Airports are hubs. And I don't mean just for national and international travel.

A multitude of universes and potentialities are continually intersecting here, shifting, intersecting again. The eye is drawn to the stage as it's lit: gates, concourses, escalators, shops, occasionally a secret staircase or an office - a glimpse "behind the scenes." But that's just the three dimensions.

Since I stopped eating the Rafa I've been able to see what's really happening at the airport. And it is all just one big airport if you walk it just right. All the airports. But all that's just scaffolding inside the Big Theater.

You know those ivory carvings of balls inside of balls? Concentric spheres, each one rotating freely, all carved from the same thing? It's like being inside of that. A tremendously huge one. You can look up into the holes and see the other holes drifting and occluding and lining up and shifting. People are passing into one and coming out another, coming out different, coming out the same.

I like to come here just to relax.

But tonight I'm picking up my dad.

I live off campus. Let me tell you about my commute.

I flat foot it past the Garbage Can Ladies and the crows, slipping out my alley so I don't get seen. Real cool.... because I'd hate to get tossed from the awesome mad scientist lair I've scored. Don't want them thinking too hard why they see the kid with the backpack and the pumas snaking out between the dumpsters every morning, heading for school.

(The crows are actually another matter entirely. They'll be asking for hush money any day now.)

But the Garbage Can Ladies aren't that nosy. They've got troubles of their own. It's when I get on the city bus that things start to move. A lot of weirdos looking at me, till I cast a shadow outta my bag and make 'em forget... or for the especially pernicious ones, a shiny blast of screeching mental mirror feedback - just a pinch - enough to give 'em a quick headache... or a minor nosebleed... most of time, minor.

I pop out at the transit center, and here's where it gets tricky. Seems I've caught the attention of a gang of sprites. They don't go to Psyhigh, but they hang out down town and make the mischief. But I know them when I see them - @*, @o, @i, @., and sometimes @_. You know when you forget your umbrella, or lose your keys? THOSE guys.

They can smell the psychic magic on me, though (aren't sprites blind? that's what i've been told) so it takes some tricky moves and fingerpainting on my part to slip through without getting their attention.

And sometimes the sprites have got the squares so jazzed up that there's nothing but trouble, and I end up needing to take the long way around - throw up a rope on the top of the moment, take the catwalk behind people's minds - really get outta there, you know? Because I really hate to be late.

Once I'm through all that I catch the Psyhigh Bus Direct. Looks like all the others, but if you're not a student then you're drawn in with lasers or something because you're not really there, man... ;) The ride is smooth and the seats are soft, and I can usually get little homework finished up on the ride.

At the end of the line, I step out at the stop across the street from school. Easy peasy. Wouldn't trade it for living on campus for nothin.