Chapter 23

  Eric Walker

  Eric awoke abruptly, with no awareness of when or where or how he had fallen asleep. The last thing he remembered was…being on his moon? Talking to the blue gorilla? He sat up and shivered against a sudden gust of chill wind. He sat in the dark, in the open, facing an array of distant lights. The first order of business was making a damn coat for himself.

  But when he tried, nothing happened. He wasn’t wearing the medallion. And for that matter, all his clothes were different.

  “Well now,” said a voice with an Irish accent. “That’s one, anyway.”

  A man stood behind him, cape billowing dramatically in the wind. He had a long cane tipped with glimmering crystals, but could not make out his features in the shadows. At his feet…

  Eric was upright in a second. Then, immediately, was back onto the cold, gritty tarmac as his muscles failed him. His entire body was stiff. What the hell? “The fuck did you do to Heidi?” he croaked. His throat was dry.

  The man laughed. Not a sinister laugh, but a good-natured chuckle. “Calm down, Mr. Walker,” he said. “She’s fine. Though I can’t get her to wake up at the moment.” That Irish accent threw Eric off. He had no idea who this person was.

  “Might need to take it slow for a bit,” said the man.

  “Who are you?” asked Eric. He did as the man suggested and flexed his arms and legs, working out the kinks.

  “Name’s McFinn. Riley McFinn. A pleasure to meet you at last, Mr. Eric Walker.” The man bowed at Eric with a flourish of cape and cane. “And before we continue, let’s get in out of this cold, aye?” He stooped down to grab Heidi, hauled her up, and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. “This way.” He marched off into the dark.

  “Wait…” Eric struggled to his feet and took a few teetering steps. His body soon remembered how to walk, and he struggled after McFinn. He saw, from his new vantage point, that he’d been lying on the runway of an airfield of vast proportions. Countless colored lights made paths and lines and alleys curving through the dark, all the way to the black, starry horizons.

  He ignored this and focused on catching up with McFinn. “What’s wrong with Heidi?” he asked. His voice was rusty, his throat dry.

  “Just asleep, no worries.”

  “But she won’t wake up?”

  “Can’t be conscious in two places at once,” Riley answered. “I expect she’s occupied over there, didn’t want to be bothered. Here we are.” He descended into an almost invisible gap in the airfield, a dark stairway down into the tarmac.

  “How long’s it been?” McFinn asked once they’d dropped out of reach of the wind. A bright light detached from somewhere on McFinn’s person and hovered in the air, illuminating the stairs.

  “Uh…how long?”

  “In the Narrative. How long for you?”

  Right, the Narrative. “Coming up on two weeks.”

  “I see,” said McFinn with a click of his tongue. “Been around three days on Earth. Since you left.”

  “Uh…how’s that?”

  “Time dilation. Temporal relationships are a bit strange here.” He illustrated ‘here’ with a vague wave of his hand, indicating their surroundings. It was this gesture that made Eric finally understand where they were. Back in the Museum. McFinn continued, “You know how in a story the writer may compress or elongate the passage of time? For pacing or dramatic tension?”

  Did Eric know that? “Sounds about right,” he said. “So it’s like that? The Museum goofs up time?”

  “It’s not like that, lad. It is that. Ah. Where are we, now?” The stairs had terminated in a square wooden platform just large enough for the three of them. Riley set Heidi gently down on the floor and inspected a nearby panel of wooden levers. Heidi looked peacefully asleep. She wore the same clothes she’d worn on Earth, the ones she’d wandered around the Museum in. And so was he.

  The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “So…” said Eric, putting it together. “We didn’t actually go into the Narrative? Or, we left behind a copy?”

  “The copy is the one in the Narrative, I believe,” answered Riley. “The angel creates it. According to Nick.” This didn’t really clear anything up, and Eric was about to ask another question when McFinn pulled a lever, apparently at random.

  Eric’s stomach rose up into his chest as they plummeted down into the dark. McFinn, unconcerned by the drop, continued. “Only one of your bodies can be conscious at a time.” The darkness vanished as they fell into a warmly lit world of ropes and lights and catwalks and sandbags. Something that must have been their counterweight rushed upward beside them. “I came to get you two.”

  Their fall slowed; they came to a rest with a soft bump onto a creaky wooden floor strewn with sawdust. McFinn again hoisted up Heidi and proceeded as though he knew exactly where he was going.

  “Where are we going?” asked Eric, trying to take in the colossal curtains and the galaxy of colored stagelights far overhead.

  “Back to Earth, I hope,” said McFinn. “Our allies will be in danger. Including your sister.”

  Eric stalled out at this piece of news. Going back? Back to Leah? It seemed too good to be true. He ran to catch up with McFinn again, because hot damn that guy walked fast. “How do we get back to Earth?”

  “That’s the tricky bit,” said McFinn. “Technically you don’t need to be awake for it, but you know. I didn’t want to carry both of you. There is Ezekiel as well. He’ll try to stop us, I’m sure. Kill you two, if he can.”

  “Ezekiel?”

  “Starlight, apparently. He runs October Industries. On Earth, at any rate.”

  Right. Of course. Fucking October Industries. Stupid fucking name, anyway. But this—all this, it was exactly what he wanted. Back to Leah. “This isn’t some fucking dream, right?” he asked.

  McFinn laughed. “An astute question, Mr. Walker! But don’t you know where we are?” At this moment, McFinn’s course took him beyond one of the hanging red velvet curtains. He swept it aside with his cane, and his cape rippled to the side as he strode onto the stage beyond. “The Dream Museum!”

  It was, of course, the biggest fucking stage Eric had ever seen in his life. You could fit a basketball court on it, plus sidelines, bleachers, and a concession stand. McFinn paused to appreciate some imaginary applause and bowed dramatically, almost dropping Heidi onto the gleaming floor.

  Eric counted on his fingers as he came up behind McFinn. “So it’s: get to Earth, help Leah and the others, don’t get killed by OI.”

  “You let me worry about all that, lad,” said McFinn. “Your concern is on the other side.”

  “What? No way. I can’t help if I’m…” He gestured at Heidi, limp on McFinn’s shoulder. And honestly, Eric was impressed that some skinny guy like McFinn was carrying Heidi for so long. She was short, but not light. Something was odd about the arm McFinn held her with. His sleeve was rolled up, and the skin looked cracked like glass.

  “Correct, Mr. Walker. But now that I’ve woken you up once, you should be able to wake up again, just by going to sleep on the other side. That’s according to Nick.”

  “That’s how it is? Asleep in one body, awake in the other?”

  “More or less. Though he also said that you do need real sleep as well. Asleep in both bodies, that is. Now. Any more questions?”

  Eric missed his ability to create objects. But what about…yes, there it was. The beat. He still had it. He could affect the tempo, even here.

  “One more question,” he said. “How do you get your cape to do that, look all billowy and shit? My cape just flies up over my head.”

  “Ah.” McFinn tapped his freckled forehead. “I suppose I can share a trade secret or two. It’s lead, my lad.”

  “Lead?”

  “Or another weighty material of choice. Line the hem. A bit extra on the corners. For that dramatic flair.” He demonstrated by spinning—again almost dropping Heidi—and waving his cape around. It did look good. All billowy. He had clearly put some thought into it. “It is especially useful for keeping it behind you when flying about or moving quickly. And it helps prevent the damn thing from falling over your head.”

  Eric nodded. “Got it.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nope. Let’s go.”