that still wasn’t it. She wasn’t fighting me; she’d gone limp and I couldn’t let go.
The ground, the platform beneath us, was shaking. Disintegrating.
Shit. I was going to have to take her with me. I couldn’t go back to the lab—there was no way I was going to let her in there, no matter how dead or unconscious she might appear to be. I didn’t know what would happen if these two worlds—multiverses—collided. I had no idea of how to get to some neutral territory . . . some place that wasn’t me, and wasn’t Carolina’s fractured simulacrum of her internal world.
I cast about, desperately. Like an earthquake, the whole tunnel was collapsing around us now, and God only knew what was on the surface that might come crashing down on us. Worse, maybe there’d be nothing and we’d cease to exist.
But then I saw what looked like a ray of light, a ray of hope, and not the oncoming train. “I don’t know what or where or who you are,” I shouted. “But this is an emergency and I’m coming in!”
I looked down. The tentacles had transformed once more and were now terribly fine circuits that were running through the skin on Carolina’s face and neck. It was terrible, an alien intrusion into her body and mind, and I didn’t dare break it now. “Hang on, bitch.”
Grabbing her tight, I made with another one of those jump/morph transitions I still didn’t quite understand and felt myself hurtling toward the light. Maybe it was sunshine, maybe it was a firestorm, but I didn’t have a lot of choice.
The trip seemed to take an awfully long time, but eventually, the light grew larger and stronger, and I heard a voice so welcome, I thought my head would explode.
“This way, Hellbender! It is safer for you here!” I heard Quarrel’s commanding voice.
“Quarrel, you are the very best power-hungry demonic manifestation of a friend a girl could have,” I muttered to myself. I redoubled my efforts and found the going easier, and finally, I found myself settled on a grassy hill, overlooking a meadow.
My hand—the ring—was no longer stuck to Carolina’s head, but a connection remained. Those red electrical circuits remained, line segment geometry, laser-pure glow eating up the last of the Order’s implants. Carolina didn’t move, but she was still breathing, and I was glad of that. I hurt all over.
I Changed back to my skinself. I noticed that the tendrils had evaporated and whatever connection Porter’s ring had made was now broken. I needed to think about finding a way to get her home—or at least back in her own little world—but that didn’t stop me from wishing, just for a minute, that I had a marker so I could draw a penis or write “douchewaffle” on her forehead.
“Any thoughts on how I can get her home, Quarrel? We can’t keep her here.”
Quarrel snorted. “Why not? She will cause less trouble here than in your world.”
I had to marvel at a dragon’s pragmatism. “She’d cause more by being missing; we’d be the first ones suspected.”
“You only have to push her,” he said. “Her inclination is to go back where she belongs.”
“Okay, how do I—”
“You really are not very skilled, are you?”
“I’ve come up in the ranks suddenly,” I said, at once realizing the way I needed to behave with Quarrel and the others. I continued with a coldness to indicate he shouldn’t be fucking with me. “It’s to be expected that I will need advice from older, if lesser, beings.”
At first I was afraid I’d gone too far, but Quarrel simply nodded. “You are correct, of course. I meant no disrespect.”
“I understand.”
“I’m not sure how to explain it, but if you think of how you used to track an evildoer, in your wolf form—”
“Yes, I know. And I still do.” I said it as much for my sake as Quarrel’s.
“That’s very unusual, for a dragon of your considerable abilities . . .”
The floor fell out of the reality elevator as I grasped what he meant. “Quarrel, what do I look like to you?”
“As I do to you, no doubt. A fine beast with an aura that indicates your strength.”
“Tell me what you see? For I do not think my perception is the same.”
“A fine young beast—quite small, but the quality and number of the jewels in your armor more than impresses. As for returning that one, if you imagine you are scenting her track, you can . . . urge her