Rise of Refuge

Chapter 7 - Skill

Yllera didn’t feel paranoid most of the time. But every once in a while, the fear that the universe was out to get her would overwhelm her. Most of the time that fear was as a Riiad collective. Worries that Riiad could or would reform led her to investigate the marine collective that became Kavir. Now she worried that her mistake in uniting a potentially sentient plague with a coalescent organism was the beginning of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Those seemed like the only prophesies that ever came true. Although, the agurian warren she was attempting to make friends with had felt her regaining the ability to shape-shift was the fulfillment of prophecy. Never mind that their prophesies had implied it would be an elder woman born into the highest ranking clan of the tribe living in Zesheiaouplac, the center of Agurian culture. Their savior would then restore all the tribes throughout Jelaria and the universe. Once again, never mind Tina Harvey was still trying to discover a way to do that. But Tina had done one thing Yllera appreciated. Tina had taken her worries about Riiad seriously.

Yllera had an appointment with Tina in five minutes. She tried not to pace around Tina’s waiting room; it made Tina’s patients and receptionist nervous. The receptionist tapped her tablet several times and whispered at the screen and Tina came out of her office early, “Yllera, come on in.”

Yllera followed Tina into her administrative office and sat in one of the comfortable chairs across from Tina’s. Yllera waited for Tina to sit, “I read the memo, R Groups one, seven, and four have most likely combined. How serious is this? What can we do to protect ourselves? According to my research, Riiad took over the quarantined lab Angela established to look for treatments. Are we at risk in Refuge?”

Tina held up her hand and toggled an icon on her desk. “I just raised the soundproofing shields. I am going to be brutally honest with you. We have a treatment for groups one and seven. I am beginning research on group four. Hopefully, I will have a treatment to extract people from that very soon. I am pursuing leads on how to spread a contagious vaccine which would halt Riiad’s spread.”

Yllera blinked, “All of that sounds pretty tentative. Are we in danger? How was the last one stopped?”

“I don’t know. There is absolutely no record anywhere of how my mother pulled off not only destroying the collective but extracting everyone who had in its control,” Tina stated, “As medical chief I have access to all public, and private records regarding the Riiad collective. If someone casually mentions it in their journal, it comes up in my search. No one anywhere recorded how we stopped it.”

“Ask your mother?”

Tina sat back in her desk chair and huffed out an exasperated sigh, “My mother won’t talk about it except to say it was highly unlikely to be possible again. Basically, she tells me I am on my own.”

Yllera frowned. She was hoping Tina could reassure her that Riiad wasn’t the boogeyman that Yllera feared. That wasn’t happening. “So, we are screwed!”

“No, I believe the lines of research I am approaching with a colleague will be very fruitful. They have already been quite productive. I just don’t have a time frame yet. Seeing as only three groups have combined, we are ahead of the game. Last time we didn’t know there was a problem until after the collective had fully formed and begun swallowing entire dimensions,” Tina reassured.

Yllera grasped at Tina’s positive spin. She swallowed it hard and forced herself to accept that Tina had this handled. Yllera had done her job and given a warning. Now things hung in Tina’s court. Tina said she was trying to develop both a cure and a vaccine. Yllera forced a smile, “Thanks for the reassurances. I’m sorry I bothered you. I really didn’t mean to be a pest.”

Tina stood and offered a fist bump, “It’s okay. You weren’t crying wolf inappropriately. Your wolf really is at the door. Fortunately, this time I am on the other side of that door.”

Yllera stood and returned Tina’s fist bump, “I’ll let you get back to work.” Yllera left Tina’s office. Out in the waiting room, she teleported home. Ariel was still playing with the nannybot. Yllera smiled and waved the android off. “How’s mommy’s little girl?” Ariel toddled on her chubby little legs to Yllera and held her arms up. Yllera picked her daughter up. How could Yllera worry about the rest of the multiverse when she had such a contented little bundle of love to occupy her?
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Hillary had expected her first lesson to be in a classroom of some sort. Instead, she had followed Erica to the same infinite white “room” where Hilliary had arrived in this place. She was just accepting that they had decided to turn her out into the universe when Erica waved her hands at a beautiful woman and a rather short and plain looking man. On seeing Erica, the pair quickly rushed to join them.

Erica smiled, “Illeria Kavry of the Kaviri people, This is Juneau, a third generation member of the Kisan race; and Dante, a human from an earth alternate.”

“Really? Kaviri? Like Yllera and Kavir...” Dante asked.

Erica nodded.

Dante grimaced, frowned and then held out his hand, Hillary shook it limply, “That has to be tough on you.. Name is Daniel Tate, but my friends don’t call me that. Call me Dante...”

Hillary frowned, hadn’t she been a first contact with her species? How did this man know to ask the question he did?

“I am highly intuitive. I make connections. Juneau is Kisan, her primary ancestor’s name is Kisa...” Dante shrugged.

“And Juneau is good at tactical decision making. Where Dante can get bogged down in projecting connections to the nth degree,” Erica stated, “I am training them as a factor team.”

“Is she another prospective member?” Juneau directed her question to Dante.

Erica preempted his answer, “No, I am just in a rush to train her. This was a good opportunity to give her an idea of what this job entails.”

“Then I will assume that you know that Erica trained your primary ancestor as well...” Dante stated.

“I knew she knew her...” Hillary began.

Erica grinned slyly, “Now she is aware.”

“I apologize, I hadn’t guessed that you were waiting to see if she figured it out...”

Hillary smiled, “At least now I completely understand how you know so much about my ancestry, and I am much less impressed.”

“Touche. Teach, what are we doing right now?” Dante asked.

“We are going to a small little planet everybody loves called, Earth. Temporal shock waves emanating from the earth have caused concern for their Intergalactic Council, and itvhas requested we check it out,” Erica stated.

“Okay, how do we do that?” Hillary asked.

“First, we follow the shock waves to their source. Then we stop whatever is causing them,” Juneau answered.

“How will we stop something like that?” Hillary asked, “Further, what does a temporal shock wave entail?”

“It is most likely a situation with a potential outcome of a paradox. That paradox could cause significant damage not only to earth’s history and existence but it can severely affect galactic society as well,” Erica stated.

“Paradox? Like going back and killing your grandfather before he met your grandmother?” Hillary asked.

“Yeah, except in most cases that has a fairly localized effect. The shock waves rarely radiate around the planet, let alone to the point galactics notice them,” Dante answered.

“Follow me,” Erica instructed. Days of practice at following Erica throughout the multiverse as she teleported made this trip seem easy to Hillary. That was until she encountered the disorienting effects of the temporal shock wave. It sent her mind spinning apart in fractal patterns of chaos. She managed to pull herself back together and relocated Erica’s teleportation trace. This trip was taking longer than it should. She held tighter to Erica’s trace with her mind and tugged her way along the path Erica laid down.

Finally, Hillary reached the earth in question a few feet away from Erica. They were in a small cave. The light from the mouth of the cave showed Dante and Juneau were nowhere to around. Erica turned to check on who had made it with her, and she had a pleased smile that Hillary had appeared so close to her location. “Good, at least I won’t have to find you.”

Erica headed for the mouth of the cave and Hillary followed without instruction. She had learned that Erica most rarely provided explicit instructions and frequently concealed important lessons in seemingly unimportant tasks. “Do we need to split up or will they be near one another when they arrive?”

“She is his transportation. It would take some serious problems for them to arrive separately. That said, the temporal shock wave is a serious problem,” Erica answered.

Hillary reached her mind out, searching for the two of them. They had only met briefly, but Hillary had familiarized herself with their telepathic flavor. Erica had several times quizzed Hillary about seemingly unimportant details of what she had thought were casual conversations. “I think they are together,” Hillary stated sensing that Dante and Juneau appeared to be nearby, in the same direction.

Erica nodded. She had already begun moving in the right direction. Hillary followed. After a few minutes they found the pair, Juneau was dangling between two tree branches, unconscious, and Dante was at the base of the tree going through the contents of his factor kit-pack. “Dante, report,” Erica announced.

“Juneau was conscious when we arrived much further up the tree. She got dizzy on the way down and fell. I have been trying to figure out how to get her the rest of the way down safely,” Dante answered, clearly emotional.

“I’ll take that,” Erica looked up at Juneau and then Juneau was on the ground in front of them. Dante pulled out the emergency medical scanner and waved it over Juneau.

He checked the display and tapped the icon to send the treatment to a transdermal delivery glove. He pulled one out, synced it to the device, and pulled the glove on Juneau’s hand. A few moment’s later Juneau sat up and held her head. “Whoa, what hit us?”

“That would be the temporal shock wave,” Erica answered.

“You okay, partner?” Dante asked as he put the emergency medical equipment away.

Juneau smiled limply at him, “Sure, where are we?”

“We are actually really close to the focal point of the shock waves,” Erica answered after checking her tablet, “There is a farmhouse and a barn on the other side of these trees. The focal point is in the barn. We’ll move in an see what we can find.” Erica set off in the proper direction.

Dante helped Juneau to her feet. She brushed herself off and handed the glove back to him. They began following Erica. Hillary brought up the rear. She walked slowly reaching ahead with her telepathy to get an idea of what was going on. By the time she caught up to Erica, Hillary understood the situation.

“Erica, there is a man in there with a home-built time machine. I think he is about to make his first test trip,” Hillary stated.

Erica paused and looked at her, “You can hear him?”

“Telepathically, it is very soft.”

“Okay, so the test trip is probably the paradox situation. The trouble becomes whether our intervention in his test causes it,” Erica stated.

“What could be another cause?” Juneau asked, directing the question mostly to Dante.

“The possibilities are numbingly many,” Dante stated, “I need way more information to make a suggestion.”

Juneau sighed audibly, “You can find more information as easily as I can. Why do you act like I am the…”

Hillary reached out her mind again as they squabbled. She felt the sudden certainty it obsessed him to cause a “grandfather paradox. “ Hillary cleared her throat, “What is a grandfather paradox?”

“It is where someone travels back in time and kills their grandfather before he meets his grandmother, preventing his own birth. Why?” Dante answered.

“This man is a theoretical physicist, and he is obsessing over discovering the results of a temporal paradox, namely the grandfather paradox,” Hillary answered.

“Okay, so we rush in there and stop him from testing his machine,” Dante stated.

“I thought I was the tactical end of our partnership,” Juneau argued.

“Children, muzzle it! We need to prevent whatever paradox is about to happen!” Erica snarled, “If you don’t have a constructive plan or more information, don’t talk!”

Dante smiled, “We could go in there and remove him from the equation.” He drew his finger across his throat.

Juneau frowned, “Are you a congenital Moron or did someone drop you on your head… repeatedly?”

“Well, he is human...” Hillary stated, despite her frustration was with the situation, not Dante.

Dante griped through clearly hurt feelings, “Yeah and you are Kaviri, but we don’t hold that against you, do we?”

Juneau quipped, “Maybe we should.”

Erica glared at all three of them, “Don’t start!”

“I am not starting! They started this...” Dante argued.

Juneau responded with, “No! Your boneheaded idea started this! We are just poking fun at you over it.”

Dante frowned just long enough to show displeasure before cracking a grin, “Okay, but who is the moron, the one who at least had some kind of idea or the morons that followed because they didn’t have a better suggestion.”

That produced dead silence.

“This whole situation feels like a manic-depressive lesbian thought it up!” Juneau stated.

Erica held up her hands defensively, “What does the sexual orientation have to do… Wait sorry, what?”

“I don’t know. It is just ridiculously over complicated,” Juneau shrugged.

“We aren’t killing anyone,” Erica confirmed.

Hillary reached out her mind again and attempted to gain more information. Then she felt a piercing pain under her tongue. She blinked opening her eyes to a vision not her own. She was a guest in someone else’s mind. She heard a familiar voice as though it was her own, “Welcome brother. We will become more powerful the larger our numbers.”

Oh god, she had connected to Kadin. Hillary tried to pull her mind away. That alerted Kadin to her consciousness. He reached out to her with his alien mind. Hillary pulled away. Within moments she was blinking her own eyes again. Erica and the others were standing around her and she was lying on the ground.

“Where did you go?” Erica asked with great concern.

“I was within my brother’s mind. He wasn’t himself anymore he was so alien.” Hillary’s voice sounded hollow and distant to her own ears.

“Juneau, did you feel what I just felt?” Erica asked.

“The shock wave? Yeah.”

Hillary was about to ask what they meant when Kadin appeared behind them. “Kadin!”

“She is ours! If you step away from her, we will let you be, for now,” Kadin stated.

Erica slapped an emergency transport tag on Hillary and herself. Juneau just grabbed Dante and disappeared. Erica stood and stepped back, “What do you want?”

“She will become. You all will. The universe will be one,” Kadin replied. He approached Hillary with some kind of creature in his right hand. He seemed intent on putting it in side her. Tendrils of vines like the ones that had attached themselves to him reached for her from his wrists. He came closer and Hillary cowered. Then Hillary felt a nauseating tumbling sensation, like she was being tugged through space and time by a rubber band. She opened her eyes to Room 52.

“You okay?” Erica asked running her hands over Hillary checking for parasites, “He didn’t infect you did he?”

“No, I don’t think so!”

Juneau and Dante ran to them and helped Hillary up off of the floor. “Was that an R 6 parasite?” Dante asked.

Erica nodded, “You two go write up the reports. Make sure you let the intergalactic council know we found and stopped the paradox.”

“We did?” Hillary asked.

“Yeah, the paradox wasn’t the time traveler. It was the chance of the four of us becoming cogs in the establishment of a new Riiad collective, or perhaps just you…” Erica stated.

“I was what was causing those shock waves?”

“No, you and your brother were,” Dante stated.

“How did you know Kadin was my brother?” Hillary asked.

Dante cracked a serious grin, “Hello, intuitive, it was all in how you say his name,” Dante replied.

“Dante, Juneau, get medically checked in and write up those reports. Make them good, I will present them to the chief directly,” Erica ordered.

Dante and Juneau rushed to the medical check in line. Erica grabbed Hillary by the elbow and bypassed the line entirely. She led Hillary to an empty table and tapped her tablet’s screen. Within moments, Dr. Tina Harvey appeared and began running scans on them both.

“You’re sure it was Riiad?”

Erica nodded, “And I can confirm an R6 organism.”

“Maybe Hillary shouldn’t be going out into the field until we know what’s happening, with her and with the collective,” Tina stated.

Hillary’s emotional high over Kadin wanting her near again deflated. Her hopes of establishing a better reputation for her people deflated. “Can I still train?”

“There is something about the possibility of you having joined the collective that set off temporal shock waves. Damn straight you are still going to train,” Erica stated.

Hillary only felt marginally better. There was nothing about her that could affect an entire multiverse was there?
- - - - - - - - - - - -

IIlora had been going as Lora for the last five years on the earth she had claimed as home. During that time she had amassed a collection of comic book memorabilia and gotten a job with google as a new feature developer. She wasn’t hurting for money. Every so often Lora would use her powers to help people. Shortly after arriving, she rescued earthquake survivors using her abilities. That got her noticed by an investigative reporter by the name of Kyle Weatherton.

Four years he hounded her about her secret. It was endearing how obsessed he was with her. She stood on a street corner one afternoon just as a semi-truck suffered a double blowout of its front tires. The cab dropped and skidded to a stop and the trailer tried to keep going. It was barreling towards the crosswalk, where a group of preschoolers was being led across by their teachers. Lora didn’t hesitate. She held up her hands as a way of focusing her telekinesis. With all of her telekinetic might she brought the trailer to an uneasy stop. Then she stopped the cars about to plow into it, even though the drivers still had their feet on the accelerators.

Everyone else ran away from the carnage, but Lora walked closer, keeping her hands up to keep the focus to halt the momentum. The semi’s trailer was loaded with concrete sewer pipes and she was having an especially hard time holding them in place because the trailer had tipped slightly and gravity was against her. The preschoolers got safely out of the way and Lora let the concrete fall. The inertia cracked the pavement beneath the concrete pipes. The last driver reacted to the near pile up and slammed on his breaks. Lora let her arms fall. She was exceedingly tired. She staggered to a bus stop bench.

Before she could gather her thoughts and energy, someone else sat next to her. It was Kyle Weatherton, “I got great footage of that. I knew if I followed you long enough I would capture proof!” He showed her the screen of his HD digital camera as it replayed her performance.

Lora sighed heavily, as much from exhaustion as aggravation. “Kyle, let it go! There is no such thing as superpowers.” Lora attempted to stand up and leave. She nearly collapsed. Kyle was there and caught her. She melted into his arms and neither of them noticed the camera dropping to the pavement with the sound of breaking lenses. They locked their eyes. Neither of them knew who began the passionate kiss, but neither argued with it. They had been orbiting one another for years. The universe had preordained that moment.

From there their relationship burned hot and fast. They were inseparable except while they worked. They were out to lunch together one afternoon when Kyle received a text telling him to report to a major bank branch downtown. A bank robbery with a hostage situation was in progress. He showed the text to Lora. She choked on her salad. She knew what he wanted. He had even purchased her a costume; it was skin tight with an integrated mask that showed no flesh. He had chosen a deep purple-blue. Lora had humored him and practiced teleporting into it. Now he wanted her to act.

“I can’t. If they find me…” Lora said.

“The dark? Honey, the people in the bank are possibly going to go into the final darkness if you don’t do it. What is the difference between holding a building up so people can escape and stopping thugs from shooting up innocent hostages?”

“Fine, we’ll go. But if the police appear to have things handled, I stay out of it!” Lora bargained.

“Fair enough,” He pulled out five twenties and put it on the table. It was easily twice what their lunch cost. “Let’s go!”

Lora put down her fork and reluctantly followed him out to his car. He drove to the bank at a speed significantly higher than the limit. They were on site in less than thirty minutes from the text. Lora watched as he hopped from the vehicle and set up his tripod and camera near the police line. He used the remote to turn it on and began reporting. Lora dutifully listened with her more than human senses to gauge the situation. The negotiator was doing the math on what percentage of the hostages was an acceptable loss. Snipers on the rooftops couldn’t get a clear shot at any of the gang of robbers. Things on the other side were about to go sideways, and the leader of the gang was ready to execute a few hostages to prove a point. It was a case study in the police not having it handled.

Lora teleported into her costume in front of the bank. She walked up to the door and knocked. Behind her she heard cops and reporters swearing at themselves about her sudden appearance. A hostage opened the door and let her in. “Gentlemen, I am here to accept your complete surrender.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?”

“You can call me Sotto,” Lora answered with the name she and Kyle had agreed upon.

“I think I will just call you crazy lady,” The head of the gang stated, “Get over there with the rest of the hostages!”

“So this isn’t a surrender? Okay, I’m sure the cops have ambulances for you on speed dial,” Lora stated.

“Crazy and cocky!” The leader laughed.

“Take aim!” Lora suggested.

The leader of the gang did just that. Lora teleported out of the way of the bullet, to a place right next to the leader. She knocked him on the back of the head with force enough to knock him out. As he crumpled to the floor, she placed her hands on her hips and asked, “Who’s next?”

The rest of the gang acted sensibly and dropped their weapons. They kneeled and placed their hands on the back of their heads. Lora telekinetically gathered the guns out of the way and teleported herself enough handcuffs to restrain the remaining thugs. She handcuffed them arm in arm, making a convenient chain of prisoners. Outside she heard the siren of an ambulance approach. She teleported herself and the gang out of the bank and into the open space between the bank and the police barricade. At first the police didn’t seem to notice her, and she felt a little perturbed about it. Until the smell of blood reached her. She followed it to its source, near Kyle’s tripod. Where was he? She searched the crowd and noticed the police, and ambulance crew gathered around someone on the ground.

No, Lora’s refused to accept what the virtual knife she felt in her gut was telling her. She searched for Kyle’s mind, for his heartbeat, and found nothing. She released a wail of anguish. That drew the attention of the police. They took notice of the suspects restrained or unconscious behind the barricades. Lora ran to Kyle. The paramedics were working frantically and futilely to revive him. Lora traced the bullet which had hit him in the head back to the single shot the leader of the gang had fired. If she hadn’t dodged it Kyle would be okay. Lora wailed again.

Then she teleported to her apartment. A few years back she had received a bag from a fellow galactic which was bigger on the inside than the outside. She had never used it. She retrieved it from her closet and began packing. She wasn’t practical about it. The more mobile pieces of her collection went in the bag. Then she cleaned out her cupboards, taking dishes and pans, but no food. She packed the gold, silver, and galactic credits she had. She packed six pairs of shoes but no socks or underwear. She threw in a sweater and a rain poncho and then closed the bag. Her apartment looked like it had been hit by a demented tornado. She pulled the cash out of her purse and tossed it on the floor. She didn’t know where she was going but it probably wouldn’t be good there.

With tears in her eyes, Lora teleported away. She reached out with her mind to find a world as far from the one she was leaving as she could take herself. She didn’t care to where beyond that. She arrived on a world very much like the one she just left. The landmark businesses were the same. Newsstands occupied the same storefronts. Lora walked up to the nearest newsstand. She glanced at the datelines on the newspapers. This earth was a few days ahead of where hers was. The banner headline was the public death of a local superhero by the name of Voce.

That was a coincidence, right? She and Kyle had nearly chosen that name for her alter ego. Lora brushed it off as a coincidence. She headed down the street and came to a stop at the display window of an electronics store. This earth’s Kyle reported on the national day of morning celebrating Voce’s selfless sacrifice to save not just this city, nation or world but potentially the whole universe.

Her heart flipped in relief at seeing him alive. She had to remind herself that he wasn’t “her” Kyle She walked into a nearby pawn shop and sold five hundred dollars worth of gold coins. Then she headed for a local hotel, The Pax. She and Kyle had stayed there once.

Lora walked up to the reception desk and laid three hundred dollars and her ID on the counter. “Room please.”

“Right away Ms. Peterson. I have the perfect room.” The desk clerk swiped two keycards through the machine and handed them to Lora. “Room 210.” She slipped a hundred back to Lora with a smile and went back to whatever she had been doing before.

Lora had expected more persuasion would be necessary, but she just let it go. She knew her way around the hotel, 210 was upstairs just to the right of the main elevator. She pressed the elevator call button and rode it to the second floor. She got off the elevator and walked to her room with the keycard in her hand. She had barely slipped the card into the door when the door next to hers opened.

A man she recognized as an actor, named John Handle came darting out, “Good god! I thought the front desk clerk was out of her mind when she called to let me know you were on your way up! Lora, how are you here!” He wrapped his arms around her and began kissing her passionately. Illora merely stiffened in his arms. “Lora?”

“You have me mistaken for…” Illora read his mind and suddenly realized she was dealing with a man who knew an alternate Illora Peterson. She hadn’t even considered that was possible, after all her parents only existed on one earth out of billions in the multiverse. Then she got the sudden idea that perhaps there were parallel multiverses like there were parallel universes. That left her on the scale of what? An omniverse? “I don’t actually know you. Did the me you think I am tell you about parallel universes?”

“What? So you aren’t my Lora?” The man deflated visibly, and he pulled away from her. “I knew you couldn’t be her. I was there when she died. She pulled that thing from her chest before it could destroy everything, and it killed her!”

“Wait, so my alternate was Voce?”

“Yeah, of course, weren’t you?”

Illora frowned, “I was just experimenting with being a superhero. Kyle and I called my alter ego Sotto.”

“I don’t know why Lora didn’t choose to just call herself Sotto Voce. She focused on the voice part where you must have focused on the soft part,” John stated.

Illora realized her alternate and this man must have been very close for her to have shared her secret with him. She wondered what had drawn them together. Illora had only met the man once, when she was getting autographs on a TV Guide. He was an actor who played a villain on a series based on the Lady Monarch comic-books. “How did you two come to be a couple?”

John smiled, “She asked for my autograph. She had this hobby… but I bet you had the same hobby. Is it true there are real superheroes out there like from the comics?”

“Yes, I have a signature from Superman on a movie poster next to Christopher Reeve’s signature,” Illora answered.

“Lora… My Lora had one too. She only died a yesterday, so her collection is still in our apartment,” John said.

“You shared a place?”

“Yeah, didn’t you have someone… close to you?”

“Kyle and I were just starting out. We burned bright, but… he’s dead now. He just died. It’s my fault. I dodged a bullet, and it found him…” Illora felt tears trailing down her cheeks.

John put his hands on the sides of her head and caught her tears with his thumbs, “I'm not saying either of us is in a place to start something new, but I feel like with both our losses we could comfort each other.”

“I wasn’t looking for comfort,” Lora jabbed verbally, “I don't deserve comfort. I am why Kyle is dead. I let him talk me into believing the world would be a better place if I became a hero. I knew he was wrong! How could I even think that I could make a positive difference in anything?”

“Whoa! My Lora made a huge impact. I don't know if it happened on your earth or not, but she stopped two planes hijacked by terrorists from ramming themselves into the twin towers. She wished she could have stopped the other two planes but there were limits to what she could do. She saved potentially thousands of lives.”

Lora blinked, “Two thousand six hundred and six lives, if you don’t count the rescue workers that died later from environmental exposures.”

“You didn’t stop them? Lora told me she knew it was coming, and she had prepared for it,” John took a step back.

“I only guessed it might occur. It happened on my home earth, and in many of the earths in the multiverse. It caught my parents by surprise. I guess it caught me too.”

John let go of her cheeks, “Lora told me that parallel universe doppelgangers could be very different. I guess this just caught me by surprise.”

Illora had the sense to look ashamed, “I’m not going to give you any excuses. I was afraid to act. I guess your Lora was just braver than I am.”

“Hell no, Lora was rightly terrified every time she went out there. Her suit wasn’t bulletproof. She came home wounded. I patched her up while she healed. She couldn’t let her fear define her! I very much see her in you. You aren’t a coward.”

“Aren’t I?”

“Come with me, let me show you who you can be,” John gestured back to the elevator. Reluctantly Lora followed him. He led her to this world's version of her apartment. He unlocked the door letting her in. The place was a bit different from her apartment, clearly she shared it. The walls were hung with elaborately framed comic books and newspaper clippings in equally elaborate frames. He led her to a shelf. Well loved leather-bound journals lined it. He pulled the one on the end and handed it to Lora. “Go to the last entry.”

Lora opened the book until she found the last entry, “Well, mom and dad, I finally screwed things up beyond a simple fix. Mazemaster is in jail, but at a price. He implanted a biomechanical device in my chest. It is like a seed it takes three days to germinate. On the third day it opens a black hole big enough to swallow the universe. The only way to stop it is to remove it from its host. By the way, the host dies on removal. Since you are reading this, I removed it, and it destroyed me instead. So signing out with all my love, Illora Peterson.”

Illora considered what she read. Her parallel alternate had sacrificed herself to save the universe. Lora doubted she could hold a candle to that. “I already told you I’m no hero.”

“That journal and all the rest of these prove you could be!” He argued.

Someone began pounding at the door, yelling, “John, are you here? Jackie said she saw Lora near a pawnshop!”

John went to the door and opened it, overbalancing the teen on the other side, “Tony, She’s in here, but…” He didn’t get to the but. The girl rushed Lora and wrapped her arms around Lora with a familiarity which spoke of close friendship. Lora pried the girl’s arms from around her and gently pushed her away. The girl looked at her as if betrayed.

“You aren’t our Lora are you?”

John just silently shook his head from side to side, “Tony, this is the Lora Peterson that never became Voce.”

Tony stepped back and stared at Lora, “Are you serious? Becoming Voce was the best thing that ever happened to her! Until, yesterday.”

“Yeah, well, I just got cajoled into becoming Sotto today and it killed my boyfriend. So worst mistake ever!”

“You should roll out a new identity. Be Sotto here. With our Lora gone there is an opening for a superhero, and you could take up Lora’s life where she left off. You worked for Google right?”

“Yeah, in new feature development,” Lora wondered what she was really letting herself to get talked into. “I suppose I could feel things out…”

“We’ll help,” John smiled.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

Annette felt giddy as she thought of Teo’s icy blue eyes. The memory of his masculine scent lingered on her collar where he had nuzzled her that morning when he stopped by to tell her he would have a surprise when he saw her that evening. He had been suitably mysterious about his plans. She felt a shiver in places she didn’t regularly notice at the thought of receiving the surprise. As of that morning, their relationship had all been chaste flirtation, but his announcement that morning left her wondering at his motives. He had stopped by that morning and she knew he had to go slightly out of his way to greet her as she left for work.

“As I was saying, repeatedly, our gold reserves are at their lowest point and it may force us into buying another multiversal mining permit to bring in the materials for Sinclair’s team in R&D, and the technical production line.“

Annette blinked. She really had to think to remember how long Carl had been there talking to her. Why was he even here? Annette belatedly remembered he had come in to scold her for not responding to written reports. He had then sat down and begun delivering the information she had neglected.

“Do we use our gold reserve to purchase the permits, hoping to replenish them? Or do we buy a planet and hope it has what we need?” Carl asked. Annette paused in contemplation of the question. Carl took it for her continued distraction. “I swear I don’t even know why I am trying!” He threw up his hands and got out of his chair.

“Calm down Carl! I was considering the options. Let’s spring for the permit. It sounds a lot more cost and resource-effective. Hunting down a suitable uninhabited planet for our use could be more trouble than it is worth,” Annette said with a smile.

Carl sat and blinked at her a moment, “Okay, I’ll put that in process.” He tapped the tablet a few times and then began discussing the next point, “Medical services is requesting a recruitment push, the hiring of new medical professionals has leveled off and it looks like it will not meet our needs. We could…”

Annette’s attention trailed off. She wondered what Teo’s surprise might be. Her mind darted from one possibility to the next. She felt like it was beyond flowers and candy, but she doubted it was marriage proposal territory yet.

“And flying purple buffalos are nesting in Hub,” Carl said off-hand.

“That’s wonderful!” Annette smiled dreamily.

Carl slammed his tablet down and stood up, “Let me know when your mind is on the business at hand.” He took his tablet and stormed out of Annette’s office.

“Wait? We have flying purple buffalos?” Annette asked after him.
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