Stalwart ebook readers might have noticed this story sneak into our January issue as an additional story above our usual number due to a little mix up on our end. It was supposed to actually publish in this issue, and because we want to make sure all of our stories get the same amount of time in the spotlight in our web version, we’re running it here where it was supposed to run. (With the author’s permission.) In any case, we hope you enjoy! —eds.

1.

The town was not called Byzantium. The Ministry named it during the first meeting. “It’s not a colony,” Thomas James would have said if he could, but the office was hot and bright, the sun in the windows, in his eyes. He felt like he was surrounded by faceless figures even though there were only two other people in the room.

The town they were talking about was located between worlds. The entrance was in the remains of Ooldea, out on the edge of The Nullarbor Plain. The rip between worlds, the entrance to something that shouldn’t exist, was marked by a blue painted door. The door was strangely new. It’d been installed inside the remains of an old shack that had been built in 1914. The people who’d lived in Ooldea had been forced out by the government, before being allowed to return, until The Tea and Sugar train stopped running at the end of the century. When you walked through Ooldea now it was empty and the sky above smooth and flat. It looked like it’d been scraped clean with a knife.

James was the only one from The Ministry who went inside the building with the blue door. He didn’t want to, but he wasn’t given a choice. He wore light body armour beneath a white hazard suit and he carried an oxygen tank on his back. He had a mask to wear, a full faced, frightening thing linked both to his suit and his tank, but that he’d not yet fixed into place.

Despite this, James was easy to forget. When you first saw him, your gaze swept over him as if he were a stranger passing you on a street, one who was neither attractive enough or ugly enough to catch your attention. If you were asked, if someone found you later and asked, that is, you would say that James was white and that his hair was brown. At least, you would say that at first. A few hours later you might say that his hair was black. Or that his skin was olive. Or, perhaps even brown.

Inside the shack, James went through his equipment one more time, then fixed his mask in place. He’d been through thirteen rips and if he could, he would never go into another. The first thing he felt upon entering, the first sensation that ran through his body, was of being torn apart and sewn back together. It was an awful feeling. But, like all explorers of the unknown, he worried more about his equipment than himself. The last door he’d opened had led to a flat land full of poisonous air. He’d been sick for weeks when he returned and thought himself lucky to survive it. If his equipment had failed, or had been destroyed . . .

He stepped through the door before he talked himself out of it. There was no point in resisting. He would be forced through the rip one way or another. This time, however, he felt nothing. It was such a different experience from any he’d had before that he thought he was still in the empty house, that he had passed through the doorway and was standing in the wrecked kitchen that overlooked half a dozen buildings in Ooldea.

He was standing in a narrow lane.

Around him, a series of square buildings rose up, the windows lit at uneven intervals. Beyond the buildings, there was a dark sky, free from stars and moons.

James left the alley. He’d not gone far down the road before he came upon a woman. She was middleaged and black and wore a dress of yellow and red. She did not wear a mask, or protective gear of any kind. She stopped when James raised his hand in greeting. If she was frightened by his general appearance, she gave no sign of it.

James worried that she couldn’t understand him. He spoke eight languages fluently, could greet people in thirteen, but the woman didn’t respond to anything he said no matter how he said it. He tried everything but it wasn’t until he said a name that she responded. When he said the name she smiled politely and pointed up the road.

The buildings became more elaborate and ornate the further he went. In a small square, he found a crowd of people outside three restaurants and a bar. They were a mixture of race and age. He was sure that they came from his world. He tried to greet them in the languages he knew but like the woman before they said nothing until he repeated the name. Like the woman, the people in the square responded by directing him farther along the road.

The road took him to the edge of the town. There a vast, dark ocean ran out to the horizon. Close to the edge were a series of old docks and houseboats.

James searched four boats but it wasn’t until the fifth that he found someone. On the fifth, a single, solitary man sat on the back deck reading a book of poetry. He was of mixed heritage, part Indigenous, part white European, a man somewhere in his late fifties, or early sixties. He had a beard of silver and gray. His hair, likewise coloured, was thick and verging on being unruly. He wore an old pair of black jeans and a faded eighties arcade t-shirt.

“Excuse me,” James said in English. “But are you Mr. Matthew Layne?”

He did not look up from his book. “And who would you be?”

“My name is Thomas James. I’ve been sent here by The Ministry of Saturn.”

“You don’t need the mask.” He closed his book. “Or the tank. The air here is fine to breathe.”

James hesitated before he took the mask off.

“You’re not human,” Layne said, “but you come from humans, don’t you?”

“I am a homunculus. I was made according to the ancient ritual that was first described by Paracelsus.”

“Were you born in the womb of a horse, or in a jar of rotting flesh?”

No one had asked James that before. “In a jar, of sorts,” he said, caught off guard. “It was much larger than the one Paracelsus described in his work. The parts that were used to make me were chosen more selectively and sewn together before the process began.”

“Paracelsus was a genius part of the time and mad the rest.” Layne pushed himself up. “What does The Ministry want with me, Mr. James?”

“I work with Dr. Munn. He has been sent by The Ministry of Saturn to meet you personally.”

“Yes, but what about?”

“The town you live in.”

“My home, you mean. Does he want to take it from me? Or is he the explorer who comes first to find the land that is already known?”

“I am afraid I am only a messenger.”

“A loyal one?”

James said nothing.

Layne smiled. “What have you been told to do if I refuse your invitation?”

“I’ve been told to leave you in peace. But Mr. Layne, you must understand that if The Ministry has found you, others will soon enough. Others on our world. Others on other worlds. You’re being offered a chance to get ahead of those threats. Your reputation suggests that you’re a passable magician, but you’ll need friends once the doors to other worlds open.”

“A passable magician?”

“I meant no offence.”

“I didn’t take any. These days, I don’t consider myself a magician at all. I’m a poet.”

“I’m afraid I am not a student of the arts.”

“Few people are. Tell me, Mr. James, do you trust the Ministry of Saturn?”

“Yes,” he lied.

“Did it hurt to say that?”

James began to protest, to pretend ignorance, but the words died in his throat. Layne was watching him carefully, more carefully than he’d been aware. For the first time since James had opened the blue door he felt a sliver of fear run through him. He wasn’t in danger. At least, he wasn’t right now, he knew. No. It was the fact that he was sure that Layne had not only seen through his lie, but through the spells that had been placed on him, the ones that hid his appearance, that kept him not just hidden, but in his place.

“Why don’t you tell Dr. Munn to come and speak to me himself,” the man who claimed to be a poet said. “Why don’t you go back and tell the man who has bound you to himself with such awful spells that I’ve invited him to my home.”

2.

Dr. Munn, Dr. Peter Munn, wanted to say no, but James knew he could not afford to.

Munn was waiting for him in Ooldea. He had been there earlier, had been there when James opened the blue door, but he’d waited until James had gone through the door before he left his air-conditioned SUV. Since then, he’d erected a gazebo outside the shack. He’d laid out a table there, a welcome for Layne if James had returned with him. There was cold roast chicken, bread, a pair of salads, and some wine and beer. The overall impression, James thought, was that of a bad office picnic, one that no one wanted to attend but for the flies.

He gave his report while he stood in front of the table. “How did he react when you said you were from The Ministry?” Munn asked from the other side. “Was he angry?”

“No,” James said.

“He didn’t sound angry?”

“No, sir.”

Munn was a slim, pale British man who wore a neat and expensive suit that had wilted in the heat. “I’m trusting you here, Thomas.”

James didn’t reply.

“You were there when the director spoke about Layne. You heard what he said, just like I did. He said he was angry. He was a drifter. He said it wasn’t uncommon for Layne to be in a place he wasn’t supposed to be. According to the director, he has a history of clashing with The Ministry’s authority. You can see it in the reports he filed. There’s an undercurrent of anger through each.”

“I can only tell you what I saw, sir. I can only tell you what he said.”

“Yes, I know.” Munn waved his hand at the table, disturbing the flies for but a second. “What did you make of the town itself?” he asked. “The people in it?”

“I’m not sure it’s real.”

“But you were there.”

“The space is real,” James said. “But the rest of it? I think it was Layne.”

“He’s not meant to have that kind of power.”

A part of James wanted to say, he could see through your spells, but the compulsion wasn’t strong and so he didn’t. Occasionally, he found that freedom within himself. “I don’t know that I can explain it,” he said instead. “It’s just intuition. My intuition.”

“The Ministry cannot afford to be on the wrong side of this, Thomas.”

“I know.”

“Byzantium represents so much to us. It is an opportunity we cannot let go.”

Peter Munn believed in The Ministry of Saturn. He had joined the organisation twenty years ago as a field agent. Back then, The Ministry had been something of a legend, an organisation dedicated to the unknown that was funded not just by private donations, but by the Australian Government. It existed in the government’s back channels, in its unofficial black books, a dream that the British Empire had never been able to fulfil. In its ninety odd years of existence The Ministry had become part of the machinery that existed behind wars and conflicts throughout the world.

In the last decade, however, things had changed. The political winds shifted. Black book projects lost bilateral support. Austerity measures were introduced. Defence ministers had less and less time for the strange, esoteric reports that The Ministry filed. The military campaigned to consume both public and private budgets. In such an environment it wasn’t much of a surprise when The Ministry’s funding was cut, or when its staff was siphoned off to other departments, or when it became a home for outcasts, conspiracy theorists and burnt-out spies who wanted only to wiretap celebrities and play videogames.

There were rumours that The Ministry would leave the public sphere, that a private entity had made an offer. A substantial offer. The story James had heard was that similar offers had been made to organisations in Germany, India, America, and more. James thought he and Munn should leave. Munn, however, refused. He was convinced that the director would take an offer and retire. He was convinced that he was in the best place to take over his role, to guide The Ministry to a newly funded glory.

“I’m going to have to go to Byzantium, aren’t I?” Munn said. “I will have to meet with Layne.”

“What will you do if he doesn’t want to give you the town?”

“The Ministry needs Byzantium. If I have to, I will take it from Layne, though I will not enjoy breaking a fellow magician.”

“He calls himself a poet now.”

“Even better.”

“I’m sorry?”

“No one cares when poets die, Thomas, not even poets themselves.”

3.

Munn replaced the chicken and the salads beneath the gazebo with pistols and knives and a series of small charms that had a dubious heritage. He cleaned them, organised them, decided what would be best, and put the remainder away. “One day,” he said to James, who had watched the whole process silently, “you’ll understand the danger that a mortal like myself is in during these situations.”

Yet it was James, not Munn, who was the first to return through the rip, the first to brave it without a suit or mask. He had a moment of panic after he opened the blue door. The world around him went from light to dark, like he was caught within an eclipse. His body shifted, the distinct parts of himself moved in a way that they shouldn’t and he thought he had come undone. He was surprised when, on the other side of the door, he was whole.

It took him a moment to realise that he wasn’t in the alley, but the town square. Both he and Munn were standing there across from Matthew Layne.

“Dr. Munn.” Layne wore a black suit with a black shirt. He had slicked back his hair and combed his beard with his fingers. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope your journey here was a pleasant one?”

“It was different.” Munn offered his hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

They shook and continued to talk, pleasantries mostly. It allowed James to walk around the square. There was a stillness to it that was oddly disquieting. He felt that earlier he’d walked onto a movie set during filming, only to be asked back after shooting had finished. Now that he’d returned he felt that the empty sound stage was still part of the film, that it was part of a world being created.

“Do you have a name for this town?” Munn’s question drew James’ attention back to him. “I must admit I can think of half a dozen.”

“I call it Ooldea,” Layne said.

“After the town where the door is?”

“Yes.”

“Surely there’s a more fitting name? I don’t want to offend, of course, but this is a unique place and it should have a unique name.”

“My mother’s people were from around Ooldea. They were Maralinga Tjarutja. They still are, actually. Ooldea was a meeting place for them and the others who lived in the area. This was back hundreds of years ago, thousands even. There was water there, you see. It served the people until the British drained it for steam engines that would travel from one end of the country to the other in the early part of the last century.”

“So Ooldea has been named to honour your mother?” Munn said.

“I never knew her well,” Layne said. “But it’s my hope that one day Ooldea will be a place where people can meet.”

“Thomas told me that there were people here when he first arrived.”

“A town has to learn how to be a town.”

“You had visitors?”

“In a way.” Layne turned. “Are you alright, Mr. James? You look concerned.”

He laughed a little. “No, please, forgive me. I was just—it’s just so different, that’s all.”

“Because there are no people?”

“They were very convincing, I must say.”

“A town must learn to be a town,” Layne repeated. “Now, please, come inside, both of you. I’ve prepared a meal for us.”

Layne led them into the middle restaurant. Inside there was a single table surrounded by a series of paintings. Each of them was of a landscape that James recognised but couldn’t easily place. At first, he thought they were of his world, the world he had just left. After a while, though, he realised that the paintings were familiar to him because he’d seen them in other rips. He recognised the rip full of poisonous gas, the gas a mix of lurid colours that he couldn’t explain, the ground barely visible. Next to it was another of a world breaking apart, the land so fragile that to step on it was to sink into it, to be threatened with falling into a dark nothing.

“Please, take a seat,” Layne said. “That includes you, Mr. James.”

James turned away from the paintings.

“Some people find it difficult to eat with Thomas,” Munn said before he could speak. “The illusions that are bound to him slip with prolonged contact.”

“I am more than happy to examine the paintings you have here,” he said. “I very rarely take part in official discussions anyway.”

“I have already seen through the spells.” Layne positioned himself at the head of the table. “Please, Mr. James, take a seat. I will not be a rude host.”

It was Munn who didn’t want him to sit and eat at the table, James knew. He had said so before, made it clear on a number of occasions that James’ place was well away from him during meals. “I don’t want to be a bother,” he said.

“Thomas,” Munn said, a hint of irritation in his voice. “Don’t offend our guest. Take a seat.”

“I can tell you how to strengthen those illusions,” Layne said after everyone had sat. “If they are your work, that is.”

“They are mine. I’m afraid the illusions aren’t really the point, but rather—”

“The control is.”

“Yes,” Munn said.

“Did you make Thomas?”

“A long time ago. It would be—well, I think it would be twenty-seven years this year. I was a young magician then. I came upon Paracelsus’ work and was drawn to the idea of creating life. I had a few failures before Thomas, failures mostly due to Paracelsus’ instructions, I might add, but eventually I got it right.”

“You must be quite proud,” Layne said. “Few fathers have such capable sons.”

“No.” The other man’s laugh was cold. “No, I’m afraid you’ve misunderstood. Thomas is not my son. I don’t have children. I do not want children. My work is what is important to me. It is the centre of my life. Thomas is part of that. He is—”

“I am his creature,” James finished, surprising not just himself, but Munn as well.

An uncomfortable silence settled around the table. “Creation reveals yourself in ways you don’t expect,” Layne said after a moment. “None of us should be surprised, really. To make something, to create something, asks you to look at yourself in ways you don’t normally. You have to be patient with it. You’re in a conversation, after all. You’re telling your secrets. You’re exposing yourself like you wouldn’t normally. You’re asking for insights that you’re not always going to be comfortable with.”

Food arrived as he finished speaking. It came out of the kitchen on plates that floated by themselves. On them were meats and vegetables and sauces and breads. Drinks followed. The procession was like a tiny parade. James found himself comparing it to the meal that had been laid out beneath the gazebo, the cheapness of the store bought items, the lack of imagination that was at the centre of it.

“What about your work here?” Munn asked after the plates had settled. “Have you been through the doors to other worlds?”

“No.”

“There are entrances to other worlds, yes?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Mr. Layne,” Munn said. “Please. I’ve read about you. I know you’ve met people from other worlds. The director of The Ministry is still the director that you worked under. He gave me your reports. I know that you have met angels and djinns and even a member of the Unseen Court. You’ve had conversations with them. They’ve given you tasks. You’ve even fought one or two. It is why you’re here, at this crossroads, this place that by your own words you hope will become a meeting place.”

“You don’t—” Layne stopped. “I’m afraid that you’ve come here with a misunderstanding. You’re letting your ignorance guide you.”

“I would watch my tone if I were you.”

“It’s just that the world, this world, our world, I mean—this world has had its borders closed for decades. The other worlds shut them with all their power and they patrol them vigorously to stop people coming in and out.”

“What do you mean?” The question slipped out of James. “I’m sorry,” he said, catching himself. “I don’t mean to interrupt. I’ve just never heard anyone say that before.”

“No, I shouldn’t lecture. I’m being a terrible host.” Layne raised his hands in apology. “I have so few people visit. Please, eat your food. Eat your food and let me tell you what I know. Let me tell you how I found Ooldea. You’ll understand what I mean about borders by the end of it.”

4.

I will start by saying that I am no different than most of the people you meet in our profession. I learned what I learned in a haphazard way. A piece here. A piece there. I never found an authority that was complete. I never met a person who knew everything. There’s always something new to learn and something old to make a mistake with. In many ways, it was like studying poetry.

For a while, The Ministry of Saturn was a good place for me to learn and grow. I saw a lot of the world while I worked there. I walked through the hidden labyrinths beneath cities. I rode ships that were tiny floating cities for the living dead. I sat in planes on tarmacs with no names. I met magicians and vampires and djinns and yes, once, a member of the Unseen Court. It was through these meetings that I learned about our closed borders. I learned how we’d been cut off from a larger existence. The people who come here, the people who aren’t like us, are outcasts mostly, runaways, criminals, and the wealthy who are a mix of those others. My job was to learn everything I could from them. The director of The Ministry used to say that Saturn was the father of truth and that a part of him must always be covered or shadowed and that we worked in those shadows to ensure that they were never fully dark.

I allowed myself to believe this. I covered my eyes to the fact that The Ministry was never about truth but was about power. I simply needed it to be about one more than the other. I needed it because of my mother. My mother is where my story begins, you see. The Australian Government took me away from her when I was very young. It was with The Ministry’s help that I was able to uncover the tracks leading back to her. It took too long to find her, though. She would die within two months of meeting her.

For all my skills, for all the things I could bend and break, for all that I had learned from people outside this world, I could do nothing for a woman riddled with cancer. However, I could help those who had been caring for my mother. Her primary carer was a man named Dennis. He was Maralinga Tjarutja, like she was. He was older than me by about a decade and had grown up in Ooldea. He had, in fact, come back to the country with his family. That was where his problem began. One of his children had gone missing.

Dennis didn’t think his son had run away. Instead, he thought he’d gone into the old military base at Maralinga with three of his friends. The base had a long, sordid history. It had been used to test nuclear weapons back in the fifties and sixties and the Maralinga Tjarutja had been forced out of their homes to enable this.

There are no good stories about the base, but the one that sticks in my mind, the one that captures the horror of it best, is the story about the bones of babies. The story about Project Sunshine. You see, The Australian Government purchased over three thousand dead babies and sent them to the base for radiation testing. They didn’t ask any of the parents. How could they? What parent would sell the bones of their child to a government agency? None. Instead, the government paid the staff in hospitals and mortuaries for the dead children. They paid between one hundred dollars and fifty dollars per baby. I don’t know how they decided that one dead baby was worth more than another, but they did. And once they had the bones of these children, they put them out in the nuclear explosions to see how much radiation they’d gather.

The base was weighed down by these horrors and many more. I could feel them from the moment I arrived. It’s still suffering from this history. If you were to walk onto it now, you’d feel your skin prickle with the tragedy and awfulness lingering there. It’s so bad that when I first arrived to find the children, I was overwhelmed by the atmosphere of the place. It is made worse by the fact that the land is barren. The radiation still lingers. You can still find shards of green glass throughout the area from the explosions.

There was a bunker at the edge of the site. There, I am afraid to say, I found my first surprise. On the door was The Ministry’s faded logo, the one from the 1950s that was the outline of Saturn’s veiled face. Beyond the door I heard the song. It was an insistent song, one that dug into me much like the radiation did, one that required a protective ward to be cast just as I had done outside. It was a simple spell, a piece of repetition, but I needed to repeat it every minute. The song coming from within the bunker was strange and alien and performed in a language I didn’t know. The language of it was so strange I wasn’t sure I would be able to perform it, even if I tried.

Ah, I see your excitement, Dr. Munn. You shift around in your chair like a man who thinks he will soon hear one of the great secrets. But sadly, I cannot describe to you what I saw in that bunker, not completely. The song led to a being larger than anything I had seen before. It had such an immensity that all I could comprehend of it were parts. More than once I saw a dozen mouths full of teeth singing. I saw necks and torsos and heads, all disconnected from each other, all emerging from a dark, slippery substance that might be skin but might be something else. The farther I walked through the bunker the more I saw. Eyes would open above me, beside me, below me. I saw ribs. I saw shoulders. I even saw a hand, a huge, clawed, incomplete thing. Soon, I began to realise that whatever this thing was, it wasn’t just one thing, but a whole made up of dozens, maybe a hundred things, none of which was fully there. What I saw was caught between our world and the existence outside our world, that part that no one claims but for those horrors no one speaks of.

I found all four of the missing children in one room. I admit, I was surprised to see them. By then, I thought they were dead. I thought whatever this thing was had devoured them. But I was wrong. It needed them. It needed them to sing. It needed them to chant. It needed them to act as anchor so that it could pull more to it. More people, more animals, more of anything that was alive. More substance that it could use to drag itself into our world.

It was a weak thing, this monster. I want you to know that. I will not talk myself up over what happened next. I am grateful it was weak. I am thankful that when I turned to attack it that it was not at full strength. I am grateful because it fought me like nothing has ever fought me before or after. I know that I could not have defeated it at full strength. It battered me as it was. It threw me. It forced me to use spells of such complexity that I was afraid of what would be done to myself when it came time to pay the cost of them. More than once, I thought I’d lost, but I didn’t.

It was only after our battle that I realised how huge it was, how it had consumed so much already that it would not be sated until it had devoured our world, planets, and universes alike. I also realised that it was our creation. It was not some old thing, nor was it alien. It was ours. We had made it. Somehow in this bunker The Ministry had made this creature. It had used the weapon testing in Maralinga to make this horror. In doing so, it gave all the words and warnings of all the people I met, all the angels and djinns and exiled members of the Unseen Court, a validity that I had never given before.

The entry you used earlier is but one of the entries to that monster’s body. You see, I could not destroy the remains. I could not because I could not destroy the monster itself completely. It is still alive. It is still attached to our world. It is as if there are umbilical cords I cannot see and thus cannot break. It is barely sentient, though. In defeating it, I reduced it to a base state, one it wants to rebuild from. One that I can rebuild it from. So I do. I live inside this monster and I teach it to be something other than what it is. I teach it to be a town. To be a city. To be home. I teach it to be a sanctuary so that when our destructive urges once again create something awful and uncontrollable there is a place for the poor and forgotten, a place where they can go and leave their masters to the fate that they so richly deserve.

Does that not sound appealing, Mr. James?

5.

“I don’t know,” James said. He was staring across the table at Munn. The other man sat straightly in his chair, unnaturally so. In front of him was a scattered mess of food and broken plates. Some of it had spilled over the edge and onto Munn’s lap. “Maybe,” James said. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Don’t feel sorry for him,” Layne said. “I never knew my father. My mother told me that he died young. He was a soldier, she said. That was all she said. But I had father figures, much like your Dr. Munn. I had a number of them while I was growing up and each and every one of them was a bastard. Each saw me as a tool. A tool for money. A tool for labour. A tool for their own ambitions. Not a single one of them cared who I was. And this man does not care who you are.” He rose. “I’ve removed the spells that bind you, Mr. James. It took me a while and you almost gave it away before I was finished. It was why I had to tell my story. I didn’t plan to, but if Munn had realised—well, it’s not important. What’s important now is that you’re free.”

“Thank you.” He didn’t know what else to say. “Thank you,” he said again.

“Don’t thank me, please. It was a common decency. However, now I must ask something of you. Peter Munn cannot stay here. He is not welcome in my home. You can carry him out through the door alive, or you can kill him and throw his body out, I don’t care. I only ask that you do that shortly. Afterwards, you’re welcome to either return or to go on your way. If you wish to stay, I want you to know that I can use a hand with my work. I can use a student. I’m not sure I’ll live to see my work here finished. It’s such an immense task. I would like to know that when I die someone will carry my work on. But there is no obligation. If you wish to leave, you are free to do so. I only ask that you keep my secret and that you do not return.”

After Layne left, James continued to stare at Munn. The other man’s eyes hadn’t left him. James thought he was pleading with him, but he wasn’t sure. At times he thought Munn looked like he was concentrating on something not in the room. At times he looked like he was trying to cast a spell. Munn would be furious once he was free, James knew. If he got free, that was. He would rant. He would scream. He would rebind the spells on James. He would hunt down Layne. He would become the embodiment of something awful and unknown and not concern himself with what happened later so long as he got his revenge. Let the world burn, James could almost hear Munn say.

For a while, he sat and thought about his life. It had started in London. He remembered very little of it. Most of what he did remember took place on the coasts of Sydney and Melbourne. He’d lived his life in a series of ugly apartments and rundown offices. There had been a collection of desperate people around him every day. He thought about the cruelties he’d been subjected to during those times as Munn’s creation. He thought about the kindness he had been shown as well. There had been some of both, but did the fact that he’d had no freedom render the second meaningless? He thought so. He thought about his future, as well. He thought about where he could live without Munn. He thought of the people he could meet. He thought about how they would respond to his true appearance. There would be more cruelties. He would no longer have the comfort of what he knew.

He stood up and walked around the table to where Munn was seated. He placed his hand on the other man’s shoulder.

For a brief moment, he thought again about the choices he could make.