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At least you know that much, the voice said grimly. It’s about time too. I’ve been trying to get through the skins in this room since they put Nell in here, but they’re so tough. The reason I got through them now is because you broke through the interference field in your brain during your mind link with Nell, and it opened things up. Maybe that means we can start working on getting both of you out of here. I don’t know how much more Nell can take of this place.

What d’you want me to do?
Nellie asked, her eyes glued to the screen, watching as a man with a machete chopped off another man’s head in slow motion.

Learn
, said the voice in her head.
Do whatever Nell tells you to do. And I’ll do my best to stay close. I’ll work on cutting down that field in your brain so you can see properly. I’m going to give it a practice run now. Just don’t let them see any surprise on your face.

Once again the pressure permeating Nellie’s brain began to lift. As it did, she saw the small brightly lit room she shared with Nell suddenly fill with girls. Like the girl in the gold dress they were transparent, and they were milling everywhere. More were arriving by the second, each double materializing at a different point in the room. As Nellie watched out of the corner of her eye, she saw girls actually pass directly through each other, and realized each double was vibrating at a unique individual rate. At the same time they were obviously aware of one another, reaching out to touch hands and grinning. Many had crowded around Nell who continued to lie asleep on her bed, and they were touching her too — on the nose, the ear, and between the legs.
Where the Black Box got her
, Nellie thought, swallowing hard.

Without warning, the horde of girls left Nell’s bed and surged toward Nellie. None spoke, but a wide deep humming filled the air, as if each girl’s body was giving off a different note. Keeping her
eyes fixed resolutely on the movie, Nellie watched them with her peripheral vision. It was the same group she’d seen in the maze, just after she’d killed the green-eyed boy. Shame flooded Nellie’s cheeks, raw open pain. These girls had seen that death and yet they were all leaning close, each one watching her through a pair of intense slanted gray eyes — the one with the great orange wings, the one with the bird’s head, the one who spiraled like blue smoke and the one that glimmered and shone like glass.

Who are you?
Nellie thought at them, and the reply came to her in a multitude of overlapping voices.
Nell’s possibilities.

We’re the unfixed ones,
the girl in the gold dress added quickly.
The fixed ones are sleeping off the capsule your doubles gave them, of course.

Nellie blinked rapidly, fighting a burn of tears. Nell’s possibilities? What did that mean? But what did it matter? What she did know, deep as a heartbeat, was that this was a moment given to her by the Goddess. Nell’s doubles were choosing to reveal themselves to her. They were trusting her with their realness. And that was a blessing after what they’d seen her do in the maze.

Slowly the doubles began to step back and disappear. Eyes fixed on the monitoring screen, Nellie felt them leave like a longing that sifted gently from her body. Finally only the girl in the gold dress remained, still blocking the interference field from her brain.

You’ve got to take care of Nell,
she said fiercely, her voice boring into Nellie’s thoughts.
We’ve cleared most of her wounds so she’ll feel better when she wakes up, but she’s still hurting. And she doesn’t know her way around this place yet. She pretends she does, but she’s lost here, just like you.

With these words the double began to fade until she was nothing more than a ripple in the air.
Wait,
thought Nellie, but the only words that came back to her were,
Watch for me, I’ll be around
. Then heaviness descended once again onto Nellie’s brain, the room returned to its usual mundane state, and there was nothing but her twin’s sleeping body and another death on the monitoring screen to keep her company.

Seventeen

I
T WAS LATE
the following morning and they were back in the laboratory, standing between their individual sets of brackets and learning — as Furnan put it — to “ride the light.” Today seemed to be going pretty much as yesterday, with Furnan sitting at his control panel wearing his odd little smile, and the brackets giving off their steady hum. Peering into the surrounding blur, Nellie was keeping careful track of the number of lurches in the vibratory rate. If, as Nell said, each lurch signaled a jump to a new level, then so far they’d traveled thirty-one, and yet her queasiness was considerably reduced. There must have been an anti-nausea drug in the drink Furnan gave them before they stepped between the brackets. With this side-effect taken care of, Nellie found she was able to get a vague sense of her doubles by scanning their energy fields. It wasn’t a mind link in that she couldn’t read their thoughts, but if she focused intently she was able to see a wide band of energy running between Nell’s set of brackets and her own.

That must be our vibes being aligned, she thought. They’re aligning all of us — all my doubles and all of Nell’s.
Excitedly Nellie glanced at her twin. If only Nell would open up a mind link and lift the
interference field, then she could
really
see what was going on. But since they’d gotten out of bed this morning, Nell had been virtually incommunicado. Scowling, her eyes downcast, she’d performed the morning workout in the gym without the slightest huff or puff, and when Lt. Neem had handed her a pulse gun, she’d fired grimly at the indicated target. Nellie had winced at the sound of the shot, but her twin had continued to fire stolidly at targets as directed. Her first few shots had been wide of the mark, but she’d improved rapidly. For someone who’d never been through training, she was a surprisingly good shot.

If
she hasn’t had training
, Nellie reminded herself. Who knew what the filing cabinets in Nell’s head contained?

Another lurch in the vibratory rate rocked her gut and she breathed in slowly, riding out her first strong wave of nausea.
Thirty-two levels
, she thought, then sighed with relief as a surge of vibrations entered her brain and the usual heaviness lifted. A glance around the laboratory showed that other than the quicker vibratory rate, this level was the same as the one Nell called their “home level.” Then Nellie’s eyes landed on her twin and she almost yelped with surprise. There, standing beside Nell, was the vague shimmery outline of the girl in the gold dress.

Don’t look at me,
Nell’s double thought at her quickly.
And whatever you do, DON’T MOVE. Just try to look bored, like you think this is stupid and can’t wait to get back to Advanced. The last thing we need is for Furnan to figure out you’re not always controlled by your implants. Hey, we just hit another skin. Did you feel it?

Skin?
thought Nellie, then brushed it off.
Yeah,
she said eagerly
. It’s the thirty-third. And it’s exactly like all the others.

Fixed,
said the girl in the gold dress.
In the Interior they’re fixed a long way up. In the Outbacks it’s just to the tenth skin, and the eleventh is unfixed. But the Interior’s got big plans for the skins in the Outbacks. They want to fix them as far up as possible too.

Why?
asked Nellie.

To get rid of the possibilities,
said Nell’s double.
Then everyone’s the same, stuck in their own skins, and nothing leaks through. So no one knows anything can be different, and they don’t try to think, they just believe—

The door to the laboratory opened and Nell’s double fell silent as a lab-coated man appeared, wheeling a dome-shaped cubicle. “They’re ready down below,” he said. “Return the lower subjects, and prepare our own. They want them all synchronized for the next step.”

“Understood,” said Furnan’s double. He flipped a switch and the brackets decreased their hum. At the same moment Nell and her double broke their mind link, and Nellie was once again engulfed in a jerky blur as they descended through the levels. Finally the dense hum shut off and the surrounding blur vanished. Cautiously she stood between her set of brackets, fighting off the tail end of her nausea. No way was she moving an inch without permission.

“Girls, you can come out now,” called Furnan, and Nellie emerged to find him standing beside several men who were arranging two dome-shaped cubicles end to end. As she caught sight of the cubicles, something shifted inside Nellie’s brain, and she shook off a wave of dizziness. Obviously she’d filed something about a cubicle at some point. But what? And when?

A surge of vibrations entered her brain and she heard Nell mumble,
They’re exactly like the thing I saw Fen lying inside. That’s why I took off yesterday. I almost shit my pants when I saw them.

Fen?
asked Nellie, watching her twin step out of her set of brackets. The girl in the gold dress was nowhere to be seen.
Who’s Fen?

All she got in return was a scowl and a muttered,
This is bad, real bad.

“All right, girls,” Furnan said briskly. “We’re going to send you on an extra-special trip. One of the Goddess’s great mysteries is about to be revealed to you. The exercises I’ve been putting you
through have taught your bodies to adjust to changes in frequency, in order to prepare you for this next step. A short ride in the light is all it’ll take, and then you’ll be there.”

“Where?” asked Nellie quickly.

“How about we keep the destination a surprise?” grinned Furnan. “Mysteries are always more fun if we keep them secret as long as possible. Come along, Nell,” he said, walking toward the cubicles. “I want you to stand here, midway between these cubicles. No no, don’t look
in
them. Just stand here, right here. That’s a good girl.”

Hit by a sudden wave of shaking, Nellie watched her twin step into the gap between the cubicles. Facing Nell stood a man holding a small device that resembled a TV remote control. Again something shifted deep in Nellie’s brain, and she scowled frantically at the device. She’d seen it before, she was sure of it. But where and when, and why had Advanced made her file it so she couldn’t remember? What was the point of being a person if you weren’t allowed to remember what happened to you?

Panic swept Nellie, temporarily scattering the interference field that sat on her brain, and the scene before her was transformed into a landscape of vibrations, everything lit up in vivid pulsing colors. Immediately her eyes flew to the centerpoint between the cubicles, and to her relief she saw two glowing figures standing hand in hand.

“Fire one,” said the man with the handheld device, and a quiet click sounded from a nearby computer. Then, as Nellie watched, a wave of prismatic light lifted from each cubicle and converged on the radiant figures of Nell and the girl in the gold dress. At the same moment, the glowing silhouette of the man with the handheld device pointed it at Nell and a beam of blue-white light emerged from it, hitting her in the forehead. Instantly Nell’s multicolored energy field quickened to a bluish white, her double’s following suit, and they disappeared.

Nellie sucked in her breath. Though she’d been expecting it, Nell’s disappearance felt like a punch in the gut. Warily she watched the landscape of energy fade and the laboratory come into focus.

“Ah, Nellie,” said a voice, and she turned to see Furnan grinning at her. “Never a dull moment,” he said cheerfully. “C’mon, it’s not you they’re after. You’re the lucky one, really, so don’t give it a second thought, just step into position right here between the cubicles.”

Instinctively Nellie took a step back. “Where did they go?” she asked breathlessly.

Furnan’s eyes narrowed. “They?” he demanded.

“I mean she,” Nellie stammered, flushing dangerously. “My twin, Nell. Where is she?”

Furnan observed her silently. “Only one way to find out,” he said finally. “C’mon now, step into position.”

Swallowing hard, Nellie stepped between the cubicles and glanced nervously at the man with the handheld device. She’d seen that thing before, she was
sure
she’d see —

“Fire two,” said the man with the device, and there was another click from the computer. At that moment simultaneous waves of energy entered Nellie from both sides, energy so bright it felt like a scream. Immediately her vibratory rate quickened and she seemed to be riding an upswell of high-singing light. As if from a long ways off, she saw the man with the handheld device point it at her and press a button. Something hit her in the forehead, her brain filled with a bluish-white light, and the lab-coated men, cubicles and laboratory disappeared. Then, for the briefest of moments, there was nothing but heat, light and the sound of high-singing voices. Gradually a different room began to take shape around her, a place that vibrated so rapidly she knew she’d gone more than twenty or thirty fixed levels, she’d traveled to a realm that existed beyond the boundaries of her wildest imagining.

WHAT SHE NOTICED
first was the brightness and the extreme buzz, both of which seemed to come from everywhere. Then it was the sound — a high fixed note that hovered continually in the air. As her vibratory rate adjusted to the new level, the brightness and the buzz became more bearable and she noticed she was standing between another set of metal brackets. Glancing through them, Nellie saw no sign of Furnan or the laboratory, only her twin standing several feet away, and beyond her a large empty room. The girl in the gold dress was nowhere to be seen.

“You can come out,” Nell said in a low voice, turning toward her. “There’s no shock barrier, you won’t get zapped.”

Cautiously Nellie stepped out of the brackets. “Where are we?” she whispered.

“I dunno,” Nell said quietly. “It isn’t a fixed level and I can’t see my double anywhere. You don’t have one either. And this place is vibrating weird — fast, but the vibrations feel like they’re pulling to the side. Almost as if they’re hurting. It’s like those gates that led to Fen. I wonder ... “