In the Deadlands by David Gerrold Page A

building and into the street where they shot them. What a joke. Why hadn’t it been listed in TV Guide?
    Ooh, that was almost a bummer. We hopped the up elevator at the top floor and kept going and—
    FLASH!
    â€”and again. What was that? Wow—whatever it was, it was. A desert hung below us. Above us. “Oh, Wooze, look at that!”
    She looked. “Yeah, Deet, I see it.” Luminous flyspecks danced and skittered along a net of silver threads, in and out, patterns of streaking steel. Beyond it, the greater dark.
    Another—
    FLASH!
    â€”and this time we’re out in nothingness, looking at the whole marble. Why isn’t it bigger? I thought it was bigger than that, didn’t you? “Hey, Deet—I mean, Woozle, isn’t that supposed to be bigger?”
    â€œI don’t know, Deet. I’m just following you. Wherever you want, Deet.”
    â€œHey, don’t be a bummer—this is... something .”
    Blue and white streaks, flat mottled brown patches, familiar shapes, but white streaks kept them from being too familiar and—
    FLASH!
    Now! I was starting to see the inside of it. It was like a whiteness, but with crystal blues and spidery blacks and all kinds of coldnesses creeping out from inside. An expanding—and a shrinking too.
    â€œDeet! Please, slow down a bit. You’re going too fast for me.”
    â€œNo, I’m not. It’s okay.”
    A greater darkness beyond, everything was scattered and speckled tiny this side of it. I wanted to expand to fill it. A glaring whiteness off to one side shouldn’t have been that big. After all, it was really only very tiny and—
    Hang on, Deet—here we go!
    FLASH!
    The glaring whiteness dwindled to be a speck like all the others. I marked it for future reference. In case we wanted to come back to it later.
    A wash of bright stretched from one infinity to the other. All the yesterdays stacked against all the tomorrows. The thing had a structure, but I was too close to it to see what it was. I’d have to move back—and the greater darkness backdrop was still just as far away and—
    â€œDeet! Can’t we stop and rest for just a minute?”
    â€œOh, no, kitten! Come on, we’re almost there! This is it! This is really it!”
    And—
    FLASH!
    I grabbed her hand and we went. Yeah, this was it! I didn’t have to say it any more. It wasn’t necessary. I was convinced—because it really was it. IT! The trip—and it was still going!
    A great wheel of spiraling sparkling dust turning against the ultimate velvet. Turning, turning. Oh wow, how big is that thing? How big?
    FLASH!
    Tiny—really very tiny. A myriad of them spin twinkly through the darkness. Like snowflakes, scattering in a wind, roiling ever outward. We dive back into and out of it. I want to keep going. Expand to fill the whole—
    FLASH!
    â€”little fireflies disappear into the hole. And—
    FLASH!
    FLASH!
    FLASH!
    And I still hadn’t filled it.
    FLASH!
    But I was getting there! I was!
    FLASH!
    Oh, Woozle? Isn’t this the greatest—
    FLASH!
    Almost, almost. Just once more, I think—and then we’ll fill this tiny black cubicle, and then one more after that and we’ll burst it and look down onto it from the outside and look down at all the row upon row of identical shiny black globes and—
    FLASH!
    Not yet!
    FLASH!
    Still not yet! Dammit! Once more. I want it, dammit! Let’s go, Woozle. Once more.
    FLASH!
    And I throw my hands outstretched into the nevermore, always reaching and grasping, that elusive black wall remaining just ever so out of my reach and—
    FLASH!
    FLASH!
    FLASH! DAMMIT!
    Blackness, nothing but blackness and blackness beyond. Almost, almost. I almost made it, this time I almost made it...
    FIASH!
    But nothing.
    Okay, so we don’t do the big number this time around. We dive back into the wrong end of the microscope and shrink down into