by James Riley
WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED? SHE CAN’T STOP US FROM DECIDING THINGS. OWEN HAS TO LISTEN TO US.
Turn to page XXX.
LOOKS LIKE WE DON’T HAVE A CHOICE. JUST GO ALONG WITH IT.
Turn to page 93.
I assume you brought me the time travel device?” Nobody said, his featureless head looking around for it as his enormous arms held a struggling Owen off the ground.
Owen didn’t answer, and Nobody’s grip tightened, forcing a groan out of him. “No!” he said finally.
“Yes, you did,” Nobody said, and squeezed again. “Why do you think I put you in that story? There’s no way Kara would have let you come here alone.”
“That’s true,” Kara said from above as she dropped feet-first onto Nobody’s head. The force of the blow split Nobody into two, but each half just re-formed after she passed. Kara looked shocked but quickly slapped her bracelet before crashing into the ground, only to reappear behind him, sweeping her leg into his. His body morphed around her leg, then quickly solidified, holding her in place as another arm appeared out of his chest, grabbing the time bracelet from her wrist.
“Thank you,” he said, dropping her to the ground. “You are free to go, Kara Dox. I wish you well, as I do all fictionals.” Another arm appeared out of his side and ripped open a page back to her world right in the middle of the factory.
“What? No!” she screamed as the Magister murmured something, and Kara rose up off the floor. “Put me down! Owen, I’ll find a way back, I swear! I won’t leave you here! This can’t be happening again. Not again—”
And then the Magister’s magic floated her through the ripped page, and it closed behind her. Just like that, Kara was gone.
“Poor girl,” Nobody said, his extra arms melting back into his body as he resumed a more human shape. “I regret putting her through all of this, but hopefully she learned what your readers did: All of this is the fault of the nonfictionals.”
Owen struck out in every direction, his anger pounding in his head, but Nobody’s arms just moved with him, keeping him from gaining any purchase. “It’s not the nonfictionals!” Owen shouted. “This is all your fault. You did this! You put me in a story and gave readers control, but it was all for your gain, wasn’t it? You just wanted Kara’s time bracelet! You played the fictional readers just as much as you say nonfictional authors do!”
Nobody slowly brought Owen up to his featureless face and stared at him with empty eye sockets. “Don’t you think I could have retrieved this device myself if I wanted to?” he asked softly. “Or had the Magister use his magic to accomplish the same thing? This was about offering my people justice for a lifetime spent under your people’s thumbs. The fact that it also aided me was secondary.” A mouth appeared, and it smiled. “Not that I didn’t enjoy it a bit myself.”
“What are you going to do with Kara’s bracelet?” Owen demanded.
Nobody set him down on the floor right in front of Fowen, who quickly wrapped some factory chains around his arms. “I’m going to retrieve Bethany and remove her powers permanently by splitting her in two. Why, did you think my plans would have changed at some point?”
“No, you monster!” Doc Twilight screamed from above the molten plastic. He momentarily freed his arms and started to aim his twilight launcher, only for the chains to snake around him once more. He struggled even harder, but the chains dropped him several feet closer to the molten plastic and he went still.
“I won’t hurt you if you cooperate, Christian,” Nobody said. “But try to escape again, and my magical associate will drop you.”
“We could make the biggest Doc Twilight action figure ever,” Fowen said, then winked at Owen, who tried hard not to throw up in his mouth. How could his fictional self be so different from him? There must be something to this whole evil twin thing.
The Magister stepped near Nobody and took one of the man’s featureless hands, then magically floated the machine Fowen had stolen into his arms. Nobody nodded at him, then pushed some buttons on the time bracelet, and they both disappeared.
Before either Owen or Doc Twilight could even try to free themselves, they reappeared, the machine now buzzing loudly and shaking slightly, glowing with some kind of bright light.
“What is that thing?” Owen asked.
“You missed all the good stuff,” Fowen told him. “Bethany turned into a beam of light to stop the Dark, but then she went sailing off like light does. Doc Twilight and his sidekick found some old supervillain machine that vacuums up light and tried to save her with it. Only by that point, she was too far away. Light moves pretty fast, after all.”
“Must you explain the plan to him?” Nobody asked. “We really should rise above the temptation for that sort of thing.” His face turned toward Owen. “Still, there’s nothing he can do, so I suppose it doesn’t hurt.”
“That’s where the time bracelet came in,” Fowen continued, like Nobody hadn’t interrupted. “All we had to do was go back to the moment Bethany hit the Dark, then turn the machine on. It could then vacuum up all of the light including her, but with everything going on right then, I’m sure no one noticed a quick flash of darkness. Especially since the light came back as soon as they captured her and turned the machine off. And now—”
“And now, the Magister will find Bethany for us,” Nobody said, and placed the machine in the middle of the factory floor.
The magician began to murmur a spell, and the machine buzzed louder and louder. Lights of all different colors exploded out, searing Owen’s eyes with their brightness, but he couldn’t look away. Faster and faster the light emerged, and the machine’s noise grew overpowering, to the point that Owen couldn’t hear anything else.
And then the machine went quiet, expelling one final beam of light, which froze in midair, unlike the rest. The Magister moved his hands in a circular fashion, and the light began to spin, faster and faster until it was moving so quickly in such a particular pattern that it began to take on the shape of a human being. A girl.
“Do it,” Nobody said, and the Magister nodded, changing his chanting.
The light solidified, taking on colors and dimensions. Hair turned reddish bronze, and clothes emerged from the brightness, followed by a face. And then before Owen knew it, Bethany was there, floating before them with her eyes closed as she spun around.
“Please,” Doc Twilight said, his voice breaking. “Don’t do this.”
“I must, Christian,” Nobody told him. “You know I must.” He stepped over to Bethany and raised both of his hands.
Owen squirmed in his chains, knowing he had to do something, anything. But what could he do? There was no way he could defeat even the Magister, let alone Nobody, too. And Fowen wasn’t going to help. Kara wouldn’t have a way to get back to this story, if she even knew where it was. And he couldn’t move to open a page to her story, or anyone else’s. Besides, Nobody could just close it instantly.
But there had to be something! Maybe he could convince Nobody how wrong this was? Not that there was any way Nobody would ever listen to a nonfictional person.
But to a fictional person? One who knew the whole story?
“Wait!” Owen shouted. “I have a deal for you!”
Nobody’s hands paused just over Bethany’s head. “I have no interest in your schemes, Owen. This must be done.”
“This isn’t about me,” he said. “This is about whether or not fictional people think you’re right to do this.”
Nobody turned his head back to Owen without moving his body. “If they don’t, that just means they haven’t yet learned the truth.”
“I know a bunch who’ve heard your truth,” Owen said. “Why not ask the readers of this book if they agree with you?”
Nobody slowly grew a face and used it to stare at Owen. “What game are you playing, boy?”
“Just this,” Owen said, hoping this would work. “You’re convinced that you’re helping fictional people. But maybe they don’t all think your way is the on
ly way. Or even right to begin with. Why not ask them? If the readers think you’re right, then you can do whatever it is you’re about to do to Bethany and separate the worlds. But if they think you’re wrong, you let us all go and promise to leave Bethany alone for the rest of her life.”
Nobody slowly smiled. “Letting the readers pick the plot, eh, Owen? Very well, I accept your bargain. We shall let the readers decide.”
Owen nodded and closed his eyes. Readers. I really hope you can still hear me. You’ve been in control of what happens in this book, I know. And at first, I hated that, just like you probably hated nonfictional authors supposedly doing it to you. But after everything I’ve seen, I don’t believe that anymore. Authors don’t have any more control over the fictional world than they do over their own lives.
So much of the time, we think we have no control. Our parents make choices for us, or our teachers. We get angry about it, just wanting to make our own decisions, and dream about being adults so we’re totally in control. But they’re just as powerless as we are, a lot of the time. Because other people are making choices around you too, and sometimes that means things don’t go your way. Or sometimes things just spin away from you, whether it’s bad luck or something you didn’t see coming. People get sick, or our friends move away, and it’s horrible, and we feel like we just want to tell everyone to stay exactly where they are, because that’s what we want.
They never listen.
Controlling someone else is always wrong. We all know that. But sometimes you have to trust in other people and let them make decisions that might go really badly for you, because you don’t have the power to make those choices yourself. And that’s what I’m doing now.
I can’t decide for you if nonfictional authors have control over you or not. I’ve lived out Kiel Gnomenfoot’s life for a bit, and Jonathan Porterhouse definitely didn’t tell me what to do. And even when you readers tried to make me do things, I still had a choice. Maybe it’s different because I’m nonfictional, but I doubt it.
I don’t know who’s right or wrong here. But I do know that at this moment, you’re in control. You get to decide if an innocent girl is split in two, and if Nobody puts the worlds at risk by splitting them. We know what’s happening in Kara’s future. What if splitting the worlds caused that?
All I can do is ask you to please, please help us. Help Bethany. And help your world too. It’s all up to you now.
DO YOU DECIDE TO HELP BETHANY AND OWEN?
Turn to page 224.
DO YOU DECIDE THAT NOBODY IS RIGHT, AND THE WORLDS NEED TO SPLIT?
Turn to page 309.
ATTACK! IT’S YOUR ONLY CHANCE!
Adrenaline coursed through Owen’s body as the thought hit his brain, and he threw himself at the woman with all of his strength. “Run, Kara!” he shouted, knocking the woman to the ground, his robotic heart beating hard against his chest. He landed on top of the woman and rolled off . . . only to feel a cold chill pass through his body as her hand touched his arm.
“Just for that, you little runt, I hope you enjoy this,” the woman said, sneering down at him as Owen’s muscles began to seize up, jerking his arms and legs painfully toward his body.
He tried to yell for help, but all that came out was a low moan. A few teeth fell out of his mouth, and he looked down at them in shock, only to find his hands had shriveled up into claws. His skin looked practically transparent now, and his arms began to shake with the effort of holding himself up.
“Owen!” Kara shouted from his side, sounding panicked as she reached down and turned his head toward her. “I’ll fix this, okay? I promise. Don’t worry. I’ll make this right.” She gripped his arm tightly enough to cause him pain, then seemed to whisper something over and over that sounded like “Not again. Not again.”
“How will you make it right when you’re dust, my dear Kara?” the woman asked as everything began to blur in Owen’s vision. He tried speaking again, but now even breathing was difficult. It was like he’d aged a hundred years in a matter of seconds.
Someone shouted something from far away, but even thinking was too hard at this point. He just needed to sleep. That was it. Sleep.
Ah, readers. You have apparently aged Owen to death. Fortunately, everything resets at the end of the day, so turn back to page 1 (or cheat and turn to page 103) and try not to let him die quite so quickly next time?
Kara led Owen away from the Countess, down the hallway full of cells, and out into a large circular room that looked a thousand feet wide. Four hallways just like the one they’d come from led out of the room like spokes on a wheel, while three large air locks sat in between the hallways. The wall across from the air locks held an enormous door, probably the exit.
Tables filled the center of the room, piled high with the most amazing food Owen had seen in his life. The nearest tables were covered in various breakfast foods, from pancakes two inches thick to muffins as large as his head, covered in icing. Everything seemed to be heated or cooled from the table itself, which looked pretty futuristic. That made sense, since it wasn’t like they had the technology to build a time prison in his present day.
Kara pulled Owen over to one side, looking worried. “I don’t like this. I turned myself in to the Time Security Agency so that . . . certain things wouldn’t happen in the future. But if I leave, then that will all have been pointless, and the bad things will happen again. And the Countess seems pretty sure that I do get out.”
What could be so awful that she was willing to put herself in a time prison for the rest of eternity, just to make sure it never happened? “Maybe you do stop her, but come back?” Owen suggested. “You know, like you’re out on parole, and then you give yourself up again.”
Kara nodded absently, then without a word, slammed her fist right into the nearest wall. She immediately gasped in pain and slid to the ground, holding her hand carefully in her lap.
“Uh, are you okay?” he asked.
“Not even a little bit,” she told him. “But we’re not going to talk about it here.”
Owen noticed a few of the prisoners watching from nearby, which wasn’t good. The last thing they needed was to attract attention, especially if the Countess might not be the only one who knew Kara and wanted some revenge. He turned his back to them, trying to block their sight of Kara, then kneeled down in front of her. “If you think you’re going to do something bad in the future, well, just don’t do it? You can always change the future. That’s why it’s not called the past.”
She looked up at him and tried to force a smile, but failed. “Maybe you’re right,” she said, obviously not believing it. “Sorry. This is the wrong time to be complaining anyway. We have to get you out of here and back to doing whatever it is that Nobody threw you in here for.”
She gave him her noninjured hand and he helped her back up. She took a deep breath, still cradling her hand, then let it out. This was as good a time as any, he decided.
“How much do you know about Nobody?” he asked her.
This time she smiled for real. “A lot more than you wanted me to,” she said. “But that can wait too. For now, we should eat.”
Eating? That was the last thing on his mind. Though to be fair, Owen’s stomach did rumble at the mention, and he glanced around at the tables piled with deliciousness. “It does smell pretty good in here.”
“There’s a lot of breakfast food,” Kara said. “I hope everyone here likes that kind of thing. Could you imagine an eternity with food you hate?”
“Over there,” Owen said, pointing to a second set of tables covered in steaming meats, pastas, some sort of shellfish thing that he’d never seen, and more. “I guess there are options.”
“Looks like there’s more to come,” Kara said, nodding at tables covered in large metal boxes with steam escaping at the sides. “Maybe the secret way out is that you have to eat everything in here.” She grinned up at him. “Want to skip the challenges and just try that? I bet I finish first!”
> Owen began to blush. “Uh, I’m not sure we should—”
“I was kidding,” Kara said, pushing her shoulder against his. “Come on, let’s find something good.”
This was all so weird. Owen watched her walk over to one of the tables and begin examining the options like she’d had breakfast here a thousand times. Who was this girl, anyway? Could she have actually met him before, a year ago? How could that be possible, even in the fictional world? He’d never been in her books before, after all.
A group of prisoners had already started eating, piling plates high with food, then seating themselves on plush cushions that looked perfect for napping. Next to the cushions were enormous TVs, what looked like some sort of virtual reality headsets, and holographic tables displaying all kinds of entertainment options.
All in all, the Jules Verne Memorial Time Prison actually looked really great. Five out of five stars, in terms of prison luxuries. If Nobody weren’t about to ruin the entire nonfictional world, Owen could have seen sticking around for a day or two, just to enjoy himself. Maybe even a month. Not more than a year, for sure.
Farther away, a smaller group of prisoners had gathered near the exit, talking in hushed voices and pointing at the door. The Countess seemed to have noticed them, though, and was walking over, which didn’t bode well. The group near the exit saw her approaching and quickly dispersed, all but one man who was concentrating on the door.
“Now, now, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the Countess said, loud enough for half of the room to hear her. Everyone turned, though when they saw who it was, many of the prisoners immediately found something else to pay attention to. Looked like a lot of the prisoners recognized the woman, even if Kara didn’t.
The prisoner at the exit door turned around, and Owen gasped. Half the man’s face had been replaced by metal spikes, and he towered over the white-haired woman by at least two feet. But as soon as he saw the Countess, the man immediately dropped to his knees, his hands clasped in front of him like he was begging. “I wasn’t going to touch it, I swear!” he said, his rough voice cracking. “We were just talking about the odds of guessing the right code. That’s it!”