kind of intermediate stage you had to tune into in order to be able to see the exit points leading to the next level of reality. If you didn’t know how to locate these gates you were stuck in your home level, the one into which you’d
been born. Probing the shimmering bits of energy that lay before her, Nellie quickly found what she was seeking—three, no four tiny seams that ran spiderlike through the quivering mass that surrounded them. Four gates. This corner store had obviously been used for inter-level traveling before.

Slowing her thoughts, Nellie tuned partway back into her normal view of reality. As she did, the shelves of tin cans and baked goods swam into focus, overlapped with her view of the molecular field so each object hummed and shifted within its outline. Across the counter the clerk now radiated such a mass of energy that it drifted, free-form, from her arms and back. Nellie grinned, thinking of angels she’d seen pictured in children’s books. Superimposing realities made them much more interesting. It also meant she could now figure out how the four gates aligned with solid reality. A quick scan of the overlapped realities located one seam snaking horizontally along the wall beside the store entrance, another laid across the floor, and two that hovered vertically midair—the closest at body height and a mere two steps to her right.

Perfect
, Nellie thought with a burst of satisfaction. The Goddess was definitely looking out for her today. Traveling between the levels was much easier if a ready-made gate stood waiting in a convenient position. All she had to do now was stop time in this level, open the gate and step through. But first she had to position herself so she was standing directly against the gate. A foot too far to the right or left and she would miss her chance.

Taking two steps to the right, Nellie positioned herself so the vertical midair seam ran directly through her body. Then she fixed on the hum at the base of her brain and moved deep into its vibrations.
Slow,
she thought.
Slow it all down, take it toward sleep. Sleep, sleep, everything sleep.
Obedient to her thoughts, the hum deepened. As it did, the room’s molecular field began to lose its intensity, a swarm of bees settling for a long winter nap.
Dream
, Nellie whispered into the quieting pattern.
Dream a snake sunning itself, dream a drowsy stone.

On the other side of the counter, the clerk sagged against the till and yawned. Through the molecular field that connected them, Nellie could feel the other girl’s heartbeat thicken and her mouth take on the taste of sleep.
Falling, falling,
she whispered into the clerk’s mind.
The air is growing heavy and you are falling down a long dark tunnel toward sleep.

Drowsily, the clerk glanced at the clock above her head, watching the arrow-tipped hands that dragged between seconds. “Geeeeeeez, I’m sleeeeeepeeee,” she slurred, her index finger drifting over the till.

Let her add everything up first
, Nellie told herself.
Wait until she’s opened the till.

The hum at the base of her brain deepened yet again, slowing the room’s molecular field further. A fly buzzed sluggishly past the clerk’s nose, but the girl barely lifted her eyes. About her head dust motes were slowing, and the second hand on the clock was barely moving. Her heavy-lidded eyes skimmed lethargically over Nellie’s pile of purchases, checking one last time, and her index finger settled onto the ‘Total’ key.

“Okaaaaaaaay,” she yawned. The till gave a long drawn-out click, the money drawer inched outward, and Nellie sent one last message into the room’s molecular field.
Stoooooooop,
she whispered, and the clerk’s mouth froze, mid-yawn. Dust motes stopped moving about her head, the fly droned to a halt above her nose, and the clock on the wall came to a standstill—every molecule in the room caught and fixed in a pattern, the pattern of one specific moment.

Carefully Nellie focused on the seam that ran midway through her body. What she had to do now was tricky because she couldn’t afford to confuse the gate’s molecules with her own. Fortunately the pulse rate of a gate was so unusual, it could immediately be distinguished from any surrounding molecular field, even one that had been locked in time. A gate felt like dead space, a scar of solid nothingness. Sending her mind into the thin line of nothingness that dissected her body, Nellie began to push outward.

The seam divided cleanly, creating a human-sized doorway that stretched several inches beyond her arms. Immediately Nellie sent her mind into the blur that could be seen through the gap, assessing its vibratory rate and bringing her body into sync with it. The process took less than a second. When it was competed, the blur had disappeared and she was stepping into a reality that existed one level beyond the one she’d just left, a virtual copy: same grocery store, same clerk with the same green-winged eyeshadow, and, two steps to Nellie’s left, a duplicate of herself, standing with her eyes riveted to the till’s money drawer. The only noticeable difference between the two levels was the slightly quicker rate at which this one vibrated, but that was normal. As far as Nellie could tell, the different vibratory rates were what kept the levels separate.

Deeply involved in a heated argument over the price of the bottle of nevva juice, neither the clerk nor Nellie’s double appeared to have noticed her. Moving swiftly toward a pyramid of tinned fruit that had been stacked at the front of the baked goods aisle, Nellie yanked a corner can out of position. Instantly cans began toppling onto the shelves of baked goods and cascading to the floor. Without a backward glance she took off for the aisle’s other end, then turned and ran up the next one, just in time to see the clerk dart from behind the till, intent on saving the doughnuts. Unguarded, the till loomed wide-open.
Perfect
, Nellie exulted as she slipped behind the counter. There was enough money here to keep her fed for weeks. Ditching her excitement, she reached for the nearest wad of bills.

But another hand beat her to it. Oblivious to Nellie, her double was sprawled across the counter, fumbling and snatching at anything within reach. With a hiss, Nellie raked her fingernails across the back of her double’s hand. As it withdrew, she began ramming bills and coins into her pockets. The fact that her double had seen her was of little concern. This often happened when she traveled the levels, but her doubles were usually so stunned by the experience that they did little more than gawk. This double was more
active than most, but the person Nellie figured she had to keep an eye on was the clerk, who was moaning loudly and plucking cans out of the dengleberry tarts. If
she
turned around, the molecular field would really start jumping. Lifting the cash drawer, Nellie scrabbled for coins that might have slipped underneath.

“Hand it over, all of it,” hissed a voice, and suddenly a knife appeared beneath Nellie’s nose. Startled, she glanced up to see her double leaned toward her, reaching for the money she hadn’t yet shoved into a pocket. As usual they were mirror images, dressed in the same T-shirt and jeans, their blond hair pulled back into the same short ponytail and glaring at each other with the same unusually slanted gray eyes. But the knife dancing beneath Nellie’s nose was definitely out of sync with the mirror image. Just as she’d thought, this store was in flux. That was the intriguing thing about flux—you could never predict the way it would reveal itself.

And then before Nellie’s eyes, her double began to shapeshift. Openmouthed, Nellie stood fixed in her human form, watching her double rotate rapid-fire through a variety of threatening forms— ghoul, vampire, gargoyle, demon. But how was that possible? Nellie could feel no flux in the air, no quirk in the molecular field. Her double seemed to be manipulating her own physical reality entirely at will.

Returning to human form, the double glowered at Nellie. “I don’t know who you are or where you come from,” she said grimly, “but this is
my
store.
Everything
in it’s mine.”

There was no need to panic—shapeshifting and a knife were mere technicalities against a gate to another level. Jabbing a finger in the direction of the clerk, Nellie shouted, “Look out!” Then, as her double whirled to see what was behind her, Nellie darted around the counter toward the gate. Stepping into the gap, she drew the two halves of the gate together and sealed them, then synchronized her vibratory rate with her home level’s. Gradually she brought the surrounding molecular field back into time. Dust motes began to drift and the fly buzzed away from the clerk’s nose.
On the wall the clock dragged itself through one second, then another. Slowly the clerk took a deep shuddering breath.

“I need a coffee break,” she muttered, one hand pressed to her heart as if to make sure it was still beating. “That’ll be fifteen dollars and ninety-four cents.”

Pulling a crumpled bill from her pocket, Nellie handed it over. Without hesitation the clerk gave her the change and packed her purchases into a bag.

“Thanks.” Untroubled by guilt, Nellie headed for the exit. Perception created reality and as far as her home level was concerned, she’d left everyone well-paid and satisfied. If this clerk remembered anything out of the ordinary, she would dismiss it as a wild dream, and if a fourteen-year-old girl in the next level was fired due to money that had gone missing on her shift, it was none of Nellie’s concern. Flux upended everyone’s life, whether or not you clued into its existence. This time it had left her with the task of figuring out how her double had been able to shapeshift when there was no sign of flux in the vicinity. Once she’d solved that question, Nellie would also be able to shapeshift whenever she wanted.

Whistling, she leapt off the store’s front porch and swaggered down the street, munching contentedly on a bread roll.

Chapter 4

S
HE HAD ONE MORE GOAL
for the day—to buy a metal canister for food storage. Digging out a candy bar, Nellie swung the grocery bag over her shoulder and slipped into the busy street. Already the corner store theft was fading from her thoughts. One last memory of her shapeshifting, knife-carrying double crossed her mind—now that had been a real rush, a double that made her think for a change—and then she ditched the incident completely and focused on the surrounding crowd.

On all sides street pedlars bartered with women who were keeping sharp eyes on the children that darted shrieking about their knees. Eagerly Nellie’s gaze flicked over the scene, taking in everything she saw and filing it as information that could be used to shore up her shrinking store of memories about her own mother. These related mostly to the time they’d spent in the Out-backs before her mother disappeared, for Nellie could recall very little of their life in the Interior, and the urge to fill those missing years with some kind of story had her continually searching her environment for details from the lives of other children. Had her mother, for instance, ever grabbed Nellie’s arm and yanked her out of a spit fight like the mother scolding her seven-year-old son across
the street? Probably. Had she braided her daughter’s hair with red ribbons and bells like the small girl seated next to the vendor selling animal-head balloons? Probably not, and it seemed like a surefire way to drive a kid crazy, but still Nellie followed every twist and turn of the little girl’s head, listening as the bells sent out their faint tinkle. This would make a lovely bedtime story to tell herself about her own mother, she decided wistfully—the two of them walking through a bustling market, Nellie’s hair tinkling down her back, her small hand engulfed in her mother’s large palm.