Fractal Mode

CHAPTER 15—RADICAL

COLENE and Esta woke together as the first light seeped through the heavy curtains at the window. Provos was already up and repacking their things. She seemed to have taken part of one of the heavy drapes and cut it up; Colene was about to inquire about this odd behavior, but Esta touched her arm.

“Is it true?” Esta asked hesitantly. “Am I really going to go away with Uncle Slick?”

“It’s true,” Colene said. “You’ll go today.”

“But Mom will worry.”

Colene knew that syndrome. “You’ll send her letters that can’t be traced. Your uncle will know how to do it. And you’ll never mention what has been. In time maybe you’ll forget it yourself.”

“Oh, I wish!”

Colene ordered breakfast, knowing that they would have time to shower and dress before it arrived. She was correct. Provos seemed surprised when the food came; this was her first experience, in her memory.

As they finished eating, Provos became nervous. She peered out the window. Colene felt a mental uh-oh.

Colene picked up the phone and dialed Slick’s number. There was no answer; the line merely opened. “Colene. Tell Slick we’re ready now. Hurry—and watch out.”

There was no response. Colene hoped that she had done it correctly. “Let’s get moving,” she said. Then, glancing at Esta: “We’d better mask you. In fact, we’d better mask all of us, because it could be my folks tracing my call or something, or yours. They’ll have descriptions.”

Provos brought out three things. This was what she had made from the drape. She opened one out and lo, it was a sort of cap or wig. She set it on Esta’s head and pulled it snug under the girl’s chin, and Esta was transformed into a cross between a nun and a foreign dignitary.

“But that will stand out like a sore eyeball,” Colene protested. “We’ll hardly get through the hotel lobby, let alone travel around town unnoticed!”

Provos came to her and put a similar cap on her head, and fastened it. Colene shut up, having to trust the woman’s judgment.

Finally Provos put one on her own head. Then she led the way to the door, carrying Esta’s suitcase.

Colene and Esta followed. “Play along,” Colene told the girl. “She knows what she’s doing, even if we don’t.” She hoped. This ploy seemed farfetched and perhaps dangerous.

They went down to the lobby, where Colene approached the desk and checked out. A different shift was on, and the man affected not to notice the headdresses.

They walked outside. Police cars were pulling up to the hotel. Colene suffered a start of apprehension. She wanted to bolt and hide in the bushes, but Provos marched right toward the cars. She approached the first cop as he strode toward the hotel, and said something in her own language.

The policeman shrugged her off. “Ma’am, I don’t speak your lingo. We’re on other business. You’ll have to go to your embassy for a translator. Please stand aside.” He resumed his advance on the hotel.

Suddenly the sense of it registered. The police were looking for fugitives, not conspicuous foreigners! Provos had hidden them right under the pursuers’ noses.

Colene peered around for Slick’s car, but didn’t see it. He wasn’t here yet. But it was dangerous to linger long. What were they to do?

Provos didn’t hesitate. She walked right to a strange car driven by a bearded man and opened the rear door.

“Different car! Of course!” Colene breathed. She and Esta piled in after the woman.

Sure enough, the man in the cap and dark glasses and fake beard was Slick. Provos had remembered.

They pulled away from the hotel without event. They had made a clean getaway. “Provos, I don’t know what we’d have done without you!” Colene exclaimed. The woman nodded, removing her headdress; it had served its purpose.

“Got your call,” Slick said. “You played it close, kid.”

“Well, we didn’t want to rush breakfast,” Colene said. Esta tittered, and Slick smiled.

He drove several blocks, then parked. “Change cars,” he said. This was the kind of procedure he was accustomed to.

The other car was a rattletrap with a bad paint job. But when they got in and he started the motor, Colene recognized the sound of a racing machine. This thing could probably break speed records, if it had to.

They drove to a large shopping center. “We have a couple of hours to kill,” Slick said. “The plane takes off after your date with the prof. This is a good place to hide, and we can change your outfits while we’re at it.”

So they went shopping for clothing. Slick and Provos posed as the elders, while Colene and Esta were the school-age girls. They wound up with matching dresses and shoes. Then Provos got a new outfit, a somewhat severe business suit. They had been transformed again.

They stopped for milkshakes, which Provos liked; she acted as if it were her first experience, and for her it was. Then they returned to the car. It was time for Colene’s appointment with the professor.

Colene, nervous about what could go wrong, hardly noticed the university layout, despite the fact that she had once hoped to attend it herself. The University of Oklahoma was known as a football school, but this was the separate Science and Arts aspect, which was different. It was ironic that here she was, to see a professor, but she would never attend this school.

Soon they entered a building and found the professor’s chamber, which was a cozy den. There was a large aquarium by one wall, but it did not seem to have any fish in it. Colene had somehow expected a classroom, but of course this wasn’t any regular class. The professor was Osborae Felix, and what he called recreational math was his hobby rather than his specialty. He made them comfortable in easy chairs, then focused on Colene.

“If you don’t mind,” he said to her, “please tell me how you came to be interested in fractals. This will help me to orient on your need.” He was a man of middle age and receding hairline, but he did not wear glasses. Colene was trying to adjust her expectation; she had somehow imagined all professors with spectacles.

Colene shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe it, Prof.”

“Still, I would like to hear it.”

“I’ve just come from a fractal universe,” she said.

“Unsurprising. This is a fractal universe.”

“Oh, you mean the way ferns form the patterns and all?”

“And all,” he agreed. “We are constantly discovering new and subtle elements of our fractal existence, from the pattern of the distribution of galaxies in our universe to the phenomena of quantum mechanics. But I presume that is not what you have in mind.”

He was patronizing her. That made Colene react. “For sure. I just came from a world which was shaped exactly like a Mandelbrot bug. I need to find out how to find the ninth of the ninth.”

“You are referring to a model of the Mandelbrot set?”

“No, a world. The size of Earth. The rads are huge. And it’s a satellite of a much bigger world, which is the satellite of a still bigger one, and so on, nine worlds back. And the stars give off light. The whole universe is one monstrous Mandelbrot set.”

Professor Felix frowned. “I suspect we have a confusion about the nature of the Mandelbrot set.”

“No, we don’t,” Colene said. “We just need to know how to number the rads.”

Provos got up and walked to the aquarium. Felix glanced at her, surprised. “You have heard about my analogy?”

“No,” Colene said. “Let’s have it, if it helps the numbering.”

The professor shrugged. “Perhaps it is best to begin at the beginning.” He went to the aquarium and turned on a light. It sent a strong beam down through the water. Then he turned on a submerged water jet, and the water began to circulate. “Note the shadow pattern,” he said.

Colene saw that the ripples and swirls on the surface of the water were almost invisible, but they cast shadows which were quite clear against the white bottom of the aquarium. There were circular patterns with dark centers, the shadow forms of little whirlpools. These drifted outward from the region of the jet of water, becoming smaller and finally disappearing. But new and larger ones formed closer in.

“Note that the entire pattern is three-dimensional, but the shadows show it in two,” Felix said. “We can not perceive the pattern as it truly is; we are as it were seeing a mere silhouette. Yet even that is instructive. There is a regular procession of typical shapes, and by observing it we can see the evolution of figures and derive insight into their nature. We can see that these are not fixed outlines, but moving boundaries, guided by specific rules. The currents of water move with certain amounts offeree, and friction with the stable water causes these currents to split and curl, forming vortices. We can photograph the shadows, but we know these are not genuine objects.”

“But the universe I saw was genuine,” Colene said.

“A universe,” he said, disdaining her irrelevancy.

“With the equivalent of land and sea and stars and people and laws of nature, which are magical.”

The professor continued as if he had not heard her. “Now consider the Mandelbrot set. This is a mathematical construction. It is obtained by plotting vector sums of points on an Argand plane—that is to say, with one real axis and one imaginary axis. It is a convenient way to graph a complex equation. That is, one with a component involving the square root of minus one. In this case—”

“This is more technical than I need,” Colene said. Actually she understood him well enough, but she didn’t need basic theory, she needed a way to count rads.

“My point is that this is not a physical object,” the professor said. “In fact, the Mandelbrot set is not an ordinary graph. It is that portion of the plane for which the sequence of a mapped equation is bounded. So—”

“Professor, it may be just a mathematical construct to you,” Colene said. “But it’s pretty damned physical to me. All I want is a clear way to number the rads!”

He focused on her. “Would you try to explain color to a man who had been blind from birth?”

That set her back. “You’re saying that first we have to understand the fundamentals before we get specific?”

“Yes. And to establish an analogy that will facilitate at least a partial comprehension.”

She sighed. “Point made. I can’t demand that you name that color if I don’t know what color is. But you know, Prof, I haven’t got time for a semester course on the nature of light.”

“Agreed. Are you conversant with the concept of Julia sets?”

“I named that reality Julia. But all I know of Julia sets is that they’re sort of squiggly shapes on the computer screen. I don’t know what they mean. I figure that the Mandelbrot set is maybe one big Julia set.”

“Not exactly. The Mandelbrot set helps define a particular family of Julia sets. Each point in the Mandelbrot set is a memory location for a distinct Julia set, which can be of any nature, generated by a fractal equation. But all Julia sets will be self-similar in detail, and a change of scale does not significantly affect the complexity of the figure. So it is possible to tell the general nature of a particular Julia set by knowing its placement on the Mandelbrot set.”

“Say, I get it!” Colene exclaimed. “Each point on the Virtual Mode is a location for a distinct universe. And you can tell what that reality will be like, in general, if you know the region of the Virtual Mode you’re on.”

His brow furrowed. “The Virtual Mode?”

“We’re on the same wavelength, Prof! The Virtual Mode is to each universe as the Mandelbrot set is to each Julia set. And the universe I’m talking about happens to look just like the Mandelbrot set, but I guess it’s really just a Julia set.”

Felix frowned. “If you can satisfy me as to your physical set, I will satisfy you as to the designation of its parts,” he said. It was evident that he didn’t believe her, and also that he was revising his estimate of her sanity downward. Colene had never been one to take that sort of thing without a fight. So she let him have it.

“Okay. Think of our universe as a series of diminishing spheres. There’s the ‘Big Bang’ at the center, and clusters of galaxies flying out from it, forming the biggest sphere. Each cluster forms another sphere, if it hasn’t fallen apart. Each galaxy is a cluster of stars and dust surrounding a ravenous black hole at its center. In the early days a lot of matter was being drawn into that black hole, and as it got torn apart at the edge of that maw it gave off a lot of energy, and we call that a quasar. Now that process has slowed, so we call them galaxies. They’re still basically spheres with centers, only instead of flying out they’re spiraling in. Meanwhile there’s a sphere of dust and fragments around each star; those fragments we call planets. They’re not flying out or being drawn in, they’re in orbit, but it’s the same idea on a smaller scale. Then consider the planets: each one seems to be a spherical conglomeration of solid materials, with a molten core. Same idea, again. Then look at the stuff the planet is made of, and we get down to molecules, which are like even smaller spheres, and then atoms, which seem to be spherical shells surrounding spherical nuclei. Down inside an atom we can get into baryons, made up of quarks: maybe more spheres. So each level of the reality we know is similar to each other level, only different too, never identical. Exactly as it is with fractals. This is a fractal universe, in essence.”

She paused. She had gotten the professor’s attention, and she could see his estimate of her rising again, as if the mercury in a thermometer had dropped with night and was moving up again with the heat of day. But she had only begun.

“Yet out of this assemblage of diminishing spheres comes the world we normally perceive, which consists of solid ground, liquid seas, and gaseous air. Of houses, cars, and next-door neighbors. Of life and death, love and hate, and parents and children, each similar to its origin yet never quite the same. We don’t even think of the spheres, we just eat and drink and laugh and cry and wonder about the meaning of life. This is us. Even though we are so small, in terms of the universe as a whole, that someone viewing the universe from another dimension, seeing the whole thing, would never even notice us. We’re just mold on a fragment circling a star on the fringe of one black hole among billions. We’re not important at all, objectively speaking.”

She met the professor’s gaze. She could tell that he was on the verge of being impressed. Good; she wasn’t done.

“Worse yet, the entire universe we know may be only one per cent of the whole thing. You’ve heard about the so-called Dark Matter, the stuff that no one can detect, yet it’s supposed to make up ninety-nine per cent of everything. We can’t see it, we can’t touch it, we can’t catch a sample of it; it just doesn’t seem to exist, as far as we’re concerned. But it has gravitational effect, and our galaxies are affected by it, so we know it’s there. We just don’t know what it is, or why there’s so much of it.”

“My friends in the physics department say much the same,” the professor agreed. “But this hardly relates to fractals.”

“Oh, yes, it does! You asked me for a physical set, and I’m setting up for it. Because the way I see it, it’s not one per cent of the whole shebang we can see, it’s more like a millionth of it. That gravity we see operating is just the trace that leaks through to our reality from the myriad other realities we can’t see. Most of it stays in its own slice of reality, but nothing’s perfect, and that tiny leakage may account for the special effects which so mystify our astronomers. From one reality there’s hardly enough to make a difference here, but from millions of realities it adds up. So I figure they’ll never find a particle to account for all of it, because some of it’s coming from places that just don’t exist for our scientists. Magic places.”

“Magic,” the professor said, frowning. “I really don’t believe—”

“I’m just telling you how there can be a whole lot out there you never dreamed of, Prof,” she said. “You don’t have to believe it. Just accept it theoretically, as a rationale for how there can be a physical Mandelbrot set, and follow my lead. The way I guess you make your students do.”

He nodded. “I think I would like to have you as a student. I can see that you are an unusually imaginative ninth grader.”

“That’s not the half of it, Prof!” Colene was aware that his comment was not necessarily a compliment. She marshaled her thoughts. “Now picture the Mandelbrot set not as a construct of the mapping of bounded sequences, but as an actual physical reality. With a monstrous central figure looking like a six-legged bug with hairs curling all around its body and a spike on its snout. That’s like the sphere of galaxies surrounding the Big Bang. Each little satellite bug is a miniature of the original, like a galaxy. Each tiny satellite bug of a satellite bug looks much the same as its parent, but the pattern into which it fits is always a little different too. Right down to the quark level, and maybe beyond. Assume that in that reality there is a buglet way out on the fringe of nowhere significant that’s the same size as Earth, and occupies the same place as Earth, if you superimposed the two realities. That has people on it who look just about like us. If you stood on that planet-bug and talked to those folk, you’d hardly know you weren’t on Earth. Only if you had a microscope or a telescope would you be able to see that all the things of this reality, instead of being composed of diminishing spheres, are composed of diminishing iterations of the Mandelbrot set. And because of this fundamental difference, science wouldn’t work well there, but magic would, with special rules of its own that might not make a lot of sense to folk of the spherical universe. And one of those rules was that to do just the right kind of magic, you had to find the ninth of the ninth rad. How would you find it?”

It was a moment before the professor spoke. Then he found a new way to approach the problem. “Accepting such a theoretical construct, I would go to the most feasible nomenclature,” he said. “Come here.” He walked to a table and brought out a small sheaf of papers.

Colene went there. As she did, she saw Provos gesture to Slick. Slick was picking up on the woman’s special ability, and joined her, and the two of them left the chamber. Colene wasn’t sure what was going on, but she trusted Provos, whose mind she could read a little, and she didn’t want to alarm Esta, who seemed bemused by the dialogue and the ongoing patterns in the water tank.

Felix unrolled a large picture of the Mandelbrot set. Every detail seemed to be there, and there were numbers all across it. The black center part of it was divided into sections, as if it were hollow with chambers ranging from huge to tiny. “I think for this you do not want computerized coordinates,” he said. “You are not in the business of calculating the set itself, you merely want a way to identify the parts of it in a readily understood manner. As if you were standing on its edge and figuring out exactly where you are.”

“Right,” Colene said. “Actually it’s more complicated than this. The one I’m on is, pardon the expression, spherical. That is, three-dimensional. The rads are on the front and back as well as the top and bottom.”

“But there can be no front and back,” he protested, “because the figure is in essence a silhouette, a mere shadow—”

“Of the reality,” she finished. “The silhouette of a three-dimensional figure would look like this.”

He nodded. “In that case there will be a problem of nomenclature. However, let’s first define the existing designations.” He lifted a stylus and pointed to the main part of the figure. “This is the Body of the Radical Master, or Rad Master, our primary figure.” He pointed to the smaller disk on the left. “This is the Head.” He pointed to the line extending to the left. “This is the Spike.” He pointed to the depression on the right. “This is the East Valley.” He pointed to the deep crevice between the body and the head. “And this is Seahorse Valley.” He glanced at her. “Are you with me so far?”

“Right with you,” she agreed. “I knew those terms. Those crevices are filled with water, where I’ve been. But it’s the rads I need to know.”

“We are coming to them. Now for convenience we always orient the Rad Master this way, with the Spike to the west, no matter which way it may be pointed as you see it. Thus the radicals, each of which is a miniature of the Rad Master, are North above and South below. To clarify the situation, we must assign Radical numbers: R1 for the Body, R2 for the Head, and the largest around the Body is the North Rad, which we designate R3. We descend from the larger to the next smaller for this purpose, never skipping down. Thus the only Rad larger than R3 is R2, which is the Head, and the only Rad larger than R2 is R1, the Body. You remain with me?”

“I sure do! This is coming right onto what I need.”

“I’m sure it is. Having proceeded east to reach R3, we continue east to reach R4, which is the largest of all the radicals between R3 and the East Valley, here. Then on to R4, R5, and so on, heading into that valley.”

“Right down to the ninth, R9,” Colene agreed. “But where is the ninth of the ninth?”

“That would be the ninth rad on that ninth rad,” he said, pointing to an almost infinitesimally tiny bump on the small R9. “However, I’m not sure that is what you want. Hasty conclusions are often in error.”

He was getting entirely too professorish for her taste. “Well, maybe. But I think that’s it.”

“But you see there are other R9’s. For example, if you were to turn back at R3 and proceed west, you would in due course come to R3:R9, the colon indicating the change of direction. We don’t bother to mark R1:R2, because every sequence starts with those two. Consider them implied.”

“Change of direction,” Colene repeated, remembering the directions of magic indicated by the animus and anima. Her certainty faded.

“Perhaps you should explain why you want this particular designation.”

“Okay, you asked for it. But you won’t believe it.”

“I don’t need to believe it. I only need to understand exactly what you want.”

“There’s this woman, Nona, who can do magic because she’s the ninth of the ninth. She needs to get to the ninth of the ninth rad to change things so that women can do the magic instead of the men, only she doesn’t know where that is. So I have to find out, so I can tell her.”

“She is the ninthborn child, of the ninthborn of her father’s generation?”

“Not exactly. It’s her mother, and her mother’s mother. For nine generations back.”

“That is quite a different matter. Nine generations! Those folk evidently run to large families.”

“Actually they weren’t all large. It was the secondborn girl, and then the thirdborn. I mean, if the secondborn was a girl, and then she had three children and the third was a girl, and then she had at least four, with the fourth a girl, and so on.”

“Matrilineal, for this purpose. So your Nona is the ninth child in her family, the daughter of a woman who was the eighthborn in her family, and so on back through the seventh-born, sixthborn, and back to the firstborn.”

“You got it. And they align magically with the Mandelbrot bugs, a chain of satellites nine layers deep.”

The professor winced when she referred to the forms as bugs, but shook it off. “I believe I have it now. The ninth rad of the ninth rad would indeed be wrong. It would need to be the ninth rad of the eighth rad of the seventh rad, and so on. An entirely different address.”

Colene’s mouth fell open. “You’re right, Prof! You do know where you’re going!”

“It is my business to know,” he said. He seemed to be better satisfied with Colene than before. “So let’s proceed with the denouement. I believe I can give you a specific address that you can show your friend.”

“I’m for that!”

He pointed to the Head. “You will note that the Head has a head, and so on ad infinitum. We now use a slash to designate a rad on a rad: R2/R2 for the head on the head, R2/R2/R2 for the head on that, and so on. Similarly the next largest rad on the head, here, is R2/R3.”

“We can make a chain of rads on rads that way too!” she exclaimed.

“Precisely. And this chain more accurately reflects the numbers of the births.”

“It sure does. So then we go to the fourth rad on that rad on the head—”

“R2/R3/R4,” he agreed. “And so on to the ninth on the eighth. Unfortunately my printed diagram does not have that level of definition. I can use my computer program to amplify it on the screen, if you wish, but this will take some time—”

The door opened. Slick and Provos entered. “Trouble,” Slick said. “She put me on to it. The police must’ve located us. Do you have what you need, Colene?”

“Just about,” Colene said. “But—”

“Take this,” Felix said quickly, handing Colene an envelope. “This is an issue of Amygdala with a good discussion of nomenclature. You now understand the principles well enough to follow it.”

“Right,” Colene agreed. “You did the job, Prof.”

“And your account is quit,” Slick said. “I erased it last night. We don’t know each other. If anyone asks you—”

“This encounter never occurred,” the professor said. “I have spent this hour reviewing fractals alone.” He looked relieved. “And I owe no one anything.”

“Right,” Slick said. He looked at Colene. “Come on.” Provos was already hurrying Esta out the door.

Colene followed them out, pausing only long enough to wave goodbye to Professor Felix. He had in the end had what she wanted, and that was what counted. If she had helped him get out of some bad debt, maybe from gambling, she was glad.

Then she reconsidered. She couldn’t just depart without more than a wave; anyone could wave. So she indulged her propensity for risk-taking, ran back into the room, caught the professor by the shoulders, and planted a passionate kiss on his surprised mouth. “You couldn’t teach this ninth grader much, Prof!” she whispered, and stepped back.

He was still staring with satisfying stupefaction as she closed the door on him.

Provos was leading the way out of the building—but not the way they had entered. In fact they used a fire escape. Then she led them to an unfamiliar car.

It was locked. Slick brought out a tool and jimmied open the door. They piled in while he reached under the wheel to hot-wire the ignition. They were stealing a car!

“But my suitcase—all my things are in the other car,” Esta protested.

“We’ll get you more,” Colene said. “It’s not like you had a lot to lose.”

“Duck down,” Slick said, donning some kind of mask. Colene and Esta were in back, Provos in front. Provos did not seem to be hiding. What was going on?

They pulled out as a police car pulled in. Colene caught just a peep of it through the window before she buried her head.

The car traveled slowly, as if the driver were completely unconcerned about anything in the neighborhood. The two in front removed their masks; Slick seemed to have such things with him as standard equipment. The car turned onto a faster highway and accelerated. Then Slick spoke. “No? Damn!”

Colene and Esta lifted their heads. Slick now looked like an old man with a broad mustache, and Provos looked like another. Provos was pointing back the way they had come.

“You better believe her,” Colene said. “She remembers the future, and I think you have no future in that direction.” “But I was headed for the Oklahoma City airport,” he said as he slowed and signaled a turn. “That’s where our plane leaves. I was going to get you and Provos a taxi back to anywhere you wanted to go.”

“So they’ve got the airport staked out,” Colene said. “So you’ll have to drive instead. It’s better than getting caught.” Slick nodded. “She’s been right so far. She put me on to the approach of the police, and to the one car that would not be missed for a day. She may not speak our language, but she’s one savvy old woman.” He lifted his right hand, and Provos lifted her left hand at the same time and touched his fingers. What got Colene was the fact that neither of them looked, but the contact was perfect.

They drove back through town, then southwest toward Colene’s home. This was the opposite direction the police would expect. But they would be watching Slick’s house too.

“You’d better just drop Provos and me off near my house and go on through town without stopping. We don’t know how fast they’ll spread the net, once they catch on that you’re not at the airport. Sorry you wasted your money on those tickets.”

“The money’s nothing, I just want to get my niece clear of this country to where she’ll never hurt again. Start a new life, maybe, for us both.”

Esta smiled. She wanted it too. She probably realized that her uncle was not on the right side of the law, but she believed in him, and so did Colene, in this respect.

A light started flashing behind them. It was another police car.

Provos turned to Slick, making a signal of not-to-worry. But he, conditioned by years of his business, was already cutting over to the right. He swung out of the lane, around the line of cars ahead, and drove with two wheels in dirt until he squealed onto a small road intersecting at right angles. The rear end of the car slewed, giving Colene a scare before stabilizing. This wasn’t her idea of fun driving.

The police car spun onto the road behind them. Slick accelerated, but it was clear that this car lacked the power of the other.

Colene saw Provos concentrating, trying to remember what happened next. She knew that Provos’ memories were changing; Slick should have pulled over for the police car, and there would have been no trouble. Maybe it was just a bad taillight. Otherwise Provos would have been concerned. Now Provos was concerned, and needed to sort out her new memories to see whether they were acceptable.

They were not. Provos pointed to the right, indicating that they should turn onto the next crossroad. But Slick didn’t see her. “Turn!” Colene cried, but by then they were past the spot, and Provos was looking confused again.

Suddenly there were two police cars ahead, turning sideways across the road to form a roadblock. “They radioed ahead,” Colene said. “They’re going to catch us. Because we acted suspiciously when it was a routine check.”

Provos got her memories straight again. She jogged Slick’s elbow. This time he caught her signal. She pointed to a trail leading off to the left, winding around behind several farm houses.

Slick whipped the car onto the trail. A cloud of dust flew up. In a moment a police car appeared behind, stirring up its own dust. Worse and worse; this looked like a dead end, so that they would be trapped. Why had Provos brought them here?

Provos pointed to a dilapidated barn. She held up her flat hand in a stop gesture.

“God, I hope you know what you’re doing, woman,” Slick muttered. He drew up to the barn and stopped.

Provos gestured them out of the car. She herself was the first out. She ran back the way they had come, through the cloud of dust, waving Slick back.

The police car came up—and Provos stumbled directly in front of it. The brakes screeched as it slid to a stop, barely missing her. She fell half over the hood, wailing.

There was only one man in the car. He got out and caught Provos as she started to fall. He didn’t see Slick circle the car and come at him from behind.

Then Slick put one hand on the cop’s head. He took a handful of hair and hauled back. The other hand held the open razor. It was barely touching the man’s exposed throat. “Now, take it easy,” Slick murmured in the man’s ear. “You better believe I’ll use this thing if I have to.”

Provos straightened up and walked to the police car. Colene and Esta followed. Then the two men, walking in lock-step, came too. The wicked razor remained poised. “You are going to drive,” Slick told the officer. “I have your gun. I will use it on you if you make a peep. You will radio that you lost the car and are searching. You will acknowledge radio contact without signaling that anything’s wrong. Do this, and you will get out of this with your life and health and car. Fail, and I will do what I have to do. All I want is transportation. Got it?”

The man nodded, slowly. A bead of sweat was trailing down the side of his face. He did know who Slick was, and what his business was.

Provos directed Colene to the front seat this time. The others got in back, and the cop took the wheel. Slick did have the gun; he lifted it as he withdrew the razor. It was aimed at the policeman, through the seat back.

The man made the report Slick had specified. He did not give any alarm. Colene knew that Provos would have remembered it if he had.

The car started on down the trail, and then onto a better road. Provos pointed. “Turn left,” Slick said. The man turned left.

Provos shook her head no. The man’s hand reached for the radio. “Don’t touch it!” Slick snapped before the motion was fairly started.

They came to the highway where all this had started. Provos pointed right. “Turn right,” Slick said.

At speed, they relaxed, because Provos had relaxed. She did know what she was doing. Occasionally she would signal them to slow, and Slick gave the order and the driver slowed. What mischief they avoided in this manner the others would never know, and that was just as well.

Then Provos signaled a stop. They stopped. She indicated by gestures that Slick should tie the cop’s hands behind him. Slick used the man’s own handcuffs for that. Then, following her directions, he looped cord through the handcuffs and tied the man to a telephone pole, a short distance from the police car. Then they walked away. True to their word, they had left the man alive and in health and with his car. But without his gun. Seeing that, the man elected not to cry out to any of the passing vehicles.

Provos waved to a pickup truck coming down the highway. It stopped. Provos glanced at Colene.

Colene took the initiative. She flashed her most winsome smile at the driver. “We lost our car, and need to get into town. Can we ride in the back?”

The driver was a youth not a lot older than Colene herself. He hesitated, staring down at her from the cab. Colene realized that he was trying to get a glimpse down inside her blouse. She leaned forward and drew her head back just enough so that he could get that glimpse. “Yeah, sure,” he said, probably not even aware that the eyeful had not been an accident. In certain circumstances, men were easy to manage.

The others climbed onto the back, but Colene joined the driver in front. “Gee, this is real nice of you,” she said brightly. Indeed, she felt positive; she enjoyed proving every so often that her stuff worked. “We were really in a bind.” She snuggled close.

It was no trouble at all to reach her house. “We’ll get off here,” she said. “It’s been great!” She kissed the youth on the cheek, then scooted out. By the time he realized that he didn’t even know her name, it would be too late.

They watched the truck depart. “Okay,” Colene said. “They don’t know about me yet, so my house isn’t watched. My folks won’t be home for another hour. So you can come in and phone for a taxi, Slick, and get far away. Provos and I will disappear.”

Then things started happening. They heard sirens approaching, and knew that the police had gotten the word. “Get out of here!” Colene cried to Slick. “They won’t know where you are if Provos and I distract them long enough.”

But Provos quickly caught hold of Slick’s arm and urged him toward the house. Colene was astonished. “But you can’t mean—” Yet suddenly it was falling into place. Provos had been helping so actively; surely this was what she had foreseen. There was now little chance for Slick and Esta to make a clean break; the pursuit was getting too close. No chance except the Virtual Mode. “This is awesome,” she finished.

A police car appeared. They ran around the house, into the back yard. And Colene paused, appalled. Dogwood Bumshed was gone.

Suddenly it came together: her father’s understanding when she told him about the Virtual Mode and the anchor in the shed. He had believed her—and had acted to prevent her from using it. By having the entire shed removed.

The back door of the house opened. Both her parents came out. They hadn’t even gone to work! They had set this up, and lain in wait for her return. They meant to keep her here, whatever way they could.

It was frightening, yet also touching. The members of her family did care for her; they wanted her with them. Yet they proposed to do it by force. It wasn’t enough that they knew she was well and halfway happy; they wanted her here. So they had betrayed her.

But Provos was forging right on toward the spot, seeming not to have noticed that it was gone. Policemen were appearing all around the property; they must have been waiting in ambush. They would not only trap Colene and Provos, they could catch Slick and Esta: disaster for them both. What did it matter on which side of the yard they were actually caught? They were all doomed.

Colene felt tears of frustration and dawning rage coming. She had worked so hard, and come so close, only to be balked right in sight of the anchor. Slick had faithfully performed his end of the bargain, and now he would be locked away in prison, or worse. And Esta would be returned to her stepfather for her daily torture and rape.

“Damn it!” she swore. “It’s not fair, it’s not right! It’s not supposed to be this way!”

“Come on, honey,” her father called. “We only want what’s best for you. That man’s a killer, and the girl’s a runaway, and the woman is crazy. But you don’t have to be. Give up this delusion. We love you.”

What could she say? Deep down she did love her folks, but she hated them too, for all the wasted years, and for getting straightened out only in her absence, and for finally betraying her like this. She could never trust them again. She would die in their captivity. By her own hand. She couldn’t live without Darius and Seqiro. And what would happen to them when Colene didn’t return with the rad numbering information?

Now the neighbors were coming, attracted by the commotion. Men, women, and children, staring curiously. None were hostile, but their presence helped seal this little party’s doom. There would be no way to break through them all and escape.

Provos reached the spot of bare ground. She clasped Esta by the hand and stepped forward. She disappeared.

The approaching police stared. Colene’s parents stared. Colene stared.

Then it registered: Bumshed was gone, but the anchor wasn’t. Only Colene herself could free the anchor. They could escape!

But the police were catching on that something strange was afoot. They charged across toward Slick. Provos reappeared, grasped him by the hand, and hauled him with her across the region. They disappeared.

They had made it to the Virtual Mode! But Colene hadn’t—and she was too far from the anchor to make it. The police had already crossed that region, and were converging on her. She alone would be trapped here.

Her father strode forward and grasped her arm. “Come on, honey, we’ll take care of you. We’ll get you straightened out at an institution—”

Colene had an inspiration. Her hand plunged into her purse. She yanked out the roll of hundred-dollar bills. She brought it to her mouth and used her teeth to rip off the band. Then she hurled it into the air.

The roll came apart. Bills started peeling off. They fluttered through the air, drifting to the ground around her.

“Money!” a child cried, diving for a bill.

The policemen stared. “Those are hundred-dollar bills!”

Then there was a mêlée. Amazed, Colene’s father let go of her arm. Everyone wanted the money.

Colene cranked up her legs and ran at top speed for the anchor. One of the few alert policemen made a grab for her, but she banged past him and got through. She dived for the anchor—

And everyone disappeared. She landed on green turf, alone. She was through! But still nervous, though she knew she couldn’t be followed. She scrambled back to her feet and walked on.

Suddenly the others were there: Provos and Slick and Esta. “Thank God!” Colene cried, and tried to hug all three at once.

Then she took stock. “What a pass this is! You folk probably didn’t even believe in the Virtual Mode, and now you’re on it. And I don’t know how we’re going to get you off it, because they’ll be watching the anchor.”

Esta fidgeted. Colene looked at her, realizing that she was shy about expressing herself. Thus encouraged, the girl spoke. “Do we have to get off it? This seems nice.”

“Well, this is almost just like the reality you’ve always lived in,” Colene explained. “The house and yard are the same, and most of the city will be the same. But there’s never been a shed here, so you know there’s no Colene here, and probably no Slick or Esta. It’s not your reality; you never existed here.”

“Then we could go out and establish our identities,” Slick said. “I will have no criminal record, and Esta will have no abusive stepfather. We can make it with a clean slate.”

“Why, I guess you could,” Colene said, surprised. “You won’t need to go to Mexico or anything! But won’t you have trouble getting your ID papers and stuff?”

“No, I know how to fake ID’s.” He looked at Esta. “But getting her back into school without records will be harder. We’ll probably have to move to another state.”

Colene shook her head, disturbed. “I didn’t see this coming, but I guess I should have, because now I see that Provos remembered this all along and knew exactly what to do. She brought you both through the anchor. Now that it’s happened, I don’t feel easy about just dumping you in a strange world and leaving you. Anything could happen, and it’d be my fault.”

Provos had been working with material from her pack. Now she approached Slick and proceeded to tie a length of cloth around his left arm, binding it securely to her right arm. Slick, surprised, did not resist.

“I think I have just been answered,” Colene said. “When Provos spends any time in a reality, she remembers what will happen there. It seems you are coming with us.”

Provos tossed a cloth to Colene. Colene approached Esta. “You see, you folk can’t cross realities unless one of us holds on to you. If we let go by accident, you could get stranded, and we might have trouble finding you. So we have to tie you to us, so we can’t let go.” As she spoke, she bound her own left arm to Esta’s right, so that each was clasping the other’s forearm and locked in place.

“Gee,” Esta said, intrigued. “You told Professor Felix that there was magic. Will we see dragons?”

“We may,” Colene said grimly. “This isn’t any game, Esta. There’s danger on the Virtual Mode. We are traveling a route we know, but anything can happen when we cross boundaries. Let’s get moving.”

They walked in step, retracing the route she and Provos had used. Thus commenced what would be a journey of several days. It was uncomfortable, but necessary. Provos led the way this time, though her memory could be at best spotty across the realities, and her path deviated somewhat from the one they had taken.

Colene was alarmed, but then she realized what the woman was doing: she was heading directly for Oria. Because they had been away for too much time already, and God only knew what was happening to Darius and Seqiro and Nona. Colene tried not to think about what effect that beautiful woman might be having on that man and that horse. Right now she had to concentrate on getting through the realities safely, and getting around that sea that bordered the anchor at Oria, because they couldn’t cross it. Maybe Provos had enough memory of the future to figure that out too. She hoped.

On the way, Colene talked with Esta, getting to know her better. She confided that she had mixed feelings about leaving her folks of the Earth reality. They weren’t evil, just wrong for her. So she knew Earth was no place for her to stay, but still she felt guilty about leaving.

“You’re so smart and pretty,” Esta responded. “But you feel the same as I do.”

“I guess I do,” Colene agreed. “But you know, where we’re going, there are other things. If Provos knows what she’s doing, you’ll wind up in a reality where you are as smart and pretty as you want to be.”

“But I’ll always be ugly inside,” Esta argued. “Just as long as I can remember where I came from.”

Then another revelation dawned. “Provos is taking you to her reality!” she exclaimed. “Those folk remember only the future, not the past! If you get to be like them, nothing in your past will count. And nothing in Slick’s past. It will be an absolutely clean slate.”

“And I’ll always be ugly here,” Esta said, tapping her chest.

“No, I don’t think so,” Colene said. “Because it’s a different culture. They don’t judge by the same things. And anyway, we’ll be stopping first at Oria, where there’s magic. Nona will be able to heal your scars, and then later you’ll develop and be a woman, and you won’t even remember how you are now.”

“I wish,” Esta breathed.

“We’re going to make it happen,” Colene said, beginning to believe. Things had been so complicated, and now the future was starting to come clear. Provos must have joined the Virtual Mode for this: to go to Earth and help rescue Slick and Esta, and bring them back to her own reality where they could live in peace. Provos had a spare floor; she’d probably put Slick there, and let Esta sleep where Colene had, up on the top floor. In that manner Provos would get a family, for all anyone knew a son and a granddaughter. It was a nice world, and they would surely like it. It all made so much sense, in retrospect. And Provos had seen it coming, of course. “Sometimes wishes are granted,” Colene told her. “In ways we never expected. I think you have a nice future coming up.”

But what of Colene’s own future? She had no guarantees about that, because she wasn’t going to settle in Provos’ reality.

She was headed, she hoped, for Darius’ reality, and that looked very nice. So long as Darius hadn’t changed his mind in the interim about just which girl he wanted to settle down with. If he had, what then would be Colene’s fate?