My pulse pounds. The parachute pack makes the squeeze into the plasma capsule uncomfortably tight, but I’d rather squish now than splat from ten thousand meters later. If I arrive embedded in rock, it won’t matter what I pack, but I’m ready for anything else. I can’t divert my attention from the pounding of my heart. It’s thumping out of my chest. The seconds tick. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen. In a few moments the billion-dollar apparatus I’m in will pulse for a nanosecond with the energy of the sun, sending me wherever it has already sent seventeen probes and a monkey.
Twelve, eleven, ten seconds until the twisted plasma stream around me will flicker and send me into a Mobius zone of unknown spacetime. Nine, eight, seven. I take a deep breath, then try to push out of my mind the wondering of whether the breath will be my last. Would anyone have followed Columbus west if he’d never come back? Will I be able to find the portal back? Six, five, four. Will the electromagnetic pulse fry my brain like it’s fried the probes’ electronics? What if the EMP isn’t the problem and something else has destroyed the probes? I watch the countdown on the display screen outside the capsule and take another breath. That will not be my last breath, I think, in one of those moments of mental coherence when you just know.
Three, two, one.
Zero.
My world goes black. Void of sensation. Nothingness. Oblivion. Death. I should’ve known. The space-time experiments are a fool’s domain, and I’m the fool who volunteered to go see where all the test objects and animals had gone. I wait for my life to flicker out.
Thinking. I’m thinking. Thinking takes neurons, neurons have mass. I must exist. Descartes was right. Breathe.
I breathe and recover my awareness of my suit and helmet, still around me. I exist, yes, but nothing else does. I raise my hands into the path of my helmet-mounted lights. Are the lights on? I check the control pad on my left wrist. They’re off. I push the button to turn on the lights. No difference, so I lift my hands into view again. They also exist, and are intact. My black gloves look only dark gray against the absolute black nothingness behind them. The red ceramic scales that cover my pressure suit gleam like sequins in the light. The depthless void has a strangely palpable sense of being empty, so totally empty… I activate the radar mapper on the control panel. It displays “NO MATCH.” I turn off the lights to save power. I know what will happen with the radio link. Control never heard a beep from any of the probes. I’m sure Control will not hear me. I steel myself for the quiet that’s sure to come, a harbinger of the lonely death I face.
The mic switch is set on VOX, so my speech activates the radio: “Testing, one-two–”
“Three.” My voice, followed by a sniffle. Neither came from me.
I repeat. “One-two—”
“Three. It’s me. Ketch. Who is this?”
I take a deep breath and answer “Ketch.”
“Yes, I’m Ketch,” continues the other voice, who is this?”
“Ketcham Lawrence Selcaudle?” I ask.
“The same,” says Ketch. “Is this Control?”
“This is also Ketcham Lawrence Selcaudle,” I say.
“Heh. I thought your voice sounded familiar. Two of us? Where are you?”
“Yes, two of us.” I focus my thoughts. It’s hard to think with nothing but nothingness around. “I can’t tell where I am. Certainly not where I’m supposed to be. Control said I’d be ten klicks above the surface and the return portal. I don’t see a surface.”
“Me neither.” A pause. “Um, Ketch?”
“Yes?” I said.
“Who was your first grade teacher?”
“Miz Gibson. Who was the clown?” I ask without specifying a grade. If this Ketch is a copy of me, he’ll know the clown.
“Soren Harris. Most embarrassing moment?”
I know the moment like he knew the clown. “Getting stuck in the chair slats.”
“Yeah,” said the other Ketch. He took a breath, loud enough for me to hear. “One more, okay? Reason for—”
I know the question because it’s in my mind already. I interrupt with the answer, “Michelle.” Michelle had been the answer for most of the questions in my life, until she was killed ten months ago for six dollars and an expired credit card.
“This is real, isn’t it?” he says. “Two of us.”
“Yeah, unless I’m talking to myself in some way I can’t imagine.” I push my imagination to explain this in some way that has a happy ending.
“What happened?” he asks. “Everything went black.”
“It’s still black for me,” I add.
“Same here,” says Ketch.
“Testing one, two–”
“Three,” I say.
“Ketch?”
“Who’s this?” asks my voice.
“Ketch, is that you?”
Our communication becomes an Abbott and Costello routine. “Listen, Ketch,” I say. “This is another Ketch. There are copies of us here.”
A pause.
“How many?”
“Three, I think,” I reply. “Ketch—the first Ketch, you be Ketch-1, okay?”
“Roger,” he acknowledges.
I sigh my relief that my name isn’t Roger, then try to imagine some escape from this weirdness. I guess the other Ketches are doing the same; all is quiet until I hear “Testing one, two—”
“Three,” say three of us. The duplex radio can only receive one at a time, so it’s a garbled mix.
“Ketch-1,” I call to the one who arrived before me. “This is Ketch-2. Next guy is Ketch-3. Ketch-4 is the Ketch who just arrived.”
“Me?” asks a Ketch.
“Yeah, I guess. This is nuts,” I comment. “I wish I could see something.”
“Got that right,” says a Ketch.
“Ketch-3, this is Ketch-2. Stay on this channel and assign a number to any more arrivals. Ketch-1, let’s switch to channel two and see if we can make some sense of this.”
“Roger, Ketch-2.”
I can’t tell if the “roger” came from Ketch-1 or Ketch-3. What the hell? I switch to comm-2.
“Ketch?”
“Roger.” I hear a snicker.
“Maybe we should just go by ‘one’ and ‘two,’” I reply.
“I’d rather go by ‘Roger.’ We haven’t maxed out the confusion yet,” says Ketch-1.
“Roger that,” I say. “How long were you here before you heard me?”
“About five minutes. Of hell. My clock says it’s been ten minutes since launch.”
“Mine says five. We’ve got two hours of air to figure out what’s going on.”
“Yep. And do something about it,” adds Ketch-1. “You see anything? Feel anything?”
“Just myself, my suit. No sign of my supply kit. Nothing,” I answer.
“This wasn’t one of the possibilities the brainiacs mentioned for where the test objects were going,” comments Ketch-1. “I was expecting dinosaurs or ice ages or at least recognizable space.”
“I think the energy pulse wasn’t strong enough. Left us in-between. No stars. An empty universe. No wonder we never heard from the probes.”
“I’m not sure it’s even a universe,” offers Ketch-1. “Can three-dimensional objects, such as, say, us, exist in a pre-Big Bang universe? I mean, what if the machine is sending things all the way back?”
I shake my head trying to comprehend the question. “Remember you’re asking yourself, and you have no idea. I don’t think the radio would work until spatial dimensions formed, but I don’t know how to prove this isn’t pre-Big Bang space. Non-space. Whatever. I think there isn’t such a thing.”
Ketch-1 replied. “For what it’s worth, I don’t hear any delay in the back-and-forth comm, so we must be within about thirty thousand klicks of each other. If you’re like me—” he pauses and forces a “heh, heh” chuckle, “—you’re wishing we’d waited for a chamber big enough for a vehicle.”
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Sorta. Where would we go?”
“Good point. My lights are on. Are yours?”
I turn on my suit lights. “They are now. Not sure what I was saving them for.” My oxygen will run out long before the batteries. I look up, down, looking for lights all around. Nothing. “You see anything?”
“Nah. What do you think is going on?” asks Ketch-1.
“Some kind of time loop,” I reply. “The extra mass has to come from somewhere.”
“The Big Bang didn’t come from anywhere, and it left some bits of mass behind,” counters Ketch-1. “What if there’s only one of us, and we’re talking to ourselves across time?” My mouth is open, about to ask the same question.
I think of how profoundly weird it is to have the same brain in an increasing plurality of heads. “Same difference,” I reply, “but the mass is accounted for. Still means we’re up the creek. I think we’d remember talking if it was just one person split across time. Unless it’s a lifetime of pieces, all existing at once.”
“Yeah. Or almost at once. Staggered by a few minutes.”
I nodded. “Maybe.”
“Ketch-2? Ketch-10 here.” Ketch-10’s tone is lighter, fresher than Ketch-1’s.
“Roger, Ketch-10,” I say, thinking of a time-sliced life. Two hours of oxygen in the suit. At least fifty years of lifetime left when I launched. That’d mean it’d be two hundred thousand Ketches before it stops—if it stops at all. I work out the numbers, rounding liberally. Two years, more or less. No way to know if the later Ketches are any older. I can’t decide if they should be older or not.
I realize Ketch-10 had said something, but I missed it with the numbers in my head. “Ketch-10, Ketch-2 here, please repeat.”
“Roger Ketch-2. Ketch-8 and Ketch-9 can see each other. They estimate distance at a hundred meters. Might as well be a light year, because they can’t move.”
I wonder what it would help if they could. “I’m going back to channel one for a sec.” I change the channel. I hear “Testing, one-two–” and then Ketch-3 assigning Ketch-15 his number.
“Attention all Ketches,” I say, trying not to sound silly. “Ketch-2 here. Positive replies only for this question. Has anyone located his kit?”
Silence.
I’m about to switch back to comm-2 when I hear something. “Yeah, uh, Ketch-7 here. Just bumped into something. Think it was my kit, scared the bejeezus outta me. I’m trying to find it again.”
“Roger Ketch-7,” I say. “Ketch-3, as soon as you hear the next Ketch arrive, tell him to reach back exactly where his kit was at launch. Directly behind, centimeters away. We should’ve tethered them to us. Nevermind, the chutes would tangle. They probably drift away before we think to look for them. I’m going back to Comm-2.” I switch back.
“Ketch-1?”
“Roger, Two.”
“Roger-2, this is Ketch-2,” I joke. “Ketch-7 thinks he bumped into his kit. Eight and Nine see each other.”
“Look up and behind you.”
I can’t tell if I’m turning. There’s no reference point, so I look up and search my visual field. I see a pair of helmet lights and I’m ecstatic. “I see ya!”
“All we’ve done since we got here is wiggle. Our kits are right where they started, we can’t turn to reach them. A meter out of reach might as well be a mile. Something else might’ve bumped into Ketch-7’s kit and pushed it into him, one of the other Ketches or one of the probes, maybe.”
“Sonofabitch,” is all I can think of to say. I dial through the comm channels and hear conversations between Ketches up to channel five. I go back to comm-2 with Ketch-1.
“There’s gotta be a way to turn around.”
“Crack your suit glove with your arms out.”
“You serious?” I ask.
“Yah. Just a puff. I’m turning now. Can’t reach the kit yet, but I can see it. Aim it away from you so you move toward the kit and don’t just spin.”
I realize I’m sweating. I put my arms out, right hand touching my left wrist. I open the protective layer, then ready the cuff seal. I’m about to break the only thing separating me from the vacuum of space. I rehearse opening the seal, then closing it. Five times. Then I do it for real.
Shrpp. Just a puff, but the sound seems to echo through my helmet. I make sure the cuff is resealed before pulling the protective layer back over it.
“You’re movin’, man,” says Ketch-1. “I’m gonna jet again, see if I can reach my kit. I’m going to spin right by if I don’t do something now.”
My kit drifts into the illumination of my helmet lights. It looks like a treasure chest to me: more oxygen, maybe something I can use for propulsion, maybe something else that I haven’t thought of. Maybe some hope. I wait for my spin and subtle motion to bring my outstretched fingers to it.
“Got it,” I announce to Ketch-1.
“Here goes,” says Ketch-1.
SHRPPHHH.
“Oh, shit. Dammit.”
“What? What? Ketch?”
“The flap got caught in the seal. I couldn’t get it closed. Weird. I should be dead.”
“You okay?” I ask.
“There’s air.”
“Where, you got your kit?”
“Yah. But there’s air. Outside. Lower pressure than the suit, but enough.” His voice is squeaky, cracking like it did when he…I…we were a teenager.
“You sure? There’s no way! It’s space.”
“I don’t know, man. I’m still breathing and my glove seal is still jammed up on the fabric. No pressure warning. I’m reading point three atmospheres. Maybe all the tests transported air here, or it’s backwashing through the return portal. If so, the mass calculations were off. Not enough energy to punch it all through. I wouldn’t be surprised to see seventeen probes, some mice, and a monkey drift by. I’d rather not find the gamma beacons.”
“I don’t want to find the mice, the monkey, or the beacons,” I acknowledge. I check the pressure indicator on my wrist panel. He’s right—point three atmospheres. What portion of that is oxygen, we have no idea. Enough, apparently, since Ketch-1 is still talking. The beacons were developed to see if the machine was transporting stuff to the ancient past. The synthetic-element gamma-ray signature was engineered to be detectable over background radiation for a hundred million years. Wherever they are, the gamma beacons are scary-hot with radioactivity.
I hear Ketch-1. “Hold on, I’ve got the bug spray from my kit. I’ll jet over to you.”
***
The Ketches keep arriving. We’ve formed a floating blob of Ketches and know where to look for the next one. Ketch-1 was right. It’s cold, thin, dry air, but it’s air. It means we have more than the two hours’ supply in our suits to work with. The mass of tethered Ketches and kits is a ridiculous mess. We’re using parachutes to create rooms to conserve heat. I need to piss and there’s nowhere to go. The thought of unleashing a bubble of piss is eventually going to be less objectionable than holding it longer. Given that we are all going to have to go, we have to come up with something.
With helmets off, we talk in the thin air about our situation. Our voices squeak like there’s helium in the mix. Ketch-1’s about five minutes ahead of me on the bladder problem. He’s fishing in his kit, emptying a bag of food bars, trying to keep them from drifting away.
He sees me watching, and knows I’m as full as he is. No need for privacy–we’re all Ketch, after all. He goes in the bag, then offers it to me. Pissing in a bag is weird. Pissing in a bag after someone else is stranger still. Realizing that it’s your piss, your germs…it makes me glad the other matter is still some time off. I brace for the cold, but shiver anyway.
***
Two days’ worth of Ketches. Over five hundred. Ketch-22 arrived in the usual manner and with no special fanfare. Something in us refused to mark any one of us as special. Those of us who arrived first are rationing the water in our kits as well as we can, but it’s no secret we’re short. The Ketch blob is huge, and there have been leaks from the piss bags. It’s getting messy and we all know that soon us early Ketches—we can tell by the beard growth—will be out of water. Ketch-1 and I talk about how it’s going to end. Wonder if we should just suit up until we run out of oxygen. The alternative is to kill the next Ketch who comes in and roast him. Ketch-7 pointed out we can’t have a spark, because what we think is helium in the air could be hydrogen, so roasting isn’t really even an option.
Each new Ketch arrives clean shaven, bringing fresh batteries and bright light, but the light is dimmed by the increasing number of us. Most of the time it’s close to black. The parachute rooms help conserve heat. I float to one of them, the Where-the-Hell-Are-We room. I’m out of ideas. It doesn’t matter whether we’re in a pre-Bang universe, stuck in the time-space portal, or in the belly of a cosmic whale. A group of identical brains with identical experience and education makes for a tepid brainstorm. Even though the Where-Are-We room was my usual hang-out for my first several days, I pass it in favor of the largest and warmest of the parachute rooms, the Ball Room.
It’s a room where a sort of hybrid basketball-football-rugby game is played out in three dimensions. A hoop made of duct tape marks the goal at each end. Because we look alike, we take off our pressure suits and one side goes shirtless. It’s chilly, but once we start shuttling back and forth, it gets warmer. A no-harm/no-foul attitude prevails; there’s no referee. I unfasten my suit, remove it, and secure it on the chute wall with the others. Another Ketch, already shirtless, has been waiting for another player to join. The two of us push off the chute framework and float toward the writhing mass of scrimmaging Ketches and join opposing sides.
***
Ketch-1’s done. Food and water gone. He tried drinking piss, started feeling sick, and is unwilling to add vomit to the mess we have to deal with. When his batteries ran low, he ran out of hope. I can relate. The darkness envelops us. Nothing to look at but us. It’s dim and it’s grim.
I’m short on food and water, and my mind fills itself with plans to steal some of the newcomers’ supplies. Every day I feel my self-control slipping. Sometimes the urge to grab some other Ketch’s food takes control of my mind and I’m reaching for it before I stop myself. I think that’s why Ketch-1 is going now. He’s losing control. That five minutes he spent alone in this void, before I arrived…he said it was hell, then said nothing more about it. He walled it off from the rest of us while it ate him from the inside.
He’s asked me to second him and says it’s time. He ties his legs together, then I tie his hands to his sides. He doesn’t want it to be ugly, and he’s afraid he’ll thrash. He nods, so I put his helmet on him. His suit’s life-support system is shut off, so his helmet fogs up right away. I turn my lights off, but others have theirs on. I can see him breathing, shallow at first. Then struggling. I’m glad I can’t see his face—my face—through the fogged helmet. He can’t see me or any of the hundreds of Ketches watching, each of us hoping we take our turn as well. Why wouldn’t we? We’re all Ketch.
Ketch-1 twists and turns, shaking at the bonds holding him. I recognize that the merciful thing to do is let him pass, so I suppress the urge to unlatch his helmet in a pointless rescue. He’s neither my friend, nor my brother. He’s me, in a slightly different situation. He falls still. Ketch-3, Ketch-4, and I untie his hands, unbind his legs. I pick a spot of nothingness I hope is a different direction from all the bags of piss and crap we’ve cast off and point.
“That way,” I say. We maneuver his weightless body gently. I switch on Ketch-1’s lights. They glow dimly, but are visible in the darkness.
“One…two…” I lead.
“Three,” we say together, propelling Ketch-1’s body into the blackness. His helmet lights fade with distance and dwindling power. The push of Ketch-1’s body from the group propels the rest us in the opposite direction in some minute way. The other Ketches around look at me expectantly.
“I’m good for another day, at least,” I say, “He had to deal with this place on his own for a while.” The thought of a suicide every few minutes is nauseating to me, but at some point the death rate, voluntary or otherwise, must rise.
“Hey! Help!” someone shouts. I turn, we all turn. One Ketch is grasping for another, one of those involved in Ketch-1’s send-off. The floating Ketch has lost his tether and is spinning away from the blob. Another Ketch grabs a spool of cord, holds the end and throws the spool toward the floating Ketch. The spool sails close, but not close enough. The free-floating Ketch drifts further away. Another Ketch throws a spool. This time, the aim is good, but the length of cord runs out, stopping the spool short of the receding Ketch.
Unpressurized and helmetless, the Ketch recedes from the faint glow of the blob into the infinite blackness. No food, no water. Not even a bag to piss in or a helmet to speed the inevitable death. I feel the ache of the lonely days he’ll spend before dehydration kills him, and try to imagine what I’d do if I were in the same situation. Seconds later Ketches empty the lost Ketch’s kit, grabbing at its contents like kids around a busted piñata. I enter the frenzy. My gloves are already off, so I’m able to make a quick grab and come up with a food bar and a water packet. I store them and find the lost Ketch’s helmet. I throw it in his direction, hoping my aim is good and that someone would have done the same for me. It’s too dark and he’s too far for me to see whether the helmet reaches him.
I survey the void, looking for some variation in the blackness. I find none. My hands, seeking warmth, explore my suit’s pockets by habit. My right hand curls around my lighter. All the new Ketches turn theirs in on arrival, but since I was the first doing the collecting, I never did. I let go of the lighter. I rub my hands in front of me, still halfway believing the warmth of the friction will be worth the trouble. I notice how prominent the bones of my hands are; the clefts between the bones look deeper every day. I shake my stiff hands, trying to loosen them. I can’t shake off the cold.
***
Four days since my last water. A week since I had food, and a day of trying to drink piss. It’s not worth it. At first it was okay, anything wet was better than nothing, but I’m feeling sick. If there were anything to hope for, I’d keep it up longer, but the blob only grows. My time is coming and I must decide how to go. Ketch-1’s method was neither quick nor painless, but I know of nothing better. Gradually dying as my thirst increases is worse, and my fears of behaving like an animal grow. Thefts and fights are increasing. Some of the fights end in death, but usually the fighters get tired because of the thin air before lethal damage is done. Every one of us has the same skill, the same experience, the same tricks. If a Ketch does die, he is the lucky one. It’s a quick escape from the blob.
I’m spending time, however much I have left, thinking, wondering, wishing, even praying, that something will happen to change this nightmare. Yeah, it was stupid of me to volunteer for the transit. Sometimes it can be hard to tell courage from stupidity until you’re looking in hindsight. Well, hindsight or not, I don’t see how the universe can keep sending Ketches every five minutes ad infinitum. I’d like to see it end before I go, or at least change. I’d like to know whether we’re inhaling hydrogen or helium.
There’s nothing but the same thing, Ketch after Ketch. I’m proud that we’ve been decent to each other, for the most part. Others in the same situation might disintegrate into even bloodier chaos, or turn the new arrivals into a feast.
I must accept my turn. Put my helmet on and go. I’ve lasted almost a month. If my life had been sliced into one-month bits and all the parts put in here at once, the Ketches should’ve stopped coming at around five or six hundred. They didn’t stop, so I have to guess we’ve made some kind of loop that will keep making copies of me until something interrupts it. If the monkeys, mice, and gamma beacons are being copied too, they must be in a different part of this void.
I decide against following Ketch-1’s exit plan. Instead, I will breathe the last of my suit’s air. I’ll spend my last moments alone, thinking of home, of my times with Michelle, draining what’s left of my batteries. I ask Ketch-7 to be my second, more to make sure I go when I say it’s time than to assist me in my effort. I unfasten my tether to the blob. I put on my gloves and check the seals. Ketch-7 stoops to tie my hands to my sides. I shake my head, and say “I won’t need that.” He stops and stands back. I look up and see the latest Ketch approaching, flailing in the void to adjust his approach to the blob. I shout “What number?”
A Ketch I cannot see echoes the answer: eighty-two-eighteen. Ketch-7 looks at my helmet, then at me. I nod. He attaches it, then closes the seal. I squat and push off from the blob into the nothingness. No one will have to watch me struggle. I close my eyes and remember Michelle. The memories refuse to come. Instead of peaceful memories, I can only think of the mass of misery floating behind me. I have to do something, I have to try.
I pull the tab on my leg pocket. My glove is thick; I can barely get it in the pocket. I feel the lighter and curl it into my fingers. Maybe, just maybe, I can stop the stream of Ketches. At the very least, it will shorten the suffering. I take in a breath. My last, I’m sure.
Hydrogen or helium? All I need is a spark. I pull the trigger on the $7,000 re-tooling of the six-bit lighter. The flash of heat and light across my visor tells me the only thing I’ve learned about this place: hydrogen. But not much hydrogen. Not enough to be explosive, not enough to end this misery. Enough to be flammable, but not enough to detonate. It’s another tease by the void, another humiliating poke in my chest. The burning blue-on-black wavefront expands in a sphere around me, raking across the blob as if the mass of screaming Ketches is of no concern. The blue sphere of combustion expands beyond the blob, eventually fading into the black void. Parachutes on the blob smolder amid the screams of the scorched Ketches. Mist condenses on my visor. As I wipe the condensation away, I’m blinded by lightning blasting across the void, reaching from one end of infinity to the other. The sharp crack hammers my ears and kicks my chest. From this spacetime Sargasso, I have provoked a tempest.
I question my senses. The black of the void fades to indigo, then blue. The lightning flash has left a persistent crooked black line across my vision, so I look up and down to gather a complete picture. I see the blob falling, streaking like a meteor across blue sky and clouds. It’s trailing smoke and rippling with the colors of scorched parachutes trying to open, shedding bodies and kits in clumps and singles. I open my suit’s ventilation to the atmosphere. My ears pop; the air is intoxicatingly fresh—and it’s warm!
To one side, I see the Ketch who had not yet reached the blob, Ketch number eight-thousand-and-whatever-it-was. Like me, he was fully protected from the burning wavefront by his suit. Unlike me, he’s ready for this—it’s what he—I—we trained for. He deploys his parachute, it fills. He and his beautiful, graceful chute loiter in the sky. Above and behind him, a smaller companion chute lofts his supply kit. Late-afternoon sunlight scintillates off his pressure suit making him look like a ruby glinting under the parachute canopy. I look back to the falling blob as it—and I—plummet. The control panel on my wrist has some scorch marks on its edges and the display has a rainbow tint to it, but it still works. It registers a hundred klicks, increasing, and altitude dwindling. The radar-mapper registers a terrain match, the Tuxtla mountains to the north. I see contrails crisscrossing higher in the sky – the re-entry paths of the probes and gamma beacons, I presume. I wonder what, if by some weirdness he’s still alive, the monkey thinks of this. I feel a moment of gratitude. I’m not the lucky Ketch with the open parachute, but at least I didn’t suffocate in the pain and utter loneliness of being the first Ketch in the void. I can’t think I would’ve handled it any better—the first Ketch was me, after all. For someone freefalling at a thousand meters with no parachute, I’m feeling lucky—lucky to be second.
As I fall below four hundred meters, my velocity plateaus at two hundred klicks. Below me, on the surface, I see a depthless black circle. It can only be the return portal, leading either home or back into the void. Under most circumstances, I would never have the courage—or even the stupidity—to enter the portal knowing it might take me back to the void, but now I’m choosing between the portal or slamming into the ground at two hundred klicks. I feather my arms and legs to adjust my trajectory to enter the portal. In four seconds, into one destination, the other, or god-knows-where, I will enter with terminal velocity.
Three…
Two…
One…