The End Again, page 7
“Benoist is a friend of mine. The Emergency Coordinator for the Ancients, as well as a pal. Lisa is from our world. She... The Infection really screwed her up and for a long time even magic couldn’t fix it. Tim Baker worked out how to do that, so she’s been working here, to pay him back. Helping to terraform the Moon. There’s more to that story, but that’s the heart of it. Really, you should meet them both, too. Not this time, but I’ll bring your name up, so that they know to be on the lookout for you? Lisa is freaking hot.” Also, a shape shifter with Sara’s powers, but she didn’t mention that part of things.
Jim grinned.
“I do like that in a woman. Not that it’s a deal breaker or anything. A nice personality is worth a lot more than a pretty face.” The weird thing was that the man actually meant what he said.
Except that he honestly thought that he was saying it so he wouldn’t seem like a jerk to the women there. Even knowing that some of them might be reading his mind. He knew Christian could do that, but hadn’t worked out that she’d turned her powers off that day. At the same time, Sara was a class ten, and could copy anyone’s powers, so she might be doing that as well.
A thing that was true, even if, at the moment, she was reading the words from over his head, not reading his mind like Christian would have. Not that she wasn’t running that power as well. There was a limit to what she was going to be bothered to pay attention to at one time, after all.
Tess, being from there, and used to being pushy, it seemed, pulled her handheld out and tapped a single sigil, one in bright red, that was on the first list she looked at. Near the top. After no more than ten seconds, a face flashed up.
“This is Al, is there an emergency?”
The extremely attractive woman smiled at her hand, sweetly. Clearly with more affection than Albert thought was there. Sara could pick it up though. Tess though rather highly of the unattractive young man she was looking at.
“Albert! I’m on Mars with some people, and Sara Chambers mentioned that she wants a date with you and Lisa Canut, if possible? Then she clearly tried to set our friend Jimson up with Lisa, which is a sign of something, isn’t it?”
The man laughed, as if the flirting was, and only could ever be, a joke. Still, he nodded.
“I have the night off and Lisa is... Last I heard she was staying in? I’m a bit worried about her, to be honest. She’s alone a lot. Not in a healthy way, either. Let me see if I can get with her. We can meet for dinner at my place? Alice is coming in, so it could be a little party? A small one, since we don’t actually have full time servants. We aren’t home enough for that to be proper, really.”
Mark leaned in and smiled, peacefully.
“I can do the cooking for that, Mr. Benoist?”
The man on the screen actually ducked his head.
“That would be wonderful, of course, Mr. Steinberg. Probably not proper at all, but we’ll eat better than if I try to do it. We should have Terlee and Count Thomson in as well? Then... you know, let’s not. If we start doing this, it will be five hundred people on a few hours’ notice. We should do something big soon, but not today, I think. We need proper planning for that.”
Fox did his own moving in then.
“Fox Ortiz, Ancient Albert. Pleased to meet you. A friend of mine, from my reality, and myself are planning a holiday meal here. Would you like to help with that? It’s just a large meal, for Thanksgiving, which is pretty much what it sounds like. You eat and try to be thankful for what you have. It’s a minor thing back home, but is coming up soon there, so we figured on doing that here, for our friends?”
The man, instead of seeming upset at the idea, or annoyed or even questioning why anyone would do that sort of thing, clapped several times.
“That works! You’re from Sara’s world? The IPB one? That Halloween festival last year was incredible! Will this be something like that?”
Fox smiled and shook his head a bit at the man in Tess’s hand. His shoulder against her arm.
“Not even a little bit. The next big holiday is Christmas, which, if I have it right, is what Noram Day used to be called here, some few thousand years ago? That one is at the same time as Noram Day, and Parker Hall is going to be doing that one. That should be... well, a lot bigger and nicer than this one. For Thanksgiving, well, like I said, it’s pretty much just a meal.”
Sara nodded and spoke, not being on the screen at all.
“True. Still, hold it at your place here, and we can invite friends and family? Really, we can do it at my new place, once it’s set up? It won’t exactly be a palace, but... Let’s do that? You’re still in on this, though? I could help, but I was planning to ask Tor what my next building project should be, and who knows how long that will take?”
She smiled, even as Mark of all people made a face at her. Probably thinking she was trying to get out of work, instead of not horning in on Fox and Morgan’s project, which was her real point.
Still, she winked at the man and let him think of her as he would. Even if that mental image didn’t match what she really was, inside of herself. It should, she hoped, all work out in the end, anyway.
Chapter five
Sara was used to things happening at a certain speed in life. That pace wasn’t set by her time at the IPB base, however. Even her new school wasn’t truly responsible for her view of what a person should be doing at any given moment or how much effort should be going into it. No, even two years after having left the port school, that private academy of orphans and future spies, was what came to mind as she waited at Albert’s door, with a bottle of wine in hand.
Technically that was going to signal that she’d come to court someone, probably Albert, but the man was so shy and felt himself so ugly that he wouldn’t press her for anything. Which was a bit of a shame. After all, he was one of her favorite people. At least of men who she was willing to have relations with, if it were allowed. Which there, on the Moon, it actually was.
Legally speaking.
Marcia had suggested to her more than once that she shouldn’t be doing things like that. True, the woman had also noted that she was following the letter of the law that way as well, so hadn’t tried to push her around on the topic, but it could be an issue, later. Sara was one vote away from the government trying to put her in foster care, back home, most days. A thing that wasn’t going to happen. In fact, if she could figure out what to do with the throwaway kids there, Sara was going to free them all. Most of them, at least.
Especially the Infected kids and the ones abused by the monsters the government allowed to control them, over and again. She schooled her face as the door opened, to see Al on the other side. The man looked past her and seemed baffled that no one else was there with her. Even after being told that she, personally, wanted to get with Lisa and himself.
“Everyone was busy?”
The man, his face lean and smooth, looked both young and haunted, at the same time. As if he’d looked into the void of death one too many times, and come out stronger, but also slightly broken, for having done it. Sad, on a deep level. Slightly brooding. Better that way now, than a year before when they’d met, in her experience. To the man in front of her, it was closer to three, she knew. Even with all the time she spent in Noram, all of her friends there were outpacing her in time. Her old school pals, most of them, hadn’t seen her in almost four years already.
Meaning she was, if not forgotten by them, at least left behind.
Her new friends were off in Noram, setting up a building for them to stay in, while they were there, near Tor’s palace, along the King’s River. It had been a thing to do, and the new place she had for them to try out was, hopefully, going to be entertaining enough to distract them all.
“We need to talk. Business. Lisa as well. About your new abilities?” She liked to let people know what the whole story was first thing, since being mysterious, while fun and on occasion, charming, was also worrying to most people.
Al, naturally, just sighed.
“Time to give those back? Well, that shouldn’t be a big issue. It’s interesting, using abilities like that, but nothing I earned or anything. Lisa mentioned something like that to me as well, a few months ago. Come in?”
The inside of the place, which was a giant above ground palace of carved stone and magical furnishings, was impressive. Decorated in a riot of colors to contrast the stark white and translucent gray of focus stone made from moon dust that formed the edges of the rooms inside. It was lovely, but Sara had seen it before. The whole place was also vast, if you counted all of it as one dwelling. It was more like a small town, with about ninety percent of it being underground. At the moment she was breathing the air of the Moon, of course. Not air created in a closed space, but let in, via an open window. The outside was stark still, but there was a vast lake, a small ocean, filling the crater below them. That was about two hundred meters away, but would have some wild tides, eventually, even if it wasn’t that big. About like the ocean on Earth, since the gravity wasn’t going to be even inside the water, and that was an incompressible fluid.
Of course, the effect of the blue, green and white world above them in the sky would only be about the same as the pull of the Moon on the Earth. As far as she knew, no one had mapped all of that out, as of yet, focusing on things like gravity, air, water and shifting dust into nutrient dense growing material. Then they’d put out lichen and after that had started, some other small plants. The world outside the dwelling, seen through the large glass window, was still barren, of course.
It was going to take decades for a real ecosystem to grow, even being helped along by magic. In all, it was an incredible work, being pushed along by about ten people, on three worlds. Two of those, Al and Lisa, were there with her. Along with the Admiral of Space Fleet, Alice Orange. Sara didn’t know her well, but the woman wasn’t a fool or anything.
The trick was, the rules said that she wasn’t supposed to tell the world about the Class Ten’s. Sending the woman away, in her own home was kind of rude. Thinking for a moment, she walked past Albert, then started passing out hugs. Lisa got one first, the former cheerleader from her own reality holding her as if she needed a lifeline. Then Alice went. There was more back pounding, but a nice smile as well from the lady.
Albert got one as well, since she wasn’t missing out on that treat, even in front of his wife. A thing that he took well, his mind going over how the girl was being nice to him, but not flirting. Alice understood what was really going on, but wasn’t that jealous, since she was old enough to have let go of that kind of thing, thousands of years before.
Lisa on the other hand both understood it and narrowed her eyes, in a slightly catty fashion, as if she were going to claw some eyes out if Sara tried to get her Albert alone that night. A thing that was both wrong, and kind of fair. She worked with the man each day, after all. That gave her a real enough claim.
Alice grinned.
“So, you came for an orgy and didn't invite me? I’m very good in bed, I’ll have you know.” She was freaking hot, with golden skin and blue eyes that fairly glinted as she teased the young girl in front of her. Lisa tried to look scandalized, but Sara didn’t let her speak first, since it would be worse to deny having come for such a purpose too forcefully than to engage in an actual orgy with her friends there.
“Right? Of course, I didn’t come for anything that fun. I... Really, I need to swear all of you to secrecy? Technically I should send you away, Alice, but it’s probably enough for you not to tell everyone in the world what I have for you all. These two, really.”
That got a nod, from everyone, though Lisa seemed untrusting of her. Wondering if it really was about that orgy. Then, she wasn’t totally unwilling to try that sort of thing. To her mind, that kind of thing needed more men. Albert was just baffled, and Alice tilted her head, her thoughts scrambling, recognizing that a real threat was upon them.
“What do you have, Chambers?” Alice locked eyes with her, rather closely, for a long time.
“Well... It started for me a few months ago. A little over two, actually. A reporter back home figured out that I’m a class ten, and told the world about it. Needless to say, the world freaked for a while.”
Lisa gasped, with Al jerking, to look at his friend. Alice just nodded, slowly.
“I think I understand. That’s too powerful, so everyone felt threatened? They came after you with nukes or time distortion weapons?”
Sara grinned and shook her head, never having even thought of using time as a weapon. Then, she was standing in a world that was over three thousand years ahead of hers in time. With a woman who had lived through it all, personally.
She smiled though and shook her head.
“Nuclear devices were considered, but all of the projections showed that the ones using them would lose, almost every time, so no one wanted to risk it. I’m sure they tried to get Proxy to take me on, of course. No one mentioned it to me, but that would be my first move, really, if I was threatened by me.”
Lisa went wide eyed, showing honest panic, the whites of her brown eyes showing clearly. Even her breathing sped up noticeably.
“Proxy is after you? How did you survive?”
Sara moved in, helped the woman sit on the comfortable sofa, one that was a gaudy red, with gold pillows and hugged her, leaning over. She didn't let go for half a minute, but when she did, Sara was smiling.
“How am I alive? There are two reasons. First, I’m a class ten. Even Proxy can’t really take me out. That’s what it means, more or less. More honestly? Brian Yi is a friend of mine. He probably told whoever asked him to do it, rather politely, to go fuck themselves. Which, yay, right? I get to live. It would be hard for me to take on Brian. He’s a friend of mine, for real. He saved my life, once, when I was little. He got me away from a riot, where hundreds of people were trying to murder me. Anyway, people have calmed down a good bit, over time, thankfully. I’m just a teen girl and not violent or mean, so everyone, most people, are counting themselves as lucky, as if they’ve dodged a bullet and are going on with their lives pretty easily now. I do have to work for the President, doing odd jobs and take him treats for the holidays, however.”
Alice gave her a very serious nod, then.
“There’s more? You wouldn’t have bothered to come here to tell us all is well. Not specifically.”
The next part was harder for her, but she nodded.
“Right. About a month ago, a little more than that, my high school principal, the leader of my new school, came to me. Here. In Noram, actually. Having simply decided to meet me here, for a chat. Dorthea Rojas is what she calls herself.”
The words had Admiral Orange nodding slowly.
“I see. So, she’s a class ten as well?”
Rude or not, Sara pointed at the woman, sitting down next to her, across from Al and Lisa. They weren’t at all far away. She could have touched all of them, doing no more than leaning over a bit. Refraining from that, she went on.
“Exactly. Representing a group of such people. Six of them. Little things like traveling from one reality to another aren’t really an issue for them. So, she informed me that there are rules to being this powerful and that I’d screwed up already.” Sara smiled and made a slightly sour face, as if she’d been eating lemons. “Which, yes, if you think about it, is highly unfair of her to say. The first rule is that we can’t let the public know about class tens. Most of them don’t think of themselves that way, not being Infected, but it’s the same thing. Gods or forces of nature, what have you? I’m the only one who is really Infected, it seems.”
Alice got it first, looking at the others.
“These two have the same abilities that you do?”
Lisa looked scared, and Al furrowed his brow. It was the man who spoke.
“They do want us to give our new abilities up? Tim can do that, I bet. He isn’t making anyone like us again. He swore to that. It’s clearly too much power for one person to hold.” The slightly rough man’s chin came up, bravely. Willing to let go of a gift, to save the world.
There wasn’t even a moment of hesitation in the idea for him.
Sara surprised them all, by shaking her head.
“Actually, no, as weird as that might seem. Dorthea Rojas, also called Dream, just wanted you both to know the rules. Even those... well, follow them? I heard that the rules might mainly be for me, but was asked to tell you about them. There are only three of them, after all. Don’t let the world know about you, or me, here. Don’t take away people’s free will and don’t mess with time. That’s it.”
Lisa did her own furrowing of her brow and seemed annoyed.
“They don’t want us to be stripped of power? Why not?”
Sara didn’t really know, but guessed anyway.
“Because both of you are good people? You haven’t been abusing your powers or anything, and if you know the basic rules, you’ll follow them, without the need of threat or coercion? I would have too, but they waited too long and I didn’t know I needed to stop that reporter from finding out about me. Now I search regularly for that kind of threat, after it’s too late, but before, well, it was a secret and only a handful of people knew about it. We live in different worlds, though. So, if you go to my world, or a similar one, you’ll both need to pretend not to be that powerful. Change your looks and say that you’re only a class two, if you can? Or, in your case Al, don’t do anything at all, and claim to be normal... Lisa can’t do that back home, since she was Infected to start with. Clearly you were supposed to be a class nine or ten though. That went wrong. The Infection was fine enough with you having the same version of powers that I do, however, so I imagine great things are going to be required of you, eventually.”
No one spoke for a long time. Eventually Alice gave a nod.
“So, they need to use their powers, but not let the word out what they can really do, for the sanity of the masses? Leaving time alone... Well, I can guarantee you that one is a good call. I’ve seen it happen and even done it, a few times. It never goes well, in the end. It seems like you should always be improving the world, but if you save the sweet child from dying in a vehicle accident, they always end up being a scientist that accidently releases a plague later in life, or a leader who gets the people to kill millions based on minor differences. Every single time. People think they can fix time and it never works.” She bobbed in place a little. “Free will... Well, what does that even mean? If you speak to a person firmly, you might influence them too much? What’s allowed that way?”
