The Egg | Chapter 4: Something Lost, Something Returned
Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4
“It’s so nice, Ellie bringing friends over. She never brings anyone over, always in her room tinkering with something, head wrapped in a headset, sometimes on the holotable or clacking away on one of those old letter boards—the key thingies, whatever you call them—old stuff. Dunno why she needs them when we’ve got the headsets. She’s got some old screens in there too; dunno what she needs those for either, but she’s got them, sure does. You know, she left only an hour or so ago, said she was going to fix the net, and by the Gods, just like that, all the things start beeping and we’ve got net again. My brilliant little girl. Does spend too much time in front of the screens, though. Sometimes I worry that I’m not enough, that she needs someone else. Maybe I’m a little jealous of the screens. It’s just been her and me for as long as she can remember, hell, nearly as long as I can remember, you know. And those screens were always her closest friends. I was starting to think she didn’t have any real friends. She’s always been real stubborn too, gets worked up easy, thinks she knows best—maybe she does. I was kinda like that too when I was her age; her mom too, I think—well, I figure. Her mom, I can’t remember her face. It feels sad, but I’ve forgotten why it’s sad, so maybe it’s not so sad; I don’t know; who knows. There’s just a fog there. Echos Myron says the data’s corrupted, unrecoverable, even cut me a deal on future memory refreshes. Young guy at the counter said all nervous, ‘We’re so sorry about this, Miss Gigi, but the information tagged daughter has been fragmented beyond repair.’ I can remember his words word-for-word but can’t remember my own damn daughter, can you believe that? Maybe I never even had a daughter. I don’t know. I don’t even have any holos of her, which is kinda strange. You’d figure that, if I can’t remember my daughter, I wouldn’t even remember that I had one to begin with. And sometimes I do forget, until I look at Ellie, and then it all comes flooding back. Ellie is the only reminder I have left, like a solitary flower in a field of corpses; a reminder that there’s something more out there; something beautiful; something easy to forget. I don’t know. Some people say they’re putting stuff in the water, makes us forget things. Sounds crazy to me, but sometimes you gotta wonder. It’s probably just age, though. You can’t remember everything, right? But even nutters gotta be right sometimes, you figure. The Complex Authority is definitely putting contraceptives in the water, though, right? Gotta be. No newborns for a while, I heard—seven, eight, nine years or something. Anyway, glad she brought you two young men over. Only other person that ever came over here before was little Timony. Sweet girl, kinda wild, though. But Timony’s real young—gotta be eight or nine or something. Born during the fertile period. Always playing that holotable game all the time: People of Power or Power to the People or Pantheon People or, yeah, Pantheon of the Power People, I think it was called—actually, I don’t remember too well. Power. People. Power. Pantheon. Too many P’s. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, right, Timony. The poor thing lives with her mama, and that old girl’s got old problems. All crashed out. Lives a few blocks down. Old, old problems; and I’m not just talking looks or ankles—I’m talking years of snowcrash. You know, snow sickness. I don’t know the technical term for it, something complicated, but she has that glaze to her eyes where there’s like this sick gray mucousy stuff all over, kinda like the ash storms out there always hiding those starships that you only see on the holo news sometimes, you know. Those thick pillowy clouds of gray ash—or red, if it’s real bad. Maybe our eyes are, like, the starships of the soul. Ignore me. Sometimes I say crazy things. I’d love to see one of those things at least once, though—the starships, I mean. You ever see them? Some people say it’s all a hoax. They’ve never been outside; when people can’t see something for themselves, they come up with all sorts of wild stories: the flat Thessaly people, the rat warriors of the Great Latrine, those mutated dogs with the poison fangs—as if there’s any animals—people saying the Pantheon isn’t real, or memory banks putting your memories in the moral agents for who knows what; that last one’s the craziest one out of all of them, I think; like, why would they do that? But you know how they go on and on, especially Lenny. Oh boy, Lenny. Anywho, you boys from Floor 3 too? Elpis and I, we used to live up on Floor 7, had this nice recreational facility for kids. I don’t remember why we moved down here. But I used to take her there when she was real young—the rec, I mean. She’d jump all around the platforms, doing cartwheels and spins off the bars. I would say, ‘My little Elpis, recklessly confident as always!’ and she would grin that big toothy grin of hers and just keep doing the stuff even harder, like she was showing off for a crowd that wasn’t there. But when an actual crowd did show up, she would act so shy, like she couldn’t do the damn things I had just seen her doing. In fact, I got a video of it right here in the drawer, just gotta…”
Gigi—an elderly woman with hair like white rust pulled into a wiry ponytail and skin like that of an old, cherished blanket with many wrinkles and small eyes like clouded emeralds and those once-freckles long since turned into brown splotches with little micro hairs poking out—trailed off, mumbling between small coughs as she dug through a metal drawer full of thick cards and other knick-knacks.
Gray was leaning back, arms crossed, against a black metal cold box that nearly touched the low ceiling, which resembled an eldritch maze of dark chrome pipes and tubes and air vents and small inset fans. He wore an expression like that of an atheist being forced to attend a sermon.
Jules, blonde locks brushed behind one ear, was bent over a glossy countertop that reflected a dim orange glow from a bulb inset into the ceiling itself in what appeared to be a kitchen crammed into the corner of a cramped living area. The room contained a sofa with a small side table nearby and four doors, one for each wall—portcullis, bathroom, Gigi’s room, Ellie’s room—and, of course, not a window in sight. The ambiguous artist was propping their head up on the countertop with their bare right hand while lightly chewing their long index finger. The glove they had been wearing during their earlier encounter with Zale was missing. They watched the wrinkled woman intently, blinking with wonder as a child might while listening to a bedtime story.
Ellie was nowhere to be found, although her presence was felt, as the cramped room was littered with items that gave the impression they were not Gigi’s: small DIY electronic devices, some wrapped in black electrical tape, and little plastic model robots of all colors and sizes dotted the back of the kitchen counter. Some of the robots were holding small utensils and devices in their little robot hands; mixed in there were little plastic cats, one of which was orange and pudgy, swinging a single paw back and forth as if motorized. Lots of magnets were stuck all over the walls, one of which held a holo-paper calendar turned to the month of Gamelion, displaying a moving image of a big-eyed cartoon woman wearing a floppy hat who struck different poses as she leaned against a massive metal wand topped with a heart-shaped stone while little hearts bubbled up and popped all around her; the words “month of love” faded in and out near the top of the image. The black cold box was adorned with holo pictures of both Ellie and Gigi, one of which showed a very young, bare-bottomed Ellie standing in a sonic shower with her head vis-à-vis the camera as her hair was being blasted all over the place; her expression a mixture of fear and excitement. Dotting the room were potted plants with plastic stems, featuring both synthetic and holographic petals of oranges and blues and greens.
“Ah, here we go,” Gigi said as she pulled out a dark metal card about the size of her palm. On it was the letter-number combo “E9,” what looked to be a camera lens, and three touch-sensitive glyphs for PLAY and PAUSE and BACK. Before continuing, she glared sharply at Gray, who was still leaning against the cold box; “Didn’t your mama teach you any manners? This isn’t some nightclub. Stop leaning on the box!” Then she slid a slightly trembling finger over PLAY, causing a blue three-dimensional image to flicker out from the small lens. The holo was volumetric, occupying real space above the card, and wobbled wildly three times before the blue light solidified into a full-color image of a small girl with bright orange hair in baggy clothes on what looked to be a gray metal jungle gym. The girl leapt from a ledge, grabbed a metal bar mid-air, spun elegantly, and then twirled down to a pad below, landing entirely upright like some anti-gravity feline. She turned to the camera and smiled wide—single big front tooth noticeably missing—then bolted off toward a ladder to start the whole thing all over again before the hologram flickered out.
When the image disappeared, Jules’ face was very close to the card as if they had been analyzing every little detail. “She’s wonderful, isn’t she?” they said without thinking, blinking their big alien blues and chewing on their thin index finger.
“She really is—what’s your name again, young man?” Gigi asked with a warm smile.
“Jules. And…” They pursed their lips for a moment, as if debating something internally, then just returned the smile. “Thanks for showing me that.”
Gray lifted his arm up and around in an exaggerated motion then peered down at the black square on his wrist. “It’s been nearly fifteen minutes. I’m going to check on her.”
“Would you, dear? She’s normally not this quiet when guests are over.” Gigi leaned her body ever so slightly to the right to look beyond Jules’ tall frame, but as she lifted one foot off the ground, she toppled right over, nearly hitting the floor if not for Gray, who—as he was walking past her to the door across the room—caught her in what seemed like a flash, leaving Gigi staring up into his dark eyes. The young man peered down at her with something like a faux coldness that one got the impression was once a conscious affectation but was now involuntary, and this cold glare spooked Gigi, who hadn’t gasped when she first fell but certainly gasped now when she looked deep into those dark orbs. This prompted Gray to set her upright and look away as if he hadn’t just caused some old woman to shudder with dread. Gigi, who was already very pale, turned paler still, and she spoke with a tremble, “T-thank you, young man.”
Jules felt the vibe and felt it weird, so they leaned in toward Gigi and spoke with a soft slyness that was something close to a whisper, “It’s like, one day, long ago, Gray was staring in a mirror, practicing those cool stoic expressions, and a devious genie came along and granted his wish, permanently altering the landscape of his handsome face into that of Epictetus, for better or worse—wouldn’t you say?” And this returned the color to Gigi’s face; she looked back and forth from Gray to Jules before she said, “And you say his name is Gray?” To which Jules nodded cartoonishly and responded, “It’s almost as if the name chose him!” And this elicited a jubilant laugh from Gigi that must have been contagious because Jules started laughing too and the only one who wasn’t laughing was Gray whose Epictetus was slowly turning Hades in real time so he sharply turned and started toward the door on the other side of the small room, crossing the entrance portcullis, which, as he did so, started going off like a claxon with high-pitched boops. The portcullis was ringing, and this caught Gray’s attention, so he shifted his entire demeanor from stoically casual to stoically alert and—hand in coat pocket—stoically ready to hurt someone if necessary, then turned toward the door, which was when he saw a small monitor about the size of a hand near the portcullis keyhole that displayed a grainy live feed of the area just outside the portal.
Standing in front of the portal was a young girl holding a thin box, the details of which were hard to make out. The girl herself barely stood eye-to-eye with the camera. Her hair was twisted into dreads that spilled like thick muddy water over an ovoid stone. She was wearing a nervously indignant expression on her face, made complete by a deep pout on her full lips, as if she knew she was not supposed to be doing exactly what she was doing but was clearly doing it anyway; yet, underneath this rebellious demeanor, she looked as any child does: powerless and lost and full of hope.
“Oh, that must be Timony.” Gigi didn’t need to shout because the room was so small. “Please, let her in.”
Gray hesitated for a moment before lifting his hand to the keyhole, in which the square plastic key was still inserted; he twisted it, and the heavy portal let out a pneumatic poot as it lifted to slowly reveal the dark-skinned young girl just standing there all surrounded by gunmetal walls lined with cardboard boxes and graffiti and a few lost souls all drooped over. The little girl tilted her chin up to stare at the young man now standing before her; her brown eyes wide and trembly and ever so cloudy. “What do you want?” she said in this sort of forced rude way, and just as the words escaped her lips, she lifted the metal box to her chest and wrapped both arms around it as if protecting the thing or, perhaps, drawing comfort from it. Then, somewhat shyly, she stood tiptoe to get a look over Gray’s shoulder; the sight of Gigi brought an immediate smile to the girl’s pouty face. Gray only managed to get one syllable out before the girl pushed past him. The portal closed behind her. She immediately made her way to the middle of the cramped room and plopped herself down on the chrome-framed sofa, wiggling herself into the dark blue cushions, sinking somewhat into the plush.
Gray took his hand off the portal key and turned to the metal door that was the entrance to Ellie’s room; as he took the first of the five steps required to get there, he stopped at the sofa and introduced himself to the girl, who was holding what he now recognized to be a HypnoSims V15 HoloTable, which he knew was a very old model indeed. “My name’s Gray, by the way. What’s yours?”
But Gray’s introduction prompted only a sideways glance from the girl before she lowered her head close to the holotable and pressed a glowing glyph on the device, which elicited a low-pitched jingle before humming with whirr. A circular lens in the middle of the box opened as if it were some sort of reptile’s eye, and from this eye, a blue light burst forth, illuminating both the girl’s creamy face and the maze-like ceiling above her. The blue light weaved and warbled before coalescing into a nondescript man in heavy armor, holding a shield in one hand and a spear in the other, its tip pointed at the chest of a mighty dragon towering above him. The entire hologram played out over the little girl’s lap, which happened to be about the size of it. At first, the image was only blue, but it soon flickered into full color, highlighting the man’s red-and-gold armor and the dragon’s scaly brown-and-green hide. The man and the dragon started trading blows: jab, fire, guard, jab, fire, guard, jab, fire, guard. The girl reared back, a huge grin on her face.
The holotable started to speak, its voice clear and charged with valor: WELCOME TO THE PANTHEON OF POWER! A logo with very powerful P’s faded in as a shimmering gold treasure box spiraled into view, obstructing both the man and the dragon, who continued to battle in the background. CLAIM YOUR DAILY TREASURE BOX! The girl lifted her thin wrist and tapped the holographic box; the box opened, revealing an artistic animation of a nude man with flowing electrical wires instead of hair soaring through a red ash sky atop a mechanical horse with clockwork wings; the man was holding skyward a thick triangular blade, and the tip of this blade shone bright. BELLEROPHON PEGASUS FORM B! A heavy sigh escaped the girl’s lips, but before she had a chance to dwell, a heart-shaped box with a rose-tipped lever burst into view. FIND TRUE LOVE DURING THIS MONTH OF ROMANCE! The girl tapped the rose-tipped lever, and it cranked with a glittery tune before opening to reveal a gorgeous fair-skinned woman with hair of golden weave wearing a sleeveless robe that alternated epileptic between blue and purple; the woman’s arms were chromatic and iridescent as she softly strummed a lyre, the frame of which resembled animatronic snakes with the heads of men attempting to lick each other’s forked tongues; her music wafted momentary bliss throughout the entire room. HARMONIA LYRIST FORM C! Timony stared into the hologram as if dumfounded for a moment before shaking her head. “C-tier? Really? I can never pull a good healer class Goddess.” She started grumbling to herself as she tapped the image away, which caused a holo starship to zoom into view; it was highly curved and black with golden accents, three burst engines like massive buttocks on the back of it spitting blue and white flame; there were golden particles raining down from the belly of the starship, and these particles shimmered into obscurity as they reached the holotable itself. STARSHIP OLYMPUS RAINS FORTUNE UPON YOU! TAP! TAP! TAP! BONUS PULL! Timony’s eyes lit up—”oh oh oh!”—and she tapped the starship aggressively; each tap increased the particles before the starship abruptly zoomed out of view, leaving only a single glistening chest behind, which opened to the image of a man sitting on a throne, the cushions of which were a dark yellow; there was a spotlight on the man; he was dressed in black slacks and an Old Earth sports jacket over a white dress shirt topped with a dark bowtie; he sat confidently with one hand resting upon his chin, a pensive frown painted across his pale, clean-shaven face, which was framed by a jawline that was sculpture-esque yet just pudgy enough to appear youthful; his parted hair was as dark as the jacket he wore and fell in waves right below his brow, and the loose strands of hair, which would normally fall over his pointed ears, were tucked behind those ears; by all metrics, the man was incredibly handsome as he sat there on his dark throne, puffing pensively on a thin black tube, which lit yellow at the tip with every drag before the man released clouds of smoke from his mouth as a lazy dragon would, and some of these clouds were shaped like lightning bolts and rings and stars; and although the man was wrapped in smoke, his deep blue eyes pierced right through the fog with paralytic gaze. ZEUS PALE KING FORM S. Timony’s eyes went wide, “My first Zeus! And S-tier, too! I can’t believe it! Serge’s going to be so jealous. This is going to be my new party lead, for sure for sure for sure!” She bounced in place on the sofa before tapping Zeus away, which caused yet another holo to abruptly flash into view: a calendar bordered by spiral columns and flowers, all of which looked completely flat when viewed from certain angles. CONSECUTIVE LOGIN ROLL; ONLY 5C TO BOOST YOUR ODDS. Timony tapped 5C, which jingled, and then the calendar spun wildly as it was overtaken by artwork of a feminine figure wearing a full suit of close-fitting purple armor accented with scales and webbing, complete with a long black cape that whipped about behind her; she wore a dark purple helmet shaped in the likeness of a dragon’s head, which covered only the top half of her face, thus revealing her fair skin and full pink lips below the draconic visor which itself was inset with two orbs of white; her hair, which was the color of fresh rust, flowed from the back of the helmet like a river of blood, stopping just short of her curved posterior; her right arm was down by her side, and in her hand, she held the shaft of a massive black lance that extended far behind her; the blade of the lance was no blade at all, but instead, a pyramid of blue light. ATHENA PARTISAN FORM F. Timony’s jaw dropped in horror. “F-tier? That’s what my 5C gets me? F-tier?” she mumbled as she tapped at the dragon dame, which prompted yet another box to appear, followed by yet another heroic proclamation, followed by yet more tapping, followed by more heroic proclamations, and so on and so forth.
Gray could hear the heroic proclamations booming from behind him as he knocked on the sleek metal of Ellie’s bedroom door. PAN FLUTIST FORM F. There was no answer. Gray knocked again. SACRIFICE OF TROY B. There was still no answer. “Hey, it’s Gray. Just c—” TYCHE BLESSED: ROLL AGAIN! Gray’s ear twitched as Timony blurted out some sort of nonsense word. “I was just checking on you,” Gray repeated, raising his voice as he pushed his face closer to the metal. About thirty seconds passed before he turned his back to the door and saw both Gigi and Jules staring at him, looking concerned in tandem, while Timony was still just tapping away.
FINAL ROLL. Angels on high. “C’mon.” Shimmering fountains. “C’mon.” A casket creaking. “C’mon, C’mon.” An explosion of glitter. A fanfare. JASON UNDEAD FORM D. Timony fell silent, and then, as if in the blink of an eye, she bounced herself to a standing position atop the sofa, flailing the holotable in her hand, which flickered holograms wildly about the room as if there were a psychedelic light show going on. “GACKING GAME GACKING SUCKS I CAN’T EVEN DRAW A GACKING A-TIER HEALER FOR GACK’S SAKE. ORPHIC GARBAGE.” Then the holotable was flung across the room, narrowly missing Jules’ head, before crashing into a wall with a loud clang, bouncing once on the hard floor, and landing upright, projecting the man and the dragon once more as if nothing at all had happened.
“Timony! Language! Your mama may let you act like that, but not around here!” Gigi rasped forward with a surprising amount of spunk for someone her age, then snatched the holotable off the floor and placed it back on the sofa next to Timony, who had done just as Gigi said, for she was now sitting as rigid as a plank of synthetic wood.
“Do you have any idea how much those things cost? No respect for your mama or anything!” Gigi gesticulated between light coughing.
Timony hung her head low before meekly trying to get a word in. “It’s black vanadiu—”
“Black vanawhatnow? That’s not the point! The point is personal responsibility. Respect for your stuff and your things and all that. Think about all the hard work your mama put in just to buy you that; you should think of that thing as if it’s your mama; instead of that holotable sitting right there on that sofa right there—it’s your mama. You just threw your mama. The whole idea of your mama: thrown. Right against the wall.” Gigi shook her head. “Not a care in the world.”
“Mama didn’t buy this for me, she ain’t got any credits. I stol—”
But Gigi wasn’t listening. “And those crystals cost a small fortune, you know. If you damaged that crystal, oh girl, you know you’d be in a world of hurt trying to get another one. Say bye-bye to your Power People Pantheon or your Pantheon Peoples or your—well, you know what I mean.”
Gray had forgotten about Ellie, all pent up in her room, silent; he was caught up in Gigi’s lecture, and he found it hard to remain stoic in the face of the whole thing; an odd expression—something like empathy, if raw empathy could be an expression—formed on his face as images of his own mother flashed through his mind; the memories kept pouring in, to the point that it became just too much, and he had to close his eyes as if to tune it out.
“Alright, alright. I’m done. Here.” Gigi removed a palm-sized bar wrapped in crunchy foil laminate from her pants pocket and held it out to Timony. “Have yourself a biobar. You look famished.”
Timony lifted her head, a weak smile forming on her lips. “You just having these in your pocket?” She grabbed the bar from Gigi and, as she did so, noticed Gray, just standing there with his eyes closed. “Hey, Messy Head, what’s the sad face?”
Gray looked to his left and then to his right. “Messy Head?”
Jules stepped from the kitchen corner, placing a gloveless hand on Gray’s head, ruffling that wild bush of hair. “Gray’s hair, slayer of combs. I quite like it.”
Gray jerked his head away. “Whatever.” He toughly rubbed his nose. “Just reminded me of someone, is all.”
Jules nodded but said nothing. Gigi moved to the kitchen, opened and closed the cold box, and then returned with a clear bottle of water, which she placed on the small triangular end table near the sofa. Gray was looking away from the whole scene, hiding what he felt was something like embarrassment all over his face. There was an odd quiet before the sound of Timony gulping water interrupted the silence.
“Anyway.” Gray cleared his throat.
Jules stood there all alien in the quiet, twirling strands of blonde hair around their finger before letting them go, watching them twist like brief tornadoes before settling into slightly wavier strands.
“Yeah, anyway.” Timony shot a glance at Jules. “Who’s the pretty girl?”
“My name is Jules.” They blinked. “Do you like music, Timo—”
“Girl? You’re a woman?” Gigi’s shock overtook her manners.
Gray’s mental embarrassment evaporated as he cast a dubious look at everyone around the room.
Jules thought about Gigi’s question for a moment, then responded in a tone bordering on melody. “All things are interdependent—you and I and everything,” their last syllable trailing off like the final note of a song.
There was a another brief silence.
“What the gack does that mean?!” Timony blurted before being slapped on the back of the head by Gigi as she was returning to the kitchen. The young girl grumbled as she rubbed the back of her head before grabbing the holotable and burying her face deep in the glow of the holo menu.
Jules stood there with an ambiguous wave on their lips before running a hand through their blonde hair, which fell very messy down the middle. Then they turned to Gray, who was digging one hand through a coat pocket in an unassuming manner. Jules looked back at Ellie’s bedroom door before turning back to Gray. “Let me try,” they said as they turned to approach the door.
Gray took two steps toward the sofa, hovering over Timony like a storm cloud. “Hey—mind if I borrow your holotable?” He said as faint knocking could be heard behind the digital horns and strings and clashing steel and explosions all booming from the holotable speakers.
“Hades no,” Timony said without looking up. “I’m in the middle of a Tier 8 raid. I can’t just quit.” She lurched forward, her young face glowing as she peered into a war-torn woodland with flaming trees and craters and a lake with some sort of tentacle monster coming out of it and all the rest, all isometric on a grid. Four units outlined in blue sat on the right side of the map, six in red on the left, all idling in different cool poses. “And I’m outnumbered. So no. Go away, Messy Head.”
Gray remained unassuming and poised all cool. “Well, what if—” he trailed off as he saw Gigi—who was just fidgeting with a synthetic flower pot dangling from a pipe on the kitchen ceiling—turn toward them in an annoyed motherly kind of way, as if she was about to go off on Timony once more, but Gray subtly gestured to her with two fingers, causing Gigi to nod and turn her attention back to her flower pot.
Gray continued. “What if I could get you a free pull?”
Timony was quiet for a moment, then twirled her wrist above the holotable, which stopped all animation and caused a bright white “PAUSE” with a powerful P to appear over her lap. She then looked up at the one she called Messy Head, a single thick eyebrow raised. “How?”
Gray stretched a single hand up to Timony’s right ear, and she responded by incredulously pulling her head back into the sofa cushion, which momentarily caused her chin to blob into her neck. “Hey, man! What you doing? Back o—”
Gray flashed his wrist back from behind Timony’s ear, and wedged there between his index and middle was a thin plastic card. He then twisted his wrist to reveal the image on the front of the card; a young woman surrounded by treasure caskets of various colors, a ring of gold framed the woman’s head, and she held a sceptre which was flowing with rainbow electricity and adorned at the head with a massive letter C. The words Pantheon of Power were above the woman while little flashing C’s danced all around her.
“Oh oh oh!” Timony might as well have been drooling.
“It’s yours—just let me borrow your table for about ten minutes.” Gray’s stoicism was replaced by a childlike grin as he deftly moved his arm around, dodging Timony’s clumsy attempts at snatching the card out of his hand. “You’re not going to get it any other wa—”
Timony suddenly launched off the sofa at Gray, who smoothly stepped to the side, causing Timony to land face down into the gunmetal floor. The clank of her hard skull banging the metal rang for a moment before being drown out by soft groans.
Gray’s grin was now a rare smile. “I told you, you’re not going to get it any oth—”
Gigi burst onto the scene. “Timony! Just what do you think you’re doing acting like that? Wild child! Now, if your mama would ever let me talk to her—or see her, for that matter—I would make sure to tell her to give you a proper—”
Gray laughed true for the first time in a long time, three deep ha’s. “Gigi, it’s fine. Let her be.” The old woman gave Gray the side eye then coughed then waddled off to the kitchen, mumbling something.
Meanwhile, Timony had managed to lift herself to her knees, picking up the holotable that had fallen during her desperate lunge. She was growling softly, which was like a low rumble in the room’s ambiance, as if an aggravated Old Earth cat had somehow gotten loose. Then, she plopped herself down on the sofa. The growl turned into a sigh of defeat.
“Well?” Gray said, now tauntingly waving the card back and forth.
Timony snapped back. “Fine, but only for ten minutes, and only after I finish my match.” She paused, looked down at the paused holotable, then back up. “Messy Head.”
Gray said nothing as he looked at the girl, who looked back with those big dark eyes that were ever so cloudy and very slanted, the bitterness of defeat still lingering. But when Gray’s expression softened into something like a brotherly gaze, Timony’s expression softened in kind. Gray then took one step, placed the card face down on the end table, and then took two steps back to the kitchen. Timony, meanwhile, unpaused her game, which started with the horns and strings and clashing of metal and explosions once more.
Gigi turned to the young man. “That was well played. Surprised me. Thought for a second you were some kinda devil or something. But somehow I knew Ellie wouldn’t bring any devils home. That look in your eye when you caught me earlier, you know. Real strange. I don’t know what it was. But no devil could pull that off with little Timony. Never seen her looking like that or acting like that with someone before. You got kids or something? You look too young. But you seem to have the knack.”
Gray blinked. He then gestured at the cold box, which Gigi gestured back to, so he opened it and removed a plastic bottle of water and a biobar. “Don’t be so sure about devils,” he paused to twist the cap off the water and take a sip, “they come in all shapes and sizes, you know.” He shifted his dark eyes at Gigi with an exaggerated slant, as if trying to scare her in some cartoonish way, but this only prompted a laugh from the old woman.
“I know you now. You’re no devil,” Gigi said, serious like cardiac arrest. This seriousness caught Gray off-guard, and in an attempt to seem unaffected, he leaned back against the counter and focused on the back of Timony’s head, which was shifting back and forth as she tapped and waved at the holotable while sounds were going off.
There was a quiet between them for a moment before Gray spoke. “My mom was like that.”
Gigi was the one blinking now, clearly confused.
“I could see it, in Timony’s eyes.”
Gigi tilted her head slightly.
“My mom. Crashed. Hard.”
“But your eyes are as clear as mud, not a cloud in sight.”
“She started using just after I was born.”
Gigi watched the dark youth intently.
“How you talked to Timony, she would talk to me like that too,” Gray said, “on her good days.”
The messy-haired young man fiddled with the crinkly wrapper of the biobar, then, after much crunching, managed to pull it halfway down to reveal the gray block of bio-matter underneath. He took a small bite, winced, swallowed, then took a big gulp of water to wash it down. “Always hated the taste of these things. Especially these blank label ones. What flavor is this supposed to be anyway?”
Gigi—taken aback by the non sequitur—did a double-take between Gray and the biobar and back again. “Oh, the bar?”
Gray took another bite, didn’t even chew this time, just swallowed it whole. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know. I think the flavorless ones. But even flavorless has a flavor, I suppose. It’s all we can afford with the hecatinium mining job I got, borrow Ellie’s headset to control the below-ground bots. Ellie does it part-time, too, you know. Between school. Mostly do maintenance on the machinery down there, sometimes help with the water pumps too. Doesn’t pay too well. Anyway. They say those biobars have all the nutrients we need to survive, but you always still feel kinda empty after eating them, don’t you? Lenny one time joked that they were made of these things called cockroaches, or something, but actually, I don’t think he was joking. Always sounds like he’s joking, though. He says they’re Old Earth bugs that can survive anything, which makes no sense, no bugs on Thessaly, makes you wonder why they’re even taught in elementary. What’s the point of learning about some old dead planet? Anyway, Lenny keeps going on and on and on with the conspiracies, says people have seen bugs outside the complex, even in the bubble, but that’s just crazy talk. Hades, I don’t know anyone who’s been outside of the bubble, much less outside of the complex, but Lenny, you know Lenny, he’s always going on—”
“Stop,” Gray said abruptly, glaring. “And no, I don’t know Lenny. Why would I kno—”
Timony suddenly WOO HOO’D, which was followed by a fanfare of horns and sparkle sound effects from the holotable, flashing a rainbow of colors across the pipes on the ceiling above her. “This Zeus is way overpowered,” the young girl blurted out to no one in particular.
Gray and Gigi turned vis-à-vis wearing an identical smile.
They laughed.
Ellie sat there upon the lip of a verdant coastal shelf, surrounded by a rainbow of flowers, her arms wrapped around her knees, her head slightly down in the gap between. An occasional breeze tossed her rusty hair to and fro as she gazed out at an endless blue, watching white V’s circle above crystal-clear waves cresting into the foggy distance. A solitary seagull perched merely a few feet away from her, both of them right there on the edge of the fall.
“I just don’t know why he did it.”
An ambiguous voice drifted in upon the wind: “I’m having trouble manifesting.”
“I can take care of myself, you know…” Ellie’s last word trailed off as she shifted her gaze to a honeysuckle blooming in real time by her feet.
“I know you can.” The voice seemed to be coming from nowhere in particular; it was just floating there, part of the ambiance. “I still can’t manifest.”
“It’s a single-user instance,” Ellie said with detached matter-of-factness.
“There’s this Old Earth nursery rhyme—seems appropriate—goes something like,” the voice spoke in tune, “yipee, you can’t see me, b—”
“—ut I can you.” Ellie mumbled the end of the lyric.
“Did you program this place?” The voice seemed to come from every direction.
Ellie idly tapped her bare feet together. “Yeah. I come here sometimes.”
“It’s beautiful.”
“It’s whatever.”
“What isn’t whatever?”
“The man.”
“Gray?”
“No.”
“Who, then?”
“The mouse.”
Silence.
“I killed him.”
Silence.
“He’s dead.”
Silence.
“And I just left his body there.”
“He was…”
“He was a person.”
“Of course, but…”
“And he had a mom and a dad and maybe even kids.”
Silence.
“Don’t you feel anything?”
“Of course I do.”
“Then why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you seem so fine with everything? So playfully oblivious.”
“I have to be.”
“You have to?”
“I thought it was love, but it’s far beyond that.”
Silence.
“I’ve known him for as long as I can remember.”
“How long is that?”
“Maybe thirteen years or so.”
“You’ve known him that long?”
“He… he saved me.”
“From the Consortium?”
“From everything.”
“Everything?”
“From myself.”
Silence.
“A few minutes before you and I met… he saved me then, too.”
“Seems like he saves anyone prettier than himself.”
“It’s not like that.”
Silence.
“It was his idea… he couldn’t let you go alone.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t say it, but I could tell he felt responsible.”
There was a long silence before Ellie responded: “And now I feel responsible—can’t you see that?”
“Yipee, you can’t see me…”
“And now I’m in his debt.”
“No, he doesn’t see it that way—you’re free.”
“And what about you?”
“I, Julian?”
“Is there anyone else?”
“That’s a good question.”
“Stop it.”
Silence.
“What I meant was—are you free?”
“I don’t…”
“Free from him, I mean.”
There was a long pause before the voice continued. “I…”
“You…?”
“This dictionary never has a word for the way I’m feeling.”
“But there’s no dictionary coded into this simulation.”
The disembodied voice responded with a whistle that wisped into a soft hum, followed by the gentle plucking of guitar strings—three or four notes alternated somewhere between melancholic and euphoric; and, in short time, the low hum harmonized with the guitar melody. The ringing of each note reminded Ellie of what the muted booms of stars going nova in galaxies far far away might sound like, each star leaving behind a black hole, sucking in all the nearby planets. But then, the chorus of the song sped up, as if in fast rewind, like each of those dead stars were reverting back into protostars, only to nova once more in the verse. And all these mental images brought Ellie’s emerald eyes to a close. The language of her mind became lost, a gravitational whirlpool of emotion that could no longer be translated into words, and these feelings swirled like those same planets swirling into black holes for several minutes before the melody drifted off on the synthetic wind.
“That was beautiful,” Ellie mumbled before opening her eyes to the sight of a dozen seagulls all perched at the fall. “What’s it called?”
The voice returned. “I don’t know—the title has been lost to time, but I call it ‘Something Lost, Something Returned.’”
“Well, then, it’s not lost—is it?”
There was brief silence before the voice returned. “Thank you for fixing my Tone Gauntlet.”
“Of course—that’s why you’re both here, isn’t it?”
“You offered.”
Ellie’s lips curled into a weak smile, but she remained silent.
“What will you do now?”
Silence.
“Whatever you do, I’m glad that I got to meet you, Ellie.”
Ellie was quiet a moment before shifting her gaze to the electric blue. “I’m glad…” but before she could finish her sentence, she felt a small pit in her stomach, like the absence of something; somehow she knew the voice was gone. And she was left sitting there, alone, staring out into the endless blue. The seagulls that once perched there along the fall had all taken flight, become little V’s out there in the foggy distance.
Ellie took a moment to soak it all in, releasing her knees as she rested her palms on the damp grass behind her. She repeated the words the voice had spoken to her: “What will you do now?” and then took a deep breath before exhaling that same breath, and then, like a whim on the wind, hopped to her feet and took off in a sprint toward the ledge. As she approached the fall, she closed her eyes and leapt with all her might. She felt the air against her face, her hair dancing wildly upon the wind before it was pushed upward by the fall. The primal part of her brain kicked in, flooding her body with adrenaline as her heart rate sped up and her breathing quickened, but as the logical part of her brain took over, she soon relaxed and splayed her limbs out like a starfish, twirling herself slowly like a dying leaf falling from an Old Earth oak. When she finally opened her eyes, she realized she was much closer to the water than she had expected, which spurred some light panic before she crossed her left hand over to her right, tapped her palm in a rhythmic pattern, and mumbled something inaudible against the wind. With the final tap, glowing rings of yellow materialized, forming a pipe around her, and then the rings collapsed in on themselves, and, just like that, Ellie was gone.
The seagulls and the waves were gone too.
When Ellie opened her eyes, she was standing inside The Polytechnic of Chrysame, in the back of a lecture hall; the spiraled white columns and open-air clerestories letting in pillars of light and students donned in white-and-gold robes were a dead giveaway. The students were motionless as she lightly stepped down tiers of steps toward the main lecture stage, where a professor—a middle-aged woman in black robes with dark hair accented with wisps of gray—stood frozen, pointing up at a massive board displaying an image of space dotted with little stars. There was one massive white star in the middle, which Ellie figured to be a white dwarf star, but, despite her assurance, she looked puzzled. “Is this the wrong recording?” Then she looked far above the board at a frozen marquee—LATTICE 6–BLOCK 11—and sighed. “Maybe a bug in the telepipe protocol,” she muttered as she reached for her palm. But before tapping her palm, she paused, looked up at the white dwarf star again, and then lowered her hand; curiosity had gotten the better of her.
“Play.”
The professor lowered her arm, then addressed the class, looking right past Ellie, who was standing right there, staring up at the white star on the board. “Consider the black hole, spacetime’s most powerful celestial object—not even an object, really, more a rip in the fabric of the known universe, perhaps even beyond the known universe, into places completely unknown to mortals, places that maybe could not even be called places at all; places only true gods know, if any such beings exist. The black hole, something that, even now, we are still unable to fully explain without branching off into multiple theories of physics and metaphysics and sometimes—like in the case of the Scions of Singularity—even religious cults, just to explain these anomalous holes in space. This is what makes the fact that we have created one—a black hole—so strange. As you all know from our course last semester on the early scientific experiments conducted by The Great Witch Queen, Maeve Hecate—may she bless us all—even a black hole the size of a grain of sand can destroy an entire continent. And we also know that each of Hecate’s—may she bless us all—attempts to contain even the smallest of black holes were met with failure; even hecatinium, the most powerful of the known elements, could not contain a black hole, as every hecatinium barrier erected around a black hole was itself drawn into the hole, thus making the black hole stronger, and every barrier around those barriers was sucked in as well, and every barrier around even those barriers was sucked in also, and so on and so forth. Thus, the very act of trying to contain a black hole only makes it stronger. And, as you all know—because, if you didn’t, you would have failed last semester’s final exam and thus would not be here to hear this lecture—the only way that The Great Witch Queen, may she bless us all, was able to stop the black hole she had created was by creating another black hole of equal magnitude, thus each black hole canceling the other out; they effectively sucked each other into oblivion.” (Laughter erupted from the class at this last statement.) “The point I am trying to get across is that these black holes are more powerful than anything we currently utilize today on Thessaly; and the point of that point is to illustrate the sheer destructive force of these magnificent spacetime anomalies. And, as a follow-up, I want you all to consider for a moment: what if a black hole could be reversed? What would that look like?”
There was a break in the lecture as the professor flicked her wrist at the board behind her. The white dwarf star started to warble and flicker, then it solidified, and, as if in the blink of an eye, the entire board flashed white and stayed that way for some time before, slowly, the whiteness started to fade into blackness. Little specks of color—stars—started to dot the inky void. Ellie, standing there transfixed by the whole thing, slowly realized that she was watching the creation of an entire cosmos on fast-forward. The video zoomed through various planets and moons before magnifying in on a lush blue-green planet. But before the animation could finish, the professor flicked her wrist, and the video paused.
The professor turned back to the class. “Who can tell me what that was?”
Students started raising their hands, spotlights shining down as the professor pointed at them, one by one.
“Looked like a star going nova.”
“The theorized Hecatinium Wave?”
“May I be excused? I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Old cosmology, looked like the Big Bang, I think?”
“Definitely a singularity event of some kind.”
“I really need to go to the bathroom.”
“A black hole in reverse, like you said?”
The professor nodded at that last one. “Yes, yes, but what’s the name for it? Anyone know?”
A small boy with shaggy silver hair that framed his pudgy, rosy face raised his hand; his head barely poked up above his arm desk. The boy—whom Ellie had never seen before—looked far too young to be enrolled at The Polytechnic of Chrysame. The professor pointed at the boy without even a subtle change in expression. The spotlight reflected off the boy’s odd gray eyes as he spoke, “That was a visualization of a white hole—highly theoretical, of course.”
The professor nodded. “That’s corr–”
“Really more of a legend or a myth than a scientific theory, however, as a white hole has neither been observed nor mathematically computed. Even Maeve Hecate—” The boy was interrupted by the professor, who muttered, “May she bless us all,” before pausing to allow the boy to continue, which he did with nasally, mid-pitched clarity: “As I was saying, she was unable to produce even a single white hole, even with gravity engines powered by high concentrations of hecatinium. The idea, however, is that a white hole acts in the opposite manner of a black hole; to put it in layman’s terms—which this class desperately needs—a black hole consumes, whereas a white hole creates. It’s theorized that the existence of black holes necessitates the existence of white holes, for where else would all the black-hole-consumed matter go? But, alas, not a single white hole has been observed, so—again—this is all more of a legend or a myth, really, a fantasy, and I don’t know why we’re even learn—”
“Very good, Ptolemy,” the professor said abruptly, cutting the boy off. She then turned to the board, waving her wrist, which caused all the events played out earlier to rewind at high speed back into the white mass that earlier Ellie had mistakenly believed to be a white dwarf star. “The video is meant to illustrate not only the obvious—that being, the white hole ejecting energy and matter into the cosmos—but also that, when played in reverse, the white hole effectively becomes a black hole, sucking everything back into itself; the flow of time altering its very nature; and, in this way, one could think of a white hole as a black hole backwards. One can then extrapolate that a white hole is something like a seed, or a womb, or, figuratively, like an idea waiting to be acted upon. But perhaps the best analogy would be that a white hole is like an egg, like a cosmic eg—”
01010100 01001000 01000101 00100000 01000101 01000111 01000111 00100000 01010111 01000001 01001001 01010100 01010011 00100000 00110010 00110001 11000010 10110000 00110010 00110100 11100010 10000000 10110010 00110000 11100010 10000000 10110011 01001110 00100000 00111000 00111001 11000010 10110000 00110011 00110001 11100010 10000000 10110010 00110000 11100010 10000000 10110011 01010111
The environment around Ellie started to rip and tear; the color of the surrounding walls melted like paint into a black void beneath her, and the space around her danced with purple ones and zeroes that didn’t feel random at all. Then a harsh noise rang out, causing Ellie to cover her ears, but somehow this only made the noise worse. Before she could react further, the space around her flickered and shifted into another lecture hall, where Socrates stood frozen before a massive whiteboard.
Ellie lowered her hands, her face a picture of perplexity as she scanned the new room. A shiver ran down her spine when she saw herself sitting among the rows of seats in the middle of the lecture hall, a bird perched on the back of her seat. She saw Arc, too, looking as full of scorn as ever, his eyes trained on her own simulacrum. She had never quite gotten used to seeing herself in the third person.
“Play.”
Socrates animated; the old man flicked his wrist, and the board was suddenly consumed by black lettering outlining a lengthy assignment. “This week, I would like you to complete two essays: the first on which utilitarian system of ethics you think leads to the most positive outcomes, and the second on a time in your life when you had to use that same utilitarian system, outlining the reason and outcome. If you can't think of a time, consider an event in the past when you could have used your chosen utilitarian system, and then extrapolate on that.”
When the old professor finished outlining the assignment, Arc noticed Ellie’s avatar had lost its features and was now just a blue-light outline. He blurted out, “Ellie’s glitching out again,” accentuated afterward with a single mocking “ha!” before continuing, “Complexer HyperNet, poor girl.” Arc’s toxic tone was met with silence from his peers, so he again started with the forced laughs as he nervously looked to the students around him, who, out of loyalty (or fear), started laughing along with him. Ellie—the real Ellie—never noticed all of Arc’s subtle pleas for attention until just now from the outside looking in.
“Idiot,” Ellie mumbled, then tapped her palm six times in an odd rhythmic pattern, which caused the scene to slowly start fading.
As the scene faded, the students’ forced laughter continued. “Quiet!” Socrates shouted before aggressively flicking the contents of the board away, leaving nothing but a massive blankness floating behind him. Then, taking a deep breath, he addressed the class once more, his volume fading in time with the image: “The recording is available for any student who attended the class, as always.” And, with the scene nearly black, the old professor looked up from his desk, realizing that the students were still sitting there, awkwardly staring at him. “Right, right—you’re all dismissed.”
You can now safely eject.
Gray sat upon the sofa with the holotable in his lap just as Jules—looking more ambiguous than ever—closed the thick metal door behind them, their right hand now fitted with a thick fingerless glove, the palm of which pulsed with a faint blue ring of light. Gray looked up from the holotable, which was not projecting anything at this moment. “Well, what did she say?”
Gigi turned to look at Jules from her spot in the kitchen. “Is she OK?”
“She’s OK, she’s just—”
Just then, a loud whirring like a sonic flush could be heard throughout the small room, and, as the noise trailed off, Timony burst through a metal door in the corner and blurted out, “You done yet?!” as she pranced up behind the sofa, leaning her head over the back of it, real close to Gray’s, and stared down at the holotable.
“Patience,” Gray muttered as he placed his hand into his coat and pulled out a small rectangular stick enclosed in a dark blue casing with a single connector poking out from the bottom. He felt around the side of the holotable, feeling for a port, and, when he found one, slotted the stick into it, which was followed by a soft chime.
“Patience? I’ve been in the sonic for, like, five minutes! What have you been doing out here? C’mon, Messy Head!” She reared her head back as if she were pulling away but then suddenly launched over the back of the couch in a desperate attempt to grab the holotable; but Gray bounced to his feet just as suddenly, his long coat swirling as if Gray himself were the eye of a typhoon, causing Timony to fall flat on her face yet again. And when Timony looked up, Gray was holding the holotable under one arm while tauntingly holding the thin plastic card from before with his free hand.
“Hey! You gave that to me!” Timony shouted.
“Should have used it while you had the chance.” Gray spun the card in his finger, slid it into the depths of his coat.
“Not fair!”
“What the Gods giveth, they also taketh away.”
Timony rolled over on the hard metal floor then let out an exaggerated sigh.
Gray gave one of his dark smiles then spoke, “You can have it when I’m done.”
Jules watched the scene with a soft smile, as they had not seen Gray this playful in a long time.
Gray took one wide step right over Timony to the sofa and sat down, placing the holotable back on his lap before waving his hand over it. A three-dimensional woman with bobbed blonde hair wearing a suit and tie flickered into view right above Gray’s lap; to her left was a waterfall of green text, and to her right was a zoomed-out image of a sandy landscape scarred by a large smoldering crater that was emitting thick plumes of smoke. The woman lifted her arm to point at the image of the crater, which was like a window into another world right by her head. And then she spoke in a tone that was intonated and calm:
And in latest news from the surface, complexes across the entire northern hemisphere are experiencing outages due to a meteorite impact that occurred at approximately 8:30 PM TST. The meteorite’s impact zone was calculated as being located between Spire64 and a derelict AA Facility just outside Complex 42’s bubble, which has since been reported from sources inside the complex as being, quote-unquote, barely holding. The Star Touched Sentinels’ sources aboard the scientific research vessel, Starship Scylla, have reported that the meteorite is emitting abnormally high levels of H-radiation despite its small size and is of special interest to the Thessalonian Triumvirate, who have ordered its immediate retrieval, citing matters of planetary security. And, according to our sources, within the coming hours, a small force—overseen by the Mistress of War, Athena—will be dispatched to the surface to retrieve the meteorite. When asked why a military force is needed, the Thessalonian Council refused to give specifics but did state that dispatches to the surface are typically handled by the military branch, insisting that this was routine procedure. In the meantime, Aides autonomous droids have been mobilized to repair the damage to Spire64, and the surface outages are expected to end at approximately 12:30 AM TST. And in other news, the Pale King himself will be making a visit to the garden district of the Starship Athens to deliver—
“Boring!”
Timony leapt at Gray, who was forced to perform a complicated backward flip over the back of the sofa just to avoid her, sending Timony face-first into the sofa with a mouthful of cushion. The holotable fell to the floor, and Timony hurriedly picked it up and plopped herself down on the sofa; she then placed her hand on the side table to grab the card, only to be reminded that Gray had taken it moments earlier.
Jules, who had been in the perfect position to prevent all this, chose to do nothing except cover their mouth in a poor attempt to hide silent laughter.
Gray rose from behind the sofa with a cross look on his face. He patted his coat before looking down at Timony. “Why did you think that was a good idea?”
“Who cares about some stupid meteor? I’ve got daily missions to complete,” Timony snapped back. She had already booted up Pantheon of Power and was tapping her way through the menus. There was a brief pause before she turned her upper half to look at Gray. “Can I have the card now?”
Gray just stood there. “That meteorite could buy you a place on a starship, young lady.” He then flicked the card back between his fingers. “Why shouldn’t I just destroy it?” He flicked again, and the card was gone.
“If you do that, I’m telling Ellie that you were mean to me, and she’ll never ever let you come over again,” the young girl said with an exaggerated pout on her face.
“We can’t have that, I guess,” Gray responded as he flicked his wrist, seemingly materializing the card once more.
Timony stared in wonder, “How do you keep doing that?”
Gigi, coughing as she walked slowly to the door of her room, looked back at Gray and shook her head. “After how she’s been acting, you better not give her that card!”
Timony bounced in place on the sofa, nearly shouting. “C’mon! He knows I’m just playing!”
Jules stepped over to Gigi—who was doing these wobbly coughs—and placed a hand on her shoulder, offering help without saying a word.
“I just need to lie down for a moment, in my room,” Gigi said quite frailly. “It was lovely meeting you both. I’m so glad that”—she coughed—“Ellie has some friends now.” A smile shone between wheezes. “Look out for her, Jules.” She started inching closer to her bedroom door, Jules helping her along. “That Messy Head,” Gigi said, laughing and coughing at the same time, “make sure”—another cough—“he doesn’t get her into any trouble.” She placed a hand on Jules’ hand and looked straight up at them. “He’s got that look in his eyes, you know.”
Jules looked back at Gray—who was now playfully holding the card out to Timony only to pull it away when she reached for it—then back at Gigi. “I know.”
Then Gigi opened her bedroom door and passed into the darkness of her room, leaving the door slightly cracked, only to poke her head out a moment later. “And Timony”—she coughed—“you stay here tonight! I don’t want you wandering around out there during an outage!”
And just as Gigi’s door closed, Gray swiped the card away from Timony’s leaping grasp, landing the young girl flat on her face, a third time. “You’re going to need to do better than that if you want the card,” he grinned.
“Not fair! You said I could have it!” Timony said as she crawled back onto the sofa.
“That was before you attacked me.”
“I was just playing,” she said meekly as she pulled the holotable back onto her lap.
“Look, tell you what,” Gray dangled the card close to Timony’s face, “Jules and I have to get going,” he twirled the card, “but if you stay here and promise to keep an eye out on Gigi and Ellie for me,” he flicked the card into the air above him; it spun, “I’ll let you have the card.” Seconds later, the card fell perfectly between his fingers, then he twirled it once more. “Sound good?”
Timony fiercely nodded. “Yes yes yes yes, I promise.”
Gray nodded, then extended his hand to the young girl, who snatched the card and pulled it close to her chest. Gray blinked for a moment, and when his eyes opened, Timony was slicing the plastic card through the mouth of a dragon whose volumetric head was melon-sized in the young girl’s lap.
The sound of angels on high.
Gray started toward the portal; Jules took a few steps to catch up with him.
Shimmering fountains.
Gray turned to Jules. “What did she say?”
A casket creaking.
Jules: “She said you seem to have this habit of saving people prettier than you.”
A glittery explosion.
Gray smiled wryly. “She’s not wrong.”
Timony’s raised voice could be heard behind a static crackle: “Thing’s glitching out!”
Gray, turning the portal key, glanced over at Jules. “If we can get our hands on that fallen star, kiss goodbye to that blood debt and literally everything else. This is our chance.”
Jules heard Gigi’s voice in their mind as they recognized that look in Gray’s dark eyes. “Our chance...” they repeated before following Gray out of the raised portal and into the Terminal-B hallway.
Perhaps it was for the best that Ellie wasn’t coming along with them, Jules thought.
A fanfare went off—ATHENA PARTISAN FORM S—followed by a loud “WOO HOO!” Timony flailed her arms while bouncing up and down on the sofa, holographic artwork of Athena bobbing up and down along with her. She let out something that sounded like a SQUEE before spinning around on the sofa.
“Hey, Messy Head! Guess what—”
But Messy Head was gone.
Chapter 5 (Coming soon)
Artwork by ComicFarm.