by James Riley
“The Magister seems to be doing fine,” Bethany said, releasing him. “I guess I’ll go see what spells he’s got. Maybe it’s not magic that’s the problem, Fowen. Maybe you’re just not very good at it.”
He clenched his fist, looking away. “My name is Owen.”
“Someone better than you already owns that name.”
“I am Owen!” he shouted, rage flashing across his face. “I’m the only Owen who matters! Your version has been tossed around by Nobody, thrown in a time prison, and kicked back home, useless to anyone. I’m the one saving the world, the one being a hero, fighting the big villain. And if that’s a problem for you, then I suggest you take it up with your pathetic friend, because I don’t see him doing anything.”
She glared at him for another moment as he took a deep breath, calming down. “He might not know magic or be a hero,” Bethany said finally. “But he’s a better person than you’ll ever be.”
“Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree,” he said, narrowing his eyes.
Bethany nodded, then moved to leave the room. Fowen swore behind her, then raced to stop her. “You can’t do this!” he said. “Magic or not, you don’t have a chance without your other self.”
She threw a look back at him over her shoulder. “Stay out of my way. I don’t like you, and I definitely don’t trust you. If you’re telling the truth, we’re on the same side . . . for now. But the moment that’s not the case, you’re mine.”
CHAPTER 27
As Owen and Charm made their way down the spiral staircase and out of the tower, they didn’t run into a single person, let alone a black helmet soldier. However Dr. Verity had modified Kara’s time bracelet, it now seemed to work on large groups of people without needing any physical contact, because he’d taken his entire brainwashed army with him.
As they exited, Charm looked over the barren grounds of what used to be Jonathan Porterhouse’s mansion, searching for more technology to make a time machine. A few scientists nervously peeked out of their tent buildings, probably as thrown by the disappearance of the black helmets as Owen was.
“They might have some useful stuff,” Owen said, pointing at the tent where he’d been tested for being fictional.
Charm didn’t respond, but instead moved purposefully toward the building, sending the few scientists glancing outside scurrying back into the tent. As she entered, Owen heard raised voices, then shouts of surprise and terror. Something hit the side of the tent hard, then slid down the wall as a loud crash sounded from within.
A moment later, each of the scientists who’d tested him went running out the back of the building in terror.
Owen entered the front of the tent to find Charm silently tearing apart computers and lab equipment. “That was quick,” he said, hoping a little humor would lighten the mood. “Did you have a good talk?”
She pointed at the ground, where the scientist who’d taken his blood lay unconscious. “That one annoyed me. The rest were smart enough to leave before I was done with him.”
Right. Humor wasn’t helping. “Any luck here?”
Charm shrugged, then roughly pushed past him, dragging wires and computer chips behind her.
As they entered the next building, there weren’t even screams; the scientists rushed toward the exit as soon as they saw her coming. This one had no testing equipment, but did have quite a few laser rifles and some empty black helmets. Owen briefly eyed one of the helmets, wondering if it might be useful, especially since he was basically powerless with his heart not working. He picked it up and stared inside, trying to see what it did.
“I wouldn’t,” Charm said, and knocked the helmet out of his hand, sending it crashing to the floor. “Those reinforce a hypnotic suggestion directly into the brain after an initial persuasion session. Might brainwash you even without that.” She abruptly seemed to notice that she’d protected him and clenched her fists, turning away. “Or do whatever you want, I don’t care.”
He sighed. “I should have told you, back when I first saw you.”
“I probably would have ray-gunned you.”
Owen winced. “You still might.”
“Fair point.” She walked out, carrying a much larger assortment of tech this time.
It took ransacking three more labs (and scaring off a barracks full of nonfictional soldiers after Charm bent one of their guns in half using just her robotic hand) before she finally stopped in the middle of the yard to assemble all the parts.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Owen asked, nervously watching over her as she worked, having no idea what she was doing. Even if his imagination had been fully intact—and by now, it was barely holding on to what was left of his heart—he was pretty sure he couldn’t have thought up anything as complicated as what Charm was building.
“Are you good for anything other than lying?” Charm asked. “If not, then I’m thinking no, you can’t.”
He sighed, and she turned away, wiring chips together as she projected various holographic screens in midair that showed the schematics that they’d seen back in Verity’s office. One of her robotic fingers popped open, revealing a tiny welding torch, and she used it to carefully meld some of the chips together.
None of what Charm was doing resembled the time bracelet in any way. Still, that didn’t matter as long as it worked. While she assembled her machine, Owen paced around her anxiously. He knew that with time travel, it didn’t actually matter how long it took to build the machine, since they could pick the time they were traveling to. But Verity had an army of black helmets already in the past, ready to go to war. And more importantly, he had Kara.
He couldn’t really blame her for tricking him into coming now, not after everything he’d seen. His older self had been right. There was no way he could just let all of this happen. Maybe it was his heart being fixed up a bit, or maybe he’d just snapped out of whatever funk he’d been in, but right now, people needed him, and he wasn’t going to let them down.
Did it have to take so long to build a time machine?
“You sure I can’t help in any way?” Owen asked after Charm had been working for what felt like a thousand years, but might have been ten minutes.
One look made him go silent again, as well as take a few steps backward for safety.
“I’m done anyway, I think,” she said, then stood up, holding a huge mess of wires, diodes, glowing blue electrical laser things, and a bunch of technology that Owen had no words for. Whatever it was, it didn’t look pretty.
“You think?” he asked.
“No way to know without testing it,” she told him.
“How does it work?”
“It’s time travel,” she said, glaring at him. “It’s not difficult. I put in a time and place, and we show up there. Do you really want to know more than that? About what’s actually happening to your physical form as we travel through the seventh dimension to shortcut the fourth? Do you want me to describe how close to obliteration you’ll come if I made even the slightest miscalculation? Because I can go over all of that, in minute detail.”
He shook his head over and over. She nodded. “Good. Now, this isn’t my choice, but the plans Verity had on his screens required us to be touching. He must have changed something after, to take his army. Anyway, give me your elbow or something.”
Owen slowly moved his arm toward her as she watched him with irritation. “We need to go back, like, five years,” he said, as she roughly grabbed him and yanked him closer. “The portal in the tower will hopefully still be working at that point. But we’re going to need—”
Before he finished, she slammed a button, and everything immediately turned upside down and very, very wrong.
Kara’s time bracelet had been a bit disorienting, especially when they’d traveled slowly through time in either direction. But Charm’s version seemed to stretch their bodies out from the present to the past, pulling them apart until their very atoms felt like they were going to snap, if that’s how ato
ms worked.
And then something twanged like an elastic band, and Owen thankfully found himself in the very same spot in Jonathan Porterhouse’s yard, now empty of buildings other than the tower and the author’s mansion.
“Aaaaaaaaaah!” Owen shouted, releasing the terror he’d felt during the trip as he collapsed to his knees, trying not to puke.
“We’re here,” Charm told him calmly, like their bodies hadn’t just been pulled apart. The time machine in her hand began to sizzle, and she dropped it as smoke started pouring out of it. “Like I said, one-time use. So what now?”
Owen stared at the machine as it caught fire, having seconds ago been the only thing between them and apparent obliteration. “Uh, right,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake. “First, we need to figure out if we arrived before Dr. Verity. Hopefully we can be ready and waiting for him.”
The front lights of the mansion flipped on, and one of the double doors opened. Jonathan Porterhouse appeared in a robe and pajamas, peeking out carefully. “More of you?” he shouted, then flipped a switch, and the enormous yard lit up with spotlights. “I’ve called the police, whoever you are! You better leave now if you don’t want to be arrested!”
More of them? Owen sighed. That answered the question of whether they’d beaten Dr. Verity to the past. They were too late! He looked around at the now-lit lawn and saw that all the grass was trampled down, most likely by Verity’s soldiers. “So much for setting a trap,” he said quietly.
“So we catch up to him,” Charm told him, striding forward toward the author with one of her ray guns raised. “But that means we have no time to waste, especially with people yelling at me in their nightclothes.”
Even from a distance, Owen could see the author’s eyes widen to the size of dinner plates. “No!” the man shouted. “Didn’t I suffer enough with Kiel and the Magister? Now she’s here too?”
“Wait!” Owen yelled, stepping between the half-robotic girl and her creator. “He’s . . . actually, let’s not even get into that. It’s not important. He owns this house. Let me go talk to him while you get the portal ready in the Magister’s tower to send us to Magisteria.”
Charm rolled her eyes, but set off toward the tower without ray-gunning anyone, so that was a victory. Owen jogged over to the terrified author. “Mr. Porterhouse, sorry to do this to you again,” he said, raising his hands to show he came in peace. “I’m guessing a whole army of people showed up earlier?”
“Just . . . just a few minutes ago,” he said. “But they disappeared as quickly as they appeared. I don’t know where they went. The police aren’t really coming . . . they didn’t believe me. Said it was impossible.”
“They’re a bit lacking in imagination right now,” Owen said, frowning. “But we won’t stay long either. We’re just going to need to use the tower real quick.” He paused, feeling bad about the next thing. “Also, I could use another favor. If you don’t mind, can I make a quick phone call? Remember my friend Bethany? She lives just a little ways away in town. We’re going to need her for this too.”
If anything, Mr. Porterhouse’s eyes grew even wider in terror. “The . . . the one who—”
“Don’t worry!” Owen said, raising his hands up to calm the man down. “She’s coming with us. I promise you won’t be stuck in any horror stories tonight!”
CHAPTER 28
Hey, Kiel?” Bethany said, reentering the Magister’s office, with Fowen just behind her. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”
Kiel nodded, walking over to her from where he’d been chatting quietly at the Magister’s desk with the old magician. “Let me guess,” he said, pointing at Fowen. “Did he try to steal your memories?”
Fowen snorted, and Bethany faked a smile. “Funny you should bring that up. I need you to do something for me.”
“If it involves pushing this version of Owen down the stairs, I’m on it,” Kiel whispered to her, then winked at Fowen, who glared back.
She led him out into the hall and filled him in on the situation. “So now I’m going to have a little chat with the Magister. After what he did to Charm and her people, I think it’s safe to say he won’t enjoy it.” She grinned evilly.
Kiel just stared at her. “If he really did that, there’s no forgiving him. But I don’t understand why you didn’t return to your world and rejoin your other self. If Fowen’s telling the truth, you could have kept yourself from disappearing!”
“Don’t you start too,” she said, glaring at him. “She was everything wrong with me, okay? Maybe I don’t have her anchoring me anymore. Well, guess what, that just means I can fly free now.”
“Bethany, this seems like a bad idea,” Kiel said. “It’s not too late. Let’s go down to the portal and find your other self. At least talk to her. I’m sure she’ll want to help too.”
Bethany sighed, dropping her head into her hands. “No! No more talking, to her or anyone. I’m going to do something for once, because that’s the only way things happen. If you want to go talk to her, be my guest. I’m gonna go make the Magister fix me with magic.”
She turned back toward the door, but stopped as Kiel grabbed her shoulder. “Are you sure—”
Without looking, she stuck her hand in his face and morphed it into sleeping gas, using her superpowers. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said as he fell unconscious. She caught him before he could collapse, and gently laid him down on the ground. “It’s better that you stay out of this anyway. Without your magic, you could get hurt. And I’m not going to let that happen, not after what happened to my father.”
Bethany touched his cheek gently, then stood back up and went into the office, closing the door behind her.
“He’s just going to get something from Charm’s ship,” she told the Magister. “Can we talk while he’s gone, though? Alone, maybe?” She glanced at Fowen.
“As his apprentice, I should probably stay,” Fowen said, glaring at her.
“That isn’t necessary, my apprentice,” the Magister told him, gesturing for Fowen to leave them, which he did, though he did shut the door pretty hard. “Was the boy of any assistance to you?”
“More than you’d think,” she said, slowly walking over to the magician’s desk. “I just think we should be honest with each other while Kiel’s not here. See, I don’t think you’ve changed quite as much as you say you have.”
He smiled sadly at her. “And why would you think that?”
“Maybe because you turned the entire population of Quanterium into books and stuck them in the nonfictional world?”
His smile faded, and a shadow passed over his face. “I have nothing to apologize for. Those science-worshippers deserved whatever they got.”
Bethany grinned. “Oh, see, thank you for saying so.”
“And why is that?”
“Because that’s really the only excuse I needed to do this,” she told him, and morphed into sleeping gas again. Before he could move, she surrounded the man and floated her way toward his nose and mouth. His eyes widened with surprise and he quickly covered his mouth, mumbling something behind his hand as Bethany oozed in around his fingers and up his nostrils.
Before she could get into his lungs, though, something pulled at her from behind, and abruptly she went spinning away from the Magister, caught in an invisible whirlwind in the middle of the office. Papers and books swirled up and around with her as the Magister coughed at his desk. “You dare?” he shouted, his voice thunderous and threatening.
A few dozen ideas filled her head, but Bethany just picked the first one that made sense and morphed into a whirlwind herself, one large enough to engulf the Magister’s magical version. Now twice the size, she increased her pull, reaching for the old man, but he disappeared before she could reach him. Instead, the force of her whirlwind sent his desk crashing into several bookshelves around her as the rest of the small office got caught up in her winds.
She switched back to normal, but the Magister hadn’t reappeared, and she started wor
rying that he’d teleported away. Ignoring the hundreds of ideas in her head, she instead rewrote herself to be able to see heat signatures, and searched the room in case he was invisible. Yes, she was taking a chance with that, but it wasn’t a big rewrite, and hopefully wouldn’t be enough to make her dissolve again.
She made a circle, but didn’t see anyone else in the room. Was his invisibility spell powerful enough to mask his heat, too? Or had he completely escaped? She rewrote her vision back to normal, wanting to punch something for not managing to catch him by surprise. Why hadn’t she been faster? She needed the Magister at her mercy if she had any chance of getting him to fix her with his magic!
Something passed over her like a wave, and she found herself frozen, only able to move her eyes and jaw. The Magister appeared in front of her, growing from a microscopic size into his regular height, his wand aimed right at her. He murmured another spell, and a muddy fog filled Bethany’s mind. “Now I have used a truth spell on you, girl. What is the purpose of this attack?”
Bethany gritted her teeth, wanting to unleash a horde of awful insults and profanity, but instead, her mouth betrayed her. “I wanted to force you to fix me using magic. Fowen said I should rejoin my other self to fight Nobody, but I’m afraid to see her.”
Wait, what? What had she just said?
The Magister stared at her for a moment. “His plan would have merit, if there was any chance of hiding it from Nobody. But I don’t believe that would be possible.” He moved in closer. “You fear the person you were?”
Of course not! she screamed in her head, but again, her mouth had other ideas. “A lot of horrible things happened in my life, and I always blamed myself for not thinking ahead enough. But this is my chance to prove that wrong. I can show her, can show myself, that even if things go wrong, they’re not always my fault. That sometimes you just need to take action, take risks. If I go back now and tell her that I need her help, then I’d be admitting I was wrong all along, and that I’m useless without her. The idea terrifies me.”