The sidewalk sucked at her boots as she walked, not willing to relinquish hold of her footfall, sticky with mystery substances she didn’t care to consider. Or she’d stepped in something. She didn’t want to think about that either.

The street was narrow, just wide enough for two lanes of vehicles to squeeze by at obnoxious speeds. Apparently this city didn’t bother with limits. She expected the screech of metal grinding against metal each time cars passed one another. Never happened, much to her relief.

Iron buildings lined the sidewalks, so tall they faded into the smog-choked sky, with intermittent breaks between to allow for dark alleyways. Not that the entire city wasn’t one massive, sprawling shadow sliced into by neon lights and yellow fluorescence. Not that many alleys were well-lit. These were just darker than most.

Because she was Adele Hargrove and because she had done worse things in her lifetime, she veered into an alley at random. She edged around a gathering of teenagers likely her age, black mesh and latex accented with every hue from the UV-reflective rainbow. They smoked handmade cigarettes between famine-thin fingertips. A girl cut through their babble with a hyena’s laugh, tossing hair embedded with plasticky dreadlocks and acid green tubing. Adele caught the skunky odour of ganja, exhaled, then held her breath until she’d come through the other side.

A vendor sold magazines and newspapers and used books, the latter wrinkled and sallow with age. None of the covers were recognizable. Flipping through a glossy tabloid, she hunted for an identifiable face. Some celebrities had alternate versions in each reality, doppelgangers coping with secrets beyond the standard drug addictions and sex scandals.

Funny how she’d never bothered with the famous when in her own world, yet always sought them out in others. A world’s celebrities revealed too much about it to ignore; fashion trends and slang, as well as particular dangers. For instance, Adele learned here she wouldn’t have to deal with vampires or aliens.

Always a plus, she thought.

The shopkeeper snatched the magazine from her grasp, returning it to its rightful place. “You read it, you buy it. This is no library.”

Already her attention was elsewhere. She had visited enough worlds to know that a squad of seven or eight individuals in uniform was never a good thing. In fact, she couldn’t recall any situation where it didn’t accompany trouble. For her, anyway.

They had yet to notice her, clustered on the opposing sidewalk with communication devices and silver-papered cigarettes as distraction. This was the only advantage she had. Now to slink away before they did.

“Who are they?” Tone injected with a heavy dose of nonchalance, she hid twitching fingertips in her pockets. Adrenaline amplified her limbs, urged her to move. Whether it wanted her to slam in their faces or run, she couldn’t tell.

The storekeeper’s scowl never left the congregation across the street, hinting old grudges she had no time to inquire about. “What? Don’t you know?”

“I’m from out of town.” One of her favourite and most reliable excuses. Tourists could get away with anything.

He either snorted or hawked phlegm from his lungs. “It’s August.” When she did not respond—to her, August was the sweaty month before autumn began—he muttered a curse beneath his breath. “You know, A.U.G.S.T? The government forces, bunch of pigs that they are.” He cursed again, louder. “Where are you from?”

That was when he peeled his gaze from the suits, noticing her for what appeared to be the first time. Skin tone included. The “oh, I see” was implicit in the expression on his face.

Thanks, mum, she thought. Being of mixed race and ambiguous ethnicity tended to be more benefit than detriment. How she wished she’d known this would be the case while in elementary school.

Then again, she wished she’d known a lot of things. That she would be caught reality-hopping for her teenaged years included.

“You really aren’t from around here,” he said.

“Indeed,” she said, “I’m not.”

He froze, lips crumpling against each other in a tight line. The whites of his eyes shone in contrast to his face, a frightful shade of beet-like purplish red. She wondered if he was preparing to explode. A faint noise sounded in her skull, a ringing she could not place. By the time she realized they were internal warning bells, the storekeeper was shouting.

“Lowsider! Officers! It’s a lowsider!” Aside from bellowing, he had begun to flail madly. Several of his precious magazines and books tumbled to the clammy sidewalk when his arm slammed into the makeshift wall of the storefront. This only made him louder, adding a pained whine to his yelling.

Traffic prevented the officers from crossing the street. Before they could reach for whatever weaponry they kept on person, she spun on the heel of her combat boot and took flight.

✖

Why does this always happen to me? Every reality, every world, and she had to get herself in trouble with the government. Probably because she asked so many dumb questions. Of the wrong people. At the wrong time.

Don’t look back, she told herself; to do so would slow her down or ruin her concentration. Such a silly human urge it was anyway, as if the danger became more real when properly seen and verified. She knew she was being followed. Two or three of the operatives trailed close enough that she could hear the buzz of their transceivers, empty voices droning codes she couldn’t decipher. No need to look. Just move, Adele.

Her boots pounded the pavement, jolting her body with every step. Sweat slicked the small of her back, prickled beneath the underwire of her bra. Much of it was nerves. She hadn’t run that far, and didn’t intend to. That would be what they’d expect. Instead she moved in a C-formation around the block, hunting. Scouring for somewhere suitable to hide.

When there was a break between the racing cars, she sprinted across the road, into an alleyway soured with trash, and behind the dumpster from which the unfortunate smell radiated. When she hauled her body on top its cover, she could reach the rust-roughened fire escape. With a parting jump, she pulled her body up, righted herself, and climbed the metal steps.

The third storey had a broken window poorly concealed with a wooden board. A musty tang greeted her when she clambered in. Not granting herself the chance to catch her breath, she continued on through what appeared to be an apartment.

Taking cover in an abandoned building was the obvious choice, but they were often like urban labyrinths. Find one large enough—not an issue in mega-cities such as this—and you had endless possibilities for hiding spots. Closets, sub-basements, air ducts, elevator shafts; the list went on.

Of course, the problem remained that such places were vacant for a reason. Possibly economic, probably health or safety related—anything from poor construction and overpricing to bed bugs and asbestos.

She had no intentions of staying long enough to figure it out.

✖

By the time she noticed the wires, powdery dust like icing sugar had coated the hem of her trousers. She hoped it was dust, anyway.

The extension cords stretched the length of the thirteenth storey corridor, lines of matte black and blue with safety orange, leading from the stairwell to their destination: a unit at the end of the hallway, flickering with silvery-blue light.

When she drew closer, a soft whirring became apparent—but no other sounds. Not even a twitch of movement. Curiouser and curiouser.

The light emanated from a triplet of monitors set on the floor, plugged into the sprawl of hard drives and chunks of circuitry that occupied the room with blatant disregard for electrical hazards or dust-clogged fans. In front of the computer screens, an uneven square had been swept of grime, presently occupied by a cordless keyboard and mouse only.

Distantly, several pairs of combat boots rumbled on the stairwell. Doors screeched open and shut. They were tracing the path she had carved, footprints left behind in the filth coating the tiles. Another few floors and they’d find her.

Less distantly, another door shut. Footsteps crept slowly nearer until a young man entered the room via a corridor in the rightmost wall. He didn’t notice the girl in the doorway, too preoccupied with returning to the terminal. With one leg folded beneath himself, the other propped on one of the monitors, he tapped a rapid sequence into the keyboard. She waited, though she didn’t know what for. If he wanted to play computer games with government enforcers approaching, that was his prerogative, suicidal or not.

“There. Brilliant!” His voice sliced into the quiet so abruptly that she startled. The floor beneath her creaked, betraying her. He whirled around to stare at her with too-large brown eyes; puppy-dog eyes, accompanied by a down-turned mouth and pouting bottom lip.

Immediately he got to his feet, kicking the keyboard in the process. He proved far more graceful once standing. In very few strides, he closed the distance between them and grabbed hold of her shoulders.

“You brought them here, didn’t you?” he asked.

She stepped back a pace; he did not relinquish his hold. “Does that really matter? They’re here now, and we need to get running—”

“How many?”

“Three. Or four. I didn’t look.” Maybe I should have after all. “How did you know they were here?” A moment ago he hadn’t even noticed her.

“I heard them.” One of his brows arched then returned to its place. “I assume they’re government. Vagrants don’t come in here. They know better.”

The rumbling could be heard again on the stairwell, closer now. They had another floor or two to search before they found them. Difficult to tell on sound alone.

“Is there another exit?” she asked. “I really need to get out of here. They think I’m a lowsider. Whatever that is.”

“Then you shouldn’t have dressed like one,” he said. When he flashed her a jaunty grin, his mouth didn’t turn up in the corners. “This way—”

The door at the end of the hall burst open, one of the operatives racing into the corridor with some sort of gun in hand. “You! Hold it right there—”

“You ever notice how they always say ‘hold it right there?’” asked the man. “What are we to hold? Do you have anything?”

“Yeah,” Adele said. “I do.”

She outstretched a hand, focussed, and a stream of electricity jolted from the ring worn on her pointer finger. A force-field built itself several meters away from wall to wall, ceiling to floor. It destroyed whatever shot from the operative’s gun with a sizzling crackle, who then proceeded to fire madly in retaliation.

“Oh,” said the man, with an askance glance at the piece of jewellery. “You know, I don’t think that qualifies as holding.”

“Does it matter?” she snapped. “Which way is out?”

“As I was saying,” said the man, “this way.”

She scowled over at him, about to mention that he hadn’t indicated which way they were to go in, that he was being the most unhelpful person ever, when he grasped hold of her wrist and tugged. For once, she allowed herself to be led. It certainly promised better than the alternative.

Behind them, the government operative depleted a thesaurus’ worth of synonyms for “halt,” all of which went ignored. After another minute, they were too far away to hear her any longer.