Void: The Expanse (Part VI)

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Saga and Andromeda were no longer living in their mobile home, and not just because it was destroyed in a hate crime fire. Andromeda could have easily reconstituted it, had they wanted to. They no longer had a need to move around the planet, though, and instead decided that it was time to settle down and plant roots. Hokusai and Loa weren’t living with them either, and were in fact in the middle of an uncomfortable separation, brought about by the strain of Loa’s father’s sudden heart attack, and death. With the help of a new mage child, Camden was beginning to remember his life before being affected by the memory grenade. Unfortunately, he was starting to feel a little abandoned by Saga, because he now remembered them being much closer on Earth than they were now. She was trying to patch things up, and rectify that for the future.

The memory retriever was not the only full chooser that started demonstrating time powers. The running theory was that the close call with Earth gave Durus a sort of recharge in temporal power, which was paving way to a new era. Camden drew upon an analogy of Star Wars, which Saga had seen herself, but hadn’t really made the connection that Jedi keep existing, and being destroyed, with interim periods where people don’t believe they ever existed. Presently, they were trying to push for new language, to distinguish these new empowered people from those that came before. They did not want to use the universal convention of choosing one due to a sense of pride for their isolation. They wanted to come up with something new, and policy-makers were sifting through those proposals. As banal as it might seem, this was the most exciting and useful thing they could be doing at the moment. Months after the first democratic vote since the Deathspring, people started noticing what kind of mistakes they had made by allowing some of the old guard to maintain their control over the planet. An emergency election—which still took several more months to get underway—was put in place to drain the swamp, as it were.

After a couple more months of growing pains, things were finally where they needed to be. Local officials were taking care of the day-to-day regulation of the disparate cities. The high-level social servants had time to vote on trivial matters, such as what to call the new mages, because the world was currently waiting for a vote on the new constitution, which was first drafted by a group of officials before they were even elected. Their dedication to bettering the state was why most of them were ultimately elected into office.

On a personal note, Andromeda and Saga were living happily in a small cottage in a city that was about as far from the capital as was possible at the moment. Though she had quit her position as a city-builder last year, Andromeda ended up generating the pipes that ran from Watershed to Yalshire, so they themselves would be comfortable. Seeing this as the most important component of any city, the government begged her to at least continue doing this for them. She agreed, but only as long as there was no more efficient way to do it. Recent evidence suggested an infant in New Springfield would grow up to have the power to create new watershed regions, and possibly even lakes and rivers, which would halt their reliance on the original, and allow them to spread further throughout the wild thicket. Only time would tell whether this was the reality, or not. Her parents refused to allow their child to be proverted into an older age. Morick quit his relatively cushy position as Capital Security Advisor to protect New Springfield, though it was the worst kept secret that he was really there to protect the child from anyone looking to exploit her potential.

At the moment, Saga was trying to ask Andromeda to marry her, but she was not making it easy.

“Well, it’s just that I was going to ask you.”

“I guess I beat ya to it, so what’s the problem?” Saga questioned.

“I had this whole thing planned,” Andromeda claimed.

“What whole thing?”

“I was going to ask Loa to broadcast it.”

“Broadcast it to whom?”

“Everyone?”

“Everyone on Durus! Why would we do that?”

“To prove our love to each other.”

“I don’t need the rest of the world being in on my love for my girlfriend. That’s a very private matter.”

“Hokusai was telling me about...what did she call them? Promposals?”

“No, just regular proposals. Promposals were inspired by the original; hormonal teenagers convinced they needed to ask each other to dances in increasingly elaborate ways. They believed, without these stunts, their conviction wasn’t real.”

“So marriage proposals are elaborate, but dance proposals aren’t. I think what you’re missing is that this is a marriage proposal, so why shouldn’t I broadcast it?”

“I was explaining how people did it on Earth in my time. I wasn’t endorsing that behavior.”

“She said something about a jumbotron.”

“Yeah, Loa is the jumbotron, but I would never want that, like I said.”

“What about a flash mob?”

“Those are cool, but...not for that. They should be used to surprise people who aren’t part of the plan, and bring some joy into their lives; not to propose.”

“Because proposals are meant to be private,” Andromeda remembered.

“Exactly.”

“Then what’s he doing here?”

Saga looked over at Camden, who froze, like a rabbit who’s been caught making a sandwich, in the middle of making a sandwich. “Oh, him? He’s family.”

“Well, then let me call my mother.” Andromeda pretended to take out her phone, which didn’t exist, because they had never been invented on this planet.

Saga pretended to stop her, “no, that’s okay.” She directed her attention towards Camden, who had restarted his sandwich. “Cammy, honey? Could you take that to your bed?”

“You want me to eat in bed?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“Because that’s insane. I don’t want ants in my bedroom.”

“My bedroom,” Andromeda corrected. Their situation was not unlike a couple letting their deadbeat adult son stay with them while he got back on his feet.

“Cammy, honey? There aren’t any ants on this planet,” Saga said.

“Then space ants, gah! You can’t offer to put me up until my place is finished, and then make all these rules,” he complained.

“That’s exactly what we can do. A world without rules is anarchy.”

“Doesn’t sound so bad,” they imagined him muttering as he juggled his fixin’s, and headed down the hallway.

“Now,” Saga said with a sigh. “Where were we?”

“You were trying to propose to me in the least elaborate way possible.”

“Oh, right.” Saga smiled wryly. “About that...”

“What?”

She tilted her head coyly. “I called in a few favors.” She stood up and offered her hand to Andromeda. “Come with me.”

As soon as Andromeda took Saga’s hand in hers, and stood up, they teleported to a magical dimension, overlooking the southern thickets of Durus.

Andromeda looked around. They were literally on top of the world, near the equator, to be exact...or rather, where it would be if they had a sun. “You got us here with favors?”

“Oh, this is nothing.” Saga gazed into the aether, and rolled her finger in a circular motion, from her stomach forward. The planet below them started moving. Of course it was already moving, but what Saga had done was request someone slow time for them in a temporal bubble. This allowed them to witness the planetary rotation in what appeared to them as real-time.

Andromeda watched in awe. She had come from a world of magic and mystery, but also of suffering and dullness. Though she had seen the Deathspring with her own eyes but a few years ago, this was still an inspiring sight. The world began to roll towards them faster and faster with each passing second, until reaching a maximum legible speed.

“Look there,” Saga suggested.

Before them were lines of light, emanating from the ground. As the light came towards them, they were able to see that the lines were joined into a word. It was WILL. A few hundred meters later, they saw the word YOU. It was followed by MARRY, ME, ANDROMEDA, and finally, a question mark.

“How did you do this?” Andromeda asked. “Who can do this?”

“Typical Andromeda, answering a question with another question.”

“Never mind,” she said. “Yes. This was amazing. YES, I’ll marry you!”

They kissed. Then, still with her now fiancée’s lips pressed to hers, Saga said, “and now for the grand finale. I had to pay an arm and a leg for this. Look up.” She snapped her fingers.

“What am I seeing here?” Every star in the sky was brightening, shining all across the expanse, dimming only to make room for another.

“Every star that can be seen from this vantage point is going supernova. It’s basically what happens when a star dies. Loa is using all of her power to transmit thousands of moments in the future, throughout billions of years. It’s just for us, no one else can see this.”

“Yes,” Andromeda said.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, I’ll marry you.”

“You’ve already said yes.”

Andromeda continued to watch the brilliant lightshow for a few beats. “Yes, again.”

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Microstory 775: Fat Lady

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Keres are demons. Keres are, in fact, evil demons, which is an important distinction. They belong to a special class of demons, amongst nearly two dozen others, most of whom are also evil. Demons did not evolve on their world naturally. Instead, they were genetically engineer from something the scientists who discovered it referred to as The Sinister Mass. It was this completely inexplicable collection of presumably ancient evil creatures, who were somehow forced into coalescence, and theoretically jettisoned into interstellar space. The demons they created from this eventually turned on their creators, and started using their resources to travel the galaxy, searching for a home. They ended up finding one on a planet that was colonized by humans, and it was here that they built a stronghold. Each class of demon has their own little niche. Some like to torture, some like to trick or lure people into traps, and others simply use brute force, and attack. The Keres are cleverless warriors, bent on the eventual destruction of mankind. Though they do not need to feed on humans to survive, they prefer it, and enjoy it. While other demons encouraged infighting amongst the humans, for the pleasure of watching the show itself, the Keres used this as an opportunity to choose their victims from the battlefield. The humans quickly caught wind of what they were being tricked into doing to themselves, and created a peace, for the sake of the species’ survival. The Keres were forced to satisfy their hunger through other means. But one of their kind was somehow born completely different. Larger and slower than the other Keres, this Ker, named Nilda, never developed a taste for human flesh, and this led her to feeling sympathy for them. As time went on, and other Keres mocked her for her differences, Nilda became more and more human. During the human internal conflicts, she used her position to make it look like she was following Ker custom, but she was secretly working against them. While they believed her to be choosing her food, and eating it privately, she was actually building a personal army of elite fighters. Upon discovering what she had done, a demon named Nemesis trapped the fighters in the Hemera cage, and prevented them from aging. It was his job to maintain the balance between the demons, and the humans, so he kept them alive, knowing they might be useful one day. It was a good thing he did, because when the humans decided to rise up against their oppressors, after centuries of hell, Nilda’s Valker Warriors would prove to be their second saving grace.

Microstory 774: Cowboy

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Dalvin Sabastino could not be more different than his sister, Twila. They grew up in the same environment in the city, were raised by the same parents, and even had most of the same teachers. But while Twila pursued a life of academics, ultimately becoming a world-renowned scientist and astronaut, Dalvin pursued almost nothing. His parents urged him to get a job when he was a teenager, and he always claimed he would get on that, but he never followed through. His mother even procured him a position at her factory, but he didn’t show up even once. After he finished high school, his parents promptly kicked him out of the house, and he was left to the streets. Despite having nothing, he never turned to a life of crime. This was the motivation he needed to turn his life around. Drawing upon a nickname his family gave him because of his reckless and carefree behavior, Dalvin decided to become a literal cowboy. Since there were no ranches where he lived, he walked halfway across the country, to California, where he thought he would have gainful employment year-round. He continued to struggle finding work, until a rancher took pity on him, and gave him a low-level job. His troubles did not end there, though. The rancher turned out to be using his small business to launder money for local organized crime. Though Dalvin was completely oblivious to this, he was sent to prison, and fined for his involvement. As successful as Twila was in her profession, she did not have enough money to pay for Dalvin’s legal defense, and certainly didn’t have enough himself. And so she agreed to participate in the reality series Flipsides, which pitted contestants against each other in adventurous challenges. She actually did pretty well, and was able to secure the funds for her brother’s release. Sadly, things would not turn out so well for her, and Dalvin blamed himself for what happened to her during production. But was it enough to turn him into a killer?

Microstory 773: The Curse of Mexico

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When the creator of the universe, Alaha saw that her most precious creation, Earth was in danger of being destroyed by Adversary, she made a plan. Though she would not be able to protect the entire universe from Adversary’s rule, she could at least protect this one planet. Unfortunately for her, she overestimated the amount of time it would take for Adversary, and his twisted minions, to take control of the realms. She was only able to place the protective enchantment over a small chunk of land. As time went on, and the humans spread across the globe, this piece of land came to be known as Mexico. Its borders were likely drawn by an innate sense of its range. Though the effects of Adversary’s influence on people could remain while within Mexico’s borders, new hexes could not infect them. Everyone inside of Mexico is perpetually shielded against his anger, as long as they remain there. Even demons who crawl onto Earth are unable to pass through, which is what makes the border itself so incredibly dangerous. Anyone attempting to cross over will have to fight against the wrath of the evil ones, even through indirect means. It is for this reason that a young woman formed an organization designed to keep what Adversary refers to as The Curse of Mexico a secret. Should the rest of the world discover the truth, the country would be overrun with people fleeing from the danger. Fortunately, Adversary had no intention of revealing his true nature to the people of Earth. He breaks them down by subtler means, gradually turning them over to his side, while leaving them oblivious to what’s happening to them. Had he not kept himself a secret, the reality behind Mexico’s enchantment would too come to light. That might even be enough to overload the system, and undermine the enchantment entirely. But even in balance, this paradise cannot last forever, and when Adversary’s wicked armies begin to descend upon the Earth in the final battle between good and evil, perhaps not even Mexico will remain a safe haven.

Microstory 772: Sergeant

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Adolphe Sargent was born in 1854, in a region of France called Lorraine. Though many of his compatriots felt culturally German, because of its historical connection to the German Empire, Sargent felt French, through and through. He was only sixteen years old when Prussian forces invaded France’s borders, and he decided to fight against them in the French army. It was on the battlefield that he met a musketeer named Anatol Klugman, who was as passionately Prussian as he was French. They battled against each other for several minutes, before Anatol struck a heavy enough blow to keep Sargent from standing back up. Just before Klugman could deliver death, one of Sargent’s fellow soldiers came to his rescue, coming this close to ending Klugman’s life. Sadly for the French soldier, a magical sword appeared on the ground just in time for Klugman to turn the tables once more. And he kept that sword for decades, possibly centuries, using it to travel through time, ultimately coming to be known simply as The Warrior. But what people may not realize was that Sargent’s story did not end here. Seeing him go up against one of the most formidable fighters in history impressed a lot of very powerful people, and they decided to start using him for their own means. They pulled him out of his time, and set him up to be part of a special battalion. These soldiers, known as the salmon battalion, were tasked with traveling through time together, assuming new identities, and blending in with the locals. Consisting of a couple hundred men from all over history, the salmon battalion cycled through its roster on an as-needed basis. But Adolphe Sargent was always there. Due to what must be assumed to be a clerical error, Sargent was never relieved of his duties, no matter how many temporal attempts, in how many battles, in how many wars, the battalion went through. Though Klugman went on as the infamous Warrior, earning a reputation as the most dangerous man in all of time and space, Sargent was the hardest-working fighter ever, which was something few people knew.

Microstory 771: Dewey

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When Kalista Dewey was born, the world was completely fine. Well, it might be a bit of a stretch to say that, but it was certainly still standing. She was just out of college when she was recruited into a secret research project, aimed at studying the unusual temporal properties of a remote island in the middle of the ocean. While she was there, great calamities began to befall the world outside, leaving those on the island as the only ones who were truly completely protected. It was unclear whether Dewey’s superiors started their organization knowing that these civilization-ending scenarios would wreak havoc on the world, but once they did, her job transitioned to studying what went wrong. As time went on, their research collective separated into three camps. Camp One came to believe that this was somehow part of destiny; that the island protected them from harm so that they could restart civilization in their image. Camp Two believed that, though this was not an ideal situation, the world needed to just move on from it. They rejected the idea that they were somehow the chosen ones, and ultimately sought to prevent the organization from returning to the outside world with such a massive technological advantage. They would be too powerful. They wanted to be there to support and nurture the survivors, so they could rebuild something that was better for everyone. Dewey belonged to Camp Three, however. She believed that the island’s special properties were there for a reason, and that they could find a way to save the world by learning more. Though they had no proof of this, they thought there was actually some way to harness its energy, and go back in time, to fix the world’s problems, before they even came to a head. The only question to answer at that point was, what was she willing to sacrifice to make this a reality?

The Advancement of Leona Matic: August 19, 2165

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Leona was standing in front of the water filtration system, massaging her chin, puzzled look on her face. “This is just a standard three-stage water filtration system.”

“Okay...” Paige said simply.

“But it’s in a ship. In space.”

“Is that bad?”

“Who designed this thing?”

Paige tapped on her tablet. “A man named—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Leona interrupted. “I’m starting to see there was a reason nobody used his design. It’s completely bonkers. It was built exactly to his specifications?”

“Except of the atterberry pods, yeah.”

“He was an idiot. You need a reverse osmosis filtration system when you’re operating this exposed to cosmic radiation, at least. You’ll probably want a DI filter too. Frankly, I’m surprised you lasted this long before hitting an incident that tainted the entire system.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

I guess I can build a RO filter myself.”

“You gonna be able to do that in a day?”

Leona looked over the the filter again. “I have a lot of the components I need already. I’ll have to finish it in a day. You’re suffering diminishing returns from your minimal supply. Count yourself lucky that the only redundancy this bucket has is the water, otherwise you’d be dead by now.”

“You can have everything you need, as long as it doesn’t require a store run. Just let us know.”

“I’ll make another list,” Leona said before getting on her knees and starting to get a more detailed picture of how this all works.

As it turned out, retrofitting the filtration system with upgrades wasn’t nearly as difficult, or time-consuming, as she thought it would be. 3-D printers did their magic much faster in these times than before, so the extra parts were fairly easy to come by. Since there was virtually no communications array on the ship, Leona didn’t have access to Earth’s network, but they were smart enough to have downloaded a number of useful databases, including one that contained a filter design. It took about a half day to finish this all up, but then realized she had to reprogram the ship to maintain these new parts, should they malfunction while Leona was out of the time stream. When finally the chore was completely finished, she promptly dove into her bed, and fell asleep.

She slept so long, that when she woke up, it was already 2170, and they were just approaching Durus. “How the hell did I sleep that long?” Leona asked.

“We knew you were tired. You fixed everything for us, so we didn’t need your help anymore,” Paige explained to her. “You certainly deserved it.”

That made no sense. “But...five days? I slept,” she looked at the clock, “a hundred an eight hours? Straight?”

Paige shrugged. “Like I said, you were tired.”

No one else seemed to think it was strange either, not even Serif.

But things were about to get even stranger. They could see Durus appear on the screens, and through the forward viewports. As they approached this celestial body, the ship decelerated accordingly, eventually slow enough to break the atmosphere, and begin to land on the planet. While she was watching this happen, Leona was incapable of saying anything. She tried to reason that the vessel was imbued with some kind of time power, but she had no evidence to support that. As far as she could tell, Brooke simply engaged the ship’s brakes, as if it were nothing more than a land vehicle.

“What did you just do?” Leona finally asked as they were landing on the surface.

“We’re here,” Brooke answered excitedly.

“That’s impossible. How did you land the ship?”

“What are you talking about, I just landed it?”

Leona tried to explain the physical limitations of such a maneuver, but Brooke simply shrugged off the problem, attributing their success to the advances of the day. But that didn’t work either, because no matter how advanced science progresses, you can’t just throw the laws of physics out the window. They shouldn’t be here. They shouldn’t be here at all.

“Come on,” Paige said. “Let’s go meet the new Savior of humanity.”

“You guys go ahead,” Leona said, hopefully doing a decent job of pretending she wasn’t scared out of her mind. “I’ll be there in a second. I need to run a quick systems check. Don’t want the ship blowing up from a fuel leak while it sits here, do we?” She gave Serif a kiss on the cheek, and saw everybody off.

Nerakali was the last to try to step down the ramp, which gave Leona a perfect opportunity to pull her to the side, out of sight of the others. “Watch it, lady!”

“What are you trying to do to me?” Leona demanded to know.

“What are you talking about? I’m not doing anything.”

“Wake me up.”

“I don’t follow.”

“Wake me the hell up!”

“Leona, you must still be tired. Tell ya what, I’ll go get Brooke. She’ll run your little diagnostics, and you can take another nap.”

“I’m already asleep, so get me out of here! Now!”

Nerakali sighed, then pulled her out of the virtual world. They were back in Leona’s room, in 2165.
“Why did you do that?”

“I was trying to help,” Nerakali answered defensively.

“How was that going to help?”

“You’ve been so stressed lately. You keep showing up in the timeline, and having to fix everyone else’s screw-ups. I thought you just needed a win.”

“You thought reaching our destination five years too early would be a win for me?”

“It wasn’t that much of a stretch. Being asleep for five straight days? I’ve seen humans do it for longer.”

“No, you haven’t. It was a weak construct, full of plotholes.”

“Look, I don’t know how you land a ship on a planet. I assumed you just slow down.”

“That takes too much fuel, you have to use atmosphere. If it weren’t a rogue planet, we would be able to use a sun, gas giant, or even a moon, but aerocapture is our only option. If it were a real rogue planet, it wouldn’t have an atmosphere, and we probably wouldn’t be able to land at all.”

“Well, I’m sorry I don’t know how all this works. When I want to go to another planet, I just snap my fingers.”

“I understand,” Leona said. “What I don’t understand is why you bothered doing this for me. Why would you care?”

“Crew morale is my job. It’s my only job. I’m pretty powerless here. The virtual worlds are all I have to offer, so I take it pretty seriously.”

“That doesn’t explain why you would help me. We hate each other, more than any of the others. I certainly don’t need an escape from this place, since I’m not here that much. It’s the others who have to worry about pandorum.”

“Leona, I am thousands of years old. My approach to blame, grudges, and revenge are completely different than yours. I hold you responsible for my brother’s death, yes, but that was also centuries ago for me. So...I’m kind of, like, over it.”

“So all it takes is time?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Then time is a commodity.”

“I suppose.”

“With a little more time, all wars would end before they could begin.”

“Okay, that’s a philosophical argument I’m too old to be having before my cup of coffee.”

“It’s the middle of the evening. It’s something you should be thinking about. You and your siblings were like gods. No, you were gods. You could have saved everybody, just with the gift of time.”

She smiled. “Time is not ours to give, nor were we brought up to want to help others with it. The choosers, the powers that be, my family; we all have one thing in common.”

“What is that?”

“We don’t give a shit,” she said plainly.

“I see.”

“Do you? Because you seem to be under the impression that you’re on your way to pick up someone whose sole purpose in life it is to help people. The powers haven’t done you any favors by calling her the Savior, but she’s nothing. All she is, is a tool for microsolutions. Nothing we do really makes anything better. Or worse, for that matter.”

“That’s pretty cynical of you to say.”

“You misunderstand. Powers, choosers, salmon; we’re pointless. In the grand scheme of things, the only people with any real power to save the humans...are the humans themselves. We didn’t design this ship. Even with all its flaws, it is still a testament to human ingenuity. The medical advances, transhumanistic upgrades, asteroid mining, the interstellar pre-colony probes that just launched to the nearest neighboring stars. That’s all them. We didn’t help make those things happen. Can I give you one piece of advice, Lee-Lee?”

“Only if you never call me that again.”

“Fair enough. Whatever your name is, you’re a pawn in someone else’s game. We all are. Normal humans are the only ones with actual free will. Absolute corruption, and stuff, you know how it goes.”

“What’s the advice?”

“Stay on Durus when you get there.”

“I don’t think I have a choice.”

“You do. There’s a reason the powers that be want you taking a relativistic ship to go get her. There’s a reason they sent you, and it’s not just because she can’t transport across planets, though we believe that part is indeed true.”

“What would that reason be? Rather, what do you think it is?”

“They have no power there. That’s what truly makes it rogue. If you stay on Durus, they won’t be able to get to you. You’ll still be on your pattern, but there’s a way around that as well.”

“Is any of this true?”

“It’s all true.” A very-much alive Missy had walked into the room. “I’ve seen it done. That’s why I volunteered for this job.”

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Void: Star-Crossed (Part V)

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One of the conditions of letting the people of Durus vote in a new administration to replace the provisional government was that anyone serving in the provisional government would be allowed to run. Prosivor Drumpf was the only one exempt from this requirement, since he made all his cronies look bad when his hatespeech was broadcast live on LoaTV. A not insignificant number of people from the provisional government were either reëlected to their original positions, or to new ones, even those who really shouldn’t be there. Yet, the people have spoken, so Saga et al. would have to accept it, and move on.

One of Andromeda’s conditions was that she be allowed to step down from her leadership role as well. She enjoyed using her time power to build up the city, but she didn’t want people looking to her for answers. She just wanted to live her life for herself, and now, with Saga. The two of them had grown incredibly close over the course of the last year. Since their first, they had gone on dozens of other dates, and had even technically moved in together. Five Earthan months ago, it was becoming clear that not everyone in the original two cities were interested in staying. They wanted to spread out across the planet, like their ancestors had with their little towns. And so Andromeda built a mobile home. Since there were no city streets on Durus to worry about, she was free to make it as wide as she wanted, which meant there was enough room for the two of them, plus Loa, and her girlfriend, Hokusai. Loa was using her time power to stream their construction efforts in a sort of documentary designed to showcase all the good Andromeda was doing. It was Hokusai’s job to keep their home in operation. They probably had the most luxurious and technologically advanced home in the world; one that was capable to piloting itself to other settlements, where Andromeda would start laying the foundations for neighborhood isolates.

The most recent of these isolates was a neighborhood that called itself Dawidux. When the Earthans came in the Deathspring, they banded together and protested against giving refugee aid. As time went on, and the “Earthan problem” persisted, they gradually transitioned their goals to that of ethnic cleansing. They started covering themselves with hoods, and lynching Earthans that had strayed too far from the herd, reminiscent of a darker time in Earth’s own history. Scholars today believe they, in fact, got all their ideas from the Nazi and white nationalism movements, which was ultimately ironic, because if any Nazis or white supremacists were on Durus, they would be treated just as poorly as any other Earthan. Provisor Drumpf was rumored to be a powerful leader in the Dawiduxian movement, and though a direct connection was never proven, he was quite clear in his sympathy for them, as were other members of government, some of whom remain in power.

Though, of course, Andromeda was adamantly opposed to Dawiduxian principles, she had no choice but to build their neighborhood for them. She promised to do what she could to help restore the world to its former glory, and even improve upon it. The fact that she was in support of Earthans, and lived with two of them, appeared to be completely lost on the Dawiduxians. The hate-mongers needed something from someone they hated, and so they were going to carefully look away and pretend they didn’t notice, only expressing their outrage once Andromeda was done helping them. That day was today. Saga and Andromeda were presently walking on the edge of the neighborhood on a final inspection, to see if anything needed to be fixed, or added. Things started not feeling quite right, and they realized the residents were comfortable enough with their neighborhood to make their move.

“There’s a fire!” Saga called out, seeing the red and orange blaze in the distance.”

“That’s where we parked our home!” Andromeda cried.

“Hokuloa!” Saga screamed, referring to Hokusai and Loa’s shipper name.

They started running, but a horde of Dawiduxians deliberately stepped into their way.

“Please!” Andromeda begged. “There are people in there!”

“That’s the point,” one of them said luridly.

“You would murder two innocent people? We’ve already given you what you want! You asked for a neighborhood of your own, and you’ve got it.”

“That does not absolve you of your sins. You have conspired with the Earthans, and you will be punished for it.”

“What exactly is your problem with us?” Saga questioned.

Saga stepped back, in sync with the leader, as he stepped forward. “This is our world, and you have invaded it.”

“We didn’t ask to come here.”

“No, you didn’t,” he said, “but Earth asked you to leave.”

“What are you talking about?”

He smiled and shook his head, like a Christian wondering why a Muslim hasn’t figured out that Jesus Christ is the Messiah. “We have mage remnants on our side.”

They said nothing.

“What, you thought it was just you? Lots of remnants are part of our cause. They can see things others can’t, and they have told us that Earth sent us the worst of their worst.”

“Again. What the hell are you talking about?”

He looked to the air above his head for the right words. “You’re like lice. On a dog.”

“Do you even know what a dog is?” Saga asked bitingly.

He ignored her. “You’re actually the bad lice. All the other lice are just trying to live their lives in the dog’s feathers, but the bad lice keep raping them, so the dog’s owner uses a special machine to suck all the bad lice away. Durus was that machine, and it brought you all here so Earth wouldn’t have to deal with you anymore. But we don’t want you either.”

Saga just stared at them. “I don’t..even know...how to respond to that. There was so much wrong with what you said, I—I just..can’t even. How do you argue against something so absurd when your opponent is too dumb to know that dogs don’t even have feathers!”

“Whatever, you know what I mean.”

“There’s no such thing as good lice.”

“So what?”

“We aren’t rapists, and you have zero evidence that we are. You’ve just..been told this? And you accept it?”

The Dawiduxian scoffed. “We don’t have to listen to your lies. We were perfectly happy with building a wall separating our cities, but now you’ve infected people’s minds, and our only option now is to just rid of you altogether.”

“What does that mean?”

He spoke above their heads, “you have them?”

Saga and Andromeda turned around to see Hokusai and Loa being dragged towards them. They tried to run to them, but were held back.

“Yes, they’re alive,” the leader said, like he had done them a favor. “And one of them will remain that way, as long as she does what she’s told.”

“What are you telling?” Andromeda asked.

He nodded to two of his goons. One of them handed Andromeda a knife, while the other handed one to Loa. “You have been found guilty of literally sleeping with the enemy. You have two choices. You can either die in each other’s arms, or you can excise the demons from your souls, and join us.”

Saga knew neither Andromeda, nor Loa, would do such a thing. Had they not been respectively in love, they still wouldn’t kill guiltless and harmless people. That just wasn’t in their nature. This was a waste of everybody’s time. Perhaps the Dawiduxians knew it wouldn’t work, and were just screwing with them. Or maybe they were really delusional enough to think they were on the right side of history, and were confident everyone else would eventually see the light.

“Andromeda, maybe you could build a nice little cage for these people?”

The leader laughed. “You could try.” He nodded to an old woman at his side. “She’s a power dampener, though, so the most you’ll get is a psychic nosebleed.”

“He’s right,” Andromeda said quietly to Saga. “I’ve been trying this whole time.”

“You have sixty seconds to choose,” the leader said. With another nod, he ordered several of his people to lift their bows and arrows. One of the arrows slipped away, though, and flew right into Hokusai’s chest.

“Hokusai!” Loa screamed.

The one who had shot her was really just a kid, who was mortified by what he had done. It was clearly an accident.

“Andy! Be ready!” Saga yelled. She took the knife out of her hand, and used a skill she had learned on Tribulation Island to throw it into the power dampener’s neck.

The dampener didn’t have to die to lose control of her power, giving Andromeda the edge she needed. In anger, adrenaline coursing through her veins, she pulled a platform of stone out of the ground, and shot them up into the air. The four of them managed to stay on, but so did several Dawiduxians. In her own anger, Loa started fighting them alongside Saga, until they had thrown them all off the precipice. By the time Andromeda had calmed down, the tower was hundreds of meters in the air, and leaning to one side. She had built parapets to hold onto, so they wouldn’t slip off themselves, but the tower was not going to last much longer. They could already feel it threaten to tip over completely.

Some other version of Saga appeared from a hatchway in the floor. “Come on!” she called out to them. Andromeda and Loa carried Hokusai through the hatchway, while Saga took up the rear. Just as she was climbing through, the tower was starting its race back to the ground. When they exited at the bottom of the tower, though, it was still standing. The other Saga had magically transported them a few moments into the past. A Dawiduxian that Loa had pushed off the edge landed on the ground next to them, so they ran away from the new building, looking for safety. They then closed their timeloop as they watched the tower topple over, and destroy the majority of the neighborhood that Andromeda had just constructed.

“Thank you,” Saga said to herself.

“I need to get her out of here,” Future!Saga explained, indicating Hokusai, who was still alive, but barely.

“Where will you take her?” Loa asked.

“There’s gotta be a door in that town that’s still standing,” Future!Saga answered. “I have to take her back to the future.”

Loa didn’t like hearing this, especially since she didn’t know how far into the future this would be, but she knew she couldn’t question the decision. “Let’s go.”

While Future!Saga ran up to find the safest route to the closest stable door, the other three able-bodied women began transporting Hokusai using a three-person arm-stretcher carry. They made it to the door, and let Future!Saga take her through alone.

Present!Saga should have been more careful, but she did accidentally see Serif waiting for them on the other side of the portal. That was a good sign. “What do we do now?” she asked. “We’re scheduled to start building New Springfield a few miles from Watershed. With transportation burned down, though, we’re gonna be late.”

Andromeda surveyed the rubble that was once a budding town, bitter look on her face. She took in, and released, a deep breath. “I quit.”

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