“That was exactly my idea,” said Laz.

  “I knew you’d say that no matter what I guessed,” said Ivy. “You didn’t really have any idea at all, you just wanted to claim credit for mine.”

  “Half credit at best,” said Laz. “What matters is—should we do it? Can we do it?”

  “Ivy-O and Z-Laz and Ivy-Z will notice every Portal we create,” said Ivy.

  “If they ask, we’ll explain,” said Laz.

  “What if Ivy-O starts breaking all our secret Portals?” asked Ivy.

  “Why would she? Because you hate her?”

  “Because she hates me, mostly for being younger than her—”

  “She hated Ivy-Z,” said Laz. “She may not even know or care that you exist.”

  “She knows,” said Ivy. “She cares.”

  “What we need,” said Laz, “is a huge supply of brown, weather-resistant twine.”

  “And I’m sure people won’t notice the strings of our Portals if they happen to stumble across them,” said Ivy.

  “And scissors,” said Laz. “We’re going to have to do a lot of cutting and tying.”

  Ivy stood up and walked down the steps and threw her arms around Laz. He was startled, but he didn’t mind.

  “I just fell in love with you again,” she said.

  “Again? You never admitted you fell in love with me before.”

  “We are partners again,” said Ivy. “In a project of our own making, our own design, our own purpose.”

  “Holding the worlds together with string,” said Laz.

  “Exactly,” said Ivy. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

  “Does this mean I have to take you to prom?”

  “Damn straight, and don’t try to wriggle out of it.”

  7

  THEY WERE SET to go the next morning to a fairly wild place where no one would notice new Portals as long as they consisted only of brown twine. But on their way to the airport Ivy said, “No.”

  “No?”

  “If we both fly somewhere, do something, and then come back, it’ll drive them crazy trying to figure out what we did,” said Ivy.

  “That’s just a side benefit,” said Laz.

  “How many agents will they send to try to spy out where we went? How many satellites will have seen us and tracked us no matter where we go?”

  “So you’re suggesting separate vacations,” said Laz.

  “You can make these Portals alone. You’ve proven that.”

  “So can you,” said Laz.

  “Unproven. You go. I’ll see you off at the airport with a kiss.”

  “If that’s my prize for going, maybe I should leave more often.”

  “Kisses are cheap. People give them to dogs,” said Ivy.

  “But only occasionally to me,” said Laz, “which is what I care about.”

  “You can see that I’m right,” said Ivy.

  “What stops them from tracking me alone?”

  “Nothing. But you going alone makes them way less curious. They’ll see you take a nature hike. Make sure there are lots of leaves between you and the sky before you make any Portals.”

  “Half the twine is in your bag. Don’t let them see you give it to me.”

  “Make half as many Portals,” said Ivy. “Then we’ll pick another place and go again.”

  “Here’s a different plan,” said Laz. “You come with me, and we tell Ron and his goons that we were practicing to see if you could make Portals.”

  “They’ll ask if I succeeded,” said Ivy.

  “Maybe you will,” said Laz.

  “They’ll ask where the Portals go, and if they still exist,” said Ivy.

  “We say no.”

  “They bring Z-Laz and Ivy-Z to see if the Portals are still there, and since they will be, our cover will be blown—and they’ll wonder why we thought we had to hide them and lie about it.”

  “Well,” said Laz, “maybe we should just tell them what we’re thinking and how we’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

  “And they’ll say, Congrats, kids, you’re so darn smart,” said Ivy. “Then they’ll go and harden our new secret Portals and start using them, and the people in the other world will discover how Central agents are getting through, and they’ll start a huge interplanetary incident.”

  “Interstream, not interplanetary,” said Laz. “They’re all Earth.”

  “Are not, don’t argue, I’m right,” said Ivy. “They all think they’re Earth because the topographical globe is so similar, but none of them is the Earth the human species evolved on.”

  “So you’re sending me on alone,” said Laz. “How long is this kiss going to be?”

  “Bargaining, are we?”

  “And how many kisses?” asked Laz. “Any restrictions on where I can place my hands during this or these kiss or kisses?”

  “Number to be negotiated on the spot,” said Ivy. “Hands on my back or my shoulders or my upper arms.”

  “Cheek? Ears? I can’t touch your ears? What about your neck?”

  “Please just shut up, Laz,” said Ivy. “You wear me out.”

  “Not a bad plan,” said Laz. “So many ways I might wear you out. Let’s forget about preserving all the timestreams and go get married and make babies and go on strike the way Z-Laz and Ivy-Z have done.”

  “Then they’ll just make another set of us.”

  “Ivy,” said Laz. “I’m used to doing everything important with you.”

  “And everything trivial as well,” said Ivy.

  “I miss being in love with you,” said Laz.

  “So why did you stop?” asked Ivy.

  “I didn’t trust any emotions I remembered because I got a memory dump from Z-Laz. I wanted to earn them myself.”

  “Have you earned them? Or did you give up?”

  “Both. I can’t stop seeing you through the lens of Z-Laz’s memory, so everything you do makes me all the more fond of you.”

  “What a horrible problem. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I just did. Ask you to marry me, and then make babies together.”

  “When I know a good answer, I’ll answer you.”

  “Here’s a good answer. Yes.”

  “Here’s another—be patient, my randy compadre.”

  “Patience to a guy my age, when I’m dealing with unavoidable sexual impulses, is like telling me to float in the sky for a while. I can’t do it, I don’t want to do it—”

  “And yet you will do it,” said Ivy, “because our lives are complicated enough as it is.”

  “I’ll do it because I’m a decent guy who wouldn’t force himself on a woman.”

  “I’m counting on that.”

  The train slowed down and the speaker began announcing their arrival at the airport. Ivy reached into her bag, took out the twine, and put it into his carry-on.

  “Subtle,” said Laz.

  “Either they notice it or they don’t. Kiss me now so I don’t even have to get off the train.”

  “No thanks,” said Laz.

  “Oh, really!” said Ivy.

  “Be patient,” said Laz.

  “I’m not even eager,” said Ivy.

  “All the more reason for me not to kiss you. Until and unless you are eager.” Laz rose to his feet, shouldered his carry-on, and took a step toward the door.

  Ivy leapt to her feet, threw her arms around him, and planted a long, passionate, yet sweet kiss on his mouth, which he accepted and reciprocated with a good amount of enthusiasm, if not skill.

  “Come back to me with all your limbs,” said Ivy. “Don’t get caught and killed by some chauvinistic tribesman trying to return to his caveman roots.”

  “They haven’t restored man-eating carnivores in any of the timestreams, have they?” asked Laz.

  “They say not,” said Ivy, “and they never lie.” She gave him a gentle push toward the door. “Don’t miss your flight, you side-stepping lunatic.”

  * * *

  Instead of looking for wilderness and blindly wandering off, Laz took some time with the local constable. “I want to get away from civilization,” Laz said.

  “Easy to do around here,” said the constable. “We haven’t gone urban or suburban yet. Mostly people who want to be left alone.”

  “I don’t want to run into somebody with a shotgun who considers me a trespasser,” said Laz.

  “I get it,” said the constable. “The thing to do is catch a ride up the canyon here to the ski lodge at the top—empty this time of year—and then walk wherever you want in any direction. Nobody is allowed permanent residence up there, so you should be as alone as you want to be. But if you fall off a cliff, remember we won’t know where to look for you.”

  “I know,” said Laz.

  “Unless you want to wear a locator,” said the constable, holding one up by its lanyard.

  “You do know who I am, don’t you?” asked Laz.

  “Of course,” said the constable. “Doesn’t mean accidents can’t happen to you.”

  “But accidents don’t stay happened to me, if I don’t want them to. If I’m crippled at the bottom of a cliff, I’ll slip over to a timestream where I didn’t take that wrong step.”

  “I don’t understand how any of that works. They tried to explain in high school, but I figured, as long as it works and a passing planet isn’t going to suck us into the Sun, then it can remain your little secret.”

  “Just figure that I’ll be safe and I’ll come back when I’m ready,” said Laz.

  “Getting away from the little lady?” asked the constable.

  “That’s not the purpose of my trip.”

  “None of my business,” said the constable.

  “I’m getting away from everybody,” said Laz. “Including, I’m sorry to say, you.”

  “Got plenty of provisions?” asked the constable.

  “Packets of StarKist tuna and chicken,” said Laz. “And mandarin oranges. All I need.”

  “Want a horse?” asked the constable.

  “I’m about seventeen years old,” said Laz, “and I used to walk all around southern California. I don’t need a horse, a motorcycle, a litter, a wheelchair, or a helicopter ride. Thanks for offering, though.” And he was out the door of the constable’s office, which was part of his house, which was the last building but one at the bottom of the canyon.

  The one that was even laster was the place where the guy would either rent him a motorcycle to go up the canyon, or a bicycle, or he’d give him a ride. Laz asked for the ride. “I don’t want to have to come back to the place where I left a bike so I can return it,” said Laz.

  “No rush. People forget to return them all the time.”

  “But I return things I borrow. So… the ride?” Laz held out the hand that had the payment chip in it, but the guy waved him off. “Free for you,” he said. Then he added, “And for everybody else. Hardly anybody comes up here. Most people are craving the city life and it drives them crazy that there’s no city like Mumbai or Manhattan or Tokyo or Cairo.”

  “They’ll find a way to rebuild them, slums and all,” said Laz. “People are still people.”

  The guy let him off right at the ski lodge. “If you want, I can unlock it for you, maybe get a night’s sleep before you go.”

  Laz considered it, then decided not to. “I’m used to sleeping rough, when I need to.”

  “I’m saying you don’t need to,” said the guy.

  “I’m saying thanks for the offer.” Laz shouldered his bag and took the bottle of water the guy offered him, then set off down the winding track that had been cleared for hovercars to pass over. It was important that the driver see him going in that particular direction, so that he couldn’t tell anybody where Laz had really gone.

  When the road climbed up a ways and Laz could see that the car was gone from the ski lodge, he mentally flipped a coin and went off the track toward the south. There were deer in this area, and it seemed like every ten meters another doe and fawn would leap up and run away. Relax, kids, I’m not a hunter. But, of course, they didn’t know about rifles, they just knew about predators, and humans were on their list.

  Laz carefully watched how his route related to the surrounding mountains. He would have to find this place again—and from a different timestream. So he decided to photograph each spot before he created a Portal. Just in case this high valley was settled in another timestream, he went pretty high up the low slopes of the southernmost peak. A summertime brook meant year-round water, probably, so not a bad place.

  Laz tied a string to a tree, walked out twenty paces, then tied it around his waist, cutting the string and stuffing the spool into his pocket. Only then did he look into himself, his timestream cupboard, whatever it was, to look for one of the other settled timestreams.

  He once tried to name all the timestreams that were connected, so he could keep them straight. But it didn’t work. He’d reach out, mentally, to this one and think, Ah, it’s this one, and then he’d reach out to another and think, Oho, that’s where you are! He knew them all. He just didn’t have names for them.

  By sheer persnicketyness he chose the timestream that Z-Laz and Ivy-Z lived in, though he was on the other side of the world from them. He took hold of it, and there he was, in a very similar clearing in the exact same spot in the valley, with the same brook carrying the same size stream of clear cold running water. He topped off his water bottle, took a good long drink, and then untied the string from his waist and tied it around a tree. The other end of the twine went off about five meters, lying in the meadow grass, almost invisible, until it was invisible because it was in another timestream.

  Laz walked around a little, so that if a satellite or a telescope or radar were tracking him, they’d think that he was just enjoying a few minutes in the sun.

  Only nobody in this timestream knew he was coming here and Ron couldn’t possibly have enough agents to have somebody watching for him here in all the timestreams.

  He did not take hold of the string—he didn’t need it. He walked to the end of the twine and then took another step and there was the twine again, not disappeared at all—but the twine Laz had just followed was gone. It was a Portal, and it worked. Laz hadn’t even had to side step. The sheer presence of the twine was enough to keep the Portal open.

  Laz went about ten meters off into thicker woods and tied another twine to another tree. It took only a few minutes to tie the far end to a tree in the other timestream, the Z-Laz and Ivy-Z timestream.

  Then he came back and napped beside the stream, in a patch of clear sunlight. Not that he was worn out from a fairly leisurely walk, but this new body wasn’t used to doing so much walking and besides, there was something about lying in a patch of sunlight that made dogs, cats, lions, and humans fall asleep.

  When he woke up, he realized that he was hungry and opened a packet. The chicken in it was enough to satisfy him right now, and he folded up the empty packet and put it back in his bag. No reason to leave a litter trail.

  About a kilometer from the first Portal, Laz decided he had found a good spot for another, this time to a different timestream. He settled on the one he had just rescued a slew of people from, because that world was probably going to need more than a few back doors in years to come. The sun was getting low, so he took a quick picture, tied twine to a tree and took one step toward where he wanted to make his Portal, and then he stopped. There was a patch of ground, still illuminated by sunlight, that had been cleared of leaves and twigs. Just bare brown earth.

  And in the middle of the cleared patch, a couple of words had been written using a stick or a finger.

  Laz No

  Yes, the first word was clearly his own name, with a little cross in the middle of the zed the way he always wrote it. And then the word “no.”

  What was this, a warning? He hadn’t even known he was going to make a Portal here until he started making it, and if that patch had been clear of leaf litter when he first got there, he would have noticed it. It was as if somebody had silently crept up, silently cleared the patch, silently scratched out the message or warning or whatever it was, and just as silently snuck away.

  Only nobody knew he was there. And he would have heard something if he was in the clearing when this was written. He checked his phone, and the picture showed no cleared area.

  A warning. Don’t build your Portal here. No.

  No explanation of why. A tangle of copperheads and water moccasins waiting for him to step on them and die? A couple of murderous vagabonds in the other timestream, who would just as soon butcher him as not? A mine with a tripwire that would blow him up so fast he wouldn’t have time to side step?

  If somebody could leave him a warning, somebody could set a trap. But if they knew about a trap in the target timestream, they would have to have the ability to side step in order to get here and scratch out the warning in the dirt.

  So that meant who—Z-Laz or Ivy-Z? Or Ivy-O, if somehow she had learned to side step. But why the skulking around? Why not just talk to him and explain the danger they wanted him to avoid?

  It couldn’t be Ivy—she wouldn’t have had time and she wouldn’t have followed him.

  Were there other side steppers, other Travelers? There was no law that said that a mutation that happened once couldn’t happen again. But why would another side stepper know his name but not want to be seen? Why would they care to warn him, but by note instead of conversation?

  One thing was certain. While Laz was very curious about what he was being warned not to discover, he had enough sense to know that there was no reason for him to doubt the sincerity of this message. Laz No. Not here, not now. Land mine, shotgun, marauders, man-eating cauliflower, would it have killed them to write at least a couple more words?

  He would go another kilometer along the face of these foothills and make another Portal.

  No he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t build any more Portals in this high valley. He’d find another wilderness spot and he’d go into a different timestream to make a new secret Portal. And maybe he wouldn’t do it right now. Or this year. Because he had to get back to Ivy and tell her about this and see what she thought about it. Who she thought might have done it.