Desmond Arsibault positively glided up the path leading to the small home he shared with Janelle, feeling like he was bursting with energy.

It had been a good night, for Prime. It was late as all get-out, and there were still five more days in the working week, but that was something to worry about later. He was humming a new riff he and the lads had written tonight as he pulled out his jigger and pressed it against the door panel. It unlocked with a dull click and he strolled in.

Janelle was waiting for him, and she was not happy.

"Another all-nighter, Dez? When are you ever going to learn to be responsible?"

Desmond's mood crashed like any number of drunks he'd tossed out of the bar at work today. It was going to be one of those nights. Still, maybe he could head it off. "It was a productive night, lass. We put together a massively porking riff and it's sure to get the creds rolling in."

She wasn't having any of it. She'd heard the same tale before. "And high as ever."

"It's just a little Brill, babe. You know what I'm like."

"Yeah," she said, frowning. "I do."

"It gets the cre-ative juices flowing. Brilliance is what music is made of."

"Then why isn't every tramp on every street corner richer than Melek? You know what? Don't answer. I've heard it all before. I don't want to hear it again. You're destroying yourself, Dez. You need to get off the Brilliance and get a real job. I won't take care of you forever."

Desmond tried to brush past her. "We can talk about this in the morning, lass. I'm harped."

Janelle stood in his path. "We can talk about this now. I'm sick of you ignoring me. Either you promise to get off the Brilliance and do something with your life, or we're done. I hate seeing you like this."

Desmond's spirits sunk. She'd been on his case about the Brilliance before, but there'd never been an ultimatum. Where his music career had failed to take off, leaving him in a dead end job as a bartender, she'd gone into jigger app development right out of school and was rolling in creds. She held all of the high cards and they both knew it. He had to get in control of this argument somehow.

"You hate seein' me, do you? Well, then maybe I should just go."

"Maybe you should. Good-bye, Desmond." She closed the door in his face

* * *

Desmond crashed at the bar that night. He tried to ping Janelle in the morning, and she didn't respond. He told Jerry, the bar's owner, that his old girl had tossed him out, and Jerry agreed to rent him the spare room above the bar until things got sorted out, however long that took. Jerry was gold, that man was.

It was still most of the day before Desmond's shift started, and he was cranky that Janelle hadn't responded to his ping. He couldn't take this drek, he needed to take the edge off. He popped a tab of Brilliance and went to his house and started moving all of his drek out. Maybe when she saw it was all gone she'd realise he was serious and ping him.

She didn't.

Days passed, and then the weekend, and still no pings. He tried pinging her again at the end of the weekend and finally she responded, then cut the connection as soon as she realised he was high.

Another week passed, and then another, and still another. It finally started to sink in to Desmond that the rotting hen had really cut him loose for good. He stopped practicing his jigger before work altogether; he needed Brilliance more. He got sloppier and sloppier with taking care that the Brill had worn off before work started, and fatigued at the end of the nights, he started drinking after the bar closed.

And then before the bar closed.

Between the Brill and the booze, Desmond was struggling to make ends meet financially. And that's when Jerry reamed him out for being all drekked up at work. He warned Desmond that if he kept it up, he'd be out of a job and a home.

Desmond kept it up. Jerry, as it turned out, didn't have even as much patience as Janelle.

Now he had nowhere else to go. No family to turn to. No prospects. Janelle still wouldn't respond to his pings. His musician buddies didn't have their own houses, they were all mooching off of their significant others, bosses, and sometimes even parents.

It was over.

* * *

Jerry'd given Desmond a decent severence package, but no matter how often Desmond checked his credit balance on his jigger, it never added up to enough to live off of for very long. Not at the rate he was giving it back to Jerry by drinking it away. The new bartender was complete drek, too.

Now it was Desmond getting tossed bodily out of Jerry's when he'd had too much. He started keeping company with shadier and shadier characters. He started helping with small robberies to keep the creds flowing in.

This isn't me, thought Desmond. Now he couldn't even meet Janelle's eye when he saw her in town. He started ducking away and hiding from anyone he knew, unable to face them knowing that he'd become a small-time hood. But he needed the Brilliance, and the Boys weren't going to let him have it for free. Desmond sure as drek didn't want to borrow money from the Boys, he knew what happened to people who didn't pay on time.

It was time to put a stop to it. He managed to resist the temptation to do Brill for a whole day. It was a drek-soaked nightmare, but he managed it. He wanted a clear head when the decision was made. It was only bearable because he spent most of the day hooked into Nexus, feeling the worm orange glow of the world's lifepulse fill him. It was risky as drek with the swinging dicks cracking down on gang-related crimes, but he needed it. Drek, maybe being hooked in was what made the swinging dicks overlook him. They'd never expect a petty thug to be hooked in during a robbery.

He made it. As the day's work was done, he was clearheaded and Brilliance-free, and the swinging dicks hadn't tossed him in the clink.

"Hey Crossbones," he said to one of his lovely, salt-of-Nexus co-workers, "Drek's getting a bit harsh. There's just too many swinging dicks patrolling, and I don't want to be talkin' to them while I'm holding. I need some protection, catch?"

"Aye," replied Crossbones. Crossbones didn't talk much. "You got fifteen hun?"

1500 credits was a lot of money for a gun, but Desmond wouldn't be needing credits for too much longer. He beamed the money into Crossbones' jigger without comment and Crossbones produced the gun.

Shoving it in his pocket, Desmond realised that he really wouldn't need creds anymore. He flashed his balance at Crossbones. "How much Brill can you get me for the rest?"

Crossbones grunted. "A cent and seven."

"107 tabs?" expostulated Desmond, "That's highway robbery!"

Crossbones showed his teeth. "'m a robber."

It didn't matter. With 107 tabs, Desmond could be happy for a while, before the time came.

* * *

Decision made, Desmond took a day off; gang life was a 10 day a week job, but he could opt out any time he wanted by giving up his share of the spoils, and that wasn't going to matter anymore. He had 33 tabs of Brilliance left from before his last purchase, so he filled one cent-case with the old ones and 45 of the new ones and put the other 42 in a separate case, taking care to keep the oldest ones at the bottom. Brilliance got more potent with time.

Desmond hadn't been to the Temple in years. Every town on Nexus sprung up around its Temple, and every Temple around its Table. The Tables were the points at which the boundaries between worlds were the thinnest, and standing on one, you could sometimes sense those other worlds. He'd actually heard one through a Table before when he was a kid, but it might have been his imagination. It was said that when the boundaries became thin enough, one could even step through to another world. Everyone knew those other worlds were real, because once in a while, an alien phased in through one of the Tables There were even tales that an alien had managed to phase back out and go home, but it had taken over 200 years for the same world to synch with Nexus a second time and most people didn't live much past 120. 150 at the most. Given that the world he lived in had no charm left for Desmond, he found the Table extra appealing today.

Desmond hooked into Nexus on the way in. Most people hooked in when they went to the Temple; it was always cold around a Table, and the world's orange glow was warm. Desmond slipped a tab of Brilliance into his mouth, but didn't bite down. He didn't want anyone to see him taking at the Temple, there would be swinging dicks there. He had on his best leather jacket, jigger in one pocket and gun in the other. He kept the gun with him all of the time now.

Janelle was there. Desmond wondered if it wouldn't be a sign. He said hi to her, but she pointedly ignored him.

"Sorry, miss," he muttered loud enough to be heard, "I thought you were someone I used to know."

Even that didn't get a reaction. Right then, Desmond changed his plans. Smurf waiting until he'd taken all of the Brilliance. It was time. He'd walked in the temple gates, but he sure as drek wouldn't be walking out. He'd blow his smurfing brains out right there in front of her, let her see what she'd done to him. Let everyone see. Idly, he wondered if he'd have a funeral. Would she even care? Would she come? Maybe she'd wear that green number he'd always told her he liked. He didn't actually like it, he'd just been trying to get it onto the floor at the time, but he'd consistently stuck with the story over a year and a half and surely that's what she'd wear to his funeral.

There were several people already on the table, doing a walking meditation. He joined the queue. Thankfully the friars weren't singing today. They were drek at singing. Those sanctimonious skunds wouldn't know music if it bit them right in the drek-chute. Those not on the table were listening to some sort of bird-drek speechifying by the abbess, but Desmond had never liked her, or the abbot who had come before her. Skunds, the both of them.

Desmond waited until he was near the center of the table, and then deliberately unhooked from Nexus. Everyone who was hooked in felt it, of course. Hooking and unhooking inside the temple was frowned upon. Desmond gloried in the disapproval. He revelled in the fact that no doubt, dozens of the swinging dicks were paying attention to him now, while he was holding enough Brilliance to start dealing, and it didn't even matter. You can't touch me now, skunds. It's too late.

The chill of the temple seeped in as the orange glow of Nexus faded out. Desmond closed his eyes and bit down on the tab of Brilliance in his mouth. Immediately, the chill started to fade. Brilliance was so much better than being hooked in. He took one step, then two, as the euphoria built up. Five steps. Six. Seven. Ten. At the first Height, he slipped his hand into his pocket and drew his gun. With a flourish, he held it high in the air while the Brilliance filled him like the light of a thousand suns, and set it against his chin. It was time.

But wait...why wasn't anyone screaming? He was waving a gun around in a Temple, for drek's sake. At least the swinging dicks ought to be taking aim at him, shouting at him to drop the weapon, but the only sound Desmond heard was birdsong.

Birdsong? In the Temple?

He realised that he could feel a warm glow as if of sunlight on his face, and it wasn't the Brilliance. He opened his eyes.

The temple was gone. He stood in a grassy clearing in a forest, with the sun beaming down on him. In the middle of winter. There wasn't a soul in sight.

Astounded, Desmond slipped the gun back into his pocket. He'd done it! He'd travelled to another world! Outside of legends, no Nexan had ever managed to phase out. That had to be the secret -- being hooked in linked a person too strongly to Nexus to allow them to phase out. That's why aliens could do it, most of them never learned to hook in. Or maybe it was the Brilliance. That would be perfect! He could phase back in, share his secret, and become rich as drek! Janelle would regret tossing him out when he was rolling in creds from being the only Nexan ever to master the secret of phasing--and if Brilliance was the enabler, they'd have to legalise it!

Only minutes before, Desmond had been ready to kill himself, but now all of the cards were falling into place. He'd be a smurfing legend. Grinning, he turned around and walked a few more steps, feeling for that sense of thinness that would lead him back home, to take his place in the history of all of the worlds.

It was gone.

He was still high. The Brilliance was strong as ever, he should definitely be able to feel the thinness. It wasn't there.

Desperately, he tried to hook in, and immediately recoiled. The warm orange glow of Nexus wasn't there. It was...blue.

He took a deep breath and tried to hook in again. It was different, but still warm and comforting, and the bluest blue he could possibly imagine. He tried to use the alien blue glow of this world to locate his way home, but to no avail.

Just for a moment, this world and Nexus had come close enough for someone to phase through...but now it was gone, and Desmond would be an old man when it came again, even in the unlikely case he was alive to see it at all.

He was trapped here forever.