4338.209 · July 28, 2018 AD
Stowaway
Paul has spent the afternoon finding something unexpected: calm. Sorting supplies beside Nial, falling into the rhythm of practical work, the kind that occupies your hands and quiets everything else. Then the Portal flares. Barking. His brother in the dust with a limping Dalmatian — another dog in Clivilius, less than a day after Duke. The confrontation that follows leaves both of them bleeding from wounds that aren't physical. Luke disappears before anything gets resolved. Paul is left with a laptop, an injured animal, and the growing list of things his brother never has time to explain.
The work laptop sits in Nial's desk drawer — the one Luke should have taken the first time. He portals directly into the office, finds it quickly, and is halfway to escape when his phone rings. Wendy. Beatrix's mother. Hysterical about a dead dog wrapped in a bloody towel in her daughter's bathroom.
The call forces Luke through the house — past a sleeping woman, past a child's bedroom where a toddler sits up and watches him pass with eyes too young to understand danger, past a Dalmatian that growls but obeys when commanded. He makes it to the backyard. He's almost free. Then the back door opens, and the boy is standing there with the dog beside him, and the barking starts.
In Clivilius, Paul has been sorting supplies with Nial, finding unexpected rhythm in the practical work. When the Portal flares and barking erupts, both men run toward it. What Paul sees stops him cold: Luke in the dust, a limping Dalmatian beside him, another animal dragged between worlds less than a day after Duke died in this same red dirt.
The accusation comes out before Paul can stop it. Luke shoves him. They stand chest to chest in the dust, brothers who haven't laid hands on each other since childhood, shouting about a dead dog neither of them has finished grieving. Then Luke reveals Wendy found Duke's body, hands Paul a laptop bag without explanation, and steps back through the Portal.
Paul is left holding things he didn't ask for — the laptop, the questions, the weight of a confrontation that resolved nothing. Beside him, Nial kneels in the dust, whispering to a dog who shouldn't be here, and Paul thinks of Charlie waiting by the door in Broken Hill for a car that will never come.
