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Elise instinctively teleports back to Rage holding the jacket that they last
saw Minotaur wearing. She’s on the verge of hyperventilating. There were no
clues where she found it, at least none which was obvious. She takes Rage by
the arm, and jumps back to that spot with her friend in tow. “Over here,
guys!” she cries out to the rest of the group.
Together, they start to dig in the sand, looking for any sign of Minotaur,
be it evidence they left behind, or—if they were taken—a deliberate clue
left behind by their captor. They cover a ground of a few square meters, but
there’s nothing. There’s no trapdoor, which would be the most likely
explanation, or maybe something less manmade, like a hidden hole. If
something had taken them away in the air, someone probably would have seen
it. Rage tells everyone to stop digging as she narrows in on Miracle. “This
looks like the work of a teleporter. Besides Azad, who else can do it?”
Miracle shakes her head. “There are far too many to list, and remember,
we’re generally called time travelers. They could be from the future, or the
past, or a parallel timeline. There are too many options to use that
knowledge alone to locate them.”
“Well, are any of them bad?” Rage presses. “Do you have...villains?”
“Sure we do,” Miracle confirms. “I...was technically one for a bit, though
we tend to use the word antagonist amongst each other because who’s
to say which is which?”
“This isn’t helping,” Rage argues. “You’re not giving us anything.”
“I’m sorry,” Miracle begins, but she doesn’t get the chance to finish her
thought.
“Can I find them?” Elise interrupts. “Just now, I wanted to jump to Rage,
and so that’s where I went, instead of several kilometers away. I didn’t
even know exactly where she was, on her hands and knees behind that ridge. I
thought about her, and it happened. Could I do that with Minotaur? I don’t
wanna try without understanding it.”
Miracle sighs. “Have you ever seen the 12 Monkeys movie, and have you
ever seen any of the Back to the Future movies?” she asks weirdly.
“Not recently,” Elise answers. “What’s your point?”
“They follow different rules,” Miracle begins. “In the former, time travel
is a contained loop. It’s called predestination. It doesn’t matter what you
do, you can’t change things. Whatever happened always happened, and you’re
just following a preexisting path, blind and in the wrong order. In the
latter, you can change the future, and they, in fact, do it multiple times.
Those stories aren’t contradictory because they take place in different
universes. They have nothing to do with each other.
“In our universe, there are—well, no, it’s not like there
are no rules—it’s that we have all the rules. Can you teleport
without being able to see where you’re going, or beyond some distance
limitation? I don’t know. We all have our different abilities and
restrictions. It’s utter chaos. I can teach you how to try to jump to
Mino, but I can’t promise it will work. I can’t even promise you won’t end
up kilometers away this time, or dead, stuck halfway through a wall. It’s a
crapshoot. Most are born the way that they are, and discover what they can
do intuitively. People who are transformed into travelers typically
have a harder time. They’re usually older, and have developed more
traditional coping mechanisms, which makes their new skills low access.”
“Then you’re not doing it,” Rage decides. “It’s too dangerous.”
“Wait, you could teleport before,” Zelda says to Miracle. “You said that
Hrockas couldn’t take that away from you because it was in your mind, not
your body.”
Miracle nods. “He figured out how to suppress it when he gave me a new, new
body. I’ve already tried since I returned, and have not been able to do
anything.”
“Then I’ll do it,” Elise insists. “Before you say anything, Rage, this is my
body, my choice. Hrockas just told us that counts here a few hours ago. You
can’t stop me.”
“I can’t,” Rage acknowledges, “but I don’t wanna lose you too.”
“Borrowed time, remember?” Elise asks. She faces Miracle. “Tell me what to
do.”
“I’m inclined to agree with our fearless leader,” Miracle says. “It’s
risky.”
“Then we vote,” Elise offers. “Who here thinks I shouldn’t do it?”
Everyone raises their hand.
“Just kidding, it’s my body! Tell me what to do, or I’ll try it on my own!”
“Very well,” Miracle agrees. “But I’m not responsible for what happens to
you.”
Everyone pays close attention when Miracle explains how the process of using
teleportation to find someone might work. They’re just as curious, even
though they can’t do it themselves. Finally, it’s time to try. Miracle
suggests she practice first, but she also said one thing about potentially
running out of something called temporal energy, so talk about a
risk. Elise closes her eyes as Miracle instructed. At first, she focuses on
her whole family, but most of them are already here with her. She only needs
to concentrate on one person. She visualizes Minotaur’s face, and considers
how they make her feel. It seems that Elise is falling in love. She does
realize she keeps thinking that.
The air was hot and dry, but now it’s cool and humid. Though Elise’s eyelids
were closed, she could see the light penetrating her skin. Now that’s all
gone. She opens them to find herself in darkness, with only red emergency
lighting. It’s enough for her to see that she’s not alone, and she can even
tell who it is. “Mino.”
Minotaur is startled. They spin around and desperately grab Elise’s mouth.
“Shh,” they whisper. “I don’t know how you ended up down here too, but this
is a maze...and we are not alone. I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Just
whisper.”
Elise nods, and once she’s free, whispers even quieter than Minotaur, right
in her ear. “I teleported to find you. Do you know who took you, or where we
are?”
“No idea,” Minotaur answers. “I didn’t see who took me. They were totally
robed up. I managed to push them off and run away, but not too far, and I
couldn’t scream. That’s when I felt the sharp pain in my neck. I was hot
before, but then I felt like I was burning up, so I took off my jacket while
I was passing out. Then I woke up here. I’ve been trying to navigate the
maze this whole time. I figured you were all taken too.”
“I think this is mostly about you,” Elise figures. “There is no way they
could have set this all up after they found out that I could teleport. They
expected you to find your way out, and for us to find our way to you. We’re
cheating. I don’t know if that’s okay. But I’m just gonna go with it. I
teleported in, so we can teleport out.”
“No,” Minotaur argues. “There’s something here. The monster is guarding
something. Trust me, we want it. I’m glad you’re here, but I don’t want to
cheat any further. Let’s play this straight, and find the way to the prize.
Are you up for it?”
“We’re a team. We should all do it together.”
“Yeah, if you can gather everyone, then go for it. Just tell them to stay
hushed.”
Elise transports most into the maze, but before she can do the same for
Colley she evidently runs out of temporal energy, leaving them both stranded
on the surface.
