“Sealthebaynow!” I shouted in one breath as I hit the bay floor and dropped the still-struggling mass. I could barely feel my legs, not even the sting, and it was scaring me. They rumbled shut as I tried to peel the thing away.
“I’ve got this!” Metal hands joined mine. Shelly had obviously switched operation to one of the Galatea backups in the bay. A second Galatea stood ready beside an open high-impact plastic crate.
The rootlets came free with sucking pops, and I realized that finer root fibers had actually managed to burrow into my skin. I dropped the nightmare thing into the crate, and the second Galatea promptly filled it with freeze-foam before dropping the lid on it and punching a couple of holes.
I breathed a sigh of relief. My plan had been to seal it in with us, then have Nimbus burn it to ash if I couldn’t get control of it; this was much better.
“Vulcan’s on his way up,” the Galatea said. “He’s going to treat it as an aggressive hazmat situation until we know for sure what will contain it. You need to get to the infirmary.”
“You think?” I laughed as Nimbus nodded.
“Well, yeah. Why did you wear that outfit, anyway? I thought Hope had got rid of all of them when she switched to the bodysuits last year.”
I blinked, sucked in a breath. “Oh. Oh.” They both looked at me funny and I shook my head. “Infirmary, right.” I headed for the elevator. Doctor Beth would have something for my red perforated legs, but both the numbness and the stinging was already passing, which told me it hadn’t been major and my body was healing. I tried not to think about the pinkish mounds in the root carpet back at the site—it hadn’t been major for me.
A few words with a slightly puzzled Vulcan confirmed that procedures for psychotic breakthroughs were the same here; they’d find a way to communicate with it—bringing in telepaths if necessary—find out if there was any real mind left. If there was, they’d do their best for it. But that was something I wouldn’t stay to see.
Before I let Doctor Beth lay a single probe on me, I called Faith and told her I knew where the snow globe was.
“So, where is it?” Faith asked, looking not at all patient.
We all stood in my—Hope’s—room. Now that I wasn’t half-freaked out by it all, I stood turning in a circle, spotting all the little differences. Some, like the Hillwood Academy sports banner, were not at all little.
Shelly had come back with me, Faith meeting us here with a bag she had yet to explain.
I stopped turning. “You explained that I’d sort of ‘displaced’ your Hope, sort of overlapping her. It didn’t occur to me that my stuff might be linked to analogous things here, too, until Shelly commented on my uniform.”
Faith looked even less patient.
“I was wearing a skirted costume when I jumped,” I explained. “I wasn’t when I woke up, but there was one hanging in the closet.”
Her eyes widened. “Oh. Oh.”
“My words exactly. Remember the snow globe I got when I was eleven?” Stepping into the closet, I rummaged through the boxes on the top shelf. Gotcha. Pulling it down, I stepped back out to open it. “I think that, just like I displaced your Hope, my costume displaced one here. Sort of. And if that’s true, then this is it.”
I handed the box lid to Faith to reveal my gold-filigree nested snow globe—gold plated, high quality crystal, exquisitely hand-painted sculpt of Chicago’s Miracle Mile inside. Not the magic one Santa had given me—just like the now half-ruined outfit I’d worn wasn’t quite the one made by elves—but close enough for metaphysical equivalence. I hoped.
“This should do it. If the rules for all this are consistent, anyway.”
She nodded. “Impressive, Ace.”
“Maybe. And—” I swallowed the hard lump that rose in my throat. “And if it is, I’ve really got to go. Your Hope—”
Faith nodded solemnly. Much as I wanted to stay and get to know my sister better, she wasn’t my sister and I needed to let her Hope come back from whatever mental limbo she was in. Would this be a dream to her? Would she remember it at all?
I reached into the box to extract the globe, but Faith’s hand shot out to cover mine.
“Stop!”
“Yeah, not so fast.” Shelly chuckled. “She’s been getting ready for this while you were in with Doctor Beth, so give the girl her moment.”
Faith frowned at her. “Right. I’ve been getting some things together—just in case you can take them with you.” She held up the designer handbag she’d brought with her—many pocketed and big enough that it would barely qualify as an airline carry-on. “Road trip stuff, mostly.”
I traded the box for the loaded bag.
She grinned as I opened it. “Since you’ve obviously not booked a direct flight, I got you a few things for the layovers.” The bag contained some changes of underwear, civilian clothes, basic toiletries, an epad, and a roll of money. It also held a small gift box. Opening it, I found a crystal hologram cube—the kind carved with lasers. It held a frozen image of me and Faith, heads together and laughing at the camera as she held a hand up behind my head to flash a “victory” sign.
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to take any of this with you when you jump out of here,” she explained while I carefully put it back in the bag. “But I thought…”
I swallowed. “I know. Thank you.”
“Give everyone my love?”
“I will.” I hung the bag off my shoulder by its strap and hugged my sister tight, eyes closed as I breathed to remember her smell. Drawing back, I blinked until I could see clearly. “Any advice for me?”
“Sure, Ace.” With one last squeeze, she dropped the snow globe in my hand. “When you give this story to the show writers, make sure you leave out Santa Claus. Nobody’s going to buy that one.”
I laughed helplessly, and spun the globe.
DSA Field Report: Agent Smith.
Ozma has proven that, using the site, she can transfer herself and others to the extrareality into which she believes both Red Jack and Astra have been dropped. We have designated the new extrareality SP1. Unfortunately, her method of travel is not a gateway through which we can send probes; she or someone else must translate there with her device. (She says it’s clockwork-magic, boss, whatever that means.) Needless to say, neither Astra nor Red Jack were found at the SP1 end of the rift, and early information about SP1 indicates extreme caution. The Sentinels are preparing to establish a base of operations there, from which Ozma can attempt to track Astra, whom she says is “wandering.”
Note: Ozma is of the opinion that Red Jack is dead. Since the SP1 terminus of the rift appears to have been cleaned after experiencing the same explosive result as our own, I’d say it’s a good bet. One less thing to worry about, but I’m asking them to find confirmation if at all possible. I am also opening a new case file, Odysseus, to designate the operation from here out.
Red Jack Case File 1-B634 F.
The Traveler’s Tale
A play in one act, by Marion G. Harmon
Scene 1: a clearing in a twilight woods.
Enter Hope.
“Shell? Hello?” She puts down her bag, sits upon a fallen tree, and taps her earbud to make sure she’s recording. “Three turns of the globe since meeting Faith, and I’m beginning to wonder if the thing has any more sense of direction than a compass at the North Pole—an ironic thought considering where I began. And Unplugged Syndrome has me making an audiolog just to talk, go figure. So…”
She looks around her.
“I cannot seem to fly here, wherever here is. And it’s been twilight for three hours, so best guess is I’m in a pocket-extrareality with its own rules. It’s not that strange, really. The trees are mostly oak and ash, and I’ve recognized blooming witch hazel and purple crocuses. There are so many flowering plants the place reminds me of a wild English garden, if someone planted one in the middle of a woods. Mom would love it. There are birds, but I’m not an ornithologist. The most ferocious animal I’ve
gotten a good look at is an incurious hedgehog.”
She yawns and stretches. “Grounded or not I’m clearly the toughest thing around here unless the Jabberwock shows up, and since the flowers aren’t talking I don’t think there’s much chance of that. But besides not flying I’m also talking funny, which is passing strange—I mean very weird. So I’m going to sleep a few winks and then go back to the brook if I can find it and take a bath, and then I’m out of this flowered greenwood.”
Taking off her cape, she lies down under it. “I wonder if anyone at home knows I’m gone yet?”
She falls asleep.
Enter Titania, queen of the fairies, with her court.
“It is long past enough! Ever my lord and husband brangles, never ceasing to disturb the idylls of our wood with his demands. Fairies, stand watch and mayhap we will yet enjoy an hour or two of undisturbed pleasures—what is it, Cobweb?”
“We are not alone, my queen! Look here, a sleeping mortal lies beneath near moss-grown tree!”
“A mortal!” She sweeps close to bend over Hope. “And such a pretty child. How does she come to lie sleeping here? No matter—should arrogant sovereign Oberon see this treasure, will she or nil she, he will surely claim her for his entourage.”
“He cannot, mistress!” Peasblossom daintily sniffs the air. “From her scent, she is fairy-touched and claimed by some other spirit. Should our lord press ownership, he will certainly be contested.”
“Yes, and with this maiden trapped between. Mustardseed, learn this scent and fly! Seek out the spirit that has bound itself to her, that it may find her before our lord!”
“I go, mistress! As swift as sleep, shot from Diane’s silver bow!”
Exit Mustardseed.
“And we, my gentle fairies, will remove our revels far from here, that she may rest undisturbed as we draw the king’s greedy eyes away.”
Exit Titania and her court. The woods are silent except for the birds’ evensong. Enter Oberon, king of the fairies, and Puck.
“You swore they came this way, jester! Do you lead me about with a jest of your own?”
“Never, lord king! Puck is your true servant, and with the hatred your queen bears him, would be banished from the wood if you liked not his merry company!”
“Indeed hobgoblin, but I do not smile now. You have misled me!”
“Not by my will, lord! We are poor hounds tonight, and the fox has slipped away.”
“Then we shall let them be, and make our own entertainment this eve. Bye and bye my queen will return and tender her submission, for more than fighting she most hates to be ignored. What shall we—wait!”
Oberon spies Hope asleep. “And what is this?”
Puck stalks close.
“A mortal maiden, majesty! A young and fair one!”
“Both young and fair, and all alone in our woods with naught for bed but her own cloak. Does she flee or does she pursue? Has she lost herself?”
“I have seen no other mortals in the green since midsummer last, my lord.”
“Then lost, certainly—and surely affrighted, with only her poor female strength to rely upon. But by my eyes she is a lovely flower, skin smooth as whitest samite, hair like sunlight spilled upon her mossy bower. She would make the prettiest of my lady’s fairies jealous, dimming their own much-treasured beauties in compare.”
“Surely she must be in flight then, lord. For no man with eyes would flee from her!”
“Only a bedlamite, surely.” Oberon gazes down at her. “Hobgoblin, attend me! I would have this lost treasure for my own court, a jewel to match any of my queen’s. What, goblin? You do not second your king’s will?”
“All in the woods are your majesties, to claim or to dispose. Yet…”
“Speak!”
“Surely the queen, in loyalty of her sex, will seek to pluck such a tender maiden from the rough company of your court.”
“Aye. And never cease to rage until I bend, though I be sovereign. I do think… Yes, an old trick will suit my present purpose. Hobgoblin!”
“Yours to command, sire!”
“Trip swiftly now, goblin, ere she awakes. From that distant blossomed field fetch me the flower, love-in-idleness, whose petals, pierced by Cupid’s wayward shot, do drop the nectar of love’s sight upon sleeper’s eyes—infecting them with lover’s fevered imaginations, such that the first face they see upon awakening, be it ever so foul or beastly, they fall into irresistible enchantment with its wearer. I shall stand by as she awakes, and thus enamored of me, she will resist all my queen’s efforts to tear her from my court!”
“Excellent device! I go, oh king! Watch how I go!”
Exit Puck.
“And I shall hide her beneath nodding green, myself withdrawing until my hobgoblin’s return.”
Oberon looks sternly at the tree above Hope. They lower their bottom-most branches, largely concealing Astra’s sleeping form.
Exit Oberon.
Scene 2: elsewhere in the woods.
Enter Mustardseed with Kitsune.
“Make haste, fox! We are almost to her sleeping place, and mayhap will come to her before any think to rob you of your mortal maid.”
“Hope is hardly mine, good fairy, except with mutual promised contracts. But thank you for bringing me here, and what is she thinking, wandering these woods? She’s gone through more trouble than I can ever say, just trying to remain at home!”
“I think you have a pretty tale to tell! But can you take her there?”
“Not on the roads I follow, but I’ll help her out of here!”
“Then— Hist! Hide! I hear familiar mischief-making feet—Oberon’s own some-time companion and jester approaches and you must not be found!”
They hide, watching. Enter Puck.
“So am I become my king’s delivery boy, no more than a page though seldom one in his book. Run here. Go there. I would not mind so much, if he left the tricks to me. At least, methinks, there promises to be some humor in this one. For the queen knows my king well, and will surely suspect foul play no matter how the pretty maiden pleads. None are so ridiculous as when my lord and lady drop their dignity and brawl like the commonest plowman and aggrieved goodwife!”
Exit Puck. Kitsune and Mustardseed emerge.
“Pretty maiden? Oh woe, I fear my lady’s stratagems have failed and your lady has been discovered! Come, fox—that we may make timely arrival before they steal your hen!”
Exit all.
Scene 3: the clearing in the woods.
Enter Oberon and Puck, finding Hope still sleeping.
“The maiden dreams yet undisturbed—my plan is well laid! Quickly, hobgoblin, the flower! And now take yourself about, make certain that we remain sequestered here until all is ripened!”
Exit Puck.
Oberon bends over Hope, who turns over to sigh in her sleep.
“How beautiful, innocent, fair she sleeps! I would enchant her to such sleep a thousand years to ornament this emerald glen. Yet no, my queen would not abide it. Well then.”
He gently touches the purple flower to her eyes.
“Now patience. Soon enough I’ll know the color of my new treasure’s eyes.”
He waits.
Enter Kitsune and Mustardseed, unseen.
“I am amazed, Master Fox! Lord Oberon’s watchful Puck is a very Cerberus, and yet you took us by him as if he’d been some drowsing owl or day-blinded mole.”
“The mole is meat for the fox, but who is this varicolored knave who watches over Hope?”
“Alas, Lord Oberon himself has found your maiden and waits to claim her! You will never take her from him now!”
“Wait, Mustardseed! Is it true, what you said of your lord and mistress’ turns and quarrels? Then fly to her and bring her hence—but I’ll stay and fox this one!” He stands, his shape flowing into a perfect likeness of Puck’s.
“Oh, but this is a trick I long to stay and see! Yet I’ll to my lady!
Exit Mustardseed.
<
br /> “Now little woodland king, let’s see if you are ready for a bit of domestic strife.”
He steps into the clearing.
“Milord! We are undone, for your lady comes swiftly! Surely someone has told her of your plans!
“Damn and blast! Branches, hide her once more! Goblin! Work your art! So shroud the greenwood and maze my lady’s court that she cannot find this little glen though she had visited it a thousand times. I shall act as bait to lead her away, and then return!
Exit Oberon.
“Well, that was easy, but no-one who thinks they’re clever knows when the joke’s on them. And now—” He bends over Hope. “Wake up, Hope. And tell me how you managed to wander off into a piece of English comedy!”
He touches Hopes shoulder. She opens her eyes.
“What— My love!”
“My—what? How can you know me, when—”
“I don’t know you—except as my love!” She reaches for Kitsune. He dances back.
“Wait—no! This is not my true face!”
“Why should I care? I love whatever face is yours! If your face and form are as changing as the wind, my heart is constant!”
Kitsune dodges Hope’s attempted embrace.
“Wait! Stay!”
Enter Mustardseed.
“My lady comes! But—ha! What is this?”
“Hope has gone mad! She does not know me—but dotes on me!”
Wearing the Cape 6: Team-Ups and Crossovers Page 14