Flux Read Online Free PDF Page B

settling for a long winter nap. Dream , Nellie whispered into the quieting pattern. Dream a snake sunning itself, dream a drowsy stone.
    On the other side of the counter, the clerk sagged against the till and yawned. Through the molecular field that connected them, Nellie could feel the other girl’s heartbeat thicken and her mouth take on the taste of sleep. Falling, falling, she whispered into the clerk’s mind. The air is growing heavy and you are falling down a long dark tunnel toward sleep.
    Drowsily, the clerk glanced at the clock above her head, watching the arrow-tipped hands that dragged between seconds. “Geeeeeeez, I’m sleeeeeepeeee,” she slurred, her index finger drifting over the till.
    Let her add everything up first , Nellie told herself. Wait until she’s opened the till.
    The hum at the base of her brain deepened yet again, slowing the room’s molecular field further. A fly buzzed sluggishly past the clerk’s nose, but the girl barely lifted her eyes. About her head dust motes were slowing, and the second hand on the clock was barely moving. Her heavy-lidded eyes skimmed lethargically over Nellie’s pile of purchases, checking one last time, and her index finger settled onto the ‘Total’ key.
    “Okaaaaaaaay,” she yawned. The till gave a long drawn-out click, the money drawer inched outward, and Nellie sent one last message into the room’s molecular field. Stoooooooop, she whispered, and the clerk’s mouth froze, mid-yawn. Dust motes stopped moving about her head, the fly droned to a halt above her nose, and the clock on the wall came to a standstill—every molecule in the room caught and fixed in a pattern, the pattern of one specific moment.
    Carefully Nellie focused on the seam that ran midway through her body. What she had to do now was tricky because she couldn’t afford to confuse the gate’s molecules with her own. Fortunately the pulse rate of a gate was so unusual, it could immediately be distinguished from any surrounding molecular field, even one that had been locked in time. A gate felt like dead space, a scar of solid nothingness. Sending her mind into the thin line of nothingness that dissected her body, Nellie began to push outward.
    The seam divided cleanly, creating a human-sized doorway that stretched several inches beyond her arms. Immediately Nellie sent her mind into the blur that could be seen through the gap, assessing its vibratory rate and bringing her body into sync with it. The process took less than a second. When it was competed, the blur had disappeared and she was stepping into a reality that existed one level beyond the one she’d just left, a virtual copy: same grocery store, same clerk with the same green-winged eyeshadow, and, two steps to Nellie’s left, a duplicate of herself, standing with her eyes riveted to the till’s money drawer. The only noticeable difference between the two levels was the slightly quicker rate at which this one vibrated, but that was normal. As far as Nellie could tell, the different vibratory rates were what kept the levels separate.
    Deeply involved in a heated argument over the price of the bottle of nevva juice, neither the clerk nor Nellie’s double appeared to have noticed her. Moving swiftly toward a pyramid of tinned fruit that had been stacked at the front of the baked goods aisle, Nellie yanked a corner can out of position. Instantly cans began toppling onto the shelves of baked goods and cascading to the floor. Without a backward glance she took off for the aisle’s other end, then turned and ran up the next one, just in time to see the clerk dart from behind the till, intent on saving the doughnuts. Unguarded, the till loomed wide-open. Perfect , Nellie exulted as she slipped behind the counter. There was enough money here to keep her fed for weeks. Ditching her excitement, she reached for the nearest wad of bills.
    But another hand beat her to it. Oblivious to Nellie, her double was sprawled across the