by Dima Zales
Darian shows up.
Since I know his first shot is at my right shoulder, I duck, but when he shoots, he aims lower than I expected, and hits my shoulder as in vision one.
My body passes out, and the rest of the nightmare proceeds unchanged from there.
I come back to reality, then leap back into Headspace—into the same cloud of shapes.
Damn it.
My third vision had gone even worse than the second. Now that Darian knows I’m using my powers, he’s adapting.
Well, if he can do it, so can I. It’s just a matter of perseverance. I’ll just have to use up more seer power and utilize the trick with which I dodged the dragon—seeing a ton of possible moves and performing the best one.
With this, I reach out to as many of the shapes in front of me as I can—and fall into a multitude of visions.
Darian shows up.
Since I know his first shot is at my right shoulder, but the countermove to my ducking is to shoot lower, I bypass both fates by sidestepping to the left.
The dart misses me, but he aims again.
I know that dodging to the left put me in the path of the dart in vision number two, so I dodge right—but Darian must’ve already corrected for this because he hits my thigh, and I pass out.
Then, as punishment for my failure, I watch the horrific demise of Nero.
I sidestep from the start—and into the dart.
I don’t sidestep but drop my shoulder in the next vision. I get hit on the second shot.
In the vision that follows, I’m hit right away, and so on, failure after failure.
After countless permutations of basically the same vision, I manage to dodge the first two shots, just to get hit with a third dart a couple of feet later.
Frustrated, I return to my body and head right back into Headspace.
The cursed shapes taunt me once again, but I don’t reach for any of them.
If I’ve learned anything from this multi-vision fiasco, it’s that Darian is still the better seer when it comes to pure vision machinations. He’s able to always get me within two, or in one case, three shots.
Now what? Should I let myself go into reality and beg Nero to turn into a dragon so that at least he survives?
Something tells me he won’t listen to me if I do.
Besides, that sounds like giving up, and I can’t. It’s not just my own life on the line here, but Felix’s too. There has to be a way this can be done without anyone dying.
Then a dangerous idea comes to me. It hinges on a single question: do I have more raw seer power than Darian? Or more accurately, which of us has more seer juice in the tank at this very moment?
The answer to the latter question depends on many factors, like how much did we have to start with, and also on who used more prior to this showdown. Relatedly, did Darian need to expend as much power as I did when he countered my multi-vision attempt? Though my brain hurts to even think about counter-counter-counter moves, it does seem feasible he used less power than I did in his thwarting.
Still, dangerous or not, this idea is my best option, and it’s pretty ironic that it was Darian who gave me the very information that’s the basis for what I’m going to attempt.
It was during our Headspace conversation—the first time he raised the whole “don’t fall for Nero” business.
“If one isn’t careful, a more powerful seer can drain one’s powers during an encounter in Headspace,” Darian had warned me on that day.
If that’s true, and if I am the more powerful of us, I plan to do exactly that: drain him of his power. If I can figure out how to do so, that is.
I try to recall all the other pertinent information.
“Though willing participation is usually required, some very powerful seers can force the call to happen,” he’d said that day. “The safest action is to leave Headspace when any hint of a call is about to transpire, which is basically when you see anything but the vision shapes.”
That means my attack on him must be swift. I can’t give him a chance to escape Headspace or give him a choice not to accept the call.
The good news is that Headspace conversations can’t be foreseen with seer powers, so hopefully, he won’t expect this.
He did underestimate me once already.
Yes, that’s it. I will force a joining on Darian—except I need a less rapey-sounding term for it, like “a Headspace battle,” for example.
To start, I’ll need to make Darian accept my summons, then refuse to disconnect the call in order to drain his power. As he himself had told me, Headspace conversations can only end when both of the seers wish it, or one of them runs out of power, or if one of the seers is willing to give up a huge burst of power to disconnect.
That last scenario could cause a problem if Darian has a huge burst of power to give up and knows how to do it—but it’s another of the million risks with this plan.
Obviously, the hope is that it’s Darian who runs out of power, not me.
Which is far from guaranteed.
I float contemplatively for a moment and realize there’s a chance that it’s a set-up. Darian could’ve told me all that as a way to lure me into a power-draining trap—because he has foreseen this very moment.
Can he see that far ahead? I did hang out with Itzel for a while. Wouldn’t that mess him up?
Maybe not.
He knew Nero would be here wounded, and that I’d be there too. The question is, how long ago did he know?
But wait, he’d said no one could predict what happens during a Headspace conversation. If that’s true, how could he know he’d win the Headspace battle?
Of course, there’s also a chance that he’d lied about everything to do with Headspace conversations. He’d definitely lied about the memories each seer witnesses when they make contact. He called those hallucinations. Perhaps he wanted to make Headspace conversations sound scary to prevent me from talking to other male seers, like the bannik, in case that upsets the future where we’re a unit. Or maybe he didn’t want me to talk to my father in Headspace for some reason.
Speaking of the bannik and Rasputin, if I’m willing to spend a little juice on it, I could consult one or the other to see if they think my desperate plan has any chance of success.
Deciding that the power expenditure would be worth it, I focus on my father’s essence in order to initiate a conversation with him.
Except nothing happens. He’s either dodging my calls again, is himself out of power, or is simply not in Headspace.
I focus on the bannik next—with the same lack of results.
Oh well. I guess I’ll have to do this on my own.
I focus on Darian’s essence with all my might—using everything I know about him, including the borderline-psychopathic ruthlessness I learned about today.
Nothing happens, but I don’t give up. Instead, I bring my feelings into the mix the way my father does. In this case, they boil down to hate. Then I replay every conversation with Darian in my mind, his every gesture. I then go creepy and imagine I can smell the bergamot scent of his cologne.
That last bit is what cinches the deal, because a moving shape suddenly appears next to me.
It’s a familiar entity-shape—the very one that represents Darian in this strange place.
Tensing my ethereal being, I prepare for the Headspace battle.
Chapter Sixty-Four
I have but a moment because given the chance, he’ll either leave Headspace or float out of my reach.
Which is why I instantly grab him with my ethereal wisp as if he were a vision-shape I want to activate.
Only the joining conversation doesn’t start as I had hoped.
I guess he needs to reciprocate to make this easy for me.
He exudes shock—for lack of a better term—then anxiety; then I feel him metaphysically writhing, like a giant fish on a hook.
Maybe it’s not a set-up after all.
“You’re not getting away,” I think
in case he can sense my words. Pretending he’s a cloud of shapes a thousand strong, I reach for him with multiple wisps.
His anxiety pulsing turns into panic as he redoubles his efforts to slip by the imaginary hook—which tells me I’m on the right track.
I pretend he’s an ever-bigger cloud of shapes. His efforts to rip away seem weaker to me, so I double down and rope him with a hundred thousand more wisps, then ten times that, then ten times that yet again.
When I lose count of the number of wisps I tentacle his way, something on Darian’s end finally seems to break, and I reel him into the joining—his nebulous appendages metaphysically flapping each way.
I find myself in Darian’s memory again—which makes me sure I succeeded in part one of my plan.
Standing in a forest, he/I look around at trees so tall they blot out the sky.
A familiar giant figure of the orc chieftain is standing there, looking at Darian/me intently, so Darian says, “I know who’s responsible for your brother’s death.”
Darian proceeds to give the chieftain a more or less true version of what happened, but he makes Bogof look better by claiming he was hired to intimidate a fierce warrior, not little old me. He further claims that Nero killed the orcs in order not to pay them—not because one of them bruised me.
“You must take my best fighters to this Earth,” the chieftain booms. “We must have our revenge.”
“Things are not so simple,” Darian says as he thinks uncharitable thoughts about orcs’ intelligence. “There are humans on that world, so discretion will be of utmost importance.”
Before the chieftain replies, the memory ends, and a new one begins.
Here, Darian is still standing next to the chieftain, but there’s also a huge crowd of orcs around them, including many wearing masks.
Though Darian is mentally stringing a rather creative chain of curses, he keeps his face placid as he says, “We agreed that the girl would be off limits. They”—he points at the masked orcs—“nearly killed her every single time they attempted your revenge.”
“It’s not their fault the bastard keeps his pet around,” the chieftain says. “You’re a seer. How about you tell us when to strike, and in such a way that she be safe?”
“If I could, I would,” Darian says, then sighs. “There is a point in the near future where she can be easily taken out, but you have to swear on your honor to do exactly what I tell you to make sure she isn’t harmed. That means no more bombs, no bullets, and no—”
The memory part of the joining is clearly over because I find myself facing a hologram of Darian made out of the telltale green brain synapses.
Darian’s transparent face is a mask of fury, and even the shape-entity representation of him is pulsing with rage.
“You’ve taken him to your bed?” he shouts and drops down at least seven feet. “Just walked into his hotel room, like a—”
“That is none of your business,” I snap, realizing that Darian must’ve seen my memory of the other night. “You and I will never happen,” I say with as much cruelty in my voice as I can muster, the violation of my privacy adding fire to my already boiling fury.
I realize I’m inadvertently plummeting down, so when my eyes are even with Darian’s, I narrow them and add a finishing blow. “I’ll choose Nero over you in every possible future from now on.”
“Then you will die,” he says mournfully and drops down another ten feet. “You’re also not going to succeed with this—whatever it is you think you’re doing.” He waves around at the vacuum-like blackness around us.
“I call this a Headspace battle,” I say, dropping so fast I feel like I’m skydiving. “And we’ll see who’s going to succeed.”
“I’m more—”
I decide that I’m forever done with listening to anything Darian wants to say. Parroting Felix’s childish behavior from earlier, I cover my ears, close my eyes, and start singing as loudly as I can.
If this is a trap, then I can at least annoy Darian before I lose.
When I tire of “Old McDonald had a farm…,” I pick a random pop song and sing that as though I were in a shower.
After what feels like a week of karaoke nights and an infinite drop into the abyss, I peek to see Darian futilely attempting to grab me. His hands pass through me as if we were both ghosts, which isn’t that far from reality.
Closing my eyes, I grin at his discomfort and keep singing until, a few more songs later, the Headspace battle finally terminates.
Chapter Sixty-Five
I’m back in the real world.
This is the moment of truth.
If I won, then I still have seer juice to take advantage of, and will be able to return to Headspace. But if Darian is the more powerful of us and this was a trap, going into Headspace will fail—and Nero, Felix, and I are screwed.
Without so much as an extra breath, I focus my mind—and reach Headspace successfully.
Floating among the shapes, I let myself bask in my accomplishment for a few moments.
Soon, though, I realize I haven’t won yet. I just took away Darian’s ability to see the future for the time being. He still has an army of orcs at his disposal, Nero is still weakened, and I don’t even know how to dodge the first three darts Darian shoots at me.
Then again, I can now do something about that last part.
I look at the surrounding shapes.
There seem to be fewer of them, but they otherwise remind me of the prior cloud.
Now I need to seek out a future where I do something that I haven’t already tried in all the prior visions. Something Darian hasn’t already countered or counter-countered.
A magician-worthy idea comes to me. It’s bold, mean, and a little crazy, but those might just be the reasons why Darian wouldn’t expect it.
Using my intuition, I guess which vision will show me what happens if I implement this plan.
Reaching out, I touch a shape that feels right.
Like in all the other visions, Darian shows up in front of us.
Unlike every other time, I shout, “Nero, if you have to turn into a dragon, do so! Don’t worry about me.”
Nero doesn’t reply, but that isn’t important because his body tenses in my peripheral view, and I know he heard me.
Darian starts to raise his gun.
Instead of dodging or sidestepping, I grab Felix by his shirt and yank him toward me.
Felix gapes at me as though I’ve lost my mind, and I can tell when the dart hits him because his eyes widen to the size of quarters.
He slackens in my grasp and drops to the floor before I get a chance to soften his fall.
Crap. I’d hoped to prop him by the wall, but—
Nero blurs into motion, which is when Darian shoots him with the next dart instead of me.
The dart hits, but Nero doesn’t even notice it.
I rush after Nero.
“Attack!” Darian shouts at the orcs by his sides. “He killed Bogof and the rest of your kin.”
The orcs rush at us.
Darian raises his gun in my vague direction and squeezes the trigger.
I do my best to dodge the dart, but it hits my right breast.
I pass out.
Bodiless, I watch the rest of the fight unfold, and it’s depressingly similar to all the ones that came before—proving once again how much the future likes certain patterns.
Felix gets stomped on. Darian has more trouble hitting Nero with the darts without the use of his seer powers, but that just means Nero gets to kill more orcs for a longer period of time. Eventually, Darian floods Nero’s system with enough tranquilizer to slow him down.
Once Nero is partially sedated, the chieftain shows up like before, and his fight with Nero is identical to my other visions.
Despite my urging him to, Nero doesn’t turn into a dragon even at the bitter end, and the beheading proceeds like before.
Back in the real world, I jump right into Headspace in record time, ignoring
my distress.
Floating among the shapes, I push away the terror gripping me and consider my next move.
If I hadn’t already used up a lot of my seer power, I’d do a whole cloud of visions at once, but as is, the more conservative approach is to keep having them one at a time—especially since Darian can’t counter anything I do.
Thus determined, I seek out a future where I’m not shot in my right breast—and when I think I’ve pinpointed the shape I need, I touch it to see what happens.
Darian raises the gun.
Without wasting breath on telling Nero to turn, I use Felix as a human shield again—but this time, I strain with all my might to keep him upright.
“Go kill him!” I shout at Nero.
He blurs forward.
I decide to keep holding Felix upright—that’s a surefire way Darian can’t shoot me with a dart.
Familiar ripping sounds reach me from the front, and thanks to all my visions, I can picture Nero mass-killing the masked orcs—this time, a few feet away from my location.
As curious as I am, I don’t dare peek out from behind my shield for fear of getting a dart in my eye.
Orcs begin flanking us from behind. To my relief, they pass right by me without raising an eyebrow at my unconscious shield or my own very conscious state of being. They’d told Darian they would let me be, and I guess a promise is a promise.
As soon as they pass by, I hear them get slaughtered by Nero up ahead.
This goes on for a few minutes, and I desperately strain my brain for something more active I could do. If Nero had let me keep my sword, then maybe I would kill the chieftain as a way to drastically change the future. Also, my gun is at the lab, but there’s no time to run there for it.