Page 105 of Tidal Creatures

“Bite me,” says Dodger mildly. She keeps her focus on Chang’e. “We have to leave Aske here, in her branch of the network, in her version of the everything. It’s going to continue to degrade, and when it collapses, it’ll take her body with it. If we can’t return her to her family, I can’t think of a better place for a Lunar to rest than here, in their everything.”

“Oh,” says Chang’e, very softly. “What does that have to do with my tree?”

“See how the flashes in the walls are slowing down? Like they’re getting stuck?”

Chang’e nods.

“The possibilities that involve this place are narrowing to a single point, and when that finishes, away it goes.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I can translate the equations the light traces out. This is the universe singing to itself, and the song it’s singing here is a dirge. As soon as the light dies, this piece of everything is gone, and we need to not be here when that happens. We really need to not be halfway up a peach tree hanging over the void.”

Chang’e blanches. “Okay. So how are we getting out of here?”

“Remember I said this was essentially the mycorrhizal network on a universal scale? The key word is network.”

Chang’e shakes her head. “We only ever get a tunnel through the everything. A channel between the gate and our window. We didn’t even know that we all had different iterations until Aske died and we couldn’t figure out where her body had gone.”

“You only ever follow a tunnel, because it’s dark in here—which doesn’t make any sense, by the way, I can see that it’s dark, and yet I can see every person here perfectly well; it’s like it manages to be light and dark at the same time—and you can’t see the openings in the walls.” Dodger shrugs. “I can. We can exit this everything and head into the next one over, and from there, we should hopefully be able to find our way back to Artemis’s. Before she comes looking, or decides to climb down the peach tree herself.”

“That reminds me; you probably shouldn’t eat that peach.”

Dodger lifts an eyebrow. “Oh? Why not?”

“These are the peaches of immortality,” says Chang’e. “Just one won’t make you immortal, but it’ll probably stop your aging for a while. In a god, a single peach lasts for about a decade. In an anthropomorphic personification? I have no idea.”

“It’s cute that you don’t think I stopped our aging a while ago,” says Dodger. “There’s nothing wrong with getting older, but Smita makes incredible curry, and I don’t want to deal with that thing where every white person I know who’s physically over forty gets horrific heartburn any time they eat something with a decent level of spice. Time and I are good buddies. I negotiated a ceasefire as soon as we finished looping through our lives, and it’s holding pretty solid for right now.”

Chang’e blinks. “That’s … You’re … How can you be so casual about that?”

“You just informed me that eating one of your special magic peaches from the tree that didn’t exist an hour ago would make me stop aging for a whole-ass decade. I don’t think you have the high ground when it comes to ‘things we should be less casual about.’” Dodger raises her voice, calling, “Hey, Erin, you two about done over there? Because I want to get us heading for the next room over before this one starts eating people.”

“She died of a blow to the back of the head, hard enough to fracture her skull,” says Erin, straightening. There’s not a drop of blood on her, which should be impossible, given the way she was touching the body. “One good thing about that as cause of death: she wouldn’t have had much time to suffer.”

“That’s not as comforting as I think you want it to be,” says Máni.

“Was it the alchemists?” asks Chang’e.

“Not unless they have a way of getting through that gate without another Lunar to help them,” says Roger. “There are three sets of footprints in here, from where the person walking couldn’t avoid the blood. One of them is yours, and one of them is Máni’s. The third is someone I can’t recognize. Small feet, though. Definitely not the man we saw before.”

“Is there anything else we can learn by staying here?” asks Dodger. “Because if not, I don’t think we should be. The window of safety is closing fast.”

The rainbow flashes in the walls have slowed so much, they’re only coming every few seconds, in contrast to the constant flow in Artemis’s everything. The others turn to look at them, registering the unhappiness in Dodger’s tone. Roger glances at her.

“You’re sure?”

“Am I ever wrong about this sort of thing?” asks Dodger, with evident disgust.

He shakes his head. “Not normally.”

“Good. Now, is there anything else to learn from the body?”

“No. Just that she died fast and brutal, and she managed to drag herself back to the window before she did. Someone was waiting for her near the gate.”

“So it was someone who understood the system enough to know when her guard would be down. Great. Come on.”

Dodger starts to walk, steps brisk and sharp. The first few are stable. On the third, her foot seems to sink, as if she’s stepped into a small divot in the previously smooth floor. She winces, and keeps going.