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Instead of outrunning the collapse of a bubble universe, I ruminated over the existence of Space Canada. Everything was possible in an infinite universe; it would make more sense for there to be a planet of kind, hockey-loving immortal humans than for Zander to be my Terran neighbor.
But Blayde ripped him from me before I could say anything, cradling him to her chest.
“Oy, you heard what Nimien said,” she snapped to all of us, jutting her chin toward Nimien’s corpse. “We need to run. This place won’t last long.”
So, I shut off my brain and ran. We ran through the remains of the crumbling house, following Sidera as she bawled, watching her heart break before us as she led us to freedom. Out through the front door, smeared with the corpses of the slain army. The last vestiges of the war Desmond had brought to his father’s doorstep. He really had brought an army.
Sidera couldn’t have... no, there were so many of them. Thankfully the truth of what happened became clear soon enough, as the ringing in my ears was replaced by cheering. A hundred faceless robots were having themselves a celebratory bash.
“This is the happiest day in my life!” said one, screaming at the top of his mechanical voice. “I was made for mayhem!”
“I’ve never felt so alive!” said another. “To know I defeated my base programming and still made a difference—oh! I think I’m ascending!”
Every single robot cheered louder as they drifted upward, glowing an otherworldly glow. Except up wasn’t the same for each of them, and there were some ascending sideways or toward the floor. The next sound to fill the labyrinth was that of their metal husks hitting the ground as their digital spirits kept rising through the ceiling without them. You know what they say: If you’re good at something, never do it without the promise of enlightenment.
“Grab on! Quickly!” yelled Blayde, as she threw herself at the feet of one of the rising droids.
“Get off me!” it said. Her clinging did nothing to slow it down, so I don’t know why it was complaining. “You’re ruining my ascension!”
“Get one going the right direction!” said Sidera. “This way up!”
Blayde rose to the ceiling while dangling under its body, grabbing Zander around the waist and clinging for dear life to the dead weight. The three of us raced to do the same, catching our enlightened rides.
The droids complained the whole way, but still managed to leave their bodies by the end. We collapsed on the ceiling floor and followed Sidera to one of the staging doors, which she promptly sealed shut behind us.
“Is everyone okay?” asked James, breathless.
My heart said “Ciao,” and went silent, ready and waiting to be needed again. I looked down at my arms, the skin already smooth and blemishless.
But there was Sidera, sobbing over the loss of her only family. There was Blayde, staring at the ceiling with dried tears down her cheeks, dropping Zander on the floor before her, still unconscious. James had her sci-fi gun drawn, pointing at the ground until she could decide what to do with it. The barrel trembled.
“This is a trick, isn’t it?” James stared at the closed door. “I mean, Nimien’s immortal. He can’t die. He’ll be back in a second, won’t he?”
Sidera said nothing. Which, admittedly, was probably for the best. We’d just defeated a nemesis. She’d just lost her father.
“I don’t think so,” said Blayde. “He spent his last minutes saving us instead of himself. I did not see that coming.”
“Maybe he did change.” Saying those words made my gut twist. “Maybe he really was a different man.”
“Nimien,” said Blayde. “Strange. I don’t ever think I knew his surname.”
“He never had one,” Sidera replied, still avoiding meeting any of our gazes. “And very few knew him by his real name. He was always the wise man, the Eternal, the genius. On many worlds, genius comes from the word genii, sometimes jinn, a trickster and a wish granter—but I know for a fact it’s the other way around.”
“We should have a burial,” said James, going to her. “Or a ceremony. Or something. As much as you had a complicated past together, he did save us in the end.”
We had had a burial already—for Nim. We hadn’t had a body that time either. Part of me hoped, or feared, Nimien was still alive somehow. But, deep down, I knew that last breath I saw him take really was his last.
“We don’t even have the time,” said Sidera, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Don’t you feel it? The Dread is still here. I don’t know where Desmond is, if he even made it out alive, but it’s still out there, and it’s reaching its pitch. We have to turn it off.”
Bless her, her coping mechanism seemed to be throwing herself further into work. I could respect that. I had shut down so completely after John’s death—and Matt’s, and Nim’s (the same man, not that I’d known at the time)—that the ability to literally work through grief was alien to me. And thank goodness, too. I needed time to process my own feelings about the past day before attending the memorial of a man who had been so many different people in his life and so many different things to me, most of them terrible.
Blayde glanced over, and her eyebrows drew donuts on her forehead. My translator might have been the best out there, but it still didn’t made sense of her brows’ tirade.
Zander groaned, his eyelids fluttering. Oh, thank the stars, he was waking up.
“Zan!” I cried, dropping to my knees beside him. “Are you okay? Can you talk? What do you remember?”
He let out a sound like a rubber duck in a hydraulic press. Blayde nodded.
“He’ll pull through,” she said stoically, running a hand over his forehead. “We should probably get him some water, though.”
“That would be nice,” he croaked. “What happened?”
“A lot,” said Blayde. “Short of it is that Nimien saved us, then died.”
Zander’s brow furrowed. “He can do that?”
“What part? The saving us part or the dying part?”
“Both, I suppose.” He pushed himself up on his elbows, letting out a stream of air.
“Desmond’s in the wind,” said James. “Quite literally, it would seem. Oh, and he’s behind the Dread. I don’t think you were awake for that part. What do you remember?”
There was a pause—a painful pause, a waiting pause, where his brows furrowed and his frown deepened.
“Nothing,” he said, his shoulders falling. “Nothing more than I already knew, except... that I’m from Earth. I remember that mattered. There are... I think these are memories, but they don’t feel like my own. Like someone else’s experiences. I don’t know what that means. Blayde?”
“I remember everything.” Her lips twitched, as if she was holding back her smile. “And I mean everything, even the things I’m pretty sure I came here to forget in the first place. And yes, we are Canadian. I don’t think I intended to forget that, but things happen.”
Canadian. Not just Terran, but Canadian. The odds of us coming from the same world were... astronomical. But if they were human like me, then why were they... why were they what they are?
“We don’t have time for this,” Sidera said through gritted teeth. “It’s the end of the universe, and we’re the only ones who can stop it, so let’s get our asses in action!”
“Oy,” said Blayde. “We’re getting to that.”
We got to our feet, together hoisting Zander to his. While physically he seemed fine, his mind must have been a mess. If there was damage... no, no, his healing should be able to handle it. He gave Sidera a weak smile and she turned away, grabbing James’s hand instead.
“We need to find that bunker Dad was talking about,” Sidera said, reaching for Blayde with her other hand. “It’s the only place we can find the answers.”
“Really?” asked James, trying to pull her hand away and failing. She gave me her free one instead. “I thought that was a dead end.”
Blayde shuddered. If I was her, I wouldn’t want to go back either.
“He built it to give that guy time to solve the Dread crisis, right?” Sidera nodded at Zander, who slowly took Blayde’s and my hands. “And that’s what we need: time. Otherwise we’re out of it. So, one of you needs to take us there.”
“Guess I’m driving,” said Blayde, and before I could process what that meant, she had dropped the curtain on our dimension and pulled us into the backstage of the universe.
The ride was exhilarating, pure connection to all things at once, the stars calling out to me from all directions. It was as if I could hear them personally—Pick me, I have three planets! Visit me, I make everything smell like sherbets!
Blayde was back. All of her was back.
But maybe her sense of direction was off.
“Wrong place,” muttered Zander, as my senses came to terms with their usual, limited existence and asked for a refund. “Really, really wrong place.”
My eyes flew open to a dark sky. My feet were on concrete. No sand whatsoever—which, honestly, I could live with. But more importantly, there were buildings. Tall, modern apartments that reached to the sky. Pretty sure there weren’t any city parks last time we had been on Miro’s world. Pretty sure there hadn’t been any cities either.
And the Dread—the claw in my mind threatened to shred my every thought. We were back to our present, to the rising Dread, the feeling so intense I wanted to grab my head and scream. The vibration of the universe so impossibly clear I felt I could reach out and grab it. We’d blown past the realm of anxiety now, the Dread so intense it was as if Godzilla was standing right above me, ready to squash me and my home and everything I loved. I had to run, run, run—run where? Nowhere. There was nothing, only run.
“I was right!” a voice cried from somewhere in the distance. “I was right! Oh, Great Chagra, I was right!”
Something—someone, who am I to question sentience—was coming right at us, a dark figure running through the park and huffing the whole way. But they were sure taking their sweet time to reach us. Goosebumps raised on my skin. It didn’t help that it was night, and the five of us were gathered under a single streetlight, making the shadows around us long and leery.
It’s going to eat you—run!
“I’m not that out of practice.” Blayde smiled, showing teeth. “I only forgot where I was going for a while, that’s all. Now I know, and this is definitely where we’re meant to be. It’s Miro’s world.”
“No one believed me,” the figure huffed. Its voice was shrill like a parrot’s. “They all laughed, but this will show the academy! They’ll see the truth.”
“Could this be the other side of the planet?” I asked. “I mean, we only saw a tiny part of it.”
“No. This is the exact spot we landed on last time.” Blayde’s voice was hollow. “We’re at the right place. But now, we’re at the right time.”
Shit. So that’s how it was going to be. Deep breaths, Sally Webber. I could fight this. I knew how. I gritted my teeth, planting my feet firm against the urge to run screaming into the dark.
“So, where’s the sand? Where’s the ocean?” asked James, hand gripped tight against the butt of her gun. “Not that I’m not pleased that Space Australia got its act together.”
“Terraformed away,” she replied.
“I knew the etchings were true! Oh, I am so getting tenure for this. I will forever be remembered in the history books. This is remarkable, epic—”
Who else would burst into the pool of light other than a lively pterodactyl, wearing what might have been jeans and a checkered button-down shirt, flared for the wings with a gorgeous blue lining? His small, half-moon spectacles perched on his extended snout, giving him the air of a professor—perhaps if the Flintstones had gone to college, he could have been teaching their philosophy course.
I recognized the markings on his skin immediately. It had only been a day or two since I’d tricked one of his ancestors into giving me a lift, after all. We must have been gone for an exceedingly long time: Long enough for his entire species to evolve and take over the planet. The descendant of my ride pulled out a measuring tape from his pocket and held it up to Zander’s tall frame, who gave him an awkward half-smile.
“Hello, I’m Zander—”
“The shield, right? You know, I thought the text was referring to weapons, but I understand it all now, it’s metaphorical. I’m Professor Ke’sun Va’hut. Which one of you is the warrior queen?”
Blayde, James, Sidera, and I each raised a hand.
“Well, you can’t all four be the ones from the wall,” said Va’hut, eating his tape measure. “In any case, you five are perfect specimens. Where did you come from? How did you get here? Never mind, we’ll have time for that back at my lab. First, we need—”
The crack of thunder that exploded between us sent everyone reeling, with only dinosaur snot to cushion our blow. If you’ve ever heard a pterodactyl sneeze before, I’m incredibly sorry, and I wish you the very best on your road to recovery.
“Oh, oh no,” Va’hut sniffled. “It seems I may be... how is this possible... allergic to humanoids?”
Blayde wasn’t the hypoallergenic type. She grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, lifting him an entire foot off the ground, snarling as he shrieked like a schoolgirl.
We didn’t have time for this. I ripped out a clump of hair. Shit. The Dread was growing stronger by the second.
“Warrior queen!” Va’hut squawked, before sneezing again. “Please! Don’t touch me! I don’t have any allergy meds!”
“Then speak,” she said, “or you’ll be sneezing grey matter through your nostrils next. Where did you hear about us?”
“They thought it was nonsense,” he chirped. “The fellowship at the university. They thought it was all scribbles. I interpreted it. They didn’t believe me. Now I have evidence—”
“Take me to the scribbles!” she shouted, shaking him again, forcing a new sneeze out of him and discomfort out of the rest of us. She was terrifying, even with green spittle running down her hair. “We don’t have any time to waste!”
“The wall, the wall! At the dig! Don’t kill me!”
She dropped him, and he scampered quickly to his feet, panting. He wiped his now-red nose on his sleeve.
“Lead us,” she said. “And hurry, we don’t have much time! The end of the universe is here!”
He sighed, waving us with him down the gravel path. “Well, you don’t have to be so dramatic. But keep your distance. If I get any more of your dander on me...”
I probably would have enjoyed sightseeing a world where dinosaurs had evolved to the point where they had cars and TV, but the Dread was resonating so hard now that my hands couldn’t stay still. I spent the entire walk focusing on not screaming and starting a riot instead of admiring the statues of pterodactyl heroes riding giant worms or the billboards of scantily clad winged models. I have never felt such confusion in my loins before.
“You’re going to have to share laps,” said Va’hut. “My car’s a little small.”
Why a pterodactyl would drive anywhere when they could fly, I would never know. Blayde sat up front, still scowling the whole time, as the four of us stacked into the back. We set off into the night, driver’s window open so our driver could avoid a sneezing-crashing catastrophe.
“Hey, look,” said James, pointing at a hallway billboard that featured her sea-beast admirer. “I can’t follow anything, but I think they have Jaws 3?”
Va’hut took us out of the gleaming city and into a nearby forest, one lit by massive floodlights. We spilled out of the car, weapons at the ready, as he led us past the ropes and into a dig site, following the wooden path into a canvas tent which protected an elevator. He pressed a button, covered his nose, and slowly, it began to lower us to the mysterious prophecy.
“We’re here,” he said, pushing the gate open and urged us out. Hitting a switch with his elbow, the cavern overflowed with light, a huge vaulted ceiling extending over our heads, an old stone pavement under our feet. My feet tread over familiar ground, where just yesterday I’d fought a sea serpent and survived. I would have gasped, only my teeth were too busy gritting themselves dull.
“What is this place?” Sidera asked, crouching down to feel the cobbles with her fingertips.
“You tell me,” said Va’hut, then added quickly. “Please? It’s not every day history falls into your lap.”
“It’s the temple,” Blayde gasped. “Miro’s temple. Nimien’s bubble-universe-bunker.”
“It was here even before the invention of fire,” said Va’hut, beaming. His nose was so stuffy now that half his words were muffled. “Built by a now-extinct civilization of humanoids.”
Blayde raced past him, running her hands over the stone face, nodding. She turned back to us with a stern line in lieu of a smile.
“Over here is where it predicted your arrival,” Va’hut said, face going a different shade of red. “Not an easy feat, translating it. It took me three years and fifteen false starts—”
“What’s behind this?” Blayde asked, knocking lightly on the structure. “Did you give it a sonar scan? Let me guess—are you going to blow it up?”
“What, no!” he squawked. “We thought it was a calendar or a day planner. We had no idea there was anything behind it, we thought—”
“Good.” She flipped a knife out from under her sleeve, snapping it open and holding it over her hand. “Now, get back into the elevator and return from whence you came. We have a few rituals to perform, so please, leave us in peace.”
Va’hut’s eyes went wide, his mouth spreading into an even wider smile. My god, so many teeth. “Rituals?”
Blayde raised her hands to the heavens. “We’re going to sacrifice that girl to the sand lord, to ensure that my people can safely take back their land.”
“Yo.” I replied, waving my hand.
“What?” cried Va’hut. “No, the prophecies never foretold this! You were meant to bring peace!”
“Oh, we are bringing peace,” said Blayde. “Peace for our peoples! Tremble, for I am the warrior queen! Run from me, mortal!”
The worst part is I couldn’t tell if she believed it. She was convincing. That, or the Dread that suffused the air, giving that extra bit of spice.
Va’hut didn’t need to be told twice. He raced for the elevator, screaming in between sneezes, slamming the little gate shut.
“You’ve got to stop that,” said Zander. “It’ll probably traumatize him for life.”
“Fine, if you say so.” Blayde shrugged. “Now, everybody, step back. These doors haven’t opened for centuries. There’s no saying what’ll happen. Darling doors, will you please let us in?”
They pulled back slowly, showing the way into the dark interior of the labyrinth, stopping with a huge crashing sound. Instantly, a wave of putrid, rotting air hit us in the face.
“I guess that monster died eventually.” Blayde shrugged, watching her hand heal. “Right, Sidera, what now? Any genius ideas to defeat the Dread come to you on the drive over?”
“Don’t worry,” she cooed, striding into the dark maze, “I can take if from here. We already have everything we need—and more. This bunker was the last detail, and you were so kind to give me the address. Thank you for the ride. Now, if you move fast, I’m pretty sure you can enjoy one last ice cream before the end of the Universe.”
I gotta admit, I had not seen that coming. Maybe I should have since she had lied to us before. Sidera stood in the maze’s atrium, wiping the blood and dried tears from her smiling face with a little wet wipe, as Desmond brushed past us to join her there.
