The guard shivered. Even through layers of nylon, fleece, wool, and polyester, the chill seeped into the bones. The wind roared around him, whipping up snow, branches, and dirt, pelting him with sleet. When he shifted position, he heard the snap of his frozen clothes cracking. Tiny icicles hung from his weapon. He tried to lift his arm to check his watch, but couldn't muster up the energy.
How long had he been standing on this balcony? It felt like hours. Days, maybe. But if it had been hours, where was his replacement? Had they decided to leave him here? Was that his fate, to freeze to death on this balcony at the bottom of the world?
There was a loud SNAP and pain shot down from his head. The world around him began to smear in his vision. Then it went black.
The two women stared down at his body. “Fuck!” yelled the Sister. “What the hell just happened? Where are we?”
“Be quiet for a moment,” said the Queen. She knelt down and began digging through the snow. Soon, she knocked against a metal panel. Underneath was a tunnel leading down, and a ladder. She motioned towards the first woman. “Get in before you freeze to death.”
The Sister nodded and climbed down. The second followed her. After several minutes of climbing, they dropped into a concrete hallway. Three rows of fluorescent lights ran across the ceiling. On one wall were three posters touting workplace safety standards. Across from it was a large map.
“Seriously, where are we? Please tell me you just didn't kill that guy,” said the Sister. She was tall, with a thin face and long nose. Her black hair was wrapped into a tight ponytail. Three silver rings jutted out of her bottom lip, and the edges of a red tattoo crept from her shirt and across the back of her neck. She wore a leather jacket covered in patches, jeans, and a Black Flag T-shirt.
“Sister, if you're as eager to see what I have to offer as you said, you'll have to become more accustomed to violence,” said the Queen. She was almost identical to the first. Her hair was cut shorter, only shoulder-length, and instead of street clothes she wore hiking gear and a large rucksack. The bulge of a shoulder holster was visible under it. A scar ran from the corner of her right eye, to the nape of her neck. “As for where we are… Antarctica.”
The Sister sucked in a breath. “Jesus. Antarctica. And… and we're still on Earth? My Earth, I mean?”
“No,” said the second. She began walking. “We're approximately 300 universes away from your home Earth. Follow me, please.”
The Sister jogged to catch up. “So… what's here that you want to show me? And who would build something like this in Antarctica?” She thought for a second. “Actually, I'm still not sure what this building even is.”
“Be patient,” said the second. “Stop asking so many questions. Learn to observe, it'll prove more useful.” She tapped a button on her watch and spoke into it, “Hill, this is the Queen. Are you ready?”
There was static, followed by a voice. “Yes, ma'am How long will it be?”
“Five minutes,” said the Queen, and said nothing else. They continued walking. Several times the hallway branched off, but the pair continued going straight. Eventually, they came to a metal door.
“We're here,” said the Queen into her watch. The doors slid open.
They stepped into a large, circular room. The walls were lined with computer monitors, all black. The center was raised, surrounded by guardrails, with a large screen, blank in the center. A man stood in front of it.
“Hello ma'am,” said a voice to the side. A man in a white labcoat stood with his hands clasped in front of him. “It's so good to see you again.”
“It's good to see you too, Wayne,” said the Queen. “Is your daughter feeling better?”
Wayne nodded. “Yes ma'am. Things were close for a while, but she's through the worst of it.”
The Queen nodded. “Very good. Tell Linda I said hello.” She stepped onto the raised area. The Sister followed.
“Hello ma'am,” said the man at the screen, turning. “Your travels went well?” His eyes darted to the Sister.
“They did.” She pulled a plastic disk case from her jacket. “This should be all that we need.”
He nodded “And this is your… ah… associate?”
“It is.”
“Everything should be ready then.” Turning back to the screen, he pressed a button to the side. A slot opened, and he pushed the disk in. “Ma'am, are you sure you can do this fast enough? I'd say you have about 15 minutes between us uplinking the data, and them going on lock-down.”
She stared at him.
He looked away. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply anything.”
“I know exactly what will happen once we upload this,” she said. “How long have we been planning this?”
His face flushed red. “I wasn't trying to insinuate anything, ma'am. Just… you know…”
“Enough. It doesn't matter anymore. Send it through.”
He nodded. With a few quick button presses, the screen lit up. A red hammer and sickle flashed across the center, then a cascading series of Cyrillic command lines.
“Okay,” said the Sister. “I think I have even less of an idea of what's going on now.”
“What did I say about questions?” said the Queen. She stared at the screen, arms crossed, eyes flitting through the code. “It's a universal transporter. One significantly more powerful than the one I've been using. With it, we should be able to greatly expand our operation.”
“Um, alright. So, what are we gonna do with it now?”
“Watch. You'll see.” The Queen stepped forward and tapped a series of numbers into the keyboard. The lines on the screen paused. Then they disappeared. A red outline of a box replaced them, with a number above it: “0%”. Several seconds later, it blinked up to “1%”.
“It shouldn't take more than-” Wayne said. A gunshot echoed through the room. The Queen spun around. Four men stood in the back of the room, dressed in black riot gear, assault rifles raised. One of them yelled something in what sounded like Russian.
The Queen and Wayne lifted their hands. The Sister followed suit. “When I tell you,” said the Queen, “run behind the screen.” Then she responded in Russian.
The man took a step forward, and barked another order. Wayne began to kneel down. A wave of the Queen's hand stopped him. She said a few more words, her face blank. Her gaze turned towards Hill.
His face fell. “I'm sorry, ma'am. It was my daughter… I couldn't just let her… they said they would fix her if I led them to you…”
“Be quiet,” she said. “I don't care. Sister, these men are about to start shooting at us.”
“What?”
“Now!” yelled the Queen, and leaped to the side. She scrambled behind the screen and the Sister, without thinking, followed. She slid into cover just as the firing started. There was the sound of glass breaking, and a body collapsing. From the other side of the screen, Wayne moaned in pain.
The side they were using also had a screen. The red bar blinked: “15%”
Low voices speaking in Russian from the other side. Someone yelled. Footsteps, running farther away. More arguing, then two gunshots, and Hill screaming.
“20%”
A Russian voice barked at them.
“What happens when it reaches 100%?” said the Sister.
“We'll be transported to the set destination,” said the Queen.”
“Okay, great. And how long will that take?”
“Two minutes. But it's not our primary concern.”
“Of course it isn't.”
“I never was able to finish inputting the destination. If it activates now, I'm not certain where we'll end up.”
27%
The footsteps were drawing closer.
“Have you killed anyone before?” said the Queen.
The Sister paled. “Um. Once.”
“I see.” The Queen opened her jacket and pulled out two pistols. She handed one to the Sister. “Do you know to use this?”
“… Yeah.”
“We're going to have to kill them.”
35%
“I don't even know who the hell they are! What do they want?”
“Presumably revenge for killing a guard and trying to steal their technology.” The Queen handed her a magazine, then slapped one into her own gun. “ Only the most recent event in a long line of conflicts between us. They'll almost be here. Be ready. I'm going to need to input the last of the coordinates. When they come around, stop them.”
40%
The Queen inched to the side panel and began typing. As she did, numbers ran across the bottom of the screen. The Sister looked over her shoulder, at the other end of the screen. There was no one there. But she could hear, faintly, the sound of footsteps.
46%
The Queen continued to type. The Sister scanned the area, looking for any movement, looking for any sign of-
“Stoy!” said a voice behind her. She spun around, lifting the pistol. It was too late. The man had his rifle trained on her, finger resting on the trigger. Another next to him trained his weapon on the Queen. Sighing, she backed away from the keyboard and raised her hands.
58%
Two more men emerged from the other side. They circled around the women to stand behind them.
The Queen spoke in Russian, but the men did not respond. One motioned for the Sister to stand. She did. He said something she couldn't understand. The Queen replied without looking at him. Beads of sweat were starting to form on her face.
64%
“Did… did you make it?” said the Sister.
The Queen shook her head. “Almost.”
“What do we do now?”
“Shut. Up,” said one of the men behind them. He slung his weapon over his shoulder, and approached the Sister. Taking a pair of handcuffs from his belt, he grabbed her arms, wrenching them behind her back. She shuddered as the cold steel wrapped around her wrists. Pain shot through her knees, and she fell to the floor.
73%
“I'm sorry,” said the Sister. “Dammit, I shouldn't have-” The man stepped forward and kicked her in the gut. Pain tore through her. She gasped, trying to suck in air, but couldn't.
The Queen stared at him. “Don't do that again,” she said, in Russian.
“And if I do?” he said.
She turned her eyes to the screen.
79%
“Put your hands on your head. Get on your knees.”
She didn't move.
“We don't want to make this difficult. We're not going to kill you, but we'll hurt you if we have to.”
She stayed frozen. Her eyes were locked on the blinking number.
The man sighed, un-slung his weapon, pointed it at the Sister. “We can hurt her, too. Is that what you want?”
85%
The Queen gritted her teeth. She slid her hands down, locking her fingers behind her head, but stayed standing.
“We're waiting,” said the man.
“If you touch her,” said the Queen, without looking at him, “there won't even be a corpse by the time I'm finished with you.”
The man chuckled. “You think you have room to make threats?”
93%
He spat. “You think you're so clever, dancing around us for years. Lying. Stealing. Making us look like fools. Did you think you could it up forever? You thought you were much better than us, so much smarter. Now you'll see-”
99%
Her hand shot forward. It slapped into the keyboard, mashing down five keys. The bottom of the screen flashed white.
100%
The world fell away.

II

Was she flying?
It felt like she was flying. Hurtling down through the air. The familiar drop in her stomach. The sensation of stepping off a ledge and feeling the tug of gravity sending you towards Earth. She opened her eyes. Then she tried to open then again, because there was nothing but darkness. Turning her head to the left, she saw the Queen, and the man, hovering in the darkness. As if they were standing on an invisible floor. Behind them, loomed the screen. The screen flashed red, over and over. The man had his gun raised, pointed at the Queen's head. He tried to fire, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger.
The Queen held her pistol against the side of his helmet. She said nothing, only stared straight into his eyes. The Sister looked behind her. The other men had their weapons raised. They were also trying to fire, but the guns didn't respond. One moved a foot forward, as if to take a step, but instead of landing it fell. He stumbled and fell, hitting the invisible floor.
The Sister tried to push herself to her feet, but could find no surface to press against. She tried to breath, but there was no air. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. There was only the feeling of falling, and the figures around her.
Reality hit her like a sledgehammer. One second, darkness. The next, a burst of light, green, brown, and orange. Pain rushed through her, like she was being mashed into the ground by a giant thumb. She screamed, and over the noise heard gunshots. Several minutes later, when the pain subsided enough for her to open her eyes, she saw the Queen standing over her.
“What… what happened?” She pushed herself to her feet, clutching her side. It felt like one of her ribs was cracked. They were in a forest. The trees towered above them, hundreds of feet tall, and the ground was covered in a blanket of fallen leaves. Birds twittered in the branches above. Several meters away, a furry, six-legged animal watched them with unblinking gray eyes. Branches and vines sprouted from under its fur to wrap around its body. Next to them, the screen sprouted from the ground. “It worked.”
The Queen nodded.
The Sister turned her head, and saw the bodies of the four men. The leaves around them were splattered with blood. “You did that?”
“As I said, I prepared this for months. I knew exactly how long the journey through the Membrane would take. They didn't. I was able to brace myself for our arrival.”
“Right,” said the Sister. She took a step forward and fell. The Queen darted forward, catching her and pushing her back up. “I don't feel good.”
“We jumped much farther than you have before,” said the Queen. “Your body isn't used to that kind of strain yet. It'll go away in a few minutes. We'll wait here until then.”
“Fuck,” said the Sister. “I should have brought some cigarettes.” She looked over to where the animal had been, but it was gone.

They waited for hours in silence, sitting against the trees. When the Queen moved again, it was night. The woods were silent. “Are you feeling better?”
The Sister nodded. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“We're going to have a far distance to walk.” The Queen stood, brushing off her clothes. She tapped the gold watch on her arm. “Three days to our destination, three days back.”
The Sister pushed herself to her feet. “We're leaving now?”
“It'll be easier to travel at night. It's too hot during daytime.” She tightened the straps of her rucksack.
“So, where are we going?” The Sister stood with her arms crossed.
“You'll see when we get there.”
The sister said nothing.
The Queen stared at her. “Is something wrong?”
“Well,” said the Sister, staring at the ground, “this isn't what I expected. Being shot at, camping in the woods. You said you would help me find my dad.”
“I did, and I am,” said the Queen. She stepped towards the Sister, who didn't look up. “I told you it would involve risks. I told you that it would be difficult, that you would probably regret your decision. You insisted.”
The Sister swallowed. Her palms were slick with sweat. “Yeah, I know. But this is bullshit. You won't tell me what we're doing, where we are, why, any of that stuff! You take me to a different universe and you still won't even tell me what's going on? How the hell do you expect me to learn anything like this?” Her voice rose as she spoke. “Come on! I'm willing to go where you want, but you need to respect me enough to tell me what the hell is going on!” She was nearly shouting now. “Tell me something, instead of just stringing me along and letting me get shot at and hit and thrown into new worlds like I don't fucking matter!”
The Queen took a step back. She lifted a hand up, as if to place it on the Sister's shoulder, then dropped it down. “I see,” she said. Turning, she walked to where the rucksack was placed against a tree and began searching through it. The Sister looked away.
After pulling out half the ruck's contents, the Queen returned to the Sister, clutching a black notebook. She thrust it into the Sister's hands. “Take this. Read it on the way.”
The Sister looked from the Queen to the notebook. Her hands trembled. “What is it?”
“Part of my notes. It contains basic information that I've uncovered over the years. Read through it as we're traveling, and feel free to ask me about anything in there.” She closed her eyes and sighed. “I'm sorry I've been difficult with you. Sharing information in the past has led to… problems.”
The Sister nodded, still looking away. “Alright. Fine. But why are we here? What's the point?”
The Queen slung the ruck across her back. “We're going to kill our Father.”
The Sister's eyes widened. “Dad? He's here?”
Nodding, the Queen tightened her straps. “A version of him is. And he's dangerous, Sister. If he isn't stopped soon, he'll corrupt the entire universe. And he won't stop there.”
“How? What's he doing?”
She shook her head. “That's something you should see for yourself.”

The hiking wasn't hard. The Sister was used to hiking. She'd done a lot of it when she was younger, wandering through the woods behind her house in lieu of having to socialize. After her father disappeared, she would spend days out there, just her and books and whatever canned goods she could find with her mother's decades old camping equipment. That was nice. Relaxing.
This was different. Everything about this place felt wrong, in ways she couldn't describe. The noise the breeze made as it blew through the leaves sent chills down her spine. The way the branches loomed and twisted around them, like they were the top of a demented wooden prison cell. How the little wildlife she saw resembled monsters more than animals. They all had wood sprouting from their skin, and acted strange. They would slam themselves against trees endlessly, attack the Earth, bark and wail at nothing.
To distract herself, she read the journal. By the end of the first day, she had gone through every page. By the end of the second, she had it fully annotated. Going into the third, she had begun to compare it to her own notes, and was beginning to realize almost everything she had assumed she knew had been wrong.
“Jesus,” she said as they walked. “How long have you been working on this?”
The Queen ducked under a branch. “Six years. Nine, if you count the time before I discovered the Foundation.”
“Fuck. You know, you never told me how old you were.” She brought her head up from the notebook just in time to see the branch and swing under it.
“The same age as you,” said the Queen. “Twenty-four. I was just dragged into this earlier.”
“Oh,” said the Sister. “How?”
“Maybe another time,” said the Queen. She stopped to check her watch, then started walking slightly to the right. The Sister followed, shifting her focusing back to the notebook.
It was amazing what was cataloged here. Descriptions of dozens of worlds, twenty different groups tied to the supernatural, lists of thirty different anomalous items and how they appeared throughout various universes (including a few she had seen in her own). The entire last half of the notebook was devoted to Charles Gears, tracking his movement patterns, behavior, allegiances across every universe she had found. One repeating idea stood out among the noise.
The reasons vary, read one note, but its presence is near-constant in instances of Charles Gears who have abandoned their families. Somewhere along the line, an event takes place that removes his capacity to feel emotion. Sometimes it's purely psychological, a regression in order to cope with the situations he must confront on a daily basis. Sometimes it's due to psychic influence, or an encounter with a powerful cosmic entity. Whatever the cause, it is, with only a few exceptions due to outstanding circumstances, always present.
And a little later on in the book. It is this sociopathy, combined with his loyalty to whatever cause he is allied with, that makes Charles Gears such a danger to reality.

The Sister looked up from the book. What was the noise? It seemed to be coming from just ahead, a slow murmur flowing through the trees. The Queen didn't seem to notice, or at least, didn't seem to care. She just continued on through the brush. The Sister tried to quiet her steps and listen closer. It sounded almost like water.
“Do you hear that?” she said.
The Queen nodded. “We're getting close. Look.” They were coming up to a large treeline. The Queen just strolled through, not even pausing. As if the scrapes and cuts from the trees weren't even worth thinking about. The Sister sighed, covered her head with her hands, and barreled through. She ran for almost a minute, branches snagging at her clothes, thorns ripping her skin, before bursting through on the other side.
She reared back as sunlight hit her face. So far, the forest had been dim, most light blocked by the canopy. Now, the glare was blinding. She managed to squint one eye open and gasped. They were out of the forest. She was standing on the bank of a river. It must have been close to 30 meters wide. The water was blue and clear, and at the bottom, small creatures that looked like wooden crabs scuttled across the rocks. Trees sprouted from the riverbed. Their leaves were long and vinelike, streaming through the water, and fish swam between. Most were too short to reach the surface, but a few reached out of the river to scrape the sky.
Three large, white-furred beasts stood on the other bank of the river. They looked almost like buffalo, but their fur was shorter, and their horns longer. They arched backwards, almost touching the nape of their neck. Short branches sprouted from the fur around their bellies. Two took no notice of the Sister. They kept drinking, oblivious. The third stared at her. After a minute, it gave a low grunt. The others looked up at her. They grunted, and all three turned away to roam off.
Across the river, a plain stretched to the horizon. Far off, she could see a herd of the buffalo creatures. Every few hundred meters, a massive, branchless tree trunk grew from the earth, taller and wider than any of the trees in the forest.
The sound of branches snapping behind her drew her attention. From the branches emerged the Queen, looking none worse for the wear. She brushed a few leaves from her clothes and readjusted the straps of her pack.
“It's beautiful,” said the Sister.
“No,” said the Queen. “It used to be beautiful. This is a disease.” She turned to face upriver. “Come. We still have a few more hours before we arrive.”

The woods had been, for the most part, flat. That had been fine. Walking uphill sucked. The sun was nearing the middle of the sky, and the heat outside the forest was almost unbearable. She'd taken off her jacket and tied it to her waist, but it didn't help. The Queen strolled on, not even sweating.
There was something up ahead. Coming up, she had thought it was just an outcropping of the hill. Now, she saw it was a tangle of branches the size of a building. The river (though by now it had narrowed to more like a stream) flowed from an opening in the center. They approached it, and the Queen held up a hand to stop her.
“This is it,” she said.
“About time,” said the Sister. “Are we going to go in?”
The Queen nodded. “I want to ask you something first.”
“Yeah, sure. It would be a nice change of pace.”
The Queen crossed her arms. The Sister stared into her eyes and shivered. Something about them felt off. Inhuman. It was like looking into a thunderstorm. “What do you plan to do with your father, once you find him?”
“What?” Why would she need to ask that? “Take him back home. What else? I was going to try to fix whatever the Foundation had done to him.”
“I see.” The Queen pursed her lips.
“What, do you have a problem with that?”
She sighed, shook her head, and stepped into the opening of the tangle. “This will be the sixteenth version of our father I've killed. It won't be the last.”
The Sister followed. The cave was dark, except for the Queen's flashlight. They stood just inside, still, looking at each other.
“Not even 10 years ago, this world was very similar to your own,” said the Queen. “Your father ruined that. He always does, in the end. This time, he accidentally fused himself with forest god, giving it the connection it needed to spread across the entire world. But it's still not satisfied. Give it time, and it'll spread throughout the solar system. Then the galaxy. Eventually, it will find a Way to another universe. And from then, there will be no stopping it. It must be destroyed here. At the source.”
The Queen handed the Sister a small, silver canister. “Do you have what it takes to kill your father?”
The Sister looked from the canister to the Queen. She bit her lip. “Well… he's not my actual dad, is he? He just looks like him.”
“Yes. But that doesn't mean much. The mind has odd ways of holding onto the associations it builds up.” The Queen crossed her arms. “So, can you do it?”
The Sister turned the canister in her hands, running a finger across it. “I don't know,” she said. Her voice was soft. “Will he feel it?”
“He doesn't feel much of anything now,” said the Queen. “He's just fuel for the god.”
The Sister sighed. “Maybe. Maybe. I can try.”
The Queen nodded. “Follow me, then.”
They began to walk away from the entrance. Neither spoke. After several minutes, the Sister realized that the ground was sloping downwards. From the outside, the tangle had seemed about the size of an elementary school, but they'd gone too far for that to be right. She looked behind her, but the light of the outside had disappeared. The tunnel was pitch black. To steady herself, she ran a hand against the wall, and listened for the Queen's footsteps.
The ground was soft and wet. Every step slipped slightly into the earth. She could hear insects buzzing around them. The whole place smelled sickly sweet, like rotten fruit. As they walked, the air cooled. Soon she was shivering.
She wasn't sure how long they walked. It felt like an hour, but it could have been more. It could have been less, too. For all she knew they only went a few hundred meters. But down there, it felt like an hour. Ahead of them, a pinprick of green light was forming. As they moved forward, it grew. Soon it was bright enough for her to see the silhouette of the Queen, and the rough walls of the cave. They were covered with thin vines and flowers. Finally, they arrived to the entrance of a smaller cave.
The walls were hidden under layers of branches and ropey vines. The ground was clean, smooth stone. Sprouting from it were small bushes. Glowing blue fruit hung from them. In the center was a pool of clear water. She couldn't see the bottom, but several schools of fish swum beneath the surface. Hanging just inches from the water was Dr. Gears.
Hundreds of vines held him suspended from the ceiling, his arms splayed out, legs dangling. Sprouting from his skin were leaves, twigs, and flowers, that roped around his body. They covered him almost completely, left only a few inches of naked torso and his head exposed. His eyes were open, they looked empty, like the eyes of a corpse.
Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to speak, but couldn't. This was it. This was what she had been waiting fifteen years for. To see dad again. She wanted to move, to say something, anything, to see if he would notice. If he would know who she was, or even move. But she couldn't do anything. Just stare into that face, slightly more worn, slightly more wrinkled, but otherwise exactly how she remembered.
“Are you alright?” The Queen stepped forward. She stared at the Sister, her lips thin.
“I'm…” said the Sister. Go on, she thought. Say it. Just say it. “I'm fine.”
“This isn't your father,” said the Queen before going to quiet. She looked from Gears to the Sister. “You said it yourself. He's never seen you in his life.” She picked up a pebble from the floor at threw it at Gears. It smacked into his forehead, but he didn't react. “He can't even be considered a human at this point. His memories, his hopes, his fears, they've all been destroyed. Eradicated by the Uprooted God.”
The Sister nodded, but couldn't take her eyes off of him. Her stomach felt heavy. Something pounded in her throat, like an animal trying to break free.
“You don't have to do this if you don't want to,” said the Queen. “But I think it would be a valuable experience for you, to understand more of what we'll be doing.”
Say something. Thought the Sister. Don't just stand there. You're better than that. “It's… no,” she said. Her voice was raspy. Her throat felt like concrete. “It's going to happen, whether I do it or not, right?” She sucked in a breath and held out her hand. “I can do it.”
The Queen nodded and gave her the canister. It was heavier than the Sister expected. Like a brick. She turned it over in her hands. “It's easy to use,” said the Queen. “Put it down the wall, pull the top off, and run.”
She nodded. “Will it be quick?”
The Queen shook her head. “No. But he won't feel anything. This will be better for him, I promise.”
“Right.” The Sister walked to the other side of the cavern and set the canister down. The Queen stayed at the entrance, watching. The Sister placed a hand on the top. She looked back at the man hanging from the ceiling. God, he looked so much like her father. Every part of her body screamed that this must be him. She knew that he wasn't. She knew that her real father was with the Coalition, in a different universe, not trapped like this. But still, her hands shook. “Come on,” she whispered to herself. “Come on.” But her hands wouldn't move.
She thought of the past two weeks. Of meeting the Queen, of barely escaping from the Coalition alive. Transporting to another world, a freezing wasteland, and almost being killed again. Hiking for days. Seeing men die. For what? For this moment. To kill this man at the Queen's request. No, she thought. He's not a man anymore. One look was all it took to confirm that.
Her hands were slick with sweat. Her stomach felt like it was doing somersaults. She could taste last night's meal in the back of her throat. The pin of the canister rested between her fingers, waiting to be ripped away, to release the fire it bottled in. She didn't want to do this, she realized. Why had she come here? Why had she insisted on doing this?
She looked back at the Queen. She'd said it was okay to not do it herself, but the Sister knew that wasn't right. The Queen expected this of her. She could show the Sister the universe, but first the Sister would have to prove herself. She wrapped her hand around the canister. Do this, a voice in the back of her head whispered, and you'll be able to see dad again. Your real dad.
She wiped the sweat from her brow. Yes. This wasn't her dad. Her real dad was waiting for her, a universe away. And all she had to do to see him was pull the pin.
Three.
Two.
One.
She closed her eyes and yanked her hand back, tearing the pin from the canister. There was a hissing noise, and the top of the canister erupted in red light. She leaped up, sprinting back to the entrance of the cave. The hissing noise grew louder.
The Queen grabbed her shoulder. A smile spread across her face, the first the Sister had seen. “Excellent. Absolutely fantastic. Now, hurry. It will spread quickly.”
The Sister nodded. She took a step forward, then stopped. This wasn't right. She couldn't just leave like this. She had to see. Turning, she stared back into the cave. And froze.
The Queen looked back at her. “Is something wrong?”
She shook her. “No. No it's… fine. We need to go.” And they ran.
When they finally burst from the cave, and the sun and wind hit their faces, she turned and vomited against the side. The Queen stood above her, looking almost concerned. “I know how hard this could be at first,” she said.
“No, really,” said the Sister, wiping her mouth. “I'm fine.”
But her thoughts were stuck on the cave. What she had seen there. When she'd turned, she could have sworn Gears was looking at her. That there had been recognition in his eyes. That he had mouthed a word. Her name. Alison.


On the night of the winter solstice, if the stars are right, Ullllllu the Warlock emerges from his cave and curses the moon. Life and death become inverted in a twisted exhibition of the decadent souls who would possess the audacity of character to appear. Naturally the Blood Moon Ball is the social event of the season.
Admirers gathered in the corner of the withering heath, like offal sloshing down the sloughs of an abattoir, with the same sickening insistence and helpless gravitation: mistresses of the damned, keepers of the crypt, debutantes of the unhallowed alike, hanging as would a victim from a meathook in the back of that same abattoir upon every word of Lorenzo, the captivating temptster in the buccaneer shirt, the youngest Dreadlord anti-anointed in undead generations (which are very long indeed).
Lorenzo paid the entourage little notice, for he was fascinated by his charming conversation partner, the death blossom in the crushed-velvet gown. He was wrapped around her like a toe tag. The name on that toe tag:
The Black Queen.
The guests had asked her, following her introduction: The Black Queen of the Carcass Altar, did you say? The Black Queen of the Trifold Trepanation? The Black Queen of the Trembling Coffins, perhaps?
Simply The Black Queen, she had said, and all in attendance were breathless. Many of the breathless were quite impressed, as well.
"That's such a coincidence," the Black Queen laughed. "I grew up in the desert, too! Of course, Arizona was much more boring. We had tumbleweeds, for one, instead of tumbleflesh."
As Lorenzo rambled on about his childhood and the various muscular growths therein, the Black Queen tongued awkwardly at her fangs. She reminded herself that the vampirism would fade when she left the light of the blood moon. It was essentially just a masquerade ball, something she had experienced in Venice, LA, and Ibiza. Admittedly, it was a masquerade ball that murders your soul, but so does LA and that turned out alright.
A waiter approached with a bottle and offered the Black Queen a glass.
"No, thank you. I don't drink…" she said, ready to milk the situation for all the fun she could get from it, "…wine."
"This is blood," said the waiter.
"…Oh. Then by all means."
The Black Queen turned to Lorenzo. "So, do we have an agreement?"
"You're a shrewd negotiator, my little amanita." Lorenzo took a sip. "You provide to me this Grimoire of Gran Noir, and I promise to bring forth the fullness of its necromantic power in an attack on the Foundation at the prescribed day and hour. I will find the information you need, and I will tear it from their chest like a beating heart."
"Horrorshow."
"Shall we make this a blood oath?"
"I don't see why not."
They clinked glasses.
"I hope you'll understand if I can't stay to dance, Lorenzo."
"Black Queen, you should know better." Lorenzo was so mock-sad that he was almost pouting. It was subtler than it sounds, since he was rather pouty by default. "All who enter here abandon hope."
"Then just live with it."
"Well—"
"You know what I mean." With a smile, she threw on her cloak, dyed as is the custom among the Chaos Insurgents in the blood of Catholics.1 She picked up a present that had been granted by a gracious infernal lich lord, slid through the crowd, found a quiet place, and opened a Way.
She realized, as she stepped through, that part of her actually did wish she could linger for a while. Lorenzo was smarter than he looked, and he was a pleasant person, if you didn't mind that his eyeballs were spiders.

Alison found a seat in the private chamber of the Serpent's Fang and untensed herself. A week had passed since she'd been initiated into an inner echelon of the Hand. The Serpent's Fang was a tight circle of those who had earned the trust of L.S.
In an organization which made its mission the spread of knowledge to all those who honestly seek it, L.S. was one of the few true secrets that remained. No record existed of witnessing L.S., or speaking to them, or hearing such information secondhand. (Lying, in the Hand, is an even greater taboo than hiding information.)
The Serpent's Fang received its information from L.S. indirectly: letters that fade with the sunset, whispers of the wind, the subtle wisdom of synchronicity. Alison had been given a mission by letter: go to the Blood Moon Ball and arrange the exchange of a spellbook with a Dreadlord. This she had accomplished.
The letter had an inscription upon it: "Around and back, in the wind and the rain." Alison had asked what it meant; Amanda, her 'handler' of sorts, told her that it was an invocation of protection, and any of the Fang who was in danger could recite it, and harm would just tumble around them. It was a bit of good luck that one could keep in one's pocket. Alison didn't share her initial thought, which was that she didn't know that that little nursery rhyme she liked as a kid was from something. She always thought her dad had made it up.
Now that the musk of the grave had lifted, Alison felt comfortable opening the gift from her pyroclastic admirer. The box was soot-black and felt like the material those astronaut blankets were made from. She pulled off the bow and lifted the lid. A dim orange glow issued forth, and a grumbling.
Alison felt warmth from deep inside the box. It grew too hot for her to hold near her face, so she drew it back. The source of the light and sound and heat was an amorphous slimy shape that began to shift within the box. It raised up and began to slither out. Alison dropped the box before the glowing-hot tendril scorched her hand.
The mass that was her present oozed forth, dripping molten matter. The grumbling grew louder, and Alison could discern words.
"canfuckrightoffandsocanhissisteranddon'tgetmestartedonzeushe'ssuchasillybastardwithhis
horsingaroundwithmortalslutsandImeanliteralhorsing"
Alison picked up the box before it was melted in the creature's path. There was a label inside. "Enjoy the blasphemy slug! Happy Holidays!"
"Who would give this to someone!?" The blasphemy slug left a charred path of bubbling rock as it scaled the door. So much for the means of exit.
Alison surveyed her options. The docents would eventually dispose of the blasphemy slug in the usual manner, whatever that might be. After all, there was no way that the Library wouldn't have a procedure for fire elementals who stumble inside. What mattered, in the meantime, was personal safety. So Alison used the tool at her immediate disposal.
"Around and back, in the wind and the rain…" Alison felt invisible wards surround her. She'd warded herself in ritual settings before, but those were bars of stone, and these were bars of steel. Alison thought of the last time she had felt this safe. She'd been a child, playing with her toy steam engine, reciting that little rhyme…
"…clickety-clack go the wheels on the train." Without thinking about it, she muttered the rest of the couplet. Everything spun without moving until Alison was somewhere else.

The chamber had been precision-engineered. It had no doors or windows leading out, but a soft breeze flowed in, apparently through a fine golden mesh. The air smelled of fresh sheets and baking bread, although no linens could be— no, wait, there was a bedroom hidden on the other side of a closet. And the bread in the box had clearly been there for a while. Still, the chamber had been precision-engineered to feel like home.
Alison explored. There was a lighted mirror above a set of drawers, a hat rack, a lot of shelves. Alison opened a cupboard to find various tools, neatly arranged, each one labeled. And they were the serious, can't-fall-into-the-wrong-hands sort of tools. It was more than a little disconcerting to see relics of fallen god-kings alphebetized in a row like spices.
Alison scanned the shelves and picked up something that seemed like it would come in handy. She glanced at the hat rack. An arrow hung on the wall that pointed to it, so clearly it was important. It held a variety of different styles of headwear hung from it. Alison checked a porkpie hat and found an inscription. "The Garden is the Serpent's place." She put it on and checked the mirror.
A stranger looked back at her. Alison was startled and afraid she was being watched, so she tossed the hat away, then looked back up and saw a normal mirror. Alison added two and two.
She closely examined how her features looked in the hat. Her nose was indistinct, her mouth was… a mouth, her eyes could be best described as… there. Yes, this would come in handy. Alison spoke the magic words again. Success—she was back where she'd left, and it seemed like no time had passed. The slug hadn't changed positions, and the wooden door was still mostly a door.
Alison grasped the object she'd retrieved from the secret room. It was a doll made from a thick, translucent, tan material, sort of like rice paper. The label had called it "My First Hungry Ghost". It taught kids about mythology and fed upon their lifeforce for endless fun. She pulled the string and set it on the ground.
The doll began a jerking mechanical walk toward the blasphemy slug. A canned recording played. "Give me a big hug!" As it talked, the toy's gaping mouth moved up and down, and its stringy neck craned forward and back.
The hungry ghost doll climbed up the door's paneling toward the slug.
"andifIevergotmyhandsonaresIseriouslythinkIcouldtakehimhe'ssofuckingoverhypedIcanteventellyouinall
seriousnessthoughhecansuckmyfiery"
"Give me a big hug!" My First Hungry Ghost latched onto the blasphemy slug. The lever controlling its mouth went into spasm as the slug's light dimmed… and finally went out, with a meager
"andfuckalltheirmotherstoooo"
A face with ten arms cracked the door open and swept away the formerly-heretical pile of ash. It pulled something from somewhere and sprayed a cooling jet of air onto the hungry ghost doll, which itself was glowing with heat from the neck up. Then it withdrew with utmost discretion.
Now, Alison was back where she was two realtime minutes ago — trying to relax and take inventory of the situation on a comfortable chair. The sole difference was that she'd gotten a hat, a toy, and an escape device, and traded away her party favor and the condition of the room. She'd made worse bargains before.
In a moment of consideration, Alison decided she should take back the borrowed artifact. It had lost all its stored energy, and a gap in one's collection is usually the easiest possible thing to notice. So she vanished into the secret chamber once more.
Alison tucked My Little Hungry Ghost back into its resting spot. The hat… she hesitated. There were six to eight hats here, all near as identical, except for color and shape and probably function, she wasn't going to check. How would the owner miss one?
The owner. Alison had a guess who the room belonged to, but she needed confirmation. So she rooted in drawers a bit until she found it, underneath a desk. Sunset paper. Blank. Watermarked with a little motto and the initials L.S.
Alison was going to like it here.

There's a major axiom in the ways of magicians (one might call it a gilded rule) which covers an endless variety of situations and which, if properly understood, is a major revelation about the nature of magic itself. That rule is: fake it 'til you make it.
Normally, the bounds of this concept stop, clearly marked, at the border between the magical community at large and the Serpent's Hand, because self-deception is still deception. Honest and communicative is the way of the Hand.
But L.S. was no ordinary Hand member, were they? The rules didn't seem to quite apply to them. And Alison had the papers, the room, the key to the room… the power and secrecy of L.S., in short. All she had to do was use them, and she would become L.S., with all the privileges thereof. Alison decided it was the only responsible thing to do.
A missive went out from L.S. to a certain scribe, requesting that certain books be located and excerpts transcribed. Another reached a Foundation informant, requesting containment documents from a certain site. Both specified the same delivery point in the Library. Then a third went to a telepath favored by L.S., asking that the right information reach the right entities before the deadline. Thus it was ensured that the Armed Containment Area would face a battle on two fronts: from the empowered Insurgents, and from its enlightened captives.
Alison had always been running, redirecting force in one direction or another from the front lines. The Black Queen went all over the board. Now she had entire cells of the Serpent's Hand ready to fulfill her requests. It did cross her mind, as L.S., that the title wasn't hers until a week ago, and that with that L.S.'s plans about to come to fruition, that that L.S. would not be gone for much longer. But it didn't fully register with her until the time came.
Alison spoke the incantation and appeared in the L.S. room. She brushed past the attendant and set to work on a scrying spell, so that she could watch the events unfold. But Alison realized, to her dismay, that she had forgotten the powdered silver. So she opened cupboard after cupboard, hoping some would be around.
"Second shelf, third from the right," said the attendant, in a way that made Alison realize that the room didn't have an attendant.
"I knew this day would come." Alison began to mix her ingredients differently: the scrying spell would become a sending spell. "I need this, and I hope you understand."
"I do," said the attendant. "I understand better than you could know."
"Great, so you won't mind if I do this." Alison tossed the dust in an arc. The breeze blew it to the side, and a mirror was sent reeling into the Attic Dimensions.
"Was I ever this young?" The stranger removed her cap, and her face came into view. It was the same experience Alison had found looking into the mirror wearing her cap, except that the mirror had been teleported beyond the reach of thought or gravity, so this was clearly something else. "You're a driven woman. You're always a driven woman. Did you think that here, in the realm of those dissatisfied with the knowledge of a single universe, you wouldn't run into yourself sooner or later?
"No," said the other Alison, "and neither am I. This has all been built by us, for each other, with signs only we would see. I knew you'd find a way in."
"There's so much more for you to learn, Little Sister."

Footnotes
1. Don't worry, no Catholics were harmed. The CI has an endless fountain of the stuff.


Twitter. Tweet. Chirp. Cheep. Glarblegurglewurblebruuuupslurp.
There are many words for the sounds of birds, Sylvain Ailier thinks to himself. But it's hard to get the sounds of the words right.
Slllsslsllggglglgllsllsggg.
A hummingbird, he guesses. He's heard that strange combination of gurgling and slurping before, and usually the sound is accompanied by the sight of a deceptively innocent-looking tiny bird. Sylvain yawns and hops out of the almost cradle-like circle of weeping willow branches he'd picked out as a sleeping spot the night before.
Stretching out his arms and rotating his neck, the bird mage glances at the coat he'd been using as a blanket. Rummaging in the pockets, he withdraws a small cloth bag of birdseed. Smiling to himself, he pulls aside the hanging leaves of the weeping willow and walks out into the crisp morning air.
His wandering journeys had taken him to many picturesque places, and the mountain lake he'd stumbled upon while following a swallow was no exception. He enjoys this carefree, never-tied-down life, learning a little spellcasting here, some new words there. Whistling cheerfully, Sylvain pours a liberal amount of birdseed into his open hand. He considers the amount, then sprinkles some of the seeds on his shoulders and sits down. His trusty spirit staff, a keepsake of his first mentor, rests on the ground in front of him.
First a small songbird wings its way towards him, perching on his shoulder and pecking at the bird seed. An oriole stops by for a brief moment to sit on his hand and look at him, and soon Sylvain is surrounded by bright eyes and feathers.
He looks up when a shadow passes over and something with a wingspan the length of fifty little birds lands in front of him.
A Legendary Crow, Sylvain recognizes as the figure approaches on silent feet. Traditional clothes, avian and human features (arms, legs, wings), Japanese Tengu, perhaps. Whatever it is, it seems to be eying the still-open bag of birdseed lying on the ground. Sylvain waits patiently for the birds swarming around him to fly off into the trees, and wordlessly picks up the bag of birdseed and hands it to the crow-man, who rasps a word of thanks.
“Honored brother, what brings you to me?”
The crow-man pauses in his inspection of the birdseed, pulling his beak out of the bag. He folds his wings neatly, rummages in a traveler's pack slung over his back, and withdraws a small paper-wrapped box. Sylvain takes the proffered item and the crow goes back to pecking at the bag of birdseed.
Puzzling out the scrawled characters in black ink on the paper wrapping, Sylvain figures out that he is to make a delivery, to someone who lives deep in these mountains. Very deep. At least half the day's journey, plus time for stopping to ask directions many times. Sylvain glances at his spirit staff, glad for the many birds that live in the area.
Remembering his manners, the bird mage bows to the Tengu, tucking the box into a pocket of his coat. “Consider it done,” Sylvain says, and is rewarded with a friendly squawk from the crow-man before he takes off into the sky again.
Sylvain is halfway to his destination and thoroughly lost when he realizes that the Tengu never gave back the birdseed.
—-
Shiritori Zakuro looks up from the elegant spray of leaves she is carving on the wooden handle of what will soon be a demon priestess's comb. “Come in,” she calls over her shoulder, as she shifts in her seat and leaves her workspace. Her cotton robe trails a bit on the ground as she creeps on four red exoskeleton feet toward the entryway of her home, but it is the layers upon layers of folded paper decorations that she wears that weigh her down more. Paper birds and delicate kusudama tied with thin silk cord are woven into her long hair, and rustle with every move she makes.
When he first meets her, Sylvain wonders if Master Shiritori considers herself a fire hazard, what with all the paper she wears. He does not bring up this point at any time he converses with her.
Shiritori greets the bird mage graciously, serves him some tea, and takes the package he has delivered, unwrapping the paper and opening the box to find several gold pieces tucked into cloth padding. She smiles at the metal, murmuring something about a divine bow, and tucks the gold pieces into her sleeves. The sleeves are rather wide, Sylvain notices, to accommodate the scythe-like spikes that slant delicately from the master's forearms. He has never seen her in combat, but few mantis-kind battles are long enough to attract spectators. She turns towards the stove where a teakettle is still steaming, and Sylvain sees wings folded neatly at her back.
Sipping his tea, Sylvain reflects on his unusual luck. Z.S. of famed Hand lore was said to be a fabled apparatus-maker, a master of the crafting arts and item enchantments, and she'd praised the excellent condition of his spirit staff. Perhaps hearing that was worth wandering through path-less mountain scrub and needing to stop more times than he remembered for directions. He'd had to call several birds out of their daily routines, including one or two rather shady-looking ones with beady eyes and sharp beaks—
Snapping back to attention at the movement of something being pushed across the table towards him, Sylvain breaks through his fog of thoughts in time to hear Master Shiritori inquire as to if he'd be willing to make a delivery to a dear friend of hers in the forest on the western mountainside. It is some paper made of pressed leaves, nothing fancy, but it is something the friend has asked for many times. Sylvain agrees before he completely processes the information that said friend is roughly a thousand years old, somewhat eccentric, and also the relative of many beetles, so please don't eat any during your visit.
“…how many years, again?” He repeats when the silence has stretched just too far for his liking, and Master Shiritori just laughs, her voice like the wind chimes made of bones over her home's door. “Do not worry about meeting her. A journey born of friendship is always worthwhile.” Her black compound eyes twinkle as she begins to clear the tea things.
—-
A small figure is crouched before a large mossy rock, eyes fixed on what looks like an empty jar with small holes poked into the lid, sitting atop the stone in a cushion of lichen. Dressed in a tunic and long skirt fashioned from small, multicolored and interconnected metal pieces, the beetle girl Julodis is a bright spot of color in the otherwise dark undergrowth of the forest. Her metallic hair gleams with a blue sheen, which emphasizes the small but noticeable pair of antennae that sprouts from the crown of her head.
It has taken nearly three hours for Sylvain to find her, but fortunately the bundle of paper he is delivering is light. Still, he could use a nap, Sylvain thinks. There are many other things he would like to think on as well. What sound does a beetle make when it flies?
The bird mage pauses, setting his foot down carefully so as to not startle the girl who is so intent on her observation that she does not seem to move, to breathe. He approaches, slower, more steadily, and when he is close to the beetle girl he peers intently into the jar. He stares.
“…what are you doing?” is the first thing that leaves his mouth, though other questions in his mind are vying for recognition, questions such as “Where did you get that spider” and “Where did you get that large ant” and “Why are you staring at them climb around a jar.”
Flapping a hand at him silently, the beetle girl whispers back, “Shh. I'm writing a love story.” She smiles a dreamy smile, and continues with a slightly faraway look, “She's a queen ant. He's not that special so far as spider kind goes, usually he just barely captures enough of the regular ants to survive, fate threw them together…” she trails off and prods the side of the jar, knocking the spider back to the bottom, where the queen ant is pacing restlessly.
“Much as he admires her, much as he intrigues her, he will be her tragic end.” She tilts her head, and the faint, muted sunlight catches on the iridescent beetle wing ornaments that glitter at her ears. Sylvain blinks as he processes this tragic storyline.
A few heartbeats of silence later, Sylvain is fiddling with the twine adorning his spirit staff (and also discovering pocket lint in his coat) and he almost timidly offers, “If it's meant to be a tragedy, I can ask one of my friends to eat them both. Birds eat bugs…” he breaks off, wondering how to word the rest of the statement politely. “That way the spider doesn't have to kill his, erm, love.”
The beetle girl turns around and stares at the bird mage from where she sits, her antennae waving back and forth in agitation. “No. It must be their own nature that tears them apart. The heartbreak is more tangible—”
“I think,” Sylvain interrupts mildly, “You should stop shaking the jar…?”
Julodis's head whips back to the mossy stone, where her hand is, indeed, clenched around the jar and jostling it. She gasps. “When did the spider catch the ant? He must have been spinning web all this time they were walking in circles around each other!” She holds the jar up to her eyes, chattering on, “The spider isn't even moving. Just resting on the web, isn't moving, just—‘the spider holds his hapless victim close, mourning the law of nature that has led him to kill his queen.'” She sighs as she regards the jar fondly. A passing blue-gold beetle in flight lands on a leaf nearby, and begins to warble an aria in a high, tinny flutter of wings.
Sylvain somewhat spoils the effect by muttering, “Actually, I think the spider's eating.”
“She had gnawed on his heart for too long! Artistic license. Look at how the spider cradles the body.”
Sylvain manages an awkward chuckle, but quickly stops when he sees Julodis's expression.
“Are… is that a tear?”
“Shut up,” is the brisk response.
Sylvain directs his eyes skyward (or in the forest's case, canopy-ward) and stifles an exasperated comment. He withdraws the stack of leaf-pressed paper from his coat, and places it carefully on the mossy stone, in the space vacated by the jar. “Here. From Lady Shiritori. I wonder if these will soon bear words of tragedy and love.”
Julodis eyes the paper and grins, and Sylvain is reminded that a thousand years is young for someone who can live to be ten times that age. “Thank you, bird mage,” She says politely. “When you take the path back, take the turn that is lined with mint. Sing your avian songs as you walk, and you will find yourself at a wooden house. Please visit my brother at the foot of the mountain and let him know I have a new story for him. He will ensure the journey is worthwhile.”
The words are familiar. “A journey born of friendship is always worthwhile. Sayonara,” Sylvain bows slightly, shoulders his staff, and beats a hasty getaway before he starts to feel too uncomfortably sorry for a spider and an ant.
—-
“Ah, still writing, is she? That live-action as-it-happens tragic fanfiction stuff?” Vansoni, preferred name Vans, smiles a smile that showed a mouth full of unnaturally sharp (and spiny) teeth. “My sister was always a dreamer. Perhaps that's why she sees more than most.” The beetle man chuckles as he organizes a pile of assorted small debris on a table that he and the bird mage are seated at.
Vans continues to sort through a series of small dark pellets as Sylvain looks around the inside of the house. There are no walls that separate the space into rooms, but small wickerwork contraptions are suspended from cut tree branches that crisscross the ceiling like a web. Metallic beetles crawl like an ever-undulating blanket of color along the network. Vans himself, clad in a colorful loose-fitting coarse-cloth robe, seems to blend in well with them.
“In any event, it is good to hear from my little sister again, and good to hear that she has the means to remember her stories. Things are easy to forget over a thousand years, if one cannot write them down.” Vans reaches for a shelving unit under the table and takes something out of one of the drawers. “Please, accept this from the two of us.”
Sylvain accepts the cloth sack, hearing whatever it contains rustle as the pouch changes hands. “Thank you.”
Vans grins. “The beetles around here are on good terms with the birds. The smaller the limbs, the more delicate work can be done, the more food can be gathered. This blend convinces the birds around here to leave the beetles alone so they can keep gathering the ingredients.”
“Blend?” Sylvain inquires, though he feels he knows what the answer will be.
The beetle man nods, his stubby antennae bending once in a nod of their own. “Birdseed. Hope you like it.”
—-
Sylvain walks through the dwindling light of dusk, holding a bag of birdseed, nigh-identical to the one he'd taken from his coat pocket less than a turn of the sun ago.
A hundred steps later, he finds him at the base of a magnolia tree his feet have led him to without his head being aware of it. Sylvain leans his staff against the tree and looks up. He shrugs off his coat, tosses it onto a low branch, and scrambles up the crisscrossing sections of wood at the trunk. Leaning back against smooth bark, he opens the package. A moment later he is eating small handfuls of birdseed and humming snatches of avian lullabies as he chews.
He hears twittering from somewhere near the large white flowers on the eastern side of the tree. Smiling, the bird mage shifts to the side a little, and pours a neat pile of birdseed onto the three branches he can reach without getting up.
The chattering of birdsong lasts long into the evening. There are many words for the sounds of birds, Sylvain thinks, before dozing off.


« Showtime

Present Day

Sigurrós faced off against the faceless entity in front of her with growing curiosity.
She sent out her thoughts again, and probed further this time, feeling her mind enmesh with the mind of the thing in front of her — if it could be called a mind. It was like staring into an eternal maze of strings, stretched out on some vast cosmic framework set in in too many dimensions at once.
There was something else there — something —
Her mind touched something that wasn't there, and the backlash sent her flying physically backwards. She landed on her back, gazing up at the open sky, too stunned to move.
The voiceless voice and songless song filled her head again.
NEVERNEVERNEVERNEVER
Sigurrós telekinetically lifted herself to her feet. It was really very strange operating this body, this physical shell made of bones and muscle and tendons…
No. She couldn't get distracted, not right now. She focused on the blank-faced/many-faced thing in front of her.
Which was sort of easy to do, because it was sprouting masses of tentacles. And with her spirit-sight, she could see it spreading a countless number of wings.
Whatismynamewhatismynamewhatismyname?
The world stopped existing for a moment. Sloppy. Sigurrós brought it back.
"You can't just soft-delete things," Sigurrós said. "They're super easy to bring back. They come back on their own after a minute anyway and no one notices."
The thing did not answer in words. It opened its mouth without opening its mouth, and a river poured out — no, a tsunami, a tsunami of blue-black water imbued with want and longing and forever. Sigurrós turned the water into a swarm of birds and butterflies, blanketing Site-17 with their wings.
The thing flew into the air and thrust its tentacles into the buildings surrounding them. The buildings turned into a massive wave of spiders that came crashing down on them. Sigurrós, who'd always liked bugs, let the wave come.
That was a mistake. The spiders weren't just spiders. They were the idea of spiders, the fears and genetic arachnophobia of everything that had ever walked this corrupted Way. All concentrated in each of every one of the billions of spiders making up the wave.
Sigurrós screamed as the mass swallowed her up.

Alison was planting her focus flower in the middle of Site-17's personnel offices when a mental attack bowled her over.
The entity was coming at her through Sigurrós. In her mind's eye, she could see a tendril lashing out, piggybacking from Sigurrós' mind straight into hers.
She was only a couple gestures away from success — gods be damned, if she could just —
NEVER NEVER NEVER
Alison rolled on the floor, clutching her head as if that would help.
WHAT IS MY NAME WHAT IS YOUR NAME WHAT IS MY NAME WHAT IS YOUR NAME
She forced herself to hold still. Concentrate.
ALISON CHAO — BLACK QUEEN — LITTLE SISTER — LOST SINNER — LAST SAINT — LONELY SERPENT — LOKI SCAR-LIP — LEASE SIGNATORY —
LITTLE SISTER — LITTLE SISTER — LITTLE SISTER
Her eyes rolled back up in her head. She struggled to hold on to her own existence.

"Rita," Cross said.
Rita was not in a very good state. She wasn't crying, but she was all but. The gun shook in her hand, but not enough that it wavered from being aimed at her sister's head.
"I wouldn't believe it when they told me," Cross said. "My sister, working for the Foundation."
No, shut up, wrong thing to say— Campbell thought. But of course thinking at Cross that she should stop talking was even less effective than telling Cross to stop talking.
"My sister working for the Serpent's Hand!" Rita shouted back. She was tearing up. Campbell didn't know how to interpret this. "My sister the terrorist. My sister the woman trying to destroy the world!"
"I'm not trying to destroy the world," Cross said. "I'm trying to save it, goddammit—"
"Put that fucking thing down!"
Cross slowly lowered the plant to the ground. "Rita—"
"Don't you say my name!."
"I think she's telling the truth, Rita," Campbell said, hesitantly.
"And you," Rita said. "You've been working with her this whole time? I trusted you, Kendra!"
"I didn't know a thing about this until today!"
"I don't believe you."
"You saw the interview logs," Campbell said. "I know you did, I saw your requisition request on them. You know exactly what I knew until today." Well, except the single unreported message, but Campbell wasn't about to split hairs with an angry woman holding a gun.
"You read the logs of my interview with Dr. Campbell?" Cross asked. "I didn't think you would."
Rita stayed silent.
"Everything I said in there was true," Cross said. "Everything—"
"Be quiet," Rita said. "Just… for the love of God… shut up!"

Sigurrós writhed in fear for a long minute, at the bottom of the sea of spiders. Then something in the back of her mind said really, now.
The solution is obvious, actually, that small detached part of her mind said. The way to not be afraid of spiders is to be a spider yourself.
So Sigurrós became a spider.
She didn't just become any spider. She became the Queen of All Spiders.
The other spiders around her bowed their spider heads in awe.
She was about to command them to become something slightly more adorable when the Way's mind struck at her, trying to hammer her into submission with direct force.
That's just insulting, Sigurrós thought. Not clever at all.
She hurled her mind back in response. At the same time, she turned the world around them into cotton candy. Fluffy spider cotton candy.
The Way didn't anticipate the simultaneous attack. Its physical body went toppling over, and its mind jerked away from her as it struggled to disentangle its body from the cotton candy. Sigurrós took advantage of that to probe again into the thing's confused, alien mind.
No. Not mind. Minds.
There was something else there, something that also wasn't there at all. A crouching parasite piggybacking behind the many eyes of the corrupted Way.
Sigurrós knew its name, the name of the lack of name. Neverwere.
Neverwere, Neverwas, Neverwillbe.
She tried to think about what she should do, but… she found she could hardly think. She was beginning to feel extremely tired.
It wasn't even the corrupted Way exerting its will at her. She hadn't had to exert herself this much on purpose in… in ever.
Alison and the others had warned her about this. They said that when it happened, she should look for her foci. They would shine like bright stars in her mental landscape. Use them as anchors, they said. So you don't get cut loose and drift away.
But there was nothing there. No foci. No bright stars.
Had Alison and her friends failed to set up the foci? Her mental landscape was barren.
The Way's tentacles wrapped around her. Each of them had a different emotion, a different tantalizing nature. Each one was a different path through the worlds. Each one could smother and strangle and kill.
Sigurrós was finding it harder and harder to care.
All these visions. All these visions of things she'd never seen, touched, tasted, experienced. She'd thought she had it okay, drifting around and watching in an astral body, keeping her physical form asleep.
She was wrong. She'd experienced nothing like the visions she was seeing now.
She was walking the beaches of Zebedee. Running through the jungles of Albenon. Tasting the redfruit juices of the Ravelwoods.
She could die here, and that would be okay. Rather than live experiencing a twentieth of a lifetime, she could die experiencing what most wouldn't experience in a thousand lifetimes.
But…
Then she saw the vision she'd had before, the vision of the future, of the Way-Neverwere-Way self-destructing into the hole in reality that would stay forever until the heat death of this universe. A black smirch where there once was a living, promising planet.
Her fault.
No.
There were still things she needed to do. Here, on Earth. She'd never been to high school. She'd never played a video game. She'd never gone to a movie theater. She'd never been grocery shopping. She'd never been to Disneyland. These were silly things, but sometimes the silly things mattered the most.
No. Not yet.
She pulled herself back from the brink and threw off the Way's tentacles, one by one.
The Way-Neverwere-Way resisted. It flung its mind at her again, but this time its mind was like a world in and of itself, an overwhelming force full of emotion. She couldn't directly counter it — she envisioned its mental attack as a vast metal scorpion's tail, and barely deflected it with a conjured mirror-shield.
The tail-sword deflected off the mirror and flew upward in the sky, striking it as if it were a dome, cracking the sky down the middle.
The world around them turned to barbed wire and ice. She transformed it to autumn leaves and gentle snowflakes.
The world turned to blood and ash. She transformed it to strawberry jello and diamond dust.
The world turned to the deep blackness of space. She transformed it to the cool midnight of full moons.
Finally, she managed to reset things back to normal.
Unfortunately, time was still running out, and to borrow a sports metaphor from games Sigurrós only half understood, she was only playing defense.
Two minutes left until the end of the world.

"I've been thinking about this a long time." Rita steadied her arms. "This is about courage. The courage to do the right thing, even when everyone else is telling you not to."
"Are you going to kill me, Rita? If I pick up this plant to save the world, are you going to kill me?"
"I will if I have to," Rita said. "That's what courage is."
"The courage to kill your own sister? Are you even listening to yourself?"
Thunder rolled in the background. Flashes of light came from outside. Campbell glanced at the cameras. Most of them were down.
The few left showed… places like other worlds, protean, shifting. Distant views of a grudge match like the world almost never saw, between ancient gods from the primordial world. Campbell tensed, ready to… ready to she-didn't-know-what.
"Maybe it is about courage," Cross said. "Sure, the courage to do the right thing. But what the hell is the right thing here?"
"It's about having the courage to follow the rules," Rita said. "Even when it's the hardest thing to do."
"What if the rules are wrong?"
The walls shook. Black ice crept across the windows, then receded. The area of effect of the reality bender fight was increasing, rapidly.
"We're not wrong," Rita said. Though there was a slight note of hesitation in her voice. "The Foundation defends reality. We're the last line of defense between humanity and—"
"The world could end any second right now," Cross said. "Literally any fucking second! There are two reality benders fighting out there. Sigurrós is trying to save the world. The other one is trying to wipe it from reality. I want to help Sigurrós. That's the only reason I'm here. That's all this magical plant does. And you're making sure I can't help her. What kind of last defense of humanity is that?"
The two sisters stared at each other. A thunderstorm raged, suddenly, in the corners of the room, replaced by radiant diffuse gold light, replaced by a rainbow array of snakes, which finally vanished altogether.
Cross' shoulders slumped. "I'm sorry," she said "I've never been a good sister. Not when we were young and I hid your dolls all the time… and not after that either. I'm sorry for steamrolling over you all the time. For not caring enough about your feelings. Just… please. Help me save the world."
"Even if you're right," Rita said in a quiet voice, "it wouldn't matter. You don't understand the reach of the Foundation — even if the world ended right now, they could bring it back three times over — you can't just leave something like this, you can't —"
"Please," Cross said. "Please just listen."
"I can't," Rita said.
They were all surrounded by snow and sleet, for a split second, and then it was gone. A flock of winged blue frogs flew overhead.
"Please," Cross said. "You don't have to be alone anymore. Come with me. Come home."
"Maybe they can bring you back too," Rita said.
Campbell saw the decision on Rita's face a split second before she pulled the trigger, and leaped at her. She collided with Rita just as the gun went off.
The world changed to water. Thick water, suspending them all in slow motion just for one moment. In that split second, Campbell saw Cross falling backwards, blood ballooning outward.

Without anything to anchor her, Sigurrós floundered. The Neverwere/Way chanted in her head.
Whatismynamewhatisyournamewhatismyname
My name is Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir, she thought. It's a good name. But I might not have it for much longer.
She felt like she was floating at the top of a well, with deep, deep water before. It would be so easy to just … let go, and sink, sink forever, into the blissful abyss…
She didn't let go, but she sank anyway.
She felt herself becoming half-real. Half-real, and falling asleep.
One minute left until the end of the world.
never… never… never… never…

Cross lay still on the ground. Rita coughed, spat out alien water, and scrambled to her feet. Campbell was impressed to see that she'd managed to keep hold of the gun.
For a moment, Campbell and Rita just stood there, neither knowing what to do.
Then Rita's eyes widened, and her body went limp. She collapsed to the floor, gun clattering away from nerveless fingers.
Campbell looked over at Cross. She was clutching her side with one bloody hand. The other hand held a jagged piece of metal, aimed at Rita.
A… wand?
After a moment, Cross dropped the piece of metal, picked up the strange plant and determinedly started making hand gestures again.
Abruptly, a web of light burst from the pot end of the plant and rooted itself in the floor. The red-pink blossom at the end suffused with light.

The Neverwere loosened its grip on Alison's mind, sensing Sigurrós was becoming — astonishingly — an easier kill. And certainly more tempting.
Alison forced herself into action. She pulled herself off the floor, held onto the damned focus flower stem for dear life, and with great difficulty performed the last two hand motions.
She allowed herself a small victorious smile as the flower bloomed before her eyes, lighting up the room.

Thirty seconds left until the end of the world.
Sigurrós had almost lost sight of the surface when she saw two sudden lights bloom in her mind's eye.
They called to her. They pulled her mind back towards them. Her anchors were here.
With a sudden burst of metaphysical adrenaline, and the pull of the foci, she forced herself through the heavy water and back into her own mind.
Fifteen seconds left until the end of the world.
She was encompassed by the tentacles of the Way-Neverwere-Way, both in the physical world and the spiritual world. Instead of panic, the position brought her a burst of clarity.
She'd been going about this wrong. You couldn't kill a Way. It was a Way. And you couldn't kill a Neverwere. You couldn't put something out of existence that didn't exist in the first place.
Five seconds left until the end of the world.
She felt the creature's anguish reach its fever pitch in response to its contact with her mind.
Zero seconds left until the end of the world.
But she wasn't afraid anymore, because she knew the answer. She didn't need any more time to stop the end of the world.
She couldn't kill this creature. But she could heal it.
She felt the Way's core begin to collapse in on itself — she felt the end of the world begin —
She saw it all in her mind, the hole tearing in the middle of reality, all of Earth collapsing into the hole left in the middle of Site-17. That vision of her drifting off into space…
And she said, "No."
She reached into the forming hole in the world, into the heart of the suffering, broken Way, and she pulled it inside out. She pulled the Neverwere right out of it, and into…
Into essence. Into existence.
Inside Site-17, the earth and sky shook for nearly a full minute.
And then all three of them, Sigurrós, the Neverwere, and the broken Way, disappeared into thin air, leaving only dust and quiet behind.

Campbell pulled herself up off the ground once she was sure the quake was done. She glanced over at Cross, with a questioning look.
"I'm alright," Cross said. "Just a flesh wound, as they say in the movies. Sealed it up for now. Gonna leave a nasty scar." She laughed, wincing halfway through. "I can see why it had to be you."
"What?"
"Rita would've shot any of my people on sight. Any of your people would've shot me before she did."
"Still not getting what you mean," Campbell said.
"The augurs said that I had to approach you," Cross said. "That's why I tried so hard to convert you. Why I went to you today. Not just affection. The augurs said that if you were here, I might survive, and if you weren't, I wouldn't." She looked down at her side. "This bullet would've been in my head if you hadn't come. Thank you."
"Augurs said to approach me?" Campbell said. "I thought Fate wasn't a real thing. No gods, no plans, right?"
"Right." Cross chuckled. "Nothing's meant to be. Just mathematical predictions and knowledge of possible futures. Just… playing the odds. Turned out alright, didn't it?"
Cross hauled herself to her feet and walked slowly over towards Rita. She stared at her sister's face for a long moment, at her wide-open, staring eyes.
"Paralytic spell," Cross said. "Will wear off in a couple hours and she'll be fine. Well… physically fine."
She reached down and carefully closed both of her sister's eyelids.
Campbell said, "They're gonna establish security pretty quickly now that the reality benders are gone. You have to get out of here."
"What about you?" Cross asked.
"What?"
Cross pressed an object into her hand. Campbell looked at it. A small green card, with a tiny moving holographic arrow dancing on its surface.
"It's a temporary Library Card," Cross said. "Site-17's East Gate is breached. That thing blew a hole in it when it broke out. There's a Way in the forest outside. "
"I'm a Foundation member," Campbell said. "The Library won't let us use Ways to enter it." Foundation members could try to enter the Library, but the Library just rerouted them to very unpleasant places. "Even if I could use the Way, security will just follow me—"
"It's a special Way," Cross said. "L.S. commissioned it from the Library, as a reward. It's impossible for Foundation members to physically enter. Except you. Because you'll have this Card."
"But you—"
"I have my own paths out," Cross said. "I can only take them alone. So you have to go alone too. The arrow on the Card will guide you. You'll see a crook between two trees with a bit of blue spray-paint on it. The Way will automatically open for you."
Campbell felt troubled.
"Listen," Cross said. "This will probably be your only chance. If you're ever willing to take a leap of faith… now's the time to leap."
Cross held Campbell's gaze for a long second, then — surprisingly, without more words — turned and hobbled off for the opposite door.
Campbell stood still for a moment longer.
Then she made her decision, and headed for the East Gate.

Alison took the scenic route of out Site-17's personnel office building. It took her about twenty extra minutes — twenty dangerous minutes, during which Site-17 inched closer and closer to sealing their numerous security breaches.
But it was well worth the effort, she thought, when she finally found the right office. The office with the name plaque reading, simply, "Doctor Gears".
She'd expected the office to be empty. It was not.
Alison held her father's gaze for a long moment, before either of them spoke.
"Alison Chao," Gears said. His voice betrayed no emotion.
"Yes," Alison said.
Neither of them said anything for a long moment.
"Temporary office, right?" Alison asked.
"Yes," Gears said. "I was assigned here in anticipation of dealing with a security breach. Your security breach, I presume."
"I'm on my way out," Alison said. "Unless you have a method by which you are able to detain me."
"I do not," Gears conceded.
Alison held out a long-stemmed black flower, in offering.
"It's an anise rose," Alison said. "Doesn't exist in this particular universe. Should give you some good data. You should take it."
After a moment, Gears took it.
"Don't lose it," Alison said. "It's extremely expensive."
Gears contemplated the flower for a moment in silence.
"Goodbye, Doctor Gears," Alison said.
"Goodbye, Alison Chao," Gears said.

Campbell stumbled through the woods east of Site-17, following the tiny arrow on the card. She hadn't even known there were woods here, not until today. She'd only ever seen the outside of the front gate, surrounded by concrete and iron, and then only for the few seconds before she'd been bustled out or in during her arrivals and departures.
She felt dizzy. Insane. She still only half believed she was doing what she was doing.
Defection. Defecting.
She wasn't as in shape as she could be. Her limbs screamed at her in protest, telling her to stop running. At this point, fear was driving her on more than anything else.
Maybe it's not too late, she thought. But, no. She'd just seen the Serpent's Hand save the world. How could she go back to the Foundation now?
A little map showed her that the entrance to the Way was just ahead. It did not show her the sudden steep slope before it.
Campbell went tumbling.
She managed to catch herself halfway down the slope. She picked up the dropped Library Card. It was bent.
She unbent it. There was a crease through it now. That was worrying.
Campbell made the rest of her way down the slope more carefully, covered in mud and sticks. Now she properly looked the part, she thought inanely. Fugitive from the Man.
She reached the bottom of the slope and found the trees with the blue spray paint. She stood in front of them expectantly, feeling a little foolish.
Nothing happened.
She got up closer to the tree. Feeling even more foolish, she put her hand on the fading spray paint. Then both hands. Then waited some more.
Still, nothing happened.
She pulled the Library Card out of her pocket, waved it in the air, up and down, around and around, feeling sillier by the minute.
She examined at the Library Card. The little arrow had disappeared, but that wasn't surprising. The crease looked the same. She flipped the card over.
Oh.
Little holographic letters had appeared on the back of the Card, in tidy small print. Your Card is damaged and cannot be read. Please return to the Library for replacement. Thank you for your Patronage.
Campbell laughed.
Then she laughed again. And kept laughing. She turned around and sank to the ground, her back to the blue-spray-painted trees, still laughing.
"Jesus," she said aloud. "After all that. Just… Nothing."
"Shame," a voice said from amongst the tree trunks.
A man stepped out from the shadows. John Peters. MTF Tau-9 local section leader.
"Was really hoping that would work out," Peters said. "For your sake."
Campbell just stared.
"Well?" Peters asked. "Nothing to say for yourself?"
"You knew I'd defect," Campbell said.
Peters chuckled. "I give you credit for not trying to hide it. Like I always tell people… it's about courage. Shame it's coming from you."
"How long did you know?"
Peters glanced to the side for a moment. "We knew Cross would target you from the moment she showed up. We knew it was never gonna be poor Rita."
"Oh?"
"Unfortunately, we didn't know why she was targeting you. Hell, we still don't. We tried a whole lot of junk that didn't work. You remember those questionnaire lists. That was supposed to induce some kind of memetic trigger, I think. Didn't work too well. Or at all. Memetics is fucking bullshit."
Campbell found herself wishing she had a drink. If she was about to die anyway, may as well be dead drunk. Ha. Accidental pun.
"Since we had to throw you to the lions anyway," Peters said, "we — well, I — I just hoped you wouldn't fall for all that shit."
"What's to fall for?" Campbell asked. "Looked to me like the Serpent's Hand just literally saved the world. It was pretty convincing."
"Oh, c'mon, Campbell," Peters said. "The world isn't so fragile that it needs some snake-worshipping nutjobs to save its ass every fuckin' Tuesday. I guarantee you that if they hadn't been there, we'd be just fine. The Foundation always figures a way out. That's why we're still here."
"Weak anthropic principle," Campbell said. "Conditions that are observed in the universe must allow the observer to exist."
Peters laughed. "Man, that Cross girl. She really did a number on you, didn't she?"
"I guess so," Campbell said. "How come it's just you here?"
"There was a whole MTF section stationed here, but then the breach happened. See, I wasn't even here, but I got to thinking… if I were gonna defect, when would I do it? And…"
"You knew they'd let me into the Library."
"Yeah. We had a plan to piggyback. At least get a bug in there on you. Set up eventual entrance." Peters shrugged. "That's all garbage now, of course. For old times' sake, I'm gonna do you the favor of not taking you back to the Site. You ain't got any anomalous protections, and I really hate torturing old friends." Peters raised his gun. Aimed it at her head. "Any last words you want me to pass on?"
"Yeah," Campbell said. "Yeah, I do. I have a confession to make."
Peters raised an eyebrow. "And that is?"
"I think the Foundation can go straight to hell," Campbell said. She flipped him off with both her middle fingers. "Nothing personal. Just asking you to pass it on."
Peters chuckled. "I guess there are worse last words," he said. He pulled the trigger.
Campbell waited, watching the gun fire.
Strange. The gunshot seemed to be happening in slow motion. The whole world had slowed to a crawl.
Is this what it's like to die? she wondered. Kinda cool, I guess. All things considered.
Then she noticed the light glimmering behind her. The light of the Way opening.
She turned. Beyond the Way's light, she could see… tables. Books. Stacks and stacks of books. Books lined up to high heaven.
The Way was open. Saving her.
And Kendra Campbell realized that she was no longer a member of the SCP Foundation.
Okay, she thought to herself. Guess it's not time to die yet.
She walked through the Way, and into the Library. The Way closed behind her.
Back in the forest, the bullet carved out a path in the crooked trees, ricocheting across trunks before harmlessly burying itself in a pile of mud some distance away.
"Well," Peters said to the empty forest. "Alright then."

Alison reached the Hand safe house, thirty minutes behind schedule.
She walked in on Joanna Cross having her torso wrapped in bandages by an annoyed-looking Septima.
"You're late," Cross said.
"Who shot you?" Alison asked. "Dr. Campbell?"
"Nope. She saved my life, actually." Cross winced as Septima wrapped another bandage a little too tight. "My sister shot me. Rita."
"Shit," Alison said. "I'm sorry. I told her to go help you."
"I thought you might have," Cross said. "Don't worry about it. Maybe there's still a chance. I mean, she did fail to kill me. So there's that."
"Not giving up on her, huh?"
"Not any sooner than you're giving up on your dad." Cross half-smiled.
"Fair," Alison said. "What happened to Campbell?"
"She made it to the Library," Cross said. "We'll head over there in a bit, give her a welcoming party. When I'm, you know. Less horribly in pain. What did you do with the Witch Child?"
Alison smiled.

Rita Butler awoke in the medical ward.
The paralysis was still taking its time wearing off. But she managed to prop herself up and look around.
The ward was swarming with activity. She'd been relegated to a corner stretcher, probably because the doctors didn't know what was actually wrong with her.
The Foundation didn't deal in magic, after all. Not at this clearance level.
She could call out, she thought, with enough effort. But she wasn't sure what the point of calling out was.
A woman walked by with an open, friendly face that Rita recognized from Tau-9. She briefly debated calling out for her. Just for the company. But… she couldn't remember the name. Adele? Lily? Jill? …and it didn't matter anyway, the woman was heading for another bed, enthusiastically grabbing the hand of another woman lying there waiting.
Rita wondered if her sister had survived. She remembered those last moments, before she'd made the final decision to pull the trigger—
No. There was no final decision. It was always going to pan out that way. That was how things had to have gone. She was sure that Joanna knew that, deep down, too.
Acceptance is its own kind of courage, she told herself. It felt hollow.
Rita Butler lay there long into the night, on her stretcher in the corner, alone.

In a maternity ward not so far away from Site-17, in the world of the mundane, a newborn baby took in its first breath of air. The quickening. The moment when, metaphysically speaking, the soul enters the body.
The baby had matted black hair and bright brown eyes. It had red baby gums and pliable baby fingers and soft baby skin. It had cartilage and tendons and bones and blood and a mind.
It was real. It existed. It was happy.

Epilogue

"I have to admit," Alison Chao said, surveying the crowd below, "I didn't expect that outcome."
Next to her, Sigurrós Stefánsdóttir kicked her feet. "I couldn't kill it. I had to make it real."
"You realize that's never been done before, right?" Alison asked. "The Neverwere can't be truly real. That's their defining factor. It just… breaks the laws of the universe to say otherwise."
"Maybe the problem is with the laws of the universe, then," Sigurrós said.
Alison laughed. "You're entirely too precocious for your own good, you know? Maybe one day soon you'll be a god asking me to bring burnt offerings to your altar."
Sigurrós frowned. "No," she said. "I'm not gonna become a god. I'm just… me."
"Maybe so," Alison said. "Not a god, not a demon. A witch girl. I approve of that. You know, that reminds me. Septima wrote you some poetry."
"She did?" Sigurrós' mouth formed a perfect "o". That little kid was really too adorable for her own good, sometimes. "Tell me!"
"The Witch Child and her children stood on the Jailors' ground," Alison began.
"There to fight the enemy, the Neverwere.
"For the Witch Child is the only thing that can prevent the unmade from unmaking.
"And lo, did Sigur make the Neverwere made.
"And lo, did they become defined and real,
"Their torments as half-truths and ephemera ended,
"For the only thing that can end the torture of half-existence is existence.
"By Septima Varan, the High Enchantress, and Ever-Faithful Follower of The Woman With Stars In Her Eyes.
"That last part still means you. Septima seemed very insistent on that particular title."
Sigurrós smiled and clapped her hands. "It was only one Neverwere, though."
"Artistic license," Alison said. "You know, you really could be quite the god if you wanted to."
"Nope," Sigurrós said.
"So you're sure you want to go back to the Foundation after this," Alison said. "Go back to your half-real coma?"
"Yes," Sigurrós said. "I have… unfinished business. Not ready to leave yet. And I have friends there."
"Friends."
"Yup."
"Suit yourself," Alison said. "Let me know if you change your mind."
"Okay."
"So…" Alison continued. "We made a bargain, didn't we? You performed me a service, I need to perform you a service. That's the rules of magical bargains. Even exchange. Makes the whole universe balance out. And I am told that I am a woman who makes good on her bargains."
Sigurrós wore a huge grin. "Yup."
Alison looked down from their perch atop the archway entrance to Disneyland. "Which ride would you like to go on first?"
"I've always wanted to see the Pirates of the Caribbean," Sigurrós said.
"That one's cool," Alison said. "Jungle Cruise is better."
"That's the one with rainforest animals, right?"
"Yup."
"Only if you let me turn all the animals real for a minute."
"No. Definitely not."
"Just for a second! Promise!"
"Fine," Alison said. "But only for one second. No further. Deal?"
"Deal," Sigurrós said.
"Alright." Alison stood up. "Let's go to Disneyland."
And so they did.

End.

« Showtime