The Flight

“This isn’t when you’re supposed to help her!” Timoteo snapped. “Now take your stupid librem and run! RUN!”

That’s what they did: RUN! They didn’t have a choice. Epinephrine had taken over.

Sympathizing with the excruciating pain of Lithuania’s savaged spine or wondering about how Timoteo knew about the librem – did they talk too loud? he couldn’t have seen it – and what on Coralende was going on with Lithuania and her blue dots – was she divining? but she didn’t seem to be in control and if that were divining why didn’t winfry and isa glow blue? and what was she going to say about her sisters? –and why was Timoteo such a douche to them? …

All that cerebral activity, given the dire circumstances, would have been absurd. So their brains switched off and they booked it. winfry didn’t hear the thunder of the tunnel caving in around him let alone the screeching of the Assmachestani forces above. He didn’t even realize how much the floor was shaking, later recalling only a light tremor underfoot. He just ran like mad and kept track of isa.

With longer legs, winfry could have easily outrun isa but he kept her in front in case something happened. And of course something did. One of the more violent tremors jerked off a pipe from the ceiling. isa wasn’t quick enough and the metal beam struck her across the shoulder sending her face first into the floor. Without any hesitation, winfry swooped down, scooped isa up like a track baton and kept on running. It took a punch in the chest for winfry to realize that isa wasn’t unconscious and could run by herself.

While both isa and winfry had seen the North Tower through their divining, they had no real idea of how far it was and their muscles were approaching oxygen debt. But the tremors had diminished in force and frequency and it seemed as if they were distancing themselves from the Assmachestani strike. So they let themselves let up.

And then they heard it. Rattling down the tunnel came the cry of an Assmachestani assassin. Given the trauma those devils put them through before Lithuania found them, they would remember that sound even after Alzheimer’s. At least this time they knew it was coming. While winfry pulled out the librem from his jacket pocket, wrote in a rock and illuminated the tunnel, isa divined a 2 foot diameter ball of fire. After their first attack, they planned out how to deal with the monsters. And although their plan was only minimally effective in the woods, this tunnel was a different story. With the passage illuminated they could see the black blur 100 meters away hurtling towards them like a bat out of hell. As it narrowed in, winfry launched the rock and the assassin easily swooped to the left, right into the 573 K sphere of flames isa sent moments after winfry threw the rock. The charred remains slid past winfry’s foot. That was easy. It made isa and winfry look like a pair of bona fide adventurers instead of just an oddly romantic and bookish couple. At least until the rest of the assmachestani force charged through the tunnel.

Throughout their blunderings in the woods, winfry and isa had discovered quiet a few of the agents of Assmachestani: the toxic deep purple fungus that set off heat-triggered explosions, the reptile that moved and looked like a small wolf that spit sparks that torched whatever they landed on and left burns that were nearly impossible to heal even with divining, the creature that left ostrich sized bird tracks throughout the woods and of course our dearly beloved winged assassins. This time, storming up the tunnel were a trio of assassins, a pair of the wolf-lizards and a woman in an odd military sort of outfit.

The woman shouted in a foreign language and the three assassins shot out in front of the group while the wolf-lizards closed in just in front of her. Not even a miracle would help winfry and isa defeat this Assmachestani force; it was time to fly. With the monsters still 70 meters away, isa triggered an explosion that brought the ceiling down just in front of their attackers, grabbed winfry’s hand and ran. But before they could get much of a head start they heard another explosion and the assassins swooped out of a path cleared through the rubble. Heart rates must have hit the turbo boost, when isa and winfry looked back to see the woman emerge from the clearing aglow with a halo of blue. This time, winfry grabbed isa’s hand, pulled her forward and shouted through gasps of air, “On three… we turn … and give them… everything we’ve got… trust me… 1… 2… 3!”

A wave of blinding light stunned their adversaries followed by a shower of rocks. It was the best isa could muster and it wasn’t enough. Their hunters were thrown off guard and bruised but even without full eyesight they continued to advance. When they regained their eyesight, the Assmachestanis received an even greater shock. Their prey was gone.


“isa, are you ok?”

“Yes dear.”

isa and winfry were satnding in a dark narrow hallway.

“Are we in the…”

“North Tower. I hope so.”

“But how did you get use here?”

“I’m not really sure myself but we don’t have time for that story right now. We need to find Latvia and Estonia immediately. They are Lithuania’s only hope.”

And the two dash off down the hallway as fast as their fatigue would carry them but you and I don’t have to hurry so lucky you get to hear the story: while the light-rock storm occupied the hunters and isa all but collapsed, winfry scribbled down a word in the librem: safe.

But back to our other story. Not far down the hallway, isa and winfry ran into a room with Felix Sombrero and two women they shouldn’t have been able to recognize.

“Thank God we found you three.”

“Latvia and Estonia, your sister needs your help now. We don’t have time to explain. We have to act now.”

The sisters were deer-in-the-headlights-dazed times ten but they somehow knew, as they unconsciously slipped into a quilaire-induced high, exactly what to do.

Bright Blue

“You took quite a risk telling me all those things you shouldn’t even know,” said Lithuania. “What makes you two so desperate?”

Winfry and Isa looked at Lithuania, then at each other, then back at Lithuania. “Well we are about to die if you don’t do something about it,” said Winfry. “So…”

Lithuania looked up at the ceiling, as if she could see through to what was above ground. “How do you know this?”

“There really isn’t much time for explanations,” said Isa. “If we don’t move soon, we’ll get cut off from the next tower.”

“What more do you know?”

Winfry shrugged. “We don’t really choose to know what we know. What we’ve told you is all we’ve got.”

Lithuania frowned. “Sure.” She didn’t know the full story behind these two, and that bothered her. But she was also convinced that what they said was true. But she needed to keep up the suspicious front—if they were truly helpless in her hands, then they’d divulge as much information as they could, if only to assuage Lithuania’s suspicious and get on her good side. If she became friendly too quickly, they’d grow comfortable. They’d think she’d be OK with their hiding the truth from her, because she’d already trust them. She needed to keep them proving themselves to her. At least until she knew everything they knew.

“Felix!” Lithuania called from the cell, hoping he’d hear her from somewhere down the tunnel. No reply. She rose, left the cell, locked the door, and walked over to Timoteo. “Hey you.” She unlocked his cell door.

Timoteo was on his stool, elbows on his knees, eyes to the ground. “Yes love?”

“Shut up. Get up. We’re moving.”

“I hear there’s danger afoot,” he said, eyes glinting mischievously as they met Lithuania’s.

“And it’d better not be your fault. Now get up.”

“Aren’t you going to need a man to escort me?”

Lithuania whipped out her pistol. “I’ve got everything I need. Now move it.”

She led Timoteo out his cell and had him walk down the dungeons in front of her. “Winfry, Isa,” she said. “I’m taking Timoteo down to the next tower. I’ll come back for you in a bit.”

“No!” cried Isa, eyes wide. “We don’t have enough time!”

Lithuania’s expression darkened. “You serious? Not enough time for me to drop him off and come back for you?”

“There really isn’t,” said Winfry. “But you don’t need to worry about—about escorting us or anything. It’s not like we’re going to run away.”

Lithuania glowered. If they were right, they were in more danger than she thought. They were unprepared. Any attack on the tunnels would effectively be a surprise attack. And being unable to communicate with Felix only made things worse. She whipped out her keys and unlocked the cell in a single swift motion. “This doesn’t mean I trust you. Come on.”

Together they walked down the tunnels, Isa and Winfry leading the way, followed by Timoteo, and lastly Lithuania, her gun pointing straight at Timoteo’s back. The pitter-patter of their footsteps was the only sound echoing down the black tunnel.

Suddenly, Lithuania felt a strange sensation. An uncomfortable lightheadedness—a rush of dizziness, like her soul was rising and leaving her body. She stumbled.

“You alright there, princess?” said Timoteo.

“Keep walking,” she growled, pressing her pistol into his back. She blinked hard. Once, twice. She felt like she was going to faint. And then, a tightness in her chest—her arms, her neck, her scalp, all felt compressed—squeezed—terribly tightened—

And then released.

Timoteo, Winfry and Isa all jumped away from Lithuania as a thousand specks of tiny blue light erupted from the surface of her skin. Lithuania felt an instant of sheer bliss, and then—

She was lying face down on the floor, exhausted, emitting a faint blue glow. “Oh my God, Captain Starr!” cried Isa. A split second later Timoteo was diving after Lithuania’s pistol, before Winfry gave him a swift kick in the midriff and sent him sprawling across the floor, gasping for breath.

“Don’t even think about it,” threatened Winfry.

A wry smile spread across Timoteo’s face, his lips so thin his smile looked like a deep wrinkle. “Idiot.”

Lithuania opened her eyes, the taste of blood in her mouth. She had a cut lip. She had apparently smacked her face hard against the concrete floor. “Estonia,” she mumbled.

“Here, let me help you up,” said Isa, taking Lithuania’s hands.

Lithuania looked dazed. “My sisters,” she said. “They’re—” Then she realized where she was, and who she was with, and decided it’d be wiser to keep her mouth shut. She had just had some sort of out-of-body experience or something—but whatever it was, she had clearly felt the presence of both Latvia and Estonia appearing somewhere very nearby. They were in LusciousLocks now. She just knew it. Which meant that, according to Isa and Winfry, rescuing Marco was now a real possibility.

“Are you OK?” Isa asked, peering into Lithuania’s still glazed-over eyes.

“Huh?” Lithuania blinked. “Yeah, yeah,” she focused on Isa’s eyes, right in front of hers. Then she looked at Winfry. Then at Timoteo, sprawled on the floor, looking thwarted. She felt for her gun in her holster, then realized it was on the floor, not far from Winfry’s foot. Winfry, following her eyes, reached down for the gun and handed it, handle first, back to Lithuania. Lithuania thanked him hurriedly, cursing inwardly at what had obviously just happened. Winfry and Isa could not have made a better display of good faith, which was good, but bad for Lithuania, who had wanted to remain outwardly suspicious of them for as long as possible.

“Captain, what just happened to you?” Winfry asked.

Toss him a bone, not the full cow, Lithuania thought. “You can call me Lithuania, Winfry,” she said. “And I’m not—I’m not so sure what just happened. But I feel alright now.”

“Oh fie!” spat Timoteo. “You know exactly what just happened. You just want to keep these two imbeciles in the dark.”

“I swear, Timoteo,” said Lithuania angrily. “I am running out of patience with you. If you don’t—”

A tremor. Everyone stood stock still. “Isa, Winfry…” Lithuania said quietly. “That isn’t…?” But the terror on Winfry and Isa’s faces said it all. The walls started shaking, harder now. “Go. Go, go!” Lithuania urged. A second later they were all sprinting down the tunnels, the vibration of the tunnel walls surrounding them in a deafening bass.

All the while, Lithuania wondered whether her sisters had anything to do with the attack. Whether the AssMachenstani offense had been waiting outside for Latvia and Estonia to arrive before launching the attack—or whether it was all just some bizarre coincidence. Why, after all, would an AssMachenstani offense wait until two girls with no military training showed up, inexplicably, in LusciousLocks? Were Latvia and Estonia even there, or was Lithuania just having another one of her mysterious fits?

“The Monolith!” Lithuania called to Winfry. “Will they attack with the Monolith?”

“No!” Winfry called back. “The beast is in Green City right now!”

Never mind how Winfry knew that the beast was in Green City. More importantly, why was Lithuania feeling an uncanny surge of energy and magical power when the Monolith wasn’t even near? The Monolith had provoked her otherworldly teleportation and blue burst of allegedly magical power last time, right? So why was she suddenly feeling so… powerful?

An eruption. Pieces of cement fell from the walls and ceiling. The droning sound was deafening. And suddenly, something large and heavy smashed Lithuania to the ground, crushing her. She couldn’t move. She could hardly see. The pain down her back was unbearable—she felt blood everywhere—and she couldn’t feel her lower body, at all.

Someone took her hand. She looked up, amidst the noise and clouds of pulverized cement. “Relax Lithuania,” said Timoteo. His expression had changed completely. It was… benevolent. “You guys!” he yelled behind him, presumably at Winfry and Isa. “Keep on running! All the way to the North Tower! Hurry!”

“But Lithuania—” came Winfry.

“This isn’t when you’re supposed to help her!” Timoteo snapped. “Now take your stupid librem and run! RUN!”

Utterly perplexed, Winfry and Isa dashed off down the hazy, trembling tunnels.

“Timoteo, but what—” Lithuania croaked. She could feel the blood pouring from her wounds, pooling around her chest.

“Don’t let go of my hand,” Timoteo said, closing his eyes. “This is going to hurt.”

In a matter of seconds, Timoteo’s body was glowing bright blue. Then Lithuania’s body was glowing bright blue. Before Lithuania had time to think, she was overcome by pain. Overwhelming, absolute pain. She shrieked as the giant block of cement was lifted from her body—as the bones in her body realigned—as the blood seeped back into her veins, and her wounds closed of their own accord. She took a deep breath.

And she was up, standing on her own two feet. She could feel them again. “This isn’t where you die,” said Timoteo. “Now give me your gun.”

Dazed and unquestioning, she handed her gun over to Timoteo. As soon as it touched his hand, the pistol acquired the same magical bright blue glow. “There are very few combinable actions here that will result in your making it out of this alive. They’ve calculated it to be that way. So you have to trust me, OK?”

Lithuania nodded, quickly and at an utter loss for words. Suddenly it seemed everyone knew more about what was going on than she did. Timoteo pointed at the ceiling with Lithuania’s pistol, closed his eyes, and slowly the pistol turned brighter and brighter, until acquiring a blue but glassy, translucent feel. Then the bullet in its cannon glowed bright blue-white, and shot into the ceiling.

A deafening roar, clouds of dust, and when Lithuania finally had the nerve to look up, she was shocked to find that her measly little pistol had blasted an enormous hole straight through the tunnel ceiling and out through the surface. Still, she and Timoteo were about twenty feet below ground.

“Now it’s your turn,” said Timoteo. “Take us up and out—quickly.”

Lithuania looked at him, wide-eyed. “But I can’t—the Monolith isn’t—”

“The Monolith doesn’t cause your powers,” Timoteo snapped impatiently. “Now stop doubting yourself and concentrate. You can teleport us both up there. Just focus.”

Lithuania looked up. The distance seemed impossible. The world around them was still shaking. She couldn’t do it. She didn’t know how.

Timoteo slapped her. Lithuania blinked, stunned. “You see why I do it now?” Timoteo yelled. “DO IT NOW!” A wave of emotions rushed through Lithuania’s chest—resentment, powerlessness, fear, loneliness, anger. She closed her eyes—

And they were both on the surface. Timoteo released her hand. “Now get ready for the real challenge,” he said. Lithuania looked around her. They were out in the open, next to the woods.

And they were surrounded by AssMachenstani assassins. 

                                                           

The Truce

Her eye’s kept coming back to him, even days afterwards. They stuck to his brain like superglue. And it wasn’t so much the grayish blue that he remembered as the electrical storm of her irises’ stromal fibers. jacob had only seen her eyes for a fraction of a second after she flipped him onto his back in the crashed elevator before his kick launched her into the side of the elevator. But it was enough to glean that she was for the first time finally up against an obstacle that wasn’t going to give. But the analysis of all this would wait.

Right then, martin was quite occupied with pinning elizabeth garner to the elevator floor. The only reason jacob had a hope of keeping her down was she had landed face down and he managed to jump on top of her before she could reorient herself. With his left arm little more than limp, jacob needed to use the full weight of his 220 pounds and all of his 6 feet and 3 inches to keep elizabeth’s thrashing at bay. In spite of her thin 122 pound frame, elizabeth was a tigress. She pulled out several chunks of hair before jacob clamped down her right hand (she would have rendered him bald if her left hand hadn’t been trapped under her chest). Several times she was able to pry her legs from the vice grip of jacob’s thighs and with her legs free she very nearly landed blows to the male Achilles’ heel. And even when jacob finally managed to wrap his legs around elizabeth’s preventing any escape, she was able to spring both herself and jacob three inches off the floor but their landing brought all 220 pounds of jacob crashing down on her, knocking even her residual air just about out. But it wasn’t pleasant for jacob either. The impact was not good for his fractured bones and his body let him know this loud and clear. His groans and obscenities, in turn, let elizabeth know this loud and clear. So after she recovered her wind, she lifted them again, and again. Six times she repeated the maneuver. At last she could no longer summon any more energy and the two lay limp struggling just for air.

After who knows how many minutes, jacob finally spoke – he only had to whisper since his mouth was just above her ear and the sent of her hair filled his nostrils.

“You know we can’t do this forever…”

jacob glanced at the gun elizabeth had lost when he kicked her.

“You can’t kill me face to face…

And I can’t kill you.”

Silence.

jacob was pressed so firmly against elizabeth that he felt her heart through her back against his and surely she could feel his heart against the back of hers. And somehow that (jacob saying what elizabeth couldn’t admit to herself and feeling their hearts beat up against each other) lifted, at least a little, the tension suffocating the elevator.

“So what are we supposed to do then?” came the muffled reply, “if you haven’t noticed, we’re kind of in a bind.”

elizabeth felt jacob’s abs contract as he laughed.

“Well, we call a truce and go home to fight again another day.”

“Alright. That sounds good. So can you get your fat sweaty self off of me?”

“Not with that attitude.”

As quickly as they started, the jacob killed the jokes.

jacob used the railing to pull himself upright and tried not to move his left arm. “If you give me a hand I’ll climb out first. I know you won’t get the gun.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Your eyes. Don’t worry about it though; killing someone face to face isn’t exactly a hurdle you want to jump. Trust me.”

elizabeth reluctantly helped jacob out. She didn’t move quickly, she didn’t push him very far and she didn’t like what he’d said. She resented his insight just like she resented the hand he extended down to her to help her up out of the chamber.

Together they managed to exit the elevator shaft and leave the building through shafts elizabeth had discovered to avoid security cameras. At last they exited the building into an alley. jacob stretched his arms and elizabeth fixed her hair and then they walked to the street.

“I’m mr. martin by the way, but you can call me jacob.”

“Oh,” shaking jacob’s outstretched hand, “I’m ms. garner, but you can call me eliza.”

elizabeth turned to leave but jacob held on to her hand. She instinctively tensed and almost hit jacob.

“A mr. landers, probably using some alias, is meeting with matthew stanler, who I believe is loosely affiliated with you. You’ll want to look into both of these men. Have a good night eliza.” jacob turned and walked away before elizabeth could say anything.

Supercharged

Latvia popped back into existence right above Estonia’s coffee table, smashing it to bits and collapsing to the floor. “Crap!” she groaned, pushing herself sideways on the heap of splintered wood.

“What the hell did you do to my coffee table?” Estonia roared, stepping into the room, a tiny cup of tea in her hand.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” snapped Latvia, still nested in shattered wood, her hair sticking out every which way. She flung a stick at Estonia’s legs and missed.

“How’d you get in?” Estonia barked.

“Estonia,” said Latvia, clearly frazzled. “Do I look like I know?”

They stared at each other for a few seconds. Then Estonia’s eyes lit up, and she slurped her tea in a single gulp. “You mean you teleported?” she said, tossing her empty teacup onto the couch. “You teleported like me?”

“Give me a hand,” Latvia grunted, extending her hand. Estonia hoisted her sister up from what was left of the table. “Yes, I must’ve teleported, I guess. Or maybe someone teleported me, I don’t know.” Then she thought of her mother’s book, and whirled around to find it lying there, sprawled haphazardly in the pile of rubbish. Latvia snatched it up and opened it, but the pages were now blank.

“What is it?” Estonia asked.

“I don’t know if I have time to explain,” Latvia said hurriedly. “It’s a book of mom’s. But whatever chased me back at my place can probably find us here too.”

“Chased you?”

Latvia nodded. She realized she was a little jittery. “Big dark figure. Hooded. Creepy. Typical bad guy. He could fly, I think.”

“What?”

“Estonia, mom told me to bring this book to you, and then to go with you to Lithuania.”

Estonia’s expression was blank. “First,” she said, suddenly snarky, “Mom is gone. Second, Lithuania is in another country, way beyond the reach of my still out-of-control teleportation powers. So how do you expect—”

The book hovered before Estonia’s eyes, opened, then slammed shut in her face before plopping back into Latvia’s hands. Estonia stared wide-eyed at the book. Latvia smirked. “I think that was mom telling you to shut up.”

“Latvia!” Estonia objected. “Explain!”

Latvia looked out the window. It was pitch black out. “Alright, but there isn’t much time.” So Latvia sat on the couch and explained everything that had happened—from her vision of Lithuania in the woods, to her inexplicable dialogue through the book with her mother, to the hooded creature crashing through the attic roof. “And I think,” Latvia continued, “That that thing knows I’m here.” Estonia snuck a glance at the window. “I also think we’re about to get really paranoid,” Latvia mumbled.   

“Shhh!” Estonia snapped, pressing her finger urgently to her lips. “Someone’s outside,” she mouthed. Latvia held her breath, expecting to hear footsteps. How did Estonia know?

Estonia rose from the couch, slowly. A shadow could be seen through the crack under the apartment’s front door. Latvia pressed her mother’s book close to her chest, staring fixedly at the door. Estonia inched closer to the doorway, trying to decide whether to yell at the mystery person, open the door suddenly, or stay quiet—but the shadow vanished before she could make up her mind.

A few more seconds, then both sisters exhaled in unison.

“He’s gone,” said Latvia relieved.

“He left something,” said Estonia, nonchalantly flinging the door open and picking up a small blue box from the floor. Latvia jolted, half-expecting the creature to still be standing there, then recognized the blue marble box. “Oh no,” Estonia said. “Not another one.”

“Wait,” said Latvia, rising from behind the couch, her eyes on the box. “Mom said the blue specks only brought us closer to who we really are.”

Estonia closed the front door and bolted it. “Yeah?”

“Which means that box, if it has more blue stuff in it, can only help us.”

“Listen,” said Estonia flatly, “I don’t know you, but I don’t particularly like being a teleporting freak of nature, much less a supercharged teleporting freak of nature, which, if I remember correctly, is precisely what this little box will turn me into.”

“Estonia—” 

“Remember last time? I was disappearing and reappearing like crazy! I even disappeared while taking a poop and reappeared in my cubicle! You know how embarrassing that was?” 

“Estonia, you’ve learned to control it.”

“Barely! And I don’t want to go through another steep learning curve—”

The book in Latvia’s hands flipped open, and blots of ink began taking shape. Open the box, it said. “It says we should open the box.”  

“Let me see that!” Estonia snapped, snatching the book from her sister’s hands.

OPEN THE BOX NOW, read the ink.

And then the entire apartment shuddered. “What the hell was that?” said Estonia. An ear-splitting crack. A fissure sliced through the ceiling above.

Latvia snatched the book back and held it tight. “The box, Estonia! Open the box!”

The room grew cold. Latvia and Estonia felt their breath catch in their chests. A strange sensation, like that of artificially induced terror. They couldn’t breathe. They could hardly move. Another loud crack. The glass and mirrors throughout the apartment exploded. “The box, NOW!” Latvia cried.

Estonia opened the box. Immediately, the sisters were enveloped in blue specks. Latvia gripped Estonia’s hand, closed her eyes tight, and together they thought of Lithuania.

A moment later, they were gone.  

The Resurrection

"Nothing worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope.... no virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness."

-Reinhold Niebuhr

***Forty-five years ago, on a distant planet***

The room was an ornately designed, wood-paneled study. A giant oak desk in the center was flanked by walls of bookshelves, filled with a veritable library: old books, new books, hardcovers, paperbacks, leather-bounds. Deep red curtains covered the windows and the dark sky behind them, and the room was filled with a soft, yellow light that left everything slightly dim, with a somber and pensive atmosphere. There was a soft leather chair in one corner, away from the door, and a table with a chessboard in another corner nearer the door. Besides the expense of the materials, there were a few visible details that gave clues to the owner and the purpose of the room. Two large portraits, each three meters high, were set in spaces in between the bookshelves opposite one another on the sides of the room. The first depicted a man in deep grey robes with a wreath on his head, standing before a large classical building. He was erect and handsome, and had a bright, sanguine expression on his face. The second showed a grey-haired man in the full dress uniform of a top general. He was standing before a flag and had a somber expression, hard features, and intelligent eyes. Swords with silver sheaths sat on two of the bookshelves.

The main occupant of the room was facing the back curtains, apparently deep in thought. Someone knocked at the door and the occupant asked them to enter. A uniformed guard with a beret and a machine gun opened the door from the outside to let the visitor enter. The visitor had white hair and also wore a military uniform, but without insignia of any kind to identify his rank or job. He had a somber expression, hard features, and intelligent eyes, and he seemed very tired. He entered a few paces and stopped, apparently waiting for a response, while the guard closed the door. The original occupant of the room waited for almost a half minute before turning around to show himself. He was dressed in formal business attire and looked at the visitor with searching eyes.

"Please sit down," he said to the visitor, motioning to a chair in front of the oak desk.

The visitor nodded briefly. "Th-thhhhaaankk you, your majesty," he said in a slow, gravelly voice, struggling to articulate the words precisely. He made his way to the chair with a stiff and almost painful gait. The original occupant continued watching him, and the searching gaze was tinged with a dose of sympathy.

"I'd insist that we dispense with the formalities. You can address me by my first name," said the King.

"As you wish," said the unknown officer, still with the struggling voice.

"I'm told that you haven't yet finished your recovery. The doctors advised you to wait but you insisted on getting started with your preparations immediately."

The visitor coughed. "We need to move quickly," he said. "My strength will return faster if I use it."

The occupant waited a moment before responding, apparently refining his mental picture of the old man. He was beginning to feel the reasons why this man had been chosen to lead the monumental endeavor at hand. "Perhaps you'd prefer that I do most of the talking, and you can confirm if you understand or speak up if not."

"That would be fine."

Another pause. "Unfortunately, we haven't brought you here on the firmest of evidence. All we really know for sure is that we lost contact with one of our deep space probes near the Harrimanian Rift... but not before it returned some disturbing signals."

"Signs of technology, yes."

"Signs of human technology... and something else. All very spotty. There's a lot that is unexplained."

"But enough to justify alarm."

"Yes, we think so. It looks like a fleet, and it's headed directly towards Coralende, the jewel of the disapora. It's on that basis we've brought you back here, at risk to your life; we're on the verge of bringing a quarter-million people under arms, and devoting a third of our people to the creation of a warfleet; that will depart from a dozen different planets at hundred different times, all to reach an objective that will take them four decades to reach. The worst part is, we might not even beat them there. Our fleet could arrive to find... nothing. A smoldering crater of a planet. Or worse. And we are almost certain that they know more about us than we know about them. They've probably had agents here for generations, maybe since the first landing. They hold all the cards."

"But people are going along with it."

"Yes, people are going along with it. Imagine the outrage when we announce to the public that taxes are being quintupled and we can't explain why. Better yet, imagine what happens when we make these orders to the Premierships of other planets. They're not used to taking orders. They say that it's all nonsense, they demand to know more, they threaten secession."

"But they're doing it."

"Most of them are. We've had to wrangle concessions from the parliaments of some of the more unruly worlds. They know they can get away with it, because we're dependent on what they do. We have no bargaining power."

"The royal authority still means something to people."

The King sighed. "We've prepared well. Everyone who's achieved a position of authority in the colonies knew that this day had to come someday. And so we're still working together. Because of the legacy of people like King Caleb, who took charge when we first got to this planet." He motioned to the portrait of the man in the grey cloak to his right. "And because of people like the General here," motioning to the portrait of the man in the military uniform to his left, "who kept us together back in the days when we first left Breckinridge, a half millennium ago. When it seemed like civilization might be over forever."

"The General was a fool," said the visitor, suddenly animated in a way that his previous movements never would have suggested. "He deceived the world and he deceived himself. We could never count the number of lives that were lost because of his mistakes."

"If we grow wise in proportion to the size of our mistakes, then the General would be one of the wisest men in history. I can't imagine a greater asset."

The visitor coughed.

The Read

They were back in the cell. Lithuania told them she needed to think over their offer of help before she made a decision. She had slept on it, twice, and she still hadn’t decided. So winfry and isa waited, trying to occupy themselves anyway that they could.

“umm, isa?”

“yeah?”

“ahh… Did we have sex?” winfry didn’t really know how that slip out, but he couldn’t blame the quilare. That night had been his mind’s chief occupation while he waited. But he could never get a good grip on the matter and he just kept slipping. He remembered planning to get the extra sheets for the couch he had seen in the living room. And then isa said something. “come sleep with me”? No, that wasn’t it. “let’s rest a bit, winfry”? Maybe. Not. And what did isa look like when they got up? Confused? Mad? Angry? Surprised? Her thighs were gorgeous. NO! Don’t think like that. It’s not right.

“No. We didn’t,” isa replied as she dropped her eyes to the floor.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” With perhaps a dash of disappointment. “How do you know?”

“My hymen didn’t get torn.”

“Oh.

…

I guess I didn’t need to think so much about that.” isabel, finally looked up, smiled and pushed winfry’s shoulder.


isa didn’t approve at first, but after a day of nothing else to do she agreed to help winfry’s endeavors. From the first day that they woke up isa had been looking through space to try to figure out what was going on in LusciousLocks. Unfortunately they didn’t really know where to look so the divining was only minimally productive. They had initially agreed not to use the librem because, well, they lied about that. But like a toddler with a new toy, winfriadoc couldn’t resist. Granted, he was only reading the librem but then again the librem was completely different when winfry read it. When he first started reading it during their imprisonment, he was very surprised to find no snarky comments and what appeared to be a novel. It was about two officers in the military who didn’t take enough humanities classes to have the balls to ask each other out so they spent ages bashing their heads against duty until one day they flew into LusciousLocks and this crazy weather phenomenon thingy came out of nowhere and crashed the Helo-Fleet and they both died but they both were alive somehow and it was all really confusing until winfry realized they had been spliced into two different universes or something crazy like that. And all the while winfry knew there was something strangely familiar about the female officer. Maybe it was here mask of bitch that she used to appear in control but winfry recognized her and it was only when he read about how the said female officer saved two people collapsed in the woods that winfry put the pieces together. But was it really true? With the librem, that question was constantly nagging. At least the part about her finding winfry and isa was true.

And the drama didn’t stop there. It also told about Lithuania’s two sisters: Latvia and Estonia. Estonia was this super uptight wench who didn’t do too much and Latvia was a super cool psychic lady who you knew you could be really good friends and maybe even go out with if you’re a guy or lesbian or bisexual or … anyways you couldn’t because Latvia had this boyfriend who was totally lame but in a way also kind of cool because of his lameness. (You can tell winfry got into the story.) And the crazy thing was that Latvia had a quilare! which was totally weird because how could a Foggistani have a quilare since all the myths, ALL the myths said the quilares would only find descendents of the nine. And anyways the three sisters had lots of parental issues but that’s an entirely different story and probably not one that should be told right yet (that might really, really piss some people off –as if they own the story just because they happen to be telling it first…).

On a more practical side, the librem also told about happenings in nilbmah and LusciousLocks. There was one story about the Green City going flaming hot red in some sort of Assmachestani war festival or something. The tricky thing about that was that isa looked through space to Green City to check but she didn’t see anything like this. What did that mean? Was the librem lying? Was this something that was going to happen? On the other hand, there was also a piece about jacob martin going complete traitor much to isa’s expectations and publishing pieces feeding the government’s war frenzy and when isa looked to nilbmah citadel, the nilbmah post’s office completely confirmed the librem. And then there was that really creepy story about them in a cell in another tower but they were acting very off. winfry had some how found the pants of the relationship and they had somehow become one of those couples that made you sad to watch. It was all so strange that isa actually looked through space to the other towers and in the tower just beyond theirs, she found them, just as off as in the librem. What was going on? Did Lithuania know about their doubles? It was all so unnerving.

There were also stories that didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. There was the business woman who had been a huge hippie in college but majored in economics because she knew that to actually change the world you needed power, not just passion. She took that economics degree and rock climbed her way up the face of a cell phone company to become one of the most powerful persons in her nation, poised to finally change her world.

Unfortunately, winfry didn’t seem to have any control over what stories came out of the librem. He tried but then the snarky comments came back. So the librem opened lots of windows and a pesterance of gnats flew in hazing up everything.

And then it happened, making all the gnats worth it. The librem predicted a strike on the Foggistani presence in LusciousLocks. The strike would hit in between two of the towers splitting the force in two. It would be devastating. Like any good post-modern reader they were skeptical and isa double checked with the quilare. It checked out. isa was able to find a small group of assorted demons that included a black figure almost identical to the one in nilbmah. Why they were waiting she couldn’t figure out but the attack would be soon.

“What is it this time?” Lithuania didn’t even have to roll her eyes.

“We just thought you should know the enemies, whoever they are, are planning to make a strike along the tunnels between here and the northern tower. If we don’t move now, right now, we will be split. If we’re split we die. Also, even if we survive this attack there will be others and our only hope of long term survival is Marcos,” Lithuania’s eyes must have narrowed because isa went on to clarify, “your 2nd in command Marcos who must be in some alternative dimension Marcos. We might be able to get Marcos back if your sisters, Latvia and Estonia, were here.”

Considering the mountain of information isa dropped on Lithuania, her face was surprisingly smooth. Only a few facial twitches hinted at all the emotions triggering inside. After an extended silence Lithuania finally spoke, “You took quite a risk telling me all those things you shouldn’t even know. What makes you two so desperate?”

The Attempt

jacob martin was leaving work at 9:45 pm on a Sunday. The week had turned into a swamp and he was still trying to trudge out of top-hat-high brack water. He still had work to do but the office was making him feel claustrophobic so he was heading home. He pulled on his jacket, slung on his bag and clicked off the lights as he got in the elevator. jacob pushed for the lobby and his body lurched into the wall smashing his hip into the bronze railing and his temple into the glass mirror. The elevator chamber was falling. After eight floors, it crashed with the floor.

Fortunately for jacob, air resistance and partially functioning breaks buffered the impact; the X-rays would later only reveal minor fractures in his left arm, which he collapsed on with the impact. The crash had knocked out the lights and jacob was slow to reorient himself. He had only just pulled himself up with the help of the railing when there was a thump on the ceiling. Then there was some scuffling followed by the whine of an electric drill. Someone a handshake away wanted him dead.

But who? Of all the people who wanted him dead, who was this? That must have been a mosquito buzzing around mr. martin’s ear. Was it the same assassin as the country mansion? Was it landers? Was it the magistrate?

The magistrate??? (That’s you, dear slightly confused reader)

Jacob’s latest publications had thrown up a set back that triggered the magistrate’s anger. He published a piece conjuring a story of a black mist creeping over the LosciousLock’s border and a missing family. The article was absolutely shocking. And all the more shocking if you thought it were true and most people did. The citizens of nilbmah were up and begging for arms, at least that’s how the media showed it. And to be fair the media was right. Even before skewing, polls showed that around 80% of the population favored retaliation. But the media didn’t show, or rather showed hidden behind the classifieds, the 20% who were skeptical. Mr. martin reserved the headlines for fever-inducing articles that fed into the nation’s craze.

So why was the magistrate irate? Well, some of the 20% were able to jump out from behind the classifieds. A few groups of journalists and academics sprouted up their own publications. But the day of censoring was over. The magistrate was clear on that. Dealing with these deviants was jacob’s job. So the nilbmah post butted heads with its rivals and for the most part, the post had the larger antlers. For the most part. The deviants had a trump card.

andrew garner was an extremely popular chancellor in nilbmahian politburo and part of the 20%. Praised for his beautification of the citadel and recreational advancement projects, admired for his charity work and loved for his dionysian parties, garner was the biggest name in nilbmah politics, below the president of course. garner owed his entry into politics to the financial backing of his sister, elizabeth garner, the chief of directors (nilbmah’s higher taxed and regulated version of a CEO) of the biggest cell phone company in nilbmah. That, with his popularity let him be a wild card. He didn’t need to please anyone and usually he didn’t, which made him all the more popular with the public. So when the time came to vote on the militarization of nilbmah and the declaration of war, garner alone backed the 20%. And more than that, he completely blocked the rest of the politburo by invoking a constitutional clause that prevented nilbmah from going to war without any shed blood. There was no evidence that the missing family was dead or wounded. Maybe they had just gone for a picnic and gotten lost. So war was waiting on evidence of blood or an amendment of the clause. The former would be tricky since the family in the article had probably actually moved to LusciousLocks just before it went dark (only martin knew that) and latter, even with the national frenzy, would be time consuming. In either case the magistrate was pissed.

The night after the vote, the magistrate broke into jacob’s apartment at 4 a.m., ripped him out of his bed by his neck, whispered with the same intensity as shouting “fix it martin or else,” threw him on the ground and left. The ordeal took no more than 30 seconds. Jacob might have confused it with a nightmare if his neck weren’t on fire. The next day, as he walked to work, he found his favorite statue of Daedalus over Icarus, the one to which he had an almost autistic attachment, that very statue had been demolished.

This had been on Friday and it was now Sunday. Maybe the magistrate was following through. But that wouldn’t have been so smart. 1st, controlling politicians didn’t really fall into his jurisdiction and 2nd, he was doing an exceptional job with public opinion. Even with garner’s popularity only 25% supported his recent actions. The magistrate would have a hard time replacing jacob.

So if it wasn’t the magistrate bringing the elevator to a crash, was it landers? Ever since jacob volunteered to investigate the mansion assassin, the tension with landers had condensed. Nasty glances, deconstructive criticism and worse were exchanged. The day garner blocked national armament was Christmas come early for landers. But jacob had a huge edge on discovering the country mansion assassin and jacob let landers know it every chance he got. Removing a rival might be easier than showing him up.

And speaking of the country mansion assassin, maybe the magistrate hadn’t been the only target and maybe this was the second strike. The assassin must have known how close jacob was to finding her out. (That’s right, I said her. But I’m also a jerk.) Considering his betrayal, martin had a surprisingly easy time slipping back into the underground current and re-establishing his old connections. Sure, he did a skunk’s job of covering his tracks, but even so you’d think his recent publications would be fertilizer for suspicion. However, his tale of government threats seemed to appease even the most cautious of his contacts.

In any case, the mosaic martin put together from all the sources he dug up showed a fragile smattering of resistance groups with static infested communication among groups. However, one group had begun grow but there was still a lot of uncertainty about it. None of his sources had any knowledge of the leader but there were suggestions that it had affiliations with all the major deviant publications and even with garner. The only clear thing about this up-and-coming resistance group was its attitude: immediate action. According to the person, who had heard from the person who had been lucky enough to get called to a meeting (that was as close as jacob could get), they believed the government was about to cut the legs of the people out from under them sending them rolling down a dangerous trench to war. Not that they were against war – that might be inevitable – but they wanted transparency. The government was trying to send the nation into a war blindfolded for what must be ulterior motivations. And the government was just about to do it. Only immediate, absolutely now, action could save the nation from tragedy.

jacob was almost certain the assassin came from this group and he was about to discover who. Going a step further than any of his leads, he traced the funds of all the different resistive activities. What he found were suspiciously numerous ties to mobile 9, the cell phone company directed by andrew garner’s sister. He knew he was narrowing in when, the company refused answer questions about these random financial trails. With a little more grease he would discover the assassin.

So that, more or less and more less than more, was what jacob was thinking in the three seconds it took the assassin the drill off the top of the fallen elevator. At least it would have been if those three seconds were stretched like a rubber band into three minutes.

As soon as he heard the thumps on the ceiling, jacob dropped to the floor, whether out of instincts or fear its hard to tell but it worked to his advantage. In those three seconds he decided to play dead. Drill after painful drill, mr. martin resisted the itching urge to look up at what was happening. Finally, there was a clanking sound and a tiny bit of light entered the chamber. The noises ended and there was a great pause of silence. His assassin was watching him. Not doing anything just watching. The wait played havoc with jacob; he suddenly became intensely aware of all the itches and aches of his position. Staying still was like torture. And not before he thought he couldn’t stay still any longer jacob felt more than heard the assassin land on the floor no more than a foot away. After another pause filled with weight shifting and as much pacing as you can do in an elevator with a sprawled out body, jacob felt two small hands flip him off his chest and onto his back. Right then he opened his eyes to a face he was not at all expecting and kicked as hard as he could.

2 x 2

“What the hell is going on here?” Lithuania cried to Felix.

Felix was still a little groggy. After his disagreement with Lithuania over the harshness of locking up an inoffensive Nilbmahian couple, he had sent himself to bed—just to be shaken awake moments later by Lithuania, who claimed he wouldn’t believe what she’d found.

Felix looked to his left, at the cell with the still-unconscious Winfry and Isa. Then down the hall, at the other cell, with the sleeping Winfry and Isa. “You’re asking me,” said Felix, who had apparently accepted the fact that the laws of reason and logic no longer applied to anything. “This place keeps getting weirder and weirder.”

The new pair of Nilbmahians had been thoroughly examined for injuries. Both were fine, though the new Winfry had the back of his shirt tattered, and the skin on his back showed faint white marks running the length of his spine, like scars that had healed over long ago. His clothes were covered in blood, but he was uninjured. His vitals were steady.

The new Isa, however, was almost dead. Her pulse was so slow, it was hard to understand how she was even alive. Her face was colorless, and her chest was covered in blood, but she, too, was unharmed.

“You think they have a clue?” said Lithuania.

“What—that they’ve got doppelgangers?” said Felix.

“Well, yeah.”

Felix shrugged. “This place is enough to drive anyone crazy. What do you think happened to them?” Felix indicated the new Winfry and Isa with a tilt of his head.

“There was this thick, pulpy blood everywhere. Like something exploded.”

“Probably another monster. They all die in crazy ways. A lot of them have a knack for exploding.”

“Exploding?”

“Yeah,” said Felix. “Sorry I haven’t exactly had time to elaborate on more than the Monolith, but we’ve caught sight of some weird-ass things—and gotten attacked by a bunch of weird ass things. Sometimes, a bullet to the head will make them explode. It’s really random, really, but some of them make incredible messes.”

“So you’re saying these two, harmless looking Nilbmahians killed a probably-AssMachenstani monster?”

Felix nodded. “They must’ve. Unless all that pulp was a really big watermelon.”

“OK… So they’re stronger than they look.” Lithuania paused. “Or they killed an easy-to-kill yet highly explosive monster.”

“I’m thinking the former,” said Felix.

Lithuania nodded, looking through the cell bars at the unconscious couple. “Me too.”

Felix took a deep breath, looked around the dungeons, and placed his hands on his hips. “So,” he said. “We’ve got two Nilbmahians, two Nilbmahian replicas, and what is probably a mentally unstable LusciousLockian prince in custody. Things are getting fun.”

“Yeah. Fun. And we’ve still got a whole lot to figure out.”

“What, like what these two—er, four, are up to?”

“That, and what they’re hiding. And what Timoteo is hiding. And what’s going on with this place. I also think we should go check the city out, with Timoteo this time. We need to find the LusciousLockian people.”

Felix nodded. “I know, I know. But before we do any of that, we still have to move on down to the next concrete tower. The tunnels here aren’t stable anymore, remember?”

Lithuania nodded. “Wake the other two up. Take them to the cells under the next tower. I’ll wait by these until they come to.”

“And Timoteo?” Felix asked.

“Take him too. But separately from the Nilbmahians. I don’t want them interacting.”

Felix shook his head and set out to do what he was told. Lithuania pulled open the door to the unconscious couple’s cell, and sat on small wooden chair, facing Winfry. He was stirring. It looked like he was about to wake up.

Lithuania heard Felix waking the other two Nilbmahians up. They grumbled. The first Winfry seemed particularly whiney. “Come on, we’re moving you guys over,” came Felix’s voice.

“Those have got to be the saddest characters ever,” came Timoteo’s voice from down the hall. 

  

“Silence,” said Felix.

Lithuania thought for a moment. Winfry and Isa didn’t seem particularly sad to her—they were more unfortunately codependent than anything else, and maybe a little pathetic. But not sad. At least they had love, which was more than she could say for herself. And they were definitely hiding something. Lithuania didn’t want to let her guard down just because they looked harmless.

Then she gazed over the unconscious Winfry and Isa. They looked just like the first pair. Except for their pallor. These two had apparently killed a monster. Without weapons.

Lithuania heard grunts and shuffling feet. Felix was leading the first couple out, just as the unconscious Winfry opened his eyes. He stared at the ceiling, expression blank. He apparently hadn’t quite come to. Then he regained his focus. He looked at the bed next to him. There was Isa, fast asleep. Then his eyes focused on who was sitting behind Isa: Lithuania.

Lithuania jumped up and went straight to business. “Good afternoon. I am Lithuania Starr, First Commander of the Foggistani Helo-Fleet. I saved you. Who are you and why are you here?” Winfry rolled his eyes and let his head plop back onto his pillow. Lithuania suddenly felt a slight pang of guilt for questioning him so soon. “I’m sorry,” she said, softening her voice. “I’m sorry, I’m a bitch sometimes. You’re weak, and tired.”

“What happened?” said Winfry. Lithuania wasn’t even sure he had heard her.

“We found you in the woods. You and your partner were apparently attacked by something.”

Winfry frowned. He looked confused, and it seemed to pain him to think. “I feel so weird,” he said.

“Do you remember anything that happened? Anything at all?”

“Yelling,” said Winfry abruptly. “Lots of noise, and pain—” Winfry’s eyes widened. He sat up and attempted to examine his back.

“It’s OK, you’re not injured,” said Lithuania. “Neither is Isa.”

Winfry looked at Lithuania, surprised. “How did you know… her name?”

“Listen,” said Lithuania, leaning in closer. “I need you to be honest with me, and tell me what you remember. How you came here. Why you came here. And how you destroyed the monster that attacked you. Could you do that for me?” 

Winfry gulped. He wasn’t so sure he knew anything himself. But might this be the person the librem was asking him to help?

At that moment, Isa stirred. “Oh good," said Lithuania. "I think she’s waking up.”