The last traces of the portal are wiped away by the brisk wind. Jared shakes the hair out of his eyes like a sheepdog, and looks up. His opponent has arrived.
"What've you got there? Been studying up?"
Jared puts the book facedown on the picnic table, and just smiles.
Nishi nods to him. //He thinks he's really ready to take on a Set. Heh. But who am I to disillusion him when he's doing a fine job of it himself?//
Jared nods.
And the Set begins.
Fracal (n.) a geometric shape that is complex and detailed in structure at any level of magnification.
Nishi opens the door and enjoys a few moments of relative quiet with nothing more than Aya's radio - she'd left it switched on again - playing softly in the background. And then the children come home.
Aya turns off the TV and kisses Nishi gently on the bare patch on top of his head where a bald spot is just beginning to form.
"Huh? What - oh, it's you, Aya."
"Long day at work?"
"How could you tell?"
"You fell asleep during Sliders again."
Jared wakes up on his back, staring at the moon. He gets up, and groans as the headache comes roaring back. //Oh, yeah - now I remember why I haven't done a Set in a while.//
He picks the book up off the table, waves his hand over the picture on the cover, and the note appears.
'Jared, You weren't ready for a snowflake. Enjoy the Mandelbrot hangover. Though you deserved to get this one, if you keep reading stuff like this it's going to be me next Set. - Nishi'
Jared grins. "You're a good man, Nish," he mutters. " But I'm holding you to that." //Why don't I do this more often?//
The phone rings loudly in Peter Craney's ear, jolting him awake.
"Hello? Yeah. Yeah? Really? I'm there."
Aya answers the door. //Who's so impolite to come here at eleven?// she wonders as she jerks back the chain and yanks open the door.
"Ma'am, are you Aya Kitachi?"
"Yes. And exactly who are you?" She makes no effort to hide her annoyance. "My child and husband are asleep, and if it can wait until morning we'd all appreciate it. Sir."
"I'm Peter Craney. Special Forces." He flashes a badge.
"Special Forces?" Aya raises an eyebrow. "I've never heard of them."
"I'm sure you haven't, Ma'am. We try to let ourselves be known only to those who need to know us. Like your husband."
"What does this have to do with Nishi?" She bites the corner of her lip. //Nishi would never...he couldn't. It's impossible.//
"Nightingale?" Nishi calls from inside the kitchen. "Is there any more coffee? I've got insomnia again and-"
He walks out into the hallway, and looks at the door. He blinks. The bright sodium streetlights give a green tinge to Aya's eyes, he notices. And then, he notices the man.
"Aya? Who's that you're - "
"I'm sorry," Peter says to the woman. //I hate it when it ends like this.//
"For what?"
"I'm about to ruin your life."
He flips open his badge.
Nishi sees the round emblem engraved in blue in the center of the silver medallion, waves his hand. He steps through what appears to be a giant hole in the living room couch, and is gone.
Peter speaks into his walkie-talkie. "He's a Runner. A squad, you know the drill."
He holds up an officially holographed court document as ten or so people storm into the room and disappear through more holes.
//At least,// Aya thinks, trembling, //I hope they're people... that one had awfully long hair.//
"Nichi Kitashi has been charged with knowledge of fractalics in the first degree. Furthermore, he has been charged with the teaching of aforesaid knowledge to others on this plane and in planes 3Z, 4Y, and 5Z. This offense falls under the jurisdiction of the Special Forces division and will henceforth be carried out as they see fit."
"Planes?" Aya says weakly.
//Oh, God, I hate this part of my job...//
"You don't know?"
Aya shakes her head.
"Planes... like realities. Universes. Portals? The Nexus?"
Aya stares up at the man- //Peter whatever-his-name-was// -in blank confusion.
"Ever seen Sliders?"
"Peterson, p.467, third paragraph down?" she muttered to herself as she switched off the machine.
For the first time in a long time, she went into Nishi's study. It hadn't been that he hadn't let her in. It'd been the fact that she thought everyone deserved their own little private space, away from the children, away from work, away from everyday life.
It'd been the fact that there'd been too many books and papers in there for her to dust effectively.
It'd been the fact that whenever she entered the room, decorated in navy blue and gray, that she got the feeling that there were secrets there that she would maybe be better off not knowing. The feeling that she might be better off not knowing even that there *were* secrets.
She found the Peterson after a half-hour search among thick, nearly identical-looking reference books. It was on the very top shelf - she had to use the stepstool - in the most inaccessible corner. Most of the other books on that corner were old, with layers of dust. The Peterson had no dust.
She took it down and read the title aloud. "Practical applications of Chaos Theory, volume 14. Hiram Peterson." She stood there for a moment, indecisive. Then she turned to page 467. There was nothing else to do. The third paragraph down had been highlighted with yellow and pink markers, and there were symbols and drawings - none of which she understood - in the margins in both pen and pencil all down the page. There were notes in Nishi's handwriting. And Jared's. And a few other people's, as well. She shivered.
One phrase in particular had been underlined numerous times: "The aforementioned principles of chaos theory are currently being applied to natural processes and metaphysics; much of the research centers on fractals as they relate to the whole of chaos theory. Cutting-edge world-spawning theories tying both fields together are currently being put forth by such emminent researchers as Kettering, Lacomb, and Mullins, among others."
She put the book down. //I've just found one of those things I would be better off not knowing,// she thought.
She sighed. As if the sigh had been an invitation, exhaustion entered her body, her mind, her soul. It seemed to take forever and all of her will-power for her to put the book back on the shelf. /I will burn it tomorrow,/ she thought. /When the children are away at school. I'll burn all of it. I am simply too tired now./
Aya walked into the bedroom and turned on the light, sat down on the bed. The room still smelled like Nishi, of his soap and his cologne, and simply of him. /The children,/ she remembered. /What am I going to tell the children? They are going to see their father's picture on the news tomorrow. What do I say?/
She turned the light off, and slunk out of the room like a guilty dog. She would be more comfortable, she kept telling herself, if she could sleep in the bed. But Nishi's smell, always so comforting, lingered. And it was no longer a comfort.
She slept fitfully on the pop-out sofa they kept for guests, and wondered, inbetween dreams, how many other secrets her husband had kept from her.
"This is Ethel Gerard, for channel 9 news-on-the-spot. We bring you the news as it happens. Right now we're outside the Special Forces depot for Jericho and Kinley counties, and - excuse me? Mr. Peter Craney? Excuse me!"
He didn't excuse them, but had the mic shoved in his face anyway. He frowned, and hoped the cameras caught it. "What do you want?"
"We've just heard that your Special Forces unit is involved in tracking down and apprehending a known fractalist. Is this true?"
"Yes. I'm sorry, I can't release any details about the investigation at this time." /Or: leave me alone and let me sleep./
"But the head of Special Forces recently gave a statement wherein he mentioned measures put in place to deter the escape of such criminals from this plane at all. Shouldn't it have been impossible for the fractalist to escape?"
/Oh, God. I'd hoped they wouldn't take this tack./ "Nothing is impossible, when you're dealing with highly skilled criminals," he grumbled, and pushed his way through the small crowd that had gathered outside of the Special Forces district depot.
Behind the glass doors, there was blissful silence. He dragged himself upstairs, told a subordinate to tell him if they caught either of the fractalists, and fell asleep on the cot in the rest-room with his clothes still on, like a child.
*****
Nishi Kitachi screamed. He could not see, and felt as though his body was being slowly torn apart by a horde of ants, mindless, merciless. Painful.
And then, he was standing on a Parisian streetcorner. He smelled coffee, and chocolate, and gasoline fumes. He looked around. About 1978, give or take six months, he deduced from the make of the boxlike cars and his memories of his junior year of college away. He'd loved Paris, but had eventually had to go back home.
He turned around, and gasped.
Definitely 1978, his shocked brain told itself, as he stared back into his own, younger eyes. Definitely 1978.
/How had I not remembered - forseeen?- this in 1978?/ he thought.
And then, curiosity overruled his fear. "Excuse me," he said in French, and ran after the young man. Himself.
"Yes? Can I help you, sir?"
He gaped for a moment more, thinking: /It's the Twilight Zone, with better manners/ - and then held out a hand. "Nishi Kitachi, at your service."
The young man blinked for a moment. "Excuse me? Do I know you?" He looked up at Nishi through a pair of silver-rimmed glasses that slid down his nose as Nishi watched.
"Er. Well." Nishi debated for a moment; then, trembling, waiting for the theories and space-time and the physics to prove themselves right, said, "You should, shouldn't you? Since you're me."
"I'm sorry. I don't quite understand you." He frowned, and a deep vertical wrinkle appeared between his eyebrows.
/It's just like I frown!/ thought Nishi. /He's me. Or rather, I'm him. How could he not know me?/ And then he caught the sheen in the wrinkle, an iridescence. As if he'd come to Paris in 1978 wearing Aya's blue frost eyeshadow on his face. He looked closer. There were patterns, twisting and moving over the skin, letters or pictograms etched in blue. He took a step backwards, and nearly fell off the curb. "I - I'm sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. It's just - well I thought you looked like someone I knew once. Ex - excuse me. I'm sorry." He turned and just barely kept himself from running away up the street.
The student shrugged, waited for the light to change.
Nishi found a bench in a park, the same park he'd walked through on the weekends with Claude and Bridget. He sat, staring at the cropped shapes of the trees until they blurred in his vision. /I have no idea where I am. It's the Paris I know. But it's not. At least I hope it is. And I can speak the language. So far. I wonder how Jared's doing. I wonder how Aya is, Aya and her blue frost eyeshadow..../
The passersby watched the man as he cried, softly, on the park bench. A few wondered what was wrong, but none stopped to speak to him.
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