The Advancement of Serif: Tuesday, September 4, 2181

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Serif could remember Jeremy and Angela telling her about Tamerlane Pryce, and all that they had gone through after death. It all seemed very jumbled and sketchy, though, now that she was thinking on it. There were a lot of plot holes in their story, suggesting not that they were unreliable narrators, but that their memories had indeed been erased. There was at least one person they were missing, and if they ever got their memories of them back, these stories would probably start to make a hell of a lot more sense. For now, Jeremy and Angela didn’t think they could trust this guy, so they were going to proceed with caution. It was then that she noticed Pryce’s wrist. “Where did you get that?”

“Oh, this?” Pryce admired his Cassidy cuff like someone who had just been proposed to. “Do you like it? I think it’s pretty.”

“Where did you get it?” Serif repeated, agitated.

“It was in a bag on the couch.”

Angela scoffed. “Ugh. I don’t understand why I’m always in charge of them. Back in the simulation, if I forgot something at home, I could snap my fingers, and it would appear. I can’t get used to making sure things are where they should be, when they should be there.”

“It’s okay,” Serif assured her. “All he needs to do is take it off.”

“No, I don’t wanna do that,” Pryce said, as if Serif was giving him a choice.

“Take it off before I cut off your arm.”

“Such violence,” Pryce pointed out. “What’s your name again?”

“Serif,” she answered.

“Serif...” he waited.

“I’m Serif.”

“Serif what?”

“Yes.”

“Your last name is What?”

“No.”

“Goddammit.”

“Goddammit is right, goddammit. Now take off the Cassidy cuff!”

“Is that what these are called?” Pryce asked. “Who’s Cassidy?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“All right, look, I’m not the Tamerlane Pryce that you know. When he went back in time with his weird little heaven robot, he created a new timeline. The way he tells it, everything played out almost exactly as it did in his timeline, but it’s still technically a different branch. And because of that, there are now two of us. I’m the other one. I’m the one who hasn’t done all those things you hate him for. I’m innocent!” Innocent was too strong of a word for a man like this to be swinging around recklessly. It was irrelevant that he was an alternate version. Someone who declared himself in charge of tens of billions of dead people—in any reality—could never be trusted.

Serif’s cuff beeped, but no one else’s did. She tapped on the envelope to read a message from Nerakali, which told her to let him stay. “It seems I have been overruled.”

“Serif,” Jeremy started to argue.

“We’ll see what happens,” Serif interrupted. “Until then, we keep an eye on him.” She started off for the AOC. “Pryce, you walk with me. Somebody get Olimpia up to speed about him.”

They got some sleep in the AOC, but stayed on the moon. They probably wouldn’t know where the transition would be until after midnight central, so there was no point trying to go anywhere until they had that information. When Serif woke up about ten hours later, she could feel the familiar hum of the reframe engine. She opened her grave chamber to find everyone else was already awake. “Where are we going?”

“Best guess,” Olimpia said, “back to The Elizabeth Warren. Sorry, we didn’t want to wake you, and didn’t think you would object to us getting into position.”

“What do you remember about this time period?” Jeremy asked. “None of us was there. What is the significance of September 4, 2181?”

“I have no idea,” Serif answered. “I’ve never been to this time period before.”

“Oh, I thought you were from the future, and had already been through all this. Maybe I’m thinking of someone else,” Jeremy said.

“We know we’re missing people,” Serif reminded him. “We can’t think about that right now, though. We have a mission to get to.”

“We’re nearly there,” the ship’s computer reported.

Jeremy started tapping on the cuffs. “It’s not incoming. It’s an exit window. We’re supposed to travel to the other side.”

Serif was nervous. “I don’t like that. I’m getting a bad feeling about this date.”

“As am I,” Angela agreed.

“I may be able to clear some things up,” the computer announced.

“What do you know?” Serif questioned.

“The sequence of events is already in my database,” the ship began. “I know what happens on this date, and I know that by being here, Serif, that sequence has changed. As you know, Ubiña pocket four is experiencing a dimensional disturbance, brought on by two special children inside. One can increase the size of the space, and the other can create entire conscious beings, seemingly out of nothing. The instability of this dimension was threatening to destroy The Warren, and perhaps the universe. So they severed the link entirely, which served to create a whole new universe, which would come to be called Ansutah.”

“Oh,” was all Olimpia said.

Serif took a half step forward, as if she were somehow getting closer to the artificial intelligence they were communicating with. “Tell us everything. Start from the moment I left pocket four, up until now.”

And so the AI went into the story, helping them understand what had happened, and what was about to happen. It only served to fuel their suspicions that they were missing key members of their team, who should have been able to tell them all this, especially since Serif’s presence on the AOC was not what happened in the original timeline. Things were changing—minor things, yes, at least according to the story—but it still proved that it was possible. This dimensional destroyer woman was about to cause a terrible headache for people all across the bulkverse. It obviously wasn’t her natural power to create whole new universes. She had to have done that accidentally, and now that they were here, they had the chance to do it differently. The link between the real world, and the pocket dimension, still needed to be cut, but they had to do it more carefully this time. They had to find a better end result.

“Can we travel freely between these dimensions?” Angela suggested. “Or are we bound to the same barriers?”

“I’m not sure,” the AI answered. “I have no control over the transition windows.”

Another message came from Nerakali, once again only to Serif. Go to bed, choose your graves wisely. That was it. That was the answer. There were six Ubiña pockets on The Warren, and six grave chambers on the AOC. If they wanted to transition directly to a given pocket, they would need to be in its corresponding grave chamber. “We have thirty minutes until the window opens. Give me ten to come up with a plan, and then we’ll discuss it.”

Twenty minutes later, they could do nothing more than to hope their plan was a good one, and wasn’t going to go wrong. Predicting other people’s reaction to their interference was the toughest thing to guess, and they would never know the reality until it was happening. Serif wanted to go back to pocket four, where she was before, but that wasn’t good for the plan. They needed Pryce and Jeremy to be there, so they could kidnap the children. Yeah, that sounded bad, but their abilities were causing huge problems, and something had to be done about that. The best way they could think of was to snap Cassidy cuffs on all four of their wrists, and suppress their powers.

Meanwhile, Angela would stay in the ship proper, so she could interface with the crew of the Warren, so they understood what they were doing was for the best. Olimpia has a special job to take care of in pocket six, which wasn’t vital to the plan, but important on a personal level. Lastly, Serif had to go to pocket one, so she could talk with the dimensional destroyer about what she was about to do for them. The team climbed into their respective grave chambers, and waited for the window to open.

Serif found herself standing on the grass next to the residential building, looking down at a trail that led out into the wilderness. A woman was several meters away behind her, having an argument with someone that Serif couldn’t see. She walked up to her, and called out to Vitalie, who she knew to be an astral projection right now. “Miss Crawville, I am from an alternate reality. Could you please show yourself to me, so we can talk?”

Vitalie made herself visible to her, along with another young man. “I know who you are, Serif.”

“Indeed. The plan needs to change, but just a little,” Serif told them.

“How so?” Vitalie asked.

Serif faced the dimensional destroyer. “We can’t just have her sever the link. She has to keep the pocket dimension inside our universe.”

“That doesn’t solve our problem,” Vitalie argued. “The whole point is to get it away from our universe.”

“That’s no longer necessary. Our colleagues are in pocket four right now. We have a way to stop Adamina and Esen. We can suppress their abilities. The growth will stop.”

Vitalie was shaking her head. “I would have to talk to Leona about this.”

“She...she can’t know I’m here,” Serif contended.

“She won’t, we can’t find her. My point is that we can’t just change the plan. Hokusai, Saga, Camden. They all need to know. I don’t know where you’ve been, or what you’ve been through, but the plan is the plan.”

“Please,” Serif begged. “Please trust me.”

Vitalie turned towards their diagnostician. “Avidan? Can she do that?”

“It should be easier. Creating a new universe would be the hardest obstacle here. If all she needs to do is close the portal, that should be a piece of cake.”

“How would we access it again?” Vitalie questioned. “I mean, if they’re going to stay in our universe, we have to be able to get back to them. They’ll run out of resources.”

“Hokusai will be able to do that,” Serif promised. “Have her switch pocket four to the dimensional generator she built, just like she’s going to do with the other five pockets. All we’ll have to do after that is close the door.”

“We have people in there,” Vitalie reminded her.

“Once we get them evacuated,” Serif amended, “we’ll close the door. This will work. You don’t understand what happens when the new universe is created. I have a chance to stop that, and I’m taking it.”

The dimensional destroyer finally spoke up. “If it’s easier, that’s what I’m going to do, because quite frankly, I don’t give a crap either way.”

Vitalie kept shaking her head, uncomfortable with the whole thing.

“You don’t have a choice,” the dimensional destroyer continued. “This is what I’m doing.”

“Will you?” Vitalie pressed. “Will you try to help us, or will you just sit here on your throne, and keep command over pocket one?”

“I’ll do what I say,” she spit. “I do have some integrity.”

Vitalie sighed, and turned towards Avidan. “When I get back, you need to make sure she’s ready. First, I need to warn everyone else, regardless of the fact that I can’t stop it.”

“They already know,” Serif explained. “My colleague is on the ship proper, having a similar conversation.”

“How many colleagues do you have?” Vitalie asked.

“Enough.” Serif gazed into the distance. “But still somehow...not enough.” Leona was the person they were missing, and this was something she knew in her heart. A past version of her was in a secret seventh pocket dimension right now, but that was useless to her. Serif needed the future version of her. She needed the one she lost, and the other one needed to be able to move on with her life without her. Hopefully they would have time to look into that in three years.

“Ooookay?” Vitalie disappeared, along with Avidan.

In the end, the sequence of events played out shockingly close to the way they did in the original timeline, according to the AOC’s logs. They had to break Leona out of her little jail, there was a huge ordeal trying to get Adamina and Esen out of pocket four, and the dimensional destroyer severed the link. The difference was that Adamina never used her uncontrollable powers to enlarge The Warren, the crew was able to keep everyone in their respective pockets, only releasing the few people they needed to complete the mission, and Serif never ended up getting stuck inside pocket four. The Maramon alive at the time were still all in there, but their numbers would grow at a reasonable rate, and they now had time to figure out how they were going to deal with them. The real challenge made itself apparent when the window opened up to take them back to the Parallel. The seven of them, including the children, weren’t the only ones to transition. Avidan came through too, as did Vitalie, who had a huge destiny in the main sequence that they knew she had to get back to.

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 22, 2016

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The Insulator of Life was one of those things that always did what it was meant to do, theoretically through psychic commands. It didn’t have any buttons or switches, or some kind of computer screen. Leona simply placed it on Mateo’s chest, like she had years ago. Instead of returning his own life to his body, though, she was this time extracting two extraneous lives, with the intention of housing them in the Insulator itself. She knew this was possible, because it had once worked on Brooke and Sharice Prieto. It was a painful process, but it didn’t last forever. Once it was over, Mateo was feeling lighter than ever. He was back to his normal, dumb self.

“How do you feel?” Ramses asked.

“I’m a little nauseated from the experience, but my mind feels amazing.”

“Good, good,” Leona said. “I’m no doctor, but I imagine the nausea will pass. You probably just need a good night’s rest. You’ve been through a lot.”

“I’m sorry, Leona.”

“No more apologies, but my ultimatum remains, even in light of the revelation that you were under the influence. If you leave once more, I don’t ever want to see you again.”

“I understand.”

“Declan,” Ramses began, “could you help me help him upstairs? I assume you have guest quarters somewhere?”

“We just call it a guest bedroom,” Declan said, “and yes.”

Mateo slept the rest of the morning away. When he woke up, he made his way downstairs, and found the rest of his friends sitting in the living room. Leona was wearing the HG Goggles again. “Hey, honey.”

“What are you doing with those?” he asked.

“Here,” she said, removing them, and handing them over.

He put them on, and looked around. Arcadia was pretending to be sitting in one of the chairs. Erlendr was nowhere to be found, though. “Is your father here too?”

“He refuses to come out,” Arcadia answered. “I’m sure it’s for the best.”

“Can he hear you talking about him now?”

“Our consciousnesses are both in here, and we can communicate with each other, but we retain our individuality. He’s pouting alone, and doesn’t know what we’re talking about.”

“What are we talking about?” Mateo asked.

“Could you please translate for us?” Declan requested. “We can’t hear her without the goggles.”

“Sorry,” Mateo said. He started regurgitating what Arcadia was saying for the group.

“We’re discussing what to do with her,” Ramses explained. “We can’t just leave her in there forever. I mean, we technically probably could, but we’re hoping for a solution.”

“We could go back to the future,” Arcadia said. “They would be able to build me a synthetic body of some kind. In this time period, however, there’s nothing.”

“I still think it would work to place you in someone who’s already in a coma, or a vegetative state,” Leona said, kind of out of character. “Your consciousness would mend any physical damage to their brain, and then you would be able to walk around.”

“That’s not ethical,” Ramses said. “It’s the kind of thing I would suggest. What if the person we chose was destined to wake up?”

“I won’t let you do it anyway,” Declan declared. “If I want to be a superhero one day, I can’t let things like this slide.”

Nerakali suddenly walked into the room. “There is another way.”

“Sister!” Arcadia exclaimed.

“Hello, sister,” Nerakali said back to her.

“Wait, you can see her?” Leona questioned.

“All the Prestons have psychic abilities, to varying degrees. Zeferino was the worst. Erlendr was the best. I’m just okay, but I’m good enough to carry on a conversation.”

“Well, what’s the other way?” Arcadia asked her.

“I know of a body that no one else is using, and they never will. It’s up for grabs, if you want it.”

“Why is it not in use?” Declan asked. This was his time period, so he was going to be particularly protective of the other people living in it.

“Jesimula Utkin,” Nerakali said. “She went back in time using a homestone, and stopped her younger self from developing time powers.”

“Wait, you can develop time powers?” Declan was very interested in this.

“You can if you’re one of the Springfield Nine, yes. Anyway, there were now two versions of her in the timeline, so she decided to quantum assimilate with each other. Normally, the body they don’t use is scattered throughout space and time, but Jesi decided to keep the other one. I don’t really know why; I didn’t talk to her about it. I just know where it is.”

“That was over twenty years ago,” Mateo pointed out. “Isn’t it a desiccated corpse by now?”

“It’s not a corpse,” Nerakali replied. “It’s still technically alive. It just can’t think or do anything. It’s been in the hospital this whole time. It can breathe, pump blood, swallow, and digest. It wears a diaper, though, and orderlies have to hand feed it.”

“That’s kind of...gross,” Ramses decided.

Nerakali shrugged. “It was her choice. I try not to judge.”

“I’m willing to do it,” Arcadia said, “but I’ll need Jesimula’s permission. We can’t just take it.”

“Aww,” Mateo couldn’t help but say. “You’re growing.”

“Shut up,” she said with a psychic blush.

“I know where the real Jesi is as well,” Nerakali said. “Who’s up for a field trip?”

They found Jesimula Utkin in her lab. She was apparently a pretty big deal here, but she didn’t run the place, like she had in her old life. She no longer had the advantage of temporal powers.

“So. What do you do here?” he asked.

“I’m trying to find a way to replicate the 2025 pathogen.”

“What!” Leona exclaimed.

“Well,” Jesi began, “in an old timeline, I forced Paige Turner to go to the future, so she could become infected with the pathogen. When she went back to her own time period, she spread it more slowly then before, which served to inoculate the entire human race. But then Ace Reaver forced me to go back in time, where I altered the course of history. Now none of that is going to happen, so I have to do it in some other way. Again.”

“Oh, no you don’t,” Nerakali contradicted.

“This is really important to me,” Jesi said. “I kind of based my whole life around saving the species.”

“No, it’s taken care of,” Nerakali added. “The Stitcher handled it.”

Jesi was surprised by this. “She did?”

“Wait, what does that mean?” Leona asked. “What did Tonya do?”

“She folded the two realities together,” Nerakali said. “All that Jesi did when she sent Paige to the 32nd century; that all happened in this timeline, even though her later actions in the past should have prevented it. It’s a stable paradox.”

“My mother died as a result of that disease!” Leona shouted.

Everyone was silent for a moment.

“I mean, it’s the trolley problem,” Nerakali finally said.

“Oh, bullshit! Why did my mother have to be the one who dies? It’s so arbitrary!”

“It’s not arbitrary,” Arcadia said. “It’s fate. I made it so.”

“You agree with her, Mateo?” Leona cried. “She was your mother too!”

“I remember. I’m the one who killed her in the timeline before that.”

“I can’t look at any of you right now.” Leona activated her emergency teleporter, and returned to Declan’s house, where he and Ramses had stayed.

Jesi melted all the bones in her body. “My life’s purpose is pointless. I’ve been wasting my time in this lab.”

“No, you haven’t,” Mateo consoled her. “You’ve contributed to science, and now you can move on to some other project. You might cure cancer. Just because you don’t have a time traveling building doesn’t mean you can’t make things better.”

“Thanks,” Jesi said. “You didn’t come here just to drop that bombshell on me, did you?”

“We need your permission for something,” Nerakali said to her. “We would like to give your other body to someone else.”

Jesi hadn’t seen this request coming. “For who?”

Nerakali gestured towards Mateo. “For the invisible person he’s been translating for.”

“Here,” he said. He took off the HG Goggles, and handed them to Jesi.

“Come on,” Nerakali said to him. “Let’s give them some privacy.” She set the Insulator on the table, and they both walked out of the room.

Jesi and Arcadia didn’t talk too long before the former agreed to give her alternate body to the latter. She never explained why it was she was keeping it around in the first place, but they were grateful it was available. She gave them directions to the hospital where the body was being cared for, and said she would call ahead about her so-called twin sister being transferred to another facility. Obviously, the hospital didn’t really know the truth about the person they were being paid to take care of. The administrators were fully expecting their arrival, and gave them no trouble at the door. Trouble was waiting for them in the body’s room, though. Someone was already trying to remove the vacant Jesi body from the premises.

“Allen?” Mateo asked. He was loading the Jesi body into a wheelchair. “Jul—Saxon? What are you doing?”

“Oh,” Allen said. “This is why she wanted us to come to this exact date. She wanted a confrontation.”

“Who wanted a confrontation?” Nerakali asked, arms folded. “Jesi?”

“No,” Saxon said. “Volpsidia.”

“She wants this body?” Nerakali asked.

“She doesn’t have one of her own anymore. The prison cremated it when they found it empty of a consciousness.”

“Who the hell are we talking about?” Mateo questioned earnestly.

“She’s a psychic,” Nerakali answered. “Like, a damn good. Probably the best within the bounds of the universe. She must have jumped into someone else’s body, so she could escape Beaver Haven. I don’t know what her ultimate plan was, but it was stupid. Cremation is standard protocol for a dead body found in the prison.”

“She doesn’t have her old body in anymore, so she’s going to steal Jesi’s?”

“She told us it was extra,” Saxon explained.

“It is,” Mateo agreed arguably, “but we need it.”

“Well, so do we,” Allen said, “so what do we do? If we try to go back empty handed, she’s going to kill my husband; his brother.

Mateo sighed, but then he felt a burning sensation in his pocket. “Ackey!” He pulled out the Insulator of Life, and let it fall onto the Jesi’s body’s bed. “Why is it so hot? Are they dying?”

“My sister’s probably just trying to get your attention,” Nerakali said.

He put the HG Goggles back on.

“Give them the body,” Arcadia said. “They’re right, they need it more. I’ve done a lot of bad things in my life. Richard is a good person, though.”

“It sounds like Volpsidia isn’t,” Mateo said to her.

“Who is he talking to?” Allen questioned.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nerakali answered him.

“This is a ransom,” Arcadia reasoned, “and I’m paying the ransom. Let them have the body.”

Mateo looked over to Nerakali for guidance. She couldn’t hear what her sister was saying, but she was wise enough to guess. She just shrugged. He sighed again, and stepped to the side. 

“Thank you,” Allen said.

“Thanks,” Saxon echoed.

“Well, what the hell are we gonna do now?” Mateo asked as they left the room behind the other two, walking at a respectful distance behind them.

“I don’t know. I don’t have any other ideas,” a defeated Nerakali said.

“What’s that light up ahead?” The doorway to one of the rooms was glowing.

“It’s probably just some tear in the spacetime continuum,” she said dismissively. “Who cares?”

Mateo felt himself drawn to it. He stepped inside to find out what it was. A woman was sitting in her own wheelchair. It wasn’t just any woman, though. It was Arcadia. She was nearly completely motionless and nonreactive. Drool was dribbling down her cheek.

“Holy shit,” Nerakali said. She snapped her fingers in the physical Arcadia’s face. “She’s unresponsive. She’s a vegetable too.”

“How did this happen?” Mateo asked. “When in your timeline are you like this?” he asked the psychic projection of Arcadia.

“That is not me,” she said, almost defensively.

“There’s something glowing on the desk too,” Mateo noticed.

Nerakali stepped over, and picked it up. “It’s The Artist’s chisel.” She started working through it in her head. “This isn’t Arcadia. This is a recreation of her. The Artist went back in time, and made one, almost certainly for this very purpose. We place the Insulator on the body, and tap her forehead with this chisel, she’ll come to life.”

“Really? Well, let’s do it. Are you all right with that?” he asked Arcadia, but he knew what her answer would be.

“Hell yeah.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 15, 2192

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As instructed, they didn’t approach any of the people giving each other butterfly signals in 2191. First of all, they didn’t know what it meant. It seemed shady, but it could also be some strange new form of greeting that they weren’t privy to since they only existed one day out of the year. They couldn’t even be sure if the people were trying to say butterfly at all. To communicate the word in sign language, one was meant to wave their hands, as the flapping of wings, which none of them was doing. Vitalie, of course, was entirely convinced that this was some underground resistance movement, presently working against the Arianrhod occupation. They should have done better at keeping themselves informed about the events they missed during their interim years, on the arc, and elsewhere. If any rebels attempted to fight back sometime in the past, they definitely lost, and Ulinthra would have buried it. Now they had too little intelligence to go on. That night, they got together to discuss how they were going to proceed, ultimately deciding to wait until the next year, so they could have a fresh start.

“All right,” Leona began near the end of their latest breakfast meetings. “Brooke, you’re sure these heart trackers aren’t also listening devices.”

“I’m certain,” Brooke answered with a formal nod.

“Then on to Vitalie.”

“On to me?”

“I know your power doesn’t work with Ulinthra, and we think she has some time power blocker, but we’ve not until now had reason to use it elsewhere.”

“We should have tested it at some point,” Ecrin said.

“I’ve tested it,” Vitalie said, as if it were obvious. “I can go anywhere on Earth. It’s not easy, because I think that blocker she uses has minimal effect on me no matter what, but like you said, there was nothing to see.”

“In that case, you think you could stomach a trip to one of the common areas, like a shopping mall, or restaurant?” Leona asked.

“I could,” Vitalie said.

“Do you think you could take one of us with you?”

“I could take both,” Vitalie answered. She looked at Brooke with guilt. “Sorry, I don’t think I could take you.”

“I’m used to it,” Brooke said, not feeling left out.

“Then let’s go back,” Leona said, “and find someone giving what we think is a butterfly sign—”

They were suddenly in the marketplace.

“I didn’t mean right away,” Leona said.

Vitalie shrugged. “No use in waiting.” She took off her shirt, and started swinging it around like a lasso. “We’re invisible, by the way!” she shouted.

“Are our bodies just slumped in our chairs, back at the unit?” Ecrin questioned.

Vitalie pointed at her. “Uh, you fell to the floor. Don’t worry, you’re not hurt, and Brooke is carrying you to the couch.”

“Do you maintain a presence in both locations simultaneously?” Leona asked out of scientific curiosity.

“It’s like I’m wearing bifocals. I just adjust my focus to one or the other. It takes less than a second, and I can always kind of see both at the same time. I don’t think you can do that, though.”

Leona nodded understandingly. “Let’s walk around while we’re invisible. Keep your shirts on, though.”

“They’re not real shirts, Leona,” Vitalie needlessly reminded her.

“Look for a butterfly,” Leona continued. “Call out when you see it.”

It was a half hour before Ecrin saw two people give each other the secret sign. They seemed to be doing it a lot less than they did yesterday. A lot can happen in a year, and there was no way of knowing what these people had been through. Vitalie allowed the man and woman to see them, but no one else, so they could have a secret conversation.

“What does it mean when you do that?” Leona asked of them, trying to be careful about broaching the subject.

“When I do what?” the man asked.

Leona mimicked the movement. “When you interlock your thumbs like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He tried to leave, but Vitalie teleported Ecrin’s image right in front of them. “How did you do that?”

“You first,” Ecrin said.

He looked around in paranoia. “Not here.”

Ecrin swept her hand downwards, like a model at a game show. “Lead the way.”

“What are you?” the man asked after leading them to an empty storage room.

“We can’t be here physically,” Vitalie explained. “Ulinthra planted tracking devices on our hearts, so we have astrally project to have this conversation.”

Someone in the early 21st century would have needed that term explained to them, but enough science fiction had become science fact since then. While astral projection was not something other people could do, it was a concept that audiences these days would find easier to grasp. “Who is Ulinthra?”

“That’s Arianrhod’s real name,” Leona said.

His and the woman’s eyes widened as they looked at each other. “How do you know this? Do you use your...ghost powers to spy on her?”

“We go way back,” Leona replied. She looked to the other two, hesitating. But the cat was out of the bag, and they needed allies. “We’re time travelers, and so is she. If you’ve ever tried to do something against her, there’s a reason she always wins. She’s already been through it.”

He lifted his chin to think this over, not sure if he believed it, but wanting to entertain the possibility. “Then we have to be unpredictable.”

Vitalie shook her head. “She’s already lived through this day. Every time you try to be unpredictable, you could just be making the same unpredictable choice you did in the first timeline.” She surrounded the word in airquotes.

“I assume you don’t use real names,” Ecrin said, briefly changing the subject, and recalling her time in the IAC, where everyone had a callsign. “What are your designations?”

“I’m Gatekeeper,” the man said.

“Holly Blue,” the woman finally spoke.

“Are those butterflies?” Vitalie asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“We always suspected Arianrhod to be a fake name,” the woman now said enough for it to be clear she had an Irish accent. “It’s the name of a Celtic goddess, and means silver wheel. Who breaks the butterfly upon the wheel?”

“No one,” Leona understood. “Not if the butterflies fight back.”

“Assuming we believe you about the time travel thing,” Gatekeeper tried to begin, but was stopped when Vitalie walked right through the wall, and soon thereafter appeared through the other wall. “Okay, that’s pretty convincing, unless we’re having the same delusion.” He looked to Holly Blue, who indicated that she had seen it too. “You mean to tell me Arianrhod can go back in time, but only one day?”

“It’s not that she can do it,” Leona explained. “It’s that she has to. She experiences every day twice. And only twice. She can’t control it.”

“Well, what hope would we have?”

Vitalie then started in on the explanation of what they were doing with the penny; how their only hope of changing the timeline was by using Ulinthra.

The two revolutionaries understood the logic, and recognized the flaws. “What did you flip today?” they asked.

“We didn’t flip today,” Leona replied. “Our biggest problem now is that we don’t know what we can do against her. And we’re afraid of what she’ll do in retaliation. Whatever move we make, it has to be a final blow, because the consequences last time were too great.”

“But you said that was reversed?”

“They’re not gonna reverse the next one,” Ecrin said.

“We may be able to get something done,” Vitalie started, “if we work together. Now that we know about you, we stand a chance. How many are there in your group?”

Holly Blue and Gatekeeper looked at each other again. “Three,” he finally said.

The two of us, and one other,” Holly Blue added.

“How is that possible?” Leona asked. “Only three of you signed up?”

“Lots signed up,” Gatekeeper said. “They’re all dead now.”

“You act like you already know each other. Why the hand signal?”

“It’s not just to prove we’re rebels. We also use it to indicate that we need to talk, and that the coast is clear to do so.”

“Where’s the last one right now?”

“Monarch is our designated survivor,” Gatekeeper explained. “No one knows who they are. He or she stays out of sight until something goes wrong. If we all die, it’s up to them to start it back up again, which they’ll probably soon have to do. You seem like lovely people, but you’re still just three recruits.

“Barely recruits,” Holly Blue noted.

“Isn’t there something else you can do?” Gatekeeper asked. “Someone you can talk to? You said there are other time travelers. Can they help? Can you contact them?”

Leona knew a few people with potential. Unfortunately, Ulinthra never let her touch land, so she couldn’t dig a grave for Mr. Halifax. The Forger might be willing to help? Ecrin probably knew many choosers, so this was a good question for her to answer. She looked at her inquisitively, completely forgetting that Ecrin hadn’t been involved in her own personal thought process.

“What?” Ecrin asked.

“Do you know someone? Maybe you know someone that we don’t? Maybe someone that Ulinthra doesn’t know?”

“Ulinthra has the memory of countless versions of herself, from indefinite timelines. I don’t know who she knows. There may be someone, though. You’re not gonna like it, but he may be our best chance. There’s one thing we’ve not yet discussed, but I think we all know it needs to be on the table.”

“You’re talking about killing her,” Vitalie realized.

“I’m not killing anyone,” Leona said. “Not again.”

“That’s what I’m saying. You wouldn’t have to. When I was working for the coalition, there was a team we came across. They were deadly travelers, and we spent a lot of resources trying to catch them. I stepped into the field myself to work on it, even though I was mostly in administration.”

“Who is it?” Vitalie was intrigued.

“The leader is called The Maverick; his team, The Mavericks. Not very original.”

Leona nodded her head solemnly. “I met one of them once. Darrell, or something. He helped Gilbert go back into the extraction mirror, for his death.”

“Darrow,” Ecrin corrected. “We would probably want to deal with him only, since he can be reasoned with. The other two can be rather..insufferable. But we all have to agree to it, including Viceroy.”

“Viceroy?” Leona didn’t know what she was talking about.

“Yeah, the other one in our group...since we’re using butterfly codenames?”

She meant Brooke. “Right. Viceroy, yes. We’ll ask her, but I don’t see her taking issue with it. I suppose I always knew it would have to end like this. If the powers that be don’t step in, we may have no way of getting her to Beaver Haven.”

Vitalie was totally on board, as were Holly Blue and Gatekeeper, who assumed that was what everyone was going for anyway. After going over some secret protocols with their two new allies, the three of them jumped back into their own bodies. They needed a couple of things to reach the Maverick, though, so Ecrin went out in physical form to shop. She came back with a cloak, and a dagger. She hung the cloak up on the door, and used the dagger to cut a symbol into it twice. They looked like bird tracks. Once she was finished, she jabbed the dagger into the cloak, sticking it into the door.

Within seconds, the cloak started billowing out, until the figure of a man appeared inside of it. He reached behind him and pulled the dagger from his back before turning around. He smiled and shook his head when he saw it was Ecrin. “I bet you just loooved doing that.”

“I don’t love that you’re here,” Ecrin said. “But we need your help. We just don’t know when.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 5, 2182

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Serif and Adamina were running up the hill, almost at the exit, but the crowd of Maramon chasing after them was also nearly upon them. She pushed the girl through the exit, and ordered the woman to break the universe apart now. As she turned around, instinct took over. She took a deep breath and blew it out over the enraged Maramon. She sent her nanites all over the area, programming to fight her enemies off, instead of healing them. “Now!” she screamed.

The destroyer was trying her best, working as fast as she could. One Maramon got through before she was able to do her job and destroy the dimensional entrance. When she turned around, she saw the crowd dispersing. The sound of metal clanking against metal rang out through the vessel as it expanded. Rooms were expanding by the minute, and new rooms were being created, threatening to enlarge the ship to unsustainable proportions. All of the pocket dimensions appeared to be closed off again now. The ship just kept getting bigger, and Adamina acted like she couldn’t stop it.

Saga made her way through the crowd, which was becoming easier and easier, and approached the girl. “You can stop this,” Saga said.

“Don’t we need more room?” Adamina asked.

“Yes. But this is enough. You can stop now.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You can. You’re powerful, and if you don’t try, we’re all dead. The ship won’t be able to fly anymore, and we’ll just be floating out here in the middle of space.”

Adamina had spent her whole life with this, being treated as a god, and knowing no other way of doing things. Reining in her power seemed to sound like a grave insult of her character. She was still a child, though, and easily influenced by the grown-ups around her, which was what got them all into this mess in the first place. After pondering it for a few seconds, she nodded and closed her eyes. The clanking metal noticeably slowed down, but didn’t stop. “I can’t stop it totally,” she apologized. “It’s hard enough making it go this slow.”

“Okay, okay,” Saga comforted her. “Just take a deep breath, and try again.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Adamina squealed. “This is just who I am. I have to create space. It wouldn’t be any easier to stop than it would be to stop breathing.”

“Adamina, you can do it.”

“Can you stop breathing!”

“Sometimes,” said a woman who had finally come up from the crowd. She placed her hand on the girl’s shoulder, and spirited her away.

“Where did you send her?” Saga questioned.

“I...” the woman faltered.

Leona walked up, having just come out of pocket six. “Dubravka? What did you do?”

“I sent her to the future,” Dubravka replied.

“How far?” Saga was treating this like an interrogation.

“Whenever,” Dubravka shrugged. “I can bring her back when I want, and before you say anything, she’ll fall back if I were to die, so she won’t be stuck forever.” She scanned the floor of the room, suggestive of anyone and everyone. “I’m expecting a bunch of smart people to work on this problem in the meantime, and have a solution that allows that little girl to live a normal life...in a normal universe. For now, though, I think she should remain in the void outside of time.”

“Dubra, you can’t just tear people out of time.”

She sighed and shook her head, while holding her arms up to the walls of the ship, which were considerably farther away than they once were. “I won’t apologize for what I’ve done. She’s the problem, not me. So find a solution, or I’ll spend the rest of my life looking for immortality water, and you’ll never see her again.”

“What’s immortality water?” asked one of the random onlookers.

“I need to go check on the ship,” Leona said, knowing there was nothing else they could do. “Hopefully it hasn’t been too damaged.”

She walked into the cockpit to find Paige and Brooke staring through the viewports and a big blue marble.

“That’s Earth,” Leona declared.

“Mhmm,” Paige agreed.

“How did we already get to Earth?”

“Check your watch,” Brooke suggested. “It’s 2182.”

It was. “How? Did Dubra jump everybody to the future?”

“I don’t think so,” Paige said. “I think we were in a time bubble. The inside of the ship, but not the outside.” That would certainly explain why Leona was still around. She must have walked into the bubble after jumping back into the timestream while still in pocket six.

“Confirmed,” Brooke said. “I’ve been alone for the whole year. Nearly ran out of emergency rations. Thank God I’m superhuman.”

“Oh, Brooke,” Paige could only say.

“It’s fine,” Brooke said. “I was in hibernation most of the time. Ship ran smoothly, despite being several times larger than it was meant to be. We’re currently in standard orbit, awaiting authorization. They’re cautious about a ship that disappeared twenty years ago with no apparent destination, suddenly returning larger than before. I think we got a mole inside, though.”

“Warren, this is Orbital Management. Are you there, Warren?” came a voice on the communications system.

Brooke sat up, and replied, “this is the Warren, go ahead.”

Paige pulled Leona aside while Brooke was doing her thing. “I need a full report on the state of this vessel, and everyone in it. Find Camden, assuming he made it through before the pockets closed back up, and get him to do a headcount. Get Hokusai running a full diagnostic. I need you to personally do a spot check. Figure out exactly how big we are, and take inventory of anything that didn’t exist before Adamina walked through that portal.”

“Understood, Captain,” Leona said, then she ran off to complete her tasks.

One of the passengers saw Camden duck into a room that wasn’t there yesterday. When Leona went in, she found him there, carefully watching one of the Maramon like a good security guard. “Good, you’re here,” he said.

“What is this?”

“I need someone to find me restraints. I heard the ship’s bigger than before. Do you guys have a real brig now?”

“There’s one in another dimension,” Leona said. “After asking you to take roll call, I’m supposed to go off and answer questions like yours.”

“I assure you, Captain,” the Maramon said. “I mean you no harm. I considered it my duty to protect the primary god, but I can tell when I’m outnumbered. Even a warrior as formidable as I am is no match for a centurion of secondaries.”

“How did you know my callsign?” Camden asked.

“Your what?”

“That’s enough bickering,” Leona commanded, turning around. “If he moves, shoot ‘im. I’ll see what I can do about permanent detainment.”

“Sir,” Camden acknowledged.

She found Hokusai with Loa, the latter of which agreed to take on Camden’s role as attendance-taker. Then she started walking all over the new ship, taking note of the current dimensions of the old rooms, and those of the new ones. There wasn’t any new furniture around, nor any new instruments. Everything that existed before was still around, and the only things new were the barebones of the ship. It seemed to be perfectly intact too, not having suffered any wounds or damage. The Ubiña pockets appeared to be stable on the other side of the barriers too. When she met back up with Loa, they learned of a few stragglers still trapped in them, but there was no reason to believe they were hurt. She then found Vitalie to confirm that they had survived just fine in the housing, though most of them weren’t entirely happy about having done so alone for a year. She could not reach into pocket four, though, even after receiving a sedative to help her focus on her astral self. Serif was still stuck in there, along with Esen and his fanatical religious loyalists. Leona had to resign herself to the fact that this more than likely meant her girlfriend was dead. How could she have survived that?

Brooke made up some story to tell Earth that was good enough to garner them access to the Panama Space Elevator, but Leona never found out what that was. She helped unload the passengers, but stayed on the ship with the rest of the crew. Loa, on the other hand, traveled down with the first group. It was hers and Hokusai’s intention to help the refugees transition to their new lives on Earth. Acclimating would be one of the hardest things for them to do, even for those who were from there, and had only landed on Durus because of the Deathspring. Hokusai needed to stay behind to figure out either how to get the dimensions open permanently, or execute a rapid rescue plan, and then just destroy them entirely. For this reason, along with the crew, Vitalie was still there, as well as the dimensional destroyer, whose name no one bothered remembering. Lastly, Ecrin and a small contingency of her security team was still around, believing the prisoners in pocket seven to be her responsibility.

Right now, everyone was standing or sitting around the lounge area, not sure where they were going to start. Even Paige was at a loss for words. Camden started to try to break the ice with a joke about the Maramon prisoner, but was stopped by the sudden appearance of a young boy.

“Who are you?” Paige demanded to know, tensing up in preparation for needing to protect her people.

“The Emissary.”

“Ah, shit.”

Saga stepped in front of her daughter. “You can’t have her.”

The Emissary took a beat. “No, she doesn’t belong to me, or even to the powers that be. She belongs to Earth.”

“Do you always show up when it’s time for a new Savior to be called upon, or it just because she’s the last one?”

“It’s because she has family who cares for her, and because she’s the last one, and because she will be retiring early. I cannot divulge when that is, but she will not be an old woman. You will be able to enjoy a life with her,” the Emissary promised. “You will just have to wait before it begins.”

“I want to spend time with her now,” Saga argued. “I want to raise her. We’ve already missed so much.”

“Nothing is perfect,” the Emissary responded. “But you have it better than many. I suggest you do not take that for granted. Étude will begin her responsibilities at the strike of midnight central. You have until then to say your goodbyes. I will start.” He paused for effect. “Goodbye.” He disappeared.

Paige glanced at her wrist out of habit, even though she had an innate sense of the passage of time, and never needed to read it somewhere. “Leona, the elevator will be coming back shortly. You should go with the next batch, so you’re not stuck on the station when midnight hits.”

“But the pockets, and Étude,” Leona respectfully protested.

“Say your goodbyes now, and don’t worry about the pockets. Hokusai opened them once, she can do it again.”

Leona sadly agreed, but waited until the last moment before walking out of the ship, and into the elevator. Her time on the Warren was finally over.

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 4, 2181

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Vito was right when he claimed he could make anything invisible. Not only could he do it with other people, but he could protect an entire compound. All the survivors were living together in the original housing, save for a couple loyal to the Maramon population, which had grown to massive proportions. Seven-year-old Esen was still alive and breathing every few seconds, supplying the world with a current estimated thirty-four million people and change. Adamina was still around as well, though there was evidence to suggest she could control her power. Unlike Esen, she should be able to halt this miniature universe’s progression at will, but she had no reason to. With a Maramon being born every few seconds, they felt they needed all the space they could get, even though technology wouldn’t advance enough to reach beyond this one planet for many thousand years.

At the moment, there was still only the one orbital, along with its suborbital, the moon. There was also a full sun, which was Adamina’s greatest achievement to date, and led to the creation of a new holiday. Though, it was still unclear when that holiday would be observed, since no one really knew how long a year was, how they would break down the calendar, or how they would measure these celestial movements. Over time, Vito learned how to maintain stable invisibility of anything he wanted without him actually being nearby. This allowed him to venture out from the compound and gather intelligence on the natives. He was able to use his power to pose as a friendly, forming an illusion around his entire body that made him look like one of the giant white monstrous creatures. He learned many things about how they operated, and what kind of society they were forming. They were developing their own language, which Vito was studying, and teaching the other humans upon returning to the compound every week for debrief. The Maramon spread rumors that the gods who created their world lived amongst them, but they never found any proof that the compound existed, so the humans were safe...for now. Only an elite few protecting the children knew the truth.

When Serif returned to the timeline, she interrupted a deep discussion among the compound leaders, which included Saga and Camden. They were debating whether they should separate this dimension from The Warren entirely, whether it was time to do that now, and how they would go about even trying such a thing. Legal adult, Vitalie was apparently in the room as well, but she forgot to reveal her astral projected self to Serif, which made for some weird conversations to witness. She was presently in bed sleeping, which was the only way she could form a stable connection to this pocket dimension, leading many to believe it would one day soon simply break off on its own, and begin floating in the metaphysical bulkverse, completely independent of its parent universe. This would be ideal, if they also knew how to get out before it happened, and could trust that it would do so without human intervention, because they weren’t sure they could figure out how to do it.

“I may know someone,” Vitalie said after allowing Serif to see her. “There’s a woman in pocket one who has used her paramount power to reestablish order to the pocket.”

“How did she do that?” Saga asked.

“She threatens to end their existence. She claims not only to be capable of destroying a whole pocket dimension with nothing but a thought, but also that she’s already done so, and is the only thing holding it together now. She says it’s on a dead man’s switch, and if anything were to happen to her, the dimension would collapse, killing everyone inside.”

“That’s terrible,” Serif said.

“Well, it’s worked. Her threat created a peace the likes of which those people had never known, even while living on Durus.” She took a beat. “The point is, she may be able to tear pocket four away from The Warren, and into this bulkverse you keep talking about.”

“It’s the space in between parallel universes. It’s nowhere and everywhere, all at once,” Serif tried to clarify.

“Okay, that helped,” Vitalie said sarcastically.

“What makes you think someone who can destroy dimension could also emancipate one?” Saga posed.

“I don’t know for sure, but he might.” She pointed towards a young man sitting quietly in the corner.

He wasn’t a compound leader, but they were holding this meeting in the common area, and it was perfectly fine for him to sit there while they were talking. He was born with the ability to diagnose other people’s time powers, inherently understanding what they could do, even before they manifested. On Durus long ago, his bloodline was used to coordinate for the Mage Protectorate, placing mages in the optimal positions for defending against the monsters that once roamed those lands. He was the one who figured out that Esen could create whole people by breathing, and that Adamina could expand the dimension. “Me? I can’t diagnose someone without being able to touch them. That is—pardon the pun—vital.”

“Can you diagnose yourself?” Vitalie asked.

“What?”

“Yourself? Have you ever diagnosed yourself? Full work-up.”

“Well, no, that would be ridiculous. I’m part of a bloodline. We can all do this, and I’ve already proven my power.”

“Yes,” Vitalie agreed, for the sake of furthering her own argument, “but if you never diagnosed yourself, you don’t really know your own limits. Have you ever tried to diagnose someone as an astral projection?”

“Of course not.”

“So maybe you can?”

He took a deep breath. “I suppose it can’t hurt to try.”

“Great,” Vitalie said, having brilliantly come into her own as a leader. “Then let me tell you my tentative plan.”

Hokusai had a week ago finally figured out how to reopen the pocket dimensions. It took all these years because she needed to invent a few things along the way, using the synthesizer, for which she didn’t always have the necessary materials. She tried printing her new objects by using scraps from the material reclamator, but this was not going to be enough. She needed more, but Paige was unwilling to provide her with anything. She spent a not insignificant amount of time just pleading her case for letting her cannibalize the ship just a little bit. Unfortunately, with no proof that what she ultimately created would do them any good, she was unable to secure authorization. Frustrated, and at the end of her rope, Hokusai decided to tear apart her own bed, leaving her and Loa with nothing but a mattress. Paige was not happy about this executive decision, but was presumably tired of fighting with her about it. If she wanted to sleep on the floor, then fine.

Hokusai first came up with her idea from an old television show that hadn’t been created until after she left for Durus. On her down time, she would go through the library database, not looking for inspiration, but just needing to clear her mind of the problem. Some escapist entertainment was the only thing keeping her from literally banging her head against one of the Ubiña pockets, in a desperate attempt to get it open. She had no idea she would get any help from the library, but this show included a plotline where characters used something called a dimensional assimilator to automatically transport people from several other pocket dimension, back to their home world, all at once. That alone would do her no good, since there was not enough standing room for everyone inside the pockets, especially not since more had been born since. She would have also needed to somehow prevent pocket four from coming through, since there were now tens of millions of individuals living there. The show did allow her to rethink the problem, though, and come up with something that could work.

She used the synthesizer to create six dimensional generators; one for each pocket. Instead of trying to restore the links between the ship, and the other dimensions, what she needed to do was shift parts of the ship into six new pocket dimensions, each one precisely tuned to the properties of the one it’s trying to access. She spent the last several months tirelessly building these new structures, using their bed, as well as several other things Paige eventually agreed to hand over. In the end, they looked like bathroom partitions, extending the pods by about a half meter. This made it hard to walk from one half of the ship to the other, but most people still there were willing to suffer through that for the sake of getting their people back. They still had not yet heard from Leona, so it was even more important to get back into those pockets, and find out what had happened to her. Today was her day, though, so if they didn’t do it now, they would have to wait an entire year, and that was not acceptable. Fortunately, Vitalie was back with a tentative plan for solving everybody’s problems.

Vitalie’s plan was a good one, but it was predicated on the idea that Hokusai could establish a connection between the Warren, and the pocket dimensions indefinitely, which was not the case. She spent most of the day letting the diagnostician help the dimensions destroyer figure out how to destroy part of a dimension, thereby closing it off, but not the whole thing. They were approaching midnight, though, and if they didn’t get this done by that time, Serif could be stuck in pocket four forever. Not to mention the fact that they still needed to figure out where Leona was. She went into a weird sparkly portal in Annora’s quarters, but never came back.

Vitalie raced back and forth between the dimensions, mustering all her strength on retargeting faster than she ever had before. As soon as Hokusai activated these things she called dimensional generators, the alarms began to blare, making it abundantly clear to Hokusai that this was a temporary solution. Unlike Annora, she did not possess a natural ability to create pocket dimensions. Nor did she have enough time to study a stable pocket to create one. In the end, she was really just going off her minimal exposure, substantial education, and massive intellect. She warned Vitalie what was happening, so Vitalie went into crisis mode, taking over the ship, with no protest from Paige. She ordered Loa to look for a way to get Leona out of pocket seven. She told Brooke and Paige to block the entrances to the pockets, because people were starting to come through. Of course, this wasn’t doing much good, as people were desperate to leave their prisons, even if it meant running into a new one. Vitalie came out of her pocket in physical form and ran into pocket one to retrieve the dimensional destroyer, and escort her to pocket four, leaving her at the entrance while she made sure all the humans were going to come through. They were already running up the hill to get to the exit.

“Where’s Serif? Vitalie asked.

“She went looking for Vito,” Camden answered, ushering his people though the portal.

“Where was Vito?”

“He was kidnapping Adamina from the temple.”

Vitalie put on her game face and took a deep breath. “Get everyone through.” She reached out and sought Serif, since she didn’t know exactly where she was. Once her mind found her, she sent her astral projection towards her, and watched in horror as Serif ran through the valley, holding onto little Adamina’s hand. They were being pursued by a horde of Maramon, angry about one of their primary gods being stolen from them. Vitalie wanted to help, but could do nothing as a disembodied consciousness.

“We’re coming!” Serif yelled.

“Where’s Vito. Can’t he turn you invisible?”

“He didn’t make it.”

“The exit is going to close! You have to get there now!”

“If we don’t get there in time, close the door and cut this dimension away from the ship!” Serif commanded, out of breath, but pressing forward. “You need to end this whether we’re back or not! Do you understand?”

Vitalie didn’t want to do that.

“Do you understand!”

“Yes!”

“Then go. You’re distracting me, and I want you to help find Leona.”

Vitalie disappeared, and sent her mind to dimension six, where Loa was standing in front of where the entrance to the portal would form, had they any way of opening it from this end. She used her remote viewing power on the wall, and opened one of her windows. It was showing the corridor of a block of prison cells. Four of them were occupied; two by Leona and Ecrin, and the other two by men neither Loa nor Vitalie recognized.

“Are your windows two-way?” Vitalie asked.

“Not through this,” Loa answered. “It’s taking everything I have just to keep it open. We can’t communicate with them.”

“I can.”

Vitalie sent her mind back to her body. They could now see Serif and Adamina running towards them in the distance, the mob right on their tail. “Don’t let the monsters get through,” she ordered the destroyer. “If that means Serif and the girl don’t make it, then so be it. But you better goddamn wait until the last second.”

She ran back through the portal, and into the ship. She struggled through the crowd of overzealous passengers, and grabbed Paige by the arm. They ran into pocket six, which was the only one still populated, since the people in there were still operating under Ecrin’s command. Vitalie combined her power with Loa’s, to send Paige through the window. Without hesitating or asking questions, Paige used her incredible strength to tear the bars off, and free Leona and Ecrin. She pulled them back through the temporary portal just in time for Loa and Vitalie to both pass out from exhaustion, trapping the men in there.

Ecrin’s security force carried them out of the pocket while Leona followed. When she entered the ship, she found it to be larger than it was before. It had somehow grown.

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