Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter One: 

Linae Does Not Get to Go Home Early

It was a semi-cloudy, almost nice day, the kind of day Linae hated.  The kind of day where it seemed the weather couldn’t make up its mind about whether it wanted to be bright and sunny or dark and gloomy, and instead was both at the same time.  There was something about seeing the sun streaming through the dense clouds that put her on edge, as if the earth might tilt under her feet without warning.  It was days like this that she was glad she worked inside, in an office with no windows.  Safe in her office, she could pretend that the weather was something more natural, or that nothing existed outside of her little space, if she was in the mood.  And she had a feeling that today would be one of those days.  She ran a hand through her slightly wavy light brown hair and sighed.  She could think of any number of things she would rather be doing than working today.  Not that she had a terrible job.  She actually liked it on most days.  

Linae worked for a branch of the Tulin-Walker Travel Agency, one of the largest travel franchises in the country of Lirrell, on the world called Rearn.  Founded by Franklin Tulin and Amanda Walker, the agency catered to a very specific brand of traveler -- namely, those who wanted to spend their vacations not just in a different country, but in an entirely different world.  Part of Linae’s job was to book these trips.  She considered herself good at it, but she had to admit that someone ready to commit to traveling through dimensions was more than likely to be prepared to pay for the company’s services.  Not that they didn’t get the occasional curious cat, someone who had heard about the services but didn’t really know much about what it entailed.  With a little work, Linae could usually ply that kind of customer enough that they might decide to take one of the smaller packages, but it was never a given.  And there was always the customer who thought the “different world” was a figure of speech.  Those were a lost cause, the kind you could smell from the moment they walked in the door.  She had never encountered one of those (as she thought of them, with a mental sneer) that wasn’t a very mundane type of person who like the idea of going some place, but would never actually venture out of their own backyard, assuming they had one.

The other part of her job was actually delivering her clients to the worlds they would visit, for she was a walker.  Not the same Walker as in Tulin-Walker, though.  The similarity between the co-founder’s last name and the title given to those who could travel between worlds was merely a coincidence (although some said that Amanda Walker changed her last name for better publicity).  No, Linae was a walker, someone who could “walk” to different worlds.  All she had to do was picture the world she wanted to travel to, take the hand of whoever she was taking with her, and then walk.  She wasn’t entirely sure how it worked, exactly.  She knew that it had to do with the mind, but whenever someone explained it, the terms got too technical, and she couldn’t retain it.  It was enough for her just to know that it worked, and as long as she got where she needed to go, she was happy.

Her brand of walking worked best when she had been where she was going, but there were other walkers who made a living by exploring worlds yet unknown, and taking others there.  Linae was fine leaving this to the experts, and steered any customers who were reckless enough to enjoy that kind of walking to someone else.

She wasn’t meeting with any clients that morning, which was fine with her, as she was in no mood to try and wine and dine anyone.  Her plan for the morning was to stretch out checking and responding to messages until it was time for lunch, and then seeing if she could head home early.  It depended on which supervisor was in that day, of course, but if she couldn’t get out early, she had a couple of “busy work” tasks she had saved for a day like this.

Quite naturally, her plans were dashed by the first message that caught her eye.  “Urgent Client coming first thing - My.”  Ah, so Myrna was in today, Linae thought to herself.  Myrna referred to herself as My for a reason Linae had never been able to deduce, other than she didn’t like her first name, and she hated her last name so much that she never revealed it to anyone.  It was rumored that she hadn’t even given it on her application to Tulin-Walker, but no one could find that out for sure.  Not anyone that Linae knew, anyway.  Myrna would be easier to convince to let her out early, but not with an “urgent client.”  “Urgent client” was Myrna’s codeword for “someone to get at all costs” either because they were willing to spend that extra bit for the higher grade package, or they were a big name and would look good in the register log.  So much for an unproductive morning.

The urgent client turned out to be neither, but a middle-aged gentleman with a dark chestnut brown beard.  “Good morning,” she greeted him with a handshake.

“Good morning, I’m Mr. Elwood of Omnion Industries,” the gentleman told her, and handed her a business card.  “I have an important matter to discuss with you.”

“Please have a seat,” Linae said, motion toward a chair.  Her stomach lurched at the words “important matter.”  No one was that serious about a vacation, so this had to be something much more unpleasant.  Silently she cursed Myrna for dumping this in her lap, especially once she noticed the traveling cage the man had brought with him.  But she didn’t show any of these thoughts as she sat down.

“I don’t know if you’re aware of what we do at Omnion Industries,” Mr. Elwood said, “But it isn’t very important for you to know, actually,” he continued, apparently changing direction midsentence.  “No, all you really need to know is that…” he looked at the traveling cage nervously.  “Well, suffice it to say, we had a bit of an unintended reaction to a recent experiment, and we need to someone to return this, ah, creature? We’re not really sure what it is or where it came from,” he started to rush out the words, as if he had to say them before he forgot them, “But it isn’t from here.”

“I see,” Linae said, “Let me have a look, then.”  She got up from her desk and knelt down by the traveling cage.  She peered inside.  It was hard to tell what exactly was in there, but she could make out the form of something that was asleep.  

“So you can fix this?” Mr. Elwood asked her.  Linae had the distinct feeling that he had been the one who drew the short straw, metaphorically.

“You’ll need to take him out, I can’t tell what it is from here,” she told him, sitting up a little.

“Yes, yes, it should be all right,” Mr. Elwood said, more to himself than to her, and unlocked the door to the traveling cage.  He gently eased the sleeping creature out and set it down in front of Linae.  She looked it over carefully.  It was about the size of a small child, with pale blue skin and a large rounded snout.  It didn’t resemble anything she had encountered before, as far as she could recall.  But there were still a number of worlds she had yet to visit herself.  Perhaps this creature was from one of them.

“Tell me a little more about how it got here.”

Mr. Elwood wasn’t at liberty to discuss the details of the experiment, only that it involved a lot of technical equipment used to harness, well, he couldn’t say.  But he described to her the best he could the circumstances of the experiment, and how it resulted in a power outage and the seemingly spontaneous arrival of this creature. 

“And you’re certain that it didn’t come from another area of the institute?” Linae asked him.  For with all the vague details he had feed her, it didn’t seem too far from her mind to imagine that there could be a biological wing doing shadowy biological things.  Whether that was creating strange hybrids, or entirely new life altogether, she wasn’t entirely sure.

“Quite certain,” Mr. Elwood told her, although he refused to elaborate.  “Besides, once it..” but here he got no further, for the strange creature suddenly opened its eyes.  It looked from Mr. Elwood to Linae and back again.  Then it stood up and made a run for the door, which was closed, and started trying to turn the knob to open the door, but couldn’t manage to get a handle on it, although it did seem to have fingers, Linae noted.  “Yes, well,” Me. Elwood said as he grappled the creature and dragged it back, “It does tend to try and make a break for it.  I’ll put it back in the case.”  During his last sentence, the creature began to shout, and the words simultaneously sent a chill down Linae’s spine and filled her with a slight warmth of hope.  Not because of what it said, for she couldn’t understand a word of it.  But the fact that she knew she didn’t understand it, but was capable of understanding made it all too clear that this was not just a creature or an animal, but what walkers referred to as inhabitants, and as such, her job here had become slightly easier. 

While walkers and their clients are mostly humanoid, and generally the worlds they visit also feature humanoid populations, there are worlds populated entirely by sentient beings that did not resemble humans at all, but often resembled things from mostly humanoid worlds that usually did not have sentience.  To distinguish the two, the term inhabitant was made popular, although a number of different terms were put into practice.  

Since this creature was an inhabitant, it could, in theory, simply tell her where it had come from, and she could get it back home far more easily than if she had to do the research she had envisioned when she first saw it.  Only…she couldn’t understand it.  Linae groaned to herself, mentally cursing her earpiece, a device that instantly translated a number of languages, for breaking the other day, and also cursing the place she sent it to have it fixed for not having it fixed by now.  

“Xxxxxxxxxxxx,” the creature shouted, struggling against Mr. Elwood’s grip.  “XXX xxxxx XXXX, X xxxx XXX xx xx!!!”

“Once he’s in the case-” Mr. Elwood said, but Linae cut him off.

“Don’t bother,” she said, standing up.  “I’ll be right back.”  She quickly opened the door and left the room, closing the door behind her.  Leaving the confused gentleman to struggle with the creature, she set about checking the doors of the other agents on duty that day.  Everyone had a plate by their door where they could slide a card advertising their status, either with a client, on other duties, or not in.  She passed the doors of a couple of friends of hers, and a few agents she knew, but not well, but it seemed that everyone either had a client or wasn’t in.  Then she passed a door that she knew well, because she usually avoided it.  But she was running out of options: she would have to go see Lynne Z.

Chapter Two: 

Lynne is Only a Half-Walker, but She Doesn’t Mind

If there was one thing you could say about Lynne Zink, it was that she was dependable.  Lynne always did the same thing when she woke up in the morning: she relieved herself, she took a shower, and then ate her breakfast.  She used the same kind of shampoo and conditioner to wash her ginger hair, and she used the same brand of soap that she had been using for years.  She ate the same cereal that she ate every morning, with a slice of toast spread with apricot preserves.  She didn’t do this because she was fussy or stuck in a rut (although others might argue she was), but simply because she was not dissatisfied with anything.  She was a very simple person, and in that sense she liked what she liked and rarely thought of doing something different, or using an alternative brand, as long as she was able to accomplish what she needed to accomplish.  This is probably why she didn’t discover she was a walker until later on her life.

Most walkers are discovered as children, when their imaginations combine with a dream of going other places, often fantastic places.  But Lynne had never been an imaginative child, and had lived a very mundane life.  She grew up in the usual way, in an average house with her mother, father, and older sister.  It wasn’t until she was seventeen years old that she happened to find out she could walk, and like most walkers, it was entirely an accident.  She had simply gone out to get the mail one day, and since it was a nice day, she thought it would be nice to go to the beach.  She closed her eyes and thought about the last time she had gone to the beach, the sand and the water and sun, and continued on her way to the mailbox.  When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in front of her house, but she was not at the beach, either.  For Lynne was not a true walker, it seemed, but half a walker.  

She was stuck in the area between worlds, seen only by a handful of walkers, if for no other reason than most walkers passed right through it on the way to their destination.  There are those who believe that this area appears differently for each walker, based on their inner construct.  But Lynne knew none of this at the time.  She merely found herself in a vast plain that was made entirely of splotchy blue and purple everything.  She looked upon this blue and purple world and sat down on a convenient fuchsia lump protruding from the ground while she tried to figure out what exactly had happened to take her from her front yard to this strange place.  She adjusted her glasses, but that didn’t change the fact of the matter: she was somewhere she had never been before.  There didn’t seem to be anything alive except for her, nor could she see any sign that it was any different anywhere else, so she stayed where she was.  

There was no telling how long she might have stayed there if she hadn’t been picked up by another walker, who was taking his family on a trip to the same place Lynne had been thinking of.  Although it was not the exact beach she had imagined, but a beach on a world known as Samara.  The walker, naturally, was surprised to discover he’d picked up another traveler, and when Lynne explained what had happened to her before he ran into her, he had an inkling of what might have happened to her.  He brought her back to her home and advised her to go to the main office of the Walker Federation.  So Lynne made an appointment, for while she was a rather mundane person, even then, she had to admit, she was a little curious about the incident she had been involved in.  The representative she met with ran a few tests, observed her walking, and came to the conclusion that she was a half-walker.  Not very common, but they came up often enough that there was already a term for it.

Lynne spent some time with different specialists trying to figure out if she could become a whole walker, and though many things were tried, nothing could be done about it naturally.  However, during her studies, she discovered that she had a unique ability: she could speak any language without prior knowledge of it, as long as she heard a sample first.  This talent was only hampered by the fact that she could not understand what she heard or what she said, but there was already technology that would translate for her; an earpiece that was barely noticeable, especially since Lynne kept her hair in front of her ears, although she kept it out of her eyes.

Not too long after her twentieth birthday, the Walking Headband was finally approved.  This headband, when worn, bridged the gap in a half-walker’s ability, and allowed them to behave as a whole walker.  With the Headband in tow, Lynne could finally walk on her own.  And thanks to her ability to speak, she quickly procured a job at the Tulin-Walker Travel Agency.

Which was where she was that morning.  She was working on filing the weather report requests (it was important for an agent to know what upcoming weather might dampen a trip, but it was easier for one person to check the updates from walkers abroad and distribute the results.  Today was her day), when there was a knock on the door.  “Yes?” she asked.

“Hey, it’s Linae Baker.” came a voice from the other side of the door.  “Can I come in?”

“You may,” Lynne said.  Even without being told who it was, she had recognized the voice.  “Is there something I can do for you?” she asked as Linae came in.

 “Are you free right now?” Linae asked, looking around the office, feeling a bit ill at ease.

“Not really,” Lynne said.  She looked at the reports she was working on.  “I have these reports to finish,“ she told her.  “I’ll have your report later this afternoon, if that‘s what this is about.”

“No, that‘s not what this is about,” Linae said, rolling her eyes.  “Would I bother you about that?”  She didn’t wait for the answer she knew Lynne would give regardless (“Yes, you would.”), and got down to brass tacks, “I need you to come and speak for me.  My headset is in the shop right now and there’s…well, just come and you’ll see.”

“I don’t understand,” Lynne said, fixing her with a slightly glazed stare.

“Why am I not surprised,” Linae thought, but she said, “Look, this will take two seconds, at most.  Just come with me.”

It took a little more wheedling, but eventually Linae was able to convince Lynne to leave her reports and give her a hand, although she kept the details about there being a creature in her office to herself.  Linae and Lynne entered Linae’s office only to find it had been reduced to semi-chaos.  Papers had been scattered everywhere, a number of the photos that had been on Linae’s desk now sat on the floor, and the gentleman and creature were nowhere to be seen.  But they could certainly be heard.  The creature was still shouting, and Mr. Elwood was trying to calm it down, although his attempts were mostly just trying to reason with it, and not very effectively.

“Now, there’s no reason for this.  It’s all right, it’s all right,” he was saying.  Linae and Lynne followed the voices (not that the office was very big), and found the two under the desk.  The creature was pushed uncomfortably against the back of it, and Mr. Elwood was on his knees, trying to coax the creature out again.

“All right, what’s it saying?” Linae said to Lynne, disregarding the two for a moment.  

Lynne didn’t answer at first, just regarded the gentleman and creature with a curious look.  Then she turned to Linae and asked, “Which one?”

“Oh for-,” Linae started, but quickly changed her tone and addressed the gentleman.  “Mr. Elwood, perhaps it would be more helpful if you leave this to us.  Would you mind taking a seat in the chair over there?”  She motioned to the seat he had sat in earlier.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Mr. Elwood replied, eagerly scooting himself out from under the desk.  He took a seat and watched to see what the two ladies would do.

“What happened here?” Lynne asked.

“That’s what you’re going to find out,” Linae replied, “Just ask that…. thing …down there.”  The creature was still shouting, “Perhaps you should calm it down first.”

Lynne knelt on the floor and said something that Linae couldn’t understand, but sounded similar to the language the creature seemed to speak, and the creature did calm down a little.  It spoke to her and Lynne spoke back.

“Well?” Mr. Elwood asked, after waiting a moment.

“Hm?” Lynne looked up at him.

“What did it say?” Linae clarified, eager to know herself.

“Oh,” Lynne said, “I don’t know.  I left my earpiece at home today by accident.  I figured it wouldn’t be a problem.”

“Of course,” Linae groaned to herself.  It would figure that things wouldn’t go so easily for her.  Not today.

  “I can still talk to him,” Lynne continued,  “so I told him I couldn’t understand him, but we wouldn’t hurt him.  And then I told him that I just told him I couldn’t understand him.”

“So it’s a him,” Linae noted to herself, and said to Lynne, “Can you tell him to clean up the mess he made of my office?”

“It’s probably better not to get into something like that,” Lynne replied, shaking her head slightly.

“Like what?” Linae wondered, but she from past experiences that it was better not to ask Lynne to explain.  Meanwhile, she noticed that the creature had come out and was watching them.  She didn’t like the way he seemed to be glaring at them, her in particular.  “You’re right, that’s not important right now,” she said to Lynne.  “What we really need to know is where he came from, and we don’t need to understand him to find that out.”  She fished a blank piece of paper from the many pieces scattered around her office and found a pen easily enough.  “Tell him to write down the name of the world he came from, please,” she told Lynne, handing her the paper and pen.

Lynne did as she was told, handing the paper and pen to the creature as she spoke to him.  Again he spoke to her and she spoke back, again telling him that although she could speak his language, she couldn’t understand it.  But he took the pen and paper from her, and scribbled on it.  Then he handed it back to her.  

“And?” Both Linae and Mr. Elwood asked her.

“It looks like,” Lynne turned the paper around a couple of times, unsure of which way the writing went.  “it might be Amuamua.”

“Amuamua?” Linae had never heard of such a place, and said as much.

“We’ll have to run it past the federation, I guess,” Lynne said.  “and see if this place is in the database.”  The International Walker Federation kept tabs on all the known worlds, but getting clearance to use the database was not easy.

“If that’s even the right name,” Mr. Elwood chimed in.  “It could be the name of his hometown, not necessarily the world.”

“Yes, there is that,” Linae admitted, “But for the moment, we’ll have to assume that this is the name.”  Then a thought occurred to her, one that she should have had much sooner than this.  “How long would it take you to go home and get your piece?” she asked Lynne.

“About half an hour,” Lynne told her.  “It takes me approximately fifteen minutes to get here from home, depending on traffic and how I hit the lights.  But I still have to finish filing the weather reports, you know.”

“Couldn’t you do that later?  Isn’t this more important?” Linae asked her, trying to put enough emotion into her eyes that Lynne would be moved to empathy.  Instead, Lynne just looked at her with an unreadable expression.  So Linae tried a different tack.  “In other words, once we know where to send him, we can all go back to our important work.”  She paused, waiting to see how Lynne would take it.

“I understand where you’re coming from,” Lynne said, “But it’s not as simple as just going.  Even though it’s only a half hour for me to go and come back, it will still take time for us to find out what we need to know, and who knows how long that will actually take?  In the meantime, my weather reports are not getting done, and if they’re not done on time, it’s on my head, not yours.  Besides, didn’t you promise me that my involvement in this ordeal would be over in two seconds?  I don’t think I need to tell you that it’s already long past that by now.”

“So I was being optimistic.  But I was also under the impression that you had your earpiece with you, which would have gotten this whole thing over with a lot faster.”  This right here was why Linae had not wanted to get Lynne involved at all.  She always got on a high horse about the things she thought were important without looking at the bigger picture.  And though she hated to admit it, Lynne was right about the late reports.  “Fine, go finish your reports.  But what should we do with him in the meantime?” she asked, motioning to the creature, who still had the pen and was using it to doodle all over a sheet of paper.  A sheet, Linae suddenly noticed, that was also full of writing.  “If that’s something important…” she thought, unable to put words to the murderous intentions she suddenly felt flash through her.  She turned to Mr. Elwood.  “Maybe you should take him with you, bring him back tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not, if it’s all the same with you,” Mr. Elwood replied, inching ever so slowing toward the other side of the room.  “Or rather, I really…can’t take him back…”

Linae was right, he had definitely drawn the short stick.  “Well, then, what do you suggest we do with him in the meantime, Mister Elwood?” she asked him, drawing out his name in an unpleasantly pleasant manner.

“Certainly one of you could take him?” Mr. Elwood replied uncertainly.

“I certainly can’t,” Linae replied, never one to miss a chance to turn someone’s words against them.  She took a perverse bit of pleasure from this, but only a bit.  “Not only do I still have work to do myself,” she shot a look at Lynne, “But now I have to clean my office, too.”

“I could take him,” Lynne said calmly.  She knelt down again and spoke to the creature.  He nodded, and she smiled.

“He does seem to be pretty quiet now,” Linae noted, murderous intentions cooled down for the moment.  

“Right then, I’ll be on my way,” Mr. Elwood said, and picked up the crate by its handle and left quietly.

“See you soon, Mr. Elwood,” Linae said as he left.

Lynne spoke to the creature again and he docilely took her hand.  “See you,” she said to Linae, and the two exited the office.

Linae started to pick up papers and other things that had fallen on the floor, all the while trying to figure out how she could shift this new assignment to someone else and rid herself of the ordeal entirely.  Perhaps she was being selfish, but anything capable of making this large a mess in such a short time was not to be trusted, she told herself.