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The Old Man’s hand grabbed him by the back of the neck, and shoved him into the pool.

Poire’s mouth opened to shout, and his lungs filled with water. Lungs burning, throat clenching, he tried to cough it out, only to inhale more. Drowning, kicking, fighting, screaming—his body changed. A sensation began at the tips of his fingers, at the bones of his shoulders, and the soles of his feet. His sense of being expanded, up and out and all around. The fire in his lungs became so small, so unworthy of notice.

He was everything. And he was everywhere.

He was the void itself, full of swirling dust and flaming sparks. Burning suns, scattered galaxies, and great filaments of formless matter stretched across billions of lightyears. He did not feel the universe—he was the universe. Its strength belonged to him.

And its weaknesses, too.

There were pockets, pressure points in the fabric. Cracks in this existence. And his vast being pressed into them, prying them slowly open. Making the cracks into Scars. Allowing him to peek into other universes. Allowing him to pour through, as a beam of sunlight pours through a window.

Poire’s infinite light fell upon a world, illuminating a marble in the black. The marble swirled with white clouds, rippled with blue oceans and green earth and jagged white-capped mountains. Raw and beautiful, and strangely familiar.

The beam touched the world, so that Poire could see the sharp outline of an ancient caldera, and the dense jungle that spilled out from its arms. Towers ringed around the caldera, projecting a shimmering bubble, so the trees below seemed to wobble as if they were underwater.

The Cauldron. But not the Cauldron that he knew.

There was no city. There was only the crowded, tangled green of the jungle, and eight pristine pylons of shining metal, holding up the blue dome of the shield. Without moving, Poire dropped. The Horizon flew away, and the blue shield rose up to meet him. He didn’t have time to scream.

And his body, the beam, passed through the shield without touching it, and deeper still. Huge kapok trees stretched above him. Birds, black and red and yellow and blue and every other color, flittered through the maze of branches. An eagle sat on the shoulder of a tree, watching over all. Seeing everything, except Poire.

Then, came the ground. Instinctively, he tried to squeeze his eyes shut, only it made no difference. He could still see everything—every inch of dirt and stone and cavernous rock as he passed through the world. Past pipes and underground streams. Drowning in a lake, slick with white algae, as black as starless night.

Everything stopped. One moment he was moving, the next he was suspended perfectly still in air over a vast, sunlit cavern. It could only be one place: Home. Orbs of light crawled across the Conclave’s cavernous ceiling, mimicking the motion of the Sun. A great spiral minaret sat on the hill in the center, with trees made of living glass growing up its spiraled ramps.

What time is this? Poire wondered. A time long gone.

Two trains ran their smooth, soundless course around the perimeter of the cavern, stopping to let people and constructs out. More people wandered the promenade, or lounged in the parks, or sat by the fountains. There was a small group of children, playing. He wondered if he knew any of them. That one with dark hair, running away from someone, laughing, that might’ve been Peregrine, one of the older boys. But he looked so much younger than Poire remembered. A dozen or so adults watched the children, some of them in lab coats. Even now a few of the researchers scrawled notes furiously on their tablets while they observed.

An uneasy sickness sunk into Poire. The constant scrutiny always made him feel like he was falling behind some unknown, impossible goal. Then, it sunk further—dragging him through the cavern floor, deeper into the secret places of the Conclave.

A white room, with white walls and white floors, and people wearing white coats, sitting around an unconscious boy with dark skin and black curls cropped to his scalp. There were so many wires sticking out of his body, Poire almost didn’t recognize himself.

Was I really that small?

Poire didn’t lean forward, so much as the world moved up to his gaze, allowing him to inspect the lines of his skin, the colors, the shapes of his body. The boy’s eyelids were closed, though his eyes flicked back and forth rapidly as if in some deep, vivid dream.

One of the researchers announced, “Subject is entering the second state. T-minus two minutes until pass through.”

Poire recognized the gruff sharpness of the voice. Harrison. Poire’s old caretaker, before he gave up on Poire. Before Xiaoyun took over.

Is this a memory? Poire wondered. Is this Anu’s memory?

“T-minus two minutes,” echoed one of the techs sitting at the main console, behind the glass.

A pair of white coats were standing in the corner, wearing white helmets, stood over Poire, scribbling notes on their tablets and occasionally glancing up to watch the procedure.

“T-minus 90 seconds.”

Poire watched his own body jump and writhe on the table. Foamy saliva bubbled from the tubes sticking out of his mouth. His head rolled back from side to side, as if he was in great pain. Poire didn’t remember this part. Did this always happen to me?

“Is he moving already?” Harrison asked.

“I told you he wasn’t ready.”

“Subject is entering third state,” Harrison said, as if he hadn’t heard. “Engage the mirror.”

“But there’s more than a minute left!”

“I said engage the mirror!”

The tech pressed something on his console, and robotic arms unfolded from the floor and the ceiling, setting up long metal rods or panels layered with complicated electronics around Poire’s body, until a pyramid of gray and black glass entombed his body.

“It’s still too early, Harrison..”

“It’s time to push him.”

“If you’re wrong, then he’ll die.”

“Then he’ll die! And we’ll stop wasting the Conclave’s resources on a dead end. Keep the data coming, we need to see the effects of the change over. At least we’ll get some value out of this one.”

Poire had always hated the man for the way he disdained him. Even in this vision, or whatever it was, he felt that twinge of outrage for how he had been treated. But now, he could see Harrison’s face—sweaty and gritting his teeth and desperate—he felt something else for the man. Pity, for how lost he was. How lost they all were. He was only trying to find a solution to the disease, to stop the eradication of all humanity.

“Enter third stage now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Now!” Harrison’s shout shoved against the walls in that cramped, white lab room. The tech flinched, and tapped a few more times on the console.

“Light cells ready. Injecting. Three, two. Beginning third state—”

All the light in the room flickered. Poire—the real Poire—felt a tug in his being. It came from everywhere, and it condensed him down toward the pyramid that covered the young Poire’s body.

Poire had never seen this part of the process before. They never actually let him see what was happening. All he knew was that his body was not really inside the pyramid anymore.

They had sent his young self across, to the other side. But where is that?

“Poire?” Harrison spoke into a microphone. “Poire, can you hear me?”

“Keep trying.”

“Poire!” Harrison growled again.

“Sir? We’re not reading anything. He’s beyond us now.”

“This fucking kid,” Harrison said. “Every time he goes under, something always breaks.”

The slow, tugging sensation increased, and the world shrank. All Poire could see was the pyramid. The voices slowed and deepened as the beam carried him inward.

“Wait. Wait. I’ve got an electrical signal.”

“Do we have a pulse? Poire!”

“Harrison, I found him. He’s through, and well on the otherside.”

“Why isn’t he responding?”

“Something got lost on the way. Some connection—I don’t know. But he’s there.”

“Well, hopefully he can get it done, at least. That would be something. Though I wouldn’t hold my breath.”

The rest of their conversation was drowned out, as the beam pulled the real Poire into the pyramid. Into wherever his young self had gone…

Something like space opened around him.

Something like hills wavered in the distance. The sky was dotted with billions of specks that shifted only when Poire looked at them. He had a body again. Hands, a torso. The same blurry clothes he was wearing in the Old Man’s tower, only now they looked sharper.

Something bounced on the ground, and rolled to a stop at Poire’s foot. It was hard, and black, and made of that strange metal that even the dams and the gates were made of. He moved his robe out of the way, the fabric glinting like metal in the weird, alien light, and bent down to pick up the ball.

An old, childish rhyme leaped into his mind. A wall. A ball. That’s all. A wall…

But the words weren’t only in his head. Someone was whispering them fervently aloud: the younger version of himself stood in the midst of that strange void, his brow wrinkled, as if it hurt him to even attempt to perceive his surroundings. His hand was outstretched, grasping blindly for the ball.

Poire dropped the metal ball into the boy’s hand. The younger Poire gawped up at him. Trying to understand his clothes, and not understanding.

Poire gave him a smile.

And then, the boy sunk backward into the fabric of this universe as the pyramid-shaped Mirror pulled him out. And Poire was left standing, all alone.

The hills wavered. A sound like wind, or maybe waves, rattling through fields of tinsel whispered across the alien flats.

“Do you remember the tests?” a voice asked over his shoulder. The Old Man had joined him, he was standing there now, frowning at the spot where the much younger Poire had just disappeared.

“Feels like a lifetime ago,” Poire answered.

“I don’t remember what it felt like at all.”

“Did I really do that? Was it me who helped myself, then?”

“Seems that way.”

“Then who was first? How is this possible? How is any of this—”

Before he could get the full question out, the OId Man reached past Poire’s head, and clawed his hand around Poire’s neck, and yanked him back.

The world dropped, impossibly fast. Water left his lungs, filled his throat and burst out of his mouth in convulsive spasms. He gasped for breath, spluttering and coughing, as reality made its unsteady return.

He was in the tower. In the room of many pillars, hands pressed to the cold stones, gasping and dripping into the pool. But the water didn’t ripple, so much as it let the droplets fall in reverse, yet falling all the same.

Is this reality? Poire furrowed his brow, trying to force the pillars to stop dancing.

“I wanted to start you off easy, because I remember what it felt like. Even after all these years of being here, I still feel it from time to time. The disorientation. This place shouldn’t exist. Or rather, we shouldn’t exist in this place. And yet, here we are. The two of us. You, Poire, and me, Poire. The same person, twice. And yet, this is our home. We were built in this universe. Did you know that? After the visions, and the disease, there were no more children born in our old universe. So, they found a new universe to give birth in. All the subjects, all our friends and their friends, and so on, were born on this side.”

“Why?”

This time, when the Old Man put his hand on Poire’s neck, he did so softly. Poire could feel the dry calluses and the warmth of his touch. Then, he said, “See now what I have seen” and shoved him back under the water.

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