Tertiary Positioning

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   <default>Tertiary Positioning</default>
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</image> <label>Posted On</label> <label>Author</label> <label>Music Theme</label> <group collapse="open"> <header>Order</header> <label>Previous Suggested Manuscript</label> <label>Previous Suggested Story</label> <label>Next Suggested Story</label> <label>Next Suggested Manuscript</label> <label>Chronologically Previous Manuscript</label> <label>Chronologically Previous Story</label> <label>Chronologically Next Story</label> <label>Chronologically Next Manuscript</label> </group> <group collapse="open"> <header>Series</header> <label>Series</label> <label>Previous</label> <label>Next</label> </group> <group collapse="open"> <header>About the Manuscript</header> <label>Type of Story</label> <label>Canon Status</label> </group> <group collapse="open"> <header>About the Story</header> <label>Date</label> <label>Location(s)</label> <label>Characters</label> </group> </infobox> By talmid

Tertiary Positioning

Chapter 1: Prelude

In the square confines of a small townhouse second floor bedroom, adjacent pairs of drawn curtains filtered the already waning sunlight of the late summer sunset to a dull orange glow, dimly illuminating the girl perched on a twin size bed with her legs crossed and eyes closed to the outside world, keeping her thoughts in. Internal lighting was already low, and timed to dim completely once night fell, to ease concurrent sleep, typical for a week night. But she only planned to rest those few hours that remained in which both she and company remained awake. Under cover of darkness, once her father, his wife, and Ben lay retired and none the wiser to undercover schemes – maybe not Ben, but he could keep secrets – she would disappear.

When she opened her eyes again, she was taken aback to see the lighting had changed. No more orange sunlight glowed through the squares of her adjacent window frames, replaced by the opaque black of predawn. The only illumination now came from her holographic timepiece, ravaging her eyes with its ghostly blue hue as she tried to squint into focus the numbers floating over her desk. She tilted her head, as they initially appeared sideways, because she’d tipped over in her sleep: 1:05 AM, thirteenth of August, in the year 3048. As well, a smaller number accompanied by a red priority mark indicated she had a few new messages to read, which she postponed for the moment.

Like her escape plan, she kept her exasperation to herself as she removed her pea coat from her desk chair, soundlessly slipped it on, and climbed onto the desk. From there she slid open the already unlocked window on its regularly greased tracks. As quickly as silence allowed, without touching its frame, she transferred her weight out the window onto the split in the trunk of the sturdy oak conveniently located on the townhouse’s southwest face. After sliding the window back down, her hand and boot grips facilitated a short shimmy downward before jumping became quietly landable, except for a sudden scrabbling when she touched the ground, probably from a small nocturnal critter.

She was out and within minutes of following the road, townhouses turned to industrial centers and office structures. She read her messages in the interim, some unwarranted taunts about her personality from her cousins, as expected from them, and nothing of importance regardless. At a private parking lot, she authorized her entry by keycard and unlocked her motor bike. At ten kilometers and ten minutes away, she needed to make up the time lost by oversleeping to keep her intended meeting. She cursed her ineptitude at sleep avoidance now as she ran the motor bike and raced for the lot exit. Time and place were decided nonsequentially and shared by word of mouth at each prior one’s conclusion. She and her contact agreed to keep their meetings off the books. At the speed she tore the bike down Nimbus City’s dark streets, she’d be lucky not to get booked herself.

This morning’s meeting was at 1:30 atop an abandoned apartment tower, in the center of Old Nimbus City, also known as the exclusion zone. Prior to meeting her contact, she’d never felt trepidation at the city’s unspoken story, but now, racing her motor bike toward the nearest checkpoint, she became aware of her underlying dread. The towering barriers erected around the exclusion zone kept more than the city’s tragedy tucked away in permanent memoriam.

For its importance to Research Into Other Realms, the governmental project she interned for, she knew that fourteen years and a month prior, the Maelstrom, the historical enemy of the Nexus Republic, had attacked from another dimension, transforming the center of the city into the wasteland it was now. Appropriately, her understanding of the city had been strictly professional, but the last meeting with her contact had changed that. No one had told her that the woman who nursed her, raised her, cherished her accomplishments, and redirected her mistakes was not her birth mother, until her contact did. No one had told her that fifteen years ago, Old Nimbus City had been the site of her real mother’s death, until her contact did, and she knew he had more to tell.

Dread boiled to anticipation in her stomach as the checkpoint to the old city approached fast. With its guard booth unmanned at this time of night, she opted to jump the gate arm, pulling the bike onto its drive wheel then throwing her weight forward as the front of the bike entered the space above the gate, while the rest of the bike caught on the gate’s arm with enough forward momentum to slide on it, but decelerating faster than her grip on the bike could handle, launching her farther and faster through the air on a trajectory to streak the road when a flash of light replaced the blur of motion, surrounding her for only an instant before all her physical senses were turned off. She had no sight, not of light or darkness or anything in between, nor sound, touch, taste, or smell, but a moment seemed to pass before her senses returned and she was falling again, but vertically and only like she’d just been dropped, this time facing upward, and her back thudded on the ground relatively softly.

From the change in scenery, she knew she was no longer at street level. Streetlights and highrises were absent, only the stars and worlds in the night sky were apparent before she propped herself into a sitting position. The small expanse of the parapeted rooftop she’d been transported to was clear except for a fallen water tower, two access structures at opposite corners, and a tall man in full body armor, matte gray with indigo ascents. He stood looking over the nearest ledge at the cityscape, shaking his head.

“I didn’t expect you to be an idiot.” His voice was modulated and filtered behind his helmet, fully obscuring his face behind a dark visor. “I was wrong.”

She got to her feet with some chagrin at his words and curiosity at her new placement. “Was that a teleporter?”

“Effectively, but a transdimensional drive does more than that. And don’t take my rescuing you for granted,” her contact warned, turning to face and raising a gloved finger her direction. “I’m not in the business of saving lives, I’m just less interested in seeing you be a meat crayon.”

He was in a condescending mood tonight, she figured, and fixed her eyes on where she pictured his were, behind the opaque shield of his visor. “Because you knew my mom.”

He didn’t dispute the connection, so she pushed. “I want to know more about Kate.”

He turned back to the ledge, resting his hands on the parapet and looking downward. “She was more than a friend.”

The girl followed to an adjacent but distant position. They were where he’d told her the meeting would be, overlooking the ruins of Old Nimbus City below. He couldn’t look more wistful without showing his face.

“I met her twenty-three years ago. We were connected by powers above our control. We were complements, but also constraints. If I was lightning, she was the rod. Without her, I’m without control, as I was the first time we parted. Now, it’s permanent. But it doesn’t need to be.”

They shared a look, on her face, curious, on the mask of his helmet, blank.

“What should I call you?” she asked.

“I wish to trust you further before I will offer suggestions,” he responded fairly.

“Then I’ll call you Indigo,” the girl decided, based on his armor.

The man nodded. “And I shall call you Red.”

Like everyone else, she thought.

Perhaps a reflection on her own wistfulness, the girl asked, “Am I your daughter?”

His head tipped slightly. “No, you’re his, for better or worse.”

She wondered what that meant. “For better or worse,” she repeated. Even from herself, she didn’t know yet. “I still haven’t told them that I know, that all my life’s been a lie that they’ve told.”

“I wouldn’t need you to keep me out when you do. What’s important is you believed me,” the man stated.

“I’ve confirmed what I’ve needed,” the girl responded. “Mara is not my mother, Kate is, and she was killed. What remains is, what do you want from me?”

“Mutual trust, curiosity, and willingness to think outside the box, challenge what you think you know, and create things you may never have realized you wanted. In that regard, I believe we may have common goals.”

“You’re thinking about dimensions,” she inferred.

“Within that subject.” The helmet nodded. She wished she could see his face. “Research Into Other Realms hasn’t covered the origin of dimensions,” the man expressed, “because they don’t know it.”

“But you want to,” she stated. “You want to know how to create a dimension. Interesting.”

“We understand each other,” he observed.

“Maybe. I’m good at reading people. Better if you show me your face,” she challenged.

“Tell me, if you could create a perfect dimension, what would you want in it?” the man asked.

“My mom.”

“As do I.” Charles took off his helmet. “Let’s get to work.”

Chapter 2: Present

Bridget Marcus tapped under the word Macabross printed on a whiteboard tacked to the unfinished plaster that was Leek Works’ war wall. “Sounds macabre,” she said, turning to her companion, Juiliet Idyllia, currently obscured beneath the largely opaque wrap of a shower-curtain.

“Finish screening for bugs,” was Juiliet’s muffled reply.

“Right.” Bridget looked around and remembered her task, including that she’d already completed it. “The room’s all clear of bugs.”

“And cameras?” Juiliet’s blue-haired head poked out from the curtain.

“No cameras,” Bridget said, and Juiliet hurled the curtain to a corner to settle with the other junk on the concrete floor. The entire room was largely gray, aesthetically unfinished but well-lit by hanging lamps. It was currently a multipurpose room, including for storage.

“Macabre is accurate,” Juiliet affirmed. “Macabross is an exoplanet in orbit of an artificial star, used as a prison planet by the Future Dimension. But, it’s also the only planet in its own mini-dimension. Pretty much purgatory.”

“And that’s where the girl, Rowana, was brought to.” Bridget ran a finger under the word. “Macabross.”

“The quantity and volume of classified intel Aiden tells you never ceases to amaze me.” Juiliet shook her head. “He can agree to my other security proposals, like checking for surveillance and counter surveillance. But keeping his mouth shut?” Her disapproving frown was all the answer.

“Well, it’s not like the others are better,” Bridget offered. “Especially the Sojourners, always working in that they’re not from around here. This is going to sound harsh, but it’s no wonder to me the Janitor went missing.”

Juiliet glared. “The amount of classified intel...” she trailed off. “You weren’t even with us when that happened.”

“Well I’m here now, and that’s what matters.” Bridget said brightly. “So, about Macabross, we’re getting Red back from there?”

Juiliet gave the room a once-over herself, before correcting the girl. “We as an organization. I personally won’t vouch for either of our positions on the roster.”

As she finished her sentence, the room lights dimmed and a sitewide alarm sounded, but only for a second. The lights returned to normal and on the empty wall opposing the whiteboard, two bright blue sparks appeared on the wall halfway between the ceiling and floor, etching up and down in parallel lines the height of a doorway before angling toward each other, completing the door.

The outlined section of wall rotated inward on one side, swinging into the room, and out of the new doorway stepped three young men, Aiden Talmid, Luke Mercury, and Alex Talmid. As Alex’s legs gave away, Aiden and Luke grabbed his shoulders and Bridget sprang to his side as well, looking between the brothers while extending a hand to help ease him to the ground. “Is he alright?”

“This is normal,” Luke said. “So far, four-fifths of all first-timers experienced what he’s feeling.”

“I feel like I’m dying,” Alex groaned.

“Hang on, it’ll pass.” assured Luke.

“’First-timers’?” Bridget questioned.

“We just transdimensionally maneuvered,” Aiden stated. “This was Alex’s first time, and he’s with the susceptible ones. When we escaped Jirdia, four of us were first-timers, three of whom were similarly sick on landing.”

“It was the pukening.” Luke said.

Bridget sent a horrified glance Aiden’s way. “Who didn’t get sick?” she asked.

Looking around the room, Luke’s eyes settled on Juiliet, still working on the lockbox as if she were pretending not to listen. “Not her. She got sick.”

“That’s the opposite of what she asked,” Alex said through clenched teeth.

“By the way,” Aiden turned to Bridget, glanced behind her at Juliet, then back to Bridget, “did either of you hear an alarm before we entered?”

“There was an alarm,” Juiliet reported, “but only for a second.”

“It should have gone longer,” Aiden said, when a mop held by a brown-haired man in scrubs entered the room.

“Did I hear some of ye asking about that alarm, from yay minutes ago?” asked Shard, the resident janitor, as he mopped around the room’s existing paths and pushing the clutter that leaked out back into the corners. “Because I turned it off.”

Aiden shrugged. “That mystery’s solved.”

“In the future, don’t just turn off alarms like that,” Luke chastised. “Especially not our new transdimensional intrusion alert, which that alarm happened to be. We set it up before we left for Elistra.”

“That’s another problem with the way this place is run,” Juiliet huffed as she stood up from the lockbox, the cross in her arms mirroring the tone of her expression. “You don’t communicate. The two of you set up a new alarm and didn’t practice the foresight to tell anyone else? That’s idiocy. Significant restructuring is needed, or this organization will shut down, whether you like or it not.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Are you volunteering to lead such restructuring?”

Juiliet smiled. “I am in fact volunteering.”

“Yippee, we’re all going to die,” Shard facepalmed.

“Only if you don’t listen to me.” Juiliet raised a finger. “I can enact policies and set directions, but they’re moot if you don’t follow them. This will be a team effort, and it sure as hell hasn’t been one until now.” She turned to Aiden. “Granted you grant me this responsibility?”

“Consider yourself in charge,” Aiden sighed. “Thanks for stepping up.”

“I’ll need a title,” Juiliet continued, turning away.

“Make one?” Aiden suggested. “Something overarching, but not overbearing.”

The young lady nodded to herself.

“Oh, to see history in the making again,” Shard sighed. “We now enter the dark ages of Leek Works, the years of Juiliet Idyllia.”

“Before I can go onto more important tasks,” Juiliet reminded, “someone needs to finish the filing of Tiberius’s lockbox contents. As well, I made some interesting findings unfortunately unshared while the four of you screwed off with my assistant.”

“Luke, Shard, finish the lockbox,” Aiden told his blond friend and the janitor, then nodded to Juiliet as he started walking for the hallway to his office. “Fill me in.”

Out of the storage room and into the circular hallway, Juiliet filled Aiden, Bridget, and an able Alex in. “Five years ago, Tiberius sampled the atomic orientations of fifty Stromlings from the battle of Elistra. In those fifty, he found three distinctly different orientations. Maelstrom from three different dimensions participated in the first attack on Elistra.”

“Three different dimensions,” Alex repeated.

“We’re not just dealing with one Maelstrom Dimension as previously thought. We never were.” Juiliet warned. “Worse, if there were three Maelstrom Dimensions five years ago, who here’s to say there aren’t more now?”

“Especially since we’ve been kept way out of the loop concerning Unverse.” Aiden muttered. “Thanks to the Future Dimension. Did you know the Unverse bomb we dropped only affected the Maelstrom and us? Damn them.”

“The sentiment’s shared,” agreed Juiliet.

“Surely they must be doing some good,” Bridget offered. “There haven’t been any transdimensional invasions in the past three years.”

“As far as we know,” Aiden said. “Not here, at least.”

“How much do we really know about their Nexus Force?” she continued.

“They call themselves a Nexus Republic,” Juiliet scoffed, “and if you can put up with Shard, he can tell you all about their political instability. We can’t trust them to do anything that’s not in their own self-interest.”

“Guys,” Alex rushed to catch up while they stopped at an adjoining corridor. “Just so you know, everything you’re talking about is flying way over my head.”

“It’s an unfortunate symptom,” Aiden conceded. “There’s too much to tell in so little time with too few interested to hear it all. Plus, we’ve historically been too few to branch out and prioritize more than one task, but now we’ve got Ray, Callista, Agentsky, and you both.” He regarded Bridget and Alex. “Thanks to you, we’re now more likely than ever to get things done.”

“Bringing our family back,” Alex said.

“Rescuing Red from Macabross,” Bridget said.

“Getting a foothold back in the transdimensional frontier,” Juiliet said.

“Confronting the Rogues on Jirdia,” Aiden said, “engaging the Maelstrom Dimensions.” He met the eyes of each team member. “We’ve got lots to do.”

Chapter 3: Prealter

“Oh no.”

“Found it.”

Soft giggling accompanied the words, along with the sliding of drawers.

“Stop it, she’s waking!”

Layers of blankets for the most part cushioned Kate from the pokes and prods of arms and legs as two bouncing masses evacuated what had to be her bed. She could figure not much more than that, as her head felt like it was squeezed between two opposing weights, one like an external force that pinned her head to her pillow, the other from inside, flaring against the sides of her head, painfully, when she tried to recall what sequence of events brought her to this situation, whatever it was.

She opened her eyes to find four pairs of wide brown eyes dancing in front of her, which morphed to two pairs as her vision corrected itself. They belonged to two girls standing at the bedside, both the same heights as the sloppily closed dresser drawer behind them, about a meter tall. Both had heart shaped faces surrounding by bushy red hair, and both held something until they dropped it to the floor with a thud.

“Who… are you?” Kate asked.

The girls went from staring at Kate to facing each other. “Get Ma,” they said at the same time.

“No…” Kate groaned, turning to watch as they ran around her bed and out the door, leaving her by herself. Conveniently, the pressure in her head moved to her eyes, forcing them closed, and an involuntary drowse came shortly after. As the room faded in and out, she heard a girl’s voice call out to her, even though there was no one else in the room.

“Kate! I’m with you Kate, I need you to listen to me…”

“I’m with you,” said a different voice when Kate’s eyes opened. Awake now, her sight was momentarily blocked by a woman’s hand combing Kate’s hair to the side of her own face. When done, she stifled a cry as it moved past to reveal the face of her mother. She tried to address her, but her throat refused to unconstrict, and her mother spoke sooner.

“There was an accident, Katherine.” Her mother’s lovely face wore a grave expression. “Do you remember?”

Accident? Kate thought to herself. She didn’t remember any accident, and while she tried thinking back to the last thing she did remember, nothing was coming up quickly either, and her mother took her silence as affirmation. “Dear girl, you don’t remember.”

Trying to keep remembering was pointless, Kate decided sullenly. “What happened?” she got her cracked voice to say.

Her mother shook her head sadly. “I wish I could give you a satisfactory answer. The Governor-General is still investigating, and without knowing the full story myself, I don’t want to burden you with rumors. I do know you’re strong and brave, and except for losing some memory of the event, everything else will come back, in time. You’re going to be fine.”

From a kettle on the bedside table, she poured a cup of tea and handed it to her daughter, who sat up to accept it. Despite scrunching her nose at the scent, Kate drank some to ease the dryness in her throat, so it was easier to talk. “How long have I been out?” she asked.

“Since you were last up, only a minute,” her mother said softly. “But in all, you’ve been recovering for a month. We only moved you back home last week.”

“A month.” Kate repeated. “That’s a lot of downtime from…” She trailed off, unable to find the missing piece of her sentence. “This is going to last awhile, isn’t it?” she said candidly.

“Everyone will surely fill you in as you need,” her mother assured her. “We’re always here for you. The twins in particular haven’t wanted to leave your side. I’m keeping them out now that you’re awake, until you want visitors again.”

“Twins.” Kate remembered them bouncing around her and raiding her drawers, but nothing else. “Who were they?”

Her mother’s lips parted in an expression of surprise, and Kate realized she was supposed to know their identities. “They’re my sisters,” she inferred quickly, and her mother nodded. It was a reasonable guess, but her chances of guessing correctly any details were poor.

Her mother looked about to say their names, but Kate stopped her. “Let it come to me,” she said. “Then I’ll know I’m getting better.”

Her mother nodded. “We will always support you, even if you don’t know it.” She kissed Kate’s forehead and patted her arm. “You deserve time to yourself. When you’re ready to resume your life, anything will be how you want, just let me, your father, or your sisters know.”

She closed the door behind her, leaving Kate to herself again. Setting the tea aside, she inspected her arms and hands, turning them over from palms to backs to palms again. She raised a hand to the side of her face, tracing the shape of her jaw, cheeks, nose, eye sockets, and hairline. It all felt new.

Will I even recognize myself? she wondered dourly, throwing off the covers and blanching at the room’s chill, before donning slippers and pattering to the bedroom’s full-length mirror. She faced her reflection with a puzzled expression, which turned into a double take as the girl in the mirror bedroom was fully clothed in jeans and a trench coat, with deathly pale skin, black hair, and a voice to call through it, “Kate, you need to destroy this mirror!”

Kate jumped back. “And who are you?!”

The girl tilted her hands up placatingly. “I’m Grace, but that’s beside the point – please destroy this mirror, quickly!”

“No,” Kate challenged, “not until you tell me how you’re talking to me through a… is it even a mirror?”

“It’s a mirror,” Grace stepped closer to the glass, “and somehow it’s also an exit portal for the Maelstrom, from the pocket dimension into a location in your dimension, I’m assuming Jirdia! It’s not the only exit either. I’ll try to find the next one before they do, but only the Maelstrom can pass through.”

“What’s the Maelstrom?” Kate asked.

Grace slammed her fists into the glass, causing Kate to jump back further, even though her effort had no physical effect on the mirror’s surface or structure, not even causing a tremor. Grace squeezed her fists into her temples in exasperation.

“I get your brain’s scrambled,” Grace said, “but I swear to god, if you don’t smash this mirror-” she looked over her shoulder at something only she could see, swore, and turned back with her arms folded now. “Forget it. See for yourself. They’re here.” Then she sidestepped out of the mirror’s field of view, revealing Kate’s true reflection, small, unarmored, and almost completely backed up to the opposing wall.

“The Maelstrom…” Kate repeated.

A large blade shot out of the mirror spilling purple mist across the glass, which somehow remained unbroken, followed by a scarred and blistered arm behind the blade and a leg coming through below the arm. Then an emaciated face emerged above it, with bared yellow teeth stubs and blood red eyes that fixed on Kate.

The monster grinned, until its head suddenly ignited in flame, the thermal shock of which cracked the mirror. Glass shards fell to the floor, along with the monster’s burning head, arm, and leg, but only the parts that had visibly emerged, severed at the mirror’s surface when the glass broke, leaving the rest of it behind, wherever that was. Grace had said pocket dimension…

“Grace!” Kate shouted, pulling back her arms which she’d unconsciously outstretched, becoming aware of the small fires burning on her fingers. “Ow!” She blew out each one, then rushed to the fire spreading to her carpet from the burning head, thankfully now lifeless. She cringed as she stamped its flames out, ignoring shoots of pain from the glass shards piercing her footwear, until the fire was gone.

Kate stumbled back to her bed and gingerly removed the slippers, carefully not touching the streaks of purple and brown or the glass shards inundating the soles, and dropped them to the ground. Then she inspected her hands and feet, grimacing at the pain from the burns and the glass – until it began to fade. Drawing in her breath, Kate watched as the blisters on her fingers and the pinpricks on her soles morphed into healthy skin.

“What in the world…” Kate looked between her hands, the broken mirror, the Maelstrom monster’s parts adorning the burnt floor, and back to herself. She put two and two together. She’d started the fire, the flames coming from her hands, and whatever energy sourced her power also healed her.

With widened eyes, she swung over to the other side of the bed, where the twins had messed around. It seemed so long ago now, but what they’d dropped on the ground remained, a scabbard. She picked it up and withdrew its sword, a katana with a curved jewel steel blade and ornate blue hilt. The uneven shine and imperfections betrayed a history of heavy use, but no accounts came to mind.

Between the revelations of the sword, fire and healing powers, and a magic mirror through which the Maelstrom tried to kill her, Kate shut her eyes and threw herself back onto her bed. She’d woken into a complex world with few clues to what roles she was expected to play, and what did she expect of herself?

After a moment, she set the katana aside and reapproached the drawers from which it had presumably been removed. If they contained any more hints to her history, she wanted to find them. She resolved to find out who she was.

Chapter 4: Perplexity

Numbers and symbols appeared to float and bob between the projected display and the dark eyes attempting to focus on them, bloodshot and bleary from a restless night. Head supported in her hands but in turn teetering on the desktop by her elbows, Rowana felt detached as the content on the screen failed to present any meaning. Shifting her distance from the screen or adjusting her tilt granted no analytical enlightenment, other than affirming that completing this project before its deadline was hopeless, and she dreadfully needed to improve her time management and attention skills.

A pebble striking the window didn’t help with the latter, but with nothing to lose Rowana leaned over and lifted the pane fully. She scrambled out of the way of the pair of legs swinging in, followed by a backpack-wearing torso and bushy brown haired head, that all intersected the projected display over the desk before landing feetfirst on the floor, without knocking anything down.

“Flawless,” said the newcomer of herself, before regarding Rowana. “You turned your messaging off, so I had to reach you the old fashioned way.”

“Fair,” Rowana commented after a moment. She gestured her desk chair to the other girl before throwing herself onto the bed and shutting her eyes.

“Row, I swear to god, I did this on Monday,” the girl groaned. “And if you’d worked with me, like I told you to, you’d have it done then too, instead of Sunday, technically past the deadline.”

“Jaycee. Just do it now,” Rowana muttered.

Jaycee took a seat. “Show me the comp.”

“I’ll pay you tomorrow.” Rowana said.

That was good enough, evidently, as the other girl got to work. “Just going to pay your way to tertiary?”

“I’m not going to tertiary,” Rowana stated. “I’m going straight to work after the internship. I’ll ditch secondary. It’s a waste of time.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jaycee said. “It helps when your boss is your dad.”

Rowana laughed into her pillow. “I’m not going to work for him.”

“I thought you liked dimension stuff?” Jaycee asked.

“Research Into Other Realms is just one venture,” Rowana said of her internship. “There’s others.” She thought of Luke Mercury, who her father still held in high regard, despite their friendship being old, at best; they’d been out of contact for years and she wished his spawn would do the same. She thought back to the past night with Indigo, too. He’d given his actual identity, after she convinced him to trust her: Charles Bradfordson, former soldier, former patriot, and former lover of her mother… her real mother. Both Luke and Charles offered alternative endeavors into the worlds beyond.

“Nimbus to Rowana,” Jaycee’s voice came from way too close for comfort, and Rowana cracked an eye open, expecting a mischievous grin from the other girl at the bedside. Instead, a serious look occupied Jaycee’s face.

“Your homework is done,” she said quietly, “so I closed out of it, and saw what you left up behind it.”

Rowana took a moment to remember but Jaycee snapped her fingers and the display reprojected itself to beside the bed, showing a newspaper scan, a birth certificate, and whatever else Charles had tipped her off to. Rowana responded with a motion of her own to shut the projection down. “I know what they say,” she muttered.

“And now I know, too,” Jaycee was still quiet. “I didn’t even have it up long. A second, tops? I’m sorry for prying, but who the hell is Kate?”

“My mother,” Rowana responded, sitting up on the bed, despite which she was still uncomfortable saying it. “My real mother. She died fourteen years ago.”

“Have you told Ben?” Jaycee whispered.

“No. Ben is mom’s- Mara’s,” Rowana corrected, “Ben is Mara’s son.” She looked down at herself and laughed. “You’d never have guessed we’re from different women, would you? Dad’s got a type.”

“I see what you mean,” Jaycee said. “He’s a dirtbag. I’m not sorry.”

“The thing is I don’t know what to do with this,” Rowana faced her friend. “No one knows I know, except you, now, and the guy who tipped me off, Charles.”

“I say you get answers,” Jaycee said. “What else don’t you know?”

“Why and how,” Rowana stated. “Why are my parents lying? Why is Charles telling me the truth? How did Kate die?” She wound back. “How do I go forward with this?”

A knock on the bedroom door interrupted Jaycee from responding and she fixed Rowana with a wide eyed, mouth open stare as they reflected on the volume of their voices. Playing cool, Rowana slid off and opened it for Mara holding a box of cookies.

“I thought I heard two voices,” Mara sang, handing the box to Rowana. “Remember to sweep up after, and there’s milk downstairs. Can’t really sweep that.”

“Thanks,” Rowana said, looking past Mara and seeing Ben, barely reaching his mother’s shoulder, peeking out from behind her.

Mara stepped back, headed back down, but Ben stayed put. Once Mara’s footsteps were soundly on the other floor, Ben said in a small voice, “Just so you know, I could hear everything you two said.”

Rowana held the door open for him and turned to Jaycee, who was back in the desk chair, before ushering in Ben and shutting them in. “Now he knows.”

“You didn’t confront her,” Jaycee noted.

“I can keep secrets too,” Rowana said.

“Me too,” Ben said.

“He can,” Rowana vouched.

“Do you need ideas for revenge?” Jaycee asked, spinning the desk chair. “Because I’ve got some good ones. Get an anonymous number and call your dad in the middle of the night, sign his address up to some weird stuff, release stray cats in Leek Works.”

“Just ideas for getting out,” Rowana said, getting back on the bed but sitting up this time. “Like getting a space gig, moving to another world.”Or another dimension. Even that seemed enticing. “After the internship. I’ll use the interim access to get info.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jaycee said, stopping the chair’s rotation to face Rowana with all seriousness again. “Hey, Row. Know I’ve got you covered during this, as far as math homework is concerned. If it was my dad giving me this crap, I’d expect the same support from you.”

Ben said something softly.

“Speak up, Ben,” Rowana said.

The boy rolled his eyes. “They’re friends,” he said again. “Our dads. He might have known.”

“My dad?” Jaycee asked. “You sure? Sandy Studs?”

“They’re not friends, Ben,” Rowana said slowly. “Just business partners.” Even then, there was a complex dynamic between the two of them given their different responsibilities. “Our dad answers to Jaycee’s.”

“Confidants, then,” Ben amended, staring at Jaycee. “I listen to things, more than Rowana does. Sandy’s got secrets too.”

“Like what?” Jaycee asked.

Ben looked down. “I don’t know.”

“Thanks for the heads up, at least,” Jaycee offered. “Row, be a sis and sniff out some dirt for me too, next time you’re in the office.”

“Will do,” Rowana agreed. “For now, promise nothing we’ve said today leaves this room.”

Jaycee smiled. “Just as always.”

Chapter 5: Perspective

Two brothers exited the shuttle bus to Nimbus Plaza, keeping their hoods up and their faces low on an otherwise cheery day, in order to avoid the attention that often came should Aiden’s infamy be recognized. While always a hotbed for the general populace, the plaza was especially populated this morning given the clement conditions, but neither Aiden nor Alex were of the sentiment to delay to a calmer, less risky time what could be done expeditiously, now that they were a united force.

They walked briskly to the Assembly faction office, inside of which secure entry beyond the publicly accessible lobby to the building’s more secluded areas was authorized by Aiden’s special operative card. Through an unlit hallway, they reached a dedicated storage room. Another scan of his card unlocked the door, revealing lines of file cabinets forming rows against the walls and against each other, indirectly creating pathways and junctions between and around them.

“Quite old-fashioned,” Alex commented as Aiden led him into the labyrinth, visually scanning the cabinet labels as they passed.

“These documents haven’t been uploaded to network storage yet,” Aiden said, “hence why my guys couldn’t find them through our regular means, if you know what I mean... Here we are.” He stopped at an array of units labelled U, backtracked to T, then found the specific drawer for Ta in the lowermost drawer, which he got on his knees to open. “Not quite a lockbox, but exactly where Verbina said it’d be,” he announced, withdrawing with triumph a folder labelled Personnel File: Killian Talmid.

“One down,” Alex said softly.

“One to go,” Aiden said, folder in hand and heading back past T and S to R, stopping at Re once he located it and proceeding to sift through its contents. It was possible his hunch would pay off. Research into this… Research into that… He found it. “Nice of them to leave this here,” he said, scanning the title and turning it to face his brother.

“What’s Research Into Other Realms?” Alex asked.

“I don’t particularly know myself,” Aiden admitted, while shaking his head disappointedly at the apparentness that even this subject was unimportant enough to Assembly, and by extension the rest of the Nexus Force, to be neglected in old storage. He gave the array of cabinets a long look before sighing. “Well, I might have an idea actually, but it’ll be a long story explaining how I have that idea. Let’s head out.”

Alex leaned in furtively. “You’re sure they won’t mind us just walking off with these?”

Aiden shrugged. “They’re hardly equipped to, even if they wanted to. Remember Elistra.”

Alex grimaced. “You needn’t tell me that.”

Aiden nodded. “Some things haven’t changed, I mean. Actually, it’s only getting worse.”

They redonned their hoods and walked out the way they came, heading now to the boarding platform to Nimbus City, which stationed the four train lines to different sections of the city. Despite keeping his own head low, Aiden could detect Alex’s quick peeking left and right as they passed through Brick Annex.

“Sightseeing?” Aiden asked.

“I didn’t get much chance to, the last time I was here,” Alex responded. “I was too busy looking for you, then.”

“Wait until you see the city.” Aiden smiled, although internally he was sad. He couldn’t see the city without picturing its ruined, Future Dimension state, as he’d seen it through his eyes and the memories of his Future Dimension counterpart, which gave him the insight to consider the full extent of all that was lost there, even before the Maelstrom attack.

The steps to the boarding platform were close enough that Alex bounded toward and up them, slowing to a stop once the platform’s opposite side on the other side of the rails came into view, as there was no opposite side of the platform. The rails were suspended over a precipice, beyond which stretched what used to be the Nimbus Station’s border seas, beyond which was only outer space.

Now, the sea had been redesignated a channel by the construction of Nimbus City, built up in the middle of the western sea and filling a significant angle of the perceivable horizon, propped upon an artificial island of Darneu rocks, a feat of design in itself.

Aiden followed at his own pace, giving his brother the moment. He, too, had felt the same awe that Alex now felt when he saw Nimbus City for the first time on this platform, when the City was completed just under three years prior, despite himself thinking it idiotic for the Nexus Force to approve constructing so magnificent a city for civilians to live in while their soldiers fought and died only worlds away. Even spiting that, he understood what the City was meant to represent, idealistically, pragmatically, and literally. To cooperatively build and reside in the City meant Minifigurekind had come out on top, be it on top of the Faction War, the ongoing Maelstrom war, or the ever present turmoil of raging waters.

In other worlds, it was a shame it didn’t last.

Aiden stopped next to Alex who turned and hissed, “It’s insane for them to build a city while people are fighting and dying literally worlds away.”

“Amen,” Aiden muttered. “But that’s where we’ll find her.”

Alex closed his eyes and nodded. “You say Tiberius did this to her.”

“Yes, but I don’t think he knew what he was doing would lead to… this.” Aiden said, despite his conflicting thoughts. It was a strange position, defending Tiberius, but his last encounter with the misguided man, and his misguided ways, seemed to establish some understanding of his uncle. Yet Tiberius had always understood Aiden; he seemed to know how to play him, after all.

“Give me the trip to collect my thoughts, and let’s just see her first,” Aiden advised, as the train to Nimbus City’s suburban district pulled into the station. “I’ll tell you everything I know then.” Damn, he sounded like Rowana. Having committed to recall diagnoses about Evelyne, he hated to pull himself off track, but the last train of thought inspired him to ask one last thing.

“Alex,” he asked as they boarded the train, “one thing, please. Do you remember, three years back, when I came back to Elistra, do you remember my companion? My height, thin, fair, red hair, trench coat, my age, too, probably. I called her Red, but her name was Rowana.”

Alex’s brows furrowed for the moment, before he responded. “I remember your visit. How would I forget that? Until then, I hadn’t seen you since the battle, so it was amazing to see you again.” He smiled at Aiden. “I’ll never forget that; but I don’t remember you having a girl companion.”

“Daughter.” Aiden corrected.

“What?” Alex’s expression betrayed his incredulity, before it clicked. “Oh. Dimension stuff?”

Aiden made a small nod. “She was there when we met,” he told his brother. “It was her transdimensional device that got me to you, that first time since the battle. But there’s a phenomenon that occurs when people travel to other dimensions. The people in the dimension they leave forgets about them. It happened to everyone but me and Grace, forgetting about Rowana.”

“It means she left the dimension,” Alex deduced.

Aiden nodded again. “So every now and then, I like to ask someone who knew her. The others are in an active state of forgetting, after some time they’ll have completely forgotten, so I get to ask again. It’s just a pet idea of mine, I haven’t tested it, but maybe if she’s back, someone will say they remember her.”

Alex nodded, too, with understanding. “She wouldn’t actually be your daughter, though? If this Rowana was your daughter in another dimension, she’d actually be the daughter of that version of you, but not you as you sit next to me now.”

Aiden smiled a little, but it was a troubled one. “I don’t know who I am anymore, Alex. Her father was killed in this dimension, protecting us all from the First Darkitect. But some part of his creative spark joined with mine, and ever since Kate and I froze Unverse and closed the rift, his damn memories have been infecting my dreams, by day and when I sleep, whatever god damn thing he was doing at this corresponding day, minute, hour, hell, second in his life.”

Aiden detected his voice had gained a bitter tone that was progressively growing with each word he said, but he figured he’d better spit it all out. There was no one better to share this with than his own blood. “I know everything. Every damn thing. He and Kate, that dimension’s Kate, they tried having a kid before Rowana, but she didn’t happen. Turns out, in another dimension, she did, and her name was Grace, and that was Tiberius’s transdimensional assassin, who if I recall correctly, you knew.”

“Damn.” Alex echoed. “She was off.”

“She got killed.” Aiden said.

Alex cursed. “The heck, you’re making me speak ill of the dead.”

“Okay,” Aiden amended, “she’s not really dead. She’s where the rest of our family went, to that pocket dimension. I didn’t want to go there like this, but it’s all coming out now so what the hell. I went there, to the pocket dimension, and I barely made it out. Something in there draws creative sparks into it, particularly those that are released, through death, in proximity to its entrance. And its entrance was above Elistra. Tiberius was right, Alex. I was there. Grace is there. Our mother is there.”

Aiden took a breath and leaned back into the train seat, closing his eyes and waving a hand at Alex for him to comment, which Alex did. “Our mother,” Alex’s voice barely contained his tension that built up with each of Aiden’s successive revelations. “But… okay. Give me a moment, now.”

They both sat in silence, lulled by the hum of the train’s travel across the channel.

“So,” Alex started after a moment of digestion. He flexed his jaw side to side and continued. “The creative sparks, and the consciousnesses of our murdered family, including your transdimensional daughter named Grace, who worked for Tiberius, are trapped in a pocket dimension above Elistra.”

“Yes.” Aiden said, remembering again. “I meant to say… they’re all there. Our father, Chloe, and Evelyne too.”

“But Tiberius brought Evelyne back.” Alex said stiffly.

“He brought her body back, but not her creative spark, her consciousness, soul, spirit, whatever it may be.” Aiden figured. “That got left in the pocket dimension, as with the others.”

“Tiberius only partially finished his work.” Alex stated.

“He wouldn’t have been able to finish,” Aiden said. “He used Maelstromnium, based his entire method on it. It was fundamentally flawed. What you’ll see of Evelyne is the result.”

Aiden looked out the window and was surprised to see green. The train had cleared the channel already, faster than he’d thought, but the conversation had become more than he’d intended, he’d lost track of the time. The train reached Nimbus City’s suburban station platform and in time, embarking on foot, Aiden and Alex reached a small townhouse, two stories tall with creamy beige siding and a brown open gable roof.

Aiden led his brother around to the backyard, small and partially wooded, then to the house’s back wall, where a bulkhead protruded. He produced a set of keys to open its doors and swung them open, taking Alex into the cellar.

“I’ve barely moved in,” Aiden explained, finding an overhead lamp chain and pulling it on. The cellar lacked furnishings, but one object stood in a far corner, about two meters tall and half a meter wide, a Nexus Force stasis tube with an independent, perpetual power source, its transparent aluminum shield in opaque mode.

Alex watched as Aiden unlocked the tube by pin pad, then stepped back as the tube’s shield defogged, revealing a skinny girl in basic garments, just a simple white tee and shorts, revealing the purple discoloration on the skin of her limbs, the sides of her neck and face, and presumably wherever else that couldn’t be seen. Two monitors, for pulse and electromagnetic activity, showed the most minimal of activity, just enough to keep the body alive.

“She’s infected,” Alex said.

Aiden turned to his brother. “She’s asleep,” he told him. “She agreed to this, almost three years ago, as she knew it wasn’t going to stop. In stasis, the infection rate is slowed to about one percent propagation a month. Instructions are to wake her up when a cure is found.”

“And there is no cure, no way to disinfect her,” Alex concluded, approaching the stasis tube and resting his forehead on the shield, “because her creative spark isn’t present.”

“Pretty much,” Aiden sighed. “Exposure to Imagination would kill her. Bringing back her creative spark is the cure. Until then…”

He waited for Alex. The younger man stepped back and turned to Aiden with his head held low. The moment finished, Aiden reset the stasis tube and they watched the shield return to its normal opacity.

Chapter 6: Perseverance

The specialist for assessing memory slid over a tablet with twelve blank boxes displayed on it, along with instructions to fill them in with the twelve unique words the specialist had just stated. At least, Kate figured the specialist had stated twelve unique words.

Kate looked up from the tablet. “This is a waste of time.”

“Do you remember the words?” the specialist asked.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention.” Kate said. She certainly wasn’t in the mood to pay attention, with her mind preoccupied by the matter of mysterious mirrors through which Maelstrom machinations and mystifying maidens manifested, a mission she didn’t appreciate being dragged away from to something as mundane as memory tests.

“Would you like me to repeat them?” the specialist asked.

Kate decided the best course of action was to get the session over with. “Go right ahead,” she said, resolving to pay attention this time, and the specialist slid the tablet over.

Kate stared down at it. “I thought you were repeating the words.”

“I did, Kate,” the specialist answered.

Kate felt flushed. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”

The specialist withdrew the tablet. “That’s all for today. I believe I’ll see you again in a week.”

“In a week,” Kate nodded, getting out of her chair and out the door. Making her way through the halls away from medical services, she passed a glossy window and her thoughts returned to reflective surfaces. Her reflection narrowed her eyes in scrutiny of the mirrored surroundings. As far as she could see, there was no Maelstrom around, and there was no Grace either.

She stopped at a large metal door at the end of the hallway. Green grass and a stonework path visible through the windows at its sides indicated it was an exit door, so she pushed it open, scrambling through it when alarms sounded behind her. Apparently, it was a fire exit. She dashed away.

The grass led up a hill, past which was a lakeside street she descended to walk along, stuffing her hands in her jeans pockets. Storefronts, office fronts, and other windowed facades presented more reflective surfaces to search for Grace in. The girl had said there were more pocket dimension exits than just her late bedroom mirror, and since that mirror had housed such a portal, it made sense to look in other mirrors too, until the absurdity of the task paced her surveyance to a meandering walk

Maybe “Grace” was a figment of her imagination, Kate thought sourly, and her subconscious’s way of saying her brain was scrambled. The experience with the cognition specialist certainly supported that – she couldn’t even recall the specialist’s name.

“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud, when something tagged her shoulder. She jerked like a bee had stung her and swung around, ready to fight it off, but found a woman instead, a little taller than her with similar fashion and hair just as red.

“Easy there Kate,” the woman laughed. “Just wondering where you ran off to.”

Kate blinked. “I have no idea…” She let the words trail. She had no idea who the woman was, but she figured they were related.

The woman seemed unfazed. “Well, how’d the test go?”

Kate tried thinking back, but aside from doing the tests, there wasn’t much else to recall. “They want me back in a week,” she said eventually, while trying to think harder. There wasn’t much else that she could recall, if setting her mirror on fire actually happened, when something flashed in her mind. Like she’d been zapped with an information upload, in that flash she saw a few things, people, faces, names, and relations spelled out in words. One of the identities belonged to the woman. Kate zoomed in on it, and then she knew who she was.

The recollection really did stun her. Kate didn’t realize she’d hit the ground until her sister was picking her back up – or trying to. Kate could barely put any force under her, gravity kept pulling her down, and even though Morgan’s lips were moving, she couldn’t hear what she was saying from the siren blaring in her head.

“I need a second,” Kate tried to say.

Morgan shifted closer. “I can barely hear you either,” she said into her ear, “but we need to get inside now.”

She heard the siren too?

Kate harnessed the rush to push herself up. With Morgan stabilizing her, they hurried through the closest storefront door.

“Is that-” Kate started to ask, as she started to recognize the siren’s pattern, too. Now that they were indoors, it was a little quieter so they could at least hear each other.

“Shelter in place,” Morgan said, pushing Kate under a booth table and then sliding in herself. She had a hand on her ear, where Kate saw she was wearing a comm. “Something’s coming down.”

“What?” Kate whispered. “From where?”

“From space. It’s big.” Morgan relayed, and grabbed Kate’s head. “Put your head down!”

Kate complied, pulling her arms over her head and holding herself in place, squeezing her eyes shut as she wondered how big was big. When she thought of space, she first thought of rockets, which was strange since she’d never ridden a rocket as far as she could remember. Rockets were pretty small, nowhere near large enough to trigger a shelter warning, unless it was a missile. But Morgan said it was big. Asteroids were big.

“It’s down,” Morgan said, and Kate looked up.

“That was uneventful,” she said, beginning to unfold herself, but Morgan pushed her back. She was counting seconds on her fingers. At two, the ground started shaking, but it dissipated just as fast.

Morgan tapped the commpiece. “About sixteen kilometers from here,” she transmitted, pulling herself out of the booth and standing up. Her legs walked off faster than Kate could extricate herself. Getting to her own feet, Kate realized they were in a coffee shop. Beverages of the type adorned still other tables, the shockwave hadn’t been enough to knock them down. The other people had sheltered as well, but one person, a young man with ginger hair and wearing a white tee shirt and khakis, had his neck craned against the window. Morgan was nowhere to be seen, and Kate barged for the door.

“I saw it,” the man said, turning towards Kate.

Kate skidded to a stop. “What was it?” she asked, turning to him and noticing his jaw had dropped while facing her. It stayed like that for more seconds than the shockwave had lasted. “Seriously?” she shook her head, moving for the door again.

“It was a starship of some kind!” the man said quickly, jumping from the window. “Round, flat, about 500 meters across. Sorry, it’s just- hey, wait up!”

He followed her onto the sidewalk. “Kate, wait!”

Kate bristled. So this was someone else who knew her, who she didn’t know, or maybe used to know. She didn’t see Morgan outside either, so she turned around. Surprisingly, the man was grinning a wide smile that stretched to his eyes.

“It’s been too long,” he said, coming to a quick stop. A floof of his hair bounced in front of his face and he brushed it aside quickly.

His enthusiasm was so overpowering given the circumstances, Kate couldn’t help but smile back. “Silly, I’ve only been out a month.”

The man’s eyebrows pointed into a frown, but his contagious smile remained. “Oh no, I’m talking more like a few years. Two or three, I think? And I go by Nathaniel now, by the way, in case you thought I still went by the old callsign, whatever it was.”

She laughed. “Whatever it was.”

“Heck, I’m having trouble remembering it myself.” Nathaniel backhanded his forehead and went silent.

“Me too, honestly,” Kate said truthfully.

“Wait, what?” Nathaniel did a double take. “You forgot my name?”

“Like you said, it’s been awhile,” Kate said in response. “And to be fair, you forgot it, too.”

“Yeah, because I know myself by other names, too, like Nathaniel Thaddeus the Second. But that old callsign was the only name you knew me by. Did you forget my face, too?” Nathaniel inquired.

Kate smiled dashingly. “We’re talking now, aren’t we? Of course I didn’t,” she said, even though she still had no idea who he was.

Nathaniel looked at her quizzically for a few forlorn seconds, before grinning again. “Sure. So, what brings you to Jirdia?”

“I could ask you the same,” Kate deflected.

“I asked first,” Nathaniel stood fast.

“You’re seriously asking me what brings me to my homeworld,” Kate chastised.

“You’re from here?” Nathaniel posed it as a question as he processed the statement. “Jirdia’s your homeworld? Have you been here this whole time?”

“This whole time, being?” Kate mirrored, unsure herself, and hoping to get some hints, of the timeframe he referred too.

“Since only the past four months I’ve been here on extended fieldwork – extended, since our hotel caught fire, and there’s this big investigation pending, so I’m effectively stuck here.” Nathaniel sighed.

“Jericho’s a big city,” Kate said. “Since you’re not a university kid, I guess we never crossed paths.”

“You’ve been here since you left the Nexus Force, haven’t you?” Nathaniel asked.

“I left the- sorry, what?” Kate asked, confounded.

“What, did you forget that too, along with my name and my face?” Nathaniel stepped closer, fixing his eyes on hers head-on. “Do you remember rescuing Cyclone from the Darkitect? Or searching for your twin? Or the other time we rescued Cyclone from the Darkitect? How about killing the Darkitect? Although that’s a false memory on my part, apparently it was a dark Mythran we killed, not the Darkitect. Weird, it’s almost like someone rewrote my memory of that.”

“Hold on…” Kate’s voice trailed as he rambled on. If she actually had history with Nathaniel, which seemed plausible given he knew her name, she secretly hoped his talking would trigger another flashback. Losing consciousness from the effect didn’t worry her if it meant finding her memories again, and Nathaniel would probably grab her before she hit the ground, or Morgan, if she were around, but nothing happened.

Something tagged her shoulder and Kate yelled, nearly falling over herself as she spun around to face her sister. “Jeez, Morgan, you’ll give me a heart attack if you keep doing that,” Kate scolded.

“I’m going to the crash site,” Morgan said. “You’re going home.”

“Very funny,” Kate laughed. “Let’s go.”

Morgan held a hand up, but her facial expression stopped Kate first. “I said, you’re going home.” Her face carried a look of severe mixed with finality. Kate involuntarily shivered for some reason, which she took to mean not to cross the woman.

“I know the way back,” Kate said, and inwardly kicked herself for not saying something more normal that wouldn’t betray her not, actually, knowing the way back, but Morgan didn’t seem to notice. She nodded in confirmation and brushed past Kate.

After a deep breath, Kate turned around, surprised to see Nathaniel gone, too. Then his ginger head poked out of the coffee shop wearing a poker face.

“Hey, wanna ride to the crash site?” he asked. “I have a rocket.”

Kate grinned.

Chapter 7: Progression

He didn’t like her having a bike. “Four wheels are better than two,” her father had told her, facing his car, before turning to the long, pointed craft covered by a tarpaulin at the back of the garage. “But aren’t we beyond wheels, now?” Only its nose, pointed like a cone and painted yellow like the car, was exposed, with old cobwebs in its hollow center. His moment of introspection passed, and he turned back to Rowana. “When I said we, I meant we as a society. You can have the Corvette when you’re twenty, since you’re not driving anything until then. Hey, chin up, I’ll take you for a ride.”

He didn’t concede even after seeing the certificate of ownership, license of operation, and other important documents proving her ability to register and operate a motor bike. She’d got the vehicle herself, riding it into their backyard eight birthdays too early and scaring her parents to death when she took the helmet off. They were on her instantly, pulling her off the bike and holding back none of their disapproval of her blatant disregard for her health and safety. “To your room,” her father ordered, before stalking back to the grill to shut it off, while her mother pulled the rest of her safety gear off. “I apologize, friends and guests. This party’s over.”

“Intrepid, wait,” said Uncle Luke, stepping over to her father. “What’s this about?”

“This isn’t your place, Luke,” her father retorted, shutting the grill with finality and looking back at Rowana. “I said, to your room.”

“One moment, I’m helping her,” her mother called back, having gotten Rowana’s gloves off and now working on her kneepads. She’d secured them tightly, for safety, despite her parents’ exclamations to the contrary.

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have a say,” Luke countered.

Her father looked back at him a moment. “Actually, it does.”

“Well, you know that’s never stopped me- but then again, I’m family now, you think I’ve forgotten that?” Luke said strangely, as he did oftentimes. “Accordingly, can’t you see she knows how to ride?”

That’s exactly the point! Rowana wanted to shout, but her mother began walking her into the house.

“It’s not about the bike, it’s the insolence – what kind of stunt is this?” her father thundered.

Luke folded his arms “The same things you pulled when you were her age. Mara, stop this.”

They were nearly at the door when her mother paused, conflicted.

“I was thirteen, not turning twelve,” her father corrected. “And what do you know about my youth?”

“I know Elistrans mature at twice the rate of the rest of us,” Luke said, running a hand over his beard, “and you used that to join-”

Her father had already begun walking away from him, towards the house. “Mara, get her in the house.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Luke shouted, following.

“Neither of you tell me what to do,” her mother said, but with trembling arms she pushed Rowana inside the rest of the way, shutting the door behind them, so her understanding of what continued outside was secondary from there.

“I’ll always be family,” Uncle Luke told her a week later when she was no longer grounded, outside the apartment complex in Nimbus City where he used to live.

Rowana laughed. “Why would you say that?” she asked him. “That’s obvious.”

Her uncle seemed to take a moment to consider, which was uncharacteristic of him as he was usually forthcoming with her. “I mean it in response to something your dad said, if you heard it.”

She hadn’t.

“I also mean it,” Luke continued, “in the sense that we may be apart for some time, and not able to reach other.”

“You’re leaving,” Rowana deduced.

“Smart.” Luke said. “But you don’t know where to. You won’t be able to guess, since you’ve never heard of it, so I’ll just tell you. Jirdia.”

“Jirdia,” Rowana repeated the name so she wouldn’t forget it. “Sounds pretty.”

Now Luke laughed. “That’s as pretty as it gets. Anyway, I’m not leaving you without something to keep.” He led her to one of the complex’s private parking lots and handed her a keycard, which she scanned at the entrance. “In fact, it’s actually something of yours.”

Under a matching purple tarpaulin in the furthest parking spot was the motor bike.

“Keep the bike here,” Luke instructed. “The spot’s yours too, I’m still paying for it.”

Three years later, he hadn’t stopped. In the parking spot, Rowana situated herself with same motor bike, tools to one side and new paneling on the other. She got to work taking off what the asphalt had chewed up the night before. No other damage had been sustained, luckily, on the bike or her person. She ran a hand across the gouges on the right side fairing, where her leg usually rested, and wondered what shape she’d be in if not for Charles.

“When are you going to tell them?” Ben asked from behind her.

She knew he’d followed her, as he had times before. “I don’t know yet. But now I know what Uncle Luke was talking about.” She pulled the fairing off and compared the fittings of the new part.

“About what?” Ben asked.

“Since your mom isn’t mine,” Rowana said, “your uncle isn’t mine either.”

“Not by blood,” Ben clarified. “That doesn’t mean he isn’t still family.”

“If he’d still be part of our lives.” She began installing the new fairing.

“Honestly, he still pays for the parking,” Ben pointed out. He swung onto the bike and mimicked twisting the throttle.

Rowana sighed. “I could just use his help now, is all.” Even though Luke, too, was complicit in maintaining the charade of her false parenthood, he seemed more like a reluctant participant than a proponent. She wished she could talk to him, now, as he’d certainly have things to share.

“I need to reach Luke,” she told Ben. “Get off the bike.”

The boy obliged. “That’s easier said than done,” he responded to her first statement. “No one knows where Uncle Luke is.”

She put the tools away in her pack and mounted the bike herself. “I have a lead. Jirdia.”

Ben crossed his arms as she began kickstarting the bike. “Rough place,” he commented, giving Rowana pause.

“What do you know about it?” she asked.

“You’ll find out for yourself,” Ben said, “unless you take me with you. Wherever you’re going.”

“The mainland,” she told him. “Leek Works. We’re going to lift something.”

Ben hoisted himself onto the tail fairing and clasped his hands around her waist. “Something being?”

The bike sputtered to life with a lucky kick. It was getting unreliable. “A transdimensional drive,” she said, as Charles called it, “or Unverse Manipulator, like what the operatives use.”

“You get one of those when your internship ends anyway,” Ben stated, “if you stay on the program.”

“If I stay,” Rowana echoed. “Now hold tight.” She shifted into gear and pulled the bike into traffic, aiming for one of the bridges to Nimbus Station.

Their route circumvented the exclusion zone, as all accessible roads did, albeit this one did so narrowly. Modern construction encroached closer and closer to the towering barriers surrounding Old Nimbus City. Some factions of local politics were even lobbying to build into the exclusion zone – the road they took now, which snaked around its entire border, was a recent construct of those efforts.

The opposing side included their father, who with a dwindling number of other influential people warned of supposed dangers associated with the geographic location of the zone. By participating in Research Into Other Realms, Rowana understood that Unverse, once traveled, became successively easier to travel, like wearing down a path.

On that posit, once the Maelstrom attacked Nimbus City, a path was established between the city and the extradimensional beyond. There was therefore a reasonable risk, according to her father and others, that Old Nimbus City would be the site of a future attack, and it was better that people not be immediately situated in it if such an attack occurred.

Granted, fourteen years had passed since it was attacked, and with no signs of another looming for just as long, the side for rebuilding Old Nimbus City was finally gaining traction.

“Idiots,” her father had referred to them on a Saturday four years ago, when the family situated themselves around the dinner table, as they traditionally used to do on weekends.

“Maybe the threat really is gone,” Mara responded, entering the room with a casserole.

Her husband scowled. “Please tell me you don’t really believe that.”

Mara set the dish down and swooped in to give the man a kiss. “I believe in you, Intrepid, and your ability to keep an open mind.”

“We beat them back,” Intrepid said, “but to what extent? It was in and out, we took out some infrastructure and neutralized some Stromlings, hardly a counterattack. It was more so the Republic could say we did something so we could forget about it and move on, which those idiots have done. Even Overbuild is coming to their side. The First Darkitect is still out there, building up, getting stronger every day as he has been the past ten years, while our own government debates on how much we should neuter ourselves.” He took a swig of his wine and poured another glass. “Now there’s a movement starting up about the ‘environmental adversities’ of transdimensional maneuvers.”

“What’s neuter mean?” ten year old Ben asked.

“I’ll tell you when you’re older,” Mara said. “Intrepid, I told you not to talk like that in front of the kids.”

Intrepid shook his head. “I can’t keep it bottled up anymore. Now there’s reason to think this last resurgence was transdimensional, too. Have you read Katie’s report?”

Mara pursed her lips. “Intrepid, let’s talk about this outside.”

“But this is quality family time-” he protested, but he did listen to his wife, bracing himself against the table to try and stand up.

“No, this literally isn’t,” Mara said, reaching under his arms and helping him up, as he was obviously impaired. “I won’t have you scaring the kids, with classified intel no less. Family time’s over.”

It never resumed after that.

Chapter 8: Predestination

With the collaboration of all employed, with mostly the janitor helping, the interior spaces of the recently reacquired Leek Works site slowly but surely gained practicality, organization, and décor with new floorings, furnishings, and fixtures. The primary level featured gunmetal bronze tiled floors and walls, lit by warm yellow overhead lamps, not unlike the inside of a submarine, but without the claustrophobia. The new aesthetic was, by design, distinct compared to a certain other version of Leek Works, which had been bluer and brighter, a color scheme consistent with a certain other version of the Nexus Force. The team agreed on a mindset that the Future Dimension presented only a possible future, and one they wished not to replicate.

Divergence carried through to the chief executive office, arranged like a cozy lounge with wood panel walls, a full carpet, and faux windows emitting light synced, in brightness and hue, with the time and weather of the day outside.

For furnishings, there was still room to spare with the full team of ten Leek Works staff members gathered on four long black couches, facing each other around a low glass coffee table adorned by Tiberius’s unlocked lockbox, a few dataplaques, and the files retrieved by Aiden and Alex earlier. The brothers and Bridget occupied the nine o’clock couch. At twelve sat Ben, Callista, and Ray. On the next were Luke and Mara, the latter chewing gum and occasionally blowing a pink bubble of the plastic stuff. Juiliet and Shard occupied the final couch.

“Updates,” Aiden prompted.

Juiliet set a dataplaque on the table and spun it on its base, signaling the room’s occupants to read it, with Aiden picking it up first. On its display was a letter from the Assembly wing in Nexus Tower, which he read quickly before handing the plaque to Bridget.

“Our friends in the Nexus Force want in on our recent Unverse manipulation on Jirdia, which is all they know about our use of it,” Juiliet summarized, looking pointedly at Aiden and Alex. “The technology, as we’ve known since the Dimensional War, is tactically versatile.”

The plaque made it to Luke. “Who’s meeting with them?” the blond boy asked.

“Juiliet, Shard, Callista, and I are going to meet with them,” Ben answered.

“We knew this was coming,” continued Juiliet. “As Nexus Force operatives, the tech is theirs as much as ours. We can’t keep it from them; we can possibly advise and influence its use, but it’s really out of our hands by this point.”

“Especially since there’s bigger party in this playground, too, and I don’t mean the Rogues.” Ben stated. “Shard and my dimension’s Nexus Republic retained transdimensional tech, according to Aiden.”

“Do we reach out to them, or wait for them to come here first?” Bridget asked.

“That’ll be up to the Nexus Force to decide, as far as I’m concerned,” Juiliet decided.

Aiden nodded. “Like she said, as Nexus Force operatives, it’s out of our hands now. Unfortunately.”

The plaque had made it to Shard by then, who set it back on the table. “As much as I’d hoped otherwise,” he sighed, “you lot just had to go and slave for the Nexus Force. Again.”

Mara loudly popped a bubble. “Says the Janitor,” she said.

Shard ignored her. “All this ‘wait for the Nexus Force,’ ‘see what the Nexus Force’ says, makes me want to cry,” he sniffed. “The Leek Works you could have been, and should have been, is dead.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Aiden countered. “This Leek Works is a private organization. Granted, the conscripts among us have always served under the Nexus Force at the same time, and we did collaborate with it during the Dimensional War, naturally, but that was it. Leek Works never belonged to the Nexus Force, and it never will. That’s why we axed it when that war ended, so it wouldn’t fall into their hands.”

“And bear in mind,” Luke added, “we have a much less dominant Nexus Force than you had, Shard, what with all the other wars still going on around here. So I’d say we’ve got a pretty good chance at not just regaining our independence -”

“Which we’re doing right now by buying back our building,” Mara interjected.

“- but staying independent, too.” Luke completed. “For your sanity’s sake, I’d consider the plausibility that maybe your Leek Works, under the Nexus Republic, just never had the same chance that we do.”

Shard huffed. “Sane or not, and while I’m obviously not in charge here, I still wish you lot would listen to me.”

“We are listening,” Mara protested, “when you’re not degrading us.”

“I don’t think Shard is degrading anyone,” Bridget intervened.

“I’m not,” Shard agreed.

“And I’m trying to be sympathetic,” Luke defended.

“Hold it,” said Juiliet and Aiden at the same time. They looked at each other, he shrugged, and she motioned for him to proceed, so he did. “What do you want us to hear, Shard?”

“We need to stand up to the Nexus Force, even now.” Shard folded his arms. “Unlike Miss Bossy Head But Also A Pushover here. She wants to give everything we have about Unverse over to Verbina and everyone else wearing a Nexus Force patch just because they say so. Well, I say we don’t get complacent, and we should plan this out, starting with our story.”

Shard picked up a different dataplaque and pulled up the team’s final report to the Nexus Force on their Jirdian operation. “There’s gaps in this report that we can still fill in however we want.”

“So, making up stuff?” Alex asked with a frown.

“So, lying?” Bridget focused.

“Everyone else is literally talking about secret underground operations and you’re getting at me for lying,” Shard said dryly. “Anyway, look at how it says we got from Jirdia to Nimbus Station. All it says is ‘transdimensional maneuver.’ They don’t yet know we used Aiden’s old Unverse Manipulator. I’m saying we keep it that way.”

“So, lying by omission.” Bridget clarified.

“No, we already did that. Now, we’re gonna need to straight up lie.” Shard said. “Because this vague line here is exactly why Juiliet, Callista, Ben, and I are going to meet with the Nexus Force. They called us to meet with them because they have questions. ‘What’s transdimensional maneuver mean?’ they’ll ask. And when they do, I’m going to tell them we used the Rogue’s Interuniversal Projector to escape. So, yes, Bridget, I will be lying, and Aiden’s going to let me.”

Aiden frowned. “How do you know I’m going to… let you do anything?”

“Because it’s exactly what you’d do,” Shard said, “and exactly what you already did. Yes, I mean you, and not my Intrepid, although coincidentally, it’s exactly what he would do too. What I mean is, you didn’t tell the Nexus Force about your visit to Earth.”

Mara choked again. “His visit to what?” she wheezed.

“Oh, sorry,” Shard smirked, “what I really mean is, you didn’t tell anyone about your visit to Earth. Not even us.”

“What’s Earth?” Mara demanded.

Aiden closed his eyes, trying to collect his thoughts and formulate a response. Shard was right, he hadn’t shared the details of his visit, yet. He had shared the result, which was Rowana’s location, at least.

“Don’t you dare hide behind your eyes, Intrepid.” Mara warned.

“I go by Aiden, now,” he muttered.

“Actually, Intrepid is a more accurate name when he’s being a liar,” came Shard’s voice.

“Look in a mirror, Shard,” Bridget retorted, and she grabbed Aiden’s hand. Then her voice, closer and softer, requested, “Look at me, Aiden.”

He did, opening his eyes to her concerned face, and Alex’s too, as she’d positioned herself directly in front of him, and Alex leaned over as well. Bridget was good for him. Too good, if he wasn’t taking their relationship seriously. And poor Alex, so lost in everything his brother was up to. He owed it to them as much, if not more, than everyone else to be open with them.

“It’s okay,” Aiden told her. “Shard’s right. Shard’s right,” he repeated to the others, as Bridget returned to her seat. “I should have been more forthcoming about how I found Rowana’s location. I wasn’t, and I apologize. I used the Unverse Manipulator to go directly to her, which brought me to another universe, and a planet called Earth.”

Aiden paused. How much did Shard actually know? He decided to test the Janitor’s knowledge. “But as soon as I got there, Lord Brocktree of the Nexus Republic, Transdimensional Division, arrived by his own transdimensional maneuver and took Rowana away without my involvement. Using the Manipulator, I traced their destination to Macabross, but I didn’t follow. I returned here, instead, and updated you accordingly. Then I went to Elistra to get Alex, bringing us to now.”

He waited to see if Shard pressed for more detail, but he didn’t, confirming the extent of the Janitor’s knowledge without revealing more. Perhaps he should, but at the moment he felt vindictive. “How did you trace my travel, anyway?” Aiden asked.

Shard tapped his fingers on the glass table. “Secret.”

“Enough of this!” Juiliet shouted and all eyes turned to her, as the woman rarely raised her voice. “This team cannot,” she emphasized the last syllable, “function like this, incohesive and incoherent. Get your acts together, or I’ll get mine. It’s called resignation.”

Mara looked about to say something snarky, but she elected to keep chewing her gum instead.

“Juiliet’s right,” said Callista, who, along with Ray, hadn’t had something to say so far. “You can count me out, too, unless things change, which they really can.”

“Thanks for ending on a positive note, at least,” Luke said.

“I try.” Callista blushed.

“Juiliet is right,” Ben added his voice. “But I won’t leave either way.”

“I probably shouldn’t even be here,” Alex murmured.

“Fine,” Shard rolled his eyes. “Aiden, let’s kiss and make up.”

“We don’t need to go that far,” Aiden responded. “Otherwise, Shard, I agree with you about having a… an advantageous report to give the Nexus Force. Definitely opportune. How can we trust them to steward Unverse travel better than the Nexus Republic, which would potentially limit ourselves?”

“Can we even trust ourselves to do better?” Juiliet countered with a dry laugh.

“We’ll get better,” Luke responded. “No more of this pointless bickering. Let’s stop it now. Right, Mara?”

Mara glowered, but nodded slightly.

“And so we enter a new era,” Shard propounded, “heralding the light age of Leek Works, a period under the influence, sensible and beneficent, of the Number One Janitor, in all his principality: Skilled Honored Ninja, AKA, Le Moi.”

“I thought kissing and making up was going too far,” Bridget said. “Now I’m not so sure.”

“Expectations are mine to exceed,” Shard bowed.

“Can we testify using the Interuniversal Projector to return from Jirdia?” Aiden asked Juiliet.

The woman shrugged rhetorically. “Who’s to contradict us, the Rogues? Yeah, I think we have more credence than them. However, stopping their transdimensional efforts ourselves must become a greater priority, since we’re keeping the Nexus Force out of it.” She sighed wearily.

“Hooray for lying,” Ben said softly.

“Hooray for being an underground, independent operation,” Shard said proudly, “instead of just pretending to be one. Welcome, my friends, to Leek Works.”

Chapter 9: Pursuit

A dirt, dust, and debris path gouged into Jirdia’s landscape marked the several thousand meter long landing path of the crashed starship once it had touched down, starting fifteen kilometers north of the city limits. Morgan’s estimate was nearly exact. Nathaniel and Kate followed it from the air, in the former’s personal rocket. The starship had plowed through fields, woods, and hills alike, leaving a three hundred meter wide skid mark up to a diminishing dust cloud, through which a round, low, and gray structure three hundred meters across was visible. Nathaniel banked the two-seater rocket wide, slowly bringing the front of the convex structure into view.

“Blimey, this thing is massive,” Nathaniel murmured. “There’s damage, too, on the top side. See those scorch marks?”

“Look at the middle,” Kate pointed, and Nathaniel followed her direction. “There’s some symbols on the front, they seem like letters, but…” She was about to say she didn’t recognize the language, but at the same time they felt familiar, somehow. “I’m having trouble reading it,” she said instead.

“It does look familiar,” Nathaniel said slowly. “Let’s get closer, see if there’s anyone needing help- ah, never mind.”

At their altitude, they saw it before they heard it: fiery explosions, beginning from both the top center and the circumferential border of the starship, progressed in rolls of flame towards each other, burning off the gray surface material and leaving charred structural framework behind, before that, too, disintegrated into ash. The unknown letters, printed midlevel, were engulfed last.

Kate found herself craning to keep watching as the rocket changed direction, taking them away from the crash. “Wait, we’re just leaving?”

“Sorry,” Nathaniel said. “There’s nothing left to do here.”

“What if there’s people down there?” Kate asked.

“The Jirdians will be here,” Nathaniel responded, “and I have a mandate to uphold. I can’t interfere with whatever operations go on from here.”

“Well, you can drop me off,” Kate suggested, “I don’t have any such mandate.”

Nathaniel shook his head. “Neither of us is equipped to brave that sort of fire. Besides, I’ve interfered enough bringing you with me. Consider this a favor.”

Kate slumped, resignedly, back into the rocket seat. “Thanks anyway,” she said, as it was the polite thing to do, while wondering to herself what she even expected to do with a crashed starship anyway, much less a burning one. Nathaniel was right, there was nothing left to do but go home.

The siren had dipped to a low, steady drone, signaling that the shelter in place order hadn’t lifted by the time Nathaniel returned himself and Kate to the Nexus Force outpost, which they’d only launched from five minutes earlier. Accordingly, the roadways were empty as Kate made her way back home. Nathaniel had offered an escort, but she declined. She was technically defying the order, but by keeping her head low and sticking to back alleys, she doubted anyone would stop her.

She didn’t dismiss the possibility of running into anyone, though. The back alleys were often hangouts for those who liked found comfort in the secluded, shadowy, unfinished, and neglected spaces between buildings. That included small reptiles, rats, wild cats, stray dogs, and of course some people as well. She hadn’t run into any people so far, but the animals were certainly around, she could hear them scrabbling around corners and in the darkness.

She found it interesting that she remembered this knowledge. She didn’t think she was one of the people to hangout in the back alleys, but if she was, maybe that was the part she didn’t remember. At one point, a broken picture frame in the middle of the path, surrounded by its own glass shards, reminded her of her own broken mirror.

She couldn’t recall how the mirror broke in the first place, but she knew anyone else entering her bedroom would be in for a surprise. Its glass fragments still littered her floor, as she hadn’t yet cleaned it up. She worried about the twins, who in their impish toddling could accidentally cut themselves. Pausing to think about them, Kate wondered if her brain would bring up the twin girls’ names, like it had for Morgan. She closed her eyes, welcoming her mind to show her its secrets, but nothing flashed in her head, no images of faces or names.

Dejected, Kate opened her eyes back to reality, and realized that at the moment, she didn’t hear any animals either. But there was something else instead, audible under the distant drone of the siren because of its comparative closeness, a deep, cyclic huffing from just around the next building corner. Labored breathing, and Kate was surprised, not by itself, but at how she’d nearly walked by without noticing it, so instead of continuing past, she turned the corner and stopped.

A dark haired man lay sideways on the ground, his back against the exterior wall and his face tucked under his right arm, passing over his chest with its hand grasping the opposing shoulder. That arm reached down to his left leg, which was extended straight, but by the angle that his booted foot pointed, too far backwards, the leg was obviously broken or twisted somewhere. His clothes, a black shirt with long red sleeves and color matched black pants, were mostly intact but stained and dirty. Taking a step closer toward him, Kate realized a lot of the stains were from blood. She also knew she wasn’t going to just leave him.

His breathing told her he was alive, but with his face hidden she couldn’t tell if he was awake. She wanted to get closer but didn’t want to startle him. “Can you hear me?” she asked softly.

The man’s head twitched at her voice, and in a short moment she could see the top of his face. His forehead and eyelids, shut tight, were covered with grime. Then his eyes opened slightly. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t think he could.

“Are you alright?” Kate asked, and then kicked herself, because he obviously wasn’t. “No, you’re not. I’m going to help you, okay?”

His eyes stayed open, watching her, but as she thought about what he needed, she realized she would have to get help, but that meant leaving him, and where would she get help from? He was so dirty, and she wasn’t sure if he was still bleeding. If she left, would he still be alive when she got back?

The man made a noise, and Kate shook her head at her indecisiveness. “I’ll get help,” she said, turning away. As she did so, something in her hand scraped against the wall and she did a double take, because looking down, she saw she was holding a blue bottle.

What the hell… she thought, because the last thing she knew, her hands had been empty. She lifted it up and inspected the label, which read “Sentinel Super Soda.” Something liquid sloshed inside, and she pulled the cap to pour some out in her palm. It was clear and odorless like water, but bubbly, which made sense, since it called itself a soda. She gave the little bit a taste, too, and found it sweet.

Hoping it wasn’t poisonous or otherwise harmful in any way, Kate went back to the man and crouched down. His eyes flicked between hers and the soda, which he obviously wanted, but was unable to move for it himself. With her free hand, she tilted his head backwards, exposing the lower half of his face. His nose downward was fairly clean, he must have shielded it from whatever served to dirty the rest of him, and he was bearded. Bringing the top of the soda to his mouth, she tilted it carefully so as not to drown him with it, and giving him a little at a time, he was able to drink.

As she watched, it seemed to have a vitalizing effect on him. His breathing grew steadier, and his eyes less red. He even placed his left hand on her shoulder, but it was a light touch, when suddenly it tingled. Kate jerked, losing the soda in the process of standing up and causing the man to cough, but now seeing him in his entirety again, she saw an electric blue glow had surrounded him, and it was connected to her, by a stream of mist starting from her left hand, which tingled strongly.

“Am I…” she started.

“…Healing me?” the man finished. His voice was clear, healthy sounding. He and Kate both stared down at his self in wonder as all the stains and dirt on his clothes faded away, even the bloodstains, and his leg straightened itself as well. He gasped when that happened, and it must have felt strange, Kate thought. The tingling in her hand intensified and she took a shuddery breath, and then it stopped. She felt a sudden weight take her head and she managed to keep her footing, as the man, with the glow faded from him as well, began to cautiously stand.

They both braced against opposing walls, facing each other, trying to comprehend what just happened between them.

“I healed you,” Kate said.

“Yes, I think you did,” the man said with a curious tone in his voice. “Why?”

Why? Kate wondered. “I must have wanted to,” she deduced. “That’s why the Super Soda appeared, I made it appear, like the fire on the mirror.” The memory of that came back now, at least. “But the, uh, glowing was from me.” How can I do these things?

“How can I do these things?” she asked. She certainly didn’t have the answer herself, but she also doubted this man knew anything either, yet he answered anyway.

“Where I come from,” he said, “we recognize there are some entities with extraordinary powers. They tend to be mysterious, reclusive, and few. So, from my perspective of what just happened, please know I’m feeling incredibly lucky to have been come across by someone like you.”

“You’re welcome,” Kate said, regarding him. Now that he, and his attire, were restored, he definitely looked foreign. “Where you come from?” she echoed.

“Not from around here, most likely,” the man said, panning around at his surroundings before looking up at the sky, then back at Kate. “Are you capable of interstellar travel?”

“Me?” Kate asked.

“I mean your society,” the man clarified.

“Yeah,” Kate answered. “Well, I’ve never been off world personally, as far as I know.”

“Good,” the man rubbed his palm against his forehead. “That helps simplify things. I am… or, was, a starship captain. We came down maybe an hour ago.”

Kate nodded. It had to be the ship that she and Nathaniel had flown over. “There’s nothing left,” she told the man. “It all burned up on the ground.”

“Good,” the man said again, surprising Kate. “I set it to self-destruct, then beamed myself, well, here. It’ll never fly again, but it’s also too dangerous to leave around in an unknown world, let alone in another universe.”

Kate stared at him hard. “You’re from another-”

“Another universe,” the man repeated. “And now, I desperately need another starship. Maybe you can help with that, too.”

“I can,” Kate started, “but first off, I don’t even know where you’re from, why you’re here, and who you are.”

The man nodded. “I suppose I should have started with that. I’m from an interstellar union called the United Federation of Planets. I’m here pursuing an incredibly dangerous enemy known as the Spectre Borg, hailing from a different universe entirely where they have achieved galactic domination. But in following them to this universe, my starship was disabled, leading to its crash, and my injuries.”

The man regarded himself again, still incredulous at his recovery, and momentarily giving himself pause.

Kate nodded. “My name’s Kate,” she prompted, “Kate Dekairie,” and the man looked back up at her.

“My name,” he reciprocated, “is Edwin Talmid. Fleet Captain Talmid.”