"Oh Brave New World That Has Such People In It"

Sunnydale seemed to be having some kind of firework festival, over the last few days. I'd been taking Erynne out to enjoy it, show off her ring and celebrate getting my talisman back, even though we can't use it yet.

( Firewalled against those who might disapprove )

Then we went for an Indian meal yesterday, thought we saw
Percy West and, when Erynne hailed him, we found out that he was the leader of a gang of vampires!

Percy-Vamp taunted Erynne that he'd had no heartbeat for a year. That meant he wasn't the Percy we'd brought to this dimension, and that meant there are duplicates. I'd been anxious right through my time in the first Sunnydale, picking up from that crazy school, and the Harbingers under the town.

Here, the jitters were different, and I wondered if there was a duplicate of me somewhere, setting off my own mental warnings. Every time I thought of that I wanted Erynne and me out of here.

( Portal Opening CDRs )

(no subject)

I gave Percy the portal-opening CDR, told him how to use it, invited him to the wedding and wished him luck. I don't know how many of the people that we knew in the old Sunnydale had ended up here, or where they were, and neither did he.

I was on the way back to the barn when I had an idea and smoked into the back of the post office. When I checked I found a few familiar names, with addresses, so I made a list.

I got envelopes, stamps and a good supply of recordable discs, picked up some extra candy and, since then, I've been making portal disks. It's monotonous work, partly because the chants have to be split - that is, chant a couple of syllables, turn the recorder off and do something else for quite a while, turn recorder on and add a few more sounds. Otherwise the portal can open and suck you through.

Never just read a chant straight through, even to yourself, unless you plan to travel right there, right then. In the end I used every disc in the packet. It took a long time. Every chant was very carefully labeled, too. We posted them to every familiar name, by snail-mail.


I put the disk I used myself beside the recorder with the two new safety spares. By then I needed sugar, it wasn't just the energy I'd used, it was the time spent and the long monotony of the job. Erynne was bored with it, too.

I was about to suggest that we go out to eat when I thought about what could happen to Erynne if I wasn't available in an emergency. I sat back and started to add the chants that could take her a short distance, out of danger, in her original dimension. Once I thought it through, I also added the chants for the Quain dimension, spacing them syllable by syllable.

I had to leave the job between every two or three sounds, and every time I used the computer for something else Erynne looked at me with less patience.

During one break I found this ( Meme )

It was a suprising thing, but something about Erynne's expression told me that she wouldn't find it funny...