"How do you know him?" asked Ann, "Did you read my mind when we just saw him?"
"No. I just know him."

"But you never met him. What did he do to end up here? He doesn't even have his own spaceship, let alone the means to travel through a warp into another dimension, although I guess any ship could be sucked through as we were."

"Maybe he stowed away in Wildstar."

"Not possible," thought Ann.

"Anything's possible here," said Arella, reading Ann's mind again.

"But to get here, he must have stowed away back on earth in our own dimension, where it would have been impossible to trick Butler One into opening the hatch. Maybe he's not the Mark Logan we know. I've watched science fiction television shows about parallel universes. Do you think we might be in a parallel world, where things are different?"

"Maybe, but I doubt it," said Arella, "I don't even think that it is a dimension. It seems to be a realm outside of time and space. It is more than you get with time and space, isn't it?"

"Yes it is, but Mark is taking a long time to get close to us. It's like he has been walking those same five meters towards us for several minutes."

"Ann, he has a knife. I know he wants to kill us."

"Run!"

As they ran away from the man with the knife, the white void turned into an alley.

"Something familiar to run on," thought Ann, "Arella, if you're reading my mind, we're going to try to climb up that outside staircase when we get to it. We'll see where we can run to at the top of the building. Tap me if you agree."

Ann turned to see Arella tap her. She saw the tap but felt nothing. They reached the staircase and began to climb. Ann was in front of the entire ascent of the staircase, but when she reached the roof she saw Arella standing there.

"How did you beat me up here?"
"I don't know. I just knew I could do it. I knew I could get here first."
"There's Mark coming after us. Let's go across the rooftops," said Ann.

They found that the buildings were far apart. Despite this they had no trouble leaping from roof to roof. As they looked back, they saw Mark Logan attempting to make the leap. He fell short and they could see him hit the street, even though they weren't on the edge of the roof.

"He's taller than us. His legs are longer. He should have made it," said Ann.

"Well he did not. So we are safe now."

"Why is it that none of this weirdness seems to worry you the way it does to me?" thought Ann.

"Maybe it's because I can read minds."

"Could you read Mark's mind?"

"No. Only yours. Maybe he doesn't have a real mind here. Maybe he wasn't really here at all."

"That could be right, but how did you know he was going to try to kill us, if you could not read his mind?"
"I just know. Do you just know things sometimes?"

"I feel that I might be able to here."

"Well I already can," said Arella, "I've never stopped feeling a strange happiness since we came through the warp."

"I've never stopped feeling a strange mixture of confusion and fear since we got out of Wildstar and saw the things that the other one couldn't see. Do you agree?"

"I didn't see anything."

"You saw the steps, and I saw the slide. You couldn't see the slide, and I couldn't see the steps, but when I went down the slide, I ended up at the top of the steps, where you had walked to at that time."

"I'm sure that never happened. We're in the park behind St Ives Shopping Centre. Can't you see it? Look around," said Arella.

"Yes we are, but I was trying to remember something. What was I trying to -... A balloon, a huge hot air balloon. There's nobody else around. Let's go for a ride."

"Yes let's," said Arella.
They ran across the grass and jumped into the balloon. All of a sudden the balloon rose into the air and was soon floating over Northern High School. There were children, girls only in the playground. It was not lunchtime, but the girls were all staring up at the balloon.

"Land, Ann, land!" they called.

"That's impossible too. It's holidays," said Ann.

"Maybe it's not on this world, Ann," said Arella.

The balloon floated past the school and began to follow in a path above the trains that used the railway line.