STUDENTS:
Boil all water before use.

Jake ignored the sign on the library door. It was the seventh one he’d seen in an hour. There were more pressing things he had to attend to, like returning all the various literature comprehension books. Books to tell you how to look at books.

There was nothing obvious to say how badly his life was about to go, nothing to indicate finishing that essay on the plays of Edward Bond was not an option, although there are those who feel that was probably a blessing. But the moment Jake slammed his books on the counter, the fates were up and weaving.

First impression: She was new. He was damn sure he would have remembered her. Attractive, in a harassed sort of way, but you’d need to be a Zen Buddhist not to feel harassed dealing with all those students. She even called one ‘sir’, almost unknown in a library where the students were a much lower life form. Granted, some of the older staff said ‘sir’, but to a man they were thinking ‘scum’. Anyway, she wasn’t that old, mid-twenties maybe. Average height, average size, average light brown hair, average- no, not average eyes. Eyes that spoke of things men shouldn’t know, and seldom lived to. Eyes that held a kind of huge, blazing pain that she’d banked down to a dull ember in public.

"Can I help you?" She turned those eyes on him, but now they were empty of expression, goodwill absently smoothing her face. Jake realised he was staring.

"Uh, these books. To bring back." For an idiot moment, he was ashamed of his American accent, in contrast to her light, English voice.

"Okay." She scanned them through, quick, automatic gestures, then glanced at the screen.

"There we are, Mr Andes, all done. Anything else?"

"You know my name? The screen was only there for a second, you couldn’t have-"

"Jacob Andes, eighteen years old, born 3rd of June, so that makes you a Gemini, lived in Connecticut until you were thirteen, then you parents divorced, and you went with your mother to live in Martha’s Vineyard. Term time address-"

"Okay, okay. But that stuff can’t have been on my library card."

"Who says I stayed in the library system? Next."

"We’re closing in ten minutes- oh, it’s you."

"Yeah, uh, I was kinda thinking- I mean, that is-"

"Shall I give you some time to think about this?" She moved back down the aisle, but Jake waved his arms in front of her. She raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, sorry. I’m not stalking you or anything."

"I’ve been stalked by scarier than you, sunbeam. Scarier than you comes free with breakfast cereal. Look, we’ve got stock take tonight, and I’m not staying here long, anyway. Sorry."

"Oh." Jake suddenly brightened. "The library’s closed Wednesday mornings, maybe-"

"Don’t give up, do you? Well- Damn!"

The girl pulled him back into an alcove. The place was deserted now, except for a tall man in green. Lots of different greens, from bottle to pastel. Somehow, he managed not to look like a clown, unless you were one of those people who have nightmares about clowns, in which case he was exactly right. He paused, scanning the shelves for movement. In no more than two strides he was across the room, staring at the head librarian in a clinch with a student twelve years her junior. The man watched them, just watched as they froze with terror, then said simply "Understood."

It didn’t take the girl’s hand on his arm to tell Jake to freeze. The man was scanning again, and no human head should be able to move that far around. It would have made an owl’s eyes water.

Jake lifted his head a little way, and saw that the girl had disappeared. Too late, he realised the man in green had seen the movement, and simply shifted so that he was in front of Jake. His eyes were green, too, the green of a pond in summer. And they stared at the boy, as though unable to believe what they saw.

"What do you want, man?"

"Silver."

"Huh? There’s no metal here."

"Metal? We are looking for Silver." The voice had tiny whispers tangled up in the background. Jake felt an idiot, they were obviously after the girl, whose parents must have been hippies or something. Unless it was her last name. But why would Big Green and- no, he was too smooth-faced to be truly Ugly- want her?

The man suddenly pitched forward, in a surprisingly straight sweep. Behind him, the girl, Silver, put an old fashioned cosh back into the pouch at her belt. Strange.

"You’re Silver, right? Who was he?"

"Unity. Come on, we need to hide him. They’ll be wondering why they can’t feel him. What’s he doing here? Unless attracted by the Portal sticks, of course, but they’re supposed to be masked, unless the masking is unweaving again, but it still means- Goodbye, Mr Andes."

Jake blinked. "No, no, you don’t get away that easy."

Her lips twitched. "I never do."

"Okay. You’re on the run, right?"

"Right."

"Who from? Like, your husband, or boyfriend, or something?"

That pain again. "I’m single."

"Oh. I mean, right. So is it someone big league, like the Mob?"

"If only."

"Come on, I nearly got flattened by the Jolly Green Giant, the least you can do is give me some answers."

"Fine. I’m a traveller in space and scientifically improbable dimensional rifts, who lives alone with her cat in an abstract physical concept known as the Complex. The man we have just knocked out isn’t human but a member of a gestalt species who seeks to kill me and permanently upset the Balance of our warped little ecosystem."

A grin of disbelief skittered across his features. "You’re an alien?"

"No. Unless you count being born in Cambridge."

"Okay. Why do they want you?"

"To prevent a ten thousand year old prophesy coming true."

"Now I know you’re kidding."

"Yes." Lighting flash smile. "It’s more like twelve."

"Oh." Jake was rapidly getting out of his depth. What the hell had he got himself into? She was either nuts (and she was just irreverent enough about her situation to convince him otherwise) or this was real. The man in green began to stir.

"Damn. This is where we say goodbye. Please try to stall him or something, and don’t let him follow. Sorry, I always seem to be saying goodbye to people."

She gave him a quick peck on the cheek, and then took five sticks out of her pouch. One she held in her fist at a little below shoulder height, and it floated out of her grasp, a good foot above her head. Two more sticks either side at right angles formed the beginnings of a doorframe, and a blue glow filled the middle. Jake suddenly grabbed her arm.

"Take me with you."

"What? Don’t be stupid."

"I mean it. Whatever’s happening has got to be better than my plain old life, and I’d rather go and face whatever danger there is than sit in my crummy little flat at this crummy little university going ‘what if’." He stopped, aware that he was sounding like the biggest cliché in history. Silver looked him up and down.

"You’re a bright lad, sunbeam, but I really don’t think you’d enjoy this. You’d probably end up hating me for dragging you into this."

"Please?" Jake wished he had some witty argument, but the next moment what he had was bruises forming from abrupt contact with the ground. Green filled his vision, and then the man’s arm shifted to his throat. A certain amount of yanking, and he was facing Silver, who was outlined by the Portal. Run, you stupid cow, he thought.

"Witch girl. Close the Portal or we kill the man."

"Fine," she said calmly. "I was trying to get rid of him anyway."

A grin cracked those strange features. "You bluff, witch girl. We know you to be compassionate."

"A gestalt entity who’s never leant to feel for the other guy. I dunno. I suppose you also realise I won’t surrender?"

"You will not let us harm this one. You would never give us cause to harm hostages."

She stumbled for a moment, then looked at the green man with such controlled fury- and the control was no less frightening- that Jake squirmed. The man’s arm tightened, but not out of spite. Humans may exersize malice even on a fly, but Jake knew he meant less than that.

"We live, witch girl. All of us. Close the Portal."

"No. I will never surrender to you."

Jake yelped, very briefly.