Echoworld

The only way I can travel between universes is with this pack," he motioned vaguely to his belt, which held a small black box, "a transporter and someone to make sure I make it there safely, via this." He held up his wrist, to which his communications device was attached. "Anyway, Eric doesn't like to do things like this for free, so I promised to bring him a good-looking girl." His eyes flicked down, the back up to her face. "You fit the profile perfectly."

If he was expecting her to be outraged or slap him, he was greatly mistaken. She only smiled and shook her head, softly laughing to herself.

"What's funny?" Shaun demanded. "I wasn't joking."

She calmed herself and looked at him. "All right. Let me get this all straight. Me, Wren Azrael Black, normal girl who just got fired from her job for being young, who visits ARCONA Pub daily, who is friends with the bartender - she is, in 'reality' a flaming psycho-witch lady who wants to take over the world. I should be dead by now because of who I 'really' am, but I'm alive only because some guy in the 'real' world needs some action and I'm a good prospect. Oh, and let's not forget that our friend the bartender is an inter-dimensional assassin-for-hire. Have I about covered it?"

Shaun laughed. "Yeah, except you're not insane. You're not a witch; you're a sorceress. And it's not inter-dimensional, its inter-universal."

"Well, good. As long as I have everything all clear," Wren muttered scathingly. "Have you ever considered maybe killing the sorceress?"

Shaun became serious. "Yes, but all other attempts have failed."

"Oh." She leaned over and put her forehead on the couch, thinking and stretching at the same time. "What about transporting people to another universe, like this one?" she asked, her voice muffled through the cushion.

Shaun shook his head. "That's impossible for two reasons. One: it would take hundreds of transport packs and that's just too damned expensive. Two: it's a bad idea to encounter your echo. People tend to die when they meet their echoes. Nature never meant to have two identical beings in the same place at the same time. There have been people who've spontaneously combusted because they'd met their echo. And once one echo is dead, all the rest of the echoes die. Meeting yourself would kill you and your echoes."

Wren rose from her stretching position, looking frustrated. "Oh. How many universes are there?"

"As far as we can tell, five. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta and Epsilon."

"How creative." She raked her fingers through her hair. She needed to cut it soon; it was becoming annoying. "What if Wren is an important figure in another universe?"

Shaun looked at her, surprised. "Hadn't thought about that. That would definitely create a lot of problems."

"Yeah."

Silence. Then Shaun spoke up rather suddenly. "How old are you, anyway?"

"18. Why?"

"18? Are you sure?"

"No Shaun. I'm not sure. I don't know how old I am. Why don't you tell me," she said acidly.

"To go by your real self, you're 32."

"32! No, I'm 18."

"Hmm..." Shaun studied the backs of his hands, thinking.

"Hey, is there any way that I could find out who I am in the other universes?" Wren asked.

Shaun glanced at her from beneath his eyebrows. "There is, but its dangerous and not recommended if you appreciate your sanity. Why?"

She sighed and leaned against a cushion. "I have a couple of ideas. First one is to see if I am important in another universe. If not, I'll let you rid the universes of the Wren Azrael Blacks.