The Seventh Stage: Foundation Rock (Part VII)

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Echo and Clavia both teleport out of the water, leaving every molecule of it behind, even the drops clinging to their skin, so they’re completely dry now, on the ground. They also apport clothes around their bodies so they can continue the conversation. “Aristotle Al-Amin,” Echo begins, “son of Maqsud.”

“That’s right,” Aristotle says. He was leaning against a tree. He pops himself off it, and saunters around, vaguely in their direction.

“You’re the one who made the Sixth Key?” Clavia asks.

“I didn’t make it,” he clarifies. “I did transport everyone to it, though.”

“How did you do that?” Andrei asks, still piloting the original Clavia body.

“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Aristotle answers anticlimactically.

“That’s okay,” Echo decides. “The only question is, can you do it again? Mostly the same people, and their descendants. Comparatively, the population isn’t all that much higher, and they’re all in the same place now, going to the same place. Here, actually. But. We also have to figure out who wants to go, and who doesn’t. They’re getting a choice this time.”

Aristotle nods like he knows something they don’t, which he surely does. He continues to pace around a little, admiring the peaceful surroundings. “I should clarify, I didn’t do it alone. I had enormous help, from a god.”

“Some people call us gods,” Andrei says.

Aristotle’s eyes dart over to him, but he doesn’t move his head. “You may be gods in this universe, but I spoke with those who live on a higher plane of existence. Now, that doesn’t mean we need them this time. Maybe you could supply the power instead. I don’t know who any of you are. All I know is that I can’t do it at the scale you’re asking for without some serious might.”

“Well, how did you contact these higher gods?” Clavia asks.

“A special term sequence that you input in a Nexus,” Aristotle answers.

“Can you remember the sequence?” Clavia presses.

Aristotle snorts as he laughs. “Yeah, I think I can recall.”

They stare at him blankly.

“It’s one glyph long,” he clarifies.

“Then why doesn’t everybody do it?” Andrei asks him.

“Because it’s only one glyph,” Aristotle reiterates. “Most people don’t think to even try it, because most term sequences are longer. Besides, it can only be used once at any given Nexus, and if you’ve ever done it before, you can’t do it again. You can tag along, but you won’t get another wish. If we go this route, I won’t be able to do it, because mine has already been asked and answered.”

“A wish?” Clavia questions. “Are they gods, or genies?”

“Both, I guess. They don’t use either of those words. They just have names.”

Andrei looks around. “Does anyone know of a Nexus in the Sixth Key that might be so rarely used that no one has tried this oddly simple single-glyph term sequence? Can you even call it a sequence?”

Echo shakes his head as he’s beginning to walk away. “No need to find a needle in a haystack. I’ll just conjure a new needle.” He waves his arms. The trees before him sink into the ground as if it’s made of mud. Once the clearing has formed, an artificial cube materializes atop it. It looks just like any other Nexus, on the outside, and once they step inside, they find it to be typical there as well.

Aristotle looks around. “Are you sure you need my help to do what you ask, or the gods’ help? Might wanna save your wish if you can. As I said, you only get one.”

“No, we know we can’t do it,” Clavia explains. “But that’s a good question. Which one of us should go and ask?”

Aristotle shrugs. “We can all go. It’s one question each. The only thing is, whoever literally inputs the sequence can’t ever do it again. Just like the wish itself, I’m disqualified for that too.”

“I’ll handle it,” Echo volunteers. They all step down into the cavity. “Which is it?”

“Zero-enter,” Aristotle replies. “We’re going to a place called Origin.”

Echo kicks the glyph that translates to zero, and then the enter button. Technicolors rain down from the drum above, and spirit them away.

They find themselves on a dock, floating on a dark and mysterious ocean. It’s eerie, but beautiful. They feel safe here, like nothing can or will hurt them. A rowboat approaches. A person steps out of it, and ties it on. “Welcome to Origin. My name is Senona Riggur.” They turn their head to look at Aristotle. “You’re back. You know the rules, though.”

“Of course,” Aristotle answers. “I’m just their guide.”

Senona turns back to address the other three, but ends up focusing on Andrei in particular. “There are more here than there appears to be.”

Andrei is surprised. “Uh, yeah. We are six in one.”

Senona breathes deeply, and considers the situation. “Six consciousnesses, one body. Six wishes.”

“We appreciate the accommodation,” Andrei says with a slight bow. “That’s very magnanimous of you. A lesser god would not see it that way.”

Senona laughs. “We don’t use that term. Anyway, it’ll make it easier for us to talk if I separate you out first.” They lift their hand, and wave it towards the Clavia body. It disappears, only to be instantly replaced by Ingrid Alvarado, Onyx Wembley, Killjlir Pike, Andrei Orlov, Ayata Seegers, and Debra Lovelace. They’re all in their own bodies, just like they’ve wanted for so long.

And they’re surprised too. They inspect their new substrates, confirming with each other without speaking that they all look exactly as they’re meant to. “Whose wish was that?” Ingrid asks.

Senona is taken aback. “That wasn’t a wish. That was just...maintenance. You still have six.” They address the group as a whole. “To clarify, there are eight qualifiers here. You get eight wishes. You don’t really have to decide whose is whose. I’ve had people come here in groups who collectively all want the same thing, so it’s been more collaborative than individual. It’s all up to you. To further clarify, it’s not magic. What I just did for you, I did with the aid of someone with the tools to make it happen. Just because you can imagine it, doesn’t mean there is anyone in the bulkverse with the requisite tools. If I cannot accomplish what you ask, we’ll work together, and determine something that I can. You have all the time in the world to come up with your ideas.”

“A benevolent god,” Clavia decides.

“A benevolent person,” Senona corrects, “with, as I said, a set of tools. My tools are to find other people’s tools. I sense great power in all of you. I ask, on the side, that you make yourselves available to lend your talents to me in the pursuit of other people’s wishes. I don’t demand it of you, but it would be appreciated.”

“Maybe this is where we’re supposed to be,” Echo whispers to Clavia.

“Maybe,” she whispers back.

“Can we ask questions without them being wishes?” Onyx pipes up.

“Sure!” Senona agrees.

“His wish.” Onyx jerks his head towards Aristotle. “How’d you do it? And can you do it again?”

“Oh, that. I hooked him up with one of the most powerful entities in the bulk. You call me a god...”

“You did?” Aristotle asks. “I don’t remember that.”

“You wouldn’t,” Senona contends. “You didn’t actually meet him. I more just passed the message along.”

“Who was it?”

Senona smiles, but doesn’t answer.

“I think I know who you’re talking about,” Clavia guesses. She too doesn’t say it out loud, though. It would explain everything. He has omnipotent power over everything that happens in Salmonverse, all of its child universes, and reportedly a number of other branes beyond those. It’s a bit of a deus ex machina for him to exercise that control to the degree he needed to in order to make the Reconvergence happen, and to rescue everyone from four of the five original realities. So it’s unclear why he wouldn’t simply make it a non-issue, but she can’t question his judgment, lest he use his authority against her in some way.

It’s probably for the best that she not investigate further, the man she’s talking about concurs from his bed on a Thursday night. The only question now is whether he would be willing to do it again. Honestly, he’s still debating it.

Okay, it’s been a few hours for him, and he’s ready with his decision, but they’re not going to be happy about it. They’ll do it, though, because that’s what it’s going to take to end the Reality Wars once and for all. Senona receives his message telepathically, and they don’t like it either. “That is not how it works here. It goes against the spirit of everything that we’ve built.”

It’s a sacrifice.

“It’s unreasonable!” they shout back.

It’s too big for one wish.

“Someone once asked me for a sandwich!” Senona argues.

That one was too small for a wish. I can’t control their choices.

“You literally can!”

“Should we try to help?” Killjlir offers.

“Shh,” Ingrid warns. “It’s far too dangerous for us to get involved.”

“It’s not just about the number of wishes,” Senona goes on. “You’re asking them to leave everything they’ve ever known behind. You’re asking them to never see their loved ones again.”

They all hail from a universe where death is less profound, and more of a joke. From my perspective, as much as I’ve put them through, they’ve had it easy. Everyone I’ve ever known has either died for good, or will relatively soon. I shed no tears for these people, and neither should you. Are you going to do it, or make eight sandwiches instead?

Senona frowns with a level of rage that they have not felt in a long time. “I’ve had enough of your editorializing. You can stop inserting yourself into the story, thank you very much. I’ll talk to them myself.” They take a breath, centering themselves. “Based on the half of the conversation that you could hear, I’m sure that you can mostly guess what the stipulations are for your wish. He’s turned me into a liar, because if you ask for the wish that we’ve already discussed, you won’t get seven more. You won’t get any more. This one wish counts for all eight.”

“We understand,” Echo says. “It’s up to the whole group, though. It must be unanimous. Even Debra has to agree.”

“That’s not all,” Senona goes on. “You can’t live there, in your new universe. You can’t live in Salmonverse either, or any of its other offshoots, in fact. You’ll either be staying here, or going somewhere else.”

“Can we...stick together?” Ayata asks, glancing over at her love, Andrei.

“Truthfully, I don’t know,” Senona says. “I’ve become little more than a mouthpiece. It’s all up to him this time. And he reserves the right to change his mind at any time.”

“What a dick,” Debra muses.

“Debra! Jesus Christ!” Clavia shouts. “You’re gonna get us all killed!”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Debra dismisses it with a flick of her hair.

Senona clears their throat. “I’m receiving a new message. I’m told to ask if any of you know someone by the name of Ezqava ‘Effigy’ Eodurus.”

No, they all answer in one way, or another.

“He says...exactly.” Senona finishes.

Echo literally shivers.

They’re all tired of arguing about this, so they put it to a vote. To everyone’s surprise, what they figured would only be the first attempt turns out to be unanimous. They all want to avert the Reality Wars, even if it means not being around to witness the fruits of their labor. They have all been working towards this end for so long, it’s absolutely worth it. It would be selfish of them to try to find some kind of loophole. Debra doesn’t really have this same sentimentality, but she goes along with the plan, because she believes herself to be powerful enough to find a workaround later. And the reality is that she might be right. That has not yet been decided.

They don’t know where the others are gonna end up yet, but Echo and Clavia are going to remain here at Origin. They can do a lot of good, fulfilling visitors’ greatest desires, and making countless worlds better. It’s a great use of their gifts now that their primary goal of saving the Sixth Key is complete. They only asked for one thing in addition to the wish itself, which is to be given some kind of proof that this hasn’t all been for nothing, and that the wish will indeed be fulfilled. I can agree to that. I don’t need any more pushback from any of them, and would like to remove myself from the narrative. Clavia is right, that it’s a deus ex machina, and while that’s a very useful trope in some cases, it’s not something that should be overutilized, or the story essentially becomes meaningless, and a waste of time.

The Reality Wars will be stopped, and everyone who wants to live in the new universe will be automatically transported to it without fuss. All year, I’ve been trying to figure out what its name should be, and I think I’ve finally settled on the right one. In keeping with the motif of placing them in numerical order, it must necessarily follow The Seventh Stage. The result is unremarkable, and strangely simple. I’m calling it...The Eighth Choice.

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Microstory 1979: From the Shadows

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Leonard: No, she’s still not here. Ophelia? Ophelia? Can you hear me?

Micro: *walking up from the shadows* I’m blocking all signals.

Leonard: Report.

Micro: *smiling* Report. You’re learning, young padawan. First off, are you okay? You, Ophelia, and the prisoner? How did you get back here?

Leonard: We used one of Anaïs’ contacts to get across the borders, and then a bus.

Micro: *nodding* I’m glad you’re okay. I wanted to help, but we couldn’t tip Sachs off. Not that it mattered. Parsons escalated things at the safehouse, and we were forced to reveal the truth in front of Sasho. We still don’t know if we can trust him. That’s why I asked you to come here. This was our only way to keep Vogel safe and alive until we can figure out how many moles there are left in the government. He is alive, isn’t he?

Leonard: He’s fine. He’s in a safehouse that I set up for myself while I was free, but before DExA began. *looking around* I assume this is yours?

Micro: All I could do was hope that your parolee told you where the Salmon Civic Center would be if we were in Salmonverse.

Leonard: We had lunch in this area once in my home universe. He pointed it out. Seemed innocuous and meaningless at the time.

Micro: I’m glad that he did.

Leonard: I’m taking Vogel to Parsons. Enough of this cloak and dagger crap. We are not equipped to hold onto the suspect on our own, and every day we spend in the cold gets us closer to being burned.

Reese: I’m pleased to hear you say that. *walks up from the shadows*

Leonard: This was all just a test?

Micro: Have you heard of Lima Syndrome where you’re from?

Leonard: No.

Reese: We don’t have it either. Apparently it’s when you start to sympathize with someone you have in captivity. I had to be sure you weren’t compromised. Or Ophelia.

Leonard: Oh, the Grapley Effect. Yeah, we have that.

Reese: *hands Leonard a folder* This is what we have on Sachs. I had a friend from my military days look into it independently to verify it. He’s been playing us the whole time.

Leonard: I assume he took a shot at Vogel to shut him up?

Micro: That’s our assumption as well. We need to find out what—and who—he knows.

Leonard: *looking over the documents* This begs the question...

Reese: Director Washington? She’s the one who assigned Sachs to our department. Yeah, I’m worried about her loyalties too. That’s not our job, though. The Internal Compliance Commission will investigate on their own.

Leonard: In the meantime, what happens to us?

Reese: We’ve been shut down. But there’s hope for us yet.

Leonard: In what way?

Myka: *coming out of the shadows with a bunch of others* We’re working out of here now. Congratulations, Miazga, you’ve just joined a rogue operation.

Leonard: Not my first.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: Tuesday, March 29, 2022

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As soon as the final bullet landed in its target, everyone stopped. Two sides of the battle dropped their weapons, and watched Anatol Klugman as he was dying. People were dying all around them, but it was as if they knew this death was different. Were they somehow aware that Mateo had pulled the trigger, with a weapon that wouldn’t exist for nearly a century and a half? Anatol fell to the ground, and exhaled his last breath. And then, just like that, everyone else disappeared. Arcadia had said that this battle wasn’t even meant to be part of the Franco-Prussian War. The hundemarke had created the battle that would create the hundemarke. But if the hundemarke were never allowed to exist at all, the war wouldn’t exist in this time period either. It was ended months ago in this new timeline. It didn’t make any sense, but then again, when it came to the hundemarke, nothing really made sense anyway.

Anatol’s body lied there alone. The screen slowly turned black. And then, so did all the others. Some of them had been shaded red, which meant Jupiter wanted to paradox them by killing killers before they could kill with the hundemarke. The screens shaded blue, however, were ones he wanted to persist, even in this new reality. None of them was safe, though. They were all turning black, because none of them ever happened.

Jupiter watched the whole chamber turn, and with it, his apparent plans for world domination. “What did you do? What? Did? You? Do?”

“Leona?” Mateo said in the form of a question, but he didn’t really know what he was asking of her.

“I think you did the right thing,” Leona said. “I know it doesn’t sound like me, but...”

“I agree,” Ramses added. “Hard reset. The hundemarke is responsible for so much death. The world is a better place without it.”

“Are freaking kidding me?” Jupiter was seething. “The moment that you destroyed was everything. It occurred in the first reality ever.” It was like he was experiencing true grief. “Three temporal objects were created on May 23, 1871. First, the hundemarke. It creates fixed moments in time. The second, was the Sword of Assimilation. It can transfer time powers. Well, actually, I think it can transfer any special property from one individual to another, but in terms of our world, time powers are the only things that matter. The third...” He couldn’t finish his sentence.

“What is it, Jupiter Preston?” Declan prompted.

“Don’t call me that!” Jupiter cried. “My name is Fury.”

“I thought it was Rosa,” J.B. said.

“My alternate goes by that name, but I’m Fury.”

“Keep explaining,” Leona coaxed.

Jupiter composed himself. The third object that was created on May 23 was the Omega Gyroscope. It was...kind of a toy that one of the soldiers was carrying with him. I guess he planned on giving it to his son, or something? It can manipulate reality in any way imaginable, and any way unimaginable. It can do literally anything.”

“Well, that sounds dangerous,” Mateo figured. “I’m not sure it’s a bad thing it doesn’t exist in this timeline.”

“You don’t get it.” Jupiter was shaking his head profusely. “The Omega Gyroscope is responsible for time travel.” He waited for a reaction before continuing, “it led to everything! It led to everyone you’ve ever known existing. It led to the Saviors of Earth, to the salmon, to the Gallery. This world is nothing without it. It’s..nothing!”

Mateo approached Jupiter, and placed his hand on his shoulders. “It’s not nothing. It’s what the world should be. It’s what nearly everyone believes the world is...until someone like us shows up, and reveals the truth.”

“You still don’t understand, Matic. You erased time travel from history. We may not be in what we were calling The Parallel, because it might not be running parallel at all. You might have just destroyed the timeline you come from. We could be stuck here forever. You know how many trillions of people you just killed?”

“I know how many people I killed,” Mateo defended. “I killed one person here today. At least in terms of traveling through time, I only killed one person. Every time you go back, even just one second, you’re collapsing the timeline you came from, right? So I’m not any more of a killer than any of you. Don’t try to guilt me. I stand by what I did, even if it means this is just where we live now.”

“Yeah,” his friends backed him up in relative unison.

“And I’m not so sure we can’t call this the Parallel,” Mateo went on. “I just carried out Arcadia’s plan, and I hardly think she would have wanted to undo the creation of this gyroscope thing, if it’s so important to you people.”

“She wasn’t going to do that,” Jupiter argued. “She was only going to erase the hundemarke. There is a moment that we mapped that could have prevented the one, but not the other two, from existing. She was going to act on that moment, but you preempted it. You stopped the whole thing. You essentially went back too far.”

“I’m sorry you lost,” Mateo said. “I guess, if time travel doesn’t exist, there’s nothing you can do about it now.”

“Oh, to be sure, time travel doesn’t exist in this timeline, because we’re still in the miniature Gallery chamber. But when we step out, we’ll integrate ourselves fully into the timestream.” He held up his primary Cassidy cuff. “We’re just the only six people with time travel capabilities right now.” He reached out to the keypad, input the code, and opened the door. The basement was a total mess. Furniture was strewn about the floors. Leaky pipes were hanging from the ceiling. Exposed wires were sparking. A little fire was burning in the corner that probably wasn’t going to get much bigger. The walls were blown out.

“I’ve seen this before,” Leona said as she was stepping out. “This is what it looks like in our timeline...sometimes. It spontaneously switches back and forth between perfectly pristine, and destroyed.”

“I guess now we know where that temporal anomaly comes from,” Mateo said with a smile. “I think that’s pretty good evidence that this really is the Parallel, and not all there is.”

“Maybe,” Jupiter was forced to admit the possibility. He started tapping on his cuff screen.

There was a sharp gust of wind, and the fire disappeared, but other than that, things looked about the same. “What did you do?” Declan asked.

“I wanted to test the new pattern,” Jupiter answered. “Nailed it too. This is March 29, 2022.”

“What is the significance of this date?” Leona asked.

“I just said it. It’s your new pattern. It combines yours with Jeremy’s. You were designed to jump forward one year at the end of every day. He only lives on Tuesdays and July. There are certain instances where these dates intersect, and now that is all you will ever know.”

“What is the point of that?” Mateo questioned. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Well, I did have plans for you, which is why I chose all five of you to come with me to the Parallel. Those have since changed, but I see no reason to change everything. You’ll still remain on this new pattern until I decide otherwise. I guess we’ll find out if you were right about the old timeline staying intact.” Without another word, he teleported away. Not that it mattered. They would eventually figure out how to break their connection to him and his primary Cassidy cuff, and when they did, they would be free of all control. The powers that be had no jurisdiction here, and as the man said, there weren’t any other time travelers either. This could have been everything Mateo had been searching for since this all began.

“Let’s get out of here,” Ramses decided. “We need to find out what the rest of the world looks like in this reality.”

They struggled to climb up the stairs of the basement. Even though they were made of concrete, and remained mostly structurally sound, they were covered in debris. Large chunks were torn off as if bitten into by a dinosaur, and the whole thing could come crashing down eventually. The steps didn’t lead them to the first floor of Fletcher House. They had to pull themselves up a wall of dirt and dead grass, and push other vegetation out of the way. When they finally emerged from underground, they saw little else but a meadow at the edge of a forest. They should have been standing in the middle of the suburbs, but it was all gone. They didn’t know what to think.

Declan pulled one of his pant legs up, and removed a cuff from his shin. He started fiddling with the screen.

“You hid that from Jupiter?” Leona asked.

“It’s just my backup teleporter cuff,” Declan started to explain. “I keep it there in case my primary one is damaged, not if an evil clone steals it from me.”

“That could come in handy,” Ramses noted.

“No, it won’t.” Declan wrapped it back around his leg. “Well, I could use it to transport us from here to over there. He shut one eye, and pointed to the distance. “If we wanted to travel the globe, we would need at least one satellite to do it. There aren’t any satellites, though.”

“There aren’t?” Leona was the most shocked by this, but obviously everyone understood how strange this was.

Declan went on, “my mother dispatched a very small and undetectable constellation so I could navigate the world. If those failed me, however, I should still be able to hack into any number of other artificial satellites up there. It’s like when you go hiking, and can’t find a single WiFi signal. There’s nothin’ up there. At all. This world is not space-capable.”

“Thoughts, Leona?” Mateo prompted.

She started to pace around, and work through the problem. The others gave her time to come up with a theory. “One thing I wondered when I first learned about time travel, is whether it explains some of the more wondrous things that humankind has accomplished. Were they responsible for the world’s pyramids? Stonehenge? The moai on Rapa Nui? When I was on Tribulation Island, I spoke with The Historian, and it turns out...no. Humans built those magnificent structures, and they did it with their present-day technology, and that technology was as advanced as it should have been given the constraints of logical progression.

“Still, time travelers do exist, and they do make an impact on the past. They spread future diseases, and save lives, and open people’s eyes. Perhaps they make subtle changes to our species’ development that not even the Historian has noticed, because there are too many variables. If time travel doesn’t exist here, maybe that was enough to slow progress. I mean, Horace Reaver went back in time and made a lot of inevitable technology happen just a few years earlier than in his original timeline. That sort of thing may be happening constantly. Of course, we still need more information.” She looked around. “We’ve yet to see anyone here. That could indeed mean the human race died out centuries ago, and all that’s left is this basement. Or it just means they live on the other side of that hill, and everywhere else on the map, but they haven’t gotten into orbit yet.”

Mateo smiled, and looked over at Declan. “You can’t teleport to China, but you can see over that hill. Why don’t you scout around, and see what else is in the area? It’s not an order, I wanna be clear. I recognize you don’t owe us anything.”

“I want answers too,” Declan said. He removed the teleporter cuff once more from his leg, and placed it on his arm, higher than it normally would be, because of the Cassidy cuff that he was unable to remove. “Well, that’s gonna be annoying.” With a smile of his own, he aimed his special device down West, where the golf course used to be. He appeared on top of the hill, though he was far enough away to be barely visible. Fortunately, Jupiter didn’t disable the feature that let them communicate with each other through the Cassidy cuffs. “Nothing here. I’m gonna keep going. Go ahead and search for shelter, and make camp. I don’t think we should go back down to the basement.”

“Roger that,” J.B. replied.

They watched Declan’s silhouette disappear. He fell out of comms range after an hour of running a circular grid search, and didn’t return until long after nightfall.

“Did you find anything?” Leona asked.

“Nothing. We’re alone for miles and miles.”

“I’m sure Jupiter’s pissed,” Ramses figured.

“Good,” Mateo said.

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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.”

« < » > Table of Contents

Firestorm: Aeolia Sarai (Part VIII)

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The year is 2027. I’m minding my own business, trying to take a nice stroll in the park, maybe shed a few pounds while I’m at it, when I suddenly find myself on my ass. Oh my God, this is it, I think. The terrorists have come for my town, and I’m collateral damage. Or I’m a target, I don’t know. All I know is that I’m in an immense amount of pain, and I’m not alone. Other people are strewn about the ground around me. They weren’t there before, though, I know that. I would have remembered if I had been in a crowd. I feel like I’m hurt more than most of them, yet they help each other up, and don’t so much as acknowledge me. Until one sees me.

He lifts me up. “Are you okay?”

“Not really,” I say, but I’m overpowered by someone else’s response.

“I’m fine,” says some guy who happens to be standing next to me. He’s brushing that dirt off his shoulder.

“I was talking to her,” the kind man tells him.

The rude man looks around. “I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about this stranger who we’ve just hurt! Correction, who you just hurt by keeping a weapon like whatever the hell that thing is in your closet.”

“Hey, you guys wanted to open the door; I told you not to.” The jerk looks around again. “I still don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m the only stranger to you people. You came into my office..unannounced.”

“Can someone please tell me what’s happening?” I ask, about as politely as I think I can muster.

“What’s your name?”

“Austin Miller, and I swear to God, if you try to call me—”

“I wasn’t talking to you! Just always assume I’m not talking to you! Go over there! Now!”

“Kallias, what’s happening?” one of the other guys questions.

He sighs. “Raise your hand if you can see this woman right here.” Kallias points to me.

No one raises their hand.

“I think you hit your head,” another guy suggests.

“Don’t assume that,” a teenage girl contradicts him. “Maybe she’s invisible.”

“Why would I be able to see an invisible person,” Kallias asks her, “but no one else can?”

“Why would anyone be invisible? That’s not a time power.”

“We don’t know what that explosion did,” the teenager reasons. “We don’t know what the gyroscope does.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry I can’t see you. My name is Paige Turner. These are my fathers, Serkan Demir, and Ace Reaver. This is an asshole named Hello Doctor.” Hello Doctor doesn’t seem pleased by this designation, and I don’t know what it means, but if he doesn’t like it, then I’m gonna use it. The girl gestures towards Kallias, and adds, “I guess he can introduce himself.”

Kallias shakes my hand. “Detective Kallias Bran.”

“I thought you were an agent,” Hello Doctor spits.

“I am. I was a police detective before that, so it’s just a habit. Relax.” He turns back to him. “I know you said you weren’t okay, but...do you need medical attention?”

“I would just like to sit down,” I say to him.

He helps me over to a bench.

“She’s invisible, and we can’t hear her,” Serkan points out. “That’s weird. I feel like I just lost a few seconds of time too. I mean...I saw you standing right there, and now you’re by that bench, and I don’t know how you got there. I imagine you walked, but I didn’t see it happen.”

“Did this woman somehow make him invisible too?” Ace offers. “Temporarily?”

“No, that doesn’t make much sense either,” Paige says. “We didn’t see him disappear. It’s more like we forgot that it happened.”

“We forgot a few seconds ago?” Hello Doctor asks.

“Shut up,” a couple of them say in unison.

Paige tries to think about it more, and everyone seems to automatically understand that she needs silence. “Uncle Bran, do you have your wallet, or your badge, or something?”

“Yeah,” Kallias answers her. “They’re one and the same.”

“Hand it to your new friend, and ask her to throw it at one of us. Don’t tell us which one. Just pick one of us at random, and give it your best shot.”

“Gladly,” I say, taking the wallet from Kallias. I actually have a really good arm; I played baseball in college. I send it hurtling towards Hello Doctor.

He dodges it, then goes right back to how he was standing before I threw it. He blinks, confused. “What just happened?” He finds the wallet on the ground. “How did this get her? Is this yours?”

“Holy shit,” Ace says, dumbfounded. “Did she do it? Did she throw that?”

Paige kind of snorts. “She’s not invisible. She just...erases our memories so quickly that we can’t even recall that we’re looking at her right now.”

“How is that even possible?” Serkan asks.

“How do I time travel through photographs?” Paige counters. “We don’t really understand how any of this works, and as I said, we really don’t understand the Omega Gyroscope.”

Kallias approaches Hello Doctor threateningly. “What is it? What does it do? Where are we?”

“We’re in another world,” Hello Doctor replies with a shrug. “As far as I can tell, it’s only different from ours by its history. They had different presidents, different TV shows, different people altogether. It’s otherwise just like our Earth, though. Same geography, same animals, same relative technology. I was just starting to compare climate history when you guys showed up.”

“It’s an alternate reality,” Paige clarifies.

“What are you doing with it?” Serkan asks Hello Doctor.

“Nothing,” Hello Doctor defends. “I’ve no interest in this place. It’s just the world the gyroscope sends me. I’ve been trying to figure out how to control it, so I can take it anywhere. I’m hoping for a world that doesn’t have any people at all.”

“For what purpose?” Ace asks.

“To exploit its resources without hurting anybody. I’m not a bad person! Again, you barged into my office!”

“Never mind that,” Serkan dismisses. “We just need to figure out how to get back. First, though, we should find somewhere to go before someone in this world sees us. This grass is all dead. We don’t want to have to explain it to one of the natives.”

“You can come to my house,” I tell them. “I’m Aeolia Sarai, by the way.”

“There’s someone here who will let us into her house,” Paige says for some reason.

“Yeah, me. I just said that. Wait, can you hear me?”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Serkan agrees, “but who?”

Kallias is less confused than I am. He’s almost getting used to this. “Which direction should we go?” he asks me quietly.

“That way,” I point down the street.

“Say it louder than me,” he prompts.

“My house is that way,” I say in my outside voice.

“Let’s go this way,” Serkan says, like it was his idea.

“What the hell?” I lament as they’re all walking in the right direction.

“They can forget you,” Kallias begins as we hang back from the group a little, “but they can’t forget what you taught them. You told us where to go, and they respect that, even though they have no idea where they got the information.”

“Hey, man, is this yours?” Hello Doctor is presenting Kallias with the badge I threw at him. “Why am I holding this?”

“I dropped it,” Kallias lies. He speaks up to address the group, “the invisible woman’s name is Aeolia Sarai.”

“Who’s invisible?” Paige questions.

“Jesus Christ.” I’ve never felt so disregarded.

“We need to find out how powerful you are,” Kallias puts forth.

“Well, we need to find out why it is you can remember me when no one else can.”

“Oh, it’s kind of my thing,” he explains. “There are lots of things I remember that no one else does. I’ve never met anyone like you before, but I’m not that surprised. If you can conceive of a way of manipulating time or memories, someone probably exists who can do it.”

I look at him like a sad puppy.

He smiles, and lowers his voice. “Tell him to do something that he wouldn’t do on his own.”

“Take off your shoes,” I order Hello Doctor.

The guy actually does what I say, and removes his shoes. He doesn’t know why.

“Agent Miller, could you keep up, please?” I’m not sure why Serkan is using the guy’s normal name. “What are you doing?”

“I have no idea,” Hello Doctor says truthfully. “Why are my shoes off?”

“Ace, clap your hands three times above your head,” I order.

“Honey?” Serkan asks after Ace does exactly as I’ve instructed. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. We just need to get to this person’s house.”

“Take a left.” Now I’m just the satnav voice.

Everybody turns left. This is becoming awfully frustrating. People are listening to me, but they don't know it. I don’t need credit, but this can’t just be my life now. Kallias can’t be the only person I ever talk to again. That isn’t fair to him. He deserves freedom...from me.

“Wow,” Kallias says. “You need to not, like, abuse that power.”

“Absolute power corrupts absolutely. How can I communicate with people, though?”

This saddens him. “I don’t know. Maybe you can control it. Maybe you could voice your opinion without forcing others to share it. Maybe you just need time to learn.”

“Take your gun out of its holster.”

He doesn’t budge.

“Maybe I just need you. You’re the only one who’s immune to me.”

“I shouldn’t be, though.”

“Take the next right,” I direct the group. “What do you mean?” I ask Kallias.

“Serkan is special. He can suppress other people’s powers. There only seem to be a few exceptions. His daughter is immune to him, and apparently so am I, but that doesn’t explain why you are. He should be able to see you, if not also make other people be able to see you.”

“I’ve not had this—I wouldn’t call it a power...”

“The term we use in your case is time affliction.”

“Yeah, that describes it well,” I agree. “I’ve not had this time affliction before. It probably happened because of this gyroscope you keep talking about. How do other people get their powers? Is it from that, or something else?”

“Different ways,” Kallias begins. “Ace was born with a special pattern. His soul lives through every day twice. His memories don’t go with it, so he can’t remember what’s going to happen in the future, but he has really good instincts when his boyfriend isn’t blocking this power. Somebody gave Serkan his power, but we don’t know why, and he in turn, gave Paige hers. That was an accident, though. I got mine because I spent some time in another dimension. We think Agent Miller was born with his power, as most people are, but we don’t even know what it is yet. We just know he can do something because he too remembers things other people don’t.”

“He doesn’t remember me, though. This is it right here.” I walk towards my front door, and find the keys in my purse. “Follow me, everyone.”

They all come inside. “Whose house is this?” Paige asks.

“I don’t know, but we’re safe here,” Ace responds. I guess that’s nice to hear, even if it’s not directed towards me specifically.

“Can we speak privately?” Kallias asks me. “I’m still not sure I understand when they can hear me talking to you, and when they forget.

“My bedroom’s this way.”

Once we’re alone,” he continues. “I know I just said that I don’t want you to abuse your power, but we may need it.”

“You wanna control someone,” I imagine.

“I just want answers. “We’ve been investigating this rogue FBI agent. I haven’t been part of the group that long, but...well, you’ve met him. He’s being difficult. He found this very powerful device.”

“The Omega Gyroscope.”

“That’s right. He said we can’t get back to our reality. He said he didn’t have time to prepare, which there may be a little truth to that.”

“You don’t think it’s the whole truth.”

“He’s too relaxed. He should be freaking out that he can’t ever, ever go back home. He has some way, though, and I need to know how. There must be some reason he’s not telling us.”

“I can ask him, it’s fine.” I start to get up to go do that.

He stops me, “the problem is, when we go back...you’ll be alone. If you can’t talk to me, I’m not sure you can talk to anyone.”

“Oh, I’m going with you.”

“You are?”

“The guy said this world is kind of superficially different. You don’t have sharks with lasers on their heads, or damn dirty apes enslaving humans, right?”

“Not that I know of.”

“There’s nothing left for me here. I don’t have any family, and even if I did, they wouldn’t know me anymore. That is...if you’ll have me.”

“I would love for you to come. You just have to be certain about this. When we go back, we’re taking that gyroscope, and securing it. We can’t let Miller hold onto it, and we probably can’t use it ourselves either. It’s just too dangerous.”

“I understand. I’m ready. And I can pay my way,” I say with a grin. “Look, I have all these gold coins my late uncle left behind. He was a survivalist. I just came from the bank, where they told me they wouldn’t take them.”

“Hmm,” he says, holding up one of the coins. “Heads you don’t have to pay with the coins. Tails you also don’t have to pay.” He flips it. Heads.

“Whew,” I joke. “That was a close one.”

“I feel different.” He runs his hand through his hair. “Like I’ve had a headache my whole life, and now it’s gone. Whatever. Let’s go ask the man some questions.”

We return to the living room, where everyone is sitting on my furniture, presumably trying to decide what to do next. “Okay, I know none of you remembers our new friend, Aeolia, but she might be able to help us get out of here.”

No one reacts.

“Guys?”

Still no one reacts.

“Guys!” Kallias shouts louder. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Umm,” he says tentatively. “Everyone, stand up.”

They stand up, confused. Oh, shit.

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