Let’s rush to the ending, shall we?

            I had collected a total of sixteen bizarre atomic grids, each suggesting some violation in the most fundamental of laws. Between the flickering barriers that I could now catch with my stopwatch were blank times when nothing got in the way of my laser. I started to speculate a bit more: when I encountered a barrier my light was trying to pass through at a point in time when an obstacle was there. My laser light traveled through empty space, and suddenly found itself inside, say, a planet. Or, more likely, a star. Most of the time, of course, it would be materializing in deep space as an absurdly brief red or blue pixel in some black, possibly starless night. I recalled that when physicists talked of other universes with other fundamental constants, most were said to be hostile to imaginable life: most wouldn’t even form atoms. So that the majority of free time between one step and the next was free vacuum seemed like the expected cross-section of the multiverse.

            Are there pixels in ‘real’ time? Did we answer Zeno correctly? When we flicker once, how long is that? How much room is there at the bottom? Plenty?

            I had already found higher frequencies, other universes that must be running faster in real time. They could be aged, dead expanses. Slower frequencies were harder to confirm, and I imagined that there could be incredibly slow frequencies, flickering just once in a thousand years by our measure. In those universes, if the constants allowed it, the first galaxies might not yet be formed.

            To collect more frequencies I ran longer experiments. To get better quality atomic grids to estimate the physics of these alien places I increased the brightness of my laser. A brighter pixel flared in the colossal dark.

            And eyes turned to me, through the pickets.

            I think it is very strange that I was in the room, seated and alert, when the changes began. Most of the time when an experiment was running I was in motion, printing off and viewing grids, trying in vain to fit them to some known material. Maybe it was coincidence. Or maybe they waited for me. Maybe I was flickering to them already, being imaged, by minds able to resolve much more than a few grainy atomic lattices. I sat down to begin the hunt for newer, slower frequencies, hoping to show that the slower the frequencies the denser, and hotter the cross-sections were. If these were other universes like our own flickering briefly then a few of them should resemble our own, and the slow ones should now resemble our universe as it was in the deep past: dense and hot. The trend I had right now was inconclusive.  

            And then something went wrong. A new barrier appeared, a new object in my way, at a very high frequency. I leapt into action, sure of a tenuous alignment: whatever point in space I occupied mapped to a point (truly the same point) where some object was flying by, perhaps, as transient an event as an eclipse. I did not know it to be something wrong: something new in science cannot be wrong, really, if you believe what we tell ourselves – if you’re right you’ll teach the world, and if you’re wrong you’ll teach yourself, yeah sure. It was just another cross-section to extract, and my blurry grids came into view.

            Whatever it was stayed in my way. I kept changing light frequencies, and they would go through … for a while. But one by one the reflectivity increased, and nothing got through. Since this barrier manifested itself at a high frequency, more than six thousand times faster than our own, it was blocking my way quite effectively. It had eclipsed all the slower frequencies, but in doing so I had a long opportunity to look at it and work out its structure.

            That’s something that’s everything is supposed to have, I think, but the Else. The Else can’t be made of parts in any relation to each other. Maybe the Else is just one part, delocalized everywhere, like a universal cataract.

            The new lattice was perfect in a way that should have warned me. Perfect things don’t naturally exist. I had been looking inside whatever passed as rock or plasma out there, and I was now looking at some artificial, a machine with not an atom out of place. And these atoms were like urchins, and they spun between shots. They spun together.

            They began to slow down, and the barrier frequency began to slow down. Now I finally knew that something was wrong, that I was being meddled with. I left me chair as my screen alerted me to the obvious: eminent alignment. Either I was speeding up, or they were slowing down, but we were meeting.

            And even as I turned to leave, to take a walk from my stopwatch, a walk that would become a run very soon, I saw the flickering, the moiré pattern getting darker and darker. The farthest wall was blinking, black and then back again, but spending more and more time away. There was nothing there when it was away, and then it was gone and didn’t come back. My feet came to a halt less than a meter from the unsteady perimeter, beyond which were oily, flowing black knots, like wood knots but in motion. The ceiling disappeared, and I became aware of a spike piercing down to my stopwatch. At its tip, where it was now linked to my tool, it shined like metal, blessedly familiar metal, but as I followed its widening length up it grew dull, and oily, and then it started to move with the nauseating background. It surrounded me now, and the quality of all sounds changed suddenly: my startled, quickened breathing, the sound of my footfalls as I retreated away from the edge, were all at once contained, as they are in a very small room with flat walls. That distinctive, unpleasant, claustrophobic echo told me that whatever air I had was limited. What light remained, stolen from the vanished ceiling, came only from my monitor and instrument panels. There were additional monitors on the stopwatch, switched off and unplugged, but a few had still been linked to power and, sure enough, gave me a blank blue glow when I jabbed them on. No signal, but just a little more light. When I had all the light I could get I made a full circle of my fishbowl, and finally saw more than dark out there.

            I should not incriminate myself further, if there really is a chance of walking freely one day, but it’s too late now: I saw things which I first thought were clothes on invisible hooks, in a row perhaps five steps past the beginning of the black with hanging sleeves and unfilled torsos. They had legs too, like jumpsuits, but the material included shoes, it seemed. And something else, on the chest, was also there: the dim light fought analysis but I grabbed a monitor and tried to point it directly at the nearest, contemplating throwing the monitor at it for a second. The thing on the chest of the suit looked like a very fat, short tie. Then I understood.

            It was for a head.

            And why could I see these husks, and nothing else? Why could I not see what the full-human suits were connected to, or whatever barriers or instruments or living, thinking, plotting things must have been all around me at that instant, but truly in all instants? Well, the answer now comes now with numb extrapolation: knowing how each suggested cross section presented some severe deviation from the basic laws that rule in our universe, I believe that their native matter, whatever it is, does not experience the electromagnetic force. So light passes through it. If I had dared, if I had been crazy enough at that moment to give it a try, I might have been able to walk through their walls, through them, for the very solidity of objects as we know them relies on the repulsion between electrons. But to contain my air, to give me even this glimpse, to even bring me to this displaced time, they would have needed to make our form of matter, perhaps in some giant collider apparatus. Make it, and then organize it to make an interface: the giant spike sticking into my stopwatch, and through the microscope I could now see the tiny little probes reaching orthogonal to my arrays, meddling. And powering it now, presumably, for the wall sockets were now lost to a misaligned time.

            The suits completed my mad idea: if they did not experience the solidity of objects or the light by which to detect them, then they would be ghosts in our universe, perhaps falling helplessly to the core of our planet if they could still experience gravity. How many of their kind had suffered that fate? So they would need suits of our matter, with an interface lining their insides. Then they could see and touch whatever they wished.

            As these thoughts reluctantly threatened to make sense, I saw the deflated head of one suit lift up, its surface changing shape, betraying great flexibility as it filled. And it lurched forward, deforming here and there, and the most unpleasant shapes were suggested. How many arms, or digits, of what design? They were lost as it filled, and it filled enough to make clear the face of Pavle. There was also now enough of it filled to step forward unambiguously, and though the knee bent and the hips swiveled there seemed to be additional motions, just barely suppressed, a difficult training invoked to imitate the gait of a human. It came three steps to me, not making eye contact, and then it halted. For one last second it still looked like one pulled fabric, and the head still seemed not truly filled. Then the generous nose was finally established, the last free internal space sealed, and Pavle was staring at me. There was time to blink, but the Pavle suit didn’t take the opportunity.

            One sleeve, with a hairy arm limp at the end of it, was still dangling and empty. The biceps seemed to flex, and the arm came up, as if to make a pointing gesture, but I felt my balance and my stomach reject the hideous image: a near-human thing pointing at me, almost passable, except for the dangling flesh past the elbow, not yet filled. I turned, but could only take a few steps away across my little terrarium, and at the other edge I peered helplessly and saw more things on invisible racks. A few didn’t have arms or legs hanging off them, and the ones over here looked smoother. I think of a few of them were blanks, waiting to be tailor-made.

            I looked back and now Pavle wasn’t alone: another suit was inflating to its side. It had been pointing at me for the benefit of the others, and now Pavle seemed complete. The fingers fiddled, the way we do inside gloves that are just too big, trying to push in for a tight fit. One hand gripped the other, and then switched, pulling down at the wrist each time, making the allusion clear.

            It’s no surprise that the second suit was a copy of me: that’s what I was here for, after all. Perhaps they had already exchanged Pavle, but maybe there’s still hope for him – by other stopwatches they could perhaps watch, collecting his image in the necessary detail, along with many others, and coordinate a quick mass exchange without need for slow infiltration and risky acting within the Geneva group. But I had come close enough to the truth, had perhaps even altered them to our existence through my damnably long, thorough experimentation, and would be replaced now. My replica was complete, and walking over, passing through those walls and ready for my world. Pavle stood by, perhaps as a spotter or a trainer.

            So who lays in a cell now? What got me back, if it’s really me over here? Maybe that energy I thought I’d lost that the others had maintained, keeping them dissatisfied and cocksure enough to get the promotions, the big responsibilities and the big houses and first and second wives finally got out with the danger at my heels. I locked eyes on that spike, and suddenly wanted to hit it. I realized about two seconds later that my chair was in my hands, and I swung hard. I expected it to bounce off something hard, but my mind gibbered hopefully that I could knock out the alignment, keep them out of my circuitry, maybe whatever they did was reversible, or needed the spike interface to be maintained and otherwise I would snap back home. The legs of my chair struck the spike and I heard it groan and crumple like a large empty can. It snapped away with a clear joint above where I had struck it, and the strength left my limbs as the oily black knots all around wavered, as the walls of my lab had before. What replaced it? It was too fast to resolve at first, the flicker so rapid that nothing could be recognized – there was only time to imagine afterward and be afraid, and the next flash would just add to the confusion. But suddenly the flicker became a waver, whatever it was not completely going away, and the uncertain perimeter extended outward, embracing more, embracing the ceiling and fluorescent light of my lab again.

            I turned, dropping the chair on its side, and my replica seized my neck just as I grabbed automatically at it. I could feel it inside, distinct and moving. I pushed and screamed, hearing a crashing sound as some part of the spike, the part that was matter like ours, without its alien support, descended and smashed down on my stopwatch apparatus, heavier than my damage with the chair would suggest. Whatever perfect structure in its atoms was gone now. My replica stumbled backward and slammed into a shelf of books that was now behind it, and I’m pretty sure it went too far in. I’m pretty sure that where its face had been suggested that the back of its head had to be smashed flat like a piece of dough, and that the edges of shelves were digging into its back. I had touched it for just a second, but I am trapped in the memory of its softness. It was not completely ready, whatever was inside it, and it struggled to lurch forward.

              I ran, tripped over the chair, scrambled and tried to keep running. I rammed my shoulder into the door, bruising it, and stumbled into the empty hallway. Of course it was empty now, because it was in the evening, and of course it was in the evening because that was the opportune moment for an exchange. No one to stumble in while I was realigned and see … what exactly? A black sphere, sucking in air?

            No, let’s get to the end. I went through it once, and this is too much to happen again, this telling. I told you that there was an axe at the end of the story, and the axe was at the bottom of the east stairwell behind glass. It was a relic, I think, and it is now hard to think what good an axe could have done in a fire down there. The doors were metal, the walls concrete, the only things vulnerable pipes full of wires offering electrocution. But I ripped open the case and found it in my hands, that energy back in my limbs, the energy of a maniac, but a maniac who survived. I went back to my lab, and it was almost at the door. It had regained its shape, and that was bad, to know that whatever was in there was deformable enough to squish and squash without harm. But it was an astronaut, I remember thinking, and all that high tech is for naught against a maniac with an axe.

            It raised its arms and I sliced between them, trying to land in the chest. I feared that it might actually be too flexible, that it would mould itself to the blade and not tear, and I think it tried to. Its eyes bulged, but not like a human’s eyes … they haven’t seen that yet, perhaps, unless they have already exchanged others and seen their terror as immaterial gloved hands closed around their throats. The eyes got wide and the pupils expanded, trying to see more. The blade was caught on something as I tore it free, some breach in the imitation hide and shirt. There was a hissing – in or out I can’t say, and it began to shake. It opened its mouth and it was just black inside, and I swung again, bellowing one long syllable until my lungs gave out. Thrown back on the floor it was trying to cover the notch in its chest with one hand, but the other arm was reaching back, trying to get to the back of the head, and I think there might actually have been something like a zipper buried in the hair. Was it in pain, and trying to die quick? Or was I completely wrong – was the suit just for infiltration, and not survival, and did it want to fight me unfettered? I hacked again and again, and the hissing increased. It convulsed on the floor, turning to crawl on its belly toward the ruined stopwatch, but it didn’t turn properly, and I could see an outline, the internal thing moving first, pressing brief but hideous features into one cheek as it rolled over. I submerged the axe between its shoulder blades and felt burning between my own, my strength near its limits. That hissing kept going on and on, and whichever way it was going it was too long, like there was too much space inside that suit.

            So the rest of the story: the fire. I heaved the axe with me up to the chemical lab on the ground level, kicking in and interrupting some kid rushing to get his experiments done before the weekend ended. He shouted something as I dropped the axe and picked up a fresh jug of ethanol. There was more than the replica to destroy: there was my stopwatch. I can’t know the limits of their technology, but my abduction was suggestive of some hardware requirement on our end, maybe minimal compared to their setup, but still essential. It had to be ruined. Its vacuum had to be breached and its circuits fried – its fingernails needed to be retracted from those cracks, from between the pickets. I came down and it was still there, against my expectations I must say, because you’re supposed to come back and find everything normal, right? My insanity was consistent enough, and I dumped most of the jug on the twitching replica before remembering the stopwatch. I could see that spike rolled off to one side, crushing a monitor, and the central chamber was exposed. Not good enough. I dumped the rest into the $12 million heart of the machine, and jumped over for the tiny soldering tip I use when I have to rewire larger parts. How absurd I felt as I waited for it to warm up, snapping my head back and forth, to the door to the watch to the doused replica to the walls that threatened to flicker again, watching it twitch, watching that spike gleam, not yet thinking of these things as pieces of evidence instead of threats. That came as the tip grew hot, and I plunged it into the stopwatch core first. It caught fast and I burned my left hand, pain that went neglected as another hand closed around my ankle. The dripping thing looked almost deflated, but it was somehow still in there, and I jammed in the tip at one of the knuckles. It caught, and so did my pants. I leapt and we howled together. There were quick footsteps coming down the stairs, just that kid for now, but I was not done. The replica and the stopwatch were the immediate concerns, but, but …

            The axe was in my hand shortly afterward, intermediate time blacked out of my mind, flickered away. I sprinted, sometimes followed, sometimes ahead, and put the axe into everything in my lab. My work of the past few weeks contained all the instructions for building and calibrating a keyhole to our universe, and things were out there with keys. The blade bit into plastic covers, pried further, and got into the circuits, chopping deep. I chopped my own computer, and remembered the material in my email account stored as backup, stored in the university servers.

         I made it there, and I think I did enough damage before those custodians pinned me down. I was screaming something, and they were screaming back, because I was a maniac with an axe, and when they finally held me down I had time to feel my burns and tortured shoulder and back muscles. I gave up, and the energy left me.