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For MALLORY
with deep appreciation
from Michael and Neil
For KARI
and the MARKER-MORSE FAMILY
from Mallory
CONTENTS
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
Joey’s Team
Joey Harker
J/O HrKr—male, younger cyborg version of Joey.
Jai—male, senior officer. Spiritual, likes big words.
Jakon Haarkanen—female, wolflike.
Jo—female, has white wings, can fly only on magic worlds.
Josef—male, comes from a denser planet. Large and strong.
Other Walkers of Note
Jaya—female, red-gold hair, voice like a siren.
Jenoh—female, catlike. Mischievous.
Jerzy Harhkar—male, quick and birdlike, feathers for hair. Joey’s first friend on Base.
Joaquim—male, new Walker.
Joliette—female, vampirelike. Has a friendly rivalry with Jo.
Jorensen—male, senior officer. Good-natured, taciturn.
Teachers and Officers
Jaroux—male, the librarian. Loves knowledge, is friendly and quirky.
Jayarre—male, Culture and Improvisation teacher. Cheerful, charismatic.
J’emi—female, Basic Languages teacher.
Jernan—male, quartermaster. Strict and stingy with equipment.
Jirathe—female, Alchemy teacher. Body made from ectoplasm.
Joeb—male, team leader, senior officer. Laid-back, brotherly attitude.
Jonha—male, officer. From a magic world. Skin like tree bark.
Jorisine—female, officer. From a magic world. Elflike.
Joseph Harker (the Old Man)—male, the leader of InterWorld. Older version of Joey. Stern, has a cybernetic eye.
Josetta—female. The Old Man’s assistant. Friendly, well organized, no-nonsense.
Josy—female, officer, has long golden hair with knives braided into it.
CALL ME JOE.
Please.
It’s not that I have anything against “Joey”—it’s a perfectly good name, and it’s worked fine for the first sixteen years of my life. But that’s the point. I’m sixteen now, almost seventeen, and the name “Joey” just doesn’t feel like me anymore. Which maybe isn’t surprising, given that I’ve met more versions of myself than Star Wars has clones. When you stop to think about it, I’ve probably got the biggest identity crisis of all time going, so if I want to drop one lousy letter from my name, I think I’m entitled.
I was trying to explain this to Jai, which wasn’t easy, considering that we and the rest of the team were pinned down by Binary scouts shooting what looked like elongated blobs of mercury at us, and Jai’s not the easiest person to talk to unless you happen to have a dictionary chip installed between your ears. Which I don’t.
He listened, returning fire with more mercury blobs (which are called “plasma pods” in case you’re wondering), and then asked, “Are you unambiguously certain?” Behind him, Jakon leaped on top of a power condenser, crouching all sleek and furry, snarling as she looked for more prey. The wolf girl version of me looked like she might be enjoying this a little. She always did, but I suppose there was nothing wrong with loving your job. . . .
“Excuse me,” Jai said crisply, aiming over my shoulder down the length of the big chamber in the abandoned power plant. He fired the emitter, which made a sort of thwip! sound. I caught a crazy, distorted glimpse of movement from behind me, reflected off the chest area of Jai’s encounter suit: a Binary scout on a grav-board, trying for a sneak attack. Then the plasma pod hit him and negated the binding force in his atomic nuclei, which is how Jai would’ve described it. Me, I’d just say he disappeared in a puff of smoke and a sound like zzzapht!!
This caused a momentary lull in the fighting on both sides, which I took advantage of to ask what he meant. “Huh?” I said. (I get a lot more mileage out of words than Jai does.)