

Knocking on Reality's Door

The Chronicles of Clark Wilson

by Karl Williams

Copyright 2012 by Karl Williams

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission from the author, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are a work of fiction or are used fictitiously by the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is strictly coincidental and is not intended by the author.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

-Albert Einstein
A short stocky man in a long bulky coat walked through the gloom of the deserted street. He approached the entrance door to the rundown apartment building. Bricks from the six-story structure lay crumbling on the sidewalk where they had fallen from above. The building had not seen any maintenance in many years; if it was in a better part of town it would have surely been condemned years ago. But its dilapidated look was not out of place in this section of the city. He climbed the steps to the door and pushed it open into the dirty entrance way. As the door closed there was a loud click from it and the lights became noticeably brighter, showing the graffiti covered walls in the 6 by 6 room. In front of the man, the inner door into the building was splotchy brown with grime and filth. Rust stains showing through the dirt in places. On the left wall were rows of locked mailboxes for all the apartments in the building, eighteen in total, three per floor. Everything about the entrance way showed that the building had seen better days. Sixty years earlier when this was the up and coming section of the city, the apartments were rented out to couples on the rise or small families trying to save a buck. Since that time there had been many years of neglect and abuse to help the apartment building achieve its present look.

The man took out a key ring and selected a small key and inserted it into the mailbox with the number 13 on the front of it. Opening the mailbox he revealed nothing but an aged flier for the Grand Opening of a now defunct supermarket. The man reached up and slide his right hand under the flier; the flier lit up from underneath as the biometric scanner read the palm print of the man. A beep sounded and there came a loud clunk from the interior metal door. After removing his hand he shut the mailbox and pulled open the inner door walking into the vacant foyer. The musty odor of mildew and dust assailed the man's nose as he started up the dilapidated staircase. Reaching the second floor he walked past a door on the right with a large 4 just to the left of the door on the same level as the peephole in the door. Casually reaching up and running his finger over the top of the 4 as if inspecting for dust, he activated a switch hidden there. Continuing down the hall past number 5 where he pressed the doorbell button in passing. Upon reaching number 6 he inserted his key into the lock and turned it at the same time as he pressed the doorbell button. The door unlocked and he pushed into the apartment beyond. Closing the door he reached to the left and flipped up the light switch he found there, turning on the single overhead bulb. The dim light emanating from the bulb showed the first room in an unremarkable three room apartment, he walked through the front room and into the kitchen on the right. Going straight to the sink he flipped on the garbage disposal switch. With a swish of air the refrigerator pivoted out from the wall revealing a doorway into apartment number five. Had he failed to hit any of the switches on the way in the hidden doorway would not have opened, his secret den would not have been revealed.

He walked into his home and sealed the door behind him, breathing a sigh of relief. "Safe at last." He said to the empty room. Throwing off his coat he sat down at the desk, the desktop lit up from within revealing the fact that the whole desk was a computer with the top being the monitor. Sliding his hands across the top caused a holographic keyboard to appear under his hands and he began to type.

'It has been a year now and looking back things are starting to get foggy, I have decided it is best to write down what has happened to me before I forget it all. It's hard to believe so much can happen in so short a time; if anyone had told me a year ago what was in store for me I would have laughed at them and told them they were nuts.

At one time I craved an adventurous life, if I had only known; I would gladly go back to a boring life. I'm really not writing this for anyone but myself, but I also know that at some point it will make its way out to the worlds and others will see it. As you read this you will think I am crazy and living in a fantasy world. I have trouble believing it myself sometimes. But as much as I would like it to be a dream I have come to know that it is the reality that I live with.

So read on and prepare to be amazed, because the world you live in is not as it seems.....'

It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.

-Philip K. Dick
It was a typical Halloween. Nice fall weather, not to cold not to warm. I had decided to write a novel, something that I had always wanted to do. I had found out about novel writing month put on by the office of light and letters. I have never been able to write what I wanted, never known what to do and finally I was going to do it. Everything was in place. I downloaded Scrivener to help me achieve my goal. The cat was fed and supper was out of the way. By 11:00 I was antsy and just waiting for midnight so I could start.

That is when it started. The doorbell rang. "Who the hell could that be at this time of night?" I said.

"Well it is too late for trick or treaters." My wife said.

I wearily got up and answered the door. Turning on the porch light I looked out the window in the door. Seeing no one I opened the door, no one was there. I opened the screen door and stepped out and looked left and right. No one was in sight.

"Damn kids!" I grumbled going back inside and closing the door.

"Who was it?"

"Just some kids I guess, nobody was there."

Sitting back in my chair I picked up my computer to begin my adventure.

Knock Knock

"What the hell...?" Setting aside my computer I got up once more and went to the door. Turning on the light I opened the door again. Nothing, I looked in both directions, no one was in sight. This was getting old fast! Stepping out onto the front porch and looking around, I said, "I don't know who you are but you better knock it off and move on!" I said this in my most menacing voice of course. Well that was my intention anyway; I'm not so sure how it actually sounded. I looked around one last time and went back inside. Closing the door my mind already going back to my writing and what to do first, Knock Knock! Loud pounding sounded on the door behind me. Spinning around I grabbed the door knob and jerked the door open and crashed through the screen door. No one in sight again! Wait a minute. The knock was on the inside door how come the screen was closed?

The hairs on the back of my neck did their best impression of a porcupine's quills standing straight out! I felt a chill go down my spine, something was very wrong here. I rushed back in slamming and locking the door behind me. I rushed through the house turning on every light, checking in each closet and under all the beds. I nearly tripped over my feet as I rushed from room to room. Nothing, I found no one anywhere in the house. Okay maybe I was over reacting. After all it was midnight on Halloween night what did I expect. Maybe I had gotten a little too into the holiday. Walking back into the living room, "I must be losing it...." The room was empty.

"Kate?" Where had she gone?

Walking back through the house, going into each room, "Kate", I yelled. Then I was running "Kate!" The house was empty. Okay, now I was scared! What was going on? I went through the house again this time looking for a note. I had only been gone for a few minutes where could she have gone. Going into the kitchen I noticed the empty bottle of wine on the counter. I had not opened a bottle of wine tonight! Had I? This made no sense at all.

It was time to go outside and look around. Going to the bedroom I retrieved my .45 from the gun safe. If someone wanted to play games I was going to play by my rules. I decided that it was time to change things up and surprise whoever this was. Going back into the kitchen I opened the patio door and stepped out. The soft sounds of crickets fell on my ears. I waited, listening and letting my eyes adjust to the darkness. Slipping along the back of the house I slowly looked around the corner. The driveway with both cars waited for me there. I eased around the corner and walked in front of the cars looking between them and around them. Nothing, I was getting very use to finding nothing by now. I dropped to the ground and looked under them. Nothing could be seen under either car. Standing up and walking to the front of the house I looked down the length of the front porch. Only a year old the porch went the full length of the house, with plenty of lights and ceiling fans for spending enjoyable evenings in the rocking chairs we had bought just for that purpose. The three lights still shone brightly, the ceiling fans still spinning slowly. The porch was as empty as it had ever been.

I walked down the front porch cursing myself for walking into the light. As I approached the front door I saw that one of the rocking chairs was moving back and forth as if someone had just gotten out of it. Cocking my pistol and looking over my shoulder to insure I was still alone, I walked up to the chair. The chair was winding down, the motion barely noticeable now. Standing in front of the chair I caught movement out of the corner of my eye through the window in the front room.

Heart pounding I spun to my left and raised my gun. There in the living room sat Kate in her chair watching television. Taking a deep breath and letting it out with a shudder I lowered the hammer on my gun. Evidently while I was going through the house like a mad man she had come out onto the front porch and then gone back inside while I was going out the back. Relief flooded through me. Feeling sheepish and foolish I opened the front door and stepped back into the foyer. Slipping my gun into the waist band of my pants in back so she would not see it I stepped into the living room.

"You gave me a little scare there. I thought something had happened to you." I said as I walked past the living room and into the kitchen.

"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything."

Walking to the patio door and locking it I thought maybe I should drink some wine. I turned to the empty counter and stopped in my tracks. Empty counter, that was not right. No wine bottle, no wine glass. Had I been outside long enough for her to clean up and then go back into the living room? And the rocking chair still moving as I got to it? That did not seem right.

I walked back to the living room and looked down at her. "What is wrong with you, you are acting rather strangely tonight. Who was at the door?"

"No one was there. It must have just been some kids. You went out on the front porch you know that!"

"What are you talking about? I haven't left my chair all night."

Porcupine quills again. What the hell?

"Are you feeling all right, you don't look too well? I think you need to go to bed; you're tired and you have to work tomorrow."

Now that she said it I did not feel too well. I must really be stressed out about the novel. Feeling the weight of the pistol in my waist band I realized that I could have made a terrible mistake and hurt someone! Some poor trickster could have been shot because I had not been getting enough sleep and was stressing about a story! Face burning with shame I headed up the stairs to put the .45 back in the gun safe.

Maybe a nice hot shower before I crawled into bed. Going into the bathroom and turning on the hot water in the shower, I undressed. Looking into the mirror a bleary eyed tired looking 47 year old looked back at me. How had that happened? The body was still in fairly good shape, even though it was a little over weight. But the face was definitely haggard and had aged more than I liked. Well what did you expect; working two to five jobs at a time for over twenty years took its toll on a person. But it was my choice so I could not complain and I did enjoy my work. Climbing into the shower I decided that it might be time to start slowing down.

The hot water cascading over my tired muscles felt so good.

Knock.

"Yeah" I said standing under the hot water.

Knock Knock.

"Yeah" I yelled this time.

Knock Knock.

What the hell!

"What! I'm in the shower!"

Knock Knock.

"Son of a bitch, Can't I get any peace! Turning off the water and stepping out of the shower I grabbed a towel on the way to the door. Mumbling, under my breath, the curses that I was too tired to yell, I pulled the door open, I was unprepared for what I would find.

All I saw was an empty hallway, no one there, nothing at all to be seen.

Well what did I expect? It seemed that I had been finding nothing all night.

"What did you want?" I yelled through the open door. No one answered me.

Damn. I walked out into the hall. Something was wrong. It is a testament to how tired I was that it took me several seconds to realize what it was. Sunlight streamed through the dormer window above the foyer. I squinted into the light and rubbed my eyes. What the hell? This was quickly turning into my go to phrase. And this was quickly becoming a very strange night, or day?

"Kate!" I yelled as loud as I could. No response was forth coming.

Not just no answer, total silence. A total lack of any sound, I could not hear the ever present sound of cars passing on the street, no hum of electrical appliances, nothing.

Okay now I was really freaked out. It was no later than twelve thirty, one o'clock when I hopped in the shower. And northeastern Missouri was not known as the land of the midnight sun, so WHAT THE HELL!!!!

Every hair on my body was standing on end now, not just the hair on my neck. I ran to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of jeans and pulled them on.

"HHHHooooowwwlllll"

My blood ran cold. The ancient fear of wolves and all things that howl and growl coursed through me. I opened the gun safe and pulled out the same .45 I had put back last night/ today/ this morning/ a few minutes ago. Shoving the pistol into my waist band I grabbed a shirt and pulled it on. Was that wolves? There were no wolves in Missouri, were there? Wait wolves. A .45 was not going to be enough. Reaching back into the safe I pulled out a 12 gauge pump shotgun and a box of shells. I loaded 5 rounds into the bottom of the shotgun and pumped a round into the chamber. I did not know what was going on but I was not going to be caught under prepared.

Rushing down the stairs I started sweating. It was warm, warmer than it should be for the first of November. Reaching the bottom of the stairs I quickly went through the rest of the house.

I found nothing of course.

The house had that empty feeling, like there had been on one in it for some time. A layer of dust covered the furniture, furniture that did not look familiar to me after the first glance. Looking into the living room at the old broken-down furniture that looked like it had come from a second hand store sometime before I graduated high school; it was obvious that the house had been empty for a long time. Continuing on I went into the kitchen, no table blocked my progress across the floor as I headed to the patio door. Also there was no wine bottle on the counter this time. The hot sun shone through the cracked glass of the sliding patio door, bringing the temperature up a few more degrees in the stuffy house.

Tick tick.

Sliding the door open I stepped out into the hot sun. Hot, it felt more like the Fourth of July then All Saints Day. Brown dead weeds crunched under my feet on the patio as I walked out into the oven that Missouri was today.

Tick tick.

Surveying my beautiful back yard, in my memory it had been beautiful yesterday at least, I saw nothing living. I saw dead brown grass that had not seen water in a long time. The oak trees that provided shade on hot summer days were nothing but skeletons now. No sign that anything had been cared for anytime in the recent past.

Tick tick.

No sign of any animals at all, living or dead. The ever present birds always chirping and singing were nowhere to be seen or heard. In fifteen years I had never heard it this quiet in our neighborhood. No squirrels scolded me from the trees, no crickets, no tree frogs. Nothing to be heard, except for that ticking or clicking that I had been hearing for some time without realizing it. I turned in a circle. It seemed to be coming from my left toward the driveway. Walking in that direction cautiously I kept looking around at my yard and my property, what the hell! I rounded the corner of the house and looked onto the empty driveway. Both cars were gone, not that I expected anything to be normal at this point.

Tick tick.

Where was that coming from? It seemed to be louder now, tick tick, to the right now. It was coming from John's house. He was my next door neighbor who happened to be one of my best friends. Although we seldom saw each other these days we remained close. (Scream) a blood curdling scream came from John's open garage. I broke into a sprint headed for the open door.

TICK TICK.

It got louder as I ran. It was definitely coming from inside John's place. I pulled up beside the door and raised the shotgun, spinning I entered the garage gun first.

Knock knock.

Now inside I could hear that the tick was actually a knocking coming from inside the house. A loud knocking, getting louder as I delved deeper into the house. Going through the garage, nothing. Another scream from inside the house, I kicked open the connecting door into the house. Looking into the lower part of the split level in front of me the stairs leading up on my left, my shotgun sweeping left to right covering the open room. There was nothing to be seen, no one was in sight. The knocking louder now coming from upstairs, with my back to the wall I eased up the steps keeping my gun trained on the open stairs above me, ready to clear my path of anything or anyone coming down the stairs. As I reached the top of the stairs and surveyed the empty room that looked like it had been the preferred camping spot for a circus troop, loud thumps and bangs came from behind the door across the room leading to what I knew was the guest bathroom.

KNOCK KNOCK.

Loud knocking came from the door. Again a loud scream emanated from behind the bathroom door. Not sure what I would find behind the closed door but knowing that someone, female from the sound of it, was in trouble in there. I charged across the room, thinking briefly of how best to handle the situation. The door was a hollow core wooden door commonly used for interior doorways, flimsy, not meant for anything other than privacy in a family dwelling. Determining that surprise was the best weapon I had and knowing that the best defense is a good offense I crashed into the door.

KNOCK KNOCK.

Crashing through the door into the small bathroom beyond, flailing across the empty room, tripping over an old rug on the floor and falling head first into the water filled tub. What the hell?

Struggling to orient myself I came up out of the water sputtering, spinning to protect myself, knowing that I was a dead man if anyone was behind me. Rising to my knees in the tub I raised my gun to cover what was obviously an empty bathroom. A bathroom I was very familiar with. Shit! Looking around in disbelief! My bathroom! My dirty clothes that I had taken off before taking my shower were lying strewn across the floor where I had kicked them in my mad rush to plunge into the tub. What the hell!? The room started spinning around me. The door burst open and Kate stood there looking in shock at me.

"Clark! What are you doing? Why are you in the tub with your clothes on?"

"I...I...I don't feel well." As the room continued to spin around me and the darkness closed in on my vision, I came crashing down into oblivion.
Nothing.

There was nothing but grayness everywhere surrounding me. Soft voices gently carrying me on a sea of grayness. Up and down on the soft swells of the sea. It was so peaceful and calming. The gentle swells lifting me up and down as the voices caressed my ears.

Knock Knock

My eyes flying open I sat up in my bed eyes wide in fear of that knock. Kate was there beside me along with Dr. Eric. He was our family doctor who also happened to be a good friend.

"What the hell!"

"Whoa there big guy, just relax. You have a nasty bump where you hit your head when you fell."

"What happened? What are you doing here? What's going on?" I sounded like a 3 year old, what, what, what?

"You passed out in the bathroom and Kate called me to take a look at you. I wanted to call the ambulance but she wouldn't hear of it."

"It's not a good idea to have the people you work with come to your house in the middle of the night Eric. We would never hear the end of it. Besides we have you, if you can't count on your friends when you need them what good are they?" Kate said; she was always looking out for my best interest.

"What the hell is going on?"

"Exhaustion Clark, you have been over doing it for too long and it has finally caught up with you. As your doctor and your friend I am telling you it is time to slow down and take it easy. Now why don't you go to sleep and relax? And don't set that alarm clock; you are not going to work tomorrow. Doctors' orders, I don't care how much they need you."

"Okay Eric I won't argue this time. This has been the strangest night of my life. You making a house call, it can't get any stranger than that."

"Well at least you still have that bad sense of humor. I was hoping that knock on the head would have cured you of that." Eric smiled, "Guess it's not the day for miracles." He rose and became serious, "No exertion or excitement, you rest for at least two days." He said his good nights and Kate walked him to the door.

"Is he going to be Okay Eric? He was taking a bath in his cloths, with guns!"

"He will be fine I'm sure. What he doesn't know is that I gave him a sedative so he should sleep the rest of the night and most of tomorrow. Sleep is exactly what he needs. If you need anything give me a call."

As I heard the door close behind Dr. Eric I looked at the clock on the night stand beside the bed, 2:08 in the morning. It was two hours into all saints day and it had been the strangest and most confusing two hours I had ever had the misfortune to go through. I had never hallucinated before, hell I very rarely even dreamed and even then I usually did not remember the dreams. But this was not a dream, this was serious and I better watch myself. What Kate had not said was that any suspicion of mental instability and my job was history. That is the real reason she had not called for an ambulance. Slowly I lay back and tried to relax, tried to forget the events of the last few hours, or at least the events that my mind seemed to remember, real or imagined.

I could feel the gray swells returning, soothing me into a drowsy sleep. Softly carrying me into the land of nod, the land where all children and sedative dosed patients drift off to. Damn I hadn't even gotten to start on my novel, my hoped to be novel anyway. I was off to a great start. What the hell...

One person's craziness is another person's reality.

-Tim Burton
Birds chirping, dogs barking the smell of fried bacon and coffee wafting through the air, I rolled over and opened my eyes feeling stiff and sore, my head ached my neck had a kink in it and my eyes burned. Yeah I was still alive. The sun filtered in between the drapes covering the door to the deck, on the west side of the house, afternoon. Late afternoon from the angle of the sun, Eric must have doped me up with something last night. Looking at the clock on the night stand as I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed, it read 4:25. I had slept away most of the day. Sixteen hours into the National Novel Writing Month and I had not even written one word yet.

Getting up I headed for the bathroom first, when I finished my morning/afternoon absolutions I headed downstairs. Walking into the kitchen I smelled no coffee or bacon now, no skillet on the stove no cup of coffee waiting for me. Man I was definitely losing it. On the counter a note standing against a bottle of aspirin, "Gone to the store back soon take some aspirin. Love Kate""

She was always looking out for me, even when I'm bonkers. Well if I'm going crazy I guess I had better do what the doctor tells me to and relax. I open the fridge and grab a beer and head for the patio, time for some relaxing. Nice sunshiny day, a little cool but much better than the sweltering heat of the last time I was out here last...... no wait. That was not real, no matter how vivid it was in my memory it was just my stressed out imagination working overtime. So forget about it, time to carry out the doctor's orders now. Sitting at the patio table I twist the top off the beer bottle and take a deep pull from the long neck. Oh yeah I think I'm going to like being under doctors care. I stand up and move over to the chase lounge and kick back and relax. The warm sun, cold beer and the after effects of the sedative do their magic and I slip into a peaceful slumber.

Knock knock.

Rough hands grab the front of my shirt, jerking me up out of my sleep and off of the chase lounge. My eyes pop open and I am starring into the face of a Neanderthal, well he meets my definition of one anyway. He was large and hairy with a low brow and protruding brow ridge. Bulging biceps and obviously large and strong as I am looking him level in the eye and my feet are not touching the ground as I hang from his grip.

"Who the hell are you?" He growled. "And what are you doing on my property?" Being a reasonable person and very aware of his size and temperament, I decide it is best if I play this politely.

"I believe you may be mistaken sir. This is my yard, behind my house and I was napping in my chase lounge. My favorite chase lounge to be exact."

His eyes narrow as he takes in what I have said and I am sure I can see movement inside his head as he attempts to process what I have said. Suddenly his hands open and I find myself dropping to the ground and landing on my feet with a jar.

"Buddy you must have really tied one on iffen you believe that shit. This ain't your place here."

"I really hate to disagree with you but I think maybe you have wandered into my back yard by mistake. I assure you this is my house.""

"Fella look around behind ya."

Knowing that the only way I was going to get through to his small brain was to humor him I turned and extended my right arm to point at my house. "This is where I have liv......" I trailed off in dismay. "What the hell?" I stood there frozen, my arm half raised in my gesture to claim ownership of my house. Staring at the empty clearing where my house should have been. In shock I spun around in a circle taking in my surroundings. We stood in a large clearing completely enclosed by forest. Now I grew up in Missouri on a farm. We had plenty of fields and plenty of woods with clearings in them. But we did not have forest! There were large towering trees easily 90 to 100 feet tall and 10 feet in diameter on all sides. They looked to be some type of oak trees, but not like any I had ever seen before. Something was off about them but I was in too much shock to know what exactly.

No sign of the house anywhere. Looking around where I stood no patio furniture, no chase lounge. Just a depression in the ankle high grass where I had been laying and my empty beer bottle lying beside it. Oh no not again. I was deep in the grip of another hallucination. Maybe the beer so soon after the sedative was a mistake. Instead of relaxing me it had caused another episode. Now what to do, I knew none of this was real, but I had no idea what to do about it.

"Buddy you better start talkin' O'm tarred of waitin."

Okay now I knew what to do. "You listen to me you over grown reject from the zoo." Very brave words said as I turned to face him. Said before I saw him towering over me mere feet away like a redwood towers over a willow; damn he was huge. I would put him to be at least 7 feet tall and I bet he had to weigh more than my car, with me in it, and that fist looked like it was the size of a football and getting much larger as it came shooting toward my face like the perfect spiral pass. "What the hell....."

Knock Knock.

Falling backward.... Did Goliath hit me? I don't feel like I got hit, but the site of that fist coming toward my face was unforgettable, and scary as hell. He must have really clobbered me, everything is dark. No pain, but no numb feeling in my face, still falling backward. Falling sensation, no sound, no light and still falling, how far is the ground? Did he scramble my brains? Make me deaf and blind? Okay even if he did surely I would have hit the ground by now. There was a total lack of any sensation except for that feeling of falling, down, down, down.

I'm a fairly average guy and this was turning into a not so average situation. Hell it was turning into a weird week. At some point I was going to have to admit that I had a problem. I do not think that a little rest is going to fix my problem. Hallucinations were one thing but this was getting bad. Not knowing when you are going to step out of reality and into the twilight zone can be pretty confusing. When it was my own house and yard that had changed around me was bad enough, but now I was adding over-sized villains to my bizarre day dreams. Where did I put the ground in this one, because it sure is not where I thought it was? I must have fallen 50 or 60 feet by now? I wonder what happens when I finally find it. In the real world this fall will hurt, a lot. Hopefully my mind will give me an easy landing. Hey wait a minute, am I breathing? I'm not sure if I have been breathing, I try to take in a breath. Nothing! What the hell, this can't be good. I may not have to worry about when I hit the ground; if I can't breathe the fall will be the least of my problems. I struggle to draw in a breath. Nothing. Panic!!

"GASP" light floods my eyes; a loud whoosh fills my ears as air rushes into my lungs. THUMP I land on my back and the air goes rushing back out. Bright lights blind my dark adjusted eyes as I breathe in deep trying to catch my breath. I taste a metallic tang on the air that is unfamiliar to me, the bitter copper taste unpleasant. My eyes slowly adjust to the light. The sound of voices comes from somewhere in the large room beyond my line of sight.

"I'm telling you that one was close. It went off the scales on the proximity meter; he has to be within a few lines of us."" A male voice says with irritation.

"Well if you had not fried my board Tomos I could tell you exactly where he landed this time. I just hope he is not on one of the Omega lines", said a female voice.

"Yeah it would be bad to save him from the North lander just to have him land in the middle of the end of the world."

I sat up and looked around; I was on the cement floor of a room behind some type of control panel. The voices were coming from somewhere on the other side of the panel which appeared to be a giant computer terminal with wires running out of the back of it. A thin stream of smoke was rising from inside of the panel. The air was very dry and warm and before I could stop it a cough escaped from me.

"What was that?" said the one called Tomos.

A head full of long blond hair popped up over the panel. A very female face stared down at me with a look of surprise.

"Oh my" She said. "He is here!"

A short man ran around the end of the panel and stared at me. He wore some type of jump suit that was gold in color and almost appeared to be made of metal. He was slight of stature and looked to be about 5 feet tall.

Well no sense in staying on the floor I might as well meet them on my feet. Standing up and dusting off my pants I realized that I towered over him by at least a foot, okay make him less than 5 feet tall. The girl on the other side of the panel was much taller as she was still looking down on me even after I stood up.

"Hi sorry to intrude on you like this but I seem to have included you in my hallucination of the day. I'm not even sure if I should be telling you this because I don't know how it will affect how you act in my hallucination and I'm kind of new to this." Walking past Tomos and around the end of the panel I continued talking, to myself? "If you will just show me the way out I will be going now. I think I may have unfinished business with my last hallucination and I really don't want him catching up with me."

Turning my smile to the woman I realized that she was standing on a chair to see over the panel and she was just as diminutive as Tomos was. Oh great I felt like Gulliver and I just woke up in Lilliput. I was as much taller than they as the Neanderthal had been taller than me.

Gazing around I spy what I believe to be the door out of munchkin land and head for it.

Nearly sprinting in my haste to get out of there and find my way back home she cries "William Henry Wilson wait do not go!"

I freeze in my tracks. Did she just call my name? Slowly I turn around and gaze down on her from across the room. "Who are you and how do you know my name?"

"I am Fanya Alpha IV and this is Tomos Alpha XV. We are the Control Agents assigned to monitor you."

Oh great not only am I living in a hallucination but I have to make up agents of Big Brother to watch me. Does that say something about my personality?

"Why are you monitoring me? I am just an overworked slightly off my rocker average Joe. Okay maybe a little more than slightly off my rocker here lately, but it has been a rough week."

Walking up to within a few feet of me and looking up at me, he really was short, Tomos said "Mr. William Henry Wilson we are assigned to monitor your progress and report on your development. In addition until you have completely developed we are to insure that you come to no harm."

"Completely developed what? I went through puberty a long time ago. I'm pretty sure I'm as developed as I'm going to get."

"Mr. William Henry Wilson I am talking about your traveling abilities developing. You are just coming into these and you need to be monitored and trained in how to use them. I must say though you caught us by surprise. We were only just informed of you. Normally we are given advanced notice and have plenty of time to research our charges before we begin monitoring them. We were totally unprepared for your rapid development."

"My name is William Henry Wilson but everyone calls me Clark, so stop calling me Mr. William Henry Wilson. I would think that my own hallucinations would at least call me by the name I prefer. Damn how messed up am I when my own mind can't get my name right?"

Seeing that Tomos was having no luck with me Fanya stepped forward to throw her hat into the ring. Standing next to her cohort I could see she was as tiny and fragile looking as an elf, or hobbit or whatever those little fantasy things were.

"William Henry Wilson it is our job to monitor and guide the different travelers of which you are one. Now that your abilities have begun to manifest it is our duty to teach you how to control and use them. This is a very dangerous time for you. Uncontrolled traveling could lead to many unwanted consequences, your death being not the least of them. It still needs to be determined exactly what your abilities consist of."

"Okay wait just a minute. First you tell me I have these abilities and I am a traveler. Then you tell me you need to determine my abilities. So which is it? I mean come on now," I say with my arms raised as if embracing the sky as I turn in a circle and look up as if to heaven, "you can at least keep the hallucinations all going in the same direction. Either I am or I am not a traveler. Either we know what I can do or we don't. Let's try to keep it all together here. If I'm going to go crazy at least let me understand what my delusions are and keep them straight."

"Who are you talking to?" Looking up and surveying the ceiling, Fanya was obviously confused by my actions.

"Never mind just talking to myself. Let's get this crazy train rolling in the right direction again. Now tell me what a traveler is and why if you know I am one you don't know what I can do."

Tomos must have been getting bored, because he decided it was time to jump back into the conversation.

"Well Mr. William Henry Wilson.......Um......." He stumbled over his words and stuttered as I glared at him.

"Well Clark we as Control Agents are assigned to monitor only travelers, there are others who monitor dreamers, poets, scalawags and assorted other individuals. However the term traveler is a broad category filled with many types. Each type has different abilities and powers, so to speak. It is part of our duty to determine which type of traveler you are. Normally after researching our charges for an extended period of time and looking for clues we have a good idea of what they will be before they actually emerge. However in your case due to a mix up back at the office we were unable to begin monitoring you in time. So at this point we are unable to fathom the full depths of your abilities without further observation and testing."

"Huh?" I said as quick on the draw as always. I looked at Fanya, "What the hell did he say?"

"Clark..." she began before I raised my hand and stopped her.

"Enough! I am having a very bad week and you two are not helping me any. Just show me the way out so I can go home. I have had all of hallucinations that I can handle for today. As a matter of fact I think I'm all caught up for the year. So let's cut the crazy Alice in Wonderland routine and call it a day. I'm beginning to feel like I'm living in a science fiction novel......." Whoa now there is an idea. If I was going to hallucinate why not use it to my advantage. I think I just got the idea for my novel.

"Maybe I was too harsh Fanya. After thinking about it I believe it would be a good idea for you to sit down and tell me all about this traveler business." Feeling more in control now that I had made a decision I walked back smiling at her and Tomos. Fanya and Tomos sat back down in their respective chairs and I sat down on the floor between them with my back to the computer panel that had stopped smoking by this time.

"I apologize to you Clark; we are not equipped at this time to offer you a more comfortable arrangement. But I am sure you would agree that you are far too large for our accommodations?"

"Think nothing of it please. Now tell me what I need to know."
Tomos made himself comfortable in his chair and began. "There are many worlds or universes or time lines that exist side by side. We refer to each of them as a realm as this is the word that is most acceptable to the majority of our people. All these realms together have many different names but collectively we call them the Multiverse. Travelers are people who have the ability to move between the realms at will. There are different types of travelers who can do this, each type has different abilities. There are types who are called walkers who are able to walk from one realm to the next, going into the next reality as easily as crossing the street and asking the neighbor for a cup of sugar. These individuals are very powerful because they need nothing to travel from one realm to the next. Their ability is all that is required. However walkers can only travel by walking. They start off to walk across the street to that neighbor; by the time they get there they are in the next realm. Spatially nothing has changed; they leave one realm and enter the next in the same geographic location. They describe it as though walking through a shadow on a sunny day or more accurately as if walking through a patch of fog on a clear day. One minute everything is clear then all goes hazy and shadowy around them, and then it clears up again. Objects that are in both realities and occupy the same place in space are normally easy to see through this transition. But objects that are in one realm and not the next fade away as they go through the transition."

"That gives a whole new meaning to the term walkabout. How would they know where they started at? How would they get back to their own world or realm?" I asked.

"Bear with us Clark, we will reveal all," Fanya stated, "and fear not we can get you home."

Tomas continued as if I had not interrupted him. "Because they need no help or outside influence to transition from one realm to the next walkers can travel by will alone. If you see a walker making a transition more than likely you will not even know it. One second they are there and then you blink and they are gone, to your eyes. In reality they actually fade away but it is so fast that most of the time it is hard to see if not impossible. It is extremely difficult to capture a walker if they know you are coming. In one step they can start the transition to the next realm and they are gone from yours. One of the things that make them so dangerous is that a walker can start the transition and then stop between realms. So to our eyes they are there one second and then gone. But they can start the transition with a step and then hold themselves there just out of faze with this realm, what we call 'between', thus seeing us when we cannot see them. We cannot see them or feel them so it would not be possible to grab them or hurt them when they are in between. However they can still interact with objects that are in the same place in both this realm and the next. Therefore they have the ability to cause mischief and even harm. Let me give you an example. Say that you are a walker and I attempt to capture you. I rush into the room and charge toward you. You simple take a step into the between and you are completely safe from me. You see that that chair is in the same place in both realms so you pick it up and swing it at me. Now I have a chair that is seemingly possessed and coming at my head. I can throw my arms up to protect myself from the chair but I have no way to hurt you or stop you from doing whatever you want."

"Walkers do not have to stop in the next realm either. In fact they rarely do so unless they are only attempting to avoid something and stepped into the between for safety. Most generally they are traveling through a large number of realms to reach their goal and never stop on the ones between their origin and destination. While walking they sometimes interact with objects and may cause something to fall for example while they are passing through, this is the main source of poltergeist reports. There really are no such things of course."

"Another aspect of their ability that makes them so powerful is that they have the ability to take others with them. Well some of them do. Each ones power differs. The weakest walkers can travel with all of their possessions, meaning their cloths and what they are carrying. Some are capable of taking someone with them when they travel."

"How is this done?" I asked.

Not fazed by the question Tomos continued. "The only thing that we know of that limits it is that they need to be touching the traveler in some way, and his strength. It is very draining to use these powers and the extra strain of pulling or taking others is very great. It is not unheard of for a new walker to over extend himself when trying to test his power. That is one of the reasons that we are here to help and guide you. We will teach you to use your abilities and to explore their limits without killing yourself."

"Whoa wait a minute, killing myself! Nobody said anything about this being dangerous to me." I said in a panic.

"It is quite all right, we are experienced in this and will not allow you to over extend. But more of that later, let me continue." Taking a deep breath he started in again. "So that is the short version of what a walker is capable of. Very powerful but also limited because there are so many realms and they may need to travel across thousands or even hundreds of thousands of realms to reach their goal."

"How many different worlds or realms or whatever you call them are there?"

"It is unknown. At this time the agency has cataloged 15,631,895,641 of them."

"Holy cow! How in the world do you keep track of them all, let alone visit them.""

"It is not as daunting as it seems. The agency has been around a long time, we first started cataloging one hundred five thousand four hundred and sixty three years ago. The difference between two realms next to each other may be so small as to be unnoticeable at first. So there are usually sizable groups of realms that are relatively the same. We group these realms together and call them sectors."

"Earlier I heard you two talking and Fanya you said something about the Omega lines.""

Glancing at Tomos and getting a nod from him to go ahead Fanya Alpha IV took over the explanation at this time.

"The omega sectors are groups of dead realms. There are several sectors of omega realms. Sector omega 73 is a group of realms that it appears that life never developed on. They are all airless waste that are completely devoid of any life. If a walker crosses them he cannot come out of the between or he will die unless he has a life suit on. The omega 303 sector is dead for another reason. All of these realms are nuclear waste lands that man has completely destroyed. There are 45,358 realms in this sector. It is near impossible for a walker to cross this sector. He would have to carry enough food and water to be able to walk across all 45,358 without coming out of the between. The radiation level on these lines would kill him in a matter of seconds."

"How do walkers breathe between worlds, uh I mean realms? I would think just crossing a few at one time would be difficult." I said getting interested despite myself.

"Oh there is air in the between. But you do have a good instinct. Air leaks through from the realms to the between. But when you have a large section of airless lines there is not as much air since it is coming from lines that are farther away. Imagine crossing the Himalayan Mountains. There is plenty of oxygen when you start but the higher you go the thinner the air and the less oxygen there is. When you reach the highest point the oxygen is at its lowest, but as you descend down the other side the air gets thicker with more oxygen till you reach the bottom and all is well. Now imagine that mountain range is a thousand miles across. You start to see how difficult it would be to cross an omega sector. Not impossible but very difficult without proper planning." Fanya stopped to take a breath and get a drink. "For millennium walkers were effectively contained within the constrictions of the omega lines. Before the agency it was not known how wide any omega sector was so the early walkers were like explorers venturing off into the unknown. A walker would carry as much with him as he could and when he reached a predetermined point in his supplies he would turn around and head back. Many came near to killing themselves trying to cross. Some never returned and it was unknown if they crossed or died in the attempt. The most powerful would take pack animals to carry supplies. These are the ones that eventually crossed. And of course by nature most walkers are very secretive about their abilities. On some realms they still burn people for witchcraft. Of course on some realms there is witchcraft."

"Stop right there. Did you just say that there is witchcraft? I am sorry but I have to draw the line at witchcraft. Everybody knows that there is no magic, witchcraft is just a bunch of deluded people who want to change their sorry lives!"

Looking surprised and shocked Tomos and Fanya looked at each other.

"Mr. Wilson," Tomas ventured "Magic is nothing more than a form of energy. It may be one that you may be unfamiliar with but a form of energy none the less. In fact it is this magic that gives you the power to travel. You are a magical being."

"What the hell....." I was shocked! "Magical being, are you serious?" This is not at all what I had expected. If I was a magical being did that mean I was not real? Was any of this real? This was going to be hard to wrap my head around. I was just getting use to the idea that there were different worlds, shit I mean realms, that were nearly the same as mine. And now I find that I am a magical being! "Wait, a magical being, what the hell does that even mean?" I said.

"It is not as bad as you seem to think." Tomos said. "It just means that your body has an ability to use magic. Well maybe a little more than that. You have magic in you that is used for traveling. It's not like if there was no magic in you that you would cease to exist. And it's not magic like you think of it. It is a form of energy that is not fully understood at this time. But we are making progress in understanding it. Think of it as an electrical charge that is in your body. Most people have a small amount of this energy in them. This is what some people call life force. Everyone has it; it is the energy that keeps them alive. Some people have more of this energy and their body uses it. Some of them use this extra energy to enhance themselves without even knowing it. When you see someone who seems to be superhuman in some way, such as a super-fast runner or someone who is much stronger than they appear that they should be, or the person who never gets sick or the one who never seems to get hurt when there is an accident or he does something stupid, these are people who have more life force then average. They use this without even knowing they have it. You on the other hand have this excess of life force and have developed the ability to use it to travel. There are many different types of travelers and others that have the extra life force and use it for other things then traveling. But we will save that for another time. There are so many different variations of the different abilities that it is impossible for one person to keep track of them all. All I know is the travelers; that is my specialty. I know the history of the travelers since the beginning of the Multiverse, or actually since the travelers were first discovered. This was the beginning of the agency for all practical purposes. It was actually the travelers that started the agency."

Tomos stopped the explanation and looked into Clark's eyes. "You do understand this don't you?"

"Oh yes you're doing an excellent job, please continue Tomos." I said with only a trace of in-credulousness in my voice, which I don't think he even noticed.

"Walking is only one form of traveling, Knocking is another. Although it is similar to walking it varies in the way that it is carried out. The knockers, as they are called" I smiled like a twelve year old boy, well hell all guys find humor in the weirdest places, "use a very different form to travel between the realms. They are unable to travel between the realms without a gate. They are sometimes referred to as gate keepers, although that is technically incorrect, it would be more appropriate to call them gate openers. They focus their ability on an object that can be opened, most commonly a door or gate, and form a bridge between two realms. By creating the gate in a doorway and then opening the door they open a way into the next realm. However unlike the walkers they can open the gate into any realm of their choosing, once they are properly trained. So there is no limitation on how many realms they can cross. But unlike the walkers they are either in one realm or the next there is no faze or between for them. So they are powerful in a different way. There is no limit on how far or close the realm is they want to go to. So whereas a walker may take a life time to travel across the realms, crossing through each as he goes. The knocker can travel from one end to the other in one travel. Furthermore as long as the knocker holds the gate open a number of people or things can cross with him. As long as they will fit through the door he has opened they can cross. The size of the door and the length of time that he is able to hold it open are directly related to his power. We have several doors that are open nearly at all times. The knockers are our most used travelers in so far as the amount of time that they use their power."

Man this guy could talk! But I found it interesting and I was actually beginning to understand it.

"In the main travel center of the agency we have hundreds of doors open to the main realms at all times. Our resident knocker's only job is to hold these gates open for travel to the lines of our empire. We have others whose job is to open doors as needed to other lines. Most of the main doors in the travel center are personal doors. Normal sized doors that require little power to maintain. As needed we will open larger doors for transporting goods and machinery or whatever is needed at the time. One of the main limitations of the knocker is that to open a gate there needs to be a door on both ends. In order to successfully open a gate the door must exist in both realms. Now it may sound complicated but it really is not. In fact in realms that have no door where one is needed we just find a door elsewhere and then travel to the location we need and build a door. Of course usually we build a whole complex to hold that door. It would not do to have an unguarded open gate. Once a door has been set up and a gate opened it is relatively easy to leave the gate closed and open it only when needed. But this does put some limitations on us. On most of the omega realms for instance there are no doors. Whether from destruction or no life having formed on these worlds, and in this case I do mean the planet earth, we don't know about the rest of the realm. With no door it is impossible to open a gate. The amount of energy required to open a gate with no form in place is more than a person could hold. There actually have been several who tried; it drained them of all of their energy and they were nothing but an empty husk in a matter of seconds. But I digress."

He reached to the console beside him and picked up a glass of purple liquid and took a drink, where had that come from I don't remember seeing it there before.

"So in order to open a gate on these realms with no doors we need to send a walker in first. The walker travels as far into the sector as he can. After he goes as far as he can he sets up a door. And yes I mean just a standard door, nothing fancy. The only requirement is that it is located at the right coordinates. Then a knocker on this end opens the gateway to that door and the walker steps back into this realm from there. Since the walker does not have to worry about walking back out he can go as long as his supplies last. Of course since he has to carry the material to build the door he cannot carry as many supplies but it works."

"After the first walker steps through back into our realm a second walker goes through to begin walking and the whole process is repeated till we have a second door and then a third and so on. When we arrive at our destination, whichever line has been picked for a station, we transport materials through the open door to build a bigger door. Then when we have that door open we send in a team and begin building our base. Eventually we will have a full agency center on that realm. Of course I am over simplifying the whole process. Because of lack of air on most of these realms we have to open the door in a specially built chamber that is kept under vacuum while we use it. If not, all of the air in the center would be sucked into the other realm. Eventually all of our atmosphere would be sucked through if the door was left open. In fact this is exactly how the omega 711 sector was formed. It was not war or natural disaster that devastated these lines. But a door was opened into an airless world and the entire atmosphere was sucked out of it."

"How is that even possible? Wouldn't they just have to shut the door? Or the Knocker just closes the gate? I mean surely you can't miss something as obvious as that, could you? I know that I don't know much about this stuff, but it seems to me that a doorway sucking all the air out of reality would be kind of noticeable. Wouldn't the knocker just have to take away his power to close the door? Even if he died as a result of the air leaving I would think that his death would cause the door to close because he no longer has power to hold it open?"

"That is all very true Clark, as far as it goes. Yes if a knocker dies any doors he has open will close eventually. Most of the time, but there are exceptions to this rule, just like there are exceptions to every rule. If the knocker's body is touching the door at the time of his death or is close to it, the link between him and the gate remains in effect for a period of time. The more power the knocker has in his body the longer the door will stay open. If the knocker was fully refreshed and the door was small and did not require a lot of energy to maintain it could conceivably stay open for quite a long time. We have a number of doors in the agency control room that have been open for several years after the knocker who opened them has died."

"Wait a minute if the body of the knocker has to be touching the door when he dies how would the door stay open for years. Please don't tell me you guys have a bunch of dead knockers lying around the center?"" I said with a look of disgust on my face.

"Well it is rather complicated to explain, but there are certain ways that this can be maintained without being gruesome about it." Fanya explained. Looking at the screen on her console, I assume at a clock of some sort, "It has been a long day for you and I think that is enough for today Clark, you are tired I am sure and could use some rest. Let us show you to your quarters that have been prepared for you. Tomorrow you will begin training as a knocker and this will all become clear to you."

"I am beat; I guess living in a hallucination can take it out of you." Standing and following Fanya out of the room I turned to Tomas to say good night only to find he had already returned to his console and was paying me no attention."

Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.

-Earl Nightingale
The next day my training started. I had already made up my mind to make the best of the situation, since there didn't seem to be anything I could do to change it. The training turned out to be not at all what I expected.

A chime sounded in the bedroom of the apartment that had been assigned to me, waking me from my dreams of home. A soft female voice that seemed to emanate from the air followed, "Time to wake and start your day Mr. Wilson. Your first training session is scheduled to begin in one hour."

Letting out a sign I responded in a sleep graveled voice with my usually pleasant demeanor. "Stop calling me Mr. Wilson!"

"Noted Mr. Wilson, How should I address you in the future?" In the same sweet voice, as if she didn't notice the venom dripping from my words. Hell what was I thinking; it wasn't a she it was a computer. Of course my charming disposition was lost on her.

"Call me Clark damn-it."

"Noted, Personal vocal address file updated Clark damn-it."

Oh great now I'm stuck with a digitized Gracie Allen! What the hell! Getting up and dressing I asked, "Where am I supposed to go for this training? And what do I have to do?"

"Upon your readiness I will guide you to the training labs on level 37. You will employ the induction trainer to begin your training."

"What is an ind... never mind. I'll find out when I get there. I'm ready, lay on McDuff."

In that ever so sweet voice, not even sounding puzzled, "Clark damn-it, sensors indicate no life forms other than yourself within your assigned living quarters. A scan of personnel files indicates no one of the name McDuff on location at this time. Should I broaden my search to include Agency centers on other realms to locate this person for you?"

"No Gracie, it was just a saying. And before you ask, you are Gracie. I don't care what anyone else calls you. From now on when I say Gracie I'm talking to you. In fact now that I think about it I have a whole list of things you need to remember about me, and instructions for you. If you are going to be my guide and companion while I'm here we might as well make this relationship work. Now guide me to the labs and listen to what I have to say on the way there."

Leaving my apartment I followed Gracie's directions to the drop shaft that would take me to level 37. I wasn't sure how many levels there were here at Center, but most of them appeared to be underground. As I walked I questioned Gracie and gathered as much information as I could about my fantasy land. Well what the hell else could it be, either I had made it up in my mind or it was real. If it was a figment of my imagination then I could call it anything I wanted. And if it turned out to be real? Well I wasn't ready to consider that yet. I was just getting use to the idea that I was crazy, I don't think my over taxed mind could wrap itself around a Multiverse with infinite realms that I could travel to.

People tended to stare at me as I apparently talked to myself as I walked through the corridors. Till Gracie informed me that I could sub vocalize without even opening my mouth and she could hear me just fine. That stopped the people from staring as much and I found that I could talk to Gracie and get a good look at my surroundings. Every corridor I walked through was not the same. There were shops and business'' along most of them just like it was a street in any city from home. It really reminded me of being in Las Vegas, winding through the tunnels and covered walkways between the big casinos' lined on both sides with souvenir shops, restaurants and coffee shops. On impulse I walked into one of the shops at random. It turned out to be a clothing shop and had a wide variety of cloths hanging out for viewing. The styles were all over the place and it was evident that these were samples from different realms, well I'm not exactly fashion minded but that's what it looked like to me.

"Clark Damn-it, you must be going now. There is just enough time for you to get to the training lab." Gracie said into my right ear.

"Just a little sightseeing is all Gracie, don't get your panties all bunched up." Gracie was uncharacteristically quiet; I think I really stumped her with that one. Leaving the store I continued down the corridor to the drop tube and taking a deep breath stepped into it. Now a drop tube or a lift tube, one goes up and one goes down, is not a pleasant thing to experience. Your mind screams at you not to get into it for any reason. It is an empty vertical shaft about 10 feet in diameter running up and down as far as the eye can see. There is some type of force Field that either raises you up or gently lowers you down. You feel like your hanging in thin air with no support, you're not exactly floating but you're not standing on anything either. Like I said your mind screams at you not to do it. But I had seen others use them and so far I hadn't seen anyone go flashing by screaming so I assumed they worked. Taking a deep breath I stepped into this one and started descending. This place was going to be a lot of fun once I got used to it. I felt like a little kid getting to see all the cool things I had read about in science fiction magazines growing up.

"Gracie what if I changed my mind and didn't want to go down to level 37?" I sub vocalized by habit now even though there was no one to hear me.

"Your induction training is mandatory and the time has already been set. You must attend this training and should not consider any other actions that would delay your arrival."

"No what I mean is what if say I had forgotten something and had to go back up to get it? Is there any way that I could make the tube change direction and go up instead of down or what?" I asked quizzically.

"No. The tubes are either lift or drop only; it is not possible to change them. In your scenario you would have to get off on the next level and then use a lift tube to ascend to your living level to accomplish this task. There are overrides for the tubes to turn them off or on but they are designed for one direction only."" Gracie informed me.

"Who has the override codes and why would they ever want to turn them off?"

"The protectors keep the codes to all transports and all access codes for the Agency Center. It is their responsibility to protect the Center in the event of an attack." Gracie had just given me more information than she thought. I now knew that there were other modes of transport here than just the lifts and that there were areas that were inaccessible to the average person. All this was very good information to have if I should need it. I wonder who the protectors are, they sound like some type of police force.

I had descended past several openings into levels and was now approaching level 37. As I neared level 37 I drifted over to the opening and stepped out onto the floor of the corridor. This level was not like any of the others I had been on so far, no shops lined the walls. All the doors opening off of the corridor were closed and unmarked. I guess if you were supposed to be here you knew what they were; if not then you would have a hard time finding anything specific. I'm sure this was another aspect of the defense plan. These may even be some of the doors that required an access code. However I wasn't going to find out today, Gracie made sure of that.

"You must hurry now Clark damn-it, the time of your session has arrived. The training lab is the first door on the right after the next left turn."

"See Gracie no problem, I told you we would make it in time." I said as I opened the door to the lab. "What the hell?" This was not what I expected.

Walking into the training center I noticed it looked more like a futuristic bunk house then a lab. Ranged around the walls were the induction trainers which looked like twin bed sized couches with built in hair dryers. Not the modern use at home blow dryers but the huge bulky helmets that came down over your head type. A technician dressed all in white approached me as I entered.

"Greetings Clark damn-it, I have been waiting for you. Your induction trainer is ready and waiting for you. Please follow me." Saying this he turned away before I had any chance to correct his use of my name, and led the way to one of the couches.

"If you would please recline on the trainer we will begin."

"What exactly is an induction trainer and how does it work? Not that I'm not eager to get started training but I would like to know what I'm getting myself into."

"Have no worries Clark damn-it there is no reason to fear the trainer. It will impart the knowledge you need to fulfill your duties through a direct induction to your brain. To you it will be as if you had fallen asleep mute and woke up knowing how to talk."

Sighing with resignation, "What the hell, let's get this over with, and stop calling me Clark damn-it. Just call me Clark." I sat on the edge of the induction trainer and swinging my legs around I reclined on it.

The technician started messing with the controls activating the trainer. With a subtle vibration the trainer came to life under me.

The hair dryer helmet lowered over my head as the technician said, "Relax and close your eyes Clark. As the trainer comes on line you will drift off to sleep and wake full of knowledge."

I closed my eyes and waited as the trainer prepared to fill me. Damn that sounded weirder then hell and not at all something I would want to tell the guys about.

The technician finished setting up the trainer as a warning tone sounded from the trainer across the room. He walked over to the other trainer to investigate the problem. As he walked away another technician walked up to Clark's trainer and inserted a memory card into the control panel and continued walking till he reached the exit. Looking back he surveyed the room to insure no one had seen what he had done. Seeing that he had been unobserved he smiled and left the room.

Going back to Clark's trainer the first technician made sure the program was running and went on his way.

Slowly Clark drifted as if falling asleep, just like he had been told. A soft gentle tingle started at the base of his neck and the feeling slowly moved up his neck to his head. 'This wasn't so bad', he thought, 'I could even get to like this.' His thoughts grew fuzzy and he didn't try to fight it, he could definitely use the rest.

WHACK!! A sharp pain in his left foot as someone hit the soul with a hard object.

"What the Hell!!" Clark said as he set up.... Well as he tried to sit up and come to think of it he tried to say it. He realized he could not move or speak, he was totally paralyzed.

"WHACK!!" The same pain, in his left hand this time as it was hit. What the hell was going on? The light that leaked through his eye lids started to take on a red tinge. Surely this wasn't right; this was nothing like falling asleep now.

WHACK!! Suddenly a piercing pain more intense than anything he had felt before stabbed through his head; As if a large hot knife had been plunged down into his brain. Bright red light pulsated on and off; flashing in his mind, red, darkness, red, darkness. Then a giant hand grabbed the knife and twisted, the world flashed bright red then faded to black as Clark's wakefulness faded into oblivion.
Fog billows around me in the dim light. There were flashes of lightning cutting through it as I look around, trying to get my bearings. I'm not sure where I am or how I got here. There was nothing in sight but the gray fog with the occasional flashes of lightning. I turn in a circle and inspect my surroundings; everything is the same, no variation of any sort. No sound other than the high pitched hum like an electric motor. Wait a minute when did that start, and where is it coming from.

Time is playing a game with me, I feel like seconds are passing so slowly that time is standing still yet it seems like I have been here forever. I continue to turn in a circle as I try to figure out where the hum is coming from. It appears to come from every direction at once. Well I guess it doesn't really matter at this point. I start walking. The fog parts around me like a soft velvet curtain, caressing my skin as I walk. The fog has substance like no fog I have ever experienced.

"What the hell?" This seems like a very good place for my signature phrase!

"You haven't reached hell yet." The throaty whisper in my left ear sends a shiver down my spine.

I jump to my right and let out a yelp that sounds suspiciously like it came from a little girl! I spin around to my left looking for the owner of that eerie voice, the fog swirls around my body in a chaotic twirl as I disturb it. I can see nothing in the fog. Nothing or no one is close enough to have whispered in my ear. I do not like this at all; the humming sound has gotten louder and still seems to come from everywhere at once.

"Who's out there?" God I hate when people do that in movies and books, it always happens just before the boogie man gets them, what the hell I need to change that line of thinking before I really freak myself out.

The fog seemed to thicken and draw closer to me, making it harder to see. I wave my hand in front of my face to clear the mist before my eyes. My hand feels like it is moving through waves of silken material. The fog draws in around me, clinging to my hand and arm. I take a step back and my legs are encased in gray tendrils; Looking down I see my body is all but hidden and I realize that it's not just fog as it moves with a will of its own to encase me. I try to run and start to fall when my legs won't move. The malevolent cloud closes in over me like molten lava enveloping my whole body. My skin starts tingling all over, I open my mouth to yell and the fog fills my lungs. Panic sets in! I can't breathe, what is happening. My vision clouds as my eyes are covered, sparks shoot through the air and I hear voices trying to talk to me as my brain screams for oxygen. Darkness comes creeping in at the edge of my sight, quickly stealing my vision as the lack of oxygen robs me of consciousness...

Chest burning as my lungs fight to draw in breath! This is the end, no way will I be able to get out of this; I yearn for my nice quiet life back in Missouri.

The darkness closes in on me till my vision is gone, then as suddenly as it came on it starts pulling back. I can breathe, I take in great gasping breaths, as I breathe out I feel my body start to sink and quickly suck in another breath before I go under. Go under? I realize I'm lying on my back floating in water with my eyes closed. I open my eyes and raise my head to look around; I'm floating on a never ending body of dark water. As far as I can see there is nothing but water in the pale twilight. How did I get here?

Now I tread water as I turn in a circle to survey my surroundings, the humming sound is still with me but the fog has turned to water. This is one strange dream. The humming gets louder and seems to be coming from behind me now. Suddenly I hear a splash behind me and spin in the water to face this new mystery. A mere foot from me is a wooden raft with an old man sitting cross legged on it staring at me.

"Where the hell did you come from?" We both said at the exact same time as if we had rehearsed it for weeks.

"I can't decide if you're a hallucination or if I am. This is even stranger than my previous hallucinations and they were pretty strange." I said.

"Neither son, this is as real as it gets. This is your rebirth; you will never be the same after this. But you being in that water will not do you any good. Give me your hand and I'll help you."

I reach my hand out to him, "I could use all the help I can get."

The raft was not as close as I thought; my hand did not reach it. I started to swim the few feet to the raft but it didn't get any closer.

"Come on son you will have to do better than that." The old man croaked.

I swam harder and faster but the more effort I put into it the farther the raft seemed to slip away. It was always just out of my reach. I grew tired as I swam for what seemed like hours my thoughts growing dim and sluggish as exhaustion over took me.

The old man shook his head sadly, "I told you being in that water would not do you any good." He knelt at the edge of the raft and reached out to me. I raised my hand in the air to grip his hand; he reached right past my hand and grabbed my head. "The water has to be in you." He said in a throaty whisper.

With far more strength then he should have possessed he forced my head under water! I struggled to escape his hand but it was an iron grip befitting someone far younger and stronger than him. I thrashed and beat at his hand and arm trying to get him to release me, to no avail. My lungs were burning as I held what breath I had. Terror overwhelmed me as I struggled to free myself. I grew weaker and weaker, my efforts becoming feebler. Suddenly my body betrayed me, my breath burst forth and I involuntarily sucked the black water into my lungs. I convulsed and coughed, my mind refusing to accept the end.

Fire exploded inside me; my body burned from the inside out. Flames seemed to be racing along every nerve and fiber of my being. Thousands of stars flared in my vision, I could see the old man above me on the raft, suddenly he split apart and there were two of him. Then each one split again and again. There were hundreds then thousands of old men above me on thousands of rafts; each of them was smiling down at me with a gleam in their eye. Then I exploded outward into a million pieces scattering across the ocean like flecks of foam on the waves.
Light flooded into my eyes as air filled my lungs and I set up screaming.

"Caution Clark, don't sit up too fast." The technician said as he moved the helmet of the induction trainer away from my head. "Take a slow deep breath, your mind is just compensating for the sudden input of information. Many trainees perceive the training as strange dreams as their minds try to comprehend it."

"Information that would have been helpful to know before you filled my brain up," I yelled.

"No one has ever died or had any lasting damage from the training. However if we had informed you of the effects before the training began your brain would have resisted the input. This would have severely limited the induction training."

"What did you put in there anyway? I don't have any additional knowledge that I can tell! What was this supposed to accomplish anyway?" I said with growing anger breathing in gasp, by heart rate still well over 100.

"Calm down Clark" Tomos said as he walked into the training lab. "It was not information that you will consciously be able to access. We just trained your brain how to use your abilities. You are a knocker now. With minimal field training you will be a full member of the Center team now."

"I don't feel any different, are you sure it worked Tomos?" My memory of what had happened in the induction trainer was already fuzzy. It was fading just like a bad dream.

"Yes Clark, walk with me and I will explain."

"The induction training is not used to give you information that you can consciously access," Tomos began as we walked out of the lab. "Rather it teaches your brain to use the abilities that it already has. You already have the ability to open doors or gates to other realms; all we have done is to teach you the basics of controlling and using your ability."

We walked down the hallway to the lift and were zipped up to another level where Tomos continued as we walked down this new hallway, although it looked identical to the one we had just left except for the L17 in large letters on the wall opposite of the lift.

"We are on our way to continue your training now. After this you will go on your first training mission tomorrow. Your traveling companions are being selected and preparing for the mission now."

We walked into the lab and I stopped in my tracks. "What the hell?" The walls of the lab were lined with door after door all the way around it. Each door had a sign with a number on it at eye level to the right of it.

"This is the gateway room. All missions are launched from here, all missions that require a gateway that is. As you can see most of the gateways are permanent to only one realm. These are the realms where we have stations and substations."

We were walking through the room now passing the doors, occasionally a door would open and one of the diminutive ones would come through. I caught glimpses of other rooms sometimes before the door was closed. Some of them looked similar to this one and others were smaller and the lighting level varied in all of them.

"These are mainly used for our everyday functions. Most missions are launched from the far end of the room, which is where we are going now. We have a series of doors that are not permanent and are set for the specific destination of the mission that is getting ready to go. The knocker will open the gateway and after they go through he will release the gateway. These are the doors that you will use most often."

As we reached the halfway point in the room I noticed a shimmer in the air as if a wall of heat distortion had been created at this point. As we passed through it I felt like oil slid over my skin and the level of noise in the room increased. I could hear everything in this half of the room that I could not before passing through the shimmer.

"What the hell was that?" I asked in surprise.

"Oh that was merely a sound barrier to keep the everyday and the special missions separated. It is also our first line of defense if someone attempts to come through an open gateway that means us harm. It only stops sounds and air from crossing normally, but in an emergency can be fully activated to become a solid barrier to contain everything on this side."

I could see now that the doors in this side of the room were not all identical. The size of the doors varied, some were large enough to drive a semi through, others were normal height but much wider. A few of them were at least 10 feet tall but no wider than three or four feet. One of these opened as we walked up to it. My blood froze in my veins and I stopped dead in my tracks! A giant covered in furs and carrying a battle ax stepped into the room. He had long tangled hair and a beard that covered most of his face and hung down onto his chest. The battle ax he carried in his right hand gripping the 5 foot long shaft just behind the massive head was covered in frost and a cold wind blew through the open door. As he stepped into the room and moved away from the door a man was revealed following him. He was around six, six five and so thin it looked painful, wearing a gray pinstriped three piece suit. Now I don't know about you but when I see a giant wearing furs and carrying a battle Ax the last thing I expect to see is that his companion looks like an underfed attorney!

The giant lumbered off further down the room from us. I've never seen anyone lumber but that is the only way I can describe it. Tomos raised his hand in greeting to the suit wearer.

"Farren welcome back." He greeted the man as we approached the stranger.

Walking up to the suit I realized he was taller than me by at least a foot. What the hell, how big had that first guy in the furs been?

"Greeting Tomos, this was not a mission I would want to repeat. It is good to be back."" Farren said as we stopped in front of him. Holy shit this guy made skinny as a rail an over statement! If he turned sideways I don't know if I could still see him. He stooped down and touched palms with Tomos now that was funny as hell; Tomos came up to just past his knees.

"Farren let me introduce you to William Henry Wilson a new knocker who has just completed induction." Farren reached out with his right hand with his palm facing me, if I hadn't just seen him do it with Tomos I wouldn't know what he wanted. I reached out the same and touched palms with him.

"Our meeting is foreordained Clark and will be the high light of the day for me."

"How the hell did you know I go by Clark?" I said with puzzlement.

Tomos intervened quickly, "Farren is a Dreamer, someone whose abilities manifest in precognitive dreams. He will be accompanying you on your mission tomorrow along with others. Whenever possible we send a Dreamer on missions and in any case on all of the important missions. It is always a good idea to be able to tell what is going to happen before it actually does."

"No way, he is a fortune teller? You have got to be kidding me." I laughed with disbelief.

"I must leave you now to report and then prepare for the mission on the morrow. Your doubt is noted Clark and will be put to rest on the mission. I shall meet you here in the morning." Saying this Farren turned and left, as if we had ceased to exist.

"You should really make an attempt to be more polite to new people. Especially considering that your life may depend on them in the near future." Tomos chastised me.

"I didn't mean to be rude, I just..." I stopped as what he said penetrated my dense skull, "my life may depend on him! What the hell!?!

"Come we have training to attend to, you will have plenty of time to evaluate your life span in the future."

Tomos lead me to a small door with no markings and proceeded to teach me how to open it. I can't really explain how I did it or what I did. All I can say is it worked, to my great surprise, time after time. The rest of the day was spent with me opening doors and gateways into other realms. Basically I visualized where I wanted to go based on information that Tomos gave me and when I touched the door I would feel a tingle in my hand that quickly spread through my whole body and when I opened the door there it was, the realm that I had visualized.

At one point on impulse I opened the door without visualizing anything or attempting to open a gateway. On the other side of the open door was a wall that looked identical to the walls of the room.

"With no active gateway the door is just a door. We will now continue training with multiple doors. It is possible for you to hold more than one gateway open at the same time. How many depends on your strength and endurance. Over time it will increase as you exercise your ability."

The rest of the day was spent on this and other test and training. By the end of the day I was exhausted and went back to my room and collapsed into my bed. I was too tired to even undress.

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

-Samuel Johnson
I laid in bed in a stupor oblivious to the world for all of 2 hours when I was abruptly shaken awake by a hand on my shoulder.

"Ugh men emblem emf mi,[or." OK I don't wake up the most intelligent person in the world, but hey I said I was exhausted and I had only been asleep for 2 hours. I opened my eye, the left one; the right one was on strike and told me where to go, to see Farren standing over me. He had changed out of his suit and was wearing rough homespun clothing that looked like it could wear for a long time before you could ever get any comfort out of it.

"Clark the time has come for us to go." He said in a whisper.

"What the hell, it's the middle of the night." I managed to croak out in a half dead voice, which was good since I felt all dead right then.

"There is no time to explain the intricate situation we find ourselves in, we must go now." Saying this Farren pulled me from the bed, he was much stronger then I gave him credit for. Dragging me behind him, he opened the door and peered furtively in both directions before leading me into the hallway outside my apartment. We went to the up lift and went to level 17 and proceeded to the gateway room where I had spent the day training.

Rushing through the room we passed the sound shield and went all the way to the back of the room. In the left corner of the room was a large pile of various supplies and equipment put there in preparation for some upcoming mission. Farren went around behind the pile and there in the very corner of the room was a small door.

"This is pretty damn strange Farren, where is Tomos? I thought this was supposed to be my first training mission with a full team to support me?"

"There is no time Clark, things have changed, it would appear that things are not as they seem here."

"What is that supposed to mean? Did you dream something? Are we in danger, give me details damn-it!"

"View these and prepare to open a gateway." He said thrusting a sheaf of papers into my hands. I looked down at the papers and shuffled them to see what was on them. Each one was for a different realm, all the information I needed to make the gateway to that realm.

"The one on top is the only one you need for now, this is where we will be going first." He said in an agitated voice."

"What about..."

"ENOUGH!" Farren yelled, then he looked around the room with a scared look on his face, he lowered his voice. "We have no time, if we don't go now we will be trapped here. It is imperative that we not allow that to happen. Bad things will come to be if we are trapped here."

Suddenly loud voices came from the other side of the piled supplies and equipment. "......everywhere to make sure they are not here."

I peeked around a large crate to see at least twelve men coming through the sound barrier, fanning out to search the room. Presumably they were looking for us. I ducked back behind the crate and looked at Farren's frightened face.

"Well why didn't you say so? Let's get the hell out of here." I said in a whisper walking to the door. I set the required information in my mind and reached down inside myself and felt the now familiar power grow. Felt the tingle begin in my left hand as I reached out and grabbed the door knob. My whole body tingled as my hand contacted the knob and I twisted it and opened the door. Beyond was a small room with dim lights. Farren passed me and went through the door into the room and I followed pulling the door closed behind me. As the door closed I released the power and felt the knob grow cool in my hand as the gateway closed.

The lights come up in the room and I looked around to see where I was. It was a small room with a single desk in the center of it. No other furnishings were in the room and the walls were unadorned and plain with no windows. Well of course there were no windows we were still 17 levels below ground, just in a different realm. The only door was the one we had just come through; I opened it and looked out into an empty hallway, then closed it. Cool I knew that I could use any door to open a gateway to or from, but it's not the same as seeing it for myself.

Farren went to the desk and sat down behind it in the chair, the only chair in the room I might add and I could definitely use a chair right now.

"Okay enough of this, tell me what the hell is going on."

"At this time all I know is that I dreamed that people who meant you harm would come for you tonight in an attempt to prevent you from going on your first mission. I can't predict the future because it is always changing and there are many variables which change. All I can do is see one of many possible futures, and every action that I take or that is taken because I saw that possible future changes it further. It is a never ending cycle, for every action that is taken there is a different action that could have been taken which would result in another realm splitting off." He sighed deeply, "It can be and is very confusing at times. And you must remember I can't see the future I only see what is revealed in my dreams. So I must act upon what I saw in the Dream, while sleeping, with no knowledge of how things will turn out until I Dream again. Do not dwell on it too long or you will go crazy, it is like the dog chasing his tail, there is never an end to it."

"So what do we do now? I'm exhausted and don't know how much longer I can keep going." I said in my best hero not whining at all voice.

"I have made arraignments. We used the only door in the gateway room that is not monitored by the monitors. They will know that we entered the room and when they see that we did not use any of the permanent doors they will check the records on all the other doors. When they find no record of us using them they will know that we used the unmonitored door, but it will take them a long time to determine where we went. And by then we will be long gone." He stood up from the desk and crossed back to stand beside me in front of the door. "Now quickly go to the next realm in the papers I gave you and open the gateway there. We have further to journey this night."

With a sigh I moved the front paper to the back and looked at the next in line. Feeling the power grow in me I reached for the knob and went through the process of establishing and opening a gate for the second time in a few minutes. The next few hours were a hazy blur of stations and substations as I went through the whole stack of papers to more than a score of realms. Some of them we entered a station, though none as large as Center, and we had to leave quickly and quietly. Some were substations like the first one was and no one was there to worry about. We rested at one of the substations for a few minutes, other than that we went from realm to realm one after the other in what seemed like an endless progression.

The last realm we entered the substation appeared to have been unused for some time. It was dusty and smelled stale and old. Somewhere along the way we had picked up packs which we carried on our backs as we left the substation. It was a cool clear night and we appeared to be totally alone. No lights shown from anywhere and the sky was full of more stars then I had ever been able to see before, the moon was full and bright shining its light through the trees to guide us as Farren led us away.

"We have friends who will be meeting us here in this realm." He said from in front of me.

"I sure hope they're not far, because I am getting sick and tired of all this running around. I trained all day and then opened gateways all night; I don't think I can take too much more before I drop." I was so exhausted I knew I was at the end of my rope. I just learned to control and use my ability today and I was on serious overload with all I had been doing.

"It will not be much farther Clark, we are almost there and you can sleep then."

I'm sure I must have fallen asleep while walking because it seemed that no sooner did he say it then we entered an empty clearing in the forest. The moon lit the clearing except for shadows from the trees surrounding us, or at least that is what I thought till several of those shadows approached us.

"Greetings Westal I am pleased to see you have arrived. I trust that your journey was better than ours." Farren said to the man who stepped forward. I didn't care who he was right now and if he wanted to kill me he was going to have to wake me up to do it. I dropped my pack to the ground and collapsed beside it, slumping over onto it. The last thing I was aware of was Farren turning to me as I shut my eyes and passed out.
Growing up as the son of a man-of-arms of the king had its advantages. Since he could walk Westal had been trained to use a sword. Many endless hours had been spent in training with the various trainers and arms men. But because he has never trained with a group he was not really suitable for a men-at-arms position, he hated standing in a line waiting to be attacked. He was one of the best swordsmen in the realm as an individual but when it came to fighting in formation and marching in step with a legion he was not interested. This combined with his natural distrust of most others made him a loner. Which also made him an enigma to everyone else, and that just made him more inexplicable.

So he became a traveling swordsman, not a sword for hire, but a kind of paladin.

Westal traveled the land, righting wrongs, protecting the weak and defending the good people from the bad. He was technically a warder of the kingdom in the employ of the king. This meant that he had free range of the kingdom and enforced the king's laws wherever he went. He was the judge and jury in all matters and when needed the executioner.

He came to the attention of the agency when he was twenty two and he came upon brigands besieging a caravan that a group of agents were in. The traveler with them was a knocker and they had no way out of that realm, and it was looking like they had no way to escape at all. Most of the guards had already been killed and it was down to just the merchants and the agents and a few guards. Twenty five outlaws, deserters and cutthroats surrounded the group huddled behind the wagons of the caravan. No hope of escape or winning against such odds. The caravan master raised a white square of cloth on a broken lance picked up where it had fallen from the dead hand of one of his guards, in the universal sign of surrender. A shout rose from the throats of the attackers as they saw the white flag. The leader raised his hand and signaled his men to stop the attack. Yelling loud he said "Come forth and be counted craven merchants." The outlaws closed in as the remaining caravaners and agents stood up and stepped out from behind their hiding places in the circle of merchants wagons. They were grabbed roughly by the outlaws and their hands were tied behind their backs and then they were forced down onto their knees. The leader an evil looking man with slanted eyes who wore his hair slicked back with grease that made him smell like a rancid dead thing, stepped forward and looked down on the caravan master. He stared at the caravan master with contempt on his face. "You filthy money grubber, five of my men are dead because of you. I gave you the chance to surrender and save lives in the beginning and you refused."

Behind the leader a man suddenly appeared at the edge of the forest as if from thin air. His cloak the same shade of green as the surrounding foliage made him nearly impossible to see. All the outlaws focused on their leader as he pulled his dagger and in one motion slashed across the caravan masters face opening his cheek to the bone in a deep cut. The caravan master let out a scream of pain and all of the outlaws roared with laughter, none of them noticing as the man in the cloak came up behind the man farthest from the front and slide his dagger across his throat and eased his body to the ground in silence. The brigand leader grabbed the caravan master's right ear in his left hand and pulled it out away from his head, raised his dagger and yelled "What is the pleasure of the group?" As the crowd of outlaws roared "take the ear", the caravan masters eyes grew wide. The outlaw leader smiled a cruel smile as he looked into the caravan masters eyes, till he realized that the caravan master was looking past the outlaw leader. He began lowering his dagger as he turned to look behind himself, then his eyes grew wide. He let go of the caravan masters ear and spun around at what he had seen. The man in the cloak was wading through his men with a dagger in each hand delivering killing strokes left and right. Swinging his daggers back and forth the man came toward him, each movement of his arms dealing death to an outlaw.

The leader screamed "Kill him!" pointing at the man in the cloak. The outlaws surged toward the man as he threw the dagger in his right hand at the nearest one striking him in the chest; then the cloaked man drew his sword as the impaled man fell. The man with the cloak became a blur of motion to fast to follow as he rushed forward to meet the oncoming brigands. His sword and dagger dealt out death to all who came within his reach. Three attacked him at once, one on the left, one on the right and one straight on in front of him. These three had fought together many times for years and knew how to take down a single opponent. The one on the left swung his sword in a slash at the man in the cloaks neck designed to separate his head from his body, while the one on the right thrust at his right arm pit. Meanwhile the one in front came in with an overhand blow designed to cleave the man in the cloak from head to tail. The stranger blocked the slash coming from his left with his dagger, catching the sword close to the hilt. He batted the sword thrusting from his right with his sword and kicked the man in front of him in his right knee with his left foot. Pivoting on his right foot spinning faster than the eye could follow his dagger sliced across the throat of the man in front of him as he started to collapse on his broken knee, continuing to spin till he was facing back the way he had come, his sword flashing out at the man who had been on his left decapitating him just as the outlaw had tried to do to him. His dagger in his left hand embedded itself in the neck of the man who had attempted to impale him; leaving it there he grabbed the outlaw's sword from his suddenly limp hand. Now armed with a long sword in each hand he charged into the remaining brigands swiftly ending their sorry lives. In less time than it takes to tell he stood in front of a stunned outlaw leader who stood there with his dagger in his hand and his mouth open in shock. He just watched one lone man butcher twenty five hardened heavily armed criminals as if they were defenseless babes. In all of his life he had never seen such a sight. It was the most masterful thing he had ever witnessed. Then his face grew grim as it occurred to him that it was the last thing that he would ever see. Looking down at the red stain spreading across his chest he could only think, 'I did not even see him move, how could he do that so fast.....'

Standing in front of the caravan master and the agents the man in the cloak said "I am Westal a Warden of the King." Wiping his sword clean on the clothes of the man whose blood covered it, he sheathed it in one motion. Then he used the sword he had taken from the brigand to slice the bonds on the caravan master and the others. As the agents stood they looked at each other in awe at what they had seen. This man was the best they had ever seen. And many of these agents had been on hundreds of worlds where swords were the main weapon of choice. They had seen thousands of swordsmen and none had compared to this man with a sword. In fact they could think of no one on any of the realms who had his speed. They imagined him with a gun in his hand and tried to think of the fastest gun slinger in the realms where the gun was the main weapon. But none of them could think of ever seeing anyone with the kind of speed that made their body blur to the human eye. They did not even think that the speed they had seen this man display was even possible. It was obvious that they needed to recruit him for the agency.

As they set around the camp fire having eaten a hearty meal, exhausted from the task of burying the dead, the agents set about the monumental task of recruiting Westal. It was no easy task to recruit anyone from the sword worlds because it was so hard to explain the existence of other realms let alone the whole Multiverse. But to attempt to recruit a man who was at the top of the food chain so to speak was very difficult. After all the man was an agent of the highest level to the king. Everyone except the king looked up to him; he had complete control over everything in his life. Unless he drew the anger of the king he would continue to be the main force to be dealt with till he became too old or physically infirm to do his duties, at which point he would settle down on whatever land his king choose to give him. And since Westal was the best of the best he would be rewarded handsomely for his service. This would not be an easy task for the agents.
Nothing, which was something that I was getting used to, does that even make sense? Well it makes as much sense as everything else that was going on in my life. With everything going on I had not even had time to start my novel. Start my novel, what the hell, who was I kidding? I was away from home without my computer, or I was lying in bed in a drug induced hallucination. This was not working out the way I had intended. But what did I expect; it is pretty hard to write when you're popping in and out of existence, or opening and jumping through gates, or slipping in and out of reality, whichever the case may be. I still can't believe how much my life has changed in the last few days. Multiverse, alternate universes, realms, hell I had never even heard the terms before let alone known what they were.

I woke to see the sun starting to peek over the horizon. Sitting up my body complained from the long night spent on the ground. I definitely was not used to this. But if I could travel between alternate realities I am sure that I could get accustomed to anything as mundane as sleeping on the ground. Although an air mattress would have been nice.

The fall foliage was more breathtaking then any I had ever seen. The colors brighter and more varied then what I was used to seeing on my own realm. I was really surprised that there was such a difference in the realms. I mean after all this was still earth that I was on. They tell me it is something to do with the amount of minerals in the soil, and the amount of pollutants in the air, or the lack thereof. Some realms that have never had humans seem so strange; the Delta Sector is totally devoid of human life, except for the interlopers from the agency or the rebels. The forest were so lush and thick, the air so clean and clear. I really enjoyed the clear colors and the crisp morning air. Although as the memory of last night came back to me I wasn't so sure that I was going to enjoy this realm as much as I could. I doubted that I would be here long enough to get use to this realm.

"Good Morning Clark."

"Morning Farren, but I don't know about good." I said feeling cranky at best.

"We should get a move on we have a long way to go. I want to make it as far as Metazorlan before night fall."

"Look the sun is just coming up. I'm not a big breakfast eater normally but I'm starving. And I don't even get dressed till I have had my coffee. So just keep your pants on."

Farren Olivera grabbed up a leather pouch and tossed it to me. "Break fast with this. We have no time for any more. And as for coffee, you should know that on this realm coffee was never discovered. The coffee plant originated in the Arabian Peninsula in most realms, on this realm the peninsula was not settled at the right time and if the plant ever existed it was never discovered." Turning his head to hide the smile spreading across his face Farren waited for the outburst he knew was coming from Clark.

"What the hell! No coffee! What kind of road trip is this?" Opening the pouch and reaching in I pulled out a small loaf of hard bread and cheese.

"Oh you have got to be kidding me. You have to be the worst host ever." Clark grumbled as he bit into the bread and followed it with a piece of cheese. Actually it was fairly good to be honest, which he did not want to be right now.

"In the realm from which you hail from is it customary to begin the day with prayer?"

"Well some do I believe but not me. I have always been a go my own way kind of guy."

"Then I see no reason for you to be destroying the silence of the forest with endless prattle. Become silent and let us be on our way."

Oh great of all the Dreamers out there in all the alternate universes and I have to get stuck with the stoic type, just my luck.

Well I do need to get going. Because the only way I have of getting out of here is finding a door, and evidently the substation wouldn't do. Not that this is a bad place, I just think I can think of a few others that I would rather be.

As Farren started gathering all of our supplies and preparing to move on, I took the opportunity to get a good look at our new companions. It seems that last night in the dark I missed seeing everyone. There were at least half a dozen new bodies lying around the camp site this morning. The blankets that each of them was rolled up in made it near impossible to tell anything about them. But if size was any indication then we had a very diverse group. Off to the left of the fire away from most of the group was a large shape under an even larger blanket. That one had to be at least seven feet tall and broad as a barrel of wine; I have always preferred a barrel of wine as a descriptive instead of a keg of beer, it sounds so much more refined. Of the other five at least two of them appeared to be of the diminutive race of monitors of which Fanya Alpha IV and Tomos Alpha LXV belonged. The last three looked fairly average in size and shape. Well average to me, maybe not to Farren Olivera who was as tall and skinny as they come.

As each of the companions woke Farren Olivera was there to greet them good morning and give each of them a bit of food for breaking their fast. What the hell, I was starting to talk like Farren now, worse yet I was not even talking I was thinking in his weird speech pattern. When the big guy sat up I realized that he was huge! I think if anything I had under estimated his size. When he stood up I realized that he was a true giant, he was at least eight feet tall and as broad as a car. Not one of those little wimpy foreign models either but a true American muscle car with plenty of width. I know he had to tip the scales at better than five or six hundred pounds at least, and I don't think there is an ounce of fat on him. If I remember correctly Farren said his name was Khasa Maurie and I am sure it translated into giant one who walks anywhere he wants. So it is only natural for me to call him Biggin, well maybe not to his face, I would hate to make him mad. Now the two diminutive ones were Ananga Mellie and Antara Hilb I vaguely remember Farren telling me that during one of our rest periods on the trip here. Well maybe not a perfect translation but I think it was pretty close. But all of this really isn't the point. These were my companions for this leg of my journey, wherever the hell I was going. Who would have thought two days ago that I would be waking up in the middle of the forest on my way to Oz looking for the wizard? Well I might as well be, but it was the only way it seemed that I could get home and let's face it I'm sure that whatever I needed to do and wherever I needed to go on this plane, planet, world, realm or whatever the hell you called it, I would need all the help I could get.

We prepared to leave as everyone milled around gathering their things and packing up. Westal sharpened and oiled his sword; he was like a boy scout his motto was 'always be prepared.' He was purported to be one of the best swordsman in the realm, well his realm but I had no idea which one that was, nor did it matter since they were all pretty much the same to me. Sitting on the other side of the clearing across the fire from Westal was an average looking guy I heard someone call Orman. He had a long bow laid out beside him and he was waxing the string. Suddenly Orman raised his hand high up in the air, everyone froze. Orman evidently had the best hearing of all of us because he had heard something when no one else had. With a yell of fury a rag tag group of cutthroats burst from the brush on the north side of the camp. All of them were filthy and covered in dirt and twigs, but the weapons they brandished appeared to be well cared for and very deadly. There were too many to count quickly and they were upon us in no time at all.

They had caught us totally unprepared, but as I jumped up and prepared to defend myself I noticed that maybe everyone else was not as unprepared as I had thought. Westal was the closest to the brigands as they came into the clearing that we had made our camp in. His sword flashed out as the first two attackers came at him, a blur too fast for the eye to follow. One second he was sitting on the ground with his sword in his lap, the next he was on his feet his sword in his hand and pointing to his right. A red mist hung in the air between him and his two attackers; then both of them crumpled to the ground as blood jetted from their throats. Before I had time to wonder how in the world he did that things got very hectic around me. Suddenly I was the focus of far too many bad guys.

A sudden yell brought me back to the dire nature of my predicament, "That is the one we want. Take him alive, kill the rest."

What the hell? This was some serious shit. Five of the hooligans rushed me with clubs; as the first raised his club and brought it down in a blow designed to crush my skull an arrow sprouted from his left eye. Cool trick, oh wait he's going down like a rag doll, I don't think it was his trick. Then the others were upon me and I was fighting for my life. Two of them flanked me and came in swinging. I was too new to this kind of fighting, hell who am I kidding, to any kind of fighting. The closest I had been to a fight in years was watching action movies on television. The one on my left was the bigger of the two, and he swung his club high at me to bring it along side of my head. I ducked right and met the other ones truncheon coming in from the right. An explosion of light filled my world, bright stars everywhere shining down on me. A loud roar sounded from across the clearing, Biggin was getting into the fight now, which was the last thing that I heard as I sank down into a black abyss.
I was floating on the nice gray waves again. I had been here before and was beginning to like this place, no one to bother me, no nagging little people, no one trying to kill me. So peaceful and quit, I think I will stay here awhile this time. Off in the distance I hear voices. "NO" I'm not ready to go yet. What the hell, I just got here. The voices are coming closer, getting louder. Damn, I need a vacation.

"........He has to be around here somewhere." The first voice said.

"They did not carry him off, of that I am sure." I heard a voice say that sure sounded a lot like Farren Olivera.

A lightening of the gray and I realized that I had been unconscious and was coming awake. I opened my eyes slowly and blinked. There was stickiness in them, I wiped my hand across them trying to clear my vision and my hand came away wet. Damn that guy had really hit me a good one. My hand came away covered with blood, tacky, thick and dark red. Very dark red, I raised my head and looked around. The others were standing spread out looking at the ground; Westal was not more than five feet from me. I realized they were looking for me. Something wrong with my vision everything was blurry and gray. Probably from the whack on the head I had taken.

"Damn good thing I'm not dying. If you guys can't even find me lying out in the open how the hell are you going to help me find a door to get out of here?"

"Keep looking, he may have crawled into the woods for cover. He took a hit in the head before I could reach him." Westal said to the others.

"He did not even have a chance with no training. And we have failed our duty to protect him." Antara Hilb stated.

"What the hell is wrong with you assholes, I'm right here!" I said as I sat up and looked at them. Whoa, my head spun and everything spun in the opposite direction, this was definitely not good. It was worst then I thought, everything was blurry and gray but my companions were translucent. I could actually see through Westal as he walked past me, nearly stepping on my left foot. "What's up Westal? You don't look so well." Oh shit, he kept walking like he didn't even hear me. Which means that he didn't even hear me!

I stood up groaning as my head felt like it was being ripped open by a giant otter to get at my brain like it was a clam. I looked around at my surroundings. The companions were all translucent, I could see right through them, most of the trees were a little blurry and all of the bushes were fuzzy and much bigger than they should be. All right think Clark. I turned in a circle and surveyed the clearing with our camp in it. All of our packs were lying around where they had been dropped when we were attacked; they were as translucent as my companions. The stew pot from last night's supper was tipped over next to the camp fire. All of our belongings were transparent, the packs the pot everything. The stones that we had put in a circle to build the fire in and the flat griddle shaped stone that we had built the fire on were transparent, except for one. Hhhhmmmmm the large stone that was sticking up out of the ground that we had used as a starting point for our fire circle was crystal clear and crisp. Almost like it belonged there and nothing else around it did. An idea began to form in my head; I quickly took two steps to my left and searched the ground. There it was. The same flat stone that I had put in the center of the fire ring last night and that I had just seen there transparent now was also in the same place that I had taken it from last night. It was starting to dawn on me. Without knowing how I had slipped between realms. But that was not possible I was a knocker not a walker. I was not supposed to be able to go between. Only walkers could do that, or maybe arties, I was not real sure of that, but definitely not a knocker. So how did this happen, how did I get between? And more importantly how was I going to get back. I needed to talk to Antara Hilb or Ananga Mellie; they were my watchers so maybe they would know what had happened and how to reverse it.

"Hey, Antara Hilb look over here." It was no use. No matter how loud I yelled they could not hear me. I had to think of something else to try to get their attention. Looking around I started remembering what Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV had told me about being between. All of the trees were in both of the realms that I was between but not in the exact same place they were just a little separated in space so they appeared blurry, and the bushes were the same but maybe even a little farther off but still close enough to be in the same space, so they appeared fuzzy. Everything that was transparent was only in one realm or the other in that space thus the rocks that I had moved last night were in the fire circle in one realm but still on the ground where I had found them in the other. Because these were realms in a delta sector there was not much difference in things at all. Reaching down for one of the stones on the ground my hand passed right through it. Anything that was transparent had no substance in the between, however if I remembered correctly anything that was in both realms occupying the same space in both realms would have substance in the between and I would be able to interact with it. So all I needed to do was find something that was in both realms and I would be able to use it to signal my companions. I started looking around for a rock or a stick or anything that was not blurry or transparent. Looking down on the ground it occurred to me. The ground was in both places. Running over in front of Ananga Mellie I pulled my knife and knelt down and scraped on the ground 'I'm here'', just as he looked down.

"Aaaa." Ananga Mellie yelled as he jumped into the air and back.

Instantly everyone converged on him with weapons drawn.

"What has overcome you Ananga Mellie?" rumbled Khasa Maurie, as he turning in circles looking for a threat.

"There" Ananga Mellie said pointing to the ground in front of him.

All of the companions gathered around Ananga Mellie and looked where he was pointing.

Khasa Maurie looked around "Where is he? I don't see anyone or anything. Is it Williams Henry Wilson?"

"I do not know how this happened but I think that Clark is in the between." Ananga said. "This should not have happened. He is a knocker not a walker. Unless one of the brigands was a walker or an artie and took him between, he should not be there, this is most unusual." Looking around at the group he said, "Clear this space, we must communicate with him." Saying this he proceeded to draw his dagger and kneel down.

"What are you doing? If he is here why not just talk to him?" Khasa Maurie asked with a puzzled look on his face.

Antara Hilb answered while Ananga Mellie proceeded to use his dagger to write in the dirt where they had cleared the ground.

"If Clark has indeed gone into the between he will not be able to hear us nor will we be able to hear him. No sound can travel across the boundary from the between, but the ground where we are is the same as the ground in the between so when we scratch in the dirt he can see it just as we saw what he wrote."

"The real question is how did he get there? It should be impossible for anyone other than a walker or artie to go between, and Clark is neither of those, he is a knocker as has already been demonstrated. So now Ananga Mellie is trying to find out exactly how he came to be in the between."

At which point Ananga Mellie looked up from the ground. "The bad news is he has no idea how he got there. He was knocked out; the last thing he remembered is getting hit in the head then blacking out. When he came to he was in the between. He is there alone and sees no sign that anyone else has been there, so it does not appear that a walker or an artie took him there, but as to how he got there I have no clue. It is not possible yet it is so." Shaking his head he continued, ""The good news is he can hear us even though we cannot hear him. I'm not sure how this is possible but it is not my specialty so we will just accept it as so."

Clark was worried. Here he was in the between and he had no idea how he got here let alone how he was going to get out. It was a good thing that he had eaten breakfast just before the attack. He had no supplies to speak of, only what he had on him at the time of the attack which was his cloths his weapons and some jerky in his belt pack. What about water he wondered, there was water in all realms as far as he knew but he was not sure if he would be able to drink it in the between. Being in the between was not hit on very much during his training since they determined that he was a knocker. So he was racking his brain trying to remember what he could. It was strange to be able to see the companions as if they were ghost. Which reminded him, he seemed to remember something about ghost and poltergeist being mentioned by Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV. He needed to find something that he could grasp in his hand that was in both realms. If he remembered right he would be able to move it in both realms from the between. All that was required was that it was in the same space in both realms. He stood up and started walking around Biggin, just as Khasa Maurie decided to move himself. The result was that they walked into each other, stepped right through each other. Clark shivered, he started in shock, there was a tingle like his whole body was going to sleep for a split second. But it was more the mental shock than anything physical. Khasa Maurie however gave a huge shudder his whole body shaking. It was obvious that it had affected him much more than it had William Henry Wilson. Clark imagined that Khasa Maurie just had a close encounter of the ghostly kind. Now it was time for him to see about finding something that he could use to interact with the realm where the companions were. He looked around the clearing but any hope of finding anything that they had not disturbed when making camp was slim. But they had not gone into the woods except to find fire wood, and not too deeply at that.

As Clark walked in to the trees at the edge of the clearing it gave him a very strange feeling. The trees and bushes were very close to being in the same space in both realms but not close enough. As he pushed into the wood it was like walking into molasses or honey. The air seemed to grow thick and push back against him as he walked. It reminded him of the fog in his dream during the induction training. He could feel the bushes to a small degree and they moved as he walked through them as if a wind blew them. It was a very strange feeling indeed. As he walked through he looked at the ground for anything that he could use. He noticed a group of stones under the boles of a giant oak tree. This tree was as much bigger than the surrounding trees as Khasa Maurie was bigger than himself. On closer inspection the tree was not an oak but some other type that he did not recognize. He reached the tree and realized that what he thought were small stones were really rather large, and they were solid so they were in both realms, just what he needed. He knelt down and started inspecting the stones. Picking them up and hefting them into the air to get a feel for them. Then he would set them to the side as he went to the next one in the pile. In this way he worked through the pile looking for the perfect one. He had selected several that were fist sized and smooth and round. Perfect for throwing or bashing heads if needed. Because it had occurred to him that he could use this between to his advantage if the brigands came back.

Picking up the stones he had chosen he carefully placed them into his pack which he hefted over his shoulder. Now having armed himself he felt better, much better. There was no doubt that now he would be able to assist his companions if the need should arise. Walking back out into the clearing he noticed his companions were ready to head out. Antara Hilb and he had worked out a plan of action, they had about twelve to fifteen hours of walking to reach the city that they were headed to and Antara Hilb believed that when they got there that Clark would be able to open a door and come back into the same realm they were in. Then maybe they could determine what had happened and how he had gotten into the between. It had been decided that they would follow the banks of the river where possible since Clark had no way to carry water. That way he could drink his fill when he could so that thirst would not be an issue. Clark determined that he would never again be without the necessities again. From now on he would always have a canteen and food with him, even though he was no walker he had ended up in the between somehow.

Khasa Maurie led the way into the forest following the river as planned as the companions headed out. Orman was second in line with his bow strung and an arrow nocked and ready for action. Next in line were Antara Hilb and Ananga Mellie, a very deadly fighting pair despite their size. Then was Farren Olivera with Westal bringing up the rear. I knew that the order of march would change throughout the course of the day. I trouped along behind as we wound around through the woods. Then it occurred to me that I did not need to bring up the rear or even stay on the trail. Were the trail followed the river in its serpentine path I found that I could go in a straight line and just walk through most of what everyone else had to walk around. It was in this way that I found myself in front of Khasa Maurie and about fifty feet up the hill from him. That is why I found the ambush instead of Khasa Maurie being caught in it. There was an outcropping of boulders that the path skirted on the downhill side and that is where I found the brigands who had attacked us earlier, waiting for us to finish the job. There were twelve of them, six on the uphill side of the outcropping and six on the downhill side. They planned to catch the companions as they rounded the outcropping and trap them between the two groups.

Antara Hilb and I had not thought of anyway to communicate in an emergency as neither of us had any experience with the between. I did not think there was time to try writing in the dirt, and even if there was how would I get their attention. I would have to see what I could do by myself before they got caught in the trap. Coming down the hill to the group of outlaws who were on the uphill side of the outcropping and thus hidden from the view of the companions the most I took off my pack and set it down beside me as I contemplated what to do. The first outlaw was looking around the end of the outcropping trying to sight the companions coming up the path. I reached into the pack and seized one of my stones. As I lifted it out of the pack the next outlaw who stood behind the first waiting turned ashen and his eyes grew wide in shock and fear. I realized that he was seeing a stone appear as if by magic rising into the air. He drew in a breath to shout; before he could I straight armed the stone right into his face. It was impromptu and did not have a lot of force but it was hard enough to knock him back stumbling and falling onto his back side. His eyes crossed and he shook his head as if to clear it. The first outlaw turned at the noise and I recognized him as the one who had knocked me out or into the between depending on how you looked at it. This time I was ready and pivoted to my right and swung the stone at his head with my full weight behind it. Blood splattered against the stone outcropping as his head caved in with the force of my blow. His body flew backward to land in the path. A chill ran through me from my right shoulder to my left hip as I saw about ten inches of sword tip follow that same path through my body. The third outlaw had seen the stone crush the skull of the lead man and knew that someone was holding it. Unfortunately for him it did him no good to know that or to attempt to kill me. Having knowledge and being able to use it were two different things. I was between and beyond his touch. As I turned and swung my handy stone at this outlaw he jumped back as I heard shouts from the other end of the stone outcropping. The lower group of outlaws hearing the commotion on this side of the stone outcropping had mistakenly assumed that the companions had already passed the first group of outlaws and were being attacked by them. The second group had come out to soon, right into the path of Khasa Maurie. His battle ax was making quick work of them. I could not let this group of outlaws past me to attack the companions or it would be the same as if the ambush had sprung as intended. I drew my arm back and let fly the stone, straight at the head of the outlaw who was still backing up. Dead center of his face it struck him. As he collapsed the other three who had not seen any of the stone fight came charging out of the brush to round the outcropping. I crouched down and reached into my pack with both hands and grabbed a stone in each, waiting crouched there till the first two were nearly upon me. Then standing suddenly I threw my arms out to each side as they came even with me. Crashing the stones into the sides of their heads as they passed me, I knocked them both to the sides away from me. The third outlaw skidded to a stop in shock as his two accomplices flew off the path to either side. Standing there like a statue allowing me plenty of time to dispatch him with a stone to the forehead.

Ananga Mellie and Antara Hilb came rushing around the end of the stone outcropping with weapons draw, jumping over the body of the first outlaw who was laying in the path. Ready to finish what ever needed to be finished. They saw the bodies of the other outlaws and looked at each other in surprise. Then they noticed a bloody stone bouncing up and down in the air a few feet off the ground as I tossed the stone up in the air then caught it again.

"It seems we have a guardian angel." Ananga Mellie said to Antara Hilb smiling from ear to ear.
The sun set behind the towers of Metazorlan as the companions walked through the main gates of the city. I wanted to find a door to use to travel back as soon as I could. The rest of the journey had been uneventful with no more attacks from outlaws, but I was getting hungry and big surprise to me the silence was growing tiresome. As long as I was within ten feet or so of someone I could hear them talk, but any farther and their voices quickly became muffled. The city guard at the gates stopped the companions as they approached the gates. The captain of the guard stepped in front of them and questioned their business in Metazorlan, while all of his men could not take their eyes off of Khasa Maurie. I realized that they had never seen anyone as large as him. I doubted if there was anyone on this realm who even came close to his size. This was a realm that did not practice magic and there were no magical creatures as far as the agency was aware of. So no giants called this world home.

As the captain questioned Farren Olivera, a large crowd gathered to stare. It was obvious we had made a mistake by coming to the main gates in day light with Khasa Maurie in plain sight. So much for me keeping a low profile on the return trip to the agency control center. Farren Olivera was explaining to the captain, or rather to everyone in hearing that Khasa Maurie was his brother and their whole family was over sized and that each generation got larger than the last. Unfortunately it was not working. Hell Khasa Maurie was almost eight feet tall and weighed over five hundred pounds; no one believed that he was even human. I could see that things were not going good and that we were going to have a lot of trouble with this. The guard captain was not only going to stop us from entering the city, it looked like he might be willing to arrest every one of us just on the principle of being different. Well everyone but me, as far as these people were concerned there was no Clark to be seen. Which meant that it was time for me to take matters into my hands before the local yokels became a problem.

I had a problem that I had not anticipated and had not encountered before this out in the forest. Too many people surrounded me. While the companions looked around at the crowd starring at them, I could see this transparent crowd and the guards plus the transparent people populating the city in the next realm as they went about their business. It was strange to see all of the people as they walked through each other with no knowledge that they were there. It was confusing for me and made it impossible for me to determine which ones were on the same realm as the companions and which were not. This would make it hard for me to interfere on my companion's behalf. Then I noticed a door, a small personal door off to the left of the main gates. There was a shed type building that must have been used as some type of storage built next to the wall. I ran to the shed and reached for the door knob. Damn, my hand passed right through it, and I realized that it was transparent. It was only in one of the realms that I was between not both, so it was useless to me in my present state. I turned and looked back at the companions to see how they were fairing. Not good at all. While my back was turned, and of course I could not hear anything which made it very hard to keep track of things, the guards had surrounded the companions and drawn their weapons. To make matters worse reinforcements had also arrived. There were at least fifty or sixty guards around the companions now and there was no way that the companions as good as they were could stand up to that many when they were surrounded with weapons drawn. This was getting desperate now. There was nothing that I could think of that I could do that would make any difference in the outcome of this confrontation. There was only one way that I could help. And that was to get them out of there somehow. I just was not sure what I could do. The huge city gate was the closest thing that I could use to travel and I had not opened anything that big yet and was unsure of exactly what to do and how to do it.

So being the super over cautious type that I am, I ran to the gate and reached out to the Gate. Not sure what I was doing just knowing that I had to do something I felt the power flow through me as I touched the stone archway. I had no visualization in my mind like Tomos and Fanya had trained me to do, I just reached out waiting for the now familiar tingle to spread from my hands up my arms, and there was a loud POP as my body turned to flame! Or at least that is the way it felt, as the power surged through me like never before. A loud roaring filled the air and a rushing wind blew through the Gate into the city, a wind so strong I could feel it pulling and sucking at me. Trying to suck me into the city, only the city was not there, looking through the gate I realized that I was looking through the Gate into another realm and that it was a dead airless world. The city was there in ruins and the air from this realm was being sucked into it. Without realizing what I was doing I had opened a Gate to a dead airless realm and if I did not close it all of the air from this realm would be sucked out through the Gate and this would be a dead realm to. I remember Tomos telling me that this had happened to other realms when knockers had been unfortunate enough to open Gates to airless realms and that the knockers had died before they were able to close the Gate. I was gripping the stone of the gate with all of my strength as the wind sucked at me; unfortunately I was halfway through the gate so there was no way to close it without killing myself in the process. At least I assumed that if I closed a Gate while I was halfway through it I would be cut in half, and that is not something I really wanted to find out first hand. As I held tight and tried to pull myself back out of the gateway screaming guardsmen and citizens flew past me being sucked into the dead realm. This was not my day; I was straining to pull myself back and slowly losing my battle and slipping into the dead realm. It was becoming harder to breath as the wind rushed past me. It was like I was in the middle of a hurricane and the breath was being sucked from my lungs. Just as I knew that I was going to die and take this realm with me a giant hand gripped my arm. I looked up into the face of Khasa Maurie as he landed against the wall next to me and started pulling on my arm. Pulling me back into the realm where there was air to breath, where there was hope of survival. He pulled me through and I grabbed the stone of the gate and cut off the power to the Gate.

My ears popped as the pressure equalized again, and I could hear the screaming coming from all around me. People lay scattered all around where they had grabbed a hold of anything they could in an attempt to keep from being sucked through the Gate. The companions were all spread out on the ground with daggers stabbed into the ground to hold them in place, all except Khasa Maurie who had saved me. The companions reacted quicker than the rest because they had an idea of what had happened, the poor guardsmen and citizens of Metazorlan had no clue what was happening let alone know how to save themselves. Westal was the first to get up, and helping the rest of the companions up they came running toward me and Khasa Maurie. As a group we ran into the city and turned the first corner we came to and kept running. We ran twisting and turning through the streets shoving people out of our way in our hurry to put as much distance as possible between us and the gate. Khasa Maurie led the way and easily cleared a path for the rest of us. After what seemed like an hour of running we turned into an ally and after the first turn when we were out of sight of anyone who was watching we stopped. Gasping for breath we waited to see if we were pursued. After a full five minutes with no one coming around the corner into the ally we decided we were safe from discovery for now.

"Glad to have you back Clark, but I wish you could have been a little more discreet about it." Orman said while gasping for breath, "and thank you for saving us back there."

"Hey I am doing the best I can with what I know. This is all new to me; I have no idea what I did let alone how I did it." I said as I glanced back the way we came looking for pursuit. "Let's find a door that I can use and see about getting us out of here before we get in any more trouble."

"We need to get you back to the agency center to try to determine what happened to you. There is definitely something different about you. Not only should you not have been able to go in the between, you should not have been able to do what you did back there at the city gate." Ananga Mellie exclaimed. "What exactly did you do back there?"

"I knew that I had to do something or you all were going to be killed from the looks of things, so I opened a Gate, I never gave any thought to where I wanted it to go to, only that I needed to open a gate and get us out of there."

"That is just it," said Antara Hilb, "you should have had to open a door to this realm and pass through it. You were not in this realm at the time so you should have not been able to open a Gate from here to another realm. Any other knocker would have had to first open a door and come into this realm and then open the Gate to somewhere else. And to open a door first and then open the Gate would take a lot of power; most knockers would have to rest before opening the Gate. Even then they would have been exhausted for some time afterward. You not only opened a Gate from this realm to another while being in the between you somehow came into this realm without a door apparently. Then had the energy to run through the city streets for several miles and appear to be no more tired than the rest of us. This is unheard of, even without the impossibility of the Gate opening I know of no other knocker who could have done this and not taken hours to recover. Clark you have abilities and power which is unheard of by any of us before."

"Well it's no stranger then everything else that has been happening to me." Clark said. "Now maybe we should get out of here while we still can." He said as sounds of the pursuit came down the alley. "It seems that we have not lost them after all."

Khasa Maurie stood and unlimbered his battle ax. "I shall hold them off whilst you prepare a Gateway for us. In this ally their numbers mean nothing, I can easily best them here."

Looking around Clark found a suitable doorway and went to it. ""Use caution this time Clark, we do not want to revisit the dead realm."" Farren Olivera said with a raised eye brow.

"Everybody's a critic these days!" Clearing his mind of everything Clark pictured the realm he had been told was a way point on the way back to the Agency Control Center. A realm that had substations scattered across the world. He wasn't sure how it worked, it was part of his induction training, but he knew the realm he was opening a Gateway into was not the substation realm but one that would lead them to it. It was like he had a map in his mind that he could read when the need arose. He felt the power rise in him as he reached for the door frame. A tingle flowed up his arm as he touched it.

There was a loud bellow and the sound of men yelling with the clash of metal on metal coming from down the alley where they had come. Khasa Maurie was upholding his end of the operation from the sounds of it. As he grabbed the door he felt a burst of heat as the power flowed down his arm to his hand and he opened the old warped wooden door, and gazed into an empty warehouse with blazing lights on the other side. The bright light shining out into the dim ally from the warehouse was a welcome sight indeed. Clark motioned to Antara Hilb and Ananga Mellie to go through the door. As they ran through the open door they were followed by Farren Olivera, with Westal standing on the other side of the door way from Clark, he would not go through till Clark was ready to go through himself as it was Westal's responsibility to see that no harm came to Clark. Orman stood at the bend in the ally and whistled and Khasa Maurie appeared running back down the alley. As he ran past Orman the archer let loose with one arrow after another at the guardsmen. Khasa Maurie ducked low and dived through the doorway since there was no way he could remain on his feet and go through the door way and there was no time for him to get down on his hands and knees. Orman let fly two more arrows then came running and without slowing went through the doorway. Westal grabbed Clark and together they went through the door, once on the other side of the door Clark slammed the door shut and released the power that held the Gate open.

It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.

-Bill Watterson
Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV looked up as Clark, Antara Hilb and Ananga Mellie walked into the control room where they were working. "We do not know yet how it happened." Tomos Alpha LXV said.

"Your very well informed Tomos since we just got back to the Agency Center five minutes ago. How did you find out so fast?" Clark questioned with a puzzled look on his face. The companions had come through the Gate without any difficulty, Khasa Maurie, Westal and Orman going to their quarters to clean up and change into garb suitable for the agency control center. Walking around in gear designed for the sword realms, not to mention the weapons, was frowned upon at the agency control center. Clark, Antara Hilb and Ananga Mellie had gone straight to the control room to talk with Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV about what had happened on the sword realm. He wasn't sure where Farren had gone or what he was doing.

"I told you before that I was assigned to monitor you Clark. And I must say you are turning out to be quit the traveler. Your walk into the between was totally unprecedented, and when you opened the Gate using the city gate the power spike was off the charts. I have never seen anything like this before. No knocker in history has ever been able to walk between the realms unless he was accompanying a walker. To be truthful I would never have guessed that you could handle that kind of power. There have only been a few travelers that have used that amount of power, and of them only one survived, for a time. Many travelers can do what you did by utilizing their abilities fully with finesse, but all of those had to have years of training before they ever attempted it. And the personal cost would be staggering. You on the other hand with little training and no specialized training or experience at all have accomplished it through raw use of power, with no ill effects at all it seems.""

"What about ending up in the between during that fight? The last thing I remember is seeing that club coming at my head, then I woke up in the between. Did I do that or was it done to me?" Clark asked.

"All the readings indicated that the power flowed through you. Therefore it must be assumed that you are the one who walked, albeit in an unconscious manner. It must be assumed that the immediate threat to your life caused your ability to manifest at that time. Now the question is; was the ability always there lying dormant or is it something new that has developed. The even bigger question is can other travelers develop this ability or is it unique to you?" Fanya Alpha IV said as she came into the conversation. "If the ability is unique to you then you are by far the most powerful traveler to ever be discovered. If it lies dormant in every traveler then what will it take to awaken it and do we really want that?' pausing for breath she then continued. "If all travelers can do this with training or at will once they find this ability then we could make the assumption that the arties can also do this. That would be very bad for the agency as I am sure you know. This war is hard enough as it is without them having unlimited power. At this time the fact that they are limited in what they can do is the only reason that we are winning. If it changes and they develop more abilities then the balance of power will surely switch. "

"After we have fully analyzed the data we have gathered we should be able to answer these questions.' Antara Hilb stated. 'I see no reason to speculate on it any further at this time, we will know soon enough. Now would be a good time to clean up and get out of our traveling gear. I for one could stand a nice sonic shower and a soak in a large deep tub of hot water."

"Only after food I am famished." Ananga Mellie weighed in, "I have not eaten since this morning and I am sure that I am going to suffer permanent damage if I do not eat soon!"

"On come now Ananga Mellie, surely you have enough extra reserves in your body to last a few days without eating." Fanya Alpha IV verbally jabbed at him.

"Did you just call me fat? Surely you jest; I'll have you know that I am the perfect weight for my height."

"Ha-ha what the hell, none of you people could weigh more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, you should come to my realm if you want to see fat." Clark laughed as he shook his head at their antics.

As the companions left the agency control room to seek their individual fulfillment Tomos Alpha LXV turned to his control panel to start analyzing the data he had collected throughout the most recent travel of Clark. This man was unique, no matter what Fanya Alpha IV seemed to think about other travelers having latent abilities. Tomos Alpha LXV for all of his youthful appearance had been a monitor for a little over four hundred years, and before that he was a field agent in the employ of the agency. One of the training lessons that Clark had not received yet because of the need to expedite his training was the full history of the agency and all of the races of man that had developed across the Multiverse. Khasa Maurie was of one of the races that had come into being as a result of the use of magic on his realm. Some one of his size and stature could not have developed naturally without magic. Tomos Alpha LXV, Fanya Alpha IV, Antara Hilb, and Ananga Mellie were of another race that had gone in the other direction. They were so technologically advanced that most of what they were capable of would seem like magic to the other races. On Clark's realm there had never been anyone as intelligent as Tomos Alpha LXV or as long lived. And his long life of course was a result of science not magic. Most of his people lived so long that they eventually choose to die rather than continue to live a life that had lost all sense of adventure. The agency provided that for Tomos Alpha LXV and others of his race. It was their family and their life. For them there was nothing without the agency, and they gave it their all. Antara Hilb and Ananga Mellie were much younger and had many years to go before the excitement and adventure of being in the field wore off. For now the excitement of field work was very rewarding.

As Clark left the agency control room he realized how much his life had changed. He would gladly trade all of his abilities and the excitement of the traveling to be back home with Kate Wilson, to be leading a simple life devoid of adventure. But he knew that if the arties were successful in their quest that there would be no simple life for him or anyone else on his home realm. It was a sacrifice that he was making, but one that needed to be made. And one that he was willing to make, no matter how hard it was. After all that is what a sacrifice was all about. Giving up something you cherished to protect someone you cherished.

Clark stopped in his tracks. A look of wonder coming over his face, he just realized that sometime in the last two days he had come to accept that this was all real and not a hallucination. He wasn't sure how or when it had happened but it was true. A cold chill ran down his spine as he contemplated everything that had happened and realized that if what he had experienced over the last few days was real then so was the threat to him and Kate. He was now an intricate part of this war, whether he wanted to be or not. If it was true that he was more powerful than any other knocker had ever been, then it may well be up to him to save the world so to speak. It was a very daunting task to say the least.

He walked down the hallway to the mag lifts and descended into the depths of the agency control center where the living quarters were located. He had a modest apartment that had been assigned to him when he first came here. It was not much but he really did not need much as most of his time was going to be in the field traveling. He entered the two room apartment and started shedding his clothes off as he walked through the living room slash kitchen area into his bed room. After taking off all of his clothes he proceeded into what he thought of as the bathroom but was labeled the waste room by the agency personnel. It consisted of a wasted receptacle, a toilet in other words, and a sonic shower stall. The shower was the one thing that amazed him the most. He stepped into it and felt a tingle over his whole body as the sonic waves sluiced off the dirt and grime from the days of traveling. In twenty seconds the tingling stopped and he stepped back out. Cleaner than if he had taken a long hot shower at home and scrubbed for a half an hour. He went into the bedroom and walked to the wall opposite of the waste room and it split open upon his approach to reveal clothes hanging in midair as if suspended by magic, which he still was not convinced that it was not magic. Picking out a blue station suit, or what he thought of as a jump suit, that was made of some type of soft material that adjusted the temperature so his body was always comfortable. After pulling the suit on Clark headed back into the kitchen area and walked up to the wall and it opened in a similar fashion to the wall in the bedroom. Reaching into the wall he grabbed a container and carried it to the table and set it down and pulled off the lid. Steam rose from the container as he grabbed a fork and set down in the single chair at the table to eat. It still amazed him, no matter how many times he saw it, as soon as he opened the container the food was piping hot, or ice cold depending on the food that was in it. Even though he had no way of knowing what was in the container before he opened it, it always seemed to be something that he enjoyed right at that moment. Even if someone could explain to him how the food was hot or cold instantly that still did not explain how it was always something that he wanted at that moment. Whatever science had gone into this was magic as far as he was concerned. The most amazing part was the amount of science and technology that was put into something as mundane as food preparation. What other marvels did the agency have that he had not seen yet?

After he had eaten his fill, which was always the exact amount in the container, he picked up the container and carried it back to the same wall, which opened again and he placed it back inside, hanging in midair as he had found it. He knew that the next time he opened that container it would again be full of whatever his body was craving at the time. He shook his head in amazement. It was time to get busy now; there was a lot of work to be done. If he wanted to survive his next traveling assignment he needed to find out what he was capable of and determine how to control it. He was lucky this time, he could have easily died in the between. He was woefully unprepared for what had happened. He had to educate himself on all aspects of traveling. At this point he was unsure of exactly what to expect so he needed to be ready for anything. Since he had his basic training in knocking already and he had experienced walking today he decided that walking training would be first. But he would also need to study artifacts since it was possible that it was something to do with an artifact that sent him into the between. He had thought of this earlier on his own. If the club that the brigand had hit him with had been an artifact theoretically it could have been what forced him into the between. But at this point he did not have enough knowledge to be sure. Well it was time to remedy that problem now.

The atmosphere of libraries, lecture rooms and laboratories is dangerous to those who shut themselves up in them too long. It separates us from reality like a fog.

-Alexis Carrel
Speaking into the air in front of him as if to himself he said, "Tomos Alpha LXV." And Tomos Alpha's voice immediately answered him from the air in front of him. "Yes Clark, how may I help you?"

"Have you analyzed the data from the travel yet? I think it is time that we found out exactly what my abilities are and started more advanced training based on them."

"I could not agree with you more Clark. I have enough data to know to the ninety ninth percentile that the power that sent you into the between flowed through you. So you have the ability to walk as well as knock. And we already know that you were responsible for the Gate at the city gate in Metazorlan today, so there is no question of it. The only real question that I cannot answer at this time is why you are still alive. The final calculations show that the amount of power that flowed through you when you opened the Gate and left the between, which appear to have happened simultaneously, far exceeded my earlier guess. I have no knowledge of anyone ever being able to summon such power let alone survive it. I am sure that we can use this data to formulate a training program, based on the standard training programs for the arties and the walkers. I also have a few ideas on how to start testing you to see what your true abilities are."

"That sounds great, just what I wanted to hear, I will be back up to the agency control room in a few minutes and we can get started." Clark said.

"No this control room is not suitable for what I have in mind for this training. We will need one of the research labs for what I have in mind. We are covering new ground here and we want to make sure that we monitor every little detail of what we are about to do."

Clark's brow furrowed as he replied, "It almost sounds like you intend to use me for a guinea pig Tomos Alpha LXV. What research labs, I haven't been told about any research labs here in the agency control center. I am not sure if I like where this is going. I want to learn about my abilities and how to use them, not be used as a Guinea pig by the agency so you can train others."

"Fear not Clark I have no intention of doing anything that will put you in harm's way during these test. You could conceivably be the single most important person in the entire Multiverse at this time. What we will be doing is finding out just how powerful you really are. If you will leave your quarters and go past the mag lift station that you normally use and continue to the end of the hall you will see the mag lift that will take you down to the research labs."

"I will meet you there shortly Tomos Alpha LXV, good bye." Clark was not aware that there was another mag lift station down that hallway. Furthermore he thought that other than a few levels of machinery and utilities that kept this place running that the residential level was at the bottom of the agency control center. Very interesting that there was more to this place then he had known. He was not naive enough to believe that he had been shown everything but he could not believe that he was so in the dark that he was unaware of a whole level devoted to research.

Clark left his quarters and turned left toward the mag lift station that he normally used. Going past it he continued on down the hallway till he came to where it ended in a blank wall. Not exactly what he had expected, maybe he had missed a turn somewhere. Before he could turn to retrace his steps Gracie's voice spoke in front of him. "Clark clearance has been received for you. Please proceed." Where upon the wall opened in a similar fashion to the wall in his bed room and the wall in his kitchen. Pretty handy having walls like that, he never even suspected that there was anything there.

"Gracie," I said, "why didn't I know about this lift?"

"You did not have the proper clearance Clark damn-it." Gracie stated matter of fact.

"What else is there that I don't know about?" I asked feeling irritated at the subterfuge.

"Unfortunately Clark damn-it, unless you undergo longevity treatments your life span is not long enough to list all of which you are unaware. Your realm is behind in many of the sciences, to say nothing of the histories of the known realms of the Multiverse in general." Damn she could be so literal!

He stepped up to the opening in the wall and looked inside. The open shaft of a mag lift waited for him. He took a deep breath and stepped inside. It was still like a leap of faith stepping into thin open air like this. But he had come to realize that it was safe to do so even if his mind screamed in terror each time he stepped into one of these things. The mag lift worked on some principle of magnetism that was way beyond his understanding. All he knew was that when he stepped into a down mag lift he was gently lowered down to the level that he wanted. And when he stepped into an up mag lift he was raised to the level that he wanted. Normally he said the level number as he stepped in and the mag lift delivered him there. This time he realized that he had no idea what the level number was for the research labs. So he just said "Research labs please. Gracie what level are the research labs on?"

"The alpha research lab you are going to is on level 89." I could use her literal answers to find out a lot if I framed the questions right.

"What other research labs are there on level 89?"

"You are authorized for alpha research labs only by authority of Tomos Alpha LXV, Clark damn-it."

"Okay then take me to the Alpha research labs."

At which point Clark started sinking down the shaft. His quarters were on residential sub level twenty seven, as far as he knew that meant that it was twenty seven floors beneath ground level. Ostensibly the living quarters were that far down to protect them from any attack on the agency control center. He had no idea how far down the research labs were, level 89 could be a mile down for all he knew. He had been told that the living quarters were in the lowest levels other than the support levels that had the machinery to keep the Center running.

If he was cleared for entry to the alpha research labs did that mean that there were other research labs that he was not cleared for? Well obviously it did, or else there would have been no reason to specify that he was only cleared for the alpha research labs. He had been descending at a steady rate which appeared to be the same speed as the mag lift he normally used, but he noticed that his descent seemed to be increasing in speed. He had already been in the lift longer then it took him to get from the agency control room on sub level twenty one to his living quarters on sub level twenty seven. And his speed was still increasing, how deep did the agency control center really go? After approximately ten minutes in the mag lift he began slowing down. As he slowed down the wall which was in front of him opened about twenty feet below him and he coasted to a stop in front of the opening. As he stepped out of the mag lift onto the white floor he looked between his feet down the shaft of the mag lift and marveled that it continued to go farther down, dwindling into the distance below him.

Coming down the corridor toward him was a tall skeletal figure dressed all in white from head to toe. It appeared that he had a white cap on his head that came down to cover his neck. Upon closer examination he wore a full suit that covered everything except his face. It was skin tight and left no doubt that the wearer was male.

"Clark follow me if you would please. Tomos Alpha LXV has asked me to take you to the alpha research lab area and prepare you for the testing."

"Wait a minute; you are not going to prepare me for anything. I came here to be trained and learn how to use my new abilities not be tested like a lab rat!" Clark said with anger.

"Clark I assure you, as I know that Tomos Alpha LXV has, that we will be determining the limits of your abilities in order to find the full extent of them. Please do not let our form of word usage cause you distress. All is well and shall remain so; you have my word on this agent."

Agent huh? Clark thought he might like the sound of that. He followed the tall figure as he turned and headed back down the hall the way he had come. "What is your name? Or at least what should I call you?"

"Forikdmp Delta CCL is the designation that I am known by in the agency control center. My name of birth on my realm is Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit."

"Wow that is quite a mouthful, if you don't mind I think I will just call you Fork." Clark said with a grin on his face.

"Clark you may feel free to call me whatever you like, it has no bearing on what we do here in the alpha research labs."

"Hey wait a minute Fork; if you are a delta what are you doing in the alpha lab?"" Clark said with confusion.

"The delta signifier in my name usage has no....." He paused, ""perhaps this is a subject better left to Tomos Alpha LXV to explain. I fear that any explanation I give to you will only make matters worse. It is not my specialty to explain things and I find that it is best left to someone trained in the profession of training to explain the training which is..."

"Stop right there," Clark interrupted Forikdmp Delta CCL, "say no more. I get the idea; you don't have to beat a dead horse."

"Clark I know not of this deceased animal of which you speak. Perhaps it would be best if we did not confer again until such time as we have a common subject on which to speak. We will be in the alpha research lab shortly. Please continue to follow me." Said Forikdmp Delta CCL

Oh boy these brainy types sure could be a pain in the ass Clark thought.

As Clark walked into the Alpha Research Lab there was an electric charge in the air that made his skin tingle and the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end. There was wall to wall equipment that was foreign to him. He did not recognize a single piece of the equipment that was packed in everywhere, all he could tell about it was that he was sure that he had never seen anything like it before. The room was huge; it was at least one hundred feet long and eighty to ninety feel wide, a fat rectangle that was almost square. The ceiling rose into darkness above him, the lights hanging about forty feet in the air and the light fading into gray and then black above. As he followed Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit through the room all sound was strangely muffled as if it was swallowed by the equipment in the room. They made their way to the other side where Clark saw a door set into the back wall. They went to the door and Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit placed his hand on a biometric panel beside the door. There was a soft beep followed by a loud click from inside the wall, then the door slide to the side into the wall. Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit stepped into the room on the other side and Clark followed him in. The room was not much wider than the door they had come through and only about ten feet long with another door on the other end. As they stepped in the door behind them closed and a blue glow seemed to fill the air around them. A hissing came from the ceiling above him and Clark realized that this was some type of decontamination chamber. A mist floated down from the ceiling to engulf them as the blue light started flashing like a strobe light.

"We must be cleansed of all contaminates before entering the lab proper." Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit told him as they waited.

The mist had a pungent smell to it and Clark instinctively held his breath as it came down over him. The hissing came to a stop and a motor started up somewhere and all of the mist was sucked down through a grate in the floor. The blue light stopped its strobe effect and then went out completely.

"What exactly was all of that?" Clark asked.

"The light is ultraviolet and other forms of energy to kill bacteria and other organisms. It also weakens other forms of life and allows the disinfectant to kill them. This is a very sensitive environment that we must monitor closely to insure that no variance enters. The research done here is the basis of all the equipment that the alpha division puts into the field."

"I'm relatively new to field work so I really haven't seen any field equipment yet. In fact the only realms that I have been on are sword worlds so I have not even had a chance to see any equipment yet."

"Clark what are you talking about? Each mission that goes out only takes the alpha equipment that is created in this lab."

"Well that may be Fork but the only mission that I have gone on was nothing but swords and knives." Fork, swords and knives sounded like a weird table setting, "Of course Khasa Maurie had his battle ax which is the biggest and baddest but not exactly cutting edge."

"You have had no training at all have you? That is why you were not given any equipment on that mission. The swords and the daggers are not just bladed weapons but advanced weapons that were developed in this lab. Each division has its own weapons and they are closely guarded secrets. It is very important that no other division discovers the secrets of the alpha division. You will be trained in the use of the weapons of the alpha family research labs before you go out again, and then you will see what it is all about."

"What do you mean alpha family? I'm confused, what is alpha division or family?" Clark asked.

"I have said too much Clark. It is not my place to explain the workings of the agency to you. You must speak to Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV of these things. It is my job to start the process of testing you to determine your abilities. If what we believe is true is in fact true you may be the most powerful traveler ever found." Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit stated.

Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit proceeded to a console and sat down in front of it and faced a panel of controls and screens that would intimidate a NASA technician. Directing Clark to a chair on a raised platform in front of the console Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit said, "If you will please be seated there we can begin.""

Clark walked to the chair and took a seat in it facing the console that Fork was sitting at. Then Fork began making adjustments to the panel and a wire frame rose from the floor around Clark. The frame stopped after reaching a point just above the level of Clark's head. "I will be charging the testing equipment and will have to adjust it to your particular physiology," he paused, "well it is beyond your comprehension at this point. Just know that I will be calibrating the equipment to take readings from you specifically. There will be some noise and visual effects but you will be in no danger as long as you stay seated. I must warn you though, do not stand up or put any part of your body above the frame. It would interfere with the test and may be dangerous to you."

"Well I have no intention of doing anything that will get me fried, so don't worry I will not be moving much at all." Clark stated.

The researcher nodded his head and bent to the console to begin. He waved his hand over the panel off to the right side from the bottom up to the top. A humming began in the frame around Clark and the hair on the back of his neck stood up. The wire of the frame started to glow red, first dull and then getting brighter. Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit made adjustments to different controls on the panel and read various indicators on the different screens that Clark could not see, and would not have known what they were if he could. Fork looked up at him "Raise your right hand to the right side of your head and place it over your ear like you are cupping your ear." Clark did as he was told and held his hand cupped over his right ear. "Now lower your right hand and do the same with your left." He was instructed. Clark did as he was told and waited. "Now lower your hand and say your name."

Clark lowered his left hand and said "Clark" at which Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit frowned. "Tell me where you are right now, and use as much detail as you can."

Taking a deep breath Clark said, "I am in the alpha research lab in the lower levels of the agency control center on the North American Continent on the planet Earth, on line number 25700 the first line of the home sector."

"Very good Clark now I will initiate a sequence of different scents for you to identify. Tell me what it is that you smell and if you are unfamiliar with the smell then tell me the closest thing that comes to mind that smells similar to it." Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit told him.

Fork made more adjustments and activated a few switches and turned a few knobs, well at least it appeared to Clark that he was doing that. Suddenly the smell of waffles filled the air around Clark, fresh just off the griddle waffles. "Waffles, it smells like waffles." He said. Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit made a few adjustments and a peppery spicy aroma came to Clark's nostrils. ""Umm, I'm not sure on this one, maybe chili or tacos, something spicy." Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit made further adjustments, "And now?" he said.

"Onions, very strong onions, but my eyes are not watering or stinging." Clark said making a face.

"This is an olfactory test only," Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit stated, ""we will be doing further testing for your other senses in a few moments.""

"What type of testing is this? How are you producing these odors, especially onions without my eyes being affected?"

"I am not producing any odors or anything else. I am stimulating areas of your brain to produce the effect of odors. I am fine tuning the equipment to your specific brain physiology in order to be able to correctly read the energy of your brain. Once everything is calibrated to you specifically I will be able to better tell what your brain is doing during the testing. Hopefully we will be able to capture what your brain is doing and what parts of it are involved when you travel. There is a set pattern for knockers, walkers and arties. The area of the brain is basically the same in all of them as far as the actual act of traveling, but each type is slightly different in the intensity of the activity in the brain and there are slight differences in the area used. Walkers and arties are the closest but still they are slightly different. We will be looking to see how your brain matches up with the set patterns of the different type of travelers to see where you fit in. If Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV are correct in their assumption that you are different we should be able to see a difference in your brain pattern during the test. We still will not be able to determine exactly what you are capable of but we will have a better idea. And then we will be able to formulate a plan to determine exactly what you can do. But we are getting ahead of ourselves here. What do you smell now?"

"Berries, almost strawberries but it is a little bit off. Almost like a cross between strawberries and blue berries." Clark paused and sniffed before continuing. "I can almost taste them." Smacking his lips, "in fact I can taste them."

A puzzled frown came over Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit's face. He made more adjustments to the console and looked up at Clark," and now?" he asked.

"Well now it is definitely strawberries but I can't smell them but I sure can taste them. In fact my mouth is watering, it is so realistic."

Still frowning Forikdmp Viatlal Ol Kliemlit said "This is not right, I have not made the change yet to go to taste, you should still smell these not taste them. Either the equipment is off and needs to be re calibrated or you are so much different from a normal traveler that we may not be able to map your brain pattern for testing." He looked like he had tasted a lemon; his face was frowning so much. It was obvious to Clark that Fork was not use to not getting the results that he anticipated. "Let me do a quick calibration of the equipment and we will try again. This will only take a few minutes, please remain still while I do the recalibration."

"Are you sure that I should not get out of the frame first?" Clark asked.

"No remain where you are this will only take a moment." The white clad researcher said as he began doing a diagnostic check of his control panel.

Clark waited while Fork played with his toy; some brainy types lost all track of what was happening around them when they had a problem to solve. He sat there waiting and looking around at the lab wondering how many others there were. And what was that business about alpha family labs, he was beginning to think that there were a lot of things that he had not been told by Tomos Alpha LXV and Fanya Alpha IV. Why would the alpha division as it had been explained to him be worried about another division of the agency here at the control center stealing their research? He had been told that the agency was in a war with the arties coalition and that the whole purpose of the agency was to monitor and protect all of the lines from this coalition. That this war had been going on for thousands of years. Well if that was true what did it matter who developed what? It should be for the use of the agency in the war, each and every new weapon or device would be an added advantage against the coalition. Things were starting to get confusing to Clark. He was starting to realize that there was much more to the agency then he had been told so far. Maybe he could talk to Farren and find out a little more. The Dreamer seemed to be willing to talk about anything so there was a good chance that he would tell all he knew. What was that smell? Suddenly the air was thick with the odor of decay. The smell of long dead things lying in the sun spoiling and decaying filled the air. Clark's eyes began to water and he could feel his last meal trying to escape. He gagged and his head reeled. He was going to vomit and there was nothing he could do to stop it. All of this came upon him in a matter of milliseconds, faster than anything should have been able to, almost instantaneously. He started retching and fell forward out of the chair onto his knees as a roaring noise filled his ears. As he vomited on the floor he squeezed his eyes shut. With a loud pop the roaring stopped, and suddenly there was no floor under his hands and knees. He opened his eyes as he dropped, and the ground rushed up to meet him from two or three feet below. He landed with a jar to his bones on his hands and knees.

He raised his head to look around but there was no light, it was suddenly pitch black. There was a hard gritty surface under his hands and knees. His hands stung from the sudden slap from the short fall. Rising up on his knees he reached into his pocket and took out the small flash torch that he had slid in earlier before leaving his quarters. It was part of his plan to never be unprepared again. Turning on the small but powerful light he shown it around him and the darkness became light. Rough rock walls greeted his eyes, he was on a stone floor and pointing the flash torch up he saw a jagged stone dome about six or eight feet above him. He got up to his feet and turned in a complete circle. He had obviously traveled; how he did not know. He was in a cave of some sort, which only made sense as far underground as he had been. One of the reasons that the agency control center had been built where it had been was because there was nothing there in all of the lines. The only thing that existed on that spot in all of the lines was what the agency wanted there. It provided them with security from attack from the coalition and allowed them to control that area in all of the lines. It appeared that on this line there was either no agency base or if there was it did not extent this far underground. He had traveled into a cave that was undeveloped by the agency. After turning in a full circle it suddenly hit him. There were no openings to be seen. He had traveled into a closed bubble in the rock. With no way in or out, no natural openings and no doors, he was trapped.

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

-Albert Einstein
This was not a good thing. There was no one here to help him, no one to ask for advice. And worse yet there was no door for him to open a Gate and travel through. He was not sure how he got here; he did not know if it was something that fork had done while he was calibrating the equipment or if he had done it himself somehow. Hell for all he knew fork had done it on purpose. He had no idea what the equipment was capable of doing or what he himself was capable of for that matter. After thinking about it he realized that the only thing he really knew was what he had been told by Tomos and who knew if Tomos had told him everything about traveling or not. For that matter he was not sure if what Tomos had told him was even true. It could all be a lie, well not all of it obviously. It was definitely true that there were such things as travelers and the between because he had experienced both of them for himself.

No matter what was true and what was not true about what he had been told, it was true that he was in a jamb now. If he had traveled here himself then he would have to find out how he did it in order to get out of here. If he was sent here by fork then he was in a lot of trouble. That meant that if fork had accidentally sent him here, he would have to find out how it had happened and where he had been sent to and then determine how to go about getting him back if that was even possible. And if fork had sent him here on purpose then he was at fork's mercy. And he was not sure that mercy was in forks vocabulary. But if what he had been told so far was true then it really was not possible that fork had done anything to make him travel whether on purpose or by accident. Only a traveler could travel without a door or gate that another traveler had opened. And there was obviously no door or gate here. Just thinking about it made his head spin; this could get confusing very fast.

More than likely it was the same situation that had sent him into the between on the mission yesterday. Because his body or mind or subconscious had determined that he was in danger and he had travel to get away. So if that was the case then fork was responsible albeit without knowing it. What he had done with his equipment had triggered him into traveling without being conscious of it.

He walked around his prison and inspected the walls, after making a complete circuit of the cave he came full circle without finding any openings in the walls. He looked down at the floor and inspected it also. No cracks or fissures ran through it and it was free of any debris. Now how had this cave come to be, he wondered. It appeared to be natural and not man made. But although he did not know a lot about caves he always thought that they were formed by water flowing down through the rocks. And over time the water dissolved the softer minerals and left the harder ones, thus forming the cave. But there did not appear to be any way in or out for water that he could see. He shined the flash torch upward to the roof of the cave going side to side with it he examined the entire roof. As he looked up at the roof he noticed that the roof was more oblong then the floor. The floor came close to being a circle whereas the roof was more of an egg shape. There was no opening in the roof that he could see, but he shined his flash torch up into the end of the roof that appeared to go farther than the floor. He then brought his light down the wall, there did not seem to be anything different about this part of the wall from the rest of it. He backed up as far from that part of the wall as he could and looked again with his back against the opposing wall he shined his torch light down the wall; there about three feet from the roof was a ledge that ran along the wall parallel to the floor. The ledge was about twelve feet up the wall from the floor and looked to be about six to ten feet long. He shined the flash torch around the rest of the wall walking around the room with his back to the wall and looking at the opposite wall for more ledges or openings. Finding no more irregularities in the wall he went back to the one ledge he had found. After examining the wall going up to the ledge he did not think that there were enough lumps and bulges to allow him to climb it. However he knew that he did not need to climb the wall to reach the ledge. Backing up against the opposite wall again he placed his left foot on the wall with the toe of his shoe on the floor and knelt down in a crouch. He took the flash torch and placed it in his mouth so that his hands would be free. Placing his hands on the floor and assuming a classic runners pose he estimated that the wall with the ledge was about fifteen or sixteen feet in front of him. Taking a deep breath and then blowing it out and taking another deep breath he oxygenated his blood to get him up the wall. He took off running at the wall he ran past the point that a normal man would have jumped to try to reach the ledge with his outstretched hands. Instead he ran right at the wall, three feet from the wall he launched into his leap, but instead of leaping for the ledge he planted his left foot on the wall then his right foot as he ran up the wall. His body at an angle to the wall as he ran up it five feet then seven with the next step, nine and his head and chest cleared the level of the ledge and he grabbed it with his hands and gave himself the little boast needed and twisted his body so he landed sitting on the ledge. This was not very difficult for someone with his body type. His head was no more than one or two feet from the ceiling of the cave as he sat on the ledge. Taking the flash torch out of his mouth he turned around and shone the flash torch back behind him into the depths of the ledge. As he had hoped it was more than just a ledge, it was the floor of a tunnel that continued into the wall of the cave. It was only a little more than a foot high where it went into the wall. He laid down on the ledge and slide to the back peering into the tunnel with the flash torch. The tunnel appeared to run straight and level as far as he could see with the flash torch, it appeared to be smooth for the most part. It would be a tight fit for him but he had little choice. Unless he wanted to stay here and hope that he could find a way to travel he was going to try to escape through this tunnel. He started sliding into the tunnel with his arms out in front of him the flash torch leading the way.
As Clark crawled through the tunnel Westal was in the gym having spent the last five hours sleeping. As he worked out he thought back to the last mission to the sword world and the city of Metazorlan. The things that the new knocker did were not possible. No traveler that he knew of could be a knocker and a walker, and that is exactly what it appeared that Clark was. So if what they had all been told about travelers was not true what else that they had been told was not true? Was it possible that the agency was not what it claimed to be? Were they all living a lie, was it even true about the arties and their bid for power and to overtake the Multiverse?

Tarkin, another protector, came into the gym and approached Westal, "How about a little sparring to start the day off right?"

"Surely I could use the practice, my last mission was just yesterday but I am always looking to improve myself. How have you been Tarkin, I have not seen you in some time."" Westal said.

"I just finished a four week indoctrination program for new recruits, the agency wanted someone who had some experience to take it and evaluate the material. I think it covers everything a new recruit will need to know but man was it boring for me." Tarkin said as he walked to the practice ring and picked out a practice sword to use.

Westal walked into the ring and picked up the first two practice swords on the rack. Walking to the center of the practice ring Westal swung both swords a few times to get the feel for them. Tarkin walked into the ring and stopped just inside the edge of it facing Westal. "Are you prepared to be beaten Westal?"

"Ha-ha" smiling Westal laughed, "you are feeling very good today Tarkin. You have never even come close to hitting me once in all the times we have sparred together. What makes you think you will touch me let alone beat me?"

As Westal asked this Tarkin lunged for him trying to catch him off guard, the point of his practice sword aimed for Westal's throat. With a lazy looking back hand of the sword in his left hand, Westal batted the lunging sword to the side while at the same time bringing his right arm up and tapping Tarkin's chest with the tip of the practice sword in that hand.

"Oh Tarkin have you learned nothing since last we sparred, or were you in a class room so long that you forgot how to fight?" Westal laughingly asked.

Tarkin stepped back and began circling to his right, against a normal swordsman this would have been a good maneuver to get at his opponents' weak side. But Westal was not a normal swordsman; he used two swords at the same time and was very proficient, with either of the two swords.

A cunning look came over Tarkin's face, "You always were a cocky one Westal, always thinking that you are the best. You never will even consider that there might be someone who is better than you. That is your biggest weakness and will someday be your downfall!" as he spoke he continued to circle and his voice grew louder, two other swordsmen had come into the gym and quietly picked up practice swords and entered the practice ring behind Westal. "Now it is time to teach you a lesson Westal."

Saying this Tarkin attacked Westal with a flurry of slashes and thrust aimed at Westal's head and torso. Suddenly while Westal was occupied with Tarkin's attack the two swordsmen behind him attacked him, one slashing from the left and one slashing from the right. At the same time Tarkin thrust at Westal from the front. Instead of blocking Tarkin's thrust Westal did the totally unexpected. He jumped backward between the other two swordsmen behind him. One powerful jump backward landing him behind the two swordsmen as they were slashing where he had been standing till a second ago. As he landed his arms were extended out in front of him and he easily smacked the two of them on the side of the head, hard enough to knock them each to the side out of the way. Then in the blink of an eye he was back in front of Tarkin, whose arm was still extended in the thrust. Westal brought his right arm forward jabbing the tip of that practice sword into the pit of Tarkin's stomach. Tarkin's breath whooshed out as he doubled over in pain; Westal brought his left sword down on the back of Tarkin's shoulders knocking him to his knees on the floor.

"You are absolutely right Tarkin. I am over confident and unaware of my short comings, and some day it will be the end of me. But not today it looks like." Westal said as he bent down and helped Tarkin to his feet. "It would appear that three is not your lucky number today. Maybe four would be better next time."

Tarkin took the offered hand and stood up, "Damn Westal even when I cheat I cannot beat you. I guess that is why you are considered the best field protector in the agency." Tarkin said slapping Westal on the back. "Next time I go out I want to go out with you, I can think of nothing better than to see you in action."

"Well I think that I am going out again in a few days. I assume that Clark will be in training and testing for a few days till they figure out what is going on with him."

"Yes I heard that you had some interesting things happen on this mission. Is it true that your traveler had a break down and the agency had to send out a walker to retrieve your mission?" Tarkin asked.

Westal's mind raced, something was wrong. He knew that the agency would not allow such a rumor to run through the agency control center unless it wanted it to. This meant that the agency was trying to cover up what had happened, or at least someone was. Someone did not want anyone to know about Clark and the possibility that he may have abilities that no one else had. Or maybe that the agency was not what it seemed to be. And if the agency was already putting out a cover story five hours after the companions return it did not look good for the companions. If the agency was covering up the mission and what had happened on it but had not told him about the cover story, it would only be a matter of time before they shut the companions up. They were the only ones who knew for sure what happened on the mission. They would take out the companions and take Clark prisoner and try to find out what he was capable of, at the least. And then they would lie to him to get him to do what they wanted or if they thought he was to powerful or they could not control him they would dispose of him as soon as possible.

"I have to get going Tarkin thanks for the spar. I'll talk to you later."" Westal said putting the two practice swords back into the practice rack against the wall. He headed out the door and to the nearest mag lift. If he was correct in his thinking then he needed to warn the others. But first he had to get back to his room and get a few things. He took the mag lift down to the residential level for the protectors, a different level than the one that Clark lived on; it was actually several levels above the level that Clark's apartment was on.

Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you.

-Alex Haley
The realm that the agency control center was on was one of many that the agency had bases built on in this sector and others in this exact location, but as a security measure none of the other bases had levels that went as deep as the residential levels or the other highly top secret levels that were below them. This prevented any travelers from walking or knocking into these levels. As a protector Westal was aware of all the levels of the agency control center even if he had not been allowed into them. If the Agency control center were ever attacked he needed to be aware of what there was to protect. As such the protectors lived on the top residential level, so any attackers had to go through the off duty protectors in order to reach the lower levels. It was considered a last line of defense for the lower levels. In case of attack the Agency control center would switch to emergency status, meaning that all mag lifts would only work going up. Anyone who tried to go down in a mag lift during an attack would find that they would be going down much faster than they anticipated and would not stop till they reached the bottom, which was a long way down. And just as an added security it was not just a free fall, the mag lifts would propel anyone in them down at tremendous speed and crush them against the bottom, so there would be no rappelling down them either. So any attackers had to come down the stairs, fighting the protectors as they went down. Each level of the stairs was a defensive position for the protectors. Each landing had a wall built on it that had to be walked around, it made for a difficult time walking down the stairs but made for a great defensive position on each level; and the ceiling of each landing was designed in such a way that anyone standing behind the wall could not be seen from above and since no one used the stairs except during drills for attacks it was no problem for the population of the Agency control center. Because of all of this the protectors were the only ones who were allowed to have their personal weapons stored in their living quarters, everyone else was required to keep their weapons in the Agency control center armory located on the dispatch level. This made it imperative for Westal to get to his personal living quarters. Without weapons there was no way that he or any of the companions stood a chance of getting out of the Agency control center if it came down to a fight.

Westal came out of the mag lift on his level and headed down the corridor to his suite of rooms. He walked into his quarters and knew instantly that something was wrong; there was a difference that should not have been there. A smell of other bodies filled the air and the temperature was warmer than it should have been. He had the climate controls set to lower the temperature to fifty five degrees as soon as he left the residence, and to come back up to seventy degrees a few minutes after he returned. This was a very effective alarm system that told him if someone was in the residence when he came in. The temperature was warm so he knew that someone was already in here. He dived to the right of the entrance door just as a buzzing filled the air and he felt a tingle on his left shoulder as he dived straight into a book shelf that lined the hallway wall and went right through it into the hidden room behind it. His left shoulder, arm and hand were numb from the stun charge that had grazed him. He rolled into the room and came up to his feet in front of a control panel that he had installed on the wall just inside of the hidden room. He slapped a big red button on the panel and a blast proof door slammed down sealing the room from the rest of the living quarters.

His time was shorter than he had expected, they were not waiting long to round up the companions; he was surprised that it had taken them as long as it had. If not for Tarkin he would not have known and they might have caught him unaware, but fortunately for him that was not the case. He knew that he did not have much time now, if not for his heightened reflexes and his advanced preparations for trouble he would already be a prisoner.

He stepped to the side of the control panel and reached up as far as he could and pressed his hand on the wall in a spot that would not be hit by accident by him or found very easily by anyone else. A click sounded behind him and a door opened in the opposite wall, he turned and went to it and reached into the hidden locker. He took out a suit of a metallic sheen that looked like a form fitting space suit. He slipped out of his clothes and into the suit. It was a high tech suit of armor, the direct descendant of the suits of armor that the knights of old wore into battle. Only this was defense against a wide range of weapons that the knights would never have imagined in their wildest dreams. Next out of the locker was a weapons harness that he slipped his arms into and then fastened the belt around his waist; on the right side of the waist belt was a weapon that looked like a futuristic pistol with several additional buttons on it. In fact it was an energy gun that would only shoot in his hand, he had it specially made for himself in one of the weapon shops on a line that was very highly advanced and played at war the way that some realms played sports. That was where most of his 'personal' equipment came from and was not on anyone's books thus still in his possession and not confiscated like all other weapons were. On his left hip rested a sword that resembled a Japanese Uchigatana, forty six inches in length with a razor sharp blade twenty six inches in length. Sticking up over his shoulders from where they were fastened on the straps of the harness on his back were the handles of two Wakizashi with seventeen inch blades known as companion swords. Next he reached into the locker and pulled out a mesh hood which he pulled over his head, where it fit snugly covering his head and face as he pulled it down and pressed the bottom edge into the collar of his suit. As the hood melded with the suit the whole thing gave off gentle warmth as it came to life and became active; to anyone watching it would appear that Westal had disappeared from sight. The suit mimicked its surroundings, just like a chameleon blending into its world. This made it very hard for anyone trying to cause him harm to be able to do so. He knew that time was running out, when he had activated the blast door it had sealed his living quarters from the outside and trapped his attackers in it and prevented anyone else from entering it. But it would not take them long to break in or out of his quarters and then it was just a matter of time before they started on the blast door. It would take them time to get a cutter down into his quarters to get through the blast door but he still had to get to the rest of the companions if he could. He went back to the control panel and turned the red button two full turns to the right and then one turn back to the left, then pressed in further; there was a click from the back of the room and a hatch opened in the floor. This was his personal escape hatch, which he had hoped that he would never have to use. He went through the hatch and started down a ladder leaving the hatch open above him. A few feet down the ladder he reached into the dark behind his back and hit a switch that looked like one of several bolt heads sticking out of the wall. The hatch above him swung closed, and it also activated a defense system in the room above. Now the only safe way to reenter the hidden room above was through the hatch, anyone entering through the blast door would set off some very nasty surprises.

Westal was on his way now. Since he had joined the Agency and come to the control center he had been a protector and was one of the best they had. He had always believed that the Agency was on the side of right and that he fought to make the realms safer. Today that faith had been shaken and he was unsure of everything that he had been told about the Agency. For the first time in his life Westal was a fugitive.
Khasa Maurie was big but he was far from dumb. Many people made the mistake of thinking that because he was so big that he was not intelligent, others thought that because of his size he was slow. Both of these were reasons that many of the ones who had fought him were no longer counted among the living. And he knew that something had changed in the Agency Control Center since he was last here. People looked at him out of the corner of their eyes when they went by him, and several times he caught their reflections and saw them stop and look at him after they had gone by. He gave this a lot of thought and he could find nothing in what he had done at the Control Center to cause this behavior in the people of the Agency. So that meant that it was not anything he had done but something that someone else had done. This was not good, since he had no control over what others did, and it meant that he could be in danger for some unknown reason.

He walked into the Center library to begin research for his next scheduled mission. Since he was not exactly inconspicuous there was no reason to try to hide, it was impossible after all, so he might as well get some work done while he waited for whatever was going to happen to happen. He went to the console that was at the back of the library and was the only one that was large enough for him to use, as he set down in the seat he sensed that he was not alone. He looked around him but could see no one else near him, but he had learned long ago that he was never wrong about stuff like this; he would not be alive today if he was.

"Stop looking around and act like you are just doing your research." A voice said beside him. It was a tribute to his nerves that he did not jump, but instead continued to look up his research like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"I had a feeling that something was wrong, it must be bad to bring you all the way here like this Westal." Khasa Maurie said. He looked around the library to make sure there was no one else in sight or hearing distance. "What has happened Westal?"

"There is a cover up going on. I do not know if it is the agency or someone else but rumors have already circulated that Clark had a break down and we had to have another traveler come get us." Westal's voice seemed to come from the wall to the left of were Khasa Maurie sat. "When I got back to my rooms after my workout this morning I had a welcoming committee waiting for me. If not for the fact that I am always prepared for trouble they would have had me. I can only assume that they will try to take all of us now to prevent the truth from getting out."

"And what is the truth that they do not want getting out?" Khasa Maurie asked.

"That there is a new kind of traveler that is more powerful than any who has come before. That what the agency has been telling us for thousands of years may not be true. And before you ask no I have don't have any idea who is behind it or what exactly they will do next. All I know for sure is we must gather the companions and escape from the Agency Control Center as soon as possible. It may be too late already; I just assume they came for me first because of my training and that you will be second."

"No Westal I think that you were probably the second one, I attempted to contact Clark earlier and was told by the Agency Control Center system that he was unavailable. When I questioned further I was told that by order of the agency head he was not to be disturbed. I am sure that he has already been taken and is in danger at this time."

"No he is not in danger yet, not until they know for sure what his abilities consist of, and how powerful he is." Westal stated. "But if he turns out to be too powerful and they do not think they can control him then they will dispose of him in a most unpleasant way. Therefore we must find him, and fast.""

Khasa stood and said, "Follow me, I must get to the armory and get my ax."

"I am sorry Khasa but we cannot do that. It would take too much time and I do not think they will just let you walk in and take your weapons. Even if they did it would be very hard to conceal that battle ax of yours. We can go for it after we have secured Clark."

"Very well" Khasa grumbled, "Were to then?"

"Go to the mag lift that is near the mess hall, we can take it down to Clark's living level and see what we can find. I do not know where else to begin.""

Khasa headed out of the library and down the hall toward the mag lift, he had no idea where Westal was or how he remained invisible to Khasa's eyes. As he neared the mag lift Westal's voice came to him, "Turn left down the next hall." Khasa did as he was told, turning left and continuing to walk down the adjacent hallway. "Did you see those two technicians working on the communication station just past the mag lift?" Westal asked Khasa.

"Yes what about them?" Khasa inquired.

"They were not technicians they were protectors watching the mag lift. I'm afraid they are on the lookout for us, and there is no way that they missed seeing you. You stand out in a crowd anywhere you go. Take the next right and then the first left; there is a maintenance storage room on the left side of the hallway about half way down. Go into it and let them see you going in. I'll be behind them and we will take care of them in there. But let's try not to hurt them; they are just doing their jobs and no telling what they have been told about us."

"I Understand." Khasa murmured under his breath.

Khasa did as he was told and turned right down the next hallway then took the next left, as he came to the maintenance storage room he ducked down and activated the door opening switch on the wall beside the door. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the two protectors round the corner as the door opened, and he slipped through the doorway.

Inside the maintenance storage room there was nowhere for him to hid, maybe a smaller man could find a few hiding spots in there but not someone of his size. He turned to face the door he had just come through and prepared himself, then his two shadows come into the room one after the other; both of the protectors had energy pistols out and pointed at him. "Do not move Khasa," the first of the two said, "we have orders to take you in alive but if you give us any trouble dead will just have to do."

The second protector raised his energy pistol and aimed at Khasa's chest, "Why take any chances?" Before he could pull the trigger his right hand holding the energy pistol suddenly fell from his arm. He looked at the stump of his cleanly cut wrist in shock as a fountain of blood gushed from it. His partner started to turn toward him and his face took on the appearance of a smashed melon as an unseen force connected with the middle of his face. His eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed to the floor, landing in a pool of blood leaking from his partners arm.

The one armed protector's eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed as his life drained from his body.

"So much for not hurting them," Khasa said with a sad shake of his head.

"Quickly we need to get going before it is too late. They would have contacted control before following you in here, we don't have much time."
Inching his way through the narrow tunnel for what seemed like hours was not what Clark had in mind for his day. On more than one occasion he had become stuck and had to force his way beyond the restriction. His cloths ripped and torn, blood soaking his back and knees where the rough stone had been cruel to his flesh.

"What the hell, is this cave never going to end? Damn now I'm talking to myself in the dark! Oh well I already knew I was crazy." The tunnel started to rise and broaden out a bit. In the torch light ahead he could see rock in front of him. "Not exactly what I had in mind when I said I wanted it to end. He continued crawling forward and could see the tunnel turned up and became a vertical shaft instead of ending. When he reached the turn he had to roll over onto his back and shine his torch up to look into it. The rock walls of the shaft continued up for approximately ten feet then flared out and disappeared from his site. It appeared that it was opening up into the floor of a cave. Could he be so lucky?

After almost an hour of forcing his body past the tight turn he found himself standing with his arms out stretched above him. Wedging his arms against the rough sides and pulling up he was able to raise his feet a few inches off of the rock bottom. Then he pressed his legs to the sides and stretched out his arms as far as he could and repeated the whole process. In this way he was able to inch his way slowly up the shaft. After several hours he dragged his exhausted bleeding body from the narrow tunnel and lay on the floor of the cave.

Clark lay there breathing deeply and resting. He opened his eyes and shown his electric torch around as he stood up. The light revealed to him an oblong cave large enough that he could breathe in deep breaths without feeling like he was a cork in a bottle, and right now that was all the mattered. However after a few minutes of deep breathing he decided that maybe there were other things that mattered and he set up and looked around. It looked like a cave, okay it's good to know that he was still in a cave system and wasn't stuck in that tunnel any more. Standing up he could tell that it really wasn't a chamber in a cave like he thought but a tunnel that was about 20 feet or so across. It disappeared in both directions with neither way appearing to be going up or down, as far as his torch light would shine in both directions it was relatively level with no indication of a slope.

"Well I guess one way is as good as another," he said as he started off down the tunnel. After going for a ways he started noticing a slight bend to the tunnel. It was curving to the left slightly but still not ascending or descending. After walking for what seemed like hours he decided to take a break and set down on the floor with his back to the wall. He laid his torch down on the tunnel floor pointing back in the direction that he has come and massaged his stiff hands. That trip crawling through the small tunnel and climbing up the shaft had really done a number on his hands. The blood had dried and flaked away but they had become stiff and sore. He looked to his left in the direction that he had been traveling and to his surprise it looked like it wasn't completely dark. Although he couldn't be sure with the torch on so he turned it off and allowed his eyes to adjust to the darkness. Sure enough it was lighter ahead then it was behind.

"Wouldn't you know it; just as I start to get used to being here I find a way out. What the hell, do I have bad timing or what?" shaking his head, ""Yep definitely starting to lose it."

Standing up he didn't bother to turn the electric torch back on, instead using the light from in front of him to see by and gauge how far he had to go. After following the curving tunnel for a few more minutes he came to the end of it. He cautiously approached the end of the tunnel his eyes squinting against the bright light. Well probably not so bright but after being in the darkened tunnel it appeared bright to Clark. He eased up to the edge of the tunnel looking out into what turned out to be another larger tunnel. It looked no different than the one he was in except it was larger, about 50 feet across and there was light coming from the right of his tunnel.

He pressed himself up against the wall on the left so he could see down the connecting tunnel to the right, towards the light. As he inched forward with his back to the wall he revealed the larger tunnel in slow increments. Slowly more of it came into view when suddenly an arm reached in towards him from the left of the opening and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and he found himself flying out into the larger tunnel. He landed flailing in the middle of the floor, a good 20 feet from where he had been standing when he took his unexpected flight.

Scrambling to his feet Clark spun around and crouched to receive the attack he knew was coming at him. To his surprise standing in front of him leaning against the tunnel wall was Khasa and coming from his left he heard laughter, and then as if by magic Westal appeared out of thin air wearing some type of jumpsuit.

"You should have seen the look on your face Clark." Westal laughed. "It was well worth having to run for our lives just to see that."

"Scurrying through the dark like a little rat you're lucky it was us that trapped you," rumbled Khasa.

"What are you two doing here, and what's this you're saying about running for your lives?" Clark said with concern in his voice

"It's a long story, which it looks like we will have plenty of time to tell you." Westal said as the smile left his face.
"After we escaped from the two protectors it was relatively easy to find a Walker who was willing to get us out. Most Walkers come and go as they please and take a dim view of anyone telling them they can't. Jazlyn Ursini is a close friend of mine, who just happens to be one such Walker, that I have known for years." Westal informed me as we sat around their camp stove drinking coffee. Finally someone who had coffee!

"How did you end up here?" I asked. "It's my understanding that the Agency controls all this area on each realm so no one can sneak in.""

"As it turns out there is a small section of this cave system that intersects with a store room on level 37. It just so happens that our industrious Walker is part of a survey crew that is responsible for monitoring the center for just such things. Fortunately for us she is not too fond of being controlled and kept it her little secret.""

"Don't forget that she also happens to be sweet on a certain sword welding protector," laughed Khasa. "It never hurts to be sleeping with a smuggler."

"She is not a smuggler! She just expedites imports for a reasonable price."

I shook my head in amazement, "Westal you never cease to surprise me. But what of the others, Were you able to make contact with any of them at all?" I asked.

"Farren could not be found, but I would not worry about him, Dreamers are hard to surprise. Ananga and Antara were not where I could warn them. We can only hope that they have enough friends in high places to protect them. Jazlyn is going to make contact with Orman and try to get him down here. She will be here tonight, if she finds him and if she can she will bring him with her. If not I am not sure what we can do for him. Either way we need to make plans, we can't stay here. We may have to make a hard choice."

"What choices do we have, hard or easy?" Westal looked away as I said this. "What is it Westal, what are you not telling me?"

Westal refused to look at me. Whatever he was thinking was not something he was proud of.

Looking at Westal with a hard stare Khasa said, "Tell him. He of all people has a right to know."

Sighing Westal turned back to me and looked me in the eye. "The Rebels may be our only choice."

"WHAT!!" I exclaimed in dismay. "You and everyone else have been telling me for days that the Rebels were our enemy. That their goal was to destroy the world, Hell they almost caught Farren and me and they attacked us all on the trail. What the hell would we go to them for?"

"It could be we have been misinformed all along. The agency that I know and have worked for would never condone what has happened to us today. We can't be sure if the agency is not what we have been told it is or if it is just a rogue element in center."

"One thing is for sure, we cannot go back to center now. At least not till we determine what is going on." Khasa said. "I will never see my Ax again."

"Don't cry big fella we'll find you a new one." See I can be compassionate when I want to be.

"Quiet I think I hear something," Westal whispered raising his hand for silence. He stood up slipping his hood on and instantly disappeared from our sight.

Now I could hear it also. Someone was moving in the tunnel towards us, several from the sounds of it. Khasa stood up and signaled me to do the same. We moved in the opposite direction from the sound and entered the tunnel that I had come out of. Khasa reached into his tunic and produced some type of hand weapon. Very futuristic looking and it did not look like it had come from his home realm. It was definitely not something that I had ever seen before.

I could hear voices now as they came closer. There were at least three of them, they weren't making a lot of noise but the acoustics of the tunnel was such that I could hear them well.

"Keep up we are almost there." A female voice said, in an exasperated voice.

"Keeping up is not something I am use to. You walk everywhere by nature, we were born into a realm with personal conveyances so we would not be required to walk."

"Antara ye ha' been on enough missions that walking is not that much of a problem to you. That's the turd time ye ha' complained 'n as many minutes. "

Smiling Khasa stepped out of the side tunnel back into the light as the three rounded the corner from the other side of the camp. Orman and a woman who must be Jazlyn were followed by Antara bringing up the rear. All three were loaded down with packs and carrying extra canvas bags and packs.

"I thought I recognized that brogue." Khasa said smiling at his friends. "I am glad to see you were able to find our friends Jazlyn."

"It was easy; I did not have to find Orman he found me, as for the little one I just had to follow the whine of his voice to find him. It would have been more impressive if I had not found him! He never stops complaining." Jazlyn said shaking her head sadly.

"Your attempt at levity has been noted and dismissed as poor. I have recently returned from a mission and had not been allowed time to rest as required by the Agency's standard operating policy." Antara stated in his matter of fact voice. "I was accosted by protectors in my quarters for no apparent reason.""

"A story I want to hear all about," said Westal stepping out of the shadows into the light of the camp, "but where is Ananga?"

"I am unaware of the location of Ananga at this time. After returning from the mission we were dismissed to our quarters to rest as per policy. I was in my sleep chamber utilizing it for its intended purpose when I was most unceremoniously set upon by the protectors. I must believe that Ananga was doing the same but did not have Jazlyn to alter the outcome of the protectors attempt to capture him."

Jazlyn smiled, "I was on my way to meet Orman when I passed a group of protectors in the hall with Antara in the middle of them. I had a feeling that it was not a good situation for him to be in so after I passed them I just went between and followed them. When they got to the lift they spread out a little too much and I just came back in next to him and took him for a walk. You should have seen the looks on their faces when they turned back to him and he was gone." She laughed out loud, "You would have thought they had lost the crown jewels by the way they acted."

"I am sure that what was in store for me would not have been pleasant. However I have yet to determine what is the cause of all of these actions. It is highly unusual activity for the agency and I do not have enough information to evaluate the situation. In order to formulate a plan we must rectify this by obtaining more information."

"You sound like a talking machine Antara. What the hell did Ananga have all the personality in the relationship?" Clark asked.

"Ananga has been my partner for many years. We were placed together because of our compatible profiles. In the field we act as one, as a good team should, we trained together for this very reason for many years before we were ever allowed into the field on a mission."

"Relax Ananga we're just razzing you." Clark shook his head at the seriousness of the little man.

"Let's sit and eat while Jaz and Orman bring us up to date on what happened to them." Westal said as he set down and started doling out stew for everyone.

The smell of the stew was very mouthwatering as it wafted up into the air. They all gathered around and sat down to eat.

"After dropping you two off here I went back to the Agency Center and started looking for signs of Orman. I looked everywhere I could think to look and had given up when I found Antara. After picking him up out of the middle of the protectors we walked between to the armory to get some weapons." As Jaclyn was talking Orman reached into one of the oversized bags he had set down and pulled out a massive ax.

"I thought you might want this for future use." Orman grinned as he handed the battle Ax to Khasa.

"Thank you old friend, I was afraid I would never see it again." Khasa took the ax and caressed it lovingly.

Smiling Jazlyn continued. "We knew that we would be unable to go back and get anything after today, it is just a matter of time till they have a full man hunt started for us, so we took everything we thought we might be able to use from the armory. I was shocked at the amount of advanced hardware that was stored in there. For a sword world Center we have much more projectile and energy weapons then I would have thought reasonable."

"I don't know what you mean by sword world center. I thought this was The Agency control center." I said starting to get that all too familiar feeling of confusion.

"I am beginning to think there is much more going on than we know." Westal stated. "I also thought that the center was the main base of operations for the Agency."

Jaz had a look of embarrassment on her face. "I just thought you knew Westal, what most people think of as The Agency Control Center is only a junction center that missions are carried out from. I have never talked to anyone who has seen or been to the main Agency Center. I'm not even sure where it is or if anyone other than the monitors has ever been to it. I found out about it by accident while doing a little between ease dropping. From what I have been able to gather there are thousands of centers similar to the one we all work out of, but there are others that are for the more technologically advanced realms. That is why I was surprised to find so many advanced weapons there."

I watched Antara closely after Jaz said this to see if he had any reaction. As far as I could tell he was just listening raptly with the rest of us, he gave no indication that anything she said had any meaning to him. "What the hell Antara? Is this true, how much have you monitors not been telling us? I don't like being played for a fool, especially since I'm not even sure if what is going on around me is real anymore. I was just starting to get a handle on things and then I get the rug pulled out from underneath me. How much more is there that you are not telling us?"

Antara looked at each of us in turn, as if weighing his words carefully. "I am a field monitor and am not privy to what most senior monitors have access to. I only know what I am told; I am nothing more than a cog in the machine. However I am starting to believe that there is more to you than I ever knew or guessed Jaz."

Looking back and forth between Antara and Jazlyn it suddenly dawned on me. "You are much more than a smuggler, you have far too much information to be nothing more than a petty criminal. You're a rebel!"

"There is so much that all of you don't know or could even guess at. Yes I am a member of the rebels, but we are not what you have been led to believe. Nor is the agency what they want you to believe." Jazlyn stared straight at Antara as she continued, "You monitors have mislead everyone for far too long. We have known the truth for some time and that is why we have been branded as rebels." She set down her food and reached into her bag lying beside her. Before any of us realized what was happening she had a gun in her hand and was pointing it directly at the monitor. "Don't move monitor, I have no problem ending your sorry life right now if I have to."

"What the hell..? Have you lost your mind Jaz? Antara is one of us!"

"No he is not! Every monitor is our enemy Clark. Just sit back and listen as I fill you in on the truth about the monitors and the Agency." The pistol never wavered from Antara as she talked. "The walkers were independent travelers for thousands of years maybe even longer, no one is sure about when they came about. Knockers came about later and because of the nature of their abilities they were far more dangerous because they could affect whole worlds with their ability to keep Gates open between realms. Certain walkers started noticing that whole realms were changing, one realm started having technologies and trade goods show up that should not have been there. Once it was determined what was happening to the realms some walkers and knockers got together and decided to form a group that would monitor the activities of the travelers. Now remember this happened over hundreds or even thousands of years. As you can imagine it would take a long time for travelers to find out about each other by accident. Eventually they found a highly advanced realm that could develop technologies to detect abilities and locate the people who have them."

Jazlyn stopped and took a drink of water to wet her dry throat.

"What about my abilities? Why am I different?" Clark asked.

"I'll get to that Clark, bear with me. There are far more abilities then just travelers and the monitors developed the technology to detect and find them all. However they decided that there was no reason for them to work for the travelers; after all it was their advanced technology that discovered most of them. In fact they were able to find most of the travelers before they even developed their abilities. They convinced the travelers that they could develop a training program that would teach travelers to develop and use their abilities before they would naturally have to. In this way they were able to start controlling them. Because you see Clark travelers in general have much more ability then they are told or trained in. The induction trainers not only train a traveler to use his ability they also inhibit the traveler from using their ability in any other way then what the monitors want. After the induction training a traveler is either a walker or a knocker and only has the abilities that you have been told about. They are much easier to control and the monitors can use them to do what they want without having to worry about them being too powerful."

"Except for me; what the hell, why am I different?"

"Except for you Clark, that is correct. We were able to erase you from the monitor's database before you came to their attention. It was a long term plan that we have been working on for centuries. When you were born we had someone in the right place to act. All traces of you were destroyed so that you were never identified as a traveler and therefore were not watched. Our agent was captured and killed himself rather than take the risk of the agency finding out who you were and what realm you were on. The monitors have been watching for you ever since, attempting to locate you before you developed your abilities and became a problem. Unfortunately the rebels never knew who you were either, or we would have intervened in your life long ago. Our plan called for us to contact you in adolescence so that when your abilities manifested naturally you would know how to handle them and you could develop fully without the agency interfering."

"So then I could be your pawn instead of the agencies is what you'r really saying," I yelled.

Jaz flinched at the sudden outburst. "No Clark. We only wanted to allow you to make up your own mind. After you had your abilities there would be nothing we could do to keep you on our side other than for you to see the truth."

"Wait a minute;" Westal looked confused, "Clark underwent the induction training. He should be nothing more than a knocker. He may have been able to do more than a normal knocker at first but after that training he should have been limited. But it was after the induction training that we traveled with him, he had far more than the average ability he walked between and opened Gates in fact he did things that no one has ever done before."

"We interfered with his induction training. Once we found out that he had been found and brought here we acted. We had many years to get ready for this, we have an agent in every junction center that we thought he might show up at. But the agency must have suspected we were also waiting because they took him to a sword world junction center rather than a projectile world junction."

"What is a projectile world junction? And you're wrong anyway. They didn't take me anywhere; I traveled to the Agency center on my own by accident. It was when I first started all this craziness."

"Sword, projectile and energy are used to show the stage of development of the realms. And I am sorry Clark but they mislead you there also. You did not just randomly travel to that agency center. Remember the large man that found you?"

"Yeah the Neanderthal, I'll never forget that one." Clark was beginning to feel manipulated badly.

"He was a traveler. He put you into a situation where you would feel in danger to activate your ability. Then he directed the energy to make you travel to the sword junction center that they wanted you at. You were manipulated to believe that your arrival was an accident. You have been under the control of the monitors since they first found you. We were barely able to get here in time to alter your induction training. If not for your unscheduled travels with Farren you would be nothing more than a knocker now and never able to use your full abilities again."

"So Farren is a rebel also. I should have known the way that he led me on that long night of traveling."

"No Farren is not a rebel he is a dreamer just like you were told. The agency had discovered that your induction training had been tampered with and were coming to collect you. Farren detected danger when he dreamed and chose to come to your rescue rather than report it. I don't know if he knew the outcome of his actions or if he dreamed of danger to himself also, but it was the only course of action that would save you. If you had been taken before using your abilities again after the altered induction training they could have reversed it. After you returned it was too late to change but they were determined to find out what we had done and what you were capable of doing."

"You are crazy Walker." Antara had grown tired of listening and decided it was time to defend himself. "She is not to be trusted Clark, she is a rebel and will say anything to confuse you."

Reaching over and wrapping his hand around Antara's upper body Khasa picked him up and held the monitor in front of his face. "Silence little man, we are all through listening to your kind. One more sound from you and I'll crush you like a grape."

Antara suddenly paled at the threat and wisely kept his mouth closed. Khasa glared at him for a few more seconds and realizing that he wasn't going to say anything else dropped him back down. The monitor let out a muffled groan as he hit the ground.

"It was just bad luck that Antara and Ananga were part of the group that Farren had put together. It also shows that he was not aware of the monitors' role in all of this and did not know that they were behind the attempt to take you that night." Westal stated, "When he contacted me about meeting the two of you he said nothing about the monitors or to be wary of them. It was I who actually put together the group of companions. We had no idea that we were including enemies in our group. But now we know how the agency knew where to find us. It's obvious that either Antara or Ananga made contact with someone and had the brigands attack us. I remember them saying that they were told to take you alive Clark, now it makes sense."

"This war between the rebels and the Agency has been going on for thousands of years and this is the first time since the monitors have taken over the agency that we have had a significant break. This could be the turning point for us; you are the first naturally developed traveler in well over a thousand years. The last of the original travelers all died off long ago. With the agency able to track down all the new travelers we have not stood a chance."

"So all of the rebels are what? Escaped slaves? Are you the Spartacus of the agency?""

"In a sense yes, we are all products of the agencies induction trainers and will never be able to develop further abilities. But we are not all travelers, there are many who are tired of living under the agencies rule and want a change. The agency claims to be watching over the realms to insure that all is well and to prevent us from destroying them. In reality the agency uses the realms for its own advancement. The home realm of the monitors pillages the realms for what they need and want. It is in their best interest to keep them all the realms as low on the technology scale as possible. They are the top of the food chain and don't want to risk any other realm replacing them. The real reason for all of the dead realms is that they were too advanced. Some of them were aware of the travelers and needed to be eliminated to protect the monitors. I'm sure that the first time a Gate was opened into a dead realm it was an accident, however the monitors quickly realized that it was a very cheap and easy way to deal with problematic realms that didn't have the courtesy to destroy themselves with war."

"The agency will stop at nothing to find us now." Westal interjected, ""I'm sure that the rest of the companions have been taken and they will be questioned till the agency has all the information that they can get from them. At that point they will no doubt be killed, and the agency will spend all their resources to get you Clark, you are too powerful and uncontrollable for them to allow you to run free. We have no option but to join the rebels now."

With a loud screech as if metal was being torn apart the tunnel wall to the left of where I was sitting seemed to dissolve and disappear, in its place was a cloud of dust. I jumped to my feet and faced the new opening in the wall where I could see figures coming through the dust. Figures wearing armor that looked like it was out of a space opera, which went perfectly with the advanced looking rifles they all carried. Suddenly there were flashes of light from the weapons and the air between us seemed to distort with the energy being released. Khasa grabbed me by the shoulder as he stood up in front of me and threw me to the ground. I looked on in horror as Khasa seemed to turn inside out; suddenly all of his blood seemed to be on the outside and his body was coming apart and flying off in all directions as the energy blast ripped him apart.

I couldn't see Jaz anywhere but off to the left of the new tunnel opening was Antara screaming, "Take the walker alive she is a rebel, and kill the rest!" Not exactly what I wanted to hear, evidently the Agency had decided that I wasn't worth the trouble any more.

Amazingly enough Orman was able to get off several arrows at Antara before being blasted apart by the energy weapons, one of the arrows pierced Antara's shoulder causing him to fall to the ground. Westal was on his feet and fighting back, his suit dispersed the majority of the energy that was hitting him but it started to glow red from the small amount it was absorbing from being shot repeatedly by the attackers. There was no time for him to pull up his hood and disappear; if he stopped moving for an instant the results would be fatal despite his suit. He returned fire with his own energy pistol as he made his way over to me. He grabbed me and dragged me behind the large rock that Khasa had been sitting on a few minutes ago. My shirt started to smolder in his hand from the heat of his suit. He was gasping for breath and I could see the agony in his eyes and I realized that the suit was overheating and he was being roasted alive. "Do whatever it is you do and get us out of here NOW!"

The rock we were hiding behind was coming apart before my eyes as the energy blast chipped away at it. We only had a matter of seconds till we had no protection to hide behind. Westal continued to return fire and managed to score several hits. But his pistol did not have the power to do much damage against the hardened battle suits of the attackers. We were out gunned in every way. We didn't stand a chance against the advanced weapons of our attackers. They were veterans and you could tell it as they split apart into three groups. The first stayed in front of us and poured a never ending stream of energy at us, while the other two spread out to both sides to flank us.

I could see Antara using the wall to pull himself up from the ground. Orman's arrow was still protruding from his shoulder, and beside him helping him up was another monitor in a battle suit. It had to be Ananga come to his partners rescue. As Antara leaned against him Ananga raised an energy pistol in his right hand and pointed it directly at me. It looked like I wouldn't have to wait for the attacking goon squad to finish their flanking maneuver to die. Suddenly Jazlyn appeared out of thin air right in front of the monitors, her automatic pistol pointed at Ananga's face from only inches away. Without hesitation she opened fire at the monitors face; repeatedly pulling the trigger directly into his helmeted head. The pistol was no match for the advanced battle armor but it did serve to shock Ananga and cause him to pull back losing his footing and falling down. Jazlyn knew that she had no hope of actually hurting the armored monitor but that did not apply to Antara. She moved her arm to the right swiftly changing her aim to the unarmored head of the injured monitor. Pulling the trigger one more time before disappearing the same way she had arrived, into thin air. The .45 caliber bullet from close range made a real mess of Antara's head, but after all I had learned about him I felt that it was still too good of a way to go for him.

I reached down inside myself and took hold of the power, I felt it rise in me ready to be unleashed and open a Gate. Unfortunately there was no door and I had no idea what to do with it. The other times it was an unconscious act and I had no control over it, this time I was calling the power but beyond that I was lost. Suddenly Jazlyn appeared beside us out of thin air, she placed her right hand on Westal's head, the only part of him uncovered by his suit, then she grabbed my shoulder with her left hand and I felt the power explode outward in a titanic release.

Burning fire enveloped me as the world disappeared. A sensation of falling came over me. It was similar to the time the Neanderthal had hit me. I felt that I was falling backwards with nothing supporting me, no sense of anything around me. I was in my own little world of falling, and like last time I realized I wasn't breathing. Jazlyn had said that the Neanderthal put me into a situation where I felt threatened and then directed my ability to send me to the Agency junction center. It seemed that she was capable of doing the same thing and was using my ability to send us somewhere. Where I had no clue, it was like she had hijacked my ability to take us to a place of her choosing. I could only wait until we arrived and hope that she knew what she was doing. I was beginning to get tired of people using me. Granted she was saving my life but hey it was my life and I can complain about it if I want.

Day two of falling, well at least it felt that way, I had forgotten how long I was in this limbo last time. It seemed to take forever, unending falling without a bottom in sight. I should really start bringing a book to read on these long trips, but then again I can't see anything and as far as I can tell there is no light to read by. I sure wish this would end....."GASP" light floods my eyes; a loud whoosh fills my ears as air rushes into my lungs. THUMP I land on my back and the air goes rushing back out. Damn I need to start being careful what I wish for!
"AAAAARRRR" Peeling the suit from Westal's body brought forth another scream from him as it pulled burnt flesh with it. Somehow Jaz had been able to direct my energy and land us here in a realm that she said was safe, for now.

"Clark you must go on without us, I will get Westal the medical help that he needs here in this realm but you must go to the rebels; it is your only chance." Jaz said.

"Why don't I stay with you till Westal gets help then we can go together to the rebels?" I asked. I wasn't too keen on going to a bunch of rebels alone especially since until a few hours ago I had been lead to believe were the enemy of all mankind. "Or better yet why don't we go to the rebels to get Westal the medical help that he needs?"

"It will be a long time before Westal is well enough to travel and the realm that you need to go to is not advanced enough to offer him the medical treatment that he needs. You don't have the luxury of time to waste, there is so much that you don't know about the Agency, but trust me they will not stop looking for you and their resources are vast. You must get to the rebels before the agency has a chance to kill you, not only for your own safety but for the future of the rebels. Now that the agency knows that you are outside of their control and have full use of your abilities they will stop at nothing to prevent you from joining with the rebels." Jaz handed me a bundle, "Here are cloths that will suit the realm you are going to and a letter of introduction. You will be an adviser for a city that is under siege, they won't question your credentials, and don't worry this realm has one war after another and there are always advisers coming and going. No one will think twice about it and you probably won't even be asked to advise them on anything."

"Probably? What the hell do I know about advising a city under siege? I don't know the first thing about war or sieges other than what I learned in history class, and that was a hell of a long time ago!"

"That is the great thing about history, it doesn't change; what you learned in school still applies. But don't worry you will be fine. All the information you need is in here, including where to go and who to contact when you get there. I'll help you set your destination realm in your mind so that you can open a Gate. After you reach the rebels they can explain things and you will find that there is much more to you and your ability then the Agency ever told you.""

This was getting hard to wrap my head around. Everything that I had been told was suspect and I had no idea what was true and what wasn't anymore. After wiping what remained of Khasa off of me and smelling the burned meat smell of Westal, I had no doubt that the Agency was the bad guy now. I hadn't known Westal, Orman and Khasa for very long but they had all saved my ass on more than one occasion and I had come to consider them friends. I would take Jazlyn's advice and seek out the rebels. I planned to learn all I could about the rebels, the Agency and my abilities. Once I had a firm grip on the new realities that I was living in I would see about setting things straight.
Standing on the battlements looking out over the sea of incoming attacks, I wondered what the hell I was doing here. I came through the Gate into the city of Iompróirbáis two days ago and walked right into a major war. In this world the Roman Empire never suffered its decline; it thrived and now controlled over 80 percent of the known world. Most of it was subdivided by alliance as opposed to geographical boundaries. And the alliances fought constantly. I was told there was never a day that went by that someone wasn't fighting someone else in this realm. This battle had been going on for days now, with wave after wave of Imperial troops smashing themselves to death on the walls of this once beautiful city.

A loud whistling sound filled the air accompanied by yells to run, followed by a horrendous crash and screams. Fifty yards down the wall to my left a stone thrown from one of the dozen or so ballista out on the field had destroyed a wall mounted scorpio and the team of Romans manning it. War was hell is an understatement on this world where the medical treatment still included amputation for any major wounds to the arms and legs. But the alternative was to allow infection to set in, and then it was all over but the crying.

A Magistrate approached me from the direction of the stairs leading down from the top of the wall.

"Lord Clark you should not be up here, with the Vandals attacking it is far too dangerous. My Chancellor would look upon me with great displeasure if anything were to happen to you.""

"How else am I to get a good view of the battle? I can't advise the Council if I don't know what's going on during the battle."

Thunder crashed and rolled across the city, I looked up at the clear skies before looking quizzically at the Magistrate.

"Jovian Thunder," he said with a grin. "Many of our Consuls are calling on the Gods this day. Follow me Lord; the Council is ready to hear you at this time."

There were many ways that people on the different realms used the "energy" that I used to open Gates. And I had found that most of them attributed it to either magic or the gods. It seemed that on this realm it may be a combination of both. I wasn't sure what this Jovian Thunder was but from the sound it generated I would say it was very powerful, I wondered exactly what it was and what the results were. What the hell it had something to do with war and killing, at this point I guess that was all I really needed to know.

Following the Magistrate down the steps and away from the wall it occurred to me that the agency must do things on each realm to keep the people from advancing. I wondered how they managed to keep a lid on all of the scientific discoveries on all the realms. Judging from what I had been told and experienced for myself I imagined it involved a lot of violent death.

Walking into the Council chamber was like walking into a tapestry hall. The banners of all the Consuls covered the walls of the grand chamber. A half a dozen of the consuls sat around the large wooden table which dominated the room, discussing the battle. Each consul was the Chancellor of his own cities, together they formed an alliance where each of them had a say in what went on but the Chancellor of the alliance had the final say. If I understood the information that Jazlyn had given me correctly each consul was free to leave the alliance at any time. It seemed that loyalty was all that kept them together, and my understanding was that loyalty was a big thing on this realm.

".......nothing here for them to take. I cannot believe that they are stupid enough to waste hundreds of thousands of troops on a vendetta against Ceres'."

The elegantly gowned woman at the head of the table raised her hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Dominus Bered, hatred knows neither bounds nor reason. They only want to destroy me, regardless of the cost to the Vandal alliance."

At this time they noticed my entrance and I approached the table. "Greetings Consul's of Rome, I have finished my inspections of the troops and the walls, and formulated my plan for you."

A grizzled veteran looked me in the eye and sneered, "Lord Clark, I have given over 100 legions of my troops in the defense of this city and have more on the way; as we all do." He said looking around at his fellow consuls, "We have killed ten times that many of the vermin, I don't know why the Admiral brought you here to advise us, but I for one see no reason for it."

"Now, now Warrick "spoke up Salvianus from the right hand of Ceres', "you have done an excellent job of defending the city, no one questions that. But a little outside advice to insure we are, not missing anything, never hurts."

"Warrick" I say with a puzzled look," not a very Roman sounding name is it?"

"It's not the name I was born with, but it is the name that keeps me alive now. Most of us come from other," he pauses as if considering his next words "...places shall we say. But we are all here now and that is what matters."

At that moment the large double doors to the chamber crashed open and a blood covered legionary rushes into the room. "The walls are breached! All is lost!" he cries.

Everyone jumps up from the table and rushes from the room drawing swords or grabbing up javelin on their way out. Running out into the bright sunlight we all look up to the top of the wall to see Vandals pouring over the battlements onto the walkway. A lone figure faces them swinging a massive double headed ax, massive for him but it was nothing compared to Khasa's, shearing limbs from the unfortunate conscripts in the lead.

"Warrick, Bered and Salvianus go help Vladimiru." Ceres' yelled, "Edmund, Stasio, and Divino come with me." She raced to the other end of the wall to stop them from descending into the city. I stood and watched in awe as, what I thought were nothing more than politicians and counsel room leaders, killed hundreds of Vandals in the confined space on top of the wall. Back and forth the battle went. As the Vandals scaled the walls the Antarac leaders dispatched them with abandon.

Hours later all of the troops were dead other than the consuls. No one was left to defend the city but the handful of leaders on the wall. As hard as they fought, the end was inevitable. The walls were breached in dozens of places and thousands of the enemy poured over the top. The eight leaders besieged on the wall were only alive because the Vandals could only get at them a few at a time. But the long fight was beginning to tell on them and exhaustion was setting in.

Warrick slipped in the blood of his enemies and went to one knee just as a sword flashed in to crash against his helm. He fell and rolled to the side giving Bered room to lunge forward impaling the unlucky trooper on his sword tip. Suddenly a buzzing filled the air; a giant swarm of bees had decided to claim the city as their hive. Everywhere I looked the enemy was falling as if dropped by Mars himself. A female warrior bounded over the wall as if launched from one of the ballista, swinging down with her sword taking the head from the next Vandal in line.

"Come on Warrick, this is no time for sleeping." She smiled as she extended her hand to help him up.

"Thanks Bella, I knew you wouldn't let me down."

From around the corner to my right appeared a thousand skirmishers, slings whirling above their heads, they released in unison and each stone flew true to its mark dropping another enemy soldier. A fan-fair of trumpets filled the air; more reinforcements had arrived, with not a moment to lose. The Irishman, Lord of the Purple throne and more Antaracs than could be written here had arrived.

For three more days the battle raged, twice more the walls were breached. Each time more reinforcements arrived before the Vandals could sack the city. In the end the Antaracs reigned supreme. The Vandals did not withdraw, they fought till the last man dropped; they fought till there were no more troops to send. Mounds of dead covered the plain before the city and the walls were stained with so much blood they would never shine white in the sunlight again.
Once again I stood upon the wall gazing out at the littered plain surrounding the city. How many millions had died here would never be known for sure. Between the hot sun shining down, and the scavengers feeding on the bloated corpses, it was not a pretty sight to behold. I turned my back on the carnage and descended the steps down into the city as a messenger ran up to me.

"Lord Clark, Consul Salvianus awaits you at the city gates. They are ready to depart."

"Go tell Lord Salvianus that I am on my way."

I continued walking to my horse as the runner did what he did best and ran off. Salvianus was on his way to the peace talks. This battle had not been the last of the war, but it was the most decisive. The Vandals had asked for peace talks to begin. Our side had lost hundreds of thousands of troops; well over 8000 legions had perished here and it was estimated that the enemy had lost ten times that many. Battles still raged across the land, and would continue to do so until a truce was called, and there would be no truce till an agreement had been reached. This was no ordinary war; there was much bad blood between the two alliances. It was only because of the death toll that peace was being discussed now.

I mounted my horse and rode through the streets to the gate. Reconstruction was already under way on many of the buildings and the defensive wall. I was amazed at the speed with which these Romans could go back to normal life, but then again war was the normal way of life here. I rode up beside Salvianus and we started together out the Merchants Gate in the east wall. This was the first gate cleared of the carnage so that commerce could recommence. Life went on and business was the life blood of the city.

"Thank you for coming along with me on the road Clark, with Bered and the other Consuls gone back to their own cities I was looking at a long empty road and was not relishing the thought of it."

What Salvianus didn't know was that I needed to go in the same direction as him in order to reach the rebels. It looked to be a long and dangerous road and I had no intention of trying to go it on my own. Of course Jazlyn knew this when she sent me here, I also think that she thought it might help to have a powerful alliance on my side if the agency caught up with me.

"No problem Salvianus, I am glad of the company myself. I wanted to talk with you about the upcoming peace talks. If the Antaracs and the Vandals are such bitter enemies how can you trust them? It would seem to me that meeting them on their home ground with no more than a Cohort of Legionaries is rather foolhardy to say the least."

Laughing deeply Salvianus shook his head at me. "You really don't know much about us here in the empire. A Roman trooper starts training at the age of eight. After ten years of training they join the army. After five years of service, if they live that long they are considered a veteran and can become a Legionary, if they are deemed good enough. A Cohort of Legionaries is nothing to take lightly. "Extending his arm to encompass all of the troops surrounding us on the road he continued. "Besides these 480 Legionaries are just for protection from brigands and barbarians on the trip, we don't need to worry about the Vandals. It is dishonorable to attack us on the road; we only have to worry while in our cities. And the same is true when we get to the peace talks. No Roman would dare allow harm to come to anyone, friend or foe, who is in their city and under their protection."

He pulled a wine skin from his pack and after taking a healthy drink passed it to me before continuing. "You must remember a man's worth is not decided by himself but by others. We must all look to others for confirmation of our abilities and identity. A man deemed honorable by his peers is a man who is honorable in all things. Great and noble deeds may be done, but if no one knows of them then what is to be gained? We are only as honorable as others believe us to be. So Lord Petruso will be very sure to keep us safe while we are in his city. But till then we have to depend on ourselves to stay alive."

Passing the wine skin back to him I couldn't help but ask. "So what you are telling me is that a great or honorable deed is only great or honorable if someone else knows about it?" Frowning now as I continued along the same line of thought, "So if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, then it didn't really fall. I am not too sure that I agree with your definition of honor Salvianus."

Reining his horse in he turned to look at me with a stern gaze. With a shout from the Centurion the entire Cohort came to an instant stop, each of the Legionaries facing outward to defend against an incoming attack that did not exist. I stopped also and realized that I may have gone too far with that last remark. I may have inadvertently questioned his honor.

"Lord Clark, every action that you take, you take for a reason. The reason may be to help someone, or it may be to benefit yourself; it may be simply because it seemed like the right thing to do at the time, there are hundreds of possible reasons for every action that you take. Generally no one but you will know what the reason may be. At times even you may not know the reason for your actions. The reason for your actions has nothing to do with honor, and because you know the reason for your action it clouds your sense of judgment in regards to your own actions, therefore it is wholly up to others to determine if there was honor or dishonor in your actions."

He looked at the Centurion and nodded and the Centurion yelled out, "Antaracs MARCH." With clanks of armor the Cohort started into motion again resuming its march to Lord Petruso's city.

Breathing a sigh of relief that I was not going to have to defend myself against any of these seasoned warriors I gathered my courage and spoke again. "So because he is worried about his honor Petruso will see to it that we are not harmed while in his city for the peace talks. Does that concern for honor extend to the negotiation table also?"

"More than likely we will not be dealing directly with the Chancellor till after a tentative agreement has been reached. I believe that we will be talking with one of his Vice Chancellors till such time as we get near an agreement. I would assume that we will be dealing with Markus Düppchen, he is a fare person and I foresee no problems."

We continued down the road in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts, little realizing what problems were in store for us once we reached the peace talks.
Clark stopped typing and slid back from the desk computer. In the last year he had been to more realms then he could remember some of them for only as long as it took to open another Gate. But in the last year he had not been back to his home realm even once. Because of the rebels he had not been discovered by the agency till after his abilities had manifest, he had been deleted from the agency's database so there was no record of his home realm. The fact that the rebels had recruited him prevented him from having access to the agency records to see what realm he was on when the agency eventually discovered him after he had traveled by accident. The end result was he had no idea where his home realm was and he had spent many a sleepless night wondering how to return there. But before he could allow himself the luxury of returning to home for good and starting his life up again, he had to contend with the Agency. In the last year it had become apparent that the rebels were right about the Agency, it might not be evil incarnate but it was the closest that he had seen so far. If the agency was not brought to an end it would surely continue to destroy any realms that threatened it, and to continue to manipulate all the rest for the benefit of the monitors.

Somewhere along the line I had decided that the rebels needed me to bring down the agency. After all it is my natural born abilities that make me best for this. But I will never stop looking for home. If it takes me till the end of time I will never stop. Each night when I go to sleep I dream of finding home. I know that someday in the future I will find it. And until I do I will make it my responsibility to patrol the lines. To do my best to keep the agency in check, I'll fight them at every turn. There is a new sheriff in town. I am the cowboy with the white hat. The last good guy fighting off the bad guys; it is my job to make the world safe for everyone. Ha worlds I guess. There are a lot of them out there and a lot of bad guys to protect them from. It's a tall order but one I will take on gladly. Had I known at the beginning what I would be up against I probably would have run screaming into the night that first time I traveled. Now I go running into the night chasing the bogey man, and all of his cohorts, and they are the ones screaming. But what the hell......

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