"Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever."

— Mahatma Gandhi

Thump—a kidney. Thump—a rib. Somewhere, floating among the scattered dross, clinging to a larger fragment of the mainmast, bulky chunks of a recent shipwreck prodded and jabbed Kyle as they hiccoughed on the waves.

"He 'sleep?" A voice. "He ain't deh..." Nudged again. "Mus' be 'sleep."

"F'he is, ol' Crazy Charlie goin' piss on 'im!" Two men chuckle.

Higher pitched: a boy. "'Dis be tight! Craka be sleepin' in his draw's."

"I wanna party with 'dis muthafucka right heah. Yeah! Hey! Get 'dis bad-boy a beverage." Laughter. Footsteps fading into the distance

The sun bakes and burns him, unprotected from its brightness as he bobs in the water. He can't see through the bleaching of the sun; the glint reflecting off the water. His neck hurts; his skin feels deep-fried, redolent of recent intimacy with a cheese-grater. Step right up, folks! Simply survive one minute in the tumblin' Wheel-O-Tire-Irons, and win a kewpie-doll! Hurry! Hurry!

Kyle groaned, opening his eyes to try and see again, maybe figure out what he was doing in the ocean in the first place.

Asphalt. Concrete. Bricks. Seeping odors from rusty steel behemoths leaking dumpster juice in the sweltering summer heat.

Huh? Kyle opened his eyes fully, allowing the picture to solidify—surely he was imagining this.

No. A pea-soup green dumpster mere feet in front of him; a shiny black garbage bag behind his head, soft with dubious contents, acting as a pillow. Someone had distributed half a dozen empty beer bottles around his body; their smell: acrid hops, stale and sticky in the heat, made his stomach lurch.

Not a wrecked ship. Yet still, his skin vibrated with enveloping pain. Kyle felt as if someone used him as a tuning fork and then discarded him in an alley. This alley.

He sat up slowly and jerked with alarm, slamming his body into the brick wall behind him. Across the way, sat a wild-eyed man, dirty with decades of caked filth, straggly and patchy beard crusted with remnants of crumbs and stews long past. The man stared at Kyle, chewing open-mouthed absently on something brown and white—possibly a mouthful of a limp-looking burger in his right hand.

Seeing Kyle was awake, the man lifted his burger-hand, waving it at the boy with a questioning nod. Kyle, shocked at the man's appearance and afraid of where the burger probably originated, hastily shook his head with wide eyes. The old man shrugged and swallowed before assaulting the burger, tearing out a healthy quarter. Just four bites if you don't care. Chew that burger in the air.

Kyle looked away to cover his discomfort, mildly embarrassed, using the opportunity to scan the other parts of the alley, maybe glimpse a street sign.

---

Jack nearly wet himself when Sal tapped his shoulder.

"We've got a problem, Jack," moaned Sal, expelling a long sigh.

Jack grit his teeth, unwilling to sound startled. "Wuss'at, Sal?"

"Kyle's Gone."

He blinked.

Sal wore a sad smile, but closed her eyes while dipping her head low. Believe it, old friend.

"So, where'n th'hell he git to?"

She shrugged, lifting her arms and spreading them toward the ceiling. Everywhere. Anywhere.

"Whut 'bout Duality?" Stupid question! True, he knew the answer—he just wanted to hear it from her lips.

"Worthless." She motioned to kick a thrumming console symbolically. "It's quite impossible, of course. A chaos wake as wide as his aught to show up spectacularly on Duality's monitor."

"You think..." He made a small 'O' with his left hand, and poked his right index finger through it.

"Dimensional travel?" she replied. "Even I can't do that, Jack."

"T'would seem ta me, Sal: he ain't you." Jack crossed his arms.

"Point," she agreed. "That just makes all this even worse—more dangerous."

"Better find'm, Sal." He stopped to rumble a gravely cough. "Ain't like th'rest. Mahap it'll get messy." Then me mouthed the words he didn't dare speak: Phase Merge.

Her head jerked upright, staring at him, suddenly serious. "It happened again, didn't it? The alarms? What was the reading?" she asked, hysterical with fear.

"Summut 'round 94, maam," he responded carefully. The poor woman looked like a cornered wolverine, and he rather enjoyed his limbs.

"Jesus!" she yelled, slamming her hands onto a console, pressing herself to stand far faster than anyone her age should. "Jesus Christ!"

Without another word, she vanished. Back to Tammond Dale, most likely. A creeping distress began to work its way into Jack's resolve, and he realized that his initial dread of the system warnings wasn't nearly potent enough. Based on Sal's reaction, he probably should have just shit his pants when he first saw the red 94.2 flashing on the holoscreen.

Hell, he just might do it anyway.