The Advancement of Mateo Matic: January 31, 2399

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There should be no one on the moon but the three of them. How the man outside is surviving the vacuum of space is a nonissue. Leona can think of a number of ways for him to accomplish such a feat. The problem is that there is nothing out here. They scanned the entire surface several times while they were still in orbit. They found no structures, no power signatures, no nothin’. They’ve also not detected any new arrivals since they’ve come. Best guess, he’s an android who lay dormant in a hole somewhere, and woke up when Mangrove Zero showed up. That wouldn’t explain who he is, or exactly what he wants, but either he’s crazy, and he thinks he’s asking someone who isn’t here, or Cedar is a thing that Leona should know. Here for Cedar. What does that mean? Is it a band? A place? A tree? Does he think Cedar is on this ship, or is Cedar the person who asked him to come here, and he is the one who actually wants something?

Regardless of what’s going on here, the guy is a creepy moonwalker, so no way in hell is he getting in. She’ll fight him to the death to protect the children. She’s chosen not to say anything to Mateo and Ramses, as they have enough on their minds, and their mission is more important than ever. If this is a sign of a conspiracy, their leechcraft array could be the thing that saves them. Instead, she has tried to contact Aldona, who is not answering. One would think she would want to keep apprised of the situation up here, but who knows what she’s dealing with at the moment?

Leona checked on the boys once to make sure they were okay, but has not returned to reclamation since. She has to stay out here, so she can keep an eye on the would-be intruder, and look out for any accomplices. He or they may just be waiting for enough alone time to break through. Aldona built this thing to be a stronghold, but it is not impenetrable. Nothing is impenetrable. If brute force isn’t working, you’re just not using enough of it. It’s been a day, and this is all she’s been doing. They have spent the last hour literally staring at each other through a viewport, as if in a contest. If he really is an android, there’s no reason for him to blink. She’s all right for now, but she’s no longer wearing the upgraded body that Ramses built for her, so she’s going to need to sleep at some point. That’s most likely what he’s waiting for.

Carlin comes up to her.

“I told you to stay put,” Leona scolds.

“Can he hear us?”

Leona glares at the stranger. “Possibly.” He can probably read lips, and he may be able to eavesdrop in more creative ways, like measuring vibrations, or even reading minds. Though, if it’s that second one, there’s nothing they can do to stop it anyway.

“Let’s go somewhere where he can’t.”

“I have to keep an eye on him.”

“Use the cameras. We have to talk.”

Leona exhales through her nose, then leads Carlin to the nearest bathroom, which is away from any exterior wall, but close enough to get back on the defensive if need be. “What is it?”

“We met someone.”

“What do you mean, you met someone?”

“His name is Cedar. He’s in a secret room behind the place where Moray and I were sleeping on the floor. He let us in.”

Now everything makes more sense. Mateo must have found out about him when he first came here, and he was trying to protect him by not saying anything. He hopefully didn’t know about this stranger, though, or it would have been irresponsible to leave, and leave her in the dark. “I see. Is he nice?”

“Yeah, he’s very nice. He’s Aldona’s nephew.”

“I see,” she repeats.

“What do we do?”

Leona looks at the camera feed on her handheld device. The stranger is still where he was when they left, staring into that viewport. Maybe he’s on standby mode. Goddamn, if Leona only had her real body, she would just teleport him to the South Pole, and build a new propulsion system with the nanites, scheduled to be completed before he had the time to get back. “If he’s Aldona’s nephew, he must have a way to contact her.”

“He did. She told him to stay inside, and go radio silent,” Carlin explains. “That’s literally all she said apparently.”

“Yeah, that thing out there might be able to intercept the signal.” She looks away to think. “Go back and follow those directions. Stay there, and stay radio silent.”

“What are you gonna do?” he asks.

“I’m gonna try to talk to him,” she replies.

“Is that safe?”

“Nope.”

Carlin goes back to reclamation, and Leona heads for the airlock. The stranger is still standing on the other side of the building, biding his time, no doubt. She puts her vacuum suit back on, and prepares to exit. She grabs the golf club at the last second for a modicum of protection. She seals the hatch with a code known only to her, then walks around to meet the man. She stands to the side of him for a while, waiting for him to react in any way. When he finally does, he acts like he’s just realized that she was there. He really was in standby mode, wasn’t he? She taps her helmet where her ear would be if the helmet were her head. Then she points to herself, and then to him with an inquisitive face. “Can you hear me?” she asks at the same time.

He taps his thumb with his index and middle finger at her. He then holds his head out, palm forward and down, and slowly moves towards her helmet. He’s sporting an inquisitive face too. He seems to be asking whether he can touch her helmet.

She cautiously makes a fist, and taps the air twice to indicate a yes.

He raises his hand up, and places it upon her helmet. “I can hear you now,” he says. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes.” He’s sending intelligible vibrations down his arm, and then into her helmet space, which is atmospheric, and can propagate sound, unlike the space outside. “Are you an android?”

He tilts his head. “I’m using an android body. Saying that I am an android is a bit...how do I put this? Opprobrious.”

Opprobrious. What a douche.

He may or may not be reacting to her thoughts.

If you don’t remove your hand from my helmet, I’m going to rip both of your arms off, and set you on fire, she thinks.

No reaction. So either he can’t read her thoughts, or he’s pretending not to.

“State your business.”

“I’ve told you. I’m here for Cedar.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Say I did. Why should I help you?”

“Because I’ll kill your sons in front of you if you don’t.”

Hmm. If he thinks that Carlin and Moray are her sons, then he doesn’t know who she is. That’s good. “What do you want with this Cedar?”

“That’s not your problem.”

“You threatened my kids. It is indeed my problem.”

“That’s only if you don’t comply.”

“Doesn’t matter. You’ve said it, which means you’ve established yourself as an enemy. I don’t like having enemies. I always get rid of them.”

“How do you usually do that?”

“If they refuse to become my friend, I either kill them...or I erase their entire existence, past and future.” She’s not lying.

“You’re more than someone who was simply hired to protect the boy.”

“What has the boy done that makes you hate him so?”

“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he will do.”

“This reality has no time travel. You can’t know the future.”

“We obviously both know that it’s more complicated than that.”

“What is your issue? What does he do? Why shouldn’t he do it?”

He looks away for a second, seemingly not wanting to clarify. “This is not what I intended when I founded Operation Free Will. This universe is too messy now. These parallel realities, and these people who are capable of reaching backwards to collapsed timelines; they’re too much. I was just trying to give people choice. I didn’t know that the elite few would use their choices to control everyone else. That is not free will.”

“What is Operation Free Will?” She doesn’t get the chance to hear the response. Something behind Leona catches his eye. She turns around to see what it is. An object is falling towards them rapidly from space. It’s this close to them when she realizes that it’s a missile. It’s heading for them; not the rocket, but the two of them, specifically. It’s very precise. At the last millisecond, she feels a pair of arms wrap around her shoulders, and spirit her away.

She’s in the hallway now of the flightworthy part of the rocket, looking into the control room. Ramses is at the radio. “Mangrove One, this is Mangrove Zero. All lives accounted for. I repeat, all of our people have been rescued.”

“Thank you, Mangrove Zero,” Aldona’s voice replies.

Leona turns around to find her husband. “Cut it a little close, don’t you think?”

“You were unwittingly distracting him,” Mateo replies.

“Who is he? Or was he, rather?”

He sighs. Aldona didn’t say much when we asked for help, but he is a bit of an inaccurate pronoun. It’s more of an it. There’s more than one parallel reality, which means there’s more than one Constant...”

Leona nods, finally getting it. “Which means there’s more than one version of Constance. Constance!Five was just the beginning.”

“We were so wrong. The AI doesn’t work for Danica. Danica works for the AI. This is who Tamerlane kept calling the boss.”

Missy’s Mission: Short Story Long (Part III)

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Nothing in this new library was moving. A few dozen people were frozen in place; in the middle of walking down the aisles, opening books, or looking through catalogs. Upon careful inspection, they realized the library patrons weren’t completely frozen, but were moving incredibly slowly. Missy was feeling sick to her stomach, like a roller coaster was trying to pull her forwards, but her shirt was caught on a nail. Gradually, the people around them began to accelerate. Missy postulated that they needed time to catch up to Missy and Dar’cy’s speed, but then she realized the two of them were in their house now. It was actually they who needed to slow down to everyone else’s speed. After a few moments, they had reached their goal, and the world around them started looking a lot more normal. A few people noticed they were there right away, while others took notice as they walked by. Some smiled, others waved, but most people just moderately acknowledged their presence.

Before they could find the information desk, or The Librarian, they heard a crackle from speakers on the ceiling. Somebody cleared their throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have two new arrivals. Please join us for storytime in Collaboration Room C.”

“Oh my God, not again. I’m busy,” said someone in the middle of what looked like important research.

“You have to go,” someone near him said.

“It’s not mandatory.”

“It could help with your research.”

He sighed. “Very well.” He did give Missy and Dar’cy a glare, though.

“What’s going on?” Missy asked as everyone began heading in the same general direction, to the other side of the library.

“I think the story is meant to be coming from us,” Dar’cy guessed.

“That might be difficult.”

“Yes.”

A woman was walking in the opposite direction as everyone else. She approached the newcomers. “Come on, you’re the guests of honor.”

“Uh...we’re not from Durus,” Dar’cy tried to explain.

“We’re Earthans,” Missy added.

“Great!” the woman said to them. “Then you’ll be able to give us news of Earth. No one ever comes from there! Oo, this is gonna be a real treat. Follow me!”

“We’re just looking for information,” Missy stopped her. “We’re not really here to tell any stories.”

The woman stopped and turned around ominously. “Everyone who comes here contributes. We’re stuck in a different time dimension, so there’s no way to communicate with the outside universe. If you want information on how to get rid of your chooser powers, you will give us what we need. And you’ll do it first.”

That was intense. How did she know why they were there?

“As I said, follow me,” she repeated.

It was an exhausting ordeal. Some of the people in the audience were fascinated with them, and wanted to learn every little detail of their lives. Others couldn’t care less, or at least wanted to play it cool. Missy and Dar’cy updated them as best they could of the goingson of Durus, but the last storyteller was from fourteen years ago. Though Saga and their new friends filled them in on a little bit of what happened before The Warren arrived, there was still a lot they couldn’t explain. As that woman had said, they were fairly interested in Earth. Most people in the library had never been there before, and a couple of them even thought it to be a myth told to children to encourage imagination and hope. By the time they were done telling their stories, and fielding everyone’s questions, over an hour had passed. It was now probably roundabouts September of 2174.

The woman who had forced them to do this, who they now realized must have been The Librarian smiled and allowed everyone to go back to what they were doing before storytime. Once everyone had left, she faced Missy and Dar’cy with a sad face, but no frown. “Thank you for that. It’s been awhile, but you’ve given many people something to look forward to. They left that world when it was in shambles. I’ve already heard whispers about going back, now that they might be able to actually build a life there. Unfortunately, I lied to you earlier. I will not be able to help you remove your powers. I’ve done that before, and it has not turned out well. I’m afraid I cannot bring myself to do it again.”

“You don’t need to help personally,” Missy said. “Just point us in the right direction. Tell us where we can find a book, or maybe someone here right now who knows something.”

She shook her head. “No, I can’t do anything. If you’re not here to do other research, I recommend returning to realtime before too much of it passes. Please request whomever told you to come here to no longer send people my way who need what you’re asking for. I will not be able to help them either.”

“Do you like it here?” Dar’cy asked before the Librarian could turn away.

“Pardon?” she asked.

“This dimension,” Dar’cy clarified. “Do you like that time moves slowly here? Did you do that on purpose, or are you just living with it?”

She was taken aback, apparently never having been asked such a question. “Well, Durus is a very strange place. People have powers, like you, but the planet itself alters physical laws, almost like it’s a person too. So no, we don’t really want it to be like this, but it’s what we have. We would rather be protected and missing out, than in a regular dimension, and exposed.”

Missy jumped in, “but this is a repository of knowledge. Knowledge should be shared. Why are you hoarding it?”

“I suppose you’re right,” the librarian conceded, “but like I said, this is life.”

“How did you know we had powers?” Dar’cy questioned.

“Some things I know, some things I don’t,” the Librarian gave a nonanswer.

“Do you know what our powers are?”

“No, but it doesn’t matter. I have made a vow to myself to never help someone be rid of their powers again. And I thank you to stop trying to change my mind.”

“We can get you out of this dimension,” Dar’cy claimed.

“Darce,” Missy warned, worried about where this might lead.

“You could do that?” the Librarian asked, with a glimmer of optimism for the prospect.

“Well, she could,” Dar’cy admitted.

“We don’t know that,” Missy said. She could create localized temporal bubbles that operated under different speeds of time, but she had never tried changing the speed of a dimension she had nothing to do with in the first place.

“You could at least try,” Dar’cy said to Missy, then directed her attention back to the Librarian. “If she does, you will promise—with no lying this time—that you’ll give us whatever we need to complete this mission.”

The Librarian thought over this proposal for about six real days. “I don’t know if that would be wise. This temporal dimension is a headache, but it’s the only protection we have.”

“You heard the stories,” Dar’cy argued. “The world has changed. You don’t need protection anymore. There’s a real government, and when you go back, you’ll be given certain rights. What Missy said is true, you shouldn’t keep knowledge from others. You’ve been here for what, a few months?”

“A week.”

“Jesus Christ,” Dar’cy couldn’t help but say. “Well, it’s been two centuries for everyone else. It’s time to go home.”

“All right,” the Librarian said. “If you can put us back on realtime, I’ll give you anything you ask for. But if this is some kind of trick, and it’s not really as great out there as you said, you get nothing.”

“We can live with that,” Dar’cy agreed.

Missy pulled her friend over to the side. “By the time I get this done, it’ll be two years since we left. You’ve seen how quickly things shift. We don’t know what 2175 looks like.”

Dar’cy put her hands on Missy’s shoulders. “Nothing will ever get better if we don’t think it can.”

Missy had no response to this. She turned to the Librarian. “Take me to the center of the library.”

The Librarian led them out of the room, to a grouping of study tables. She stood over one of the tables, and looked up to the skylight, which was showing nothing but darkness. “This is it, right here. Unless it has to be the exact center, in which case I’ll need to find the blueprints.”

Missy spun around for perspective. “No, this should be close enough.” She climbed onto the table, and sat cross-legged on it. She interlaced six of her fingers, but kept the other two pointed outwards, in the vague shape of a handgun. She closed her eyes and began a breathing exercise that Dar’cy had taught her, imagining that her teacher was smiling at the sight. Once she felt like she too was centered, she outstretched her arms to search for the energies permeating this dimension, and the building within it. She concentrated on harmonizing her body’s vibrations with those of her environment, and its occupants.

She maintained this position, gathering all the vibes from the dimension, bundling all of them together with her mind, then seeking out the world beyond. What she needed to do was destroy everything holding this place together, and force it to revert back to the rules that governed the universe as a whole. As she predicted, even though this was the first time she had tried this, it was nearly an hour before she was successful. All barriers were removed. She could feel herself, and everyone around her, speeding back up. Before this connection was broken, she could also feel everybody in the building throw up. It was a jarring experience.

Once she opened her eyes, she found the Librarian on her hands and knees, trying to catch her breath. Others were doing the same, hovered over piles and puddles of their bile. Only Dar’cy remained standing, perfectly fine, likely because her mother taught her how to adapt to new situations at the drop of a hat. Or because she was an object threader, and often instantly found herself in new places.

The Librarian stood back up and started coughing. “I hope your new government employs some good janitors.”

Grossed out, Missy timidly peeked over to see the floor better. “I think you’ll just want a good carpet installer.”

“Welcome to 2175,” Dar’cy said. “I think, at least. I’m not the best at math, I grew up on an island.”

“Now we know how Leona and Serif feel.”

A group of people suddenly barged into the library from the outside, holding their badges up, like they were raiding a strip club known for laundering money. “This is the Intercity Police Department, Temporal Anomaly Division!” the leader called out.

“TAD?” Dar’cy giggled.

“We are here because of an unscheduled dimensional reestablishment!” the cop continued. “You have interfered with the stability of realspace, and caused severe structural damage! We are still investigating casualties! Please congregate in one place, so we can take your statements! Resistance is not recommended!”

“Shit,” Dar’cy said.

They both looked at the Librarian, who looked back with a poker face. “I can’t give you what you want until this is resolved, if it ever is. If you killed someone,” she said to Missy, “even just one person, the deal’s off.”

“Shit,” Missy echoed.

< > Entire Story

The Burning of Effigy: Chapter Five

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When Effigy and I arrive at our new time period, the first thing we see is a young woman using special powers to destroy our homes from long ago, and each time she does, it’s simply replaced by one of the others. It’s a cabin, but then it’s the cottage, and then it’s the farmhouse, and then the mobile home, and then the cottage once more, and then the tiny home. Effigy places her hand gently on the girl’s shoulder. “That’s enough, Jayde.”

Jayde tries to push her away without even touching her, theoretically by some telekinetic power she has, but Effigy is blocking her from using it. “Effigy,” she says with disgust. “I am here to close your damn portal, once and for all.

“And we are here to help you with that,” Effigy responds, presenting me like a prize on a daytime game show. “But you can’t keep taking power from the other mages. They won’t survive.”

“Hi, my name is Kallias...Kallias Bran,” I tell her. “We’ve already met in the future.”

“What do you think you’re going to be able to do?” Jayde asks of him.

“Oh, me? Very little.” I point to Effigy. “But she kind of has a soft spot for me, so I’m here to make sure she does what she promised, which was to finish this. Here and now. You need power? She’s got it. You don’t need to steal from anyone.”

“I don’t think you have enough, Eff,” Jayde claims.

“This is the problem with people who can steal time powers. They get so caught up in it that they forget they have their own abilities. With our energy combined, we can do this. We just have to work together..”

“Oh, I’ve not forgotten I have my own powers. I have powers that no one else does. I can move things with my mind, which is completely unheard of on Durus.”

Effigy smiles. “That’s not real telekinesis. You’re mimicking it, in a way that’s very destructive.”

“How so?”

“What you’re doing is teleporting objects at an extremely fast rate. You do it so fast that the object doesn’t have time to disappear from one location before it appears in another. And that second location is so close to the first—measured in micrometers—that it looks like it’s moving. Now, with practice, you could harness the gravity that’s constantly tugging on the object to impart forward momentum on it, but you’re a long ways away from that.”

“Still. It’s something I can do that no one else can. I don’t need you.”

“You’re not the only one, JK. You’re just the only one on this world. Now stop being stubborn and proud, and let me help.”

“I can’t trust you!” Jayde screams. “I can trust no one!”

“Jayde Ramsey Resnik, you will let me help you close the portal, and you will not complain about it! I’ve had about enough of your insolence.”

“Oh, you wanna help?” Jayde begins the questioning.

“Yes.”

“You have the power to close the portal?”

“With you, definitely.”

“And I can steal powers from other people?”

“What?”

“And if you’re just a people, then I can steal from you too?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Jayde aggressively takes Effigy’s arm.

“Ouch!”

“I did,” Jayde says, hungry for more. A faint glow appears where their bodies meet. They both start vibrating, a does the ground beneath them. There’s so much energy between them that it’s starting to form an earthquake—I mean, a durusquake. The farmhouse that was left after Jayde was finished playing around with the...uh, quantum superposition of their homes, or whatever, crumbles. Left in its place is nothing.

“Help me!” Effigy begs, in an agony only felt my her. Jayde seems to be feeling better and stronger with each passing second.

“I’m not sure what you think I’ll be able to do,” I say. “Besides, it looks like this is what has to happen.”

Effigy continues to scream as the glow begins to shine, and crawl up her skin. The heat intensifies until a spark lights a fire, which overtakes Effigy’s entire body, and she is consumed by it until there is nothing left; not even a pile of ash.

Standing there now is Jayde Kovac, literally pulsating with power. She turns forty-five degrees to face me. “It is too much to keep in. I can close the portal, but you can’t be here when I do. Run, Kallias, run.” She cradles her head. “RUN!”

I run. I move faster than I think I ever have before. Behind me I can hear Jayde’s cries as she’s desperately trying to hold her energy in before what I assume must be some kind of explosion. In front of me I see a sort of blackish haze, floating a couple meters off the ground. I look to my left, and then my right, to find that it appears to be a ring. The farmhouse sits at the center, but this is the portal itself. I have to get all the way past this ring before I’m clear of the blast radius, and even that might not be far enough. I never really get the chance to find out, though. I hear the crack of thunder behind me. A wave of energy comes up and reaches for the ring portal. Once it’s taken hold, it begins to snap back, pulling me with it. I’m hopelessly flying through the air, back to the center. It probably would have been safer if I had just stayed in place. It definitely would have been better for my knees. I can see the rest of the ring closing in on the eye of the portalcane. That’s the last thing I do before I die...make up a word. How lovely.

I’m apparently knocked unconscious, because I wake up on the ground, instinctively trying to massage an ache from my head. I can’t move the rest of my body. I’m actually not in all that much pain, but the ordeal exhausted nearly every ounce of energy from me. I’m not sleepy, but I’m too tired to do anything but turn my head and try to get my bearings. It feels like I’m on asphalt, or something very similar to it, because it almost gives off its own light. A crowd of people are standing around. No, they’re crouching. Most of them are, anyway. They look to be pretty worn out as well. I blink my eyes a few times, trying to get a better view as a few of them have rested enough to walk over to me. Once they’re near enough, I can see what they truly are. They’re not human, but Ezqava’s species. What did Effigy call them? The Maramon. I must be on the Maramon homeworld—more to the point, their home universe.

One of them bends down and lifts me up by the shoulders. He speaks a sort of garbled orcish at me, trying to get me to understand. He studies my eyes, then looks up at the others to tell them something. They nod their heads in agreement, or understanding. They could be talking about finding a way to teach me their tongue, or for all I know, they’re discussing what spices to put in the pot with me. Ezqava never gave me the impression that she would want to eat me—nor did Effigy, for that matter—but I don’t know who these people are. They did say the worst of the worst would be the ones chosen for the portal; not the peaceful, pleasant people.

The one who was investigating me leans forward and sniffs my neck. “Ezqava.” He stands back up and addresses the crowd. What I hear is him saying something like, “Jila tega ken Ezqava Eodurus!”

“Ezqava!” I say eagerly. “Yes. I knew Ezqava Eodurus.” Let’s see, who was that other one they mentioned. “Shoe....shua. Shuhana.”

“Shuhana?” he asks me. He addresses the crowd again, “Jila ufe henti Shuhana Shenare!” He looks back down at me. “Boros jida henti Shuhana?”

I just shake my head, realizing now that that’s an international gesture for no, or uncertainty, but that may not translate well to aliens. I know nothing of these people. Effigy always acted rather human, and Ezqava barely said anything to me before she was absorbed into Effigy’s body.

He lifts me all the way up and gets me to my feet, letting one of his people keep me from collapsing. “Dwesben ke Ansutah,” he declares proudly.

“Ansutah?” I ask.

He sweeps his arm away from him, like he’s trying to indicate the whole world. “Ansutah,” he repeats, apparently happy to welcome me to their world. He begins to laugh.

Everyone else laughs along with him, including the one who’s holding onto me, who’s also adjusting his position.

The leader continues to laugh. “Jika paol vin jila paom ken ke fo huarza!” He reaches back, and the last thing I see is his fist, heading for my face.

« < » > Entire Story

The Burning of Effigy: Chapter Four

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We’re in a hallway in what appears to be a high school. I look around and let my eyes adjust to the change in light. Yes, it’s not just a high school, but the high school. Are we back in Springfield? I find the nearest window, hoping to see a landmark I recognize, but the terrain is that of the weird planet, so we are still stuck here. We can hear voices down the way, so we follow them. “Our calculations were off,” a woman is saying. “We’re speeding toward Earth much faster than we thought. Well, we were supposed to have more time, but Hokusai’s arrival has given it some kind of boost. If we want to stop the world before it collides with Earth, we must act now.” Hokusai, she’s here too?

I round the corner and step into the room to watch. Everybody stops and looks at me.

“Uncle Kal?” the woman who was talking before asks.

“Kallias, you’ve come,” Hokusai says. “How fortunate.”

“You can see me?” I question.

“I told you that I don’t have control of it,” Effigy says. “They’re not meant to see us, it was an accident.”

“No, it’s fine,” the woman who called me Uncle Kal says. “It’s nice to see you.”

“Effigy, is that you?” yet another woman asks.

“It is, Miss Kovac.”

“I’m so lost,” I say. “What the hell is happening here?”

“It’s me, Hogarth. I’m...quite a bit older, I know. You must have thought I was dead.”

“No, I didn’t,” I half-interrupt her. “I saw you a long time ago. You were running from that Smith asshole with Hilde and Paul Harken.”

This she clearly did not know. “His eyes. You did that.”

“Okay,” Miss Kovac, as Effigy would call her, says. “We don’t time for this. Hokusai, you have to get your work done. Mister Bran, we could really use your help.”

“With what?”

“I’ve lost most of my powers,” Kovac begins to explain, “and there’s a horde of angry men on their way who don’t realize we’re trying to save their lives.”

“Well, I don’t have powers.”

“She does.” Kovac gestures to Effigy. “And you have a penis. The army out there will only respond to someone born with such a gift.”

“I don’t know what that means,” I say honestly.

“They’re chauvinists, and they won’t listen to us.”

“What about those guys?” I point to two old men.

Kovac nearly rolls her eyes. “Escher and Rothko have business in here.”

“Escher? Rothko?”

“Yes, yes, yes, they’re alive and older. Very exciting and surprising.”

“Escher, Rothko,” I repeat. “Hogarth, Hokusai.”

“Could we be quite quick?” Kovac pushes.

“I have been looking for everyone in this room, some for decades, so you’re going to give me a second to a second to wrap my head around it.”

“However long it’s been for you,” Kovac begins, “it’s been longer for most of them. “You didn’t find them, you stumbled upon them. Right now, though, they all need you. They need you to go out there and stall for time. If you don’t, this planet is going to hit Earth. I mean that literally.”

I say nothing.

“If you help me with this now, I promise to help you and Effigy get to where you need to be. Do this one thing now. Do one more thing after that, and you can go home. You can put all of this behind you. Escher, Rothko, Hogarth, Hokusai. They all belong here. You’ve done your job. You solved the case...es. You solved the cases.”

I take a good look at all these missing people. They’ve clearly each been through a lot, and if this is what they turn out to be, I can’t go back in time and change that. Who knows what I could screw up in the timeline? She’s right; it’s time to move forward. “Come on, Eff.”

“Eff you,” Effigy says, but just as a joke. We both walk out of the room, out of the high school, and towards an oncoming army.

The army is disorganized and untrained, but the soldiers look antsy and hungry for blood. “Is there any way for you to protect them?” I ask of Effigy.

“Go on and do your thing,” she tells me, staying back and looking like she’s preparing to cast a spell over the school. I approach the no man’s land between us and the men. One of them pushes his way out of the crowd to meet me halfway, a second man at his flank. Behind me, Effigy is creating a barrier of fire to stop anyone from nearing the school, or—is that a ship? It’s sitting several meters away.

“I am Common Purcell,” the man says with the air of formality. The other one, his personal security guard, says nothing.

“Your name is Common?” I ask.

“No, it’s my title, dumbass. Common. You’ve never heard of a military Common?”

“You mean Commander?” I offer.

“No, it’s...ugh.”

Then I get an idea. “General. You mean General.”

“Yeah, that’s an archaic term,” Common Purcell says. “I don’t know why it changed.”

“It’s because you people are stupid, and didn’t understand that general isn’t a synonym for common in this context.”

“Are we having parlor, or not?”

“Do you mean parley. Jesus, what have you done with my language?”

“Where are you from?”

“The past,” I answer.

“That explains your...insolence. You protect the Earthan visitor?”

“I am an Earthan visitor. And yes. Whatever you want with those people, you can’t have it.”

“They threaten our way of life.”

“Your way of life sucks balls.”

Purcell and the other man look to each other for answers. It’s probably best they don’t fully understand the derogatoration.

“My friend back there is trying to do better. I suggest you don’t piss her off.”

“Yes, we can see that she’s a mage remnant.”

This time, I don’t recognize the term. “I don’t believe so. She’s the real thing.”

He slowly stands up straighter, surprised, but still hardened. “She’s a full mage.”

“One of the most powerful; possibly the most. She can take out your whole regiment with nothing more than a thought.”

“What are your demands?”

“Leave them alone. Apparently this world is on a collision course with Earth. As you can imagine, this is not something I’m interested in seeing happen either. We all want the same thing.”

“It is women like her who did this to us in the first place.” He’s not referring to Effigy this time. He’s talking about Hokusai.

“Does that really matter? If she can fix it, you need to let her do it.”

He tenses up at the sight of something behind me. I look back to see the group leave the high school, and head for the ship. I also hear the army of men collectively drawing their weapons. Purcell holds one arm out, indicating to the army that they should stay back. “Hold!”

“Have you ever had faith, Mister...” I close my eyes at the mere thought of having to use this ridiculous term, but I do anyway, “Common?”

“You want me to have faith...in a woman?”

“Many men before you have done just that,” I reason.

“And how did that work out for them?” Purcell asks smugly.

“Perfectly,” I say with all honestly. “You’ve been living a nightmare, brother.”

He tilts his head at this. “What did you say?”

“This is a nightmare. The whole world...Earth isn’t like this. We have a sun.”

“The Nightmare Brother,” he says in shock. “You’re the Nightmare Brother.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Purcell turns to his men. “He is the Nightmare Brother!”

After a few moments of silence, theoretically waiting for Purcell to admit it to be a joke or something, everyone in the army bends their knee, and bows their head.

“What..is going on?” I’m so confused.

Purcell is now smiling widely. “You are the prophesied arrival in the words of Orabela, The Teller. You have come to save us from The Falling Planets.”

“What planets? No planets are falling.”

Purcell looks up at the sky. “Yes, they are.”

I look up as well and see that he’s telling the truth. Massive planetary bodies are falling down like rain in the distance. But that can’t be what’s happening. I recognize the distinct coloring of Jupiter right away. The others must have been Neptune Uranus, and Saturn. What’s happening is the planet we’re on is heading towards Earth at an incredibly, impossibly, insanely fast rate. The fire Effigy had created has died down now, and I can hear Hokusai’s ship powering up. Rothko Torchlight shines from it, extending upwards through my home solar system. Earth is still a distance away, but it’s coming down fast.

“How is this possible!” I scream to Effigy. The rumbling from the ship echoes across all dimensions. The ground itself vibrates with immense power. 

“Time, right!?” she calls back. “You’re lucky to see this!”

I crouch down to lower my center of gravity. The planets keep falling, but we appear to be rotating. Somehow, Hokusai is turning the whole of the planet we’re on. In no time, Mars begins falling up, up, and away from us. The power surging through everything around me intensifies, and threatens to tear my whole body apart. The Rothko Torch, now facing the right direction to act as a rudder, adjusts the planet’s path. It does so just in time, it would seem. Earth comes inconceivably close to us, I can almost see people waving as we pass by. We continue past Venus and Mercury. Once we’re clear of the sun, the Rothko Torch flickers off, the vibrations abate, and it feels like we’re slowing down.

The rest of the crowd stands up with me, still staring up at the sky, watching the solar system drift away from us. “Did we just avoid hitting Earth?” I ask, knowing the answer.

Effigy smiles and puts her hand on my shoulder. “Just barely. This is good for us. The power that Hokusai just unleashed; I can feed off of it. I can get us back to the 21st century, exactly when and where we’ll need to be to close the portal once and for all. If we don’t do that, Gimura will never be able to save the world.”

We make one more jump.

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