Microstory 2115: One Story at a Time

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In the year 2014, I started publishing my stories for all to see. Well, all on Facebook, anyway. And publish is a strong word. I was posting them at least. I wrote the first one on my phone, using a notes app. It was rather poetic, and not very much like my usual style. I don’t recall now what prompted me to start doing this. I suppose that I was tired of being rejected by literary agents, and ready for people to see my work, whether I was getting paid for it or not. Months later, I started working on my Blogger website, and ported all of the content from Facebook over. It wasn’t that much at the time, but it would become a lot soon. By then, I had come up with a long-term plan, instead of just writing something up day by day, and sending it off. I made a master list, and a rigid schedule. Sundays would be for my continuous main story, Saturdays for longer stories, and weekdays for really short bits. Then I had to start devising narrative ideas. The Advancement of Mateo Matic was already there. I thought of the idea of a character unwillingly being sent forward in time probably a year or two prior, but didn’t know what I would do with it, since it was before the site. I merged it with a preexisting title that was for a completely different series, and really started to focus on that. I had a couple ideas for the Saturday mezzofiction, but they wouldn’t last long, so that was a constantly evolving situation. The microfiction stories were the wild west in the beginning. I was still just coming up with one story at a time, which didn’t have anything to do with each other. It wasn’t until Bellevue Profiles later in 2015 that I started to see potential for complete series.

Okay, this has all taken me longer than I thought it would, particularly the post that I wrote for what will be yesterday for you, and I really feel like I just need to turn myself in to the police. I’m just procrastinating, and for what? I only have a few hundred followers at this point. I guess I’m only going to be scheduling two days out. That gets me through Friday, and I don’t post these on weekends anyway, so that’s practically four days. Maybe they’ll stick me in one of those jail cells with a computer and an internet connection. They have those, right? I dunno, this universe is unfamiliar to me. There’s more to get into about how my blog operates, so maybe I’ll get around to it later. When I finally do get internet access back—if ever—I’m sure I will have so much to catch you up on. I might have joined a prison gang, and gotten a tattoo. Or not. Wish me luck, or to break a leg, or whatever you people say around here.

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 22, 2398

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Word spread throughout the resort that a military officer had arrived, placing Mateo in an awkward position. Now when he walks into a room, people applaud his valor, unaware that it was stolen. They’re not sure how the resort found out that he had military credentials, because he certainly didn’t advertise it when they requested a room, but it doesn’t matter now. The imaginary cat is out of the bag, and of course, being imaginary, it’s much more difficult to put it back in. The honeymooners are determined to stay out of the spotlight, which means signing up for activities on the other side of the island. They just hope the fake news hasn’t somehow circulated beyond the grounds.

“Why is this such a big deal? I mean, I know it can be a big deal, but they don’t know anything about me. They don’t know what I supposedly did.”

“It’s your rank,” Leona explains, still looking at the computer. “Dominus is a fairly high title. You’re theoretically responsible for about two thousand people.”

“Jesus. Why did that forger do that? I just thought we might need to steal some weapons from a military base. I don’t need to have this huge, complicated backstory.”

Leona spins her chair around. “You know why she did that. She probably thought she was doing you a favor, making you look like a big hero.”

“Am I a hero?” Mateo questions.

“Looks like it. Your specific exploits are as classified as you would expect, but you have a few pretty major medals.”

“Two thousand people,” he echoes. “If even one of them comes forward...”

Leona turns back at the screen. “It doesn’t say which regiment you ran. But yeah, people here might expect you to tell them. I’m surprised, but glad, that no one has yet.” She shakes her head, trying to figure out how they’re going to get out of this. “Look, people like you’re pretending to be are often expected to look and act a certain way. That can cause us problems, but it can also work out in our favor. You can be the strong, silent type. Say few words. Don’t react too strongly to stimuli.”

“I shouldn’t pretend to be triggered by PTSD?”

“Absolutely not, Mateo, that would make it worse. You’re already far over the line. Just don’t give people any opportunity to ask too many questions. Now here’s the hard part; it’s really hot, but I can’t seem to find any evidence one way or another for what kind of tattoos you’re expected to bear. You’re going to have to cover up, just in case a savvy person walks by and wonders why you don’t have your district emblem on your shoulder, or whatever it may be.”

“Maybe we should just go.”

“That would make things worse too,” Leona warns. “Then people will wonder why you only stayed one night, and maybe they mention it on social media...”

“They could say something on social media now!”

“You’re right, which is why I’m calling Ramses, and asking him to make a visit to that forger. She put you in this mess, and she’s going to get you out of it, by whatever means necessary. If that means forging more documentation, or scrubbing the internet of your presence, then so be it. We’re going to have fun on this vacation, fraud or not.”

“Okay. In that case, which do you want to do first; snorkeling, or ziplining?”

“Neither. I’ve always wanted to go horseback riding.”

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: March 11, 2369

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The soldiers escorted the team out of the conference room, and down to the nearest hock. Even Kennedy was forced to go, though they were redirected somewhere else, presumably because the military didn’t know if they could be trusted, but they wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. Nobody padded them down, or recorded their information. They just stuffed them in the cell, and walked away. One guard was left behind to keep an eye on them, and that was exactly what she did. She literally stared at the lot of them the entire time. Mateo didn’t ever catch her blink once, leading him to believe that she was some kind of transhuman, who had other ways of moisturizing her eyeballs. It’s the little things, really. Science fiction has all these grand plans about gargantuan spaceships, and ubiquitous renewable power, but the tiny inconveniences are so often overlooked, because they’re not sexy, or impressive.

Leona looked at the LED tattoo timekeeper on her wrist. “Has anyone tried to go back?”

Hrockas abashedly raised his hand. “I’ve tried. It didn’t work. Sorry, I wasn’t really intending on abandoning you here, but...”

“It’s fine, Hrockas,” Leona said. “They obviously have some kind of signal jammer that’s preventing us from casting back to our real bodies.”

“Of course the hock has that,” the guard agreed.

“What’s your name?”

“Infinity,” she answered.

“Infinity, how long do you reckon they’ll keep us here?”

“Reckon?” Infinity echoed. “Depends on how far back in the past you’re from, m’lady.”

“Three hundred and forty years,” Leona responded plainly, not expecting her to believe it. She turned to the group. “Honestly, I don’t know what happens to us at midnight.  I don’t know if these bodies disappear, or if our real bodies do, and leave us behind, or if our connection to them is permanently broken. Maybe we’ll automatically cast back when it happens? I wish I could give you some answers.”

“The most likely answer,” Ramses began, “is that you and Mateo jump. Not only did Pryce program your bodies with your original salmon pattern, but I’m fairly certain that there is a neurological link as well. The rest of us will probably stay here, while our bodies go with you, because they’re still wearing cuffs, leaving us to wait at least another year to get them back. I don’t think the cuffs are sophisticated enough to account for that neurological component.”

“I would go with them too,” Angela revealed.

“What?” Leona questioned.

“Yeah, Pryce programmed my post-resurrection body to be just like yours. Did I never mention that?”

Leona and Mateo shook their heads. “No.”

“Yeah, I’m full-on one of you,” she explained.

“Oh.” Was that good or bad? Angela needed to decide that for herself, and her facial expression was not giving it away.

“Should we be talking about any of this?” Olimpia asked. “What with the cameras, and Infinity standing right there.”

Leona sighed. “I just can’t care anymore. We’re thirty years out from The Edge. Whatever, close enough.”

“This is the military,” Kivi reminded them. “They know how to keep secrets. It’s entirely possible that the timeline already accounts for all of Teagarden knowing about us for three decades before the general population finds out.”

Leona sighed again. “I guess we just sit and wait.”

“What happens to me while you’re gone?” Hrockas asked, still nervous.

“Probably torture,” Ramses answered unapologetically.

Several hours later, they received their answer, and it was a weird one. They did not simply return to their bodies, but their bodies came to them. They blinked, and found themselves in the same cell they were in before, but their base models were collapsed on the floor next to them, and their consciousnesses were back where they belonged. They looked like themselves again. Infinity was still watching them, almost like she didn’t see a difference. Perhaps she had also suppressed the facial recognition software in her brain, or was born with prosopagnosia. No, that didn’t matter. There were now twice as many people in here. Even Hrockas transferred back, which was weird, and didn’t make any sense. Infinity nodded at them for a moment before lifting her watch to her lips, and speaking into it, “they’re back.”

Leona approached the bars, and took hold of two of them, like any good falsely imprisoned person. “Who are you talking to?”

“Someone who demands to know what hell is going on.”

A man in formal military dress opened the door and walked in with the thick air of authority. He cleared his throat, and sized them up. “My name is General Bariq Medley. We have been waiting for this for a standard Earthan year.” He opened an arm toward the door. “Come on in.”

Kennedy walked in reluctantly. “I’m sorry. I told them everything I knew. They have...sophisticated ways of getting people to communicate.”

“Hey, Kennedy...” Leona said before a long pause. “Don’t worry about it.” She looked back at Medley, and conceded to the truth. “So now you know, General, that our...bodies...somehow...transport back to us...spontaneously? I don’t really know what happened, actually. Perhaps you can explain.”

“That’s something that you don’t need to worry about,” Medley replied.

“Your ship is here, and she teleported you back,” Kennedy managed to spit out quickly, scared that it might be their last words.

He was mad, but not in an I’m going to kill you kind of way; just a we’ll talk about your punishment after dinner. Wash your hands first kind of way. He seemed relieved that the talk would go faster now that he didn’t have to dance around the truth. “Well, I was going to lead up to that after getting a few more answers, but fine, I’ll show you my cards. Kennedy explained to us what she could, and we pieced together more from others we discovered within our ranks who you apparently call...humans?”

“You’re not all humans—it’s an outdated term—but yes, because muggles was taken,” Leona said.

“I suppose that outdated is a relative term for people like you anyway. I must say that I’m impressed, managing to hide yourselves from the general population for...”

“Literally billions of years,” Leona filled in with a smile.

“I’m only eighty-three years old, I might have figured it out on my own had I been around back then.”

“Sure.”

Medley cleared his throat again. “As Kennedy was trying to say, your ship showed up two months ago. We have some pretty smart people. They didn’t come up with our plan; they came up with yours. After careful thought and discussion, we figured out what was going to happen. Your ship’s AI was going to teleport your bodies down to wherever your consciousnesses were. I assume it’s not like Star Trek, and she couldn’t simply lock on to your location,” He said with airquotes. “Our quantum casting system comes with a subroutine that defaults every consciousness to its primary substrate if it comes within a hundred meters of the substrate that it’s been cast into. Why do we do this? Well, I’m not sure it matters anymore. In fact, I think it’s probably stupid, and I don’t remember the last time it even came up, but it’s a carryover from a very old version of the technology. We’ve all seen a mirror before, but early test subjects found it to be...eerie, standing next to their old bodies. It was moderately uncomfortable for some, and freaked others out completely. Developers decided that never the selves shall meet. Again, things are different now, but no one thought to delete that subroutine, because casters are generally either separated by light years, or their old bodies are destroyed en route to the upgrade. I’m not sure how Thālith al Naʽāmāt Bida handles it.” He gave room for someone to have some kind of reaction.

No one said a word. Hrockas coughed, which was weird, because he was the only one still wearing a cloned body, and those didn’t suffer the same daily bodily limitations as normal people.

Medley went on, “knowing all this, your ship teleported your bodies down to the cell, which are tagged. Your consciousnesses, which we kept dormant for the last year, then reverted to those tagged bodies. I’m sure your ship intended to teleport you out, but there’s one thing she didn’t know, so she couldn’t do it immediately.”

“She didn’t know how long it would take,” Leona guessed.

“That’s right,” Medley confirmed. “She had to leave you down here for a few minutes, just to make sure it worked. That was more than enough time for our forces to disable it, board it, and commandeer it.” He shrugged. “Even if you had transported back, we would still have you in custody.”

“For what?” Leona prompted.

“A mission,” Medley said.

“What mission?”

“The mission you were on before you came here. We wanna know what happened on Pluoraia, and several other star systems in the neighborhood.”

“It’s still happening?” Leona asked rhetorically. “You’ve lost contact with other worlds?”

“Yes. Pluoraia wasn’t even the first. We were keeping the bug quiet, because admitting it existed would probably lead us down the path of admitting that Quantum Colony is all real, and not just a game. We were not prepared to do that, that’s our bad. Now we need you to fix it.”

“Why us?” Leona asked, not trusting him. “You don’t know anything about us personally. Kennedy couldn’t have told you that.”

“We’re not in the business of stealing spaceships, and yours appears to be the fastest in the galaxy. As far as we can tell, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez flies the flag of Proxima Doma. We would ask them for guidance, but something tells us that not even they know what you are.”

“I’ve never met a single Proxima Domanian in my life,” Leona disclosed. Étude and Vitalie didn’t count. “Do you even know where we’re going?”

“We do not know exactly where the Source is,” Medley admittted. “But we know that it’s being controlled from a system a hundred and eight light years from Earth. Our number one priority is to protect The Seed and The Heart of Civilization, at the cost of all other worlds, if need be.”

“Okay...”

“The Power Vacuum is moving at light speed, in a beam. It doesn’t spread out in all directions. It’s been targeted at Earth. We believe that Pluoraia was just...in the way. It will arrive in 2418, taking other systems with it in the meantime, including the Gatewood Collective. Now that I think about it, I’m guessing you know who lives there. It’s always been above my paygrade.”

“No one lives there now, they abandoned it,” Leona replied truthfully.

He nodded, tabling that for a later discussion. “Since it’s a beam, you can fly around it, and still get there in time. We know you have redundant power sources, and according to the data that my boarding party has been transmitting to my brain this entire time, you’ve even already gone through it, and survived.”

Leona took everyone’s vital signs real quick. They all nodded their agreeance to the proposal. “We’ll do it, under a few conditions, the first one being you get the fuck off my ship.”

General Medley tilted his brainchip down. “Done. Anything else.”

“Yeah,” Mateo finally spoke up after saying nothing the whole time. “Shut the game down right now.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: Composite

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“What happened?” Kivi asked.

“The Nawvo happened,” Savitri answered.

Khuweka groaned, and looked disgusted.

“Who is Nawvo?” Leona asked of her.

“A fundamentalist, and quite violent, faction of the Maramon,” Khuweka explained. “For the most part, Maramon revere their human gods. They have their own ways of showing this, and those ways aren’t always healthy, but the Nawvo take it to a whole different level. They believe in complete annihilation of the human species, so we can ascend to a higher power. I don’t know that much about them, but not even Effigy wanted them to make their way to your universe.”

“Well, they made their way to this one,” Savitri said. “They wiped out what few humans were left after a massive internal conflict, which some believed was secretly instigated by the Nawvo.”

Vitalie lowered her head, and looked around defensively. “Where are they now? If they won the war, they must still be around.”

Savitri shook her head. “They’re dead too. A small group of people showed up and killed them all right back. When I say small I mean no more than the number of people in your group. They came in a machine not unlike this one.” She jerked her head at the prototype behind her.

“That thing is one of a kind,” Khuweka said. “If they were using it to travel to other universes, then we will one day relinquish control of it to them.”

Savitri locked eyes with Vito. “Not all of you will relinquish control.”

Vito didn’t act surprised, and seemed know it was best to not be told anything further about his future.

Hogarth stepped forward. “We’re here looking for a special pair of goggles.”

Savitri nodded her head before Hogarth could go into detail. “I know the ones. One of the elite team of Maramon-killers wore them. His name was Smith.”

“So he’s not here?” Leona guessed.

“Oh, he is,” Savitri replied. “He was their only casualty. I can take you to where they buried him.”

“Wait,” Kallias stopped her. “You’re telling me Smith fought a war on the good side?”

“Yes,” she said, “but don’t worry. You don’t have to alter your perception of him. He died as big of an egotistical megalomaniac as he always was. But the only reason he was ever able to amass power over others was because he hated Maramon so much. He was a bad enemy to have. Thousands of Nawvo could attest to that.”

“There weren’t thousands of Nawvo on the Crossover when it went critical,” Khuweka pointed out. “Hell, I don’t think there were thousands of them total.”

“That may be,” Savitri agreed, “but you can breed, right? This all occurred over the course of centuries.”

“I need to see his body,” Kallias said. Now Leona remembered both he and Hogarth had terrible run-ins with a man back on a very early Durus. She had only forgotten this man’s name because Smith was so generic and forgettable. “I need to make sure.”

“I would love to confirm this too,” Hogarth said, “but he is not why we’re here. We’re just looking for the goggles.”

“They are one and the same,” Savitri said. “I said he wore them, but that’s not entirely accurate. They basically replaced his eyes. You’ll have to cut them off his face.”

“I think I can handle that,” Kallias said. “I gave him those goggles. Now it’s time I take them back.”

Most of them needed to eat something before transporting to the site of the final battle between Maramon invaders who had become stranded in this universe, and a ragtag team of warriors who were fighting to protect humans all over the multiverse. Savitri refused to reveal any more of their names, but did seem to believe most of them would be recognizable. Instead, she spoke of her own story. She was with Missy, Dar’cy, Khuweka, Vito, and dozens of others who had gone to Ansutah in search of a way to end their time powers. She personally had no interest in losing her powers, but had instead stumbled upon The Abyss during a sudden time storm decades prior to its very creation. It was her stillborn son who removed everyone’s powers, but for her, that was millennia ago. She originally had the ability to enhance the strength or intensity of other people’s powers, but had ultimately absorbed many others at the same time Khuweka and Vito had. Unlike them, she was in The Crossover when it went critical, and scattered all passengers and crew members through the bulkverse.

Curtis was the one who donated his ability to teleport to everybody affected by the Serif-nanite incident. He was born with a limitation which made it so he always needed to see where he was going. He could teleport to the other side of a prairie, but not a mountain. This limitation was eliminated when combined with Savitri’s enhancement powers, however. This meant that she, Khuweka, and Vito were now all capable of teleporting anywhere on the planet instantaneously. This was a handy bonus since it was unlikely that they would find a working vehicle, and it would have taken weeks to walk. After dinner, they left, and found themselves standing on the edge of a town the natives once called Bellevue, which had served as the unofficial capital of the whole world. From there, they only had to walk about a kilometer to the entrance of a cemetery.

Savitri held Kivi back as she tried to step through.

“What is it?” Kivi asked her.

“You are the one with spontaneous reemergence, right?” Savitri asked.

“What?”

“I suppose you could call it that,” Leona said. “There are many different versions of her, all over time and space in our universe.”

Savitri nodded. “It may be dangerous for her to go in. The rest of you should be fine, but it could kill her.”

“Why would it do that?” Finally something that Khuweka didn’t know.

“There’s a power dampening field around this place. Smith’s team wanted to protect his body the best way they could. You walk in here, you won’t be able to turn invisible, or create a time bubble, or anything.” She gestured to Kivi again. “This one could very well just stop existing.”

“I’m the only one who needs to go in,” Kallias said, “and I don’t have any powers.”

“No one should go in who doesn’t have to,” Khuweka suggested. “You will be alone, Detective.”

“I’m not a detective anymore,” he said as he stepped forward.

“I’ll go too,” Hogarth offered. “You may have given him his goggles, but I made him who he was.” As soon as she tried to cross the threshold, she was thrown back by an invisible explosion, and disappeared into it.

“Oh, God,” Vitalie remarked. “That happens with her sometimes.”

“True,” Leona said, “but we are not in our universe. Where is she going to be when she returns?”

Everyone looked to either Khuweka, or Savitri, or both, but neither of them had any clue. “If she comes back to this universe, I shall be here to greet her,” Savitri said.

“You’re not coming back with us?” Khuweka questioned.

Savitri shook her head. “This has been my home for a hell of a lot longer than it hasn’t. I don’t want to leave.”

“But you’re all alone,” Young!Dubra reminded her.

“I won’t be alone forever, little one,” Savitri told her with a smile as she leaned down to her level. “Not everyone was on-world when it ended. They’ll be back one day. This is not the first time something has tried to destroy this planet, and it won’t be the last.”

Kallias refused to allow anyone to cross the threshold with him. He dug Smith’s grave himself, then extracted what he could of the goggles from the corpse. He would later report it as the most disgusting thing he had ever done, and expressed his relief that no one else had to be there. As he was walking back from the grave, he pointed behind the group at someone walking towards them. As the figure drew nearer, they realized it was none other than Hogarth Pudeyonavic. She must not have exploded too far.

She stood before them, panting and weak. “I am so positively glad that I got the date right.”

“Where have you been?”

“The past,” Hogarth replied. “Centuries ago.”

“Oh my God,” Leona said. “I’m so sorry. How did you find your way back to us?”

“I met some lovely survivors of the fall of civilization. I didn’t tell them much about their future, but they still agreed to place me in a secret stasis chamber, and programmed it to open today. I should have told come out yesterday, though; to give me more time.”

“Don’t ever do anything like that to me again,” Kallias said.

“I’ll try,” Uncle Bran. After all that time on the Prototype, telling each other their stories, at no point were these two clear on the depth of their relationship. Leona didn’t get the sense that they were blood-related, or even that he was her uncle through marriage. Yet they were clearly closer than either of them had let on, and Leona couldn’t figure out why they were being so quiet about it.

“Well, if that’s it,” Savitri began, “I guess it’s time for you to go.”

“You can still come with us,” Khuweka said, motioning for encouragement from the crowd, which she easily received.

“I’m not staying so I don’t intrude. I’m staying because I want to. When you’ve lived as long as we have, centuries of peace and quiet are a nice break. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Cheers to that,” Vito agreed.

“We may run into Avidan,” Khuweka said to Savitri. “You never know.”

Savitri bit her bottom lip, and smiled only with her eyes. “Actually, I do know. Go get ‘im, slugger.”

“Huh?”

“Go on, git!” Savitri said to the rest of the group. “I’m in the middle of a long game of Polygon with myself.” She spread her arms wide, and bowed to them, then she disappeared.

“My tattoo is doing something,” Leona said. She pulled her sleeve back. Numbers began appearing from the center, and floating off in random directions, before fading away. “Two, three, five, seven, eleven...”

“They’re all prime numbers,” Hogarth noted.

“Oh, I know where we’re going,” Khuweka said.

“Where?” Kivi asked eagerly.

“Universe Prime. The Superintendent lives there.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: Prototype

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Leona looked behind her to make sure that Khuweka wasn’t gesturing towards someone else. There was no one else there, so she must have been gesturing towards her. Everyone was waiting for her to get this machine going, but she had no idea. “Why would I know how to work this thing? Just because I’m smart and educated, doesn’t mean I’m qualified to operate a machine that travels to other universes.”

“Well, not you specifically,” Khuweka said, “but that compass should do the trick.”

Leona looked down at her tattoo. It wasn’t moving or glowing, like it usually did when it wanted to tell her something. “How would I interface this thing with the controls?”

A gentle alarm began ringing from one of the terminals. Khuweka leaned forward and peered at the screen. “I can’t say for sure. All I know is you’re meant to get us out of here, which you should do quickly, because they’re coming.”

Leona started to wave her arm over the console, even pressing her skin against the smoother parts, but nothing worked. “Maybe you need to rethink your source, because I don’t think my compass can do what you say.”

“I was told you would have everything you needed,” Khuweka said cryptically. “They’re getting uncomfortably close.”

“Oh wait,” Vitalie said excitedly. “Hogarth needed a flashlight to check under the panels, and we noticed something strange.” She took out the Rothko Torch and shined it on Leona’s tattoo. The compass began spinning around and swirling. The light reflected off her arm, and scattered about the command center in all sorts of colors. More of the system awakened, and an engine of some kind started powering up.

“What are we looking for next?” Hogarth asked loudly through the noise. “Think about that, and if Khuweka is right, the compass will tell the machine! Even though that sounds insane!”

Leona did as she was told, and started thinking about the HG Goggles. She didn’t know exactly what they looked like, but their original owner, Hokusai Gimura once described them as steampunk. The engine noises subsided into a steadier and more tolerable volume, but never ceased.

A man walked in from the other room, wearing a t-shirt and shorts. He was scratching his mussed up hair on the back of his head, yawning, and blinking at the lights. “What’s going on here?” He looked around at them after his eyes were finished adjusting. “Most of you are human.”

“Hi, I’m Kivi. Who are you?”

“Vito.”

“Bulgari?” Leona asked.

“Yeah, heard of me?”

“Yes,” Vitalie said. “You died in pocket four. You were trying to help Serif and little Adamina get back to the ship.”

Vito yawned some more and walked over to a corner. “You were terribly misinformed. I can turn invisible.” He pushed some buttons and revealed what looked suspiciously like a coffee pot. “Anybody want anything? It kind of tastes like tea and urine, but it wakes ya up.”

“I think we’re good,” said the other man, whose name Leona still hadn’t learned.

“I would love some,” Khuweka said graciously. “It doesn’t taste like that to me.”

“Have you been here the whole time?” Vitalie questioned.

“Not the whole time. Missy, Dar’cy, and the rest of the people who wanted to have their powers removed went back in time, and showed up not long after the universe was created. We lived in secret for awhile. Or I should say that they lived in secret. I lived in super secret, because I was invisible.”

“So it doesn’t work?” Leona asked. “They keep their powers.”

“No, it worked,” he replied as he was pouring Khuweka a cup of the Maramon tea. “A few of them wanted their powers back, though. The rumor was Eden Island would allow them to do it, so that’s where they went. I followed them in secret, as per usual.”

“That’s impossible,” Khuweka said. “I was on the island when that group showed up. You were not there, and you could not have been invisible, because the thing that took people’s powers was inescapable. It affected everyone in the whole world, except for Serif, because she wasn’t there.”

“It affected me too,” Vito said, taking a sip. “It was different for me, though. I was in a state of invisibility at the time, and it was in that state that I remained. I needed my powers back if I wanted people to see me, which is why I went with them.”

“Where are they now, the ones who wanted their powers back?” Leona asked him.

He lifted his cup towards Khuweka. “She can fill in the rest.”

Khuweka hesitated, but knew she needed to explain herself. “Like I said, I was there, because Serif asked me to be. She gave me a sample of her healing nanites, which I was intending to supply to your friends. Something went wrong, and everyone there, including me, ended up with all of the powers. I can teleport like Curtis, disintegrate like Lucius, thread objects like Dar’cy, diagnose powers like Avidan, create time bubbles like Missy, and slip time like...uhh...never mind.” She was referring to the older Dubravka, who little Dubra here had yet to become, so it was best to leave her out of the story. “They’re also immortal, like I always was.” She glared at Vito. “As far as I know, though, I can’t turn invisible.”

Vito smirked. “Are you sure? Have ever tried?”

She didn’t answer.

He continued, “you knew what the other people’s powers were, so it was easy for you to replicate them. You didn’t know about me, so it never occurred to you.”

“I guess I could try now.”

“Stop,” Leona nearly shouted. “You were telling us what happened to our friends.”

“Right,” Khuweka said innocently. “Sorry. From what we gathered, hey were sent to other universes.”

“From what you gathered? What does that mean?”

“You know that big circle of Maramon you found yourself in when you first arrived in Ansutah?” Khuweka prompted.

“Yeah...?”

“They were attempting to travel to your universe, through a portal created by a woman named Ezqava Eodurus. You may know her as Effigy.”

“Yes,” Hogarth recalled. “I do know her.”

Khuweka continued, “Some good people, including Hogarth here, corrupted that portal. That’s what created those monsters on Durus. Whenever any of my people tried to cross over, they came out wrong on the other side. But it was their only hope, because very few of us knew that the prototype Crossover was still somewhere in Ansutah, and even few knew where exactly. Apparently Vito’s been sleeping in it.”

“Guilty,” Vito confirmed.

“How did Vearden, and all those other humans get their hands on the real Crossover?” Leona asked.

“There was a technical error when we all accidentally slipped time to the future, to a time when Maramon still had control of the machine. What we believe happened was it expelled everyone inside of it throughout the bulkverse, seemingly randomly, before the machine itself was lost in one of them. Effigy presumably landed in your universe, and was trying to call for reinforcements. And now we’re here, in the prototype, trying to travel to one of these universes.”

“Are we going to run into one of our friends then?” Leona asked her.

“I assume they’re as immortal as me, so it’s possible, but we would have to land sometime after they did, and the chances of us happening upon one of those universes are pretty slim. We just don’t have the data.”

Leona sighed. This was a lot of information, and she didn’t feel like much of it was useful. It was better when they could hope Missy and Dar’cy had completed their mission, but now there was so much more to worry about.

“This is all amazing to know,” the other man said. “I do have some business back in my home universe, so how long will it be until we get there?”

Khuweka pressed some buttons, and looked at the monitor again. “There’s no telling how long it will be until we get back, because I don’t know what these kids are trying to find. It will be another eight months or so until we arrive at our destination.”

“That won’t work,” Leona complained. “I’m going to disappear in a few hours. Where will I return?”

Khuweka tilted her chin. “I don’t think you’re going anywhere. You’re one of those salmon, right?”

“Yeah...?”

The white monster almost laughed. “Yeah, I don’t think the gods who control you can reach you here. You should be good.”

She turned out to be right about that. The eight of them spent as many months in the Crossover prototype together. It was equipped with a quantum food replicator, and just enough living quarters for each of them. Leona asked why her baby was apparently not growing the whole time, but Khuweka had no certain answer for this. Though metabolism persisted throughout the journey, the bulkverse itself didn’t follow the same rules of time, so maybe all aging was halted. The Prototype also had tons of original entertainment, but all of it was from Ansutah, and thusly all in the Maramon language, which ultimately led them to learning it in a conversational capacity. Khuweka learned how to turn things invisible, while Dubra learned everything she would have in a school setting had she not been sheltered by her mother for her whole life. They learned all about each other too. The other man’s name was Kallias Bran. He seemed to not be salmon, nor choosing one, nor chosen one, nor spawn, yet he had a lot of experience with this life. When it was all over, Khuweka led them out of the machine, and breathed in the fresh air over a cemetery. It was chillingly quiet. “Welcome to whatever it is they call this universe.”

A voice came from above, “most people don’t name their universes, because they think theirs is the only one.” The woman gracefully hopped off the roof of the prototype, and landed on the ground with no problem. “People here are different. We call it the Composite Universe. You came to this world at a bad time, though.”

“Why is that, Savitri?” Khuweka asked, apparently having already met this mysterious young woman.

“Everyone’s dead.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: Ansutah

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The humans were being carted out the portal crater in chains by Maramon guardsmen. Missy and Dar’cy were being escorted separately in a different direction, and the crowd was quickly dispersing. A white monster hopped over to the five of them, and took Leona forcefully by the shoulders. “Jiva paol dafa laidi kesto!” he shouted to his friends.

“Jida gar pepaol!” another shouted back, before addressing someone next to him. “Dwesi jilarl.”

The one who already had Leona checked something that looked suspiciously like a watch on his wrist. “Kret!”

The third Maramon jogged over, and prepared to take Leona off the first one’s hands, who appeared to be in a hurry to get somewhere else. Suddenly, this other random Maramon teleported between them. She held her hand up, and tore the jogger into millions of pieces, just like a certain choosing one named Lucius could do. Everyone who had witnessed this was too much in shock to do anything about it, except for the one who had captured Leona. He let go, and went over to attack the molecular teleporter. Before he could reach her, she disappeared again, and reappeared right behind him. She kicked him in the back of the head, and let him fall to the ground. The rest of her people dropped out of their trance, and prepared their own attack. The good Maramon lifted both hands, and trapped them in a temporal bubble, before turning to face the humans. “Which one of you is the engineer?” she asked.

They all couldn’t help but turn their heads toward Hogarth.

“You need to get to the prototype,” the Maramon ordered, handing her a slip of paper. “Here are the directions. It should have plenty of power, but it may require some repairs, and we need all the time we can spare. You’ll need one assistant at least, but you can’t take Leona or Dubravka. I need them both.”

“Not that we’re not grateful for whatever it is you just did for us,” Leona began, “but who exactly are you?”

The Maramon looked from one to another, to another. “It was my understanding you would know of me. I’m Khuweka. Khuweka Kadrioza? Also known as Keynote? I thought you came looking for me.”

“We came looking for someone else,” Vitalie corrected.

“Well, yeah,” Khuweka said. “I meant that I’m the one who can take you to Serif. I thought you knew that. Okay, that makes things more complicated. I would really love it if you just trusted me.”

“Why would we do that?” Dubra asked.

“Because I pledged my loyalty to your mother years ago. Don’t you already know this? Something’s wrong, your memory isn’t intact.”

“Who’s your mother?” Kivi asked Dubra.

Dubravka ignored Kivi, and spoke to Khuweka, “if you’re telling the truth, then you know what to say to prove it to me.”

“Yes,” Khuweka said. She cleared her throat. “Your father was a great man...but now he’s nothing.”

Dubra sighed. “She’s telling the truth. Do whatever she says.”

“What?” Hogarth questioned.

“Just do it,” Leona told her, trust Dubra’s judgment.

“Both of you go too,” Dubra said to Vitalie and Kivi. “If we’re headed where I think we are, Leona and I should go alone.”

“Where is it that we’re going?” Leona asked after the other three went off to find this prototype Khuweka mentioned.

“You need to be there with the other humans,” Khuweka replied. “Serif should already be on her way.”

“What will you be doing?” Dubra asked her.

“I’ll be helping Missy, Dar’cy, and Kallias.”

Leona pointed behind them. “They were taken that way.”

“I know,” Khuweka said, nodding. “But before I go, you need to understand something. Not everything is going to work out as you wanted, but it will turn out okay.”

“What does that mean?”

Khuweka stopped walking, but ushered them onwards. “The guards in there are gonna underestimate the humans, because they don’t know any better. The best way to get out...is to get in first.” She teleported away.

“What did she mean by that?” Dubra asked Leona.

“It means we have to get caught,” Leona said with a slight growl. “How many times am I going to be locked up?”

“Is that the setup to a joke?”

“Who is your mother?” Leona asked her. “Who is your father? Who is that Maramon, and how do you know we can trust her? Why did you come with us?”

“A long time ago, a clever girl came up with a list of rules for time travel,” Dubra began. “Until the reality where she did that, time travel was chaotic. Choosers jumped around, doing whatever they wanted, making any changes they saw fit, sometimes at the expense of their own kind. Leona, your rules marked a dramatic shift in the way people like us live our lives, and I’m not sure you’ve seen enough to appreciate the impact you’ve made.”

“What does that have to do with anything? I didn’t come up with the rules on my own. I’ve read and seen a lot of time travel stories, and their problems always come about when they don’t respect these rules.”

“It has to do with everything,” Dubra said as they were nearing what was an apparent white monster police station. “I knew more about you than I let on when we first met, because that was not the first time I met you. I’ve already met Khuweka as well, and the only reason I questioned her was because I’m racist, and I can’t tell these creatures apart. But now I know it’s her, and I know what we have to do. The rules you devised matter, because everything you’ve done—everything I’ve done—has led us to this moment, and later, it will lead us to the next moment.” Some Maramon guards noticed their arrival, and were taking defensive positions. “I promise this will all make sense, starting in a few minutes.”

The guards aggressively dragged them through the building, and into the holding cells. Hundreds of other humans were there, confused but still hopeful. They were there to be rid of their special time powers, for various reasons, but none of them had any idea how that would actually happen. Leona wished them well, and hoped whatever it was they were looking for, it wouldn’t affect her and her friends, at least not until she found Mateo.

They sat in the cell for a little while before a ruckus erupted, and started coming closer to the cells. Lucius, the one most famous for the ability to teleport objects and people on the molecular level, appeared from around the corner. He used his power to destroy the cell bars. Curtis came up from behind him to help usher people out, but he wasn’t doing it alone.

“Missy,” Leona said.

“Whoa, what are you doing here?”

“I came to get Serif back,” Leona said.

“What happened?”

“She was in Ansutah when it separated from the Warren.”

“Dowhatnow?”

“Not here.” She didn’t need all the other people to hear what they were talking about. They stepped into one of the cells. She proceeded to tell Missy the story of their return trip on the Warren; how two people in the fourth pocket dimension caused it to grow large enough to be its own universe, which was where they were right now. She didn’t tell her everything, though. She didn’t bother talking about the corrupted reality with Ulinthra, because it wasn’t relevant. “Oh forgive me. This is Dubravka...uhh. I don’t know your last name,” Leona realized.

“It’s Matic.”

Leona laughed. “Wait, really? Are we related?”

“Leona, your name isn’t really Matic. I don’t understand why you went by it, even when you couldn’t remember Mateo.”

“Ya know, I don’t really know either.” It was an interesting question, which Leona never thought to try to answer. “So you’re related to him?”

“He’s my father,” Dubra said.

“What? I’m not your mother, am I? Are you from a different reality?”

“I’m her mother,” came a voice from around the corner. Serif appeared, holding the hand of a young girl. “Yes. Adult!Dubra, meet Young!Dubra. Young!Dubra, this is what you grow up to be.”

“I suppose I could do worse,” a sassy Young!Dubra said.

“Mom, I thought I was coming here to change the past,” Adult!Dubra said to Serif. “But I’m just closing my loop!”

“I don’t want you to change the past,” Serif said. She was many years older than before, having aged across thousands of real-time years since Leona saw her.

“I do!” Adult!Dubra cried.

“This is your home,” Serif argued.

“My home sucks,” both versions of Dubravka screamed simultaneously.

Missy leaned towards Leona. “If these two get too close to each other, is this building gonna blow up, and turn the leaves red?”

“What? No,” Leona replied, but it was a fair question.

Serif handed her younger daughter’s hand to Leona. “You need to go with Mother Leona now. She’ll take you to our universe...eventually. Miss Atterberry, you need to get out there to the meeting with all the other people who want their powers to be removed. Dubravka, go with her,” she said to her adult daughter.

“Why would I do that?” Adult!Dubra asked.

“Stick with her, and you’ll end up exactly where you’re meant to be. I promise you won’t spend much more time in this universe. Don’t get separated from Missy and Dar’cy, though. Remember to pull Adamina back into the timestream before you leave.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot about that,” Adult!Dubra said. Then she started tearing up, and hugging her mother tightly.

Missy and the older Dubravka left to continue on their own paths.

“I guess that means you remember Mateo,” Serif asked Leona.

“I remember everything.”

“You weren’t quite in love with me until Mateo was erased from the timeline.”

“Like I said, I remember everything, including my real relationship with you, and I still love you. Now that you’re here, we can get him back together.”

Serif sighed. “I’m afraid I will not fit on the prototype.”

“We’ll make room,” Leona said, now suspecting this prototype was a machine capable of taking them back home, like The Crossover.

“I don’t mean that literally. I’m vital to this universe, and I can’t leave until they can start traveling to other planets.”

“How’s that?”

“Half the population exists for part of the day, and the other half exists during another part. What you see here is just a skeleton crew in the middle. I’m the one who keeps that powered. If I don’t show up every year to charge the magical batteries, overpopulation will restart the war.”

“I can do that too. I can charge the batteries.”

“That’s not better, Leona. That’s just different. I’m staying. You’re going. And you’re taking my daughter with you. Promise me you’ll keep her safe.”

“Will I ever see you again?”

“Careful.” Khuweka walked into the cell with a kind smile. “Spoilers.” She addressed Serif, “I shall take care of them both.”

“All of them,” Serif said.

Khuweka bowed her head. “Of course.” She pulled a metal object out of her back pocket. “I found the Jayde Spyglass in the museum.”

Leona pulled her sleeve back, and checked her compass tattoo. “Oh, that’s what I’m here for. I totally forgot about that.”

Khuweka opened her arms like she was getting ready for a big hug. “Come on. I’ll transport us right into the Crossover prototype.”

“Let’s just have a few minutes to say goodbye,” Leona requested.

Serif shook her head. “Just because most of the Maramon don’t exist right now, doesn’t mean it’s safe. You need to go. I love you.”

“I love you.”

After Young!Dubra gave her mother one last hug, she and Leona went over to Khuweka, who wrapped them in her arms, and teleported them away.

They were inside what looked like a spaceship bridge. Hogarth was there, along with Kivi and Vitalie. A man she didn’t recognize was with them.

“Is it ready?” the good white monster asked.

Hogarth nodded. “It is. I don’t know how to navigate this thing, though.”

“That’s okay,” Khuweka said, looking at Leona. “She does.”

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The Advancement of Leona Matic: September 27, 2204

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Something told Leona that they would want to get an early start next year, so she went to bed with enough to wake up by midnight. She dreamed again, but this time much more vividly. It started in the first timeline; the one where she was married to Horace Reaver, and working with a team to save lives day after day. Mateo Matic showed up, having been skipping each year on his own for awhile, having long left his family to go on without him. The reality ended when Mateo accidentally caused her death in a car accident. The timeline began again. She was meeting Mateo for the first time in a hospital, after drinking alcohol for the first and last time shortly before her sixteenth birthday. The years continued as Mateo tried to figure out his place in life, and Leona tried to help him through it. Years later, she fell onto his pattern, and they pressed on together. They fought Ulinthra, Reaver, The Rogue, and the Cleanser. Then Mateo went back in time to kill Adolf Hitler, and the second timeline collapsed.

She was now in the third timeline, meeting Mateo for the first time on a Texan battlefield. The Rogue was hurt, but slowly transforming back into a better person, thanks to Mateo’s help. She struggled against her fate, having been told of the other realities, but not wanting to suffer similar fates. Yet they caught up with her when Nerakali Preston forced her way into Meliora’s Sanctuary, and returned the conflicting memories to her mind. Armed with this knowledge, she and Mateo took her down, along with her brother. But their sister, Arcadia was not happy with this. She marooned them on an island on a planet millions of lightyears away from Earth. They worked to overcome further challenges, with friends at their side, until one by one they were erased from the timestream. In the end, they won, though not everyone had survived. In one final cruel twist, Mateo Matic himself was erased, leaving Leona to move on with her life having never known him.

She woke up at a minute to midnight, and ran out of the room. The others were sitting around, working or reading. “I remember him!” she shouted. “I remember everything! The astrolabe must have fixed my memories.”

“That’s great,” Vitalie encouraged. “What can you tell—”

“—us about him?” she finished one year later, without skipping a beat.

“He. Is the life of my life,” Leona said. “And Ennis was right, I was also in love with Serif. It was the three of us, but not for as long as I believed. Now I know what I have to do.” She pulled back her sleeve to show a glowing compass tattoo. “We’re going back to Durus to get them both.”

Of the four of them, only Kivi had never been to Durus, though there was every reason to believe some entirely separate version of her lived a whole life there. Getting to the rogue planet was set to be easier than the last time, when they had to fly through hazardous space. Still, it wasn’t the easiest thing ever, because the Compass of Disturbance didn’t just take a traveler right to where they wanted to go. It only exploited natural breaches in spacetime that were usually invisible, but even when accessed, only went to a second specific point. They didn’t always know when and where they were, but they rarely had to walk too far before the compass showed them an exit point. There were evidently a lot more breaches all around that no one ever even noticed. Or perhaps they impacted normal people’s lives on a regular basis, but since they had never been observed, no one attributed their feelings of behavior to them.

One of the first locations took them right to the door of someone Leona and Vitalie already knew. It was Dubravka, the woman with the ability to skip time at will. She was basically just like Leona and Serif, except she could control it. “What are you doing here?”

Leona looked down at her tattoo to double check the readings. “There is a tear in the spacetime continuum that will get us back to Durus.”

“Why in hell would you want to go back there?” Dubra questioned.

“We’re on a quest for several magical objects,” Kivi replied enthusiastically.

“I’m also hoping to get Serif back,” Leona added.

“You are? From the fourth pocket?”

“Yes, I believe we’ve found a way.”

“Then what are we waiting for? I’m sick of 2204 anyway.”

“It’s 2204?” Vitalie asked. “But you’re still so young.”

Dubra smirked. “I wasn’t always around; tried to skip over the boring parts. Let me pack a few things, then we can go. Come on in.”

Once Dubra was ready to go with them, they continued on with the mission, sometimes still around the turn of the 23rd century, but not always. They even once found themselves stepping out of the three main dimensions. They were walking through some kind of extradimensional tunnel. The only undarkened spot besides the exit looked like a window, through which they were witnessing a man keeping a woman chained up in a cabin. They tried to climb through the window, but were unable to. There was no way in. The woman managed to get her hands on her captor’s knife, and was attempting to cut him with it. He finally gave up trying to stop her, and just ran out of the cabin. In a final desperate move, she threw the knife towards him, a second too late, burying it not just in the door, but also in the trench coat hanging on it. From inside of the coat appeared The Maverick. The woman had stumbled upon Darrow’s cloak and dagger summoning protocol. “I should have rethought this,” he said as he was removing the knife from his back, and suspiciously looking in the direction of the magic window from which the travelers were watching. “Anyway, ‘tis all right, ladies. I will get her out of this. You may proceed to your next rift.”

They waited, unsure if he was for real.

“Who are you talking to?” the frightened woman asked.

“Go on,” Darrow urged. “I have no intention of harming her, I promise. I’ll help her find whoever did this to her.”

“Let’s go,” Hogarth said. “I believe him.”

“I don’t,” Vitalie disagreed, but she walked through the exit just the same.

“Do you know that guy?” Dubra asked them.

They faced the ground and blinked their eyes rapidly, trying to adjust to the abrupt bright light. Once Leona could see again, she looked up to get her bearings, thinking at first they were just somewhere on Earth, but it couldn’t be, because there were two suns.

Kivi was having the most trouble adjusting. “Are we here?”

Leona looked at her compass tattoo. “It’s dark. This is our final destination.”

“What year is it?” Hogarth asked.

“No idea.”

“It’s—” Hogarth gave up trying to explain it before she even started. She went over and looked at Leona’s arm. “September 27, 2204. Same day it’s supposed to be, that’s interesting.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll show you how to tell time on the compass later. We’re looking for the Rothko Torch, right? Well...where do we go?”

“You’re lookin’ for the Rothko Torch, eh?” A man was walking up to them.

Leona squinted. “Ludvig? Is that you?”

He tilted his head, and pointed at her. “Yeah, I remember you too. Leon, right?”

“Close enough.” She turned to the others. “You know Hokusai and Loa? Well this guy and Loa were—”

“We never labeled it,” Ludvig interrupted.

“How are you still so young?” Leona questioned.

Ludvig raised his arms to indicate the whole world. “This is paradise. Nobody dies here, not anymore. We fixed that whole established misogyny thing, both politically, and socially. Thank you for your part in that. The Warren was instrumental in showing us how foolish we were.”

“Why did you program two suns?” Leona asked.

Ludvig looked up. “Those aren’t temporal tricks. Those are our suns. We were picked up by a binary system last week. Well...to be honest, scientists realized we were headed in this direction, so a group of powerful paramounts got excited, and sped us up. Earthan scientists call it Ophiuchi Seventy, or something. If you’re looking for the flashlight, you don’t have much time. It’s located smack dab in the middle of The Abyss, which the aforementioned suns are gradually destroying. If you’re here to get your time powers removed, you better hurry up.”

“We’re not,” Hogarth said. “We need the flashlight for something else.”

“Either way,” Ludvig said, turning around, “we better get going.” He started walking away.

“We?” Leona asked.

“You don’t have time to find it yourself! Chop-chop, young ones!” he called back.

They followed Ludvig across the thicket, and over the plains, finally coming upon a hazy quiet storm a few hours later. A holographic guardsman appeared. “Travelers. You’ve reached The Abyss. By God’s two eyes in the sky, the darkness will soon be defeated. If you would like to pass, we urge you to wait a good week before proceeding.” He smiled warmly, but admonitorily.

“Ignore him, obviously,” Ludvig said as he walked forward. “It was a lot denser, even just yesterday. We should run, and no matter what you see, do not stop moving. I mean this. Don’t. Stop. For anything, or anybody, not even each other. Got it?”

“Understood,” Dubravka said while everyone else just nodded.

They started racing through the hazy odorless smoke. As they ran, they passed dozens of Vitalies, all astral projections. But there were also several Kivis, all of whom were solid, which Leona learned after accidentally shoulder-checking one. Hogarth was not able to run at all. Every time she took a step, she disappeared in a small explosion, and appeared in some random other spot. Leona also saw other people wandering the haze, recognizing a few of them. Lucius kept spontaneously disintegrating, and reintegrating, yet he kept moving. Curtis teleported around, seemingly uncontrollably. Missy Atterberry appeared frozen in one of her own time bubbles. Before too long, she could see a dilapidated farmhouse in the center. It was literally crumbling before her eyes, like a sandcastle, and would soon be gone. Dubravka had disappeared as soon as she stepped foot in the haze, and only now returned on the inner edge. It would seem that only Leona was getting through completely unharmed, except for that time she was clotheslined by a rope Missy and Dar’cy had tied around their waists, a mishap which severed it.

The six of them made it out of the haze at about the same time. Leona looked back to see it was already thinning even further. “Why didn’t it affect me?” Leona asked. “All those people, and nothing happened to me.”

“There weren’t any other people,” Ludvig explained. “If you saw others, it’s because you jumped back into the past. The haze reflects and refracts your powers.”

“Oh.” So it had affected her.

Ludvig jogged over to the farmhouse, and quickly lifted one of the vinyl panels to retrieve the flashlight just before that section of the house fell apart. He jogged back over to them. “Okay, we can go now.”

“That’s it?” Dubravka asked. “What about my—Serif? What about Serif?”

“If she’s where I think she is,” Ludvig said, “this flashlight will get you there, but there is no coming back. No one ever comes back.”

“We’ll risk it,” Dubra cried. “Just tell me what to do.”

He handed her the Rothko Torch, and pointed back towards the haze. “Shine it in that direction. Meanwhile, I’ma get the eff out.” He ran away as fast as he could.

Dubra switched on the light, and pointed it where the man said. Three people appeared, like translucent ghosts, fading in and out as Dubra moved the light around. This was clearly just a vision of the past since they totally ignored the witnesses. One of the women was dragging the other towards the house, as the victim seemed to beg the man for help, but he was not giving it. The flashlight didn’t have sound, though, so Leona couldn’t be sure what they were saying. The attacker passed energy into her victim, who ultimately succumbed to it, and died. The survivor took hold of her head, and appeared to be screaming in pain. She frantically gestured away from the house, prompting the man to flee in that direction. The power she had consumed was apparently too much. A wave exploded from her, and spread out in a large radius, before snapping back towards the center.

Leona could see Dubra struggling to keep the flashlight in hand as it attempted to fly back to its place in the wall, which no longer existed. As the energy around them intensified, there was a burst of light, and then it all stopped. Leona was on her hands and knees in the middle of a crowd. A few were human, but most...were Maramon.

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