The Portal opened rather more slowly than usual, the grid around Earth still beaming recordings of the bell’s interference.

Jake leaped out, ready for action, but all he could see were high-rise apartments.

"Hey, Sil, this isn’t the Unity’s homeworld, this is Manhattan."

"I doubt it," said Silver softly. There was a look in her eyes that Jake didn’t care for. He was really wishing he’d never suggested this. Silver had gone quiet, and it always worried him when Silver went quiet. He lost track of her thought processes.

Out of the impossibly tall buildings, the Unity started to emerge. Nobody, but nobody dared to just pitch up on their world. Looking up in awe, Jake realised that people were lining the gossamer-fine walkways between towers, so that there weren’t discreet towers so much as nodes an in impossibly intricate spider’s web that stretched higher than the clouds. Jake wondered how the Unity decided which bits of itself ended up on what floor. Presumably, if one person had a fear of heights, everyone would have. Perhaps it was decided by purely physical criteria, the old and lame being given floors lower down. There were no parks or green spaces, and no shops, just things that Jake suspected were collection points. How can you buy and sell to yourself?

The creatures that formed the Unity, seen all together, still looked practically human to Jake, except that they all wore one colour, and one colour alone. Frosted purples, greens, reds, deep blues, yellows, and some colours that Jake didn’t even have names for, that weren’t properly picked up by human eyes. And all were singing a million-part harmony, it’s rhythm directing the movement of the figures. Jake thought it sounded beautiful, but he suspected it wasn’t good for him. It made the mind prickle. If you listened carefully, you could discern words.

"Oh, it’s you." Only the mouths nearest the two travellers actually spoke. The Unity was aware that there was no point someone up in the stratosphere speaking. The Unity weren’t in the habit of wasting energy. "What do you want?"

"I want my son. His name is Sam."

There was a pause. "Samuel Silver no longer exists."

"Yes, he does. He does." There was the slightest give in Silver’s voice. The orbital defences finally cut in, and the Portal behind Jake abruptly closed, making him jump.

"How will you return now? How will you wrest away whatever’s left of your son? How do you expect you and your second to survive?"

"I don’t know," gasped Silver. "I don’t know, I don’t care. I just want my son."

The Unity turned its vast attention to Jake. "Did you realise it was hopeless?"

"Can’t you just let him go? He’s no use to you, he’s just a kid. And look what you’ve done to Silver."

She didn’t even flinch when the Unity focussed on her again. She just stood there, hugging herself.

"Your mentor is insane." The Unity sounded oddly pitying.

"No." Jake wished he could convince himself. "She’s grieving, and depressed. Haven’t you done enough to her?"

"NO." The entire Unity spoke at once. It sounded like some kind of infernal choir. "You cannot have him, you cannot have him. He is gone. He is us."

"Yes." Silver’s voice was little more than a whisper, but it carried better than the Unity’s cry. "Yes, he’s gone. Everything’s gone. I shouldn’t have allowed myself hope."

"Silver-"

"No, Jake." Silver looked in the eyes of the nearest Unity. "I loved him. He was my baby, my little boy. And now he’s gone."

The Unity sighed, a soft sound that rose and fell through the crowd. They made no move to attack, but Jake still moved in front of Silver. There was a ripple, not the Unity’s vast attention, but something like a child struggling to be born. The crowd shifted, uneasy, and a cloud covered the sun, in defiance of the carefully controlled weather systems.

In the sudden dark, the Portal sprang back, throwing light on the two travellers. "Who opened that? We did not open that."

"No," piped a voice. "I did."

A very young boy, little more than a toddler, regarded the intruders carefully.

"I remember you. You’re Mummy."

"Yes, Sam. I’m Mummy. Listen to me. If you want, you can come back with me, and I will keep you safe and warm and loved. Or you can stay with the Unity, for whatever good things that brings. But it’s your choice, and yours alone."

The Sisters had a name for a pause like that. Nobody else could pronounce it, but it meant history shifting, the future suddenly, shockingly changed. And history was.

The Unity roared and tried to snatch at the tiny body as it pushed through them, but Silver came to life, knocking bodies flying and pushing away arms and carrying the child high above the crowd, and they couldn’t stop her, she was like a flame-thrower through a glacier.

"Sam! Sam!" Above the roar of the Unity, Silver could be heard clearly. One operative raised some kind of weapon, but Jake threw himself at his arm, and the shot went wild, killing someone else. The sudden death added a new note to the cacophony. There will shrill screams, a few voices, further from the core, trying to keep up the melody, and imperious cries demanding to know how this could be. They sounded almost human.

The three escapees threw themselves through the Portal, and the sound was suddenly gone.

© Naomi 'Ni' Claydon 2000. No copying without permission.