“Lift your eyes to the light above you. The cleansing god of ages descends to this mortal coil in fury, and, for our future, he brings tidings of empty joy. This ground upon which we quiver, cowering on bent knee, praying for deliverance is not ours. We came to this land, and toiled in its dust and its blood with only our own comfort in mind, and for that we shall pay an ultimate price. This is the end, children! Behold the great and glorious–”

Jack Spencer kicked the plazbrik containment unit out from underneath the street preacher and jerked the filthy man to the ground. Slipping his stunrod from its holster at the small of his back, Spencer prodded the man twice in his chest, knocking the man unconscious.

The crowd, which had been blocking the main thoroughfare for a good hour or so, immediately began to disperse. Earlier, the fringes of that same crowd had begun to thin when Security Chief Spencer had been witnessed heading towards the lawbreaker. The aging portcop had stopped and listened to the echoing diatribes for a moment, whether out of politeness or curiosity, the crowd was unsure.

Spencer flipped the preacher on his stomach and roughly bound his prisoner’s hand behind his back. Without needing a further signal, Spencer’s shadow, a jet black security droid with a blank face, gathered up the criminal and carried him away.

S.C. Spencer watched the crowd disperse under the continuous drone of the aircars overhead. He was slightly irritated that the crowd was not dispersing faster. His RecTact optical implant registered an aircar on manual exceeding the speed limit in a lane one hundred yards away and sixty feet up. Spencer pointed a gloved hand at the violator, and the vehicle pulled out of traffic. After negotiating two lanes along its way, the vehicle stopped just next to the Security Chief.

“Good morning, chief,” the driver said nervously stepping out of the vehicle immediately.

Spencer, not responding, held his hand over the registration glyph on the vehicle. No alerts pinged, and no previous citations were in the system for either the vehicle or its owner.

“Is there something I can help you with?” the driver pressed.

“Manual operation of an air vehicle in this zone is prohibited,” Spencer gruffy stated. “That’s one citation alone. Beyond that, you were exceeding the speed limit, and that is citation number two.”

“Look,” the driver started, but Spencer raised his hand and cut him off.

“Hold out your hand for identification,” Spencer directed.

“Officer, I don’t think this is necessary, you see I’m not from–”

Spencer yanked his stunrod out of its holster and brandished it threateningly. “Hand. Now. Or you’ll be identified in a holding cell after you regain consciousness.”

The driver, startled, stepped backwards and began to speak.

Spencer started forward, raising the stunrod. Before the blow could land, Spencer was vaporized.

Looking around him, the driver, a man named Michael Ross, slipped the destabilizer device back into his pocket. Looking at his wristpad, he spat curses at the time, seeing that he was now excessively late. Re-entering the vehicle he discovered it had been locked down.

With no option left open to him, Michael Ross began to run.

Earlier in the day, Michael Ross had made a terrible discovery, a frighteningly horrible series of events had been set into motion that only Ross could set right. He had left his job without notice and stolen the first air vehicle in sight. Spencer was the second security officer he had run into, the first being the Security Chief Spencer from the neighboring parallel universe.

As he ran, Ross jumped through the veil again, unable to prevent it.

Before him, Security Chief Spencer was stunrodding a dirty street preacher.

Ross ran from him, not caring whether he appeared suspicious or not. In the universe Ross had just jumped into, Spencer had never seen him before.

Sprinting across the elevated walkways, Ross desperately attempted to gain back lost time. Looking at his wristpad, he noticed he had gained five minutes from the jump.

Again, Ross jumped through the veil, only this time, the position of the universe was shifted ever so slightly.

Ross fell a very long way before he collided with concrete. Several minutes later, the same broken corpse fell on a street preacher who had just mounted a plazbrick containment unit to talk about the apocalypse in yet another parallel universe. The collision killed the preacher, but no one noticed that both men were the same person.

Security Chief Spencer had his android assistant clean up the mess while he wondered if he would get to use his stunrod that day.