Second Age, Echo Realm
“I’m sorry Brad, it’s just too much” Delphia Hoax sobbed, pressed against his pilot’s uniform.
“You’re breaking up with me because I don’t know how to tie my shoes? I got sandals for a reason” he asked in disbelief. A nostalgic ardor raced through him. “You were there when I got my degree in shoe tying from university. You should have known this was coming sooner or later. I’ve tried everything to keep us together, thinking our love could sort it out, but we just come from two different worlds” Hoax recited as she clutched onto his shirt, letting the guilt burn through her veins. He rubbed her back to calm her down, then made some space between himself and the girl he had known for the last three years since freshman year, even into basic training, “It’s going to be okay, Delphia. I knew you had to tell me before”. She wasn’t perfect
either. She spent too much time in the walrus club and never bought him any cashews, even when they came down from ropes in buckets from the passing hot air balloons when they had their friday picnics in the park. Smoothing out the wrinkles on his pilot’s uniform, he raced back through the corridors without looking back, until a metallic door screeched open to let him pass through it’s solemn barrier. Minutes later a para-half raider deployed from the empty docking bay of the mausoleum ship Healthy Reckoning. Alike the fighters of old, but with cilia sprouting from the body of the jet at intervals, it joined its peers, diving into the fray. Brad turned the bio-ignition as the ship flew past a group of alliance infantry, and the ship changed into a paramecium, gobbling up the hapless men. As soon as they were dissolved, he switched off the ignition, returning the ship to its previous state, then hunted down a Vecktan fighter, downing it with spell-blasters. In the distance, other ships had locked sights onto an executive frigate, but as he flew to join them, more Vecktan fighters intervened. A white gleam soared across his window as the line cannon fired at the defending mausoleums. The fighter barrel rolled to evade. “Peddle to the metal and get as close to that Line Cannon as possible” the radio beeped.
Jets on the raider ignited, but with un-tied shoes, he wasn’t able to press the accelerator hard enough. “Bastard. That’s the real reason Delphia broke up with us. She knew all along” he realized. Brad smiled as he understood the truth, then bolted down, in lightning speed knotting the laces. As the daring pilot thrust forward to the target, the Line Cannon ignited, downing the frigate, and the raider rushed past at full speed.
Farther away, the Scilysts gathered. To the right and left of Glitter Cat stood Teddy and Crytania and Decker and Jack Bronze and Father Lemon Slug. Melina and Linden went to face Glitter Cat, but as Echo ran to join them she was blocked by Crytania and Decker. As Glitter Cat attacked, she was repelled by a tide of exothermic energy released as Melina and Linden became atoms of hydrogen that fused into a helium atom. A portion of the fleet set their sights on the feline, who summoned zip lock bags that grew in size and opened their mouths like giant beasts and sealed away the ships and infantry that dared attack it. Returning to form, the Couple found their adversary breathing glitter fire balls at them and scratching with its claws, sending arcs of energy their way. Linden wrangled with the beast until falling back again after a painful scratch. Melina brought out a bottle of golden nail polish and threw it down, breaking it apart and shattering the glass. From the golden liquid rose jellyfish that swam towards the feline and burst into cheerful stinging gilded explosions. “Watch out!” shouted Echo as the animal made its way back to them and refromed into a refrigerator. The appliance opened its door, and instead of an icy refreshing draft came an infernal flame expelling continuously outwards.
Seeing it headed their way, Linden summoned a portion of dough and a rolling pin and rolled his counterpart into the substance as the flame consumed them. He was thrown back, and as it dissipated Melina broke free from a burnt cookie as it crumbled. “Thanks for that!” she called, knowing how the act had saved her from the attack. Linden was not done. He saw the feline return to form and brought out a birthday cake, blowing the multicolored flame of its candles casting a cloud of smoke towards the animal which he wove into a dragon that breathed a current of cake flame. As that occurred an alliance ship set its sights on Linden and fired a powerful missile which detonated in his vicinity, but he took the explosion and put it in a box and wrapped it up with a bow and regifted it back to the ship which was destroyed. Twisting like a supersonic drill the glitter cat attacked Melina. Seeing this, Etheria, first removing a ship from her path by ticking it with the omega-feather, then proceeded to research through the historical archive of dreams until finding those of operations in which surgeons are surrounding a patient doing intricate work within a cavity. Drawing those dream-images of the surgeons into the surgical cavity like that of dust into a vacuum cleaner, summoned the patient’s bed, and from his chest came a beam of energy of the converted, pure dissolved dream selves of the surgeons that impacted the glitter cat and gave Melina breathing room to escape from its clutches.
Obsidian arrived and distracted her away from that battle. Sailing near them, the beast became
a pirate ship of feisty felines that loaded its cannons with disco balls and fired onto them. Linden beckoned a drying machine and opened its door, took out the lint trap and removed the sheet of lint, rolling it into a ball and translating it into a sphere of energy which he threw at the ship, breaking it apart, cracking its hull. The disco balls were now scattered about, and from the body of the glitter cat came flies which landed on them, and they began to rot away, altering the multicolored light that they shed. During the distraction, glitter cat turned itself into a disco ball and had one of the feline pirate’s fire it through a cannon at Linden. This time, Melina defended him from the attack by sending back the blast with a tennis racket. At this, the creature roared with ferocious anger, and summoned the scattered glitter cats from across the battlefield to return to it, until it grew ten times in size. Both of the Scilysts took out containers of dental floss.
Their tops opened, the white strings shot straight out, then wove into enormous geometric cubes, and as phenomenological energy coursed through them the lines became light. Glitter Cat was wounded and reduced to size as the dental floss cubes pummeled her. Scratching open a portal in space with its claws, the feline dragged Melina into it. Linden followed, and found that they were in a mountainous, snowy landscape like that of the alps. “This is the room of the meridian gateway in the white citadel where I became what I am, and where you two will meet your end” she assured them. Flurries of snow fell down from the overcast sky. It began to rain thermometers. They also appeared from all around, from the surrounding snow of the mountains, some even wiggling like worms through the air and ground towards them, and as they did ice began to collect on their surfaces and grow. Combining together into a spinning tornado, the snow and ice and thermometers dragged the couple towards it. “Say whatever you want, you wil not escape from absolute zero!” the animal yelped. Linden held back Melina, and watched as the vortex lifted off the ground, becoming and became a well in reality, a thermodynamic black hole. Soon they were surrounded by thermometer worms that entangled them and began to encase them in ice as they fell towards the precipice. Linden broke free from its hold and called into being a disembodied elevator that they both escaped into and ascended out of the dimension of the meridian gateway back into space. Glitter Cat followed, purring at them ominously. Linden revealed a lab microscope and wrapped it around himself until it was mechanical armor. When he was near enough to the enemy the lenses rotated down over his eyes like reading glasses and from them, he discharged a beam of scientific light that scarred her. Enraged, she slapped him with her tail, shattering the microscope suit. Melina created a house and broke off its chimney, tuned it upside down and placed it on her back. The chimney blew out its smoke and propelled her like a jetpack toward the glitter cat, who she punched across the maw. She was hit with more glitter fire balls and fell back. Linden grew younger into that of a boy and took a stick and a hoop and began hoop rolling, until the hoop became a galaxy, and sent it to the glitter cat. “Bullseye!” he shouted, returning to age as the gear sliced through. But the feline soon regenerated and reformed. A square of grass lawn appeared that the cat landed on. Sprinklers appeared on the lawn, and she purred at them, sending them out into space. They continued to grow in size as they rotated around, sending out sprays of water.
As they approached the couple, the sprays became like powerful laser beams. The couple became books that flapped their wings like birds, transitioning between both forms as they evaded the sprays. Pursuing them, the sprinklers crossed paths and mutually destroyed themselves. With a mirror sword Alexa chopped through the constellation snakes that Obsidian attacked with and sent her away with a telekinetic push. The cat summoned a herd of giraffes on another grass platform and scratched a wound in space, until blood seeped out over them, painting their bodies and performed a spell, crystalizing them and turning them into candy canes. After they were fully candied, she changed shape yet again into that of a hammer, casting off the glitter, and smashed the candy canes until they were nothing but shards. Then the cat returned to its shape and sent the razor-sharp shards towards the couple like a volley of arrows but were thwarted as Melina erected a shield barrier. Feeling drained, Linden opened a door to a dimension with a nursery and they both raced down the aisles, taking the potted plants
and smashing them against the ground, then eating the shards of the flower pots for their healing properties. Returning, Melina made appear above them an assortment of three-hole punches that opened up as if to clean out their insides, and the confetti of the little circles of paper fell down onto them, like rice thrown at a wedding, and when glitter cat looked again, the couple had become clothed like that of masked carnival goers. “My darling, this has gone on long enough. There is only one way to train an unruly pet such as this” she said. “Are you real y thinking of that? We would be spending a great deal of power” Linden replied. “Yes, it’s time, but I can’t do it without you” she answered knowingly. Linden nodded in agreement as both drew from a vast well of magic, and holding their hands out created a beautiful sphere shimmering like glass. “Incredible!” Echo gasped, seeing that the Couple intended to finish off the glitter cat with a seed of a sphere of time. Seeing that Echo broke away briefly. “Antique Tempest!” she cried and summoned a series of wall mirrors, and the image on their surface was that of a storm cloud dispelling lighting that hit the glass, channeled through it and became mirror lighting that hit both Crytania and Decker, stunning them. With the connection of the electricity certain dreams from the Scilysts entered Echo like memories. “Eat that!” Alexa cried from afar as she watched the sphere, following its trajectory. The glitter cat bared its fangs and opened its mouth wide, devouring the glass. Time seemed to stand still as everyone watched, battlefield voyeurs.
An eruption swept across space as the animal disintegrated. Hogarth and Slobber Dan were ejected from the chaos, drifting unconscious. Slowly the cloud dissipated, and the Couple began to sigh in relief. “I think it exploded trying to bite off more than it could chew” Melina said. Linden laughed heartily at the witticism. Then, a sense of dread overcame him, and his laughter slowly died down. With a trained eye he peered through the jamboree until seeing a robed figure sitting on a single piece of glitter. Taking Melina’s hand, he went to the place where the monk rested and felt the magic of the seed within that figure.
“Who are you?” Linden demanded. Standing up on the piece of color, the gift-bearer cast off its cloak and removed the mask. Echo arrived and stood between her parents. “Be honest, did any of you even mourn me?” Nomi asked, casting aside the mask. Around the irises of her eyes were little flecks of glitter. A silence ensued as both Nomi and her adversaries looked to the horizon and saw a sheet with dots of light stripped away, and in its place a white, empty background. Then, due south of that northern gulf another hollowness appeared. Small negativities appeared to the west and east, and others above and below but far out of sight.
“The ascension is here” Linden reported throughout the fiefdom. Echo felt a chil set into her bones, the ceaseless approach of some unpleasant finality. Nomi looked directly at Echo, “We haven’t been formally introduced, have we? I’m you. At least that’s what I’ve been told”. “It doesn’t have to be like this. There’s no time” she answered, aiming her gestures at the evaporating architecture of the world. “That’s what makes this so exciting. Playing with other people’s fates. Not caring what may be the end result. Happy up in our high castles, blissful, like children being read a story” Nomi replied, jilting her objections. “Visioness?” Echo whispered to that aspect inside. “She may have my body, used as a scaffold to materialize her, but my spirit is in you” Visioness assured her. The adversary offered them a memory, and they saw through her eyes. A lonesome alleyway with a mound of books stacked high. She poured gasoline over them and lit a match, igniting the kindling. Then, out of her cloak she produced the book that had once been her home. Its cover was smooth and inviting, she held it in its center and released it onto the mound. The book burned until it was a prune of ash. “The world is being stripped away, just as the meaning of my life was when I was severed from my home. When my father fell ill, and lost his sight, I spent the remainder of my days caring for him, bringing him with me on a long journey. And at the end of that journey there was a cure. He could see again, and I had saved him from the oblivion of his own mind. Maybe a few years passed, and we were happy”, and tears began to slide down her cheeks. Melina felt the bitterness of her avatar, but cast off the inference, “Al I hear is someone who does not want to mature. Every time things
change in life we are disappointed, but we learn how much larger and complicated the subject is”. “How can you hate your own father so much? The past was stolen away. Do you even know you are a thief? Like a good one, you are so delightfully apathetic. But now I can do whatever comes to mind. That’s what magic is for!” laughed the monk ardently. Echo began to speak but was cut off by her father, “No, empress. Judgment is what matters here. She is a war criminal that gave the decapitation star to Hogarth. There is no going back from that. She has to die here and now”. “I completely agree” Melina seconded. “Nomi, even by burning that book, you couldn’t destroy the meaning in it” Echo assured, holding her hands out to steady the anger welling up in her counterpart. Her face dry again, Nomi breathed, letting the inhalation and exhalation energy follow its course, “Who cares if life has meaning or is meaningless. I am so magnetic now. Look how reality finds me irresistible. The world can watch as I instill you with my beautiful vengeance!”. Upon realizing that underneath her layers was a band t-shirt, echo felt uncomfortable. Three against one, the match began. A whirlwind of countless attacks back and forth. The filthy feeling of betrayal welled up inside echo, but she drank it down. Her lighting attacks were doing little, so she cast a halo beam from the cave iris. Nomi summoned the word
“LOGIC” and took the “I” in her hand, turning it into a sword and sliced through the beam. But it had given echo enough time to trans-manifest near her. Nomi became limp as a fist smashed against her right cheek. The patron turned to see contact lenses decorated with flecks of glitter tumble through the ether. Then her jaw fell, and both Linden and Melina stopped in their tracks as Nomi lifted her head. “My real father was used in experiments. He was a test subject for a scientist who replaced his eyes with kaleidoscopes. So, when I arrived in the Moment, I knew I had to became a scientist, and replace my own eyes, to see things in their true light” she explained. Echo shuddered, seeing the lenses of the kaleidoscopes where eyes should be.
Then with both hands Nomi pulled the tubes from her eye sockets and held them as blood trickled down from the empty hollows. Like an infection, the cybernetic mechanical substance of the kaleidoscope spread across her body. Nomi looked at her skin, from the viewpoint of an ibis flying over the Nile delta, a wonderous tattoo. Switches rested on the surface of each tube like a flashlight. As she pressed them, they ignited as twin sabers, blades of pure kaleidoscope light.
“This life has no center. It’s like a doughnut rolling on a conveyer belt, just waiting for the glaze to cover it to hide it’s shame. Maybe an inspector wil pick it up to see if it has a blemish, but then look through it as they wonder how their life became like this” she monologued. “That is blasphemy to the many hard-working doughnut inspectors!” Linden shouted. Seeing it drifting, Echo grabbed the Logic sword. Drawing lines between points, Linden and Melina crafted constellation swords and shields. In immense fury Nomi fenced the three of them with her sabers. By directing them jointly she could project intolerable beams of kaleidoscope light and by swiping them cast wide arcs. “It’s too strong!” Echo shouted as the logic sword shattered under the weight of the saber. “Daughter, take this shield” Melina said, tossing it to her as a ray nearly arrived at its mark. After the heat had fizzled away, echo let the shield expand, and the points became grain-stars, then disrobed themselves of light. Then a volley of the spikey pollen grains menaced Nomi, but she managed to slice through all of them that got too close.
Reverting back to mirror swords that could be recreated at will, she trans-manifested close, and had her arm severed by a snap of the saber. A predatory grin disclosed itself across her face but was soon turned to surprise as a cloud lumbering through space creeped up behind her, enfolding her in its wooly bumps. Becoming an oval, the white cloud hardened into an egg, then, of its own accord cracked a portion of its shell, firing out the white albumen and yellow yolk with its captive within. The substance jettisoned down onto a logic forest platform, and then began to cook and bubble as if on a frying pan. Nomi screamed in anguish. The cloud returned to form, and Zenith looked down on the hapless creature. Linden descended, extending the blade of his constellation sword by lengthening the lines between the points. “Did you find what you were looking for” Echo asked, turning to Zenith. Nomi crossed her sabers just in time but was sent through the body of the platform along with Linden, fragmenting it. Only a crater-maker
managed to escape. “I did, empress. Have you managed to lose your arm so soon? Let me mold you a new one”, and he took the purple and blue substance of his albumen and yolk, attaching it to the stump, and it regenerated as new as soon as the veins of mirror blood wove through it. The Couple continued to hound the gift-bearer, and echo turned, seeing that the arcs that had not hit their mark continued towards the SOTA corona, damaging it. Uffhill, who was nearby reacted and performed a spell to call forth giant band-aids, laying them against the corona to seal the wounds. Nomi switched into a horseshoe magnet to absorb a barrage of mirror lighting, then turned around and released it at the Couple, who were thrown back. Seeing an opening, the monk joined the sabers, lifted then high and let them fall, sending a titanic arc their way. “Too obvious” echo called, dragging them to safety. Unabated, the arc continued onwards into the depths of the solar system. When she saw Onsuru join them, she spoke to the Couple, and they crafted another constellation shield, which echo gave to her, and touched her shoulder, trans-manifesting her into a mausoleum ship. “Saturn is in the way of that arc. Make sure that doesn’t happen” she said to her and whispered to the engine. The mirror light drive in the core of the ship roared like the first thunderous omen of a coming storm and raced the arc as it sprinted. Arriving a minute before it, Onsuru disembarked and stood with the shield ready, hardening it with a layer of leaves. If not stopped, the arc would cut a slice perpendicular to the rings of Saturn. Onsuru felt her breathe become cold as it approached. Struggling against the shield, the arc bent across the curve of Saturn and dissipated. At its point of contact the shield broke and the energy sliced a line through the patron, dividing her, but fizzled before it reached the atmosphere. Yet again the fiefdom was then short another of the five as she entered the light of the echo seal. Oasis-Two felt the demise of the child of the grassland and knew that she remained now as the last fragment of that existence. Then Linden and Melina were at either side of Nomi at a distance. Each of them took a teacup of coffee and grew it in size. The half-spheres, the domes of coffee separated from the tea-cup. Nomi looked and saw that to either side the giant domes had hardened and were approaching to crush and seal heal within. Close now, the surfaces of the halves sparked with coffee lightning that reached out to the other and drew them tightly together. A minute passed in silence, as they glanced at the sphere for motion within. Then, waves of burning coffee pounded against the Couple, eating away their masquerade costumes. As her neck reattached from a nova of the decapitation star, Nomi took handfuls of glitter and scattered them against her face to regenerate it. Echo saw that her mother was recovering as the monk made a move towards her. “Pelfe, come out for a minute!”
she whispered, and the woman soared over to above where Melina was faster than her host could manage, and summoned two harps. The strings of the instruments slithered down, touching the limp figure, and as soon as they did she switched, becoming a featureless wooden puppet that fought against Nomi, striking her in the chest and sending her backwards. Melina recovered and returned to form, and Pelfe did not even turn her head backwards as she melted into the chest of her host once more. Nomi called into being a door beside her. From the other side came a knocking, and she opened it, letting in a pizza delivery-man. “Here’s your pizza, mam” he began, then froze to death in the vacuum of space, as he crossed the threshold, revolving away, stiff as a board into the placid night. She took the pizza box and opened it, then took a pizza cutter with a sharp metal disk, and sliced pieces. Linden saw her take a bite of a slice, then look up at him with a devilish smirk. Holding the pizza cutter, she bent her arm, and the metal disk detached, spinning towards him. Then it began to grow in size, and took on color, and became a revolving saw-blade of a galaxy fil ed with luminous stars. Linden’s constellation sword glowed bright as he thrust downward, cutting the discus. In the confusion Dimeve rushed to attack Nomi. When his vision cleared, he saw the two together, and the kaleidoscope sabers piercing through him. His body crumbled into god-cells that decomposed into sound. Echo saw his wristwatch turn into a hearing aid and heard the sound enter it. “Visioness!” she whispered.
The woman left the host and retrieved the hearing aid and returned. Nomi made another tear in space above her head with the saber and drew out a section of land torn away from its parent
city of a younger time. Above the surface lay a cemetery with weathered stone memorials and statues. Out of the back of her cybernetic body came cables and plugs and wires that protracted and burrowed into the dirt below the landmass. The cables seethed with energy as it was sucked dry from the cemetery and fed into the body of the monk. As this happened the infection of the cybernetic substance that was like a tattoo spread throughout, sculpting her into a kaleidoscope robot. Their task complete, the cables slithered into her back, then a shoulder mounted missile fired, easily dispatching the loose ground. Echo turned away to see contingents of black robed alliance spell infantry land on the hulls of several mausoleum ships.
Looking closer, she could see each of them wore around their neck's necklaces of diamonds, and when they had set foot on the metal exterior touched the necklaces, making the crystals glow black. Each of them grew into massive ants which like a colony picked apart the ships like they were a fresh carcass. “Jack Bronze must have restored the Wailtu with the help of Teledock’s power” she thought aloud. “Distracted, are we? You should all be watching this splendid creature. Although those ants are dining very fast. That does look delicious” Nomi taunted. A swarm of tea cups with boiling coffee sent by the couple chased down the rival, and when they were near a brown bear would surface from the churning liquid at the waist and swipe at her with its claw. Then out of the coffee cups would come hidden chainsaws, their blades hot and fiery with the boiling of the liquid. But she evaded those until a brown bear shot out of its mouth a chainsaw that stuck itself into her side. Nomi tore it out and healed herself.
Melina came to the right, but she was ready and combined the saber blades into a hammer and smashed her away. Just as that happened Idea tackled the monk from the back, and they both tumbled. Sparring, the patron was subdued by repeated blows of her metal fists. With both hands she summoned an inferno of glitter flame and condensed it until it shrunk exponentially.
Idea looked and saw that in her right hand the cyborg held a glowing atom of glitter. Around him the chains of ascension, obeying her commands restrained him. Nomi rushed to him with the orb in her fist and instantaneously the chains shattered as the atom ignited against his chest. As Echo flew to them, she looked and saw the weakened patron, stabbed through with a saber blade. Linden went to the drifting form of Slobber Dan and roused him, then whispered into his ear. His body was bleeding out, and to save his life, there was only one way. Then the Subject and the Reflectant joined together, and the failed body of Idea faded away and Linden looked at who he was holding in his arms. It was Narland Stallonbash, and above his head hovered a light bulb. Before losing consciousness again he saw his daughter Falzar put a ravaged mausoleum ship, covered with Wailtu ants out of its misery with an idea-star, then turn to face Keshtarga.
Linen went to his wife and looked at Melina, and as he did his corporeal form faded away, leaving only a red heart. Melina took the heart and it became a stone in her hand. “Emzeser, give me a lake!” she called, and the patron let loose waterfalls that tumbled upwards forming into a pool. At the other shore was Nomi, so she aimed and tossed the stone with a flick of her wrist and skipped it across to the other side. As it collided, Nomi’s metallic form was shattered and she returned to her previous state.
CHAPTER 22 – GOLDEN ONE ESCAPES IN THE DREAM TIME MACHINE
Second Age, Echo Realm
Somewhere farther below, three sets of footsteps ventured into a grassy field unflustered and green with new shoots. well-disposed to the hustle and bustle of the wind. Climbing away from an embankment, the land leveled out until they saw a quarter of a square mile of poplar trees
situated in the center of a field. The noisy sounds of the rumblings above could not be heard here. Nothing except the rustling of the grass as the meadow hamsters ambled to their underground burrows where there are dressing cabinets, and they would climb into the sock drawers and crawl into the socks like sleeping bags for afternoon naps. “This is the last component” said the statuesque amber angel, taking a container from the hands of the young man. Eitu Emmob Albapir led Jack Interlock and Quin Refinement to an area at a corner of the poplars where the field was manicured like a crop circle. Waving her hand over the ground, a terminal rose and she typed the command codes. Steam rose from the dividing line between the field and the trees as the quarter square mile elevated, revealing computer banks and the mechanical anatomy, a single module of an elaborate machine. “Are you ever going to tell us what we’ve been going on all these fancy quests for?” Quinn asked as Albapir inserted the component into a slot near a computer bank. “Yeah, we want to know why we’ve been going to all the different ages if we’re just going to come back here?” Jack added. “Wel , kids, it wasn’t just for vacation” she admitted, and they both crossed their arms sarcastically. “Come on …”
Quinn pleaded. “Alright” the cough-drop relented. Sweeping her hand over the terminal a hologram of the pyramid of light appeared. “Right now, we are here, in the apex. It’s this whole place, built into the structure. A dream time machine. It can convert dreams into time by refining them into pure energy”. “Whoa! That’s bonkers!” Jack exclaimed. He looked over to Quinn, who was fiddling the dirt with her shoe, until he broke her concentration, “okay, I’m impressed”. “So am I” came a voice approaching them. Jack Bronze made his way towards the module and its operators, “Prayer, you wil relinquish your command to me so that I can finish this for good. I am tiring of this dance”. “That’s never going to happen” Albapi assured him. “Get away from them Bronze!” shouted Golden One, landing near the embankment. Phenomenological electricity channeled through Jack Bronze and began interacting with the surrounding modules.
“Get on my wings, children” she ordered, and they took hold. Albapir departed from the ground, landing in the poplar forest covering the ceiling of the platform as the two Scilysts began to bicker. Hidden in the depths was a playground whirl, rusted and abandoned. She spun it quickly, until it was so fast that it blurred into a solid, and from it a pillar of light rose to the height of the apex. The earth began to reconfigure in strange ways in the room as mechanical modules positioned themselves. The poplars retracted into the module. “Why did you make all of this?”
Jack demanded. “Does there have to be a reason? I real y just wanted to do it for fun” Albapir replied somberly, staring up at the height of the pil ar. “What!” Quinn shouted in disbelief at her arrogance. The wings of the amber statue stretched out, “Let me tell you something, friends.
When I was in my heyday, I used to be the owner of a toy-store. Everyone would come, from the kids down the street to the patrons to see what wonders I had in stock. Things were simpler.
Then you all grew up, and no longer wanted to play with toys, and all went to war, forgetting how much fun it was to walk the aisles, and find the surprises. That’s why I built this. It’s only a time machine if you think of it that way. Real y, it’s just a big toy. Something that’s good enough for big kids like you”. “Gah!” Jack Bronze huffed as another beam of cosmic light from the water spoons bul ied him. “That’s enough!” he cried and sent electricity into the forest module accelerating the sequence. Jack and Quinn blinked, and their friend was gone. They looked up and saw the orange seraphim striding through the sky, then dived towards the attacker. “You can’t take this from them!” Albapir bellowed. A single strike of the fist, and the statue plunged to the ground, shattered and broken into pieces, its head rolling until coming to rest, her eyes looking up at the edge of the platform where the two looked back. Her lips quivered, “If you don’t take it out of the box, you’l never know what it can do”, then the eyelids covered the eyes of resin, shutting them for good. Distracted by the interference, Jack was not fast enough. Golden One now stood behind Jack and Quinn and brought them into the whirl. “Don’t worry. I won’t let anything happen to either of you” she promised, looking down at their faces as the three of them entered the pillar. Seconds later, the apex of the pyramid of light disappeared, and Jack Bronze found himself floating in the abyss, then landed on the base of what remained of the edifice.
“This is a decent short cut to the shore” thought Teddy. Around him manifold cacti littered the unreal desert. Some became droplets and wobbled away. Every so often, the wind would change directions, and the sand would be swept away, revealing a more picturesque ground of placid stars and appealing darkness. Tension made his steps hurried. At this juncture, every moment counted. He fought against the desert as it compensated, which sought to appease him with the erosion of all his emotions as the lemurs frolicked among the succulents. “The party’s upstairs, my friend” Otto announced, following his tracks. “Doubtful. It’s where it began, where you and I both saw our reflections. The path leads back there, and I wil be the first to arrive”
Teddy explained. “Not a good idea, this is private property and you’re a trespasser” Otto replied and held out his hands, firing the firework fingers off towards him. Teddy materialized an energy seal and held it as a shield, letting the fireworks detonate against it as he pushed forwards.
Otto’s hands continued to regenerate, replacing the fingers that fired continuously. Step by step the trespasser inched towards him, hidden by the shield as the sparks danced in wild profusion.
Near enough, Teddy became a gale of vinorian flour that engulfed the other, and dived into a seal. Otto looked around and found himself in a white room, trans-mutated from the substance of the vinorian flour, and Teddy continued onwards.
CHAPTER 23 – PRIYA VS NOMI
Second Age, Echo Realm
Echo, and the Couple assembled to see how damaged the gift-bearer was after the recent attack. “The truth will never tame me! I can tear apart everything I want and rip it into shreds.
Stories will no longer be safe harbors for words. They can never stay like they used to, like feral squatters and I will flush them out. Then I will walk through the universe, and brittle stars can be crushed under my feet like autumn leaves. And I will blindfold time with space and push him off a cliff! My vengeance is gorgeous and all-consuming and mouthwatering and undeniable!” Nomi ranted. “My avatar is nuts” Echo whispered so only her parents could hear. “We have to deal with this …” Melina began, but was silenced, seeing the sudden movements of the gift-bearer.
Then, wielding the kaleidoscope sabers Nomi slashed and severed the link in the avatar chain connecting the Couple and Echo. “Avatar Inversion … Collapse!” she cried. The thread connecting Echo to Etheria to Veles to Snow to Falzar to Phantomess to Alexa to Ralamara to Nomi became visible and retracted. Ralamara was the first, flung through an immense distance until entering into the monk. The rest followed, until etheria was dragged inward. Nomi approached unrelentingly as the chain shortened. Sensing the drag, Echo took hold of it and ripped its connection between her and what had been Etheria. Thin streams of blood continued to seep out of the hollow eye cavities down her face. As the vitality of the eight suffused through a single form, the monk looked onwards at the Couple with that same emptiness that was then filled as billows of glitter, a steady current escaped from them, from the cavities. Nomi looked around herself and noticed how at certain placed space feigned normality. “I feel the residue of the old world. It churns around us, dormant, wanting to be set free. Let me be your liberator”.
Holding the handles of the sabers, then melted into her hands, and the blades shortened, becoming radiant kaleidoscope hands that then hid themselves behind thin mechanical gloves.
Directing a hand towards a distortion, the word, “Asymmetry” arose out of the asymmetrical field, and she detached the “A”, the rest burning away in flame. “Echo, if I am the anchor, if I am the burden that you have let fall to the bottom of this ocean of silence, I must be the only one that’s real” she said, and with a telekinetic push sent the “A” forwards. “I should move” though
Echo, but the letter came too fast and strong. Etab and Timecurrent came and carried her away to a safer place to mend the trauma, too weakened to continue. “Now we have privacy” Nomi remarked, facing the Couple. Reaching out her hand towards the outer solar system, the Jovian satellite of Lysithea shrunk until it was greatly reduced in size and transported to her it became even smaller until it was the size of a ball. She turned it into a water balloon and threw it at them. Melina crafted a bow and fired a constellation arrow, spilling the water balloon of its contents. Linden appeared behind to strike, but she fell back, and in her hand took out a hypodermic needle and in the other summoned a tiny star, and withdrew a portion of its core substance, and stuck him in the chest with it, injecting it. His frame faded away, revealing a constellation clone, and the points erupted in shock. Turning around, the real Linden was near and became a cuckoo clock that thrust out its extension, knocking the gift-bearer through a frigate. More hypodermic needles appeared and drew blood, and she sent them as a volley towards Linden, but he evaded them, and they hit the frigate, destroying it. Now the three of them were at close quarters, and she withdrew her gloves to combat their constellation swords with kaleidoscope hands. Harvesting more asymmetrical fields she tossed “A” letters at them continuously. Melina summoned ladders and placed his hands upon them, and they became covered in flame, and pulled them apart, leaving the rungs, and sent them as volleys against her. “This is getting out of control” Ostigim said, holding her mother’s head and wiping the sweat off of her forehead. Etab and Timecurrent were almost finished with their healing spells when she got up again. Echo could see the look in her daughter’s eyes, feeling the meaning behind her words. “Don’t say that. I won’t do it” she whispered. “Be quiet. You’re just a fool if you don’t know it. This is the best way” Ostigim argued, gripping hard on her arm. They paused to witness the ensuing battle. “Try to explain me! At this point, nothing can explain what I have become!
Let them all know that they will flock to the superb shrine of my disillusionment. Chemicals will transform logic. My bitterness will be their sweetness. I will make reality do ten jumping jacks!
And I will be the architect, and this vengeance will be the foundation of my new world!” Nomi cried, and the billows joined into two streams that accumulated into a glitter skull. From its mouth and eyes issued a spell-beam that raced towards them. At that moment, drifting among the wreckage, Hogarth jerked from his hard slumber. An apple that was like an incorporeal spirit rolled towards him, then came to a halt. “Do you real y believe that?” the head of Faber asked, aroused him. For the first time in many years, strange emotions boiled inside. He saw drifting his axe and took hold of it. The Couple held their constellation shields in place. When it arrived, Hogarth was standing between them, and slashed down with his axe, taking the brunt of it.
“Gah!” he growled. “Thank you, Hogarth” Melina said, and Linden sent him away, seeing that he had taken the full burden.
CHAPTER 24 – THE CRYSTAL SHORE
Second Age, Echo Realm
Down below, TAP lay on the ground, and watched a mile away, as Teddy continued unabated on his path. “Final y found you” came someone from behind, their face concealed by a white mask. “Crystallized Apricot” TAP gasped. The woman was quick with her hands, dusting her off.
“Maiden-Mother, there is so much I want to confess …” she began but was cut off. “There’s no time. You have to do something. See him over there … don’t let him get to the shore and see the reflection” TAP pleaded, “take the red aurora”. The light carried her swiftly to where the shore was, hovering over its surface. “It’s time to get rid of this skin” she said, and the
crystalized sugar that was her outer covering shed itself, and with her energy she collected it all into a single crystal. Teddy could see the natural lake waiting for him. Through the coastal neighborhood he came upon the shore, and just at the moment before a crystal plopped into the waters and a sheath of crystalized sugar like ice swept over it, veiling the reflection
“If this is the way it is, I accept it. Emotions and everything will just get in the way” Ostigim pleaded. Echo felt the weight of the decision. The memory of the sacrifice of the echo seal generation played in detail in her thoughts. “No … I won’t let anything happen to you” she said and placed a hand upon her daughter’s chest. Inside Ostigim the Circadian Annulment, the weapon that was forged to fray the avatar chain transferred from her body to its forger. The “ES”
upon the chest of Echo lit with the incorporeal flame. The Couple saw that Nomi began to writhe, and behind them materialized the eyes of the mirror maze realm, and from them projecting a spell-beam. Then out of her thrust the seven avatars, each dangling by their position on the tread. Etheria was first, followed by the others, with the monk at its terminal.
Upon their bodies the Couple ignited the flame of the spark of the ascension. They flew to Etheria, and each placed a hand upon her hand, transferring the element. Then Etheria’s body was engulfed for a moment, and it vanished again and reappeared on Veles and continued down the chain to Ralamara. Sparks danced upon Nomi as it consumed her. The glitter ceased its egress and her face returned to normal, the eyes peering out at echo. “You came” she said.
The patron looked down, at her chest, seeing the band-t-shirt, then looked back at the woman that slowly turned to ash. A waste, like a book being used for firewood.
Encroaching upon the galaxy, the white voids continued their unrelenting march. They breached the solar system, tearing patches away with ease. Agreeing to a temporary truce, the competing fleets turned tail and ran to safety through the soul-shell gateways of the SOTA into the interior. Echo looked and saw the flame of the spark of the ascension upon her parents, and it beckoned forth a white vacuum besides them. “We are being invited” Linden said to Melina, holding her hand. Total repose overcame their faces as they began towards it, being drawn inwards. Already, they were too far to reach. She closed her eyes and could hear a voice within her inner realm of silence whisper a suggestion. “Let’s save them” Visioness said, and an image formed of a pocket watch projecting a magical link to receive them. From her side Echo withdrew the pocket watch and held it over her palm. “This could be my last chance” she thought. Then she looked down at the palm of her hand. “I’m sorry … I can’t do this” she yielded. Perspective navigated through the mirror maze until arriving through her parent’s eyes she witnessed herself for a moment, and then they were gone. Etab grabbed hold of her waist,
“Let’s ditch this place!” and turned to carry her back to the bunker. Rider had just arrived besides Timecurrent and guided them through the fray.
Within the emptiness gravity welled up within the Couple, and they could feel the reappearance of the singularities. “One more spel ” Melina said. The Dyson-SOTA activated, drinking in the surrounding sectors and their worlds, downloading them all. Forces soon took over, and their bodies became folded into the cells of the singularities. In the blank canvas of the vacuum, Anti-Mitosis took effect as the two became one. “That was a good distraction” thought Orchidia Everglow, her long blond hair flowing behind her as she watched the dancing of the prominences upon the corona, it’s supple flesh ready to accept her as it’s host, “I wil be a happy parasite”. The first trial of the cosmic tree, she was not one single individual, but many, the ring of paint, the never-ending cycle of the Coup d’état. Each holding the throne for a time until another would be birthed, severed from the icon in a temple, and rose to overthrow them. Not knowing the truth until their blade cut through the other, revealing not blood, but paint. Now the three ingredients, the essence of the echo bloodline through the True of the True Color of Mar, and the dust bloodline with the essence of Idea and the dream aether bloodline with the
essence of Emzeser mingled inside her. In the digital realm she silenced Lifegiving Computer, after she had offered a good struggle. Laying upon a bed of coursing information, she placed her hand upon her forehead, expunging all memory, then hid in plain sight, allowing the other personality to awaken. “Enjoy your freedom” Orchidia thought, watching Zemmy gain her bearings, fleeing away into the digital. On Coffee Island, the patrons all gathered around Etab as he descended. “A little worse for wear, although I think we’ll keep it. found this stray out back, and I thought she needed a home” Etab declared, to the laughter of the others. “Welcome back”
Mar said, taking her hand, his blue eyes shining like a nebula that perished long ago, and Echo smiled, knowing she could never be alone with so much family After a time of in the care of the patrons, Echo got up, and walked along a path. She found her body felt light. Then she slowly vanished.
CHAPTER 25 – INTO THE DYSON-SPHERE
Second Age, Echo Realm
A metal mask lay upon a table of dry ice, enshrouded by wisps of carbon dioxide vapor. Saga Def looked down, then retrieved it, placing it against his face. In a courtyard with bee-keeper’s boxes, there stood out one from the rest. Removing its contents, the comb slid from its container, altering its aspect into a terminal board. He input the sequence and throughout the planetary network the anti-gravity units activated. Lucky were they that early in the history of the colony, traders came from earth, and brought with them a remarkable strain of orchid, genetically engineered to be a blank slate for their various agricultural uses. But soon after scientists discovered its latent potential, how energy was channeled effortlessly through the ordinary flower. Soon greenhouses were constructed and created the foundation of the colony’s rapid expansion. Through viewscreens he could see their steady approach. “My Lifegiver, you wil never be lonely in your room again, we are coming home!” Saga thought. Planet Elemna, …
which was closest to the sun … broke from its orbit, steadily increasing its velocity towards the greater center of gravity and when it was near, it was accepted, downloaded into the corona.
CHAPTER 26 – COMPANION ARC: PRIYA AND TIMECURRENT
Current Time
Dogged by the heat, Veles performed a spell that turned the beads of sweat that matted her body into marbles, so they would roll easily off. “About time” she chimed, seeing Echo approach from the distance, walking besides a woman she had never seen before, but was sure was another stranger her mother had befriended on her travels. “Can you honestly tell me you had it all under control” Priya teased, knowing it would throw her daughter’s mood a tad. “Oh, it’s been swell. You missed the part when we went into a movie theater and someone had the bright idea to tap the butter-pump and we were all flooded in for five hours” Veles grumbled. “Glad you weren’t a casualty. That’s a far too sil y way to go. Then tell me what progress you’ve made daughter; you know how diligent I can be about that” her mother pried. A few days of military history passed by in brief. Distracted, the commander looked down at a deer licking the palm of
her hand. Veles wiped it off on her dress, following up with an excuse, “this little guy has been following us around for days, seems to like us … shoo, shoo … the grownups are talking”. “Wait a minute, take a look closer. Do you think this is just an ordinary deer?” Echo reacted. Veles placed her hand on the shoulder of a nearby brigadier, and he time-lapsed, walking in the direction that the tap of her hand had sent him towards. “Man, that is some potent stuff” Veles exclaimed. “Before we came to the Earth, Ruin and Timecurrent promised each other that if she ever became lost, she would send a deer to find us, and bring us back to her, so our friend here is our new guide, for the time being. No pun intended” she explained. Nadine was led away by two brigadiers to a safe-house. Lifting its ears to a pat on the back, the deer skipped down the street, leading them to where a used-up cardboard paper towel ring was laying across an intersection, the size of a subway tunnel. Going through its length, they found themselves orbiting above the dark side of the moon, the stars twinkling in the background. As the tube slowly rotated their vision swept past more of the lunar landscape. Echo took the deer in her arms as the gravity shifted, still led by the direction which it gestured to with its pointy ears.
“Over there is the temple of the voices of reason. Telenon must be away somewhere else. I don’t feel his presence. This isn’t good” Priya noted as her eyesight fell on the architecture bathed in the black of space. “How are we even going to get inside?” Veles wondered. “Don’t worry about that part, the building wil just segment to let us in. I just hope our girl there” Priya said, cursing herself for not seeing through the lies, for encouraging the bitterness that held him hostage with permission. Just like she predicted, the walls created a makeshift entrance to the walkway that led to the main chamber. Inside, sitting on the floor with her back to the left side of the throne-chair was TImecurrent, tears escaping from underneath a black blindfold. One leg was stretched out across the floor, the other she hugged with both arms. “Plus-Minus, we are here, we love you, now let’s go back home before that monster comes back” Priya said, kneeling down with Veles. “Hail to the Maelstrom Al egiance” she whispered, and wiped away tears with her hand. Slipping from her palm they fell onto the floor and became jack-in-the-boxes. Priya quickly crushed them with her foot so they would not disturb their talk with noise.
“Time, what did he do to you? Why are you wearing that blindfold?” Veles reviled, then reached up to her head to pull it off, but underneath it was yet another one of the same exact type. “I put the blindfold on myself with a spel . I wanted to only see my imagination and its glory” she replied. The deer licked a puddle that a jack-in-the-box had devolved into. “You are not well, Time. He is just using you for your magic, he doesn’t love you!” Priya shot back. “No, no, no, you’re wrong. I’m his little teddy bear that he hugs when he goes to sleep at night. He brought me roses made out of five hundred years. He made me earrings out of a microsecond”. “No, he doesn’t care about you. Men do this all the time, they get into your head and drive you crazy, but your stronger than this, I know it. Time, we are your family. Telenon is evil. When he is done with you, he wil get rid of you so easily like you’re not even a person. Your being controlled”
Veles exasperated, furious at the broken look on her cousin’s face. “Do you remember what your old life was like, how much fun you had during the easy years? Time, you helped defend the SOTA against the alliance and were one of our greatest champions. We love you, we can’t live without you” Priya added, interlocking her fingers into hers. “My old life was real jazzy, but it didn’t have … him. He makes me happy like a hiccup. Before, time was featureless, but now its rife with color and new potential. I know when he comes back, he will make me his wife, and make a wedding dress for me, weaving it out of yo-yo string like I told him. We will hold hands and rose petals from the mouth of a dozen deer will surround us, scattering everywhere, then he will tickle me with stubble on his cheek as he kisses me. He will breathe dimensions into me with his kiss” she dissented. Without letting a moment elapse for her words to sink in, Echo came back with a question she knew would hurt the girl, “Time, does he love you more than the Maelstrom Al egiance?”. “He loves me! He loves me!” the girl, rocking back and forth against the wal and the chair pleaded. “Don’t let him hurt you!” Veles shouted. “But …” the patron, trying to claw back at reality stammered. More tears rolled down her cheeks, pelleting the wood-boards
below, but this time they did not transform. “Take me home, sisters” the patron, in a cracked voice, said as if the sentence itself was an inexpiable sin. Pulling the ragdoll to her feet, they walked across the room. “I can sense it now, the turbulence is being amplified by timid rainbow splashing, dissociative treasure hunt and lure effervescence, each technique from one of the three Wolasian schools” Priya observed. The walls of the temple of the voices of reason parted.
Being a nuisance, the deer licked Veles once more, causing her to time-lapse all the way through the divide into the tube and back to where they started. “Damn, lost another one” the scientist blurted. “She’l be back. I guess it’s just you and me for now. She … saved my life, so don’t let me think about him anymore” Time maintained. “I won’t. Just rest your arm over my shoulder” the newcomer instructed. “The temple has drifted away from that tunnel. Here, let me make a bridge so we don’t have to bother” the patron designed. Lifting a hand up to her face she removed a layer of the blindfold, laying it down like a road for them to walk on. Making their way across, Priya noticed the surroundings had yielded to darkness. “Time, where is the moon
… sigh … we are in another …” she grieved. Her sister hugged her tight as a whisper of
“Maelstrom Al egiance” reverberated through the dismal ether. Television sets displaying different phases of the moon, from crescent to full shed eerie subliminal light.
Traveling onwards they came across blindfolded people who likewise laid down their layers, forming paths to make bridges through the world’s lonesome cavity. Fol owing its trajectory, they discovered dart-boards with fragments of forest, and other paths attached around their circumference, leading to other places. Darts would collide from out of the ether and slowly mature into trees. Time tapped on Echo’s shoulder and pointed to some people so she could witness a quirk of conversation. By touching their blindfolds together, two people could trade layers, with one person’s unraveling from their blindfold and setting onto the other’s in quick succession. Sometimes this process happened so swiftly that watching the layers was akin to watching the pages of a book flip by. Due to the inordinate number, trading them was mathematically inconsequential. Jumping over a creek of the static ocean, Time pulled the other’s arm as a snake peeked through the grass, “Look where your walking!”. It headed the other direction, much to their benefit. As Echo reached the edge, she handpicked a ribbon that seemed not to lead into the absence of being.
Drawn half-way to another island in the distance, their road was instead blocked by a gathering of people around a table. Needling their way in was simple enough. “Did you come here for the slices too?” one of them asked, hearing their distinct footsteps. “Not quite, we were just passing through” Time rebuffed. “Hopscotch! Everyone has been talking about this for weeks. I suppose you two just want the first pick” the man assumed. Echo squinted in confusion. “Here he comes!” clapped a woman beside them. Wearing a white hat, a chubby chef lay a duffle-bag and a jar of marbles besides the leg of the table. Unclasping the bag, he lifted up a big gleaming marble, with frilly inner glasswork onto the surface. Grasping a long carving knife, such as that used to portion turkey on a thanksgiving, he went to work on the marble, hewing it in two.
Holding a hemisphere with one hand he slowly carved a very thin slice – VTS – of marble, handing it to the first participant who wrapped it around himself, as a sleeping bag, and lay on the ground falling fast asleep. Gifting the next thin slice to a woman, she threw it over her head, letting it cover both her face and shoulders, then ran about twirling and laughing in joy. At times she would light up as if her body was a metaphysical strobe light. Another person took a thin slice and just held it with one hand, watching it wobble. Yet another person wrapped their thin slice around their shoulders as a cape and flew off like super hero. Distributing the marble to the crowd, the ecstasy of the VTS began to grow in intensity. “I love this thin slice! I want to be the pages in a book!” the woman cried. Standing in front of them, a tall, lanky gentleman wrapped a thin slice around himself, then multiplied into marbles, scattering into microgravity. Pretending to be a chef, an old man tossed his thin slice up in the air, twirling it and catching it as a pizza
dough. As he caught it the slice became a pizza with marbles instead of pepperonis and he divided the slices up amongst the crowd. Besides him a young man stood on the circle of a slice he had placed on the surface of the black fabric that was their new ground that day. Reaching into his body, he pulled out very thin anatomical slices and threw them into the crowd. A few of them made a whistling noise and wiggled away into the unknown. Jogging all the way from the dart-island that they had only departed from, a tawny haired woman handed out thin cross section slices of trees. Each of them showed rings that betrayed the years of their parents.
Laying a marble slice as a circle onto the air, a man with short white hair summoned geometrical forms. Cross sections of thin slices fell out, generating two dimensional shapes.
Soon enough the chef was done with one hemisphere and began on the other. Flocks of ghosts lured by the commotion arrived, reaching for thin slices and laid them on their bodies. Many of them became human again, although one of them wrapped a thin slice around themselves like a sleeping bag and rolled across the ground until becoming a cannoli, the type of cream filled one that you would find in an Italian bakery. “Please, let’s try it just once” Time begged. “Oh …
alright” Priya caved, soon regretting her decision as the chef threw her a slice that she was too nonchalant to lift her arms to catch. It slapped into her face like a pizza dough thrown at a random person. “It tickles” Time exclaimed as the crowd layered VTS upon her. Images began to float into Priya’s mind through the medium of the floppy mask. Scenes of people cutting thin slices of things – tomatoes and oranges and kiwi and deli meats – then cross sections of physical objects at all scales of reality – of atoms and houses and plants and slices of time that included scenes of her life – folds drooping onto those below and deforming as the thin slices were cut in succession. “What is this room, it looks familiar? she said aloud as the outlines of a study-like setting assembled out of white blindness like coffee cream. “Of course, … this is my laboratory, and that is me over there at a table. Must be one of the semesters before the chamber” she recal ed. Stealing from a napkin box dispenser, the researcher slid on a set of lab gloves and retrieved a mushy pink brain from what could have been a beer cooler on a better day. With keen precision she used a sharp knife to cut a very thin slice of brain matter. Holding it high, she could assess the harmonious design of the noble organ. Then her perspective shifted, so that looking through the mask she saw from the viewpoint of the brain slice. It wobbled between the rubber of the researcher’s two fingers. Bringing the cross section to a microscope, a short study commenced. Priya looked up from the flat surface of the microscope observation tray. Disks of beautiful glass hovered above. It tickled to be looked at so carefully.
Done with a brief examination, the scientist once again picked it up, but less carefully this time.
“This slice is too thick” she sighed, then with a foot opened up the lid of a trash can and tossed it in. Darkness overcame Echo’s vision. A rush of madness soared through. Peeling the mask from her face and tossing it onto the table. The patron started to laugh, “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! everything has come full circle!” and ran towards a wide cobblestone water-well that the ghosts had brought and lain onto the blind-fold path. A ring of people leaned over it, filling it with their laughter. Without the spark of rational thought Priya leapt headlong down the well, into the same darkness that the slice had been condemned to. “Ha ha ha ha ha! This is the end!” she rabidly bellowed, her voice ringing off the cobblestones of the bottomless tunnel. Tumbling became a natural state of being. Down and down unless there was something that could ….
stop her. As the momentum evaporated, she gasped. Straps pressed tightly around her back and arms and legs. Slowly, deliberately, the ring of locals standing around the well raised her upwards with the ribbons of their blind-folds. “Get her!” chimed in her ears with the sound of a familiar voice. Meeting an imperfect circle of light Priya was lain down at the foot of the well.
Focus returned as the bitterness of life crept out in tears. Throwing her arms around Time, she held her tight, thanking her breathlessly. “Sometimes we all need to be saved, just promise me you’l never do anything like that again” Time said. Her friends’ embrace was warm and sweet beyond conception. “Thank you, Time, do you have anything for me to bite on? I’m famished”
she begged. Handing her a cannoli, her sister gobbled it up with little concern for dignity. “Wait,
was this the cannoli …” Priya stopped, thinking of the ghost that had wrapped itself in a sleeping bag of the very thin slice. “Nah, that’s just something I had in my pocket” Time confirmed to her relief. “I’m lucky to have a real sister. I grew up as an only child and it was rough” the patron relayed … with extra breaths so she knew her words were real.
Up ahead the path ended at another dart-board. The girls skipped past an embankment into a paltry thicket. Laying it’s back against a tree a wooly sweater played with a big bottlecap, throwing it occasionally and catching it. Farther on, a cluster of cottages had gardens of wooly cotton in tiers of brick enclosures. As a ball grew larger, it produced enough electricity to elicit the others to aggregate. Then it touched a brick, causing electricity to flow into the settlement.
Inside the first cottage they found the television running on a cooking channel. Flamingos standing in the vestibule became pink cockroaches that scurried and hid under the floorboards.
“Switch that off before it starts playing something dumb” she instructed Time. “Looks like she’s making a drink” her friend hesitated as the presenter of a cooking show went to a blender on a counter. Opening up the shelves she collected a handful of jack-in-the-boxes, crammed them in the blender and made a smoothie of a frothy pink color. “Here honey, try this, it's good for your metabolism” the presenter said with a smile, handing her a cup of smoothie by passing her arm through the screen. “Yum! that was good” Time credited. “Oops, you got a little bit on your chin, let me take care of that” she insisted, then removed the skull from an audience member and folded it into a white napkin and stuck her arm through the screen again to wipe off the excess dribble on the girl’s lip. Echo had enough. Rotating the channel switch with telekinesis, the viewscreen returned to static, inebriated pixels of imagery. “What is it doing Priya? The grain is flowing inward instead of across” Time fussed apprehensively. “Get over here!” her patron demanded. Guarding the couch from the glare of the television, they stared into the technological veil, into a plane with the suggestion of movement underneath. “Al hail the Maelstrom Allegiance” the box recited monotonously. “Time! This is big. This realm is a bridge to the space that harbors the imprints of the Voices of Reason as they cycle. If we can just communicate with one of them, we may gain an edge” the scientist gathered excitedly. “Are you sure about this, it could be dangerous?” Time stalled.” Yes, sis … if I can just get a little bit closer. The box looks unstable though” she lurked forward, inching careful y. “That’s not what you should be worried about” Visioness appeared holding the throat of the snake that boldly sought to reach the patron. Under duress by the intonation, the box’s mere frame could not withstand, collapsing on itself into useless parts. “Rainbow, you gave me a heart attack, and the box is gone now, I had it!”. “You’re welcome” Visinoess replied, her essence cancelling the serpent’s disguise. Priya and Time looked again, only now it was more than just a simple beast, having shed its skin. “My, my! This is one of Obsidian’s constellation serpents. Teddy will see red for his betrayal” she affirmed. “At least give him a chance to speak” Visiones cut back, prompting the memory of how Obsidian had tried to reach her with a message during their capture by pirates. “I am only a herald, so please don’t hurt me” the constellation began in the voice of The Night, animated by her unique prowess, “during this unpleasant trouble I received a visitor from the Ring. He was a Jordicorian, one of the abbots of Bronze. Teledock, the name should be familiar to you. By contact … a single touch, he stole a portion of my power. What I witnessed next is difficult to relate. Not a man, but a black circulatory system radiating with echoic power, your power. This character called himself Telenon, like our enemy, although I know not why. He forced me to tell him all I knew about your whereabouts. Hopefully this message arrives first, so be on your guard” the serpent warned, dimming into nonexistence as the star-points of its body lost vigor. “So be it” VIsioness shrugged indifferently, fading back into the body of her host.
Outside, in the midst of it all another wooly sweater was holding a big bottle cap upside down.
Dolls of ballet dancers marched about the circle of the cap to the delight of the sweater. Another
played with a rotary dial telephone. Making it to the edge of that island, Time directed her attention to the appearance of an astronaut in a space-suit drifting by. He seemed to be alive, but without thrusters, the fuel having been depleted hours ago. Lifting the visor, a tree sprouted and grew from the darkness within. Both girls leapt onto the nearest branch and began climbing until gaining a substantial height. Time returned to their present circumstance, discussing it vividly. Her friend waited for her to relent. “Now this is an awfully good view of all those bridges and islands, it should be easy to trace the best path from here” Priya observed. Just as easily as tissue paper a blindfold bridge snapped as an hourglass broke through. It rotated, letting the grains naturally slide down the incline into the other chamber. To their amazement it grew many orders in size, so that before they knew it the grains had gained substantial color. Priya instinctively stepped back when she saw them in their true light, as marbles. The hourglass crashed through an island, and shamelessly dislodged its paths without injury, continuing onwards. They watched its departure, and the flowing of marbles like sand on the sea. “Had to open your big mouth, didn’t you?” Time kidded. “Alright, I didn’t know time could be so … in your face” Priya admitted. “Believe me, I thought it was only a toy at first as well. Over the years my perspective has changed. Let’s get down from here and find that path to Tijuana” she instructed whilst balancing on a thin branch over to a spot above where an empty astronaut suit with an open visor had gotten caught in the tangle of foliage. Dropping down through it, they came out at another visor of a suit on one of the dart-islands that had survived. Supple melodies welcomed them, emanating from a young man playing a guitar for his attentive lover, both blindfolded and oblivious to the destruction that had only just been wrought on the landscape.
“Hide and seek is over Echo” came a voice seeking them out from beyond the dart trees.
Telenon, a walking circulatory system of shadow stood before them. Adrenaline and sorceric senses kicked into overdrive, but Priya could not decipher the foul energy that had once been the very makeup of the creature. “Are you here to finish what you started?” she demanded.
Inquiring eyes passed over her. Priya felt her soul under the microscope of his curious gaze.
“The waters are colder here” Telenon ruminated. “That didn’t answer my question. I know you have been seeking me out. I heard it from The Night. If you try to fight me you will not live to tomorrow” she threatened. “Yes, I am here to finish this. I remember that day long ago. Dreamer sinking through the water … bubbles springing from her mouth. They formed into nascent realities comparable to this, one among many that did not survive” Telenon, bracing against the bitter wind of memory, recounted. “We were lucky. A monster tried to drown us” Priya declared, curling her fists. Slowly the creature stepped closer to them. The patron’s forehead became wet, intimidated by the approach, her body metabolizing magic in preparation for the battle. “Echo …
You were born from loss, but you have changed” Telenon said, a somber voice highlighted by a note of optimism … happiness. With incredible relief Priya understood the purification of the Telenonic energy through the eons was complete. “Telenon, it is good to final y meet you. If only our original meeting had been on better terms” she confessed. “Agreed” he smiled, causing Time’s eyebrow to twitch as she experienced opposing, contradictory impulses, one of latent desire, the other of mortal fear. “What are you looking for now that you have found me?” she questioned. Telenon took a step back, “I don’t want anything else other than to be a free man”.
Anxious moments passed, until a reply came from the Empress, “There’s nothing wrong with that”. A knowing glance shared between the two, the man turned to Time, “This place appears to be tied to your blindfold, young lady, do you need help?” he asked. “Um … yeah. I’ve basically tried everything. None of my spel s work” Time complained, a little red-faced at her defeat in regards to such a simple task. Telenon lifted his hands up to Time and removed the blindfold.
Around them, the natural light and heat of Tijuana embraced their senses. Veles ran over, pul ing Time into a vortex of hugs. Nadine’s presence ... was conspicuously gone. Talk
commended on numerous topics including the man that they had brought with them, camouflaged so as not to incite retaliation. High-rise apartments in a sea of squat local shops and chain-stores made up the northern flank of the city. Time noticed ordinary details that had survived the turbulence, simple rooftop gardens, shingles caked with the incandescence of perennial summer. Around their skirts misshapen debris loitered. From the destruction of a neighborhood theme park the rail of a roller coaster lay across the ground, flaccid and lifeless.
Excitement from the regiment spilled out, but not because of their arrival. Craning her neck Priya witnessed the cloudscape yielding. Rectangular shapes let the tops of the clouds lap against them as more arrived in great number. “My word, an armada” she discerned, pointing to the formation of Rikiral Exclamation-Point ships within the substance of a flashback that superseded history. “Empress, do you recal reading in history about White Jade, how the lunar capitol was destroyed during the war?” Veles whispered. Everything was already set in motion.
Straight lines arrowed through any resistance, sanitizing the city. “Wait! No!” Priya cried. The regiment far ahead of them vaporized before their eyes. Time clung to Veles, the scene flooding into her senses until all that was left was dust and ruins and emptiness. Dots of the exclamation points sizzled with electricity as they cooled from the bombardment. “If only we came sooner”
Priya insisted. Hearing the plea, Time’s ears perked. “Sister, give me your coat” she requested.
“Can you real y? What do you need?” she asked. “A kite” Time specified. Wind entered the sails of the lab coat lifting her upwards, higher to the height of the ships. For some reason the clouds felt the need to continue to lap their undersides against the tops of the exclamation points, simple black geometries freed from the pages of a letter. “As long as time exists, you can never disappear” the girl said to the memory of the clown that sought her out before its passing.
Focusing time trophy, chrono-dream and marathon harmony, her appearance shifted. “I hope you know what you're doing” Priya thought as the girl became a clown and let go of the kite. A feminine clown. As Timecurrent removed the red foam nose, in her hand it transformed into an atom, a cloud of electrons whizzing around with insatiable speed. Protons and neutrons were soft and pliable so she squeezed, unleashing a shock wave of temporal energy. Receding above the clouds, the armada was expelled back to the beginning of the flashback. Below, a city came ... gradual y ... out of a disheveled sandbox. “Time, you saved Tijuana!” her patron acknowledged breathlessly, untangling the younger from the kite string that carried her down to earth. Priya looked into the girl’s eyes and watched as the clown makeup drained off of her face like rain. Quickly they dispatched the regiment to circulate anti-coffee syringes to anyone affected by the disorder. “Controlling it within the framework of the flashback is a remarkable feat, a step towards its destruction” she relayed to Veles.
CHAPTER 27 – TELENON ATTACKS HIS CLONE
Current Time
So grateful were they that the kangaroo hopping over to them went unnoticed. “Did you think you could defy me?” it said, looking not at Priya, but at the asylum seeker. Almost instantly the bow-tie on its neck transformed back into Telenon and punched the scientist across the ground, meters away. Camouflage discharged, and he took hold of his counterpart’s head. “Ahh!” the creature screamed as power sought to escape its veins. Stubbornly the shadow plasma refused and he lost his grip as it repel ed the hands. “Why can’t I absorb you?” he groaned. “I’m not a part of you anymore, Telenon. I don’t know my name yet, but I wil find one” the seeker answered. “Al ow me” Telenon replied, pushing him into a seal that exploded with serene
dynamism. With that annoyance out of the way he turned to Priya, dusting herself off from a misshapen pile of debris. “Been saving this for our little game of hide and seek” she smiled, releasing a cloud of crystal octopus ink. Its mist was sparking and tantric. “Hopscotch!” Telenon bayed, waving away the obfuscation of the prey had eluded him once again.
CHAPTER 28 - PRIYA RETURNS TO THE UNIVERSITY
Current Time
“Haha … the universe must have a twist ending” Priya chuckled, glad to be removed from mortal danger for the time being. Bulbous acorns lined the path to David Gold University, seemingly abandoned by everyone except pillaging squirrels. Lonely, half-broken fenceposts invited her to the main courtyard. Boughs of modest elm bathed in wind and whispers. Hopping towards her on the path a frog landed on a whoopee cushion. “And that must be it” Priya concluded. Finding the secret entrance to the computer room, Felicia ushered her onto the lab floor, introducing familiar faces – Imani Veralux, Enrique Will, Convex Geology – and others.
Dominique sat on a desk, tossing another crumpled ball of paper with formulas into a trash bin.
“We are so close to cracking the code and winning this” Felicia bragged. “I’m sure you’re all been through the wringer trying to find the cure” she granted, considering how desperately they needed the fruits of their labor. Exchanging pleasantries, Felicia grabbed her wrist and brought her over to an elevator at the side of the laboratory, “come with me, I have a surprise, hope you’re not claustrophobic”. Tucking into the ordinary, humdrum lift they started a journey to an indeterminate level. Visions of being sealed in the chamber made the hair on her arm react,
“much more of a wide-open spaces person”. “Good, that means you will enjoy this” Felicia predicted, leading her out into a warehouse of immense proportions. “This silo is one of many that Linden and Melina constructed. There are a dozen in North America, and more overseas, one in every country, hidden in plain sight” Felicia vouchsafed, showing the labels containing name and real-life digital photo of each person on the panels below that corresponded to each acorn in the great storehouse. Conveyor belts and robotic arms could be seen, rearranging across the sleek modernized space. “Lift that jaw back up honey, I know you’ve seen nuts before” Alexa said, leaning back against a railing and smoking a cigarette whilst twirling a sword with the other hand, its tip against the ground. Waves of animosity at all the useless poppycock that had separated them up til now washed over her. “That’s clever … but don’t let Felicia see me embarrassed … my cheeks are redder than strawberry shortcake” she thought, then went to her old friend and pressed her forehead against hers, holding the back of her neck with one hand in solidarity. Felicia’s watch beeped interrupting the moment, “Felicia, you had better come up and see this, bring our guests” Convex invited, resulting in a rather cramped elevator.
Abandoning the formalities of proper etiquette, the scientists, who had all convened in the center of the floor tore off their name tags and stuck them onto each other, mixing up the names to humorous effect. “Ah … these were the days, simpler times” Priya thought with fresh, unadulterated homesickness. Veralux lifted up a power drill in the air, making it buzz as the crowd applauded, “Mrs. Echo, who would you like to handpick as the first test subject. Al of our formula led to this”. “Good question, but I already have someone in mind, follow me” the lady, who slowly was admitted to herself her new role as patron of the sciences led the white-robed flock through the corridor. Outside, near some steps an ugly protrusion of the brick wall stood.
“Richard is immured in here” Priya noted, directing them to carefully tear down the barrier. Using surgical precision Veralux drilled a hole in the shell of the acorn. Attendants handed her what
looked like a lunchbox, then inserted plastic tubes into the opening. With a treatment of liquid medicines and pills from the lunchbox, which contained a pump connected to the tubes, the cap of the bulb began to rattle, then shrink back into what could have been a silly hat. Yawning, Richard swiped the cap onto the ground and steadied himself with a hand on one of the steps,
“Shyness, is that you? Knew there was something special about you, it’s always the silent ones”. Embracing, the crowd did not notice one of their number backstep up the stairs onto the stoop. He tossed off the human disguise, and grabbed a walkie talkie, “Agent Bushytail-Bob to home base, target acquired. A whole mountain of emm, right under our butts” he reported, with the box screeching electronically. Expertly the squirrel defended himself against two scientists with a high-kick and slapped Enrique with sausage link num-chucks, pouncing into a tree and away from sight.