"Look, it's like this Mister Vimes. We can get you back to the Disc, but it's almost certain you won't appear in Ankh-Morpork-"

"Why?" Vimes asked, lying on the rough earth of the floor of his cave with his arms behind his head in order to stare more easily up into the crystal ball where Carrot's face shimmered.

"Er..." Carrot looked left as if he was listening to someone talking off stage. "Because of quantum Mister Stibbons says."

Quantum, thought Vimes, if there was ever a word I could learn to hate... "Alright. Just tell me what I have to do."

"Light a fire first off," Carrot said.

"In here?"

"Safest place," Carrot shrugged, "This is going to take some time."

"Great," Vimes muttered, digging into his pockets to find his last few matches. He dragged some firewood over to the middle of the room and set the kindling alight. Fairly rapidly the cave was full of curling white smoke that stung the eyes and dull orange flames flickered.

Vimes coughed. "Done."

"Okay Mister Vimes, I'm going to hand over to Andrew now. He's going to direct you."

Carrot's face was replaced by that of Vimes's brother. Vimes favoured Andrew with a grimace.

"Good to see you too, Sam."

"Just tell me how to get the hell out of here."

"Okay. Cut yourself."

"Cut myself!?" Vimes exploded.

"Trust me, Sam, you're getting the best of the deal," Andrew replied sharply. He held up his arm where one of Igor's tubes was taped to his forearm and even with the distortion Vimes could see the blood moving in the tube.

"Alright, alright." Vimes drew his dagger, closed his hand around the blade and then pulled the handle very sharply. He didn't cry out in pain as the cold metal cut his palm but he couldn't stop his face from screwing up in pain. Blood started to well from between his closed fingers.

"Drop the blood into the fire."

Vimes held his hand over the flickering flames and opened his fingers slowly. The blood dripped freely from the wound into the flames even as the coating of blood on the rest of his hands dried stickily on his fingers.

"Done it," he said.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

Vimes yelped at the shock of hearing his brother's voice so loud in his own head. He clapped his good hand over one ear and sunk the other into his shoulder, but it didn't make any difference.

CAN YOU HEAR ME?

"Yes! Yes, I hear you!"

GOOD. LISTEN TO MY VOICE. WHAT'S YOUR STRONGEST MEMORY FROM WHEN WE WERE KIDS?

"What?" Vimes said, slightly floored by the strange turn of events.

Andrew sighed. I tell you what, Sam, he said, whispering now, I'll show you mine.

There was a blinding flash and when Vimes's vision cleared he knew immediately where he was. Baron Street, just off Cockbill Street where he had grown up and next to the Cattle Markets. Everything seemed much more bright than he remembered, it was late evening and a slight mist was rising.

There was the sound of running feet and quite suddenly a familiar figure burst out of the mists. "Sam! Sam! Littlun!"

Vimes couldn't quite help himself from murmuring the name of the short, skinny lady who had just appeared; her short brown hair already streaked with grey, although she was still under thirty. "Mam?" he whispered.

Another figure joined her, taller and stockier but still painfully thin. "He definitely.. left school..." gasped the boy.

"You stupid idiot Andy!" Mrs. Vimes snapped, slapping Andrew across the head , "Why couldn't you just walk out with him for once in your godsdamn life!?"

"I'm sorry Mam," Andrew said, panic in his voice now, and tears running down his face, "I didn't think... I mean, who'd want to hurt our Sam?"

Mrs. Vimes ignored her older son. "Sam! Sam! Where are you?"

Andrew joined in calling Vimes's name. Vimes took a step backwards into the gutters, not wanting to be seen by his family as they walked steadily towards him. He tripped over something in the gutter.

It was a little boy, lying face down in the muck flowing through the channel. He was bleeding in several places and his right arm, flung out in front of him, looked slightly bent as if the bone inside was broken... Compulsively he gripped his own arm. Although there was no visible deformity in Vimes's own arm, when he clutched hard enough to feel the bone there was still a slight bump where a break had not /quite/ set properly some years previously.

"Oh gods," Vimes murmured.

The little boy in the gutter was him.

Trawling his own memories he couldn't really recall much of the day he had been taken from school by the SLC. Concussion had taken care of most of his recollections but he did remember being thumped hard across his face. Vimes reached out but found that he couldn't actually grip the boy to move him, although he was solid enough for Vimes's hand to brush against any attempt to grab him meant that Vimes's fingers slipped /through/ him as if he had suddenly become a insubstantial as the wind.

"Mam!"

Vimes turned to see Andrew staring wide eyed down at his younger form in the gutter, looking straight through him. "Mam! I've found him!"

Mrs. Vimes hurried over and screamed when she saw the body in the gutter in anguish. "They've killed him. Oh gods, they've killed the littlun!!"

"Mam, Mam, calm down; he's still breathing, Mam!" Andrew said, kneeling besides his brother, tears running down his face. He turned Sam over and Vimes gasped. His younger self's face was a bruise, red and swollen, blood crusted around his face and-

-he blinked and he was back in the cave again.

"Oh gods. Andrew. I'd forgotten."

I KNOW. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER?

Vimes thought about it. "I remember the fire, best of all."

Then that's what we'll remember. Together.

*

Sam Vimes sat watching the spiders that lived in the ceiling of his room descend on the silvery threads towards the floor. Mam was 'out,' which meant working. Andrew was 'out' which meant working. And Sam was 'in' which meant doing very little. He'd already run his errands for the day; he'd finished early and now he was sitting on his bed watching the spiders.

At twelve Sam Vimes had grown slightly over the last year becoming quite gangling, and as his mother was oft to remark, more like his father in the strength of his jaw-line. Depressingly, he had even expressed an interest in becoming a Watchman, an interest his family were keen to quash.

The sound of the door slamming made young Vimes drop his gaze, slip off the bed and pad across the room to pull open his own door and look down the stairs to see who had come in.

It was Andrew, his face flushed with excitement. "Sam! Are you in? Come downstairs!"

Sam shut the door hurriedly, not having any wish to speak to his brother as recently they had been arguing. Andrew called his name again, and then appeared to decide that his brother must be out. He heard him come up the stairs and Vimes hid under his bed thinking that Andy would be coming upstairs to their shared bedroom. The door opened and Vimes could see Andy's feet in the door frame. Vimes held his breath, confident that Andy would be able to hear his heart beating, and would drag him out from under the bed and start another fight...

The door shut and Andy went downstairs again. Vimes let out all the air he had been holding and gratefully refilled his lungs. He scrambled out from under the bed and returned to watching the spiders.

Downstairs Andrew crawled out through the window and into the garden. Bill was waiting for him. "Ready?"

"Ready. Noone's in. Let's do this."

"Okay Andrew. You're the boss."

He tossed a bottle of spirits to the older Vimes brother, who threw it through the window. Bill lit a match and slung it after the bottle. There was a 'whumph' of igniting spirit and presently the sound of crackling flames. "Let's get out of here."

The forty-something year old Vimes trapped in the Dungeon Dimensions blinked, trying to clear the vision, as the sensation of movement made him want to see what was going on in the real world.

STAY WITH THE VISION SAM! Andy warned.

Dancing flames and curling smoke.... the walls of the cave spinning sickly.... heat, frizzling the hair on his arms. His eyebrows too... screaming.... the pain from the wound in his hand...

Vimes opened his eyes to see blue sky and white snow, streaking towards him at ever increasing speeds. He screamed as sudden realisation struck him, and three seconds later crashed into the snow drift.

*

Andrew Vimes opened his eyes. "He's gone," he said.

Ridcully peered into the crystal ball, frowned, and flicked it with his finger. "So it would appear," he said.

"Where is he?" asked Captain Carrot.

Ponder Stibbons was punching numbers into Hex at an alarming speed. "I should be able to make a few calculations and pinpoint his exact location, assuming the Hubert's Constant still applies in interdimensional transit..."

"What?"

But no reply was forthcoming over the clacking of keys.



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Bit of a shortie, this one. More will be forthcoming shortly. Thanks for some really nice reviews people!