Thresholder

Dirk and Perry went out for a walk away from the town, through the fields of flowers that ringed the factory. The flowers themselves were nice and vibrant, but the road that they walked on was dusty gravel with not a hint of asphalt or cobbles. Perry was careful to suppress the cleaning power of the second sphere, lest Dirk notice that none of the dust was sticking to him. All the pink fluid that had coated Dirk the night before had been wiped off him, and Perry was back out of his armor. They were out in the open, and Perry had the earpiece in, with Marchand back in his room being guarded by Mette. They were still ignorant of the armor, which was good, because that meant it was still an ace in the hole.

Dirk was an unassuming man, aside from the tight energy to him. His clothes were simple, and he wouldn’t have stood out in a room, which was probably good for him. He had a cocky smile that Perry was on the edge of not liking.

“So, what’s the news from Calamus?” asked Perry.

Dirk considered this. “The machine is a teleporter,” he said. “It takes a pretty significant amount of blood to work, and leaves the original where it was, so it’s effectively duplicating people. The blood was taken from me three days ago, so I don’t know what’s happening in Calamus anymore than you do.”

“Aw, come on,” said Perry. “I had a whole thing planned. I was going to nail you on it. We were going to have this nice back and forth, but you ruined it.”

Dirk watched him. “How much of that did you already know?” he asked.

“All of it,” said Perry. “Not sure why you’d call it a teleporter though.”

“It’s more palatable,” said Dirk. “And that’s what it was, when it was first invented.”

“And you’re just … telling me this?” asked Perry.

“I am,” said Dirk. “Goes without saying that it's a secret, but you clearly know your secrets. It was also easier to say it outright when I suspected that you already knew most of it. No sense keeping a secret when the other person already knows it.” Perry was pretty sure that wasn’t how that worked.

“I’m from another world,” said Perry. “I know that Moss already told you.”

“He did,” said Dirk. “And he said that there are other people who are also from other worlds, and there’s a good chance that at least one of them — maybe more — is in the employ of the Last King.”

“All true,” said Perry with a nod.

“Your Implement comes from another world?” asked Dirk. “That’s the reason we don’t know about it?”

“The other worlds have more than you can imagine,” said Perry.

“I don’t know about that,” said Dirk. “I can imagine a lot.”

“That weapon I was hit with?” asked Perry. “The one that shot a small bit of metal that pierced me through? That was a firearm. It outclasses your masks. You can make one in any machine shop, could probably produce them by the hundreds in this town if you had to.” Perry wasn’t sure about the gunpowder, which would take some sourcing, but he wasn’t going to just give up the formula. “They take almost no training, and I’m also pretty sure that the ammunition could be made with a lantern.” If they could make egg loaf, then there was a good chance they could make something explosive. It was one of the avenues that Mette was pursuing.

Dirk was silent as they walked side by side. It seemed as though they were going to go in a long loop that circled the town. “We invented them fifty years ago and successfully kept them secret. The one that we recovered was crude. There’s a research facility where we have similar weapons that can fire a dozen times before needing to be serviced, and there are armories where we have them by the thousands.” He let go of this secret as though it cost him something. He didn’t like to share, but it was an olive branch, a tactical gift.

“Shit,” said Perry. “You know, when I found out that you were suppressing technology, I kind of thought that meant you weren’t doing a lot of researching technology. I thought you’d be behind. But I guess that’s wrong, huh?”

“It’s not without controversy,” said Dirk. He frowned and looked out at the field. “There’s a lot that people don’t know about. There are issues that have to be dealt with on the global level if they’re going to be dealt with at all. And dealing with other worlds? That’s one of those things. So I’d be grateful if you told me what I need to know about the threats we’re apparently ignorant of.”

“Travel between the worlds isn’t easy,” said Perry.

He gave Dirk the short version, about stepping between worlds when a portal showed up, and the paucity of methods that Perry had heard about for moving between worlds. He was deliberately trying to cast himself as the hero, which was a lot easier given that everything he’d done since coming to this world had been heroic. Perry had come to Dirk’s attention by rescuing people in the aftermath of an unprovoked act of war, and had done nothing but defend their people and culture from attackers, as bloody as it had been.

“So that’s it?” asked Dirk when he was done. “When you go, you go? No more visitors?”

“Well,” said Perry. “Assuming I win. If the enemy wins, then there’s nothing to say that they have to take the portal. There’s also the question of what they know and have told the Last King.”

“Technology,” said Dirk.

Perry nodded. “It might be the source of the guns.” The word translated as ‘sluggers’, which seemed linguistically odd to Perry. “It might be the source of all kinds of things. The Last King had a large colonial empire at one point, and a lot of wealth to pour into research and development, but a single thresholder coming in with the right books would be enough to send any nation's development into the stratosphere.”

“What’s the most destructive weapon you know of?” asked Dirk.

Perry thought about that. “That could realistically be made by your people?”

“Or unrealistically,” said Dirk.

“Uh,” said Perry. “Do you know about,” he tested the word and its intent, and found that it had a translation. “Uranium?” It was a complicated compound word in their version of English.

“I’m not a scientist,” said Dirk.

“The weapon could destroy a city,” said Perry. “Your lanterns can make materials, and if they can make that material, then all it would take is a ship parking in the harbor with a contraption less than the size of the device you brought over. And when I say that it could destroy a city, I mean complete destruction, the whole place razed flat, millions dead, the ground poisoned.”

Dirk looked to the sky. He had a good poker face, but it was clear his mind was racing. “How likely is that to be something the Last King uses, do you think?”

“I don’t know,” said Perry. “I used one of them in the last world I was in, though not against civilians.”

“You’re not making me feel better,” said Dirk. “You’re making me feel like we need to start throwing everything we’ve got against these people. Like maybe you should be telling me how to make all these weapons instead of just insinuating that they exist.”

“There’s a lot that I could tell you,” said Perry. He reached out a hand to touch the flowers of a bush they were passing and felt the thorns try and fail to scratch him. “And there’s more. Things that Mette could tell you. She was a builder where she comes from, an engineer. I’m not sure there’s anything that she can cook up with what you have that your people haven’t already thought of in secret, but if you could get some documentation to her, some books to read —”

“Berus isn’t the place for that,” said Dirk. “But we’ll see what we can do. There’s one other thing you need to know: there’s a way of listening in on conversations.”

“How so?” asked Perry. It seemed like the sort of thing you would mention before starting in on a privileged conversation that was laden with secrets.

“The masks work on perception,” said Dirk. “Now normally, that means sight, but there’s a way of doing it through hearing as well. And once you crack that nut, there are all kinds of powers that flow out very naturally, along with a few that take more work.”

“So you’re worried that someone has magic earmuffs?” asked Perry.

“Yes,” nodded Dirk. “Not that worried, but it’s something to be aware of. You communicate when you need to, and don’t say too many things if there’s not cause to. You don’t rehash subjects.” He gestured between the two of them. “This conversation is a calculated risk. We don’t think that Thirlwell has that power, or even knows of it, but we occasionally have our own people listening, and don’t want anyone to know more than they need to.”

“Especially if they go to the papers and start informing people,” said Perry. He considered everything that he’d said out loud on the airship, and in the apartment with Mette, and everywhere else. “You could spy on people.”

“You can do that with the masks too,” said Dirk. “Looking through walls isn’t particularly hard, and I would wager that Thirlwell has that one, because Berus did too, which none of their citizens knew, and still don’t.”

“Peeping like that isn’t the culture, huh?” asked Perry.

“I’m telling you this because you need to know,” said Dirk. There was a hardness in his eyes, though his head was probably still swimming with everything he’d learned. “Look, I expect that at virtually any moment you might disappear as though you were never there in the first place, but I want you to succeed, since you’ve been on our side so far. Maybe you hate monarchists, maybe you just want to protect civilians, maybe it’s all a ploy, I don’t care so long as we can keep the death count in the low hundreds.”

“I want to use the machine,” said Perry.

Dirk blinked at him. “You what?”

“I want to use your teleporter,” said Perry. “I want a copy of myself, at least one. And I want the schematics for it too, if not a copy of the machine.”

Dirk laughed a little bit, then shook his head. “Why?”

“It’s the biggest strategic advantage I could ever possibly hope for,” said Perry. He waved his hand to the side and showed Dirk the shelf space, which stopped him in his tracks. “I want one of those in here, but I can’t make the aperture wide enough for it to fit. That means I either need to construct one in here from schematics, or better than that, have an existing one taken apart and reassembled in here.”

Dirk’s eyes were on the shelf space, like a deer in headlights. “Moss had mentioned seeing something at the execution. And the airship captain had foggy memories. It was this?”

“It was,” said Perry. “Large enough to carry a few dozen people, if it needs to.” He snapped the aperture shut. “I can’t share that power, and can’t even really say I know how it works, but I have other powers and technologies, if you want more tools to add to your secret defensive arsenal.”

“We’re not using the tool lightly,” said Dirk as he seemed to come back to earth. The shelf space had stunned him. “Ideally, we wouldn’t be using it at all.”

“I can’t figure out why you’re taking the risk,” said Perry. “You know as well as I do that Berus isn’t home territory. There are spies and loyalists and the Last King across the way. There’s a lot you haven’t said about that thing, but having it fall into the wrong hands seems like a disaster waiting to happen.”

Dirk started walking again, and Perry followed. “You know the worst part of transition?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Perry. “The risk of effluence?”

“No, it’s the people. There aren’t enough people who know how to do the work that needs to be done, and even if there were, not enough of them would put in the effort. Moss has been around since the revolutions began, he’s been to a score of former kingdoms trying to get their foot out of the quagmire, has led up engineering teams exactly like the ones here, teaching them the work of maintaining a dome and having a production schedule that works with the symboulions, as well as schooling them on the culture.” Perry had sort of been under the impression that the two didn’t like each other, but that was clearly wrong given the admiration in Dirk’s voice. “You know how many of Moss we want? As many as we possibly can.”

“Except that you want to keep the machine secret,” said Perry. “Which means that you can’t have too many Mosses running around, especially since a dwarf is going to be noticed.”

“True,” said Dirk. “Someone like me blends in easier, and since my job is mostly in the shadows, it’s a better fit. But once Thirlwell is dealt its final blow, we can reveal what we have and get to work putting all the people in place that we’d most want to have in place.” He looked back toward the town, which they were some distance from. The flower fields were, for some reason, more scarred this far out, with odd growths and pieces of junk. “You know, there are free riders, loafers and layabouts. No amount of culture can eliminate that. Some people just feel the tug of duty in a way that others don’t.”

“Seems like you’d need a good legal structure to make sure they’re not making more of themselves,” said Perry. “I suppose someone’s got ideas on how the clones will be distributed?”

“There are ideas,” Dirk nodded. “Only ideas, so far.”

“Except for you,” said Perry. “One of you here, another in Calamus, and I’d assume a third, the original, somewhere else? How many total?”

“So far as I know, seventeen,” said Dirk. “Might be more though.”

“And they’re not going to degrade? Die in a year or two?” asked Perry.

“No idea,” said Dirk. “We’ve had machines like this for three years, that’s all. That’s not enough time to know whether there’s any longevity.” He shrugged. “If I die, I die, but I’ll have done some good in the process.” He looked Perry up and down. “Are you okay with dying?”

“Not really,” said Perry. “But I’ve faced the possibility more times than most. You get me a turn with that machine, maybe two if that’s possible. That’s my only ask. In return, you get everything our team has to offer.”

“You’re speaking for them, Nima and Mette?” asked Dirk.

“Mette … yes, more or less,” said Perry. “Nima, not as much. She comes from a world that’s very different from this one. She comes from a world with kings, in fact.”

That gave Dirk pause, which was good, because it meant that there hadn’t been a listener constantly pointed in Perry’s direction. It’s what Perry would have done, rotating crews of earmuffed people a mile out from the target, or whatever was feasible. He wasn’t a fan of wiretaps in principle, but if there was a mysterious warrior from another world, that seemed to justify it. Of course he had wiretaps, but he didn’t hold himself to the standards of a nation-state.

“Is Nima trustworthy?” asked Dirk. “Or at least controllable?”

“No,” said Perry. “And no.”

“You could definitely have led with that,” said Dirk.

“She’s not powerful, not like I am,” said Perry. “I don’t know if shooting her would take her out, but I could take her out, if need be. Going off on her own to free some prisoners didn’t endear her to me, but so far she’s on my side, and I don’t think she’s going to blow up the dome, if she even could. How hard is it to make a lantern into a bomb?”

“Difficult,” said Dirk. “Unless you have the know-how. But you said that someone with the wrong books could come here and already know more than we do.”

“Not like that,” said Perry. “I’ve never heard of a world with magic like this. So I’ll keep an eye on her, but if she’s planning to stab me in the back … I think she’s the sort to stab me in the front, if it comes to that.”

“Well, that’s something,” said Dirk. “You’ll keep the nature of the machine from her? Silo off important knowledge? Because having a wolf in the henhouse is, in this world, not something that we like to have.”

“I haven’t told her yet. Or Mette, for that matter, but I’m planning to do that soon.” Perry tilted his head to the side. “You know, it’s going to be a hard thing to hide if there are two of me running around.”

“Well, I didn’t agree to that yet, did I?” asked Dirk. “It’s not something that I should be deciding on my own. I’d need to loop in Moss, at the very least, but if I go to the people in the know, that could take weeks.”

“You don’t have distant communication?” asked Perry. “Nothing that lets you speak to someone around the world at a moment’s notice?”

“No,” said Dirk, shaking his head. “That exists? That’s something you’re offering?”

“Give Mette a few days and a properly equipped workshop and she could build one, yeah,” said Perry. If Cosme could do it with the help of Wesley, Perry was pretty sure it was within Mette’s grasp. “It’s called radio. But once you can get a report from someone across the ocean in a few minutes, you have a whole different set of problems. Once people can sit in their homes and listen to someone halfway across the world, you inevitably get less local. Once you can have soldiers and spies take their orders from another continent, there’s less personal autonomy.”

Dirk nodded. “And I once again find myself responsible for decisions that I’d really rather not be in charge of. Wonderful.”

“When will you let me know?” asked Perry. “Because I’m not planning to stay here too long. I want to make some masks for myself, maybe acquire a combat lantern, and then I’m probably going to Thirlwell.”

“Why?” asked Dirk.

“Because that’s where the action is,” said Perry. “And no offense, but if the enemy has the support of the whole kingdom and I only have the support of a skeletal transition team, then sitting around on my thumbs is going to put me at more of a disadvantage with every passing week. They have crude guns now, but if someone is feeding them information from a world with better tech, they’re going to have advanced guns a month from now, something that could actually kill me.” Perry was pretty sure that a bullet to the head could kill him, but he didn’t want Dirk to know that.

“I’ll think about it,” said Dirk. “I’ll talk to people. Two of you is a big ask.”

Perry nodded. If Dirk couldn’t give him what he wanted, that would be a shame, because it would mean that taking it for himself would have to be under consideration. Perry didn’t want to stab anyone in the back, but if he could sneak a clone of himself, that was too tempting to pass up. He had watched the entire process of using the machine, and was pretty sure that all it would need was a vial of blood. How they got the memories, Perry didn’t know, but he was hoping there wasn’t an extra step that he was ignorant of. He had been watching the machine fairly closely when it was in the Caster, and would have been surprised if anyone had an opportunity to meddle with it without him knowing. They hadn’t used it in the city, even though they could have flooded potentially hundreds of people in.

“In the meantime,” said Dirk. “You get your house in order.”

~~~~

“Clones,” said Mette. “Clones?”

“Clones,” said Perry.

They were talking inside the shelf space, at Perry’s request, which put them beyond the ability of anyone to listen to them. Perry had spent time cleaning up and had thrown away everything that he didn’t think he could salvage, but there was still a smell that remained from the inrush of the sea. It was only mildly unpleasant, but at the first opportunity Perry was going to have to set up some fans to get the last of the moisture out.

“But,” said Mette. “They’re not clones, because a clone is just someone with the same DNA. That doesn’t work. How do they have the same memories?” Perry had been the one to introduce her to DNA, and she was treating it like it was a fundamental of the multiverse.

“It’s magic,” said Perry.

“That doesn’t explain anything,” said Mette. “They don’t share memories, right?”

“They don’t seem to,” said Perry. “Again, I don’t have an explanation of the underlying mechanisms, I only know that it’s based on their magic system, and we know that their magic has trouble affecting people. The masks that slow people down don’t slow down the mind, and I can feel the lanterns hitting up against my internal energy.” People weren’t immune to the lanterns, as had been viscerally demonstrated before the public, but bodies had resistance to them that meat alone didn’t have.

“Would it even work on you?” asked Mette.

“The only way to know is to try, and it’s definitely worth trying,” said Perry.

“You should have negotiated to get information,” said Mette. “I knew they had hidden books they weren’t sharing with anyone. That would be much better than magic school.”

“Yeah, sorry you couldn’t get a PhD or whatever,” said Perry. “We’re just not really here on that kind of timeframe, I don’t think. But the cat is out of the bag, and Moss will make sure that you have access to whatever you need. In theory, at least. I don’t suppose the last few days have given you any insights into making a weapon?”

“Some. I don’t even know who we’re fighting,” said Mette. “All you said was that it was a woman in copper armor that your sword didn’t cut through. How is that anything to go on? And can we get back to the clones?”

“Fine, clones,” said Perry. “There are a bunch of clones running around. I would like to have one made of me, so I can be in two places at once. Ideally I’d have a whole pack, but I’m not sure what the optimum number would be. Would you want one?”

“Another Mette?” asked Mette. She considered that. “Would you want another Mette?”

Perry had an immediate sense that this was a trap. If he said no, she would take it personally, as though he was passing judgment on her, and if he said yes, then she would ask him why, and he would have no good answer for that, because there wasn’t actually any reason to have two of her, especially not if they were going to be hopping worlds. If she was going to pull her weight as a techie, that might be one thing, but in the longer term that would require access to technology she knew and understood, and who knew how many worlds it would take for that? She was feeling alienated by the new world, isolated from other people, and dependent upon Perry for her emotional needs, which wasn’t really how he had hoped it would go.

“You’re taking a long time to answer,” said Mette.

“There are a lot of components to the question,” said Perry. “Having a clone is a risk, and it’s going to be even more of a risk in other worlds. I know you don’t want to hide away, out of sight. You, or your clone, would likely have to do that. I don’t particularly want to do that either, but I think I’m more suited to it.”

“Mmm,” said Mette. “I don’t know about that.”

Perry shrugged. “I guess we’ll see. I don’t know how long it’s going to take for Dirk to make a decision, but I’ve seen what kind of guards the warehouse has, and if it comes down to it, it’s only a question of whether I could use the machine in secret.”

“That would be a violation,” said Mette.

“Sure,” said Perry. “I’m not saying that’s what I want to do. But I’m assuming that the enemy isn’t going to be a pushover. I’ve never gone up against a pushover before, it’s always been a fight to the death where there was a serious risk that it would be the end of me.”

He had left the dragon heart behind after fighting Jeff. The diseased thing could have given him power, or could have killed him, but there were times he regretted leaving it behind. Nothing he’d seen in this world had given him any indication that the power levels were going to be high enough to worry him, but you certainly didn’t plan on a cakewalk.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” said Mette.

“I think Dirk will come through,” said Perry. “I hope he does, anyway. I need to go talk with Nima, you should go see about having your own workshop, if you want to do that instead of having Moss work you.”

“I’m learning under him,” said Mette. “More than I thought I would. But you don’t want me to be able to build a dome, you want something that can fit into the shelf.”

“Do what you want,” said Perry. “Being able to construct one of those domes might be a good skill to have in the next world.”

Mette watched his face. Things had been off between them, and having sex had only complicated that. “I’ll get to work,” she eventually said. “I’ll see what I can do.”

~~~~

Nima had been spending as much time by herself as she could. Perry kept thinking that the crust would break and she would loosen up, but it never seemed to happen. At meal times, which were taken communally in a large hall, she would find a corner and eat quickly before retreating. She didn’t make any effort at conversation, and while Perry hadn’t pushed her, there were a few people who had, not all with the best intentions. Some were gawking at her, having never seen an elf before, and she was mistaken for being Moss’s wife more than once by people who had only heard rumors of Velli. Some of them hit on her, until she snapped at one of them and put an end to that.

Perry found her in her room, one of the larger ones, where she was working on her masks.

“Hey,” he said.

“I’m working,” she replied. She had brought up all sorts of tools and had made the place into a workshop of sorts, which it really wasn’t suited to. Most of the masks she had in progress were just iterations on old ones, which was the main way that people got their masks stronger. She was hunched over a desk, chisel in hand, carefully chipping away at the wood.

“We need to talk,” said Perry.

Nima set her chisel down and pushed the mask forward, then turned to him. “Perry, whatever this is, I don’t want to be a part of it.”

“Being a thresholder?” asked Perry.

“Yes,” said Nima. “I’m not built for conflict. I’m not a killer, a warrior, anything like that. I’ve been in conversation with Glerrin, and we’re thinking about what our options are.” Glerrin was the name of her armor. It could talk to her, but only to her, and Perry assumed that it was something of a running dialogue that he wasn’t privy to, though she didn’t mention it often.

“So far as I know, there’s no way out,” said Perry. “Either there will be someone terrible that you have to respond to, or there will be someone trying to track you down and slaughter you.”

“There’s no way?” asked Nima. “Nothing?”

“So far as I know, no,” said Perry. “You could beat the enemy, not take the portal, and then … I don’t know. It’s possible there’s just an endless wave of thresholders sent for you.”

“I don’t like these people,” said Nima. “Is that normal?”

“Pretty much everyone I met in the Great Arc was insufferable,” said Perry. “Teaguewater wasn’t bad, necessarily, but I also wouldn’t say that it was good. And one of my worlds was just like the world that I had come from but with a different history, and most of my time there was spent in a fancy house. All the more reason to get the job done and get out of here.”

Nima frowned. “And we do that by killing the other thresholder? Or thresholders?” asked Nima.

“It’s the only way I know of,” said Perry.

“And … the monarchists?” asked Nima. “That means taking them out?”

Nima was watching him closely. He knew exactly what she was thinking — that it didn’t have to be the monarchists that she took out, that they weren’t necessarily fated to be working together. Surely she could see how easily he would crush her though? Even if she was fighting alongside Third Fervor, it didn’t seem like they would have a chance against the mechawolf. And if she was going to turn on him and join her inconsiderable forces with Third Fervor or whoever else, it would be better to take her out now — except that with multiple thresholders in play, he didn’t think that it would be enough to beat her to a pulp, he’d have to kill her.

“At a minimum, we handle the other thresholders without getting embroiled in the affairs of nations,” said Perry. “We wouldn’t even be taking a side.”

Nima was still watching him. “Leave me to my masks,” she said as she turned away. “I’ll stay by your side, because I’ve seen the violence you’re capable of, but if you expect me to go to Thirlwell … I’m not going to kill a king, Perry. I don’t like these people or what they’re doing. The public executions were the tip of the spear, but there are so many other problems, so much disorder they’ve introduced into the lives of all these people, the dignity of life, the mixing of species, and everything else.”

Perry let out a breath. “We’ll figure out something workable,” he said.

Nima nodded, but didn’t look at him.

They were going to have to work something out, because if they didn’t, he didn’t know what he was going to do with her. She was a fine person, a bit serious and in over her head, but if she was going to put herself on the other side of the chessboard … Perry didn’t want to kill her.

The thought briefly went through his head of putting her in the shelf space and just keeping her there until the whole thing was over. Then he remembered that was exactly how he’d found Marjut, and the thought of doing something so much like what Jeff had done made him a little sick to his stomach.