The Fencer of Bixbus

“Back home, I built fences to keep things out. Here, they want me to build them just to stay alive. Funny how purpose finds you when you’re completely lost.”

As Luke manoeuvred my ute through the kaleidoscopic colours of the Portal, I watched, dumbstruck, as clouds of ochre dust billowed around the vehicle's tyres, gradually settling onto the terrain in slow, lazy spirals that caught the too-bright sunlight. The whole scene had a dreamlike quality—or perhaps nightmare-like would be more accurate—as reality continued to bend and break around me in ways my mind simply refused to accept.

The engine rumbled, incongruously normal against the backdrop of impossible colour and impossible physics. I could hear the transmission shifting, could see the suspension compressing as the tyres found purchase on solid ground, could watch the dust plume rise and disperse—all of it following normal, earthly rules whilst simultaneously emerging from a portal that shouldn't exist into a world that couldn't be real.

Luke stepped out of the vehicle, his movements quick and purposeful, his gaze instantly finding Kain and me where we stood frozen perhaps twenty metres from the Portal. His face was flushed, whether from exertion or stress I couldn't tell from this distance, and there was something in his expression—determination mixed with what might have been guilt or might have been fear or might have been both.

"Luke!" Kain's voice broke through the air, tinged with both surprise and relief, carrying across the empty landscape with startling clarity.

The greeting seemed to suggest that Luke's arrival hadn't been guaranteed, that there'd been some question about whether he'd follow through the Portal with my vehicle or abandon it—abandon me—on the other side. The thought sent a fresh spike of panic through my chest. Had that been a possibility? Could he have just left me here with my ute whilst he returned to Earth, to normality, to the world that made sense?

I barely acknowledged Kain's greeting, my senses overwhelmed by the surreal chaos that enveloped us, by the sheer impossibility of everything that had happened in the past—what? Ten minutes? Twenty? Time had become as unreliable as space, as meaningless as all the other constants I'd built my life around.

"Nial owns a fence construction business," I heard Luke explain to Kain as he walked towards us, his voice carrying that same forced casualness he'd employed at the Owens' cottage, as if this were a normal introduction at a normal job site rather than whatever madness this actually was.

His words floated to me as if from a distance, inconsequential against the backdrop of this bizarre and potentially perilous landscape. What did my business matter here? What did fences matter in a place that apparently required portals to access, in a world that existed somewhere my phone couldn't reach, somewhere Jenny couldn't find me?

The mention of my profession felt absurd, ridiculous, like someone discussing proper resume formatting whilst the building burned down around them. Yes, I owned a fence construction business. A failing fence construction business. A business that was back on Earth where it belonged, where I belonged, where everything I cared about waited for me to return from what was supposed to be a simple job consultation.

My thoughts were adrift in a sea of confusion, barely noticing Luke's approach until he stood directly before me, close enough that I could see the sweat beading on his forehead, the tension in his jaw, the way his hands trembled slightly as he held something out towards me.

My keys.

My house keys, my office keys, my ute keys—all of them dangling from the familiar keyring that Sammy had made me at daycare last year, a lumpy clay approximation of a dog that might have been Buffy or might have been any dog or might have been no dog at all, just the abstract concept of dog rendered by a four-year-old's hands.

"Do these include your office keys?" Luke inquired, his question piercing through my dazed state with uncomfortable specificity.

Office keys. Why did he need my office keys? Why did he have my keys at all? They'd been in the ute's ignition, I realised dimly, where I'd left them because I'd only been planning to be gone a few minutes, just long enough to look at some plans, just long enough to hear about a job that would supposedly save everything.

"Yeah," I answered, the word emerging without conscious thought. The keys' familiar jingle seemed out of place, almost surreal in this context, a sound from the normal world intruding on whatever nightmare dimension I'd stumbled into.

"Where's your office?" Luke pressed on, his question stirring a whirlpool of confusion within me, pulling me deeper into incomprehension.

Why did he need to know that? What possible relevance could my office location have to anything that was happening here? Unless—the thought struck with cold clarity—unless he was planning to go back. Unless the Portal worked both ways for some people, even if Kain had claimed I couldn't return. Unless Luke had more business to conduct on Earth before... before what?

"It's a home office. Why?" My response was laced with bewilderment, but also with a desperate hope I couldn't quite suppress. If Luke was going back, if he could access my office, maybe he could deliver a message. Maybe he could tell Jenny something, anything, explain that I'd been delayed, that I'd return soon, that everything would be fine even though nothing was fine and I had no idea if I'd ever return.

Luke's voice faded into a distant hum as he turned away, walking back towards the Portal with purpose, his movements suggesting plans and objectives I wasn't privy to, motivations I couldn't begin to guess. I heard him say something about the key being in my ute's ignition, heard his words about my office address, but they barely registered in my mind—sounds without meaning, information floating past without landing anywhere that could process it.

And then, before I could formulate a response, before I could ask the thousand questions crowding my throat, before I could beg him to take a message to my wife, Luke was gone.

He simply walked back into the Portal—that impossible, shimmering barrier that had refused to let me pass—and the colours swallowed him whole. The surface rippled and sparked, accepting his passage with the same casual ease that it had rejected mine, and then he was through, disappeared, back to the world I'd been ripped from.

He left behind a void filled with unanswered questions and deepened the enigma of this peculiar world I had stumbled into. The situation's absurdity was gradually dawning on me with crushing weight, each moment layering on the surrealism and intricacy of this unforeseen odyssey that I'd embarked upon through no choice of my own, through nothing more than greed and desperation and spectacularly poor judgment.

As I stood there, my mind lost in a whirlwind of confusion, the harsh reality of my circumstances began to crystallise with painful clarity: this barren land, so alien and unfathomable, was now my startling new reality. Not temporarily. Not for a visit or an extended job. But potentially forever, if Kain's earlier statement held true, if that magnetic barrier was truly impassable from this side.

The red-brown dust clung to my boots, gritted between my teeth when I breathed, settled on my skin like a second layer. The sun beat down with an intensity that suggested midday despite my internal clock insisting it should still be morning—though how would I know? Did this place even follow Earth's rotational patterns? Did it have days and nights in any recognisable sense?

"You've just missed Luke," Kain's voice broke through my thoughts, directed at someone I hadn't even noticed approaching.

I turned, sluggish as if moving through water, and saw a figure walking towards us from the direction of a cluster of shapes I'd barely registered earlier—structures, perhaps, or equipment, too distant and too obscured by heat shimmer to make out clearly.

The newcomer was a man, probably mid-thirties, with the lean, weathered look of someone who spent significant time outdoors doing physical labour. His face was tanned and lined beyond his years, and his brow glistened with sweat that mingled with dust on his forehead, leaving a grimy streak across his skin that he didn't seem to notice or care about.

There was a confidence in his stride, a purposefulness that suggested he knew exactly where he was and what he was doing here, that this landscape held no surprises or terrors for him.

"But this is Nial," Kain introduced me, gesturing in my direction with the casual ease of someone performing social niceties at a garden party rather than in whatever hellscape we currently occupied.

The man's eyes—brown, intelligent, assessing—shifted to me, taking in my appearance with a quick, professional evaluation. I wondered what he saw: a man in shock, a man covered in dust he hadn't earned through honest labour, a man whose expression probably screamed confusion and terror in equal measure.

Kain shifted his focus to me, adding with a slight note of respect in his voice, "Paul is our camp leader. He's the one who keeps us all organised and safe."

Camp leader. The words suggested structure, organisation, hierarchy. They suggested that this wasn't just random people dumped into an impossible place, but some kind of established settlement with roles and responsibilities and systems. Which raised more questions than it answered: How long had people been here? How many people? How did one become camp leader of an impossible place? And what exactly did "safe" mean in a context where the normal rules of reality apparently didn't apply?

Paul stepped forward, extending his hand in a gesture of welcome that seemed almost absurdly normal given the circumstances. His palm, when I saw it, was calloused and scarred—the hand of someone who'd done significant physical work, who understood labour and tools and building things. The hand of someone like me, actually, in another life, in another world.

"Nice to meet you, Nial," he said, his voice carrying a tone of genuine regret that surprised me, that suggested empathy and understanding rather than the casual indifference I'd half-expected. "I'm sorry you got caught up in all of this."

The apology was unexpected, and somehow that made everything worse. Because it acknowledged that this was something to be sorry about, that my situation was indeed as dire as it appeared, that whatever "all of this" was, it wasn't something any reasonable person would choose.

I hesitated, the surrealism of the situation making every action feel heavy and uncertain, as if moving or speaking might somehow make everything more real, might cement my presence here in ways that remaining frozen might avoid. But social conditioning ran deep—someone extended their hand, you shook it. That's what civilised people did, even in impossible places.

Finally, I reached out, accepting his handshake. His grip was firm and warm, his hand surprisingly clean given the dusty environment, suggesting either recent washing or remarkable fastidiousness. The contact was grounding in a way I hadn't expected, a connection to another human being in this place where humanity seemed to be an imported commodity rather than a natural feature.

"Yeah, me too," I responded, my voice tinged with a mix of bewilderment and reluctant acceptance, the words inadequate to capture the roiling chaos of emotions—terror, confusion, anger, despair, disbelief—that fought for dominance in my chest.

As I shook his hand, the reality of my predicament weighed heavily on me like a physical burden I couldn't put down. I was in a place far removed from everything I knew, a world where the familiar constructs of my life no longer held any relevance. The handshake with Paul was a small anchor in the storm of confusion, a fleeting connection to some semblance of normality in a situation that was anything but normal.

Mount Nelson, Jenny, Sammy, Buffy, my ute's insurance payment due in the next month, the supplier invoice I'd been planning to negotiate—all of it existed in a different reality now, separated from me by barriers both literal and metaphysical that I couldn't begin to understand let alone overcome.

As Paul's gaze subtly shifted, I followed his line of sight downward to Kain's leg, noticing for the first time what I'd missed in my shock-induced tunnel vision. A small trickle of blood was seeping from beneath a grimy bandage wrapped around Kain's calf, the fabric darkened with dried blood and fresh, the wound obviously recent and inadequately treated.

The sight added a visceral reality to the already surreal situation, a reminder that this place—whatever it was—held real dangers that produced real injuries and presumably real deaths. This wasn't a protected simulation or a controlled experiment. This was somewhere that could hurt you, could damage you, could potentially kill you if you weren't careful or if you were simply unlucky.

"Kain, let's load Nial's ute with the remaining camping supplies to take back to camp," Paul stated with a confidence that seemed out of place in the chaos, his tone suggesting this was a perfectly ordinary request rather than something that raised a dozen new questions.

Camping supplies. Camp. The words suggested infrastructure, organisation, some kind of established settlement with needs and resources and logistics. Which meant people had been here long enough to develop systems, to figure out what was required for survival, to create something resembling society in this desolate place.

I briefly wondered how Paul knew the ute was mine—I hadn't introduced myself beyond the name, hadn't claimed ownership of the vehicle—but then a quick survey of our surroundings provided the obvious answer. Apart from the strewn camping supplies scattered around the Portal area and the hazy collection of shapes in the distance that Paul had presumably emerged from, there was only the vast, barren landscape.

Rolling hills stretched in every direction, their brown and reddish hues creating an undulating terrain that reminded me of photographs I'd seen of Mars or the Australian outback. The colour palette was wrong for Tasmania—too red, too dry, too empty. There were no trees, no vegetation visible anywhere.

The only break in this desolation was a large mountain range in the distance, rising like a wall beyond the Portal's massive screen, their peaks purple-grey against that impossibly blue sky. They provided the only sense of scale, the only reference point in a landscape that otherwise seemed to extend forever in gentle, undulating sameness.

Of course the ute was mine. There was nothing else here that it could belong to.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Kain agreed, snapping me back to the conversation at hand, pulling my attention from the desolate horizon back to the immediate present. He grimaced slightly as he shifted his weight, his injured leg clearly causing significant pain. "My leg is getting too painful to walk."

The admission came with visible reluctance, as if acknowledging weakness was something Kain found difficult, as if admitting to pain might somehow make him less capable in Paul's eyes or his own. I recognised the masculine stoicism—the same impulse that made injured workers insist they could keep going, that made men ignore symptoms until they became critical, that valued toughness over sense.

"You need to rest your leg," Paul advised him, his tone laced with concern that seemed genuine, paternal almost, suggesting a relationship that went beyond simple leadership to something more personal. "And you really should consider going to the river or lagoon to clean your wound."

River. Lagoon. The words offered a fleeting reprieve from the harshness of our immediate surroundings, suggesting that there might be more to this desolate landscape than what I could currently see. Water meant life, meant resources, meant possibilities for survival beyond whatever supplies had been brought through the Portal.

"I'll return to the Portal because I need to talk to Luke," Paul continued, his rapid-fire delivery leaving me reeling, each piece of information compounding the complexity of our predicament, "and I promise you that I will ask Luke to get you some crutches."

The statement confirmed what I'd suspected—Luke could come and go, could traverse the Portal freely whilst I remained trapped. The inequality of it burned in my chest, mixing with the confusion and fear to create something approaching anger. Why him and not me? What made him special? What made him trustworthy enough to move between worlds whilst I was imprisoned here?

But more than that, the casual mention of Luke returning to get crutches suggested routine, suggested this had happened before, suggested a system and supply chain that stretched between worlds, between the impossible and the ordinary. How long had this been going on? How many trips had Luke made? How many people had he pushed through that Portal?

And most terrifying of all—how many people were waiting for those people to come home, not knowing they never would?

The mention of a river and lagoon, however, offered that fleeting reprieve from the harshness of our surroundings. The idea that there might be more to this desolate landscape, however small, was a sliver of hope in an otherwise bleak situation. Where there was water, there was life. Where there was life, there was possibility. Not good possibility, perhaps, but possibility nonetheless.

Kain's nod was laden with both pain and gratitude. He manoeuvred into the front seat of my ute with visible discomfort, the effort etched in every line of his face, his jaw clenched against obvious pain as he pulled his injured leg up and into the cab. Meanwhile, the duty of loading the ute with supplies fell squarely on Paul and me.

It was a task that seemed insignificant in the grand context of our predicament—moving boxes and bags from ground to truck bed, basic physical labour that I'd done a thousand times on job sites—yet it was apparently vital for our survival in this unfamiliar world. Each item I lifted and arranged was a tangible echo of the harsh new reality we had been thrust into: tents, sleeping bags, water containers, food supplies in sealed containers, tools, rope, tarps—all the practical necessities of survival in a place without infrastructure.

As Paul and I silently worked together, packing the camping gear, a heavy quietude enveloped us. He moved with quickly, clearly having done this before, whilst I moved thoughtfully, my actions tinged with tension and disbelief, my body going through familiar motions whilst my mind spun in increasingly desperate circles.

The ordinary act of loading a ute—something I'd done countless times, something that was part of my regular work routine—was now layered with the surrealism of my situation. My mind struggled to grasp the disappearance of the Owens' house and the world I knew, to reconcile the Tasmanian winter morning I'd left with the harsh desert sunlight beating down on me now.

What time was it back home? Was Jenny wondering where I was yet? Or was she still occupied with whatever Saturday morning tasks filled her time, assuming I'd text her when I was on my way back, trusting in my reliability, in my predictable patterns, in my habit of always coming home?

Caught in a maelstrom of thoughts I couldn't organise or suppress, I found my inner musings spilling out into the open air, breaking the heavy silence between Paul and myself. My voice sounded distant, even to my own ears, as if it belonged to someone else, someone who could speak whilst I drowned in confusion.

I recounted Luke's tempting offer of one hundred thousand dollars for an urgent job, the words leaving a bitter taste in my mouth, filled with regret and self-reproach that burned like bile. Had I only heeded the warning signs, the too-good-to-be-true nature of the offer, I might not have found myself in this predicament. Every red flag I'd catalogued and ignored paraded through my memory now with mocking clarity.

The recounting of the event brought a surge of remorse so powerful it was almost physical, a tightening in my chest that made breathing difficult. I lamented having ever picked up Luke's call, cursed my phone for ringing at all, wished desperately that I'd been in the shower ten minutes longer, that I'd let it go to voicemail, that I'd made any of a thousand different choices that morning that would have kept me safely at home.

That one seemingly innocuous decision—answering a phone call on a Saturday morning—had irrevocably altered my life's trajectory in ways I was only beginning to comprehend. Though not typically given to religious inclinations, despite growing up with a nominal Anglican background that had involved Christmas carols and Easter services but little else, I found myself silently beseeching any deity that might be listening.

I prayed—actually prayed, for the first time in decades—that this bizarre and desolate place would not become my permanent reality. That this was some kind of elaborate nightmare from which I'd wake. That physics would reassert itself and reveal this all to be hallucination. That Jenny would shake me awake and laugh at my strange dream whilst Sammy jumped on the bed demanding breakfast.

But the dust remained real beneath my hands, the weight of the supply boxes remained solid in my arms, and Paul's presence beside me remained undeniable.

As I continued to speak into the stillness, each word seemed to resonate in the air, echoing the chaos that churned within me. Paul, absorbed in arranging the supplies with meticulous care that suggested either long practice or natural fastidiousness, remained mostly silent throughout my rambling confession. His presence offered a quiet solidarity, a reminder that I wasn't entirely alone in this nightmare even if I was alone in my particular circumstances.

His occasional nods and gentle prompts—small encouraging sounds, a "go on" here, a "what happened next" there—encouraged me to delve deeper into my story. So I did. I recounted the events leading to the Owens' property: the drive through increasingly dense forest, the isolation, the cottage that looked so innocent, so ordinary.

I described the hypnotic wall of swirling colours that I'd mistaken for artwork, that I'd admired even whilst it was being used to trap me. I explained how Luke had pushed me through that iridescent barrier into this unfathomable world, the violence of it still shocking every time I remembered the feeling of his shoulder slamming into my ribs, the betrayal of that moment when I'd realised what was happening.

As I spoke, I found myself repeatedly pinching my arm through my work shirt, a rudimentary reality check amidst the overwhelming surrealism. Each pinch was sharp and real, confirming the undeniable truth of my predicament with small spikes of pain that would have woken me from any normal dream. But this wasn't a normal dream, and the pain only confirmed what I already knew and couldn't accept.

In the midst of my confusion and disorientation, Paul spoke up, his voice soft yet clear, breaking through my verbal spiral with information rather than sympathy. "This place," he began, pausing to shift a heavy water container into the ute's tray, his voice strained slightly with the effort, "it's called Clivilius."

Clivilius. That name again. The same word the voice had used, the same word Kain had announced with that mocking grandeur. Hearing it a third time made it more real somehow, gave it weight and solidity that repetition brings to even the strangest concepts.

Paul paused, his eyes meeting mine over the side of the ute, conveying a depth of understanding that suggested he knew exactly how I felt, that he'd been where I was now, that he'd walked this same path from disbelief to acceptance. "And the small settlement we're part of," he continued, gesturing towards the distant shapes I'd noticed earlier, "it's called Bixbus."

Bixbus. Another foreign name, though this one sounded almost comical in its construction, like a word made up by combining random syllables until something pronounceable emerged. But there was no humour in Paul's delivery, nothing that suggested the name was anything other than sincere.

The surreal nature of my situation was overwhelming, each new piece of information adding layers to an already incomprehensible reality. Names suggested permanence, suggested establishment, suggested a world that would continue existing whether I understood it or not, whether I accepted it or not, whether I survived here or not.

As I nodded, a torrent of emotions washed over me with physical force that left me breathless: fear—sharp and immediate, the kind that makes your hands shake and your heart race. Confusion—deep and disorienting, the kind that makes you question not just your situation but your sanity. And a desperate longing for the familiar life I had been ripped away from—so intense it was almost painful, an ache in my chest where my heart was supposed to be.

I was trapped in a world that was as mysterious as it was daunting. The reality of Clivilius and Bixbus, though spoken with calm certainty by Paul, felt like distant concepts, too strange to fully grasp, too alien to integrate into my understanding of reality. How does one mentally accommodate the existence of other worlds? How does one accept imprisonment in a place that shouldn't exist?

Yet, despite the strangeness of it all, there was a grounding presence in Paul's demeanour. His calm acceptance of this reality, however bizarre it may be, offered a small beacon of hope in the disorienting fog that enveloped my mind. His words, though few, provided a semblance of structure in a world where everything I knew had been upended.

If Paul could accept this place, could function here, could apparently lead others here, then perhaps it was survivable. Not pleasant, perhaps. Not desirable. But survivable. And survival was all I could hope for right now.

As Paul deemed the ute sufficiently packed with supplies—the tray now filled with organised chaos, everything secured with practiced efficiency that spoke of experience with rough terrain and precious cargo—he gestured for us to climb aboard. I slid into the vehicle, taking care to sit beside Kain without jostling his injured leg, which he'd propped awkwardly across the seat in a position that looked uncomfortable but presumably kept pressure off the wound.

I was about to inquire about his injury—when had it happened, how had it happened, was it from something dangerous I needed to know about—when Paul slid in beside me, his presence bringing a reassuring yet solemn atmosphere to the confined space of the ute's cab.

"Everything will be okay," Paul assured me, his voice firm yet gentle as he reached forward and started the ignition.

The engine rumbled to life with blessed familiarity, that same reliable sound I'd heard a thousand times, and for a moment I could close my eyes and pretend I was back in Tasmania, heading to a normal job site, living a normal life with normal problems like overdue invoices and disappointed clients rather than impossible portals and alien landscapes.

But then I opened my eyes and saw the red-brown terrain stretching ahead, and the illusion shattered.

The journey through the barren landscape toward a place Paul called Bixbus was surreal beyond any previous standard of surrealism I'd experienced. The stark, reddish terrain stretched endlessly around us, broken only by occasional outcroppings of rock and those stunted, twisted bushes that looked like they were fighting a losing battle against whatever harsh conditions prevailed here.

As we drove—Paul navigating from the back seat with surprising competence, calling directions to himself as he steered with one hand whilst bracing against my seat with the other—I found myself opening up more about my life. Perhaps it was the motion of the vehicle, that familiar sensation of being driven somewhere providing a false sense of normality. Perhaps it was the simple human need to talk when confronted with the inexplicable. Perhaps I was simply losing my grip entirely.

I told him about my struggling fencing business, though I couldn't bring myself to reveal just how dire the situation had become, couldn't admit to the accounting error and the mounting debt and the sleepless nights spent staring at spreadsheets that never balanced. Even here, trapped in an impossible place, pride kept certain failures locked away.

Paul listened intently whilst simultaneously managing to drive, providing comforting words that suggested both genuine empathy and practiced leadership. But then he began unveiling the dangers that lurked within Clivilius, and the comfort evaporated.

He spoke casually, almost matter-of-factly, about threats I couldn't fully comprehend—creatures that didn't exist in any biology textbook, environmental hazards that defied earthly logic, dangers both natural and otherwise that made this red desert far more treacherous than its empty appearance suggested. His talk of danger stirred a sense of unease within me that went beyond the abstract terror of displacement and into concrete fear for immediate survival.

But it was his suggestion of using my fencing skills to help the settlement that caught me off guard, that penetrated through the fog of fear and confusion to register as something almost familiar, almost comprehensible.

He spoke of building protective fences for Bixbus, of using my expertise to create barriers against whatever dangers lurked in this strange new world, of turning my professional knowledge into something valuable for this community I'd been unwillingly conscripted into. It was a practical use of my skills in this impractical place, a suggestion that I might have value here, might have purpose, might be more than just another mouth to feed.

However, the irony of the situation wasn't lost on me, and it hit with bitter force. There I was, in an unknown world, being asked to use skills from a business that was teetering on the edge of collapse back home. The thought was almost laughable if it weren't so painfully ironic, if it didn't highlight just how completely everything had inverted.

On Earth, my fencing business was dying, unable to compete, unable to maintain cash flow, unable to keep my family secure. And here, in hell or another dimension or wherever this was, suddenly my skills were valuable, were needed, were apparently crucial for survival.

Despite the surreal and desperate circumstances, I couldn't bring myself to reveal to Paul the dire state of my business. It felt trivial—who cared about accounting errors and tax debts when you were trapped in another world?—yet somehow too personal and painful to share in this moment. The failure was mine alone to carry, even here, even now.

So I remained silent on that matter, nodding along and listening as Paul outlined plans and possibilities that seemed so distant from my current reality they might as well have been discussions of colonising Mars. The idea of being in this place, Bixbus, permanently was a concept I was still struggling to accept. Not just struggling—actively rejecting, my mind refusing to accommodate the possibility that this might be forever, that I might never see Jenny again, never hold Sammy, never sleep in my own bed or drink coffee in my own kitchen or do any of the thousand ordinary things that made up a life.

Every mention of long-term plans, every discussion of permanent structures, every reference to "when you're settled" rather than "while you're here" felt like a subtle reminder of the life I was losing grip on, the life that was slipping away with each passing moment I remained trapped in this impossible place.

The ute bounced over rough terrain, the suspension groaning in protest, and through the windscreen I could finally make out what Paul had been driving toward: a cluster of structures that resolved from heat-shimmer abstraction into concrete reality as we approached.

Bixbus. My new home, apparently.

Whether I wanted it to be or not.